148 NOTICES OF BOOKS. 
course, to discoveries of the remains of houses raised on piles 
in lacustrine sites in Switzerland and North Italy. 
Wattacz long ago stated that the view of an ancient lake- 
dwellers village, given as the frontispiece of Sir CHar es 
Lyext’s “ Antiquity of Man,” 1s chiefly founded on a sketch of a 
New Guineavillage,viz., Dorey inthe North-west oftheisland.* 
The custom of building on piles or bamboo posts at various 
heights above the oround is very general from the frontiers 
of Tibet to the islands of the South Sea, and is one of the many 
points which support the theory of an identity of origin be- 
tween the Indo-Chinese races and the races of the Indian Ar- 
chipelago.t Specimens of Malay villages on stilts standing in 
the sea may be viewed any day in New Harbour, Singapore. 
The customs of the people as regards clothing are not 
such as to encourage a hope of finding a new market for 
English cotton goods in New Guinea! The married men 
and women are described as having very little dress; the 
young men and girls have a little. more than their pa- 
rents. Shell ornaments for the hair, shell necklaces, and 
nose-ornaments and armlets of the same material are much 
worn. So are tortoise-shell ear-rings. A grass petticoat is 
worn by women and is said to be identical with that formerly 
worn in the Ellice group, the grass being ornamented by alter- 
nate red and yellow strips of pandanus leaf; married women 
have their heads close shaven, while unmarried girls wear 
their hair “in a complete frizle, four or five inches long and 
not parted.”’ Young men wear a coloured band of native 
cloth round the stomach. It is made from the bark of the 
native mulberry, and is woven tightly on the body, the flesh 
bulging out ahove and below. It can be removed only by 
cutting it. The face is painted in stripes of black, white, red 
and yellow, and nasal ornaments, often nine inches long and 
curved, are inserted in the pierced septum. At Murray Island 
the old men, to conceal their grey hair, take to wigs, “which 
represent them as having long, flowing, curly hair asin youth!” 
Tattooing is common. Women at Port Moresby are des- 
cribed by Mr. Gri as “ exquisitely tattooed,” while at Hula, 
* Watrtsce’s Malay Archipelago, II, 305. 
+ Colonel Yue, Journ. Anthrop. Instit. 
