INHABITANTS OF NEW GUINEA. 305 



still tlie state of culture amongst the inland tribes cut off from all relations witli 

 the outer world ; but most of the populations dwelling on the seaboard, and visited 

 by Malays, Bugis, or European and American seafarers, have long enjoyed a much 

 higher dearree of civilisation. Some tribes are still exclusively hunters or fishers, 

 whereas others till the land, making extensive clearings in the forests, where they 

 plant the sago tree, surround their huts with bananas, sow maize, taro and tobacco, 

 and even export their agricultural produce in exchange for European goods, 

 especially arms and hardware. Till lately they used no weapons except stone- 

 headed or poisoned darts and arrows, bamboo knives, bone daggers, wooden spears 

 and clubs. Some of the natives also possess musical instruments of primitive form, 

 such as flutes, drums, and trumpets. 



However backward they may be in other respects most of the Papuans are 

 endowed with a highly developed artistic feeling, and as carvers and sculptors they 

 are far superior to most of the Malayan peoples. Having at their disposition 

 nothing but bamboos, bone, banana leaves, bark and wood, they usually design and 

 carve with the grain, that is, in straight lines. Nevertheless, with these primitive 

 materials they succeed in producing extremely elegant and highly original decora- 

 tive work, and even sculpture colossal statues representing celebrated chiefs and 

 ancestors. Thanks to this talent they are able to reproduce vast historic scenes, 

 and thus record contemporary events. Numerous tribes have their annals either 

 designed on foliage or depicted on rocks in symbolic writing. The skulls of the 

 enemies slain in battle, which are carefully preserved to decorate the houses, are 

 themselves often embellished with designs traced on masks made of wax and resin. 

 On the banks of the Fly river these skulls are also used as musical instruments. 



All Papuan dwellings, even those of inland districts, are erected on rows of 

 piles on the model of those insular villages which are surrounded by water at every 

 tide and inaccessible except by boats. These clusters of habitations, which from 

 a distance look like upraised reefs of eccentric form, present a perfect picture of 

 what the European lacustrine towns must have been some three or four thousand 

 years ago. Stakes of unequal length sunk deep into the muddy bed of the shallow 

 bays serve to support a flooring of planks interlaced with lianas and more or less 

 polished with stone implements ; in the centre is the hearth formed by a bed of 

 glazed earth, and in front runs a little verandah, serving as a playground for the 

 children and a workshop for the fishermen. The houses are connected together 

 by means of slight wooden galleries, along which the natives with their prehensile 

 feet pass fearlessly, while underneath the crocodiles swim sluggishly about, 

 attracted by the refuse of the kitchens. Now also European craft, and even small 

 steamers, thread the mazes of these floating villages, casting anchor before the 

 large building which serves at once as temple, hotel, exchange and market. In 

 the interior the Papuans have preserved the same tyj)e of structure as on the sea- 

 board. 



But the ingenuity of the natives is displayed above all in the construction of 

 their boats. At the approach of bad weather they lash two, three, and even four 

 of these praus in a single floating mass, which rises and falls with the waves with- 

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