40 G. A. J. VAN DER BANDE. 



the inhabitants of Humboldt Bay are looked upon in the whole neighbourhood as of 

 higher rank. Often they also procure for themselves such calabashes, probably however exclu- 

 sively on account of the ornament worked on, for never is such a calabash worn there. For 

 the same reason such an object is then again offered for sale to the western visitors. See 

 Chapter X. 



If the supposition is correct that originally the calabash has been worn on account of 

 the ornament, the case of the Sekâ people illustrâtes once more the opinion of WESTERMARK 

 [1891, 211], GROSSE [1894, 95] and others, that the feeling of shame, far from being the 

 original cause of man's covering his body, is on the contrary a resuit of this custom. The 

 opinion that clothing has originated with ornament is indeed very acceptable and relieves me 

 of the difficulty to indicate a line between both. 



HaGEN [1899, 169] became convinced by observation that a breast ornament can cover 

 the whole chest by increasing density and thus pass into clothing. Thus De CLERCQ and 

 SCHMELTZ [1893, 31] also report the communication of the Papuans of Sègèt that the tattooing 

 of the girls served as an ornament, to take the place of clothing, in order to charm the young 

 men. I consider therefore that I may not separate ail thèse matters : clothing, ornaments, 

 tattooing, scars and painting of the skin and firstly deal with: 



TATTOOING AND SCARIFICATION. - - The judgment of MAGITOT ') : ..L'action de se faire 

 tatouer indique presque toujours une mentalité spéciale", combines in its generality the 

 partisans of the religious meaning of tattooing as well as those who consider tattooing as 

 a means to draw together, by increasing the outward charm, the individuals of both sexes. 



The religious as well as the amorous meaning of tattooing has numerous expert followers. The above 

 cited information from Sègèt is, no doubt, confirmed in a very pronoimced manner by the custom which 

 according to Pakkinson [1898, 194] exists on the Ongtong-Java Islands, to decorate the girls before mar- 

 riage from the navel to the knee, and only later on over the body and the limbs, as Kubary also mentions 

 the particular care, with which the genitals of the girls on the Nukuoro Islands are tattooed. Thus Joest 

 [1887, 18, 25] does not mention religion, and thinks tattooing is nothing else but an amusement, a kind 

 of adornment which at the utmost is connected with the arrivai at the âge of puberty. Inhabitants 

 of the Polynesian Islands declared of their tattooing, according to Thilexius [1903, 49 — 51], „that it 

 only represented an ornament and a proof of courage. Whoever is not tattooed is considered a coward, it 

 is said of him that he cannot catch fish, and when he wants to get married, he finds at the best a widow, 

 willing to follow him''. Meanwhile this author still believes in the religious meaning of tattooing as well as 

 Schmeltz [1888, 114] who, replying to Joest, argues that the festivities at the âge of puberty are gene- 

 rally connected with the religious contemplations of primitive races and that sufficient cases are known 

 in which totem-signs, of which the religious meaning can at ail events not be denied, form the subject of 

 tattooing. Tex Kate [1895, 3] also wishes the chapter ..tattooing" to be brought under religion, where 

 he met on Timor the figure of the crocodile, without any doubt of religious meaning, as an ornament on 

 the arm of a woman. Stratz [1904, 76] mentions a whole list of explorers who are of a différent opinion 

 and calls it as objectionable to dérive the painting of the body and tattooing from symbolical and religious 

 customs as the clothing from a feeling of propriety, as in both cases cause and effect hâve been mixed up. 

 It may be mentioned at once that the observations on the subject of tattooing by the présent expédition 

 hâve, I am sorry to say, not led to such results as either to accept or to décline the above mentioned 



1) La Pratique Dermatologique. Erxest Besxier. L. Brocq et L. Jacquet. Tatouage, par Barthélémy, p. 435. 



