BURIAL AND WITCHCRAFT 
home without saying something about his children, 
who are the merriest little creatures imaginable. 
Without being very demonstrative, the parents like 
them well enough, and the child is not at all hardly 
used—although, be it remembered, the family pig has 
a deeper place in the adults’ affections. In times of 
stress it is to be feared it is the pig that is first 
considered, probably because it is so important an 
article of diet. The devotion to this animal goes 
far further than that of Pat, for it is not unusual 
to see a Papuan woman acting as foster-mother to 
a young pig. 
But to return to the children; up to the age of 
seven their life is one long holiday, and they very 
early begin to practise the use of weapons. Spear- 
throwing is their favourite sport; for this they use 
a long stick of grass with an enlarged root. They 
pull off all the leaves until the shaft is clean, and 
the root is allowed to remain to represent the heavy 
head of the spear. Their targets are each other, and 
at a very early age they have acquired a marvellous 
dexterity, hitting each other with nicest accuracy even 
at 40 feet range. Every hit is registered with a de- 
lighted jump and a howl. The amount of cleverness 
and dexterity required for this spear practice was 
realised by my son, who tried it, and found that not 
only could he not hit, but he could not make the 
spear carry. Very small girls play also at spear- 
throwing, but they give it up early. 
We were very much amused to find the presence 
of ‘‘Cat’s Cradle”; we had thought to amuse the 
little ones by teaching them this game, but we found 
33° 
