6 CANNIBALISM. 



and lads of the tribe, crossed over to the main. They 

 came upon a small camp of Yigeiles who had not 

 been at all concerned in the murder, and enticed one 

 of them to come out of the thicket where he had con- 

 cealed himself by the offer of a fillet of cassowary 

 feathers for information reg'arding the real mur- 

 derers. As soon as the man stepped out, he was 

 shot down with an arrow, his head cut off, and pur- 

 suit made after the rest. Towards morning' their 

 second camping- place was discovered and surrounded, 

 when three men, one woman, and a girl were but- 

 chered. The heads of the victims were cut off with 

 the hupi, or bamboo knife, and secured by the sriiigi, 

 or cane loop, both of which are carried slung- on the 

 back by the Torres Strait islanders and the New 

 Guinea men of the adjacent shores, when on a ma- 

 rauding excursion;* these Papuans preserve the 

 skulls of their enemies as trophies, while the Aus- 

 tralian tribes merely mutilate the bodies of the slain, 

 and leave them where they fall. The Kowraregas 

 returned to their island with much exultation, 

 announcing- their approach by gi*eat shouting and 

 blowing on conchs. The heads were placed on an 

 oven and partially cooked, when the eyes were 

 scooped out and eaten with portions of flesh cut from 

 the cheek jf only those, however, who had been pre- 



* See Jukes' Voyage of the Fly, Vol. i. p. 277. 



t The eyes and cheeks of the survivors from the wreck of the 



Charles Eaton (in Aug. 1834) were eaten by their murderers, a 



party consisting of different tribes from the eastern part of Torres 

 Strait. See Nautical Magazine, 1837, p. 799. 



