34 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



shells, mother-of-pearl, dogs' teeth, and straw braids finely woven. 

 A peculiar and- apparently much-prized decoration for the wrist is 

 the lower jaw of a foe, slain in battle, with tassels or other pendent 

 ornaments. Mussel and cockle shells serve as currency, an advance 

 from bimetallism to bivalvism that ought to be welcome to every 

 advocate of cheap money. The most graceful and symmetrical de- 

 signs are scratched on bamboo tobacco pipes, gourds, and cocoa- 

 nuts, and burned in; and all these forms and figures reveal a refine- 

 ment and a fertility of imagination and a facility of mechanical exe- 

 cution that excite admiration and astonishment. The most charm- 

 ing variety of arrangement is given to the simplest pattern wrought 

 on curved surfaces in the purest style of arabesque. Like the 

 neolithic men of Europe, they use bows and arrows, as well as clubs 

 and spears, which are exceedingly graceful in shape; and compared 

 with their strong and slender oars, ours are heavy and clumsy 1 . The 

 same is true of their sails of matting. They also bore holes in the 

 heads of their stone hatchets for fastening the handles. Unlike the 

 Australians, they have a fine sense of color, which they gratify by 

 painting their shields white, red, and black, adorning their heads 

 with the brilliant feathers of the bird-of -paradise, the parrot, and the 

 cassowary; by variegated stripes in the women's short skirts, woven 

 out of grasses, reeds, and the fibers of the cocoanut, and the " lines 

 of beauty " with which they tattoo their dark-brown skin. 



The constitution of the Papuan tribe, like that of the Australian 

 horde, is radically democratic, but differs from it in being much less 

 communistic. Private property, in distinction from tribal posses- 

 sion, begins with the tillage of the soil, and this general principle 

 applies to the fields, houses, and tools of the Papuans; but the greed 

 of gain has not yet been developed; each family cultivates land 

 enough for its own subsistence, in addition to the products of the 

 chase, and there is no distinction of rich and poor. The position of 

 a chieftain confers upon him little authority, and whatever influence 

 he exerts is due solely to his strong personal qualities, as is the case 

 at present with the famous Koapena, of Aroma, a man equally dis- 

 tinguished for his valor in war and his discernment and impartiality 

 in the administration of justice. 



The houses are built on piles, like the lake dwellings of the primi- 

 tive Swiss, and sometimes stand so far out in the sea that they are 

 surrounded by water even at ebb tide. This construction of the 

 villages is designed to protect the inhabitants less against the attacks 

 of wild beasts than against the assaults of the fierce mountain tribes 

 of the interior. A curious institution is the " Marea," or bachelors' 

 clubhouse, as Semon calls it, in which boys, on attaining the age of 

 puberty, take up their abode, and strangers are entertained. The 



