WEAPONS OF THE PYGMIES 203 



The Tapiro never make large cigars like those of the 

 Papuans of the Mimika, and the Papuans never smoke 

 pipes, nor did the}^ take readily to those that we gave 

 them. 



Besides the bone daggers mentioned above the only 

 weapon of the Tapiro are the bow and arrows, which they 

 always carry. The bows are a very little shorter than 

 those of the Papuans, but otherwise they are very 

 similar, viz. : straight tapered strips of hard wood 

 " strung " with a slip of rattan. The arrows are shorter 

 and lighter and of finer workmanship than those of the 

 Mimika Papuans, but like those they have neither 

 feathers nor nocks. The best, which they were not at 

 all anxious to sell to us, are ornamented with simple 

 carvings and are tipped with a very sharp point of black 

 wood. An arrow which ended in a curious blunt lump 

 of wood was used, so we understood, for shooting birds. 



The Tapiro have no spears and neither they nor the 

 Mimika Papuans know the use of the sling. They set 

 quantities of httle nooses for small animals, and we once 

 found a rattan noose fixed to a root of a tree and evi- 

 dently set with the purpose of catching a pig. 



Many of them carry in their bags a small Jew's harp, 

 made of a thin piece of bamboo, from which they extract 

 faint music that is pleasing to their ears. Two men 

 possessed instruments of a more original design : these 

 were made of pieces of polished bone fitting together in 

 such a way that when one was turned round over the 

 other it produced peculiarly discordant squeaks, which 

 were highly appreciated by the player. 



Wamberi Merbiri or Wamberimi, the village of the 



