14 SISSANO. 
In Sissano I saw a half-albino woman (skin color about 21-22), but she 
was so shy that I was unable to observe the color of her eyes and the hair, 
which she wore under a hat. (Page 104.) 
A Sissano chief lost one after another all five of his sons in the everlasting 
feuds with the neighboring Waropu. (Page 132.) 
When in 1909 I sojourned with the Sissano, as yet uninfluenced by civili- 
zation in their remoteness near the Dutch border, I had the fortune to be an 
eye-witness of at least some of the circumstances of the circumcision feast. 
The feast-magic had already lasted for five months; that is to say, the men in 
particular had given up .work, and the women, who commonly busied them- 
selves, among other things, with pottery making, had declared a holiday. The 
case was particularly a hardship for my friend Schulz, for during that time 
he could not get a kilo of copra; the townsfolk always assured him that all 
would be well at the end of the feast, which they must await in the circum- 
stances. This end was clearly yet remote, for the boys had only just been 
circumcised and after the actual operation months must elapse before they 
return to their towns. 
The circumcision candidates, fourteen boys and young lads between the ages 
of some six to twenty years, lived part of the time on a hill across the lagoon 
at a considerable distance from the settlements, and part of the time in the 
neighborhood of the towns near the beach, where an inclosure had been built 
for them in the thick bush. On the side toward the sea this inclosure was 
hedged with palm leaves at the edge of the bush, so that the youngsters, who 
were under the guardianship of two fully grown men, were screened from 
the glances of the women passing along the beach. On the place thus inclosed 
were several shabby huts, mere roof shelters from the rain. ‘The circumcision 
candidates were daubed from head to foot with yellow and went completely 
naked. The operation had been performed on them only a few days earlier 
and the wounds were not yet healed; it amounted to no more than a com- 
paratively insignificant incision in the foreskin. Every evening the blowing of 
the great balum flutes resounded, whose purpose was to give warning to the 
women that a dangerous spirit was abroad. After the circumcision feast the 
lad is considered adult and takes part in the councils of the men. (Page 157.) 
In the towns of Malol, Arép, and Sér, between Berlinhafen and the Dutch 
border, there is a custom that every unmarried villager must make his condi- 
tion visible from a distance by wearing the bachelor belt of rattan. In Sissano 
also some of the unmarried men wear the bachelor belt. (Page 159.) 
In Sissano the corpses of men and women are buried under the women 
houses, never under the men houses. At the head and foot of the body they 
stick a post in the earth and keep a small fire burning over the grave for about 
a month. A short time earlier an old man had died there whose house had 
already fallen down and who had passed the last years of his life in the neigh- 
boring house of some of his kin. In this case they buried him between the yet 
standing pillars of his old house and spread over the grave a roof shelter. 
This fashion of burial is not usual in Sissano. A boy who died in Sissano at 
the beginning of 1909 was buried under the house in which he had lived. 
But they had cut the head off and buried it under another house. When some 
months later I dug it up I found the bonesin the vicinity of the foramen magnum 
broken away, which showed that the brain had been taken out. (Page 163.) 
The Sissano preserve in their spirit houses a row of skulls, apparently 
those of chiefs and other prominent men. Although they hold these skulls 
in high honor, they show not the slightest respect for others. As soon as 
they saw that I was paying a good price for skulls they dug up the graves 
under their houses in every direction in order to sell the mortal remains of 
