NEW GUINEA NATIVES.

 IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC ACCOUNT.

By for the most important work which has yet appeared on the native races of Papua is "The Melanesians of New Guinea," by C. G. Seligman, M.D. (Cambridge: The University Press. Melbourne: Melville and Mullen). It is a volume of over 700 pages, plentifully illustrated from photographs and drawings. As the title indicates, the book deals with the Melanesian immigrants, who have occupied so much of the territory, and not with the original Papuans, who are now confined to the districts west of Cape Possession. Sixteen years have gone by since Dr. A. C. Haddon, F.R.S., first recognised that the eastern peoples had come into the country as the result of repeated immigrations. That is now felt to be the only theory that fits observed facts. There is a marked racial difference, in culture as well as in physical characteristics, between the relatively tall, dark-skinned, frizzly-haired inhabitants of the Torres Straits, Fly River, and neighbouring districts, and the smaller, lighter coloured tribes along the coast-line east wards and in the eastern archipelagos. The western race, to which exclusively Dr. Seligman assigns the name Papuan, was in Papua first. In the east of the territory it has been replaced by island immigrants, to whom he gives the name of Papuo-Melanesians, to mark their close affinity with the Melanesian peoples of Oceania. These Papuo-Melanesians form the subject of his book, and he endeavours to do for them what Howitt and Spencer and Gillen have done for the aboriginal tribes of Australia. They fall into two fairly well-defined divisions, eastern and western, which suggest two separate waves of immigration at two different periods.

The western division is of mixed blood. Its constituent tribes vary much in physique and culture, becoming more and more Papuan the further west they dwell. Evidently they are the product of an admixture of the dominant Melanesian invaders with Papuan aborigines. Many of them, though mainly Melanesian in build and character, speak Papuan languages. The eastern division is much more homogeneous in physical and cultural characteristics. It is almost purely Melanesian, and its tribes are doubtless descended from a more recent set of invaders, who came to Papua after the Papuans had been driven west or absorbed by earlier immigrants. The present distribution of the Papuan races suggests a close analogy between the course of the Melanesian invasion and that of Anglo-Saxon settlement in Britain. In the extreme west of Britain is a Celtic fringe, then comes a zone where Britons and Anglo-Saxons intermingled; while in the east of the island the stock is almost pure Anglo-Saxon. So in Papua, as we journey from east to west, we find first Melanesians, then Melanesians modified by inter-marriage with Papuans, and finally true Papuans. Dr. Seligman gives not only the distinguishing characters of the two main divisions, but detailed accounts of the variations from the normal division type, shown by groups of tribes, and even by single tribes. Most of his material was collected in 1904, on the Daniels ethnographical expedition, towards which, the Royal Society made a small grant. He has also used notes made during 1898, when he visited New Guinea an a member of the Cambridge anthropological expedition to Torres Straits. A great deal of information with a general interest can be dug out of his book, but the bulk of the detail, though invaluable to the anthropologist, makes but dry reading for the ordinary layman. It was not Dr. Seligman's purpose to write a popular description of the native races of Papua so much as an accurate scientific report of ethnographical facts about them. Some of the most striking and, to the anthropologist, interesting chapters in the volume are those devoted to initiation ceremonies, marriage customs, and the relations of the sexes, but such subjects cannot be discussed at length in an ordinary daily newspaper. They are suited only to technical books and journals which do not circulate so widely.

A typical Western Papuo-Melanesian tribe is the Koita. It still speaks a Papuan language acquired in early days by the invaders from the people of the land, but most of the males talk Motu as well, the Melanesian dialect of a neighbouring tribe to which the Koita is akin. The Koita country is about Port Moresby, and the tribe has been for a long time, in contact with Europeans. Consequently its manners and customs are less in doubt than those of tribes more remote from settlement. It has no king or paramount chiefs, but each clan-group of families has a headman, whose office is usually hereditary in the direct line, though a headman's sister's son would succeed him it he were childless, or if his eldest son were too young. Among the customs of the tribe are ear-piercing and nose boring, operations earned out during childhood. Tattooing, except as a mark of distinction, is limited to the female sex. By the time she marries the whole body of a Koita woman is covered with tattoo designs. Although there is a good deal of variation in the amount of skin surface covered in different girls of the same age, there is a fixed order in which the parts of the body are tattooed. Dr. Seligman speaks of "the really beautiful harmony which exists between the tattoo patterns and the copper coloured skin into which they are pricked." The Koita have no deity or superior power towards whom they may feel a sense of responsibility. Even the clan chiefs can decide nothing without the assent of the elders of the community. Such moral ideas as the people possess are communal, and not individual. For instance, homicide and theft are not reprehensible in themselves, but only become so when directed against members of the tribe or against outsiders strong enough to avenge themselves upon it. Both sexes make excellent parents. The men treat their wives well, and the wives are generally faithful, though unmarried boys and girls are allowed to act very much as they please in their relations. Formerly the Koita knew nothing of gambling. Nothing in the nature of wagering existed among them. Yet nowadays all the young men and many of the middle aged men are inveterate gamblers, willing to stake, not only the whole of their wages, but their personal properly. Their one method of gambling is to bet on the colour or suit of a card turned up from a pack. They will spend whole nights at this.

The most characteristic feature of social organisation among the Massim, or Eastern Papuo-Melanesians, is a peculiar form of totemism, with descent in the maternal line. No man marries a girl in his father's totem, nor would he eat or destroy his father's totem birds. These people also have an intense horror of a dead father, and of all that concerned him. A man would fight if the name of his dead father or paternal uncle were mentioned in his presence. Dr. Seligman mentions, in illustration of this honor, an incident which befell Mr. A. H. Dunning at a Massim hamlet. He wanted to photograph certain native baskets, but found the light in the hamlet unsatisfactory. So, taking baskets in one hand and camera in the other, he proceeded to look for a suitable place. As he went along he passed a heap of stones on which was some vegetation. At once an outcry was made by the natives who had lent the baskets. It appeared that Mr. Dunning had taken the baskets close to the grave of the father of the man who owned one of the best. This man absolutely refused to take the basket back, saying that if food were put into it, and if he afterwards ate of such food, he would certainly die in consequence. Until put down by the Government, cannibalism existed all over the southern Massim district. In the vast majority of cases the eating of human flesh was part of the solemn act of revenge on the enemies of the community, but sometimes the lust for human flesh would lead a clan or tribe to attack visitors. In 1805 the Court of Samarai sentenced a mother and two daughters for desecrating the grave of the elder daughter's infant. They had dug up the body and eaten it. Their excuse was that it was a custom. With regard to morals among the Massim Dr 'Seligman suggests that wives are less faithful now that the husband cannot kill an erring wife or her lover without coming into conflict with the Government.

An enormous amount of careful investigation must have gone to the making of this book, but we must own to some disappointment that its wealth of knowledge has not been more attractively presented. None but experts will toil through its pages and yet it contains much that might have been made pleasant reading for the ordinary intelligent person.

Argus (Melbourne, Vic. ), Saturday 14 May 1910,http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article10856137