NATIVES OF MERAUKE 227 



crossed on the chest. Rings of boars' tusks and plaited 

 fibres almost cover the upper arms, and in the ears are 

 worn bunches of large rings of tortoiseshell and bamboo. 

 The hair is long and is plaited with a mixture of mud 

 and grass and feathers into a solid bunch, which hangs 

 down beyond the level of the shoulders. In some of 

 these head-dresses I saw plumes of the Greater, the Red 

 and the King birds of Paradise ; it appears that when 

 once they are made these head-dresses may be added to, 

 but they can never be undone, and they are accordingly 

 indescribably dirty. These people are characterised by 

 a pungent and most disagreeable odour, quite different 

 from the sickly sweet smell of the sago-eating Mimika 

 people. 



Another curious custom of the Merauke natives is 

 their habit of wearing round the waist a belt of pig- 

 skin, which cannot be removed, and is so tight that 

 it constricts the man to an (apparently) most painful 

 degree ; the women of the tribe do not indulge in this 

 practice. 



Two days after our arrival the monthly mail-steamer 

 came bringing our forty-eight new coolies from Macassar, 

 and on the following day it sailed again, taking Short- 

 ridge on his way back to England. For a week longer 

 I received the most kind hospitality from the Resident, 

 Mr. E. Kalff, until we returned to the Mimika. During 

 that week of waiting our new coolies, who had heard 

 terrible stories of the Mimika, declared that they would 

 never go there, and they attacked with knives the 

 guards who W(3re placed to keep them in order. When 

 I told them that if they had no liking for the Mimika 



