62 . G. A. J. VAN DER SANDE. 



hanging down in front of the ear over the left temple of a young man, who would at first 

 give me only the beads, and some commotion was caused amongst the bystanders when the 

 whole lock was eut off. The custom, which f. i. exists amongst the Arfak people (VON ROSENBERG 

 [1875,92]) to eut off at the death of a near relative, ail their hair except one lock above the forehead, 

 to which beads are then attached and of which the lower end is passed over the left ear, may pos- 

 sibly be connected with this. Van Balen [1886, 562] reports this custom also of other tribes in 

 Geelvink Bay and it is not improbable therefore that to the bead ornament noticed by HORST 

 [1889, 238] at Serui and to the one which ROBIDÉ VAN DER Aa [1879, 196] mentions of 

 KÔrido, a village on the south coast of Supiori, a similar meaning may be ascribed. In the 

 latter case the end of the tress of hair was fastened to the opening of the septum of the nose ! 

 The custom of wearing feathers in the hair is very gênerai; in the adjacent 

 German territory it is however only' limited to festive occasions (PARKINSON [1900, 25]). On 

 the îslands of Geelvink Bay and on its shores the number of those feathers in the hair or - 

 attached to the handle of the combs is, it is said, to be considered as a numerical statistic 

 of the heads eut off by the wearer (Van der Goes, [1858, 160], De Clercq and Schmeltz 

 [1893, 11, 12]). In Humboldt Bay and on Lake Sentâni the feathers own no such bloody 

 réputation, at the utmost they form the trophies of the chase of the hunter. 



What I want to point out, however, is that ail feathers worn in the hair collected at 

 Tobâdi and at Kajo Entsâu (N°. 219 — 220, PI. VIII, fig. 6 and 3) consist of two parts. The 

 lower part, the carrying-feather, intended to be pushed deeply into the bushy hair, is formed 

 by a black tail feather of a hornbill, of which the stubborn, on both sides somewhat narrow- 

 cut webs prevent, like barbs, the dropping out, — so effectively, that the removal of thèse 

 feathers, necessary when measuring the heads, proved to be very difficult. At the top, the 

 carrying-feather, over a length of 6 — 10 cm., only consists of a narrow strip of the convex 

 side of the quill, which is very pliable and elastic and over the pointed end of which the 

 show-feather proper is stuck, often consisting of the top end of the yellow white feathers of 

 Cacatua triton Temm. or of the black and white-striped flight feathers from the tail of 

 Zoo en as W e s t er manni Schleg. 



The webs of the show-feather, sometimes pared into a bird figure, differ ± 90 in their 

 position from the webs of the carrying-feather. In this way the desired elastic waving of the 

 show-feather on the thin strip of quill of the carrying-feather is as little as possible hindered 

 bv the résistance of the air, because the plane of movement corresponds with the plane of 

 the vanes themselves. This peculiar combination of carrying-feather and show-feather is cer- 

 tainly not devoid of cleverness. With the slightest movements of the head and with the 

 least wind the show-feather now quivers easily. In K. W. Land such feathers are more 

 rare, hère several feathers tied together into a bunch are generally worn (PARKINSON [1900, 

 25]). Still they are reported by ERDWEG [1902, 318] of Tumleo, and he als© observes that 

 the object is the „hin- und herschwingen", but he does not mention the peculiar mutual position 

 of the component parts. Fig. 33 shows some men of Kajô, partly decorated with cockatoo 

 feathers in the manner described ; the 2 nd person from the left wears a cock's feather, for 

 which purpose cocks are hère as well as elsewhere specially kept. Several hâve also bunches 

 of ferns in the hair, with which the man of fig. 38 lias covered his whole head (see also PI. 

 XLIII, fig. 1). 



