684 
THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 
As soon as the ship anchored again, the natives crowded round and barter recom- 
menced most briskly, being carried on through the main deck ports, the natives passing 
up their weapons and ornaments stuck between the points of their four- pronged spears, 
and receiving the price in the same manner. 
The constant cry of the natives was “ sigor sigor,” often repeated (“sigdr sigSr,” 
slowly, “ sigor sigor sigor,” quickly), which was found to mean iron. Iron tub-hoop, 
broken into 6 or 8 -inch lengths, was the commonest article of barter, but most prized 
were small trade hatchets, for which the natives parted with anything they had. The 
iron wherewith to replace the stone blades of their own hatchets, and the miserable 
ready-made trade hatchets, are to them the most valuable property possible, since they 
lessen the toil of clearing the rough land for cultivation, and of canoe and house building, 
which with the stone implements alone must be arduous work indeed. Hence the 
natives cared hardly for anything except iron ; bright handkerchiefs or Turkey red 
stuff were seldom taken in exchange, and then for very little value ; beads, however, 
were prized. Of their own property, the natives valued most their stone hatchets. Very 
probably they obtain the stone for making them by barter from a distance, since the 
rock at Humboldt Bay is a limestone, and the hatchets are made of nephrite or greenstone, 
or of a slate. The labour involved in grinding down a nephrite hatchet head to the smooth 
symmetrical surfaces which these native implements show, must be immense. Next in 
value to the stone implements were the breastplate-like ornaments, each of which has as 
its components, eight or more pairs of wild boar’s tusks, besides quantities of native beads, 
made of small ground-down Nerita shells. These treasures required a trade hatchet at 
least to purchase them. All other articles, necklaces, armlets, tortoiseshell ear-rings, 
combs, paddles, daggers of Cassowary bone and such things, could be bought for plain 
hoop iron, as could also bows and arrows in any quantity, and even the wig- like orna- 
ments of Cassowary feathers, which the men wear over their brows, to eke out their mop- 
like heads of hair. 
The natives often attempted and succeeded in withdrawing an arrow or two from a 
bundle purchased, just as it was being handed on board, though on the whole they 
understood the laws of barter thoroughly, and stuck to bargains. They attempted 
once or twice to keep the articles given beforehand in payment without return, 
but often returned pieces of hoop iron and other things which had been handed down 
for inspection and examination, as to whether they were worth the article required 
for them or not. One or two of these natives tried to fish things out through the 
lower deck-scuttles from the cabins with their arrows, but were detected and frustrated 
in their design. 
Many of the men wore a pair of wild boar’s tusks fastened together in the form of 
a crescent, and passed through a hole in the septum of the nose, so that the two tusks 
projected up over their dark cheeks as far as their eyes. Most of them had short 
