XX NEW GUINEA AND ITS INHABITANTS 45 V vTj 



Bay, and are probably scattered all round the western 

 coasts. They form the highest type, with fine Jewish or 

 European features, a better intellect, and a somewhat 

 more advanced civilization. These people divide the year 

 into lunar months, each with a proper name, and have 

 names for the four cardinal points, for many stars, and for 

 entire constellations. Dr. Beccari believes them to be 

 the result of an intermixture (at a remote epoch) of Hindoo 

 or Caucasian blood with the indigenes of the island, and he 

 even traces a connection between their rude mythology and 

 that of the Hindoos. 



A curious point of physiological detail may here be 

 noticed as lending some support to this theory. Almost all 

 observers have remarked, that the fully developed Papuan 

 mop of hair is not a general feature in any of the tribes, 

 but occurs sporadically over a wide area, is highly valued 

 by its possessors, and from its extreme conspicuousness is 

 always noticed by travellers. No other race of people in the 

 world possesses this character at all ; but, strange to say, 

 it appears very fully developed among the Cafusos of 

 Brazil. These are a mixed race, the produce of Negro and 

 Indian parent, and their enormous wigs of frizzly hair have 

 been described by Spix and Martins, and are known to 

 most South American travellers. Still more interesting 

 is the appearance of a similar peculiarity among the Arab 

 tribes of Taku in Eastern Africa, where mixtures of Negro 

 and Arab blood are very common. ^ It is well known that 

 hybrid and mongrel characters are liable to great variation 

 and are very uncertain in their appearance or degree of 

 development. If, therefore, the higher type of Papuans 

 are the result of a remote intermixture of Hindoos or 

 Arabs with the indigenous Papuans, we can account both 

 for the appearance of the great mop of frizzly hair and for 

 its extremely unequal development ; and it is not improb- 

 able that the Jewish and greatly elongated nose may have 

 a similar origin. 



Outside New Guinea and its closely surrounding islands 

 the same race is found in the Solomon Islands, the New 

 Hebrides, and the Fiji Islands. The native of Alu figured 



^ Wsiitz's Anthropology. English translation, vol. i. , p. 175. 



