NEW GUINEA AND THE PAPUANS 
405 
explanation seems to be that it was an attempt to 
imitate the smoke of firearms, and has been given up 
now that its uselessness has been discovered. 
Although a few of the coast people have adopted a 
nominal Islamism, and the English missionaries have 
laboured hard, as have a 
handful of their Dutch 
brethren in Geelvink Bay, 
to win converts to Chris¬ 
tianity, the vast bulk of the 
Papuans are pagan. Their 
religion, if such a term can 
be used, consists mainly in 
a sort of nature-worship—a 
belief in spirits of the woods 
and rocks and the sea, almost 
all of which are of a male¬ 
volent disposition. The spirits 
of the dead wander restless 
until some abiding-place is 
prepared for them; hence on 
the death of any person the 
relatives proceed to make a 
wooden image as an earthly 
habitation for his ghost. 
This image, or Jcorowaar , as 
it is termed by the Nufoor 
Papuans, is often carved 
with considerable artistic skill, and on its completion 
a dance is always held. A kind of ancestor-worship 
is found in Dorei Bay and other places, large temples 
with caryatid piles being constructed to hold the 
images of the Mon or “ first people/’ and a very similar 
custom is found in New Britain. Definite notions 
KOROWAAR. 
