,22 4 A USTRALASIA ILL USTKA TKD. 



like a sword. But the common weapon, and the one most depended on east of Yule 

 Island, is the spear. One of the first and most popular games of the little boys is 

 throwing a spear at a rolling cocoa-nut husk. They soon acquire remarkable skill in 

 poising and throwing the spear. It is their only weapon in wallaby hunting ; each man 

 takes a handful of light little spears, and a piece of boar's tusk or broken bottle with 

 which to scrape and re-point them. For fighting purposes the spears' are long and 

 heavy, made of a mountain palm, and the point more or less elaborately carved. Some 

 of the spears obtained at Orangerie Bay and District are very fine specimens of primitive 

 art. Daggers made of cassowary bone are also used, but these imply closer warfare 

 than a native likes. At Hood Point and Bay a peculiar weapon is used which may 

 best be described as a man-catcher. It consists of a loop of cane, lashed in a handle 

 made up of three or four pieces of cane six or seven feet long, which also hold a small 

 spear in the neck of the loop. The loop is thrown over the head of an escaping 

 enemy, and then the spear point is jerked into his neck from behind. Shields of 

 different shapes and patterns are used by all the natives. All the weapons are carefully 

 ornamented, and greater taste and skill is manifested by the New Guineans in the pre- 

 paration of their weapons than in anything else. 



In studying the houses of New Guinea it must be remembered that the people are 

 still in the stone age, and that all their houses are built with the tools it affords. No 

 tool of metal is used, and no iron nail is to be found in any house, from foundation 

 to ridge-pole. In the western part of the Island the houses are very long, capable of 

 accommodating a number of families. A house near the Fly River was found to measure 

 five hundred and twenty feet long by thirty feet wide. Mr. Chalmers visited one in the 

 Elema District which was one hundred and sixty feet long. It had a large peaked 

 portico thirty feet wide, supported by posts eighty feet high. From this high front it 

 tapered and narrowed away to the end, one hundred and sixty feet distant. The same 

 kind of house, many hundred feet long, is found in Borneo and also in Assam. These 

 great houses disappear to the east of Cape Possession, or exist only in a modified form, 

 as sacred houses in which the men seclude themselves for a certain time every year. 

 The Malay practice of building on piles is common all over New Guinea, even on the 

 hills. This is the characteristic of the New Guinea house, the piles varying from six to 

 twenty feet in height. There is a necessity for this in the coast villages, as they stand 

 mostly in the water ; many of them, as Kaile, Kapakapa and Tupuselaia, in the Port 

 Moresby District, and Hula at Hood Point, are always surrounded by deep water. 

 Others, as at Port Moresby, are just below low-water mark, the fronts of the houses 

 jutting on the street and always dry. The only reason the people can give for this 

 is that their fathers did so ; but the probable reason for their fathers doing so is that 

 they were settlers, and being afraid of the inland tribes, built their houses so that they 

 might escape in their canoes if attacked. In all the Koiari and mountain villages are 

 tree-houses, from thirty to sixty feet high, sometimes two or three in one tree. They 

 are not built among the thick branches, but all is cleared away beneath them and a 

 suitable fork or arrangement of limbs being chosen, a platform of saplings is lashed 

 across and the house built on it. These houses are reached by ladders made of vines 

 and creepers, and in times of alarm are drawn up by the occupants after them. All 



