63S 



NATURE 



[October 30, 1890 



The comparative study of institutions and customs has 

 led to brilliant suggestions, and has especially thrown 

 light upon obscure facts in our own culture, and given a 

 new significance to observances which, because they are 

 of every-day occurrence, are passed by without comment. 

 This field of inquiry is one which has only recently 

 been systematically tilled, but it promises a rich harvest 

 of unexpected results. 



The detailed study of a single tribe or natural assem- 

 blage of people has great interest, as it puts one in touch 

 with such varied subjects as the physical, mental, and 

 moral characters of the people ; and the tracing out of 

 their affinities requires wide study and careful comparisons. 

 A patient research of this kind always opens up questions 

 of wider import than the initial inquiry. 



Neither of these methods will occupy us to-night, as I 

 wish to present before you as vivid a conception as I can 

 of some of the manners and customs of a people small in 

 number but rich in interest. We will consider, therefore, 

 neither a composite image of savages in general, nor of 

 rude customs, but the particular habits of a disappearing 

 people, who thirty years ago were naked, unknown 

 savages, who to-day are British subjects, and who in a 

 very few years will have lost the last remnants of their in- 

 dividuality, and possibly ere long will practically cease to 

 exist — at all events as a distinct people. The dissolving 

 viev/s which I shall exhibit this evening are a fit emblem 

 of the facts which they illustrate. 



My anthropological inquiries in Torres Straits may not 

 inaptly be compared with the methods of the palaeonto- 

 logist, especially in his study of the more recent fossils. 

 Amongst such fossils we find some representatives of 

 existing forms, others slightly different from those we are 

 accustomed to, others again which are quite dissimilar, and 

 often of these only disconnected fragments may remain, 

 and it takes great patience and careful piecing together to 

 restore the latter into any semblance of their former 

 selves ; nor should surprise be felt if mistakes are 

 occasionally made in the attempt. 



A similar experience occurs to those] who study an 

 isolated people which is rapidly becoming modified and 

 is dying out at the same time. Some facts collected 

 from legend and myth precisely resemble the present 

 habits of the natives ; others have only lately fallen into 

 desuetude. Lastly, some customs are so dissimilar from 

 anything in our own country, that it is difficult to 

 thoroughly understand them under favourable circum- 

 stances ; but when these customs are no longer practiced, 

 and but imperfectly remembered, when they have to be 

 described through the unsatisfactory medium of Jargon 

 English, and when one bears in mind the great difference 

 in the mental conceptions of narrator and listener, what 

 wonder is there that disconnected narratives are recorded, 

 or that errors creep in ? 



Happy is that traveller who has the opportunity of 

 studying existing habits. It was my lot to recover 

 recently lost or fast dying-out customs ; our archaeologists , 

 grapple with the problems of the past ; it is the object of 

 all to assist towards a complete History of Man. 



Torres Straits, as you are aware, separate New Guinea, 

 the largest island in the world, from Australia, the 

 smallest continent. Although the Straits are eighty miles 

 wide in their narrowest part, yet, owing to the presence 

 of islands and of numerous and often extensive coral 

 reefs, there is only one channel suitable for ocean-going 

 steamers, and that averages a mile in width, and in places 

 is much less. 



The islands in Torres Straits may be divided into three 

 geological groups by the lines of longitude 142° 48' E. 

 and 143° 30' E. 



The islands to the west are composed of old igneous 

 rocks, and are surrounded by fringing reefs. These 

 islands may in fact be regarded as disconnected portions 

 of Northern Queensland. They are fertile, but there is 



NO. 1096, VOL. 42] 



no particularly luxuriant vegetation ; doubtless irrigation 

 and cultivation would greatly improve their produc- 

 tiveness. 



The central group of islands is composed of low coral 

 islets formed by wind and wave action ; the soil is poor, 

 and supports only a scrubby vegetation. Coco-palms 

 grow on some of the islands, and there are occasional 

 mangrove swamps. 



The eastern islands, Uga, Erub, and the Murray 

 Islands, are of volcanic origin, and are also fringed with 

 coral reefs. In these the soil is rich and vegetation 

 luxuriant, Uga and a great part of Mer being simply 

 large gardens of coco-palms, bananas, and yams. 



It is interesting to find that the inhabitants of the vol- 

 canic islands form one tribe, which I term the Eastern 

 Tribe ; the Western Tribe occupying all the remaining 

 islands. The customs of the two tribes are different and 

 their languages distinct, so much so that there are only 

 a few words in common, and these are mainly trade words. 

 Four subdivisions of the Western Tribe can be dis- 

 tinguished, the members of each of which inhabit certain 

 intermarrying groups of islands. 



Independently of the above-mentioned subdivisions, 

 the islanders were divided into clans, each clan having 

 some animal for its augiid or " totem." For example, in 

 the Western Tribe there were the dugong, turtle, dog, 

 cassowary, snake, shark clans, and so forth. There was 

 supposed to be some relation between the clans and their 

 respective augiid, " all same {i.e. similar to] family," as 

 it was expressed to me. A dog-man, for instance, was 

 credited with understanding the habits and feelings of 

 dogs, or a cassowary-man prided himself on having thin 

 shanks like a cassowary, which would enable him to run 

 quickly through the grass. With the exception of the 

 first two clans, no one was allowed to kill or eat the 

 totem of his own clan ; if he did, his other clansmen 

 would probably kill him for sacrilege. On a dugong ex- 

 pedition, no dugong-man might keep the first dugong he 

 captured, but he might partake of the rest ; the same 

 restriction applied also to the turtle and the turtle clan. 

 If only one dugong or turtle was caught on the first day, 

 the dugong- or turtle-man had to relinquish it ; supposing 

 only one was caught on the succeeding day, the account 

 was, so to speak, " carried forward," and there was no 

 sabi {tabu) on it. The dugong and turtle were too im- 

 portant articles of food for the clan members to be 

 entirely deprived from partaking of their augiid. 



The women, or at all events some of them, used to have 

 a representation of their augiid cut on the small of the 

 back. I made inquiries on this point on most of the 

 islands in the Straits, but could only find four old women 

 who had them ; these I sketched, and two of them I also 

 photographed. 



[Various photographs illustrating the appearance of the 

 natives were then thrown on the screen.] 



I have alluded to the fact that different customs cha- 

 racterize the Eastern and Western Tribes ; as an example 

 of this I may mention that in the latter tribe the girls 

 proposed marriage to the men, while in the Eastern Tribe 

 the more usual course was adopted. 



It might be some time before a lad had an offer ; but 

 should he be a fine dancer, with goodly calves, and dance 

 with sprightliness and energy at the festive dances, he 

 would not lack admirers. 



Should there still be a reticence on the part of his 

 female acquaintances, the young man might win the heart 

 of a girl by robbing a man of his head. Our adventurous 

 youth could join in some foray ; it mattered not to him 

 what was the equity of the quarrel, or whether there was 

 any enmity at all between his people and the attacked. 

 So long as he killed someone — man, woman, or child — 

 and brought the head back, it was not of much conse- 

 quence to him whose head it was. Possibly a man killed 

 would redound to his greater glory, but any skull was 



