AGRICULTURE. 177 



late in the morning, 10 — il o'clock; at Asé the women and girls who went to the gardens 

 in their large boats, were stirring before sunrise. Some men, provided with bows and 

 arrows, followed later on in their small boats, but simply for the women's protection, remaining 

 usually close to their boats on the shore and not entering the gardens proper. Cases in which 

 the men do ail the gardening (Annual REPORT [1902 — 03, 16]) are exceptional. Where 

 gardens well cared for and cleared of weeds occur, as mentioned by KONING [1904, 273] and 

 HORST [1S89, 252] of the hills situated behind the village of Waba, and as I saw on Lake 

 Sentani, this is to the women's honour. The gardens of Ifâr, on the southern slope of the 

 Cyclops Mountains, are also distinguished by a regular cultivation of sweet potatoes; those 

 of the Sëkânto people, who live on the banks of the Jafûri, are, on the other hand, according 

 to MOOLEXBURGH [1904, 185], exceedingly primitive. Within one and the same enclosure the 

 grounds of différent families are divided by ail sorts of marks. In the gardens of Tobâdi, a 

 row of palm leaves, with parts of the leaves twisted together, was sometimes lying on the 

 ground, or more or less carved stalks of palm leaves were stuck vertically with the thin end 

 into the soil; ornamented boundary posts also occurred, amongst them some with a snake figure 

 carved in relief, spirally round the pôle and coloured red, white and black. I am unaware 

 how the division of thèse grounds was arrived at. 



The cocoa nut palms apparently sometimes form an exception to the rule that the 

 tiller of the soil has a personal right to the production. But not according to the supposition 

 of BlNK [1897, 147], who, supposing that they grow wild, writes that every one was allowed 

 to pluck as many as he liked, and that he himself and his attendants were allowed to help 

 themselves. BlNK evidently did not understand what favour he was enjoying; for in reality 

 every tree has hère its owner, who often indicates his ownership and the prohibition to 

 others to pluck, by a palm leaf tied round the stem, sometimes also by cutting figures in the 

 bark. KONING [1904, 262], admitting that the village chief of Tobâdi has the right to the 

 management and disposai of ail agricultural produce, states that the gathering of the fruit by his 

 orders is the occasion ofa harvest festival, for which also provisions from elsewhere can 

 be procured. This last point seems to make the correctness of this view doubtful. The 

 feast does not dépend on the ripening of the harvest, but the gathering of some fruits 

 is put off, by order of the chief, till the date of certain feasts, in a manner which strongly 

 reminds one of the tabu of the cocoa nut palms, mentioned by SCHURTZ [1895, 54] concer- 

 ning Polynesia: u in order to provide a sufficiant quantity of fruit for the festive day". 



For the making of a new garden, in some places (Annual Report [1899 — 1900, 

 64]) the trees of the forest are left, the branches being lopped off, at other places circles are 

 eut in the bark, the trees consequently die and afterwards are burnt. In Netherl. N. G., however, 

 it is a work of magnitude, ail the trees being felled. The expédition once came across such 

 a newly opened area, where an enormous quantity of trees of ail sizes and heavy branches 

 were lying about, so that we had much difficulty in climbing over ail this. Now it is said 

 that in some parts of British N. G. the same area is never planted twice in succession 

 (ANNUAL REPORT [1904 — 05, 26]), but it is well understood that the Papuans of the north coast 

 do not easily résolve upon making a new garden and generally exhaust the soil (see also 

 HUNT [1905, 8]). In this way, the people of Lake Sentâni had, according to the opinion of 

 Prof. WlCHMANN, entirely exhausted the fertility of their soil; the hills near the lake, except 

 Nova Guinea. III. Ethnography. 23 



