IN CENTRAL DUTCH NEW GUINEA 225 



directly but across the front of their line, and one of 

 the natives went up to examine the knife. I noticed 

 that he took a handful of moss into his hand before 

 picking it up. Evidently he was afraid of some 

 contamination from its strange magic. 



I went back then to my plumes of Birds of Paradise 

 as a means of ingratiating myself with the natives, 

 and, I think, got a little more of their confidence. 

 The children were the most confident, but they were 

 restrained by their elders from following their clear 

 inclination to come right into the camp. Finally some 

 of the male natives came to the clearing, leaving their 

 bows and arrows in the bush, but carrying with them 

 their stone adzes. Physically these natives were 

 very fine specimens, as active as mountain goats, but 

 they did not seem to have very much intelligence, 

 and were extremely timid. I got nothing from them 

 in the way of food as the result of my endearing 

 performance. We were still without fresh vegetables 

 to relieve our dull meals of rice and tinned meat. 



There is a stage at which the native is too ignorant 

 or too little curious to be charmed by the white man's 

 gifts, just as there is another stage when he has 

 learned too much to set any particular value upon 

 them. In his absolutely savage and untutored stage 

 the Papuan native has not sufficient education to 

 appreciate the value of what the white man brings. 

 He does not want iron because he has not yet been 

 taught its use. This stage of the native mind is even 



