3i6 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



the Semang " do not appear as a race to tattoo or 

 scarify," and the Aeta scarify only occasionally. The 

 nasal septum is not pierced for a nose-stick by the 

 Andamanese and Aeta nor among the purer Semang 

 tribes, but the Tapiro and Mafulu do so. The Semang 

 women possess numerous bamboo combs which are 

 engraved with curious designs of a magical import, 

 similar combs are possessed by nearly every Aeta man 

 and woman. The Andamanese have no combs. 



With regard to clothing, the male Andamanese are 

 nude, the females wear a small apron of leaves or a single 

 leaf, but one tribe, the Jarawa, go nude. The male 

 Semang frequently wear a loin-cloth, or simply leaves 

 retained by a string girdle, sometimes the women wear 

 this too or a fringed girdle made of the long black strings 

 of a fungus, but more usually a waist-cloth. The Aeta 

 men wear a loin-cloth and the women a waist-cloth. 

 The Mafulu men and women wear a perineal band of 

 bark cloth, while the Tapiro nien wear a unique gourd 

 penis-sheath. A gourd or calabash is also worn by men 

 on the north coast of New Guinea, but not further west 

 than Cape Bonpland, in this case the hole is in the side 

 and not at the end as among the Tapiro. 



The Negritos are collectors and hunters, and never 

 cultivate the soil unless they have been modified by 

 contact with more advanced peoples. 



The Andamanese make three kinds of simple huts on 

 the ground and large communal huts are sometimes 

 built. The Semang construct "bee-hive" and long 

 communal huts and weather screens similar to those of 

 the Andamanese. They also erect tree shelters, but 

 direct evidence is very scanty that pure Semang inhabit 

 huts with a flooring raised on piles ; they sleep on bamboo 

 platforms. The Aeta usually make very simple huts 

 sometimes with a raised bamboo sleeping platform inside. 

 The pile dwellings of the Tapiro have evidently been 



