1898-99.] Sir W. Turner on Sculptured Skulls, New Guinea. 563 
traveller and missionary, the Rev. James Chalmers,* stated that 
at Teste Island, off the south-east point of New Guinea, the chiefs 
had skulls on the posts of their houses which they said belonged to 
enemies they had killed and eaten. In another village, skulls 
said to be those of eaten enemies were hung about the house 
of the chief man, and the war canoe was decorated with painted 
skulls. One of the guides to the village wore as an armlet the 
jawbone of a man he had killed and eaten, whilst others had human 
bones attached to the hair and neck. The people bury their dead 
relatives, and place houses over the graves. Mr Chalmers says 
that the inhabitants of the inland villages in the Aroma district 
cook the heads of the slain enemies to secure clean skulls to put on 
sacred places. At Maiva, in the Gulf of Papua, numerous human 
skulls were suspended from a pole close to a temple or dubu. The 
Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, in the same volume, wrote that he saw at 
Hula, in Hood Bay, a widow carrying about in a basket the skull 
of her deceased husband. He stated that at Suau, near the South 
Cape, the dead are buried in a shallow grave in a sitting posture, 
with an earthen pot covering the head. After a time the pot is 
removed and the skull cleansed, to be eventually hung up in the 
house in a basket or net over the fire, so as to become blackened 
with smoke. The Suau people also eat their enemies and pre- 
serve the skulls, and trade amongst each other with them. 
Nothing is said by these authors of designs being sculptured on 
any of these crania. Sir Wm. Macgregor figures! a native house 
on Dobu, one of the D’Entrecasteaux group of islands, in front 
of which was a ledge covered with human skulls. It is obvious 
that the practice of preserving human skulls in and about the 
native houses applies both to those of relatives and of enemies slain 
in battle. 
In addition to the study of the decorative features of these crania, 
I have examined them in order to determine their race characters, 
and I append in Table I. the measurements which I have made. 
The general form of the skulls, as seen in the norma verticalis , was 
that of an elongated ovoid. With two exceptions the crania were 
* Work an'l Adventure in New Guinea , 1877 to 1885, by James Chalmers 
and W. Wyatt Gill, 1885. 
t British New Guinea , London, 1897. 
