CHAPTER X. 

 CUSTOMS AND GOVERNMENT. 



It will be easily understood that in short visits and with scanty knowledge of the language, 

 little information can be obtained with regard to the life of the Papuan as an individual, as 

 a member of the family or as a member of the community, village or tribe. Thus I 

 hâve been unable to ascertain anything about the customs at births, during the first stages 

 of life, or the naming of children. I saw, however, young children, already at an early 

 âge, given in charge of elder sisters; aftervvards the éducation takes place in the school of 

 practice, the boys participating in the work of the father, the daughters in the more numerous 

 occupations of the mother. By this, children very early become as clever as the parents. 



The youth of the Papuans is by no means joyless. The older people sometimes 

 make toys, e.g. small boats (N os . 654 and 655) for them, but never did I see a father or a 

 mother playing with the children. On the contrary ; thèse are in this respect entirely left 

 to themselves. At Asé I saw children, 4 — 5 years old, struggling in fairly deep water on 

 small, immersed models of the u ïsja" (see p. 195), specially intended for such exercise. At 

 Xâcheibe, girls and boys, the latter most pluckily, jumped and tumbled about in the heavy 

 surf rollers, and the shooting with bow (N os . 1242 — 45) and arrows (N°. 916) is a favourite 

 sport of the boys (see also MACGREGOR [1897, 43]). A pretty game I witnessed at Siari, 

 where young men and boys with hand tops, like N°. 1269 (PI. XXIX, fig. 25), were playing 

 at low water on the shore behind the village. The cord, + 1 meter in length, was wound in 

 the furrow round the top, and every one now tried to throw his top against that of another, 

 in such a way that it fell over and his own top kept on spinning. The young girls often 

 hâve to suffer from the impudence of the boys, and on the visits of strangers they usually 

 keep in the background, even more than the elder vvomen. In their turn, the boys are kept in 

 their places by the youths and grown-up men, who are soon ready with a cuff or a blow 

 when the boys displease them ; this is then to be taken more as a sign of displeasure than 

 as a further moral éducation : "to do good and leave evil alone". — Imperfect also is my 

 knowledge of the exact contents of the educational lessons, which are given in the rum 

 sérams (see Chapter XII). 



Nova Guinea. III. Ethnography. 34 



