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The National Geographic Magazine 



ones will come to light. Language is 

 curiously diversified ; here you meet a 

 tribe with a distinct speech, and camping 

 near them for a time you learn the com- 

 mon currency of their tongue ; a few 

 miles further on appears another people, 

 perhaps not greatly differing in type, 

 but with another language altogether. 



THE FIERCE TUGERI OE DUTCH NEW 

 GUINEA 



I went first to Merauke, in Dutch New 

 Guinea, to explore and collect in new 

 territory, but the long-standing difficulty 

 with the warlike Tugeri tribe was still 

 acute, and the very day after I landed 

 we had abundant proof of how unwise it 

 would be to penetrate into the interior. 

 On that day three or four Javanese con- 

 victs, who were working on the edge of 

 the clearing, were heard to shout as 

 though in distress. In five minutes an 

 armed guard was on the spot, but all 

 the convicts were found decapitated by 

 the head-hunting Tugeri. The heads 

 had been taken off with the bamboo knife 

 so cleverly that the doctor on board our 

 ship told me that no surgeon with the 

 latest surgical instruments could have 

 removed so many heads in so short a 

 time. This bamboo knife of the Tugeri 

 is a very remarkable weapon. It is simply 

 a piece of cane stripped off from the 

 parent stem, leaving a natural edge as 

 keen as the finest tempered steel. 



My opportunities for observing the 

 Tugeri were therefore necessarily limited, 

 but I am, I believe, the first person who 

 has made any study of this remarkable 

 tribe, and as far as I am aware they have 

 remained hitherto undescribed. They are 

 a very numerous people, inhabiting a tract 

 of country extending as far west as the 

 Marianne Strait and as far east as the 

 Fly River, at longitude 141°. 



The Tugeri are a fine race, very fierce, 

 and absolutely unspoiled by European 

 vices. The men stand about 5 feet 8 

 inches on an average, and are clean- 

 limbed, powerful fellows, capable of any 

 amount of endurance. As a race, they are 

 broad-shouldered, sinewy, and of enor- 



mous strength. No European can draw 

 their bow. This weapon is made of a 

 longitudinal section of the bamboo. Near 

 the grip the diameter is about 354 inches, 

 and the wood tapers at each end to a 

 diameter of ^ inch. The string is of 

 twisted fiber, and the arrow, which is 

 made of a reed, carries to a distance of 

 at least 300 yards. Like all savages, they 

 are admirable marksmen. 



CURIOUS ORNAMENTS OF THE TUi.KRl 



The men wear an enormous ear orna- 

 ment of bamboo bent into an open ring. 

 Round the periphery of this ring the 

 flesh of the lobe of the ear, previously 

 perforated, is stretched in infancy, and 

 as the individual grows the natural spring 

 of the bamboo stretches the flesh more 

 and more, until in manhood a loop is 

 formed big enough to hold a ring of 

 at least 4 inches in diameter. It is ex- 

 traordinary how the tribesmen contrive 

 to move amidst the tangled forest with- 

 out hindrance from this abnormal ex- 

 pansion of the lobe, the most unusual 

 flesh decoration to be found among man- 

 kind. When the bamboo is out the loop 

 hangs like a long pendant, a perfect skein 

 of flesh, a peculiarly hideous accessory 

 of savage adornment. Some of the Tu- 

 geri wear an apology for a beard, or,, 

 rather, two scraggy tufts of hair depend- 

 ing from each side of the chin. The use 

 of pomatum in any form is unknown. 

 The teeth are strong and fairly regular, 

 but perfectly brown, owing to the habit 

 of chewing the betel-nut. 



For personal adornment the Tugert 

 wear two crossed straps of dogs' teeth 

 strung together with grass. Each strap 

 is about 3 inches wide, and is formed of 

 nine parallel rows of teeth. The strap 

 that rests on the left shoulder passes 

 under the right armpit; that over the 

 right shoulder passes outside the left 

 arm above the elbow. The straps are 

 lightly fastened at the point where they 

 cross the breast. Round the right arm, 

 just above the elbow, they wear a curious 

 armlet. In the case of the richer tribes- 

 men, this is of shell. The breadth is 



