HUMAN SACRIFICE. HY 



spots or freckles,'"* and the liair is straight, fine, and 

 of a reddish hue, or dark-auburn color. Every inter- 

 mediate variety of hair and complexion between this 

 and the black, or deep-chocolate color, and the short 

 tufted hair of the mountain Papuan, is found in 

 Timur." This statement would indicate that all the 

 intermediate shades of difference were the results of 

 a mixture of the Malayan and Papuan blood, and 

 this seems to be the probable origin of the whole 

 Negro-Malayan race. Its position in that part of the 

 archipelago nearest Papua is in entire accordance 

 with this hypothesis. 



Tradition says that the Rajah of Kupang for- 

 merly sacrificed a young virgin to the sharks and 

 ci-ocodiles once every year, but this was generally 

 regarded as a fable, until a gentleman visited the 

 island of Semao, some twenty years ago, and asserted 

 that a rajah pointed out to hun a place on the beach 

 of a bay near the southeast point of that island, 

 where "it was their custom after harvest to brino; 

 sugar-cane, rice, fowls, eggs, pigs, dogs, and a little 

 diild^ and offer them to the evil spirits," and the 

 rajah further declared, that he had witnessed this 

 murderous rite himself. 



As we were to remain only one day, and I was 

 chiefly interested in collecting shells, I at once en- 



* Possibly the "spots," of which Mr. Earl speaks, may have been 

 caused by some disease, for spots of a lighter hue than the general color 

 of the body are often seen among all Malays. Both the straight-haired 

 Malaysians and the frizzled-haired Melanesians have the odd custom of 

 rubbing lime into their hair, which gives it a dnll-yellowisli or reddish 

 tinge. Mr. Earl, however, states that he has seen one native whose 

 hair was naturally rcd^ a kind of partial albinoism. 



