x INTRODUCTION: 



The nose is broad, often arched and high, but coarse. The 

 jaws project, and they may as a rule be said to be progna- 

 thous. They are generally small in stature ; and in islands 

 where the natives are comparatively large-sized, there is always 

 evidence of their mixture with another race. The typical 

 Papuan is small, thin-limbed, and physically weak. They 

 are savage, bloodthirsty, and inveterate cannibals. They are 

 also broken up into hostile tribes, speaking languages with a 

 structural resemblance, but wide verbal differences, owing to 

 long isolation ; in fact, the people in one valley frequently had 

 no communication with the people in another, except when at 

 war with them. 



Women hold a very low position among the Papuans, and 

 are merelj* the slaves and tools of the men. Their domestic 

 instincts are not greatly elevated above those of the lower 

 animals. In the Papuan mode of government might is right. 

 Both intellectually and religiously the natives are of a IOAV 

 type, and they possess few of the traditions, poems, and songs 

 common to many barbarous races. In arts and commerce 

 they are also backward, although with occasional exceptions. 



Throughout the whole of the Papuan region, there are traces 

 of more or less mixture of the people with the large brown 

 straight-haired people referred to, whom Mr. Whitmee calls 

 the ' Sawaiori,' and other writers the Mahori races ; and this 

 is especially noticeable in Fiji, and in the Solomon Group. 

 The word ' Sawaiori ' is taken from the three representative 

 peoples of the race, those belonging to /Samoa, Hazraw, and 

 Maon. 



The Papuans of the Pacific are believed to belong to the 

 same race as those in New Guinea and other parts of the 

 Indian Archipelago; in fact, they may be divided into Eastern 

 and Western Papuans. That they were the earliest occupants 

 of the various places where remnants of the race are now 

 found, and that they have in many places been partly or 

 wholly overrun and displaced by more recent races, is, in my 

 opinion, unquestionable. 



