402 



A jyATURALlSrs WANDEIUNOS 



legends, words and tliongbts, will die out a chapter of far- 

 past history that can never be recovered again on the globe. 



The men are of niediiim height — ^averaging about 5 feet 

 2 inches — ^and a little taller than the women. They are a 

 weak, emaciated, ill-conditioned, somewhat efi'eminate- 

 looking race. Many of them snfler from the fungoid skiu 

 disease so often met with among the badly nurtured peoples 

 further to the east. They are not a warlike people, and are 

 not head-hunters like the Ceramese. 



In colour they are hrowii, or yellowish browTi, and, as far as 

 my ohserrations go, none of them are black as the Am people 

 are. Their hair is fairly abundant on the head, but not 

 pr<3fuse, in fact rather scanty on other part-s of the body. 

 Their faces are bare, as a rule, though a few have a few long 

 hairs at the corners of the mouth and the upper lip. The 

 head-hair is not worn in the high-matte<i frizzled (joiffure 

 as seen among some of the Papuans, but it is curled in 

 a more or less loose manner well seen in the figure on the 

 opposite page. It is parted in the centre as a rule, and 

 allowed to hang down on both sides in loose irregular curls, 

 appearing through and above the kerchief which is worn 

 round the head. Dr. Bastian, in his ' Indonesien/ states that 

 the Wakolo Lake Buruese have smooth hair ; but this is not 

 absolutely the case. Nearer the coast, however, hair m straight 

 as in any Suudanese is met with. That form of nose with 

 high dorsmu and over-hanging tip which I observed conspicu- 

 ously in Timor-laut, and subsequently in the interior of Timor, 

 as seen in the concluding Part of this book, was not observed 

 among the Buruese ; nor yet that tall and more athletic build 

 of man (and woman) which could not escape observation in 

 both of the islands just named. The Wakolo women had the 

 same meek and submissive bearing that I had noticed in those 

 met with nearer the coast. 



\'ery few of them wear ornaments beyond a small stud of 

 silver in the ear ; the children are provided with a piece of 

 dried iutestine of the Cimus in their ear-lobes, and roun<l their 

 necks ; while both sexes wear armlets of shell, of a thong-liko 

 corneous coralline called by the JIalays akar hahar, and of the 

 I intestine of the Cusem. 



The garments worn by the men were the usual 'J*-bandage, 



