April 24, 1890] 



NATURE, 



591 



Modigliani mentions seeing in South-West Nias natives 

 with Arianoid Semitic features and curly or wavy hair, but 

 he himself suspects in such cases the influence of Arabo- 

 Malay immigrants from Acheen. 



Amongst the many peculiarities of the inhabitants of 

 Nias, is the custom of the women going about with a 

 long slender stick called sioj it is of Nibong palm wood, 

 has a heavy leaden knob, and is more or less ornamented 

 with rings of lead and brass ; it is found only in the pos- 

 session of women. Great is the variety of ornaments worn 

 by the Niassers, male and female. They often denote dis- 

 tinctions of rank and sex. Ear-rings and bracelets are espe- 

 cially varied ; singularly beautiful are the bracelets (Fig. 5) 

 carved and polished by a long and tedious process out of 

 a solid block taken from the stony shell of the giant clam 

 {Tridacna), more elegant in shape than the equally 

 notable armlets of the same material made by the in- 



FiG. 5. — Bracelets cut in Tridacna shell. 



habitants of the Solomon Islands. The Niassers also 

 carve big solid ear-drops out of the Tridacna shell. Their 

 principal articles of dress are still made with the beaten 

 and manipulated inner bark of a Ficus or Arctocarpus^ a 

 kind of tappa or masi, called by them sambo salowo. 



Dr. Modigliani did not find or hear of stone or shell 

 implements in Nias ; possibly the first men who peopled 

 that island were already provided with iron tools. Yet 

 one of the commonest amongst these, the axe, fdto, has a 

 singularly archaic form : the iron blade, very similar to 

 the earlier forms of copper and bronze implements of the 

 kind, is let into a slot in a short club-shaped wooden 

 handle (Fig. 6). A yet more singular fact is that the pHo 

 of the Niassers is a typical axe, and quite distinct from 

 the adze used right across Malesia from the Nicobar 

 Islands to New Guinea, being, instead, remarkably like 

 the iron axe of some of the wilder tribes of Central Africa. 



Fig. 6. — Iron axe of Nias 



I may mention here that the rich and important anthro- 

 pological and ethnological collections made at Nias by 

 Dr. Modigliani have mostly been presented by him to 

 the National Anthropological and Ethnological Museum 

 in Florence. 



Dr. Modigliani has collected quite a host of interesting 

 facts relating to the myths and superstitions of the 

 natives of Nias, which all appear to centre in a well- 

 developed form of " ancestor worship." The ancestors 

 more or less remote are spirits good and evil, and as 

 mediators between them and the living are numerous 

 ad?i, or idols (Fig. 7). Amongst the numerous spirits 

 more or less divine venerated by the Niassers is San- 

 garbja, the sea-god, and Modigliani justly calls attention 

 to the strange similarity in name and attributes to 

 Tanga-roa, the sea-god of the Maories and other Poly- 

 nesians. The principal good spirit is Lowaldnij the bad 



ones are classified in two grades as Bhhu and Blla^ 

 these being, however, generic terms. The adii or idols, 

 whose Nias name, by the way, is singularly like the 

 equivalent Polynesian term atua, are very numerous ; 

 those which represent dead relations or immediate an- 

 cestors are called generically Adi'i zatua. They appear to 

 have great affinities with similar carved wooden anthro- 

 pomorphic figures common throughout Papuasia and 

 Melanesia, and known as karwars in Western New 

 Guinea. 



Fig. 7. — Images of ancestors. 



In one of the last chapters of his book, Modigliani 

 gives an account of the spoken language of the Niassers, 

 which has many peculiarities ; adding an alphabetically 

 arranged collection of words with their ItaUan equivalents. 



But my task, which has been to endeavour to give an 

 idea of the work done by Dr. Modigliani, must now come 

 to an end. His book, containing a very complete mono- 

 graphic study of one of the most interesting islands of the 

 Indian Archipelago and its inhabitants, is, and will long 

 remain, one of the standard works on that beautiful 

 region Malesia. Henry H. Giglioli. 



NOTES. 



The ne.Kt general meeting of the Institution of Mechanical 

 Engineers will be held on Thursday evening, May i, and 

 Friday evening, May 2, at 25 Great George Street, West- 

 minster. The chair will be taken at half-past seven on each 

 evening by the President, Mr. Joseph Tomlinson. On Thursday 

 evening the President will deliver his inaugural address, after 

 which the following paper will be read and discussed, and the 

 discussion will be continued on Friday evening : — Research 

 Committee on Marine-Engine Trials : Report upon Trials of 

 three Steamers, Fusi Yama, Colc/iestcr, Tartar, by Prof. 

 Alexander B. W. Kennedy, F. R.S., Chairman. The anni- 

 versary dinner will take place on Wednesday evening, April 30. 



The first annual meeting of the Museums' Association will be 

 held in Liverpool on June 17, 18, and 19. The business of the 

 meeting will consist of (i) the reading of papers on the manage- 

 ment, arrangement, and working of Mdseums ; (2) the discus- 

 sion of the objects set forth by the meeting of June 20, 1889, 

 with special reference to the following points : the means of 

 interchange of duplicates and surplus specimens ; schemes for a 

 general supply of labels, illustrations, &c. ; the indexing of the 

 general contents of Museums ; concerted action for obtaining 

 Government publications, and also specimens on loan or other- 

 wise ; and the issue of a journal devoted to the discussion of 

 practical topics. At this meeting the scheme for the constitution 

 of the Association will be submitted. All engaged or interested 



