44 ETHNOGRAPHY. 



variety called Papuas.* They are true mulattoes, of a reddish-brown 

 complexion, with abundance of twisted and frizzled hair, which has 

 procured them the epithet of mop-headed. They inhabit not only 

 Waygeoo, Arroo, and Mysol, but also the eastern extremity, and most 

 of the northern coast of New Guinea. All the vocabularies which 

 have been taken of the dialects spoken by this people, show a greater 

 or less infusion of words of Malay origin, generally much altered and 

 disfigured. 



The southern coast and eastern extremity of New Guinea, and the 

 islands which lie near it, are inhabited by real negroes. The only 

 one whom we had an opportunity of seeing, was a native of Erro- 

 mango, who had been brought by a trading vessel from that island to 

 Tonga, when quite young, and had forgotten his native language. 

 His name was Noai, and he called his island (or perhaps his town) 

 Malekini. He was about five feet high, slender, and long-limbed. He 

 had close woolly hair, a retreating arched forehead, short and scanty 

 eyebrows, a small snub nose, thick lips (especially the upper), a 

 retreating chin, and that projection of the jaws and lower part of the 

 face, which is one of the distinctive characteristics of the negro race. 

 His limbs and body were covered with short fine hairs, made conspi- 

 cuous by their light colour. On his left side were many small round 

 cicatrices burnt into the skin, which he said was a mode of marking 

 common among his people. Placed in a crowd of African blacks, 

 there was nothing about him by which he could have been distin- 

 guished from the rest. 



There is, however, considerable difference among the various tribes 

 of Eastern Melanesia, caused perhaps, in part, by physical influences, 

 and in part by a mixture with their Polynesian neighbours. In 

 Tanna, an island southeast of Erromango, we find a larger and 

 stronger race, with a skin not quite so dark. On this island two 

 languages are spoken, and we were assured, by good authority, that 

 one of them was like that of Erromango, and the other similar to the 

 dialect of the Friendly Islands. About five miles distant from the 

 east coast of Tanna is the small island of Niua, or Immer, inhabited 

 by a yellow race, of the pure Polynesian stock. This name of Niua 

 is the same as that given to the group of Coca's, Good Hope, and Horn 

 Islands, about fourteen degrees to the east-northeast, from whence it is 



* See Dr. Pritchard's Physical History of Man, page 22, for an excellent description 

 of this variety of the human race. 



