On the Negroes of the Indian Archipelago. 175 



der to the spine, 18 in. ; round the belly, just in front of the 

 thigh, 3 feet 3 in.; round the thorax, behind the shoulders, 

 2 feet 6 in. ; round the neck, behind the ears, 15J in. 



p.S. — I have sent two entire skins to the museum at Fort 

 Pitt, which were forwarded, with other specimens, after the 

 breaking out of this war, and which have all since been ac- 

 knowledged. 



W. T. B. 



The Negroes of the Indian Archipelago and Pacific Islands. 

 By W. John Crawfurd, Esq., F.R.S. 



Oriental negroes are found thinly but widely scattered, 

 from the Andaman islands, in about 80° of E. longitude, to 

 the New Hebrides in the Pacific, in about 175° E. longitude, 

 and from the Philippine islands, in 18° N. latitude, to New 

 Caledonia, in about 21° S. latitude. These eastern negroes 

 are known to Europeans under various names. The Malays 

 term the inhabitants of New Guinea, Papua, or more cor- 

 rectly Pua-pua. Europeans taking this as an authority, call 

 New Guinea and its inhabitants both Papua. 



The w T ord pua-pua is an adjective, and signifies crisp, 

 frizzled, woolly. To complete the sense for the country or 

 people, it is necessary to state the nouns-substantive, tanah 

 = country, and oran = people. Thus oran pua-pua = a woolly 

 headed man ; and tanah oran pua-pua = the land of woolly- 

 headed men. 



European writers have also sometimes termed them Alfores, 

 which word has been converted by English and French 

 writers into Arafura and Harafura, and referred to a Malay 

 source. It is not, however, Malay, because the letter / is 

 not to be found in any written language of the Indian Archi- 

 pelago, and seldom does the sound occur in any of the un- 

 written ones. The word is Portuguese, and means freedman, 

 in which sense it is adopted by the natives of the country. 

 It is nearly equivalent to the Indios bravos of the Spaniards, 



