io8 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



word which ended in a consonant, they always added 

 a vowel; for instance, tuana (master), KapUana (Cap-j 

 tain), maiora (Major). 



Some of their newly-constructed words will puzzle 

 future philologists who go there ; for instance, the 

 Malay word pisau (a knife) they called pitau, substi- 

 tuting " t " for the " s " which they cannot pronounce ; 

 petau was found easier to say than pitau, and eventually 

 it became changed to pauti, which was the finally accepted 

 version. 



Probably the best means of learning the local dialect 

 would be to encourage an intelligent child to visit 

 your camp daily, where it would learn Malay and in 

 course of time might be able to act as interpreter ; but 

 the process of education would be a slow one, and it 

 would be constantly interrupted by the wandering 

 habits of the natives. The time that we spent in the 

 country was too short for any such attempt to be 

 made, and indeed it was not until we had been there 

 for several months that the children came fearlessly 

 into our camp. But now that the natives have full 

 confidence in Europeans a patient scholar might make 

 a complete study of a quite unknown language. 



