66 



G. A. J. VAN DER SANDE. 



are killed by squeezing and which reminds one of the small single stick of the South Eastern 

 Islands in the Amsterdam collection (Ser. 2, N°. 231), intended to divide the hair, when 

 looking for vermin, and to kill what is found by pressing it on the head. I hâve never corne 

 across anything similar. A young man of Tobâdi had a scratcher of which the blunt end was 

 carved into a figure of a cassowary. 



The collection of the Utrecht Missionary Society contains some (N°. 545 — 547) with differently 

 carved handles, collected by Bink, who, alas, with regard to ethnographica, has made 110 distinction between 

 Humboldt Bay and Lake Sentâni. On the other side of the Netherl. Gennan frontier the scratching stick 

 is also much used, especially where the hair of the head has been tnrned into a collected, almost impéné- 

 trable mass (Parkinson [1900, 25]) and it is hère so regularly ornamented with feathers that Hagen [1899, 

 171] calls it simply „Zierstab" (ornamental staff); remarking besides, as well as Bmo [1899, i3]andERDWEG 

 [1902, 347] that it is also used as a fork. Sometimes it is manufactured out of the tibia of a cassowary and 

 in single instances out of tortoise shell (Biro [1. c, 10 — 13]). In the western parts of New Guiriea I did 

 not see the object. 



The multi-pointed comb is in so far an object of importance, that the wearing of the 

 same f. i. according to the customs of H. B., is not allowed to the young men during their 

 prescribed stay in the temple. The collection contains a great number of combs, amongst them 



three spécimens (N°. 229 — 

 231), of Jap-coolies on the 

 Mapia Islands, where we 

 called on the way, made of 

 small sticks joined by cross 

 pins or lashings, described 

 by KUBARY [1895, 194] as 

 v teleoi", of the people of 

 Pelau. The combs collected 

 in New Guinea itself are ail 

 made of wood; tortoise shell 

 combs, as met with by 

 FlNSCH [1888—93, 159] on 

 Teste Island, or combs out 

 of kangaroo bones, as repor- 

 ted by him [1. c. 93] and 

 others from Br. N. G., were 



Fiç. 40. Group of Mawes. _ , TTT , , 



not found. Wooden combs 

 in use in New Guinea may be distinguished in two kinds, according to whether they 

 are made of one single pièce of wood or of several pièces tied together. The last kind 

 must again be subdivided into two catégories, namely those of which the material is bamboo 

 (S. East N. G., see FlNSCH [1888—93, 159]) and those of palm wood (North N. G.). Of the 

 first kind, those of one pièce of wood, commonly bamboo, also two catégories are to be 

 distinguished. In the case of the one, fairly common in German as well as in British N. G., 

 the comb is made of a longitudinal strip of bamboo of proportionate breadth and bent trans- 

 versely, according to the circumference of the original bamboo, whilst the points are obtained 



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