All Communication Was Carried On With Them
By Signs - The Dorey Interpreter, Who Accompanied The Steamer,
Being Unable To Understand A Word Of Their Language.
No new birds
or animals were obtained, but in their ornaments the feathers of
Paradise birds were seen, showing, as might be expected, that
these birds range far in this direction, and probably all over
New Guinea.
It is curious that a rudimental love of art should co-exist with
such a very low state of civilization. The people of Dorey are
great carvers and painters. The outsides of the houses, wherever
there is a plank, are covered with rude yet characteristic
figures. The high-peaked prows of their boats are ornamented with
masses of open filagree work, cut out of solid blocks of wood,
and often of very tasteful design, As a figurehead, or pinnacle,
there is often a human figure, with a head of cassowary feathers
to imitate the Papuan "mop." The floats of their fishing-lines,
the wooden beaters used in tempering the clay for their pottery,
their tobacco-boxes, and other household articles, are covered
with carving of tasteful and often elegant design. Did we not
already know that such taste and skill are compatible with utter
barbarism, we could hardly believe that the same people are, in
other matters, utterly wanting in all sense of order, comfort, or
decency. Yet such is the case. They live in the most miserable,
crazy, and filthy hovels, which are utterly destitute of anything
that can be called furniture; not a stool, or bench, or board is
seen in them, no brush seems to be known, and the clothes they
wear are often filthy bark, or rags, or sacking. Along the paths
where they daily pass to and from their provision grounds, not an
overhanging bough or straggling briar ever seems to he cut, so
that you have to brush through a rank vegetation, creep under
fallen trees and spiny creepers, and wade through pools of mud
and mire, which cannot dry up because the sun is not allowed to
penetrate. Their food is almost wholly roots and vegetables, with
fish or game only as an occasional luxury, and they are
consequently very subject to various skin diseases, the children
especially being often miserable-looking objects, blotched all
over with eruptions and sores. If these people are not savages,
where shall we find any? Yet they have all a decided love for the
fine arts, and spend their leisure time in executing works whose
good taste and elegance would often be admired in our schools of
design!
During the latter part of my stay in New Guinea the weather was
very wet, my only shooter was ill, and birds became scarce, so
that my only resource was insect-hunting. I worked very hard
every hour of fine weather, and daily obtained a number of new
species. Every dead tree and fallen log was searched and searched
again; and among the dry and rotting leaves, which still hung on
certain trees which had been cut down, I found an abundant
harvest of minute Coleoptera.
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