THE PELEW ISLANDS. 279 



together, and the hand is then thrust by sheer force through the narrow aperture 

 of the bone. The distinction is thus often purchased with the loss of a finger. 



The Pelew islanders have a darker complexion than the natives of the Marianas 

 and Carolines, and most of them have crisp or frizzly hair. Although there has 

 evidently been a mixture of Malay and Polynesian elements, the Papuan type 

 predominates, and the southern islands lying nearer to the New Guinea coast 

 belong ethnically to the Papuasian world. According to Semper many might be 

 taken for Jews, while others are distinguished by small eyes, flat nose, and 

 massive jaws. Formerly all pierced the cartilage of the nose ; but this practice 

 is falling into abeyance, although connected with a religious legend. The teeth 

 are blackened by means of an earth which causes the gums to swell and prevents 

 mastication for several days. The body is also painted a bright yellow, and 

 tattooed ; not so elaborately, however, as by the Caroline islanders. The practice 

 is even falling off owing to the dangerous nature of the operation ; nor has it any 

 longer a sacred character. On the other hand some of the Pelew dames wear 

 beauty spots, like the fashionable ladies of the eighteenth century in Europe. 



Wilson, being ignorant of the native language, fancied that the people had no 

 form of belief. But although there are scarcely any religious ceremonies, their 

 mythology is very intricate, and the kalites, who act as mediators with the spirit 

 world, are very powerful, often more so than the chiefs themselves. These 

 magicians of both sexes can raise the souls of the dead, cure ailments, dispel or 

 evoke public calamities. Their powers are hereditary, and five of them enjoy a 

 supremacy over all their associates throughout the archipelago. The privileges 

 of the kalites and of the chiefs combined with the belief in spirits have surrounded 

 the existence of the natives with a multiplicity of prescriptions and observances. 

 The life of each individual is regulated by strict rules, and many places and 

 things are mongul, that is, tabooed. 



The women are respected and may even acquire authority whether as kalites 

 or supreme chiefs. They form sisterhoods, whose privileges are recognised, and 

 some travellers have reported that in criminal cases they are judged by their 

 peers. Traces of a former matriarchal system still survive. Thus power is 

 inherited, not from father to son, but from brother to brother, and the sister ranks 

 before the wife of the chief. The men also of the different castes, noble or 

 military, are groujDcd in brotherhoods, and possess special pai or " clubs," into 

 which no one can penetrate without their consent. These clubs are relatively 

 sumptuous edifices, which are carefully decorated with carved and painted figures. 

 A symbolic group is set up in front, and on the walls are disposed rows of wooden 

 images painted in red, yellow and black, some representing religious myths, others 

 recording social scenes and constituting a sort of national history. There is also 

 a graphic system analogous to the Peru"\'ian quippos, consisting of cords and 

 strings, which serve to exchange ideas according to an elaborate method of 

 knotting. 



In the Pelew Islands there are almost as many petty states as villages. But, 

 thanks to the support of Wilson after his shipwreck in 1783, the "king" of the 



