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. The majority have short woolly hair,
which does not seem capable of an equally luxuriant development.
A growth of hair somewhat similar to this, and almost as
abundant, is found among the half-breeds between the Indian and
Negro in South America. Can this be an indication that the
Papuans are a mixed race?
For the first three days after our arrival I was fully occupied
from morning to night building a house, with the assistance of a
dozen Papuans and my own men. It was immense trouble to get our
labourers to work, as scarcely one of them could speak a word of
Malay; and it was only by the most energetic gesticulations, and
going through a regular pantomime of what was wanted, that we
could get them to do anything. If we made them understand that a
few more poles were required, which two could have easily cut,
six or eight would insist upon going together, although we needed
their assistance in other things.
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