474 



The National Geographic Magazine 



a long corridor, which runs lengthwise 

 through the building, while on each side 

 lead off small rooms, in which the private 

 belongings of each family are stored. 



The men lounge regularly on the front 

 piazza, often lying prone with spear or 

 bow and arrow ready for any fish which 

 may happen by. The people show most 

 wonderful skill in striking or shooting 

 into water ; they seem to be able to allow 

 for the refraction to a nicety. The 

 women work on the back piazza, near- 

 est the forest-covered shore — convenient 

 agents to spread the alarm should an at- 

 tack be made by some marauding land 

 tribe. The canoes are moored at the 

 front of the house. Evidently the Pa- 

 puan warrior looks first to his own 

 safety. 



On Wiak Island the houses were of an- 

 other sort; similar in shape, they were 

 set in two different positions. Some were 

 over the water, as we had often seen be- 

 fore, while others were set on high bam- 

 boos among the trees of the deep forest. 

 These houses were generally three- 

 roomed, one opening out on each end, 

 and a third between these having a side 

 door. We saw little of the people or 

 their doings. They have a very bad rep- 

 utation for treachery. The women were 

 shy, hiding always deep in the bush and 

 our photos here were very unsatisfactory. 



Whenever the women came out to meet 

 the ship along with the men we felt quite 

 safe to go ashore and wander at will 

 through the deep pathless forests ; but 

 here at Meosboendi only men came out 

 in the canoes, armed men carrying many 

 spears, bows, and quivers full of short 

 bone-tipped arrows. They were drink- 

 ing heavily of their home-brewed 

 "sagoeir" and were in a generally bad 

 frame of mind. A few on shore stood 

 for their picture, but most would not, 

 and the women ran off helter skelter and 

 took refuge in their high houses. 



On a previous trip the captain of the 

 trading steamer was standing on the 

 beach leaning against a tree, when a 

 Wiak man walked up and drove his spear 

 through him. For some years the Dutch 

 government prohibited trading with these 



people as a measure of reprisal, and we 

 left safe and sound after what was one 

 of the first trips since the ban had been 

 removed. At Korido, a village near 

 Meosboendi, on Sook Island, the peo- 

 ple on a previous trip had met the 

 steamer with a shower of spears. No 

 trading by white people has ever been 

 done here and we did not attempt a land- 

 ing. That an occasional Malay trading 

 prau gets this far was testified by the fact 

 that many of the Papuan had spear- 

 heads of iron, shaped as are the spear- 

 heads of the Buginese Malays about 

 Makassar. 



From Wiak it is a short journey to 

 Jobi Island, another of the group which 

 lies in the mouth of Geelvink Bay. The 

 people here vary little in appearance from 

 the other Papuans of the region, but 

 their manners and customs differ ' much 

 from village to village. Indeed, while 

 this island is hardly larger than Long 

 Island, New York, eleven mutually un- 

 intelligible languages are spoken on it. 

 Many feuds exist, and when our ship 

 came to anchor in Pom Bay, canoes at- 

 tracted by the smoke and which had 

 come from neighboring harbors did not 

 spend the night even close to the ship. 

 because their occupants were afraid of 

 the people of Pom. 



In the houses here a goodly number 

 of heads were seen, the products of re- 

 cent raids. In one house we tried to 

 barter for some of these, but through a 

 man who could speak Malay we learned 

 that, as the possessors claimed, these 

 people whose heads we saw had been 

 such notorious villains that the Dutch 

 gunboat last seen had brought permission 

 for this tribe to go and kill them. Of 

 course, their heads must be kept as proof 

 of the meritorious act. No gunboat had 

 visited the bay for years ! The heads 

 were fresh. 



" CANOES 



The raiding canoes of Pom were enor- 

 mous affairs, with bows decorated with 

 fretwork carving, in elaborate designs, 

 and with wooden heads which were made 

 to look like real ones, by having enor- 



