CLOTHING AND ORNAMENT. 



39 



Amongst the population of Papua Talandjang also, no connection could be found betvveen 

 nakedness and respectability. When he wishes to satisfy his natural wants this Papuan with- 

 draws or at ail events turns away from the others, and behaves himself like a man of good 

 manners. We were never shocked in this respect. Nor hâve we ever noticed anything improper 

 of sexual émotions. 



Whoever regards with Ratzel [1894, 89] nakedness as moral degeneration, would be 

 ail the better for a somewhat lengthy stay amongst, and a more th'an superficial acquaintance 

 with, the Papuans of Lake Sentâni. Their nakedness is sexually purer than many a western 

 dress. The members of the expédition owe their friends yonder, this word of protest. — I must 

 still mention hère our first meeting in the district of Sékâ, where ail the adult men wear a 

 calabash containing the pénis. Corning from Humboldt Bay and already accustomed to 

 the there ruling nakedness, we ail found the calabash really „shocking". The yellow calabash 

 generally provided with black burnt ornaments (N°. 433 — 442, PI. XV, fig. 4 and 5, PI. XVI, 

 fig. 11 and 12), although hiding the sexual organs, called, according to our feeling, in an impu- 

 dent manner the attention to the sexual sphère. We were even surprised that this pièce of 

 ^clothing", which really met prudity half way, had such an opposite effect upon us, confirming 

 the judgment of WESTERMARK [1891, 186] that in opposition to nakedness, clothing is indécent. 

 It however still remains a question whether this wearing of the calabash is causée! by a 

 sexual feeling of shame. It is indeed not always possible to buy instantly such a calabash of 

 the wearer; he appears to be ashamed to take off the object. On one of the expéditions 

 undertaken in 1901 by the ofncers 

 of Hr. Ms. Ceram, a guide from 

 Sékâ broke his calabash and decla- 

 red, on this account, to be obliged 

 to return home. This Papuan was 

 then however suspected of only 

 trying to find an excuse in order 

 to be relieved of the troublesome 

 journey. Taking it, for a moment, 

 for granted that the calabash is 

 worn on the ground of a sexual 

 feeling of shame (and as an in- 

 dication of higher civilisation ?), it 

 is indeed remarkable that this cus- 

 tom was not adopted by the men 

 of adjacent Humboldt Bay. People 

 from the village of Thaë, (district 

 of Sékâ), ail wearing the calabash 

 (see fig. 200) remain very often for 



days at festivities in Tobâdi ; on the other hand I met in May 1903 a great number of men from 

 Humboldt Bay at a wedding-feast in Sëkâ (see fig. 12), where apparently nobody found it 

 unusual that, also in the présence of girls and women, the guests were going about quite 

 naked, and where they were not at ail treated like people of less civilisation. On the contrary, 



Fig. 12. Three men of Sëkâ, one (to the right) of Humboldt Bay. 



