FRUITS loi 



was wild and the arrows missed their mark, so he 

 desisted and went back to the shore, where the woman 

 broke across her knee the remainder of his bundle of 

 arrows, while he cooled his fevered brow in the river. 

 Then, while she delivered a further lecture, he followed 

 her back to their hut looking like a whipped and 

 ashamed dog. It can hardly be doubted that palm 

 wine shortens the lives of many of the Papuans, but 

 one must hesitate before condemning an absolutely 

 untaught and savage race for excessive indulgence in 

 one of the pleasures that vary their monotonous lives. 



As well as coconuts the Mimika people have also 

 bananas, papayas {Carica papaya), water-melons and 

 pumpkins, all of them of a very inferior kind. It 

 cannot be said that they cultivate these fruits ; they 

 occasionally get a banana shoot and plant it in the 

 ground by the riverside, where it may or may not grow 

 and produce fruit, but they make no clearings and take 

 very little trouble to ensure the life of the plant. The 

 papayas and the melons and pumpkins are sometimes 

 seen growing about the native dwellings ; but they, too, 

 seem to be there more by accident than by any design 

 on the part of the people. At Obota we found a few 

 pineapples, which were probably the descendants of 

 some that were brought to the Mimika by M. Dumas 

 a few years earlier. 



It has been stated in the previous chapters that 

 the natives told us this or that, and that we asked 

 them for information about one thing or another. 

 From this the reader must not conclude that we acquired 

 a very complete knowledge of the native language, 



