CH. vm CHABACTEBISTICS OF SANOIB ISLANDS 203 



afford them, and heavy wooden clubs are sometimes used 

 by the lower classes. 



The club in fig. 30 was taken from a man who, the 

 police asserted, was lying in ambush to mm-der 

 one of the Dutch of&cials as he passed by. It 

 is made of a heaxy black palm-tree wood, and 

 remarkable for the ornamentation on the handle 

 of the Eoman capital letters A and B, It is not 

 an uncommon thing to find savage men copying 

 the white man's ' pictures ' onto his own weapons 

 and implements. 



The Sangirese are slow in their movements 

 and thoroughly phlegmatic in then- disposition. 

 They are but rarely seen to laugh or to become 

 animated in conversation, and their expression 

 is generally one of vague wonder or weary sad- 

 ness. Their skin is of a light brown colour, of 

 rather a darker tint than that of the Alfurs of 

 Minahassa. Originally the dress of both men _ ■^"^- ^^- , 



° -^ _ Palm wood 



and women was probably a simple robe of club from 



native-made koffo, hanging from the shoulders Sangir.' 

 and reaching to the knees, but since the intro- 

 duction of cotton goods by the Chinese traders the men wear 

 a pair of cotton trousers, and the women a sarong of dark 

 blue or black material wound round the waist, and in the 

 more civilised parts a jacket or kabaya of the same material. 

 The more brilliantly coloured materials are, I was told, only 

 worn by the wives and concubines of the Chinese. 



The women, when young, are occasionally rather good- 

 looking, but both men and women are greatly disfigured by 

 a very prominent upper lip, produced by the constant habit 

 of betel chewing. With us the quid of tobacco, when not in 

 actual use, is commonly held in the cheeks, but the Sangirese 

 hold the betel quid between the upper lip and the front 



