Geographical Notes

Abstract

UNDER the title of “Naturalists in the North West,” a Sydney paper has recently published some interesting articles, the last of which relates to Mr. Miclucho-Maclay's account of the manners and customs of what he calls the Papuans of the Maclay coast. Their food consists mainly of vegetable products, but they have also some animal food, though it is somewhat scarce. Many of their domestic implements are of a very primitive nature; a flat splint of kangaroo bone forms a knife, of which a large kind is made from a smooth shell; axes are made sometimes of agate, and a few large ones, 3 inches wide, are kept as public property in each village. The dress of these natives is the mal, a piece of cloth prepared like the tapas of the Polynesians, from the bark of trees. The men all carry the jambi and the gun, to supply the want of pockets, the former being a bag suspended from the neck, and containing tobacco, and the latter one woven of different coloured threads, and ornamented with shells. The gun is slung over the left shoulder, and contains the box of lime, betel-nut, knives, bamboo boxes of red and black dyes, The natives also wear bracelets of bark or grass above the elbows, into which the dougan is thrust, and implements or weapons are also placed in the bangles on their legs. Wild boar's tusks are highly prized as manly ornaments to be worn on the chest, and ear-rings of tortoise-shell, bamboo, stones, or flowers, are all considered the proper adornment of the men. The women do not decorate themselves to the same extent, but they have cords from the upper part of one ear passing over the forehead to the other, and also bunches of dogs' teeth hanging from the lobes of the ears; they carry two bags, in one of which they place provisions and in the other their young infants or some pet pigs or puppies. Their huts and villages are situated in groups round clearings in the forest, and the plantations are usually at some distance. They have three sorts of housesfor the single people, the families, and a common house, principally used by the bachelors. These habitations do not resemble the pile-dwellings of the Western Papuans, and are only slightly raised above the ground. In each cluster of huts is a gong, like a boat raised on trestles, which, when struck in the right place, emits so great a volume of sound that it can be heard at a distance of six miles. It may be mentioned that these people have no means of obtaining fire, and frequently have to go to the hill tribes, who are acquainted with a cumbersome mode of friction by which they obtain a light.