A Few
Energetic And Devoted Men Acting In This Way Might Probably
Effect A Decided Moral Improvement On The Lowest
Savage tribes,
whereas trading missionaries, teaching what Jesus said, but not
doing as He did, can scarcely be expected to
Do more than give
them a very little of the superficial varnish of religion.
Dorey harbour is in a fine bay, at one extremity of which an
elevated point juts out, and, with two or three small islands,
forms a sheltered anchorage. The only vessel it contained when we
arrived was a Dutch brig, laden with coals for the use of a war-
steamer, which was expected daily, on an exploring expedition
along the coasts of New Guinea, for the purpose of fixing on a
locality for a colony. In the evening we paid it a visit, and
landed at the village of Dorey, to look out for a place where I
could build my house. Mr. Otto also made arrangements for me with
some of the native chiefs, to send men to cut wood, rattans, and
bamboo the next day.
The villages of Mansinam and Dorey presented some features quite
new to me. The houses all stand completely in the water, and are
reached by long rude bridges. They are very low, with the roof
shaped like a large boat, bottom upwards. The posts which support
the houses, bridges, and platforms are small crooked sticks,
placed without any regularity, and looking as if they were
tumbling down. The floors are also formed of sticks, equally
irregular, and so loose and far apart that I found it almost
impossible to walls on them. The walls consist of bits of boards,
old boats, rotten mats, attaps, and palm-leaves, stuck in anyhow
here and there, and having altogether the most wretched and
dilapidated appearance it is possible to conceive. Under the
eaves of many of the houses hang human skulls, the trophies of
their battles with the savage Arfaks of the interior, who often
come to attack them. A large boat-shaped council-house is
supported on larger posts, each of which is grossly carved to
represent a naked male or female human figure, and other carvings
still more revolting are placed upon the platform before the
entrance. The view of an ancient lake-dweller's village, given as
the frontispiece of Sir Charles Lyell's "Antiquity of Man," is
chiefly founded on a sketch of this very village of Dorey; but
the extreme regularity of the structures there depicted has no
place in the original, any more than it probably had in the
actual lake-villages.
The people who inhabit these miserable huts are very similar to
the Ke and Aru islanders, and many of them are very handsome,
being tall and well-made, with well-cut features and large
aquiline noses. Their colour is a deep brown, often approaching
closely to black, and the fine mop-like heads of frizzly hair
appear to be more common than elsewhere, and are considered a
great ornament, a long six-pronged bamboo fork being kept stuck
in them to serve the purpose of a comb; and this is assiduously
used at idle moments to keep the densely growing mass from
becoming matted and tangled.
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