6i 
They have no pots or cooking vessels and consequently all their 
food is roasted over the fire ; the only exception I saw was in the case 
of the leaves of an oleaginous plant which they boil as a vegetable in 
bamboos. We saw no evidenceof polygamy, and the probability is that 
it is not largely practised. From the inhabitants we saw, the women 
folk seemed less numerous than the men but this may have been 
owing to the warriors keeping them in the background. Children 
seemed fairly plentiful. The time of the men is principally occupied 
in clearing ground for gardens, hunting the pig, cassowary, and flying 
fox, building houses, making weapons, and cutting down sago trees. 
The women make all the sago — a continuous and exacting occupation 
—look after the gardens, do the cooking, and carry water required 
for household purposes in bamboos. They also hammer out the tapa 
cloth from the bark of a tree, and look after the rising generation. 
These bushmen are certainly not a nomadic people. Their 
buildings are substantial, and, in every instance, they had a consider- 
able garden and a number of village pigs. Their weapons consist of 
the bow and arrow, a heavy pig spear which is not used for throwing, 
and a man-killing club. Very rarely we saw stone clubs; these had 
probably Deen introduced from the coastal districts. The bow and 
arrow men wore plaited gauntlets from wrist to elbow on the right 
arm. The stone axe and adze are largely used. The natives do little 
carving except on their arrows (which are made of bamboos often 
tipped with bone or a cassowary’s claw), spears, and wooden clubs. 
They also carve out wooden bowls to hold water ; these have no 
ornamentation. The tribes on the western portion of the plateau 
seemed to be at war with each other during our visit ; they, were 
frequently met in full war paint ; with bundles of arrows and killing 
clubs; in one instance they informed us by signs that they wei'e on 
their way to tight a neighbouring tribe. Possibly, constant inter- 
necine strife keeps their numbers down, and accounts for the com- 
paratively sparse population, as the climate is bracing and healthy 
and the natives singularly free from disease and full of vigour. 
Their method of making fire is superior to the usual Papuan 
system. They get a piece of dry soft wood, split one end and insert 
2 . piece of tapa cloth, then taking a piece of cane, which they carry 
twisted round their waists, they place it under the wood on which 
they stand. Grasping each end of the cane, they pull it 
backwards vigorously ; when it has eaten halfway through the wood 
to the tapa cloth the heat generated is so great that the clbth 
smoulders and is blown into flame. The whole process is accom- 
plished in ten or fifteen seconds, I am informed that certain natives 
on the main range about Kagi adopt this system also; if so, it is 
interesting as possibly shewing some connection between them. 
With the exception of two large villages, all the natives we saw 
were split up into small tribes, and each community has one com- 
munal dwelling, varying in size, according to their numbers, which 
would probably range from ten or fifteen up to seventy or eighty. 
