200 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



shell ornaments when they are not in use, and his knives ; 

 these latter are sharp flakes of a flint-like stone shaped 

 y exactly hke the flint-knives and scrapers that are found 

 in this country; they are used for scraping down the 

 wood of their bows and for pointing and ornamenting 

 their arrows as well as for other cutting purposes, and it 

 is profoundly interesting in these days of steel to see 

 people still using the implements of prehistoric man. 

 One or two men also carried in their wallets a short 

 dagger made of a pointed cassowary's bone, and they 

 explained to us by graphic gestures how they were 

 accustomed to shoot a cassowary with their arrows and 

 then after a long chase to stab it with the dagger. 



The contents of the larger bag usually are the sleep- 

 ing mat, the fire-stick and rattan, and tobacco. The 

 sleeping mat is a fabric of pandanus leaves, which can 

 be used either as a mat to lie upon or as a shelter from 

 the rain ; it measures usually about six by three feet and 

 is neatly folded to be carried in the bag. The manufac- 

 ture of these mats is always the work of the women and 

 is a very ingenious process. The long ribbon-like leaves 

 of the pandanus are split horizontally into two strips ; 

 the shiny upper one alone is used and the lower is 

 thrown away. Strips of two leaves are placed with their 

 split surfaces together and their shiny surfaces outwards, 

 and then numbers of these pairs of split leaves are sown 

 together, edge to edge, until the mat is of the required 

 size. Thus the mat is made entirely of the outer 

 surfaces of the leaves; it is very strong and is quite 

 impervious to rain. 



By far the most interesting of the possessions of these 



