CHAPTER III. 

 HABITATIONS AND FURNITURE. 



The manner in which the people are housed offers important différences in the various 

 parts of N. G., and it is, indeed, a moot question, whether ail are really in possession of 

 fixed houses. The information of the people of the tribe of the Manikion may serve as 

 an answer. A certain number of men and women of this tribe were acting as guides and 

 carriers from the seashore to their settlement, Mapâr. The head of the family, styled „Majôr", 

 walking usually at the head of the long column, uttered on the march, at certain intervais, 

 long, sounding shouts. This is also customary elsewhere, in order to give notice at the 

 approach of villages and not to frighten the inhabitants at the sudden appearance of strangers 

 (D'ALBERTIS [1880, I, 292], Van OOSTERZEE [1904, 1004]). But our Major did this every- 

 where on the road, also on days, when we were apparently passing through quite uninhabited 

 parts. Asked as to the intention of his shouting, the Major informed us that in the wooded 

 parts of the country, through which we were passing, "bush-men" were living, without 

 fixed abode, who did not practice agriculture, fed themselves with what the fauna and flora 

 could produce and only in case of heavy rain sought shelter under joined leaves. Thèse people, 

 having no connection with the settled inhabitants, were exceedingly shy, went out of the way 

 of everybody and therefore were quite harmless. If however such people were surprised, the 

 fright might induce them to make use, as a prématuré defence, of their bows and arrows and 

 therefore it was safer always to make noises, in order to enable them to get out of the way. 



Consequently, there was no chance for the expédition ever to get a sight of thèse 

 nomads. Where ashes and the remains of meals were found alongside the path, it always turned 

 out to be places of call used by the settled inhabitants; the inhabitants of the forest shun the 

 beaten(!!!j tracks. According to the above account, regular nomads would be meant hère, 

 who, in the shape of dwellings, had nothing more than what every one can compose at a 

 moment's notice in primeval forests. 



The informations of Meyer [1873, 36] concerning the nomadic way of living of some Negrito's, 

 agrée, to a large extent with the above mentioned. Many tribes of the S. W. coast (Van der Goes 

 [1858, 63]) are also supposed to be nomads. The roaming Tarugaré, which De Clercq and Schmeltz 



