XII.] TIIIAL BY ORDEAL. . 289 



this part of New Guinea. Each village forms a small republic, 

 which among a primitive people seems to be the most successful 

 form of government. The old men and the heads of every family 

 meet to discuss public matters, and adjudge the punishment of 

 any delinquent. This almost always takes the shape of a line. 

 Murder, adultery, assault, theft, and so on are punished in this 

 wa}', but their list of offences against the law is more extended 

 than ours. The Papuans have a saying that " What the eye sees 

 not and the ear hears not, that must no man say," and hence 

 every one who speaks ill of or slanders his neighbour is lialile to 

 be fined. Fortunately there is not much chance of our forming 

 our code upon the Papuan model, or the effect of such a law upon 

 the pleasant social intercourse which enlivens our five o'clock tea- 

 tables would be too terrible to contemplate. 



In cases of dispute as to guilt, trial by ordeal is sometimes 

 used among the Nufooreans. The suspected person has to dip his 

 hand into boiling water, and, should no blisters result, is held to 

 be innocent. If suspicion fall equally upon two people, they are 

 taken each to a pile of one of the sea-built houses, and made to 

 duck simultaneously beneath the water. Whoever comes up first 

 is the guilty person. It is not only in civilised communities 

 that the thick-skinned and long-winded flourish as the green 

 l^ay-tree ! 



Some few miles south of Dorei Bay is Andai, a small village 

 nestling at the foot of the Arfak Mountains. No huts or houses of 

 any kind are visible from the sea, and the view consists of range 

 beyond range of dark jungle-clad mountains, which at the period 

 oi our visit were gloomy and rainy-looking in the extreme. At 

 the village there are but few inhabitants. They are a people quite 

 distinct from those in Dorei Bay, and speak a different language. 

 Their houses, too, are different. A short distance up the little 

 river which joins the sea at this spot, the two or three of which 

 the village is composed come in sight on the left bank. They are 

 built on the land, but are supported by piles so closely placed 

 VOL. 11. u 



