SANTA-CRUZ.— NEW HEBRIDES. 335 



inland populations form well-marked divisions, generally designated, in the 

 " Pigeon English " of these waters, by the names of Man-saltwater and 3Ian-hush. 

 But according to Otto Finsch, the Melanesian is on the whole the dominant type 

 even in the southern islands of Yaté, Erromango and Tanna. 



Navigators have noticed that the natives of these southern islands are as a 

 rule stronger, taller and better built than those of the northern section. But 

 judged by our normal standard of beauty they cannot be considered handsome. 

 The forehead is low and retreating, the face broad, with two prominent cheek- 

 bones, the nose flat and the lips thick. In several islands the head of the children 

 is deformed by means of boards, which have the effect of lengthening the skull 

 from back to front, while at the same time contracting and lowering it. To this 

 artificial deformation is perhaps due the fact that, according to Professor Flower, 

 the Vanikoro and Mallicolo islanders are the most dolichocephalous or long-headed 

 of any known race. 



Hair and beard are woolly, or frizzly, and the complexion almost black in the 

 New Hebrides, where the people embellish themselves by piercing the lobes of the 

 ears and the cartilage of the nose, by gashing arms and breast, decking the head 

 with shells, foliage, or tufts of grass, and embellishing the body with paintings in 

 red ochre, lime, and diverse pigments. But tattooing in the strict sense of the 

 term is somewhat rare, and in the southern islands absolutely unknown. Many 

 use wood ashes to impart a fine golden tint to the hair, which in Tanna the height 

 of the fashion requires to be arranged in a multitude of small tresses tied at the 

 roots with vegetable fibre. To complete this part of the toilet of a gay warrior is 

 said to take no less than three or four years. 



At the time of the discovery the natives went naked, or wore nothing beyond 

 a strip of pounded bark, leaves, or cocoanut fibre. Some of the islanders described 

 by Cook fastened the waist so tightly with a girdle of cordage as to look like 

 large ants. At present most of the New Hebrides people have adopted European 

 materials for all or part of their apparel. Their dwellings are not raised on piles 

 like those of the Papuans and western Melanesia ns, but consist, for the most pari, 

 of simple roofs of palm-leaves suspended on four stakes. 



While the bulk of the population in both archipelagoes is evidently of Mela- 

 nesian stock, the fine Polynesian race is in almost exclusive possession of the more 

 easterly islets of Anuda (Cherry Island) and Tikopia (Barwell). They are easily 

 recognised by their tall stature, robust frame, long hair and bright countenance. 

 The people of Futuna and Aniwa, the " Madeira " of the New Hebrides, towards the 

 southern extremity of the group, are also Polynesians ; the very names they have 

 given to their new homes are taken from the lands in the vicinity of the Tonga 

 Islands. Judging from the description given of them hy Queiros, it is highly 

 probable that the natives of the Taumaco or Duff Islets, north-east of Santa- 

 Cruz, also belong to the same family. Those of Nukapu, a chief member of the 

 Santa-Cruz cluster, are the issue of a crossing between the two oceanic elements, 

 for their language is essentially Polynesian, closely related to the Maori, while 

 their usages connect them with the Melanesians. 



