ETENOLOGY OF THE PRESENT DAY. 303 



of wood. The residents of the sea coasts have larger huts than the 

 inhabitants of the forests. Many also live in clefts in the rocks, or grot- 

 toes. Being very sound sleepers, they endeavor to obtain dogs from 

 European settlers, in order to use these animals as guards. Some of the 

 natives having intercourse with the English cover themselves with rags, 

 or with a piece of cloth, in order that they may not be in a state of entire 

 nudity ; the rest go naked, girls only wearing aprons. 



The New Hollanders appear not to have any object of religious worship, 

 not even the fire, but nevertheless seem to have a conception of a life after 

 death. The inhabitants of the coast, of whom we know most, live on fish. 

 Their fragile boats ar^ made of the bark of trees. The foresters manufac- 

 ture a kind of dough of roots and bruised ants, to which the eggs of this 

 insect are then sometimes added. Worms, caterpillars, and everything else 

 coming in their way, are eaten, as nothing nauseates them. 



Their disposition presents the most glaring contrasts ; cruelty and 

 magnanimity, generosity and selfishness, forgiveness and revenge, courage 

 and sluggishness, candor and cunning, confidence and jealousy. Revenge 

 for blood is rigidly carried out, and their women are treated barbarously. 

 Pain is endured with the greatest patience and firmness. Age is highly 

 honored, and the highest respect shown to blind old people. No one is 

 allowed to place himself before an individual of this description, and even 

 in a boat the rower is obliged to sit behind the blind old man. Towards 

 armed persons they are submissive ; the unarmed, however, are very likely 

 to be attacked by them. They are very skilful imitators. 



When a child is from four to six weeks old, they give to it, without any 

 ceremony, a name borrowed from some object that they have daily before 

 their eyes. From childhood they are taught to hurl the lance and to evade 

 the throw. In the twelfth or fifteenth year the bridge of the nose is 

 pierced, in order to admit a bone or a piece of rush as an ornament. In 

 most cases, the husband selects his companion for life from another and 

 indeed hostile tribe, and carries her oflf by force in the absence of her pro- 

 tectors {pi. 39, Jig. 7), who in their turn retaliate upon his tribe as soon as 

 opportunity offers. The woman obtained in this way, in spite of all cruel 

 treatment, soon becomes reconciled to her lot. (The peculiar dance of the 

 New Hollanders is represented in pL S9,Jigs. 6 and 9.) 



The oldest of the family are the heads, and are called Biannai, that is 

 to say, father. When the New Hollander dies, his skin is stripped offy 

 dried, packed up, and preserved, whilst the body is burnt. (Fig. 8 repre- 

 sents the procession to the funeral pile.) 



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