148 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



the village is in an uproar. Spears fly through the air— 

 we never saw anybody touched by one — and stone clubs 

 are brandished furiously, the combatants all shout horrible 

 threats at the tops of their voices, while a few people 

 look on stolidly or hardly take any notice at all. There 

 seems to be a certain etiquette about the use of clubs, 

 for the person about to be hit generally presents a soft 

 part of his person, the back or shoulders, to the clubber, 

 and we never saw a man intentionally hit another on 

 the head, a blow which might easily be fatal ; but blood 

 flowed in plenty from the flesh wounds. 



The part of the women in these village squabbles is 

 always to scream loudly and generally to begin by bang- 

 ing the houses with sticks or spears and to end with 

 pulling them to pieces. In a fight at Wakatimi we saw 

 a party of infuriated women absolutely demolish three or 

 four houses. The fights end almost as suddenly as they 

 begin and in a short time the village settles down to its 

 usual tranquillity. Neither the sight nor the sound of 

 these village quarrels is very agreeable, but they have no 

 regularly organised games and, at the worst, not a ver\^ 

 great amount of damage is done. 



The clubs used in these village fights and doubtless 

 also in their tribal wars — but of those we know nothing — 

 are of two kinds, wooden and stone-headed. The wooden 

 clubs are about four feet long and consist of a plain shaft, 

 of which the last foot or rather more is carved into a 

 saw-like cutting edge ; some of these are made of a 

 very heavy wood and they are exceedingly formidable 

 weapons. A more simple type of wooden club is a plain 

 wooden shaft rather thinner at the handle end than at 



