446 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
for adorning the hair, or are tucked beneath the armlets. 
Tattooing is less common than the patterns produced 
in raised scars by the use of the nioxa. 
Dug-out canoes, and the system of outrigging so 
widely used in the East Indian Archipelago, are not very 
frequently seen, the boats being usually built of planks. 
The large war-canoes, 40 or 50 feet in length, are highly 
decorated with carving, and with inlaid shells, paint, and 
tassels of dyed pandanus leaves, and have very high 
upturned prows. The houses vary much in construction, 
but most are of small size with a gable roof. Those of 
the chiefs are larger. As a rule they are not built upon 
piles. The “ tambu -'house ” is a sort of club, correspond¬ 
ing to the large houses for young men in New Guinea and 
some parts of Sumatra. The war-canoes are also kept 
here, and the ashes of the chiefs; the bodies of most of 
those of that rank being cremated, while ordinary persons 
are generally buried at sea. 
Hereditary chiefs exist in almost every tribe. Head¬ 
hunting is general, and cannibalism is widely practised. 
Captain Redlick in 1872 saw a human body cooked 
whole, and Mr. Perry, an English resident at Makira, told 
him that he had seen twenty such ready to be served up 
at one time. Polygamy prevails, and some chiefs have 
as many as eighty or a hundred wives. The people are 
agricultural, cultivating the banana, taro, and sweet 
potato. They are also good fishermen, and not only 
make good nets, but have many exceedingly ingenious 
methods of taking fish. The weapons in use in the group 
are bows and arrows, clubs, spears, and tomahawks, and 
the wicker shields which are carried are often beautifully 
ornamented with shell-work. 
It will thus be seen that the Solomon islanders closely 
resemble the New Guinea Papuans, both in manners 
