I Found The People Here Very Nearly In A State Of Nature, And
Going Almost Naked.
The men wear their frizzly hair gathered into
a flat circular knot over the left temple, which has a very
knowing look, and in their ears cylinders of wood as thick as
one's finger, and coloured red at the ends.
Armlets and anklets
of woven grass or of silver, with necklaces of beads or of small
fruits, complete their attire. The women wear similar ornaments,
but have their hair loose. All are tall, with a dark brown skin,
and well marked Papuan physiognomy. There is an Amboyna
schoolmaster in the village, and a good number of children attend
school every morning. Such of the inhabitants as have become
Christians may be known by their wearing their hair loose, and
adopting to some extent the native Christian dress-trousers and a
loose shirt. Very few speak Malay, all these coast villages
having been recently formed by inducing natives to leave the
inaccessible interior. In all the central part of Ceram there new
remains only one populous village in the mountains. Towards the
east and the extreme west are a few others, with which exceptions
all the inhabitants of Ceram are collected on the coast. In the
northern and eastern districts they are mostly Mahometans, while
on the southwest coast, nearest Amboyna, they are nominal
Christians. In all this part of the Archipelago the Dutch make
very praiseworthy efforts to improve the condition of the
aborigines by establishing schoolmasters in every village (who
are mostly natives of Amboyna or Saparua, who have; been
instructed by the resident missionaries), and by employing native
vaccinators to prevent the ravages of smallpox. They also
encourage the settlement of Europeans, and the formation of new
plantations of cacao and coffee, one of the best means of raising
the condition of the natives, who thus obtain work at fair wages,
and have the opportunity of acquiring something of European
tastes and habits.
My collections here did not progress much better than at my
former station, except that butterflies were a little more
plentiful, and some very fine species were to be found in the
morning on the sea-beach, sitting so quietly on the wet sand that
they could be caught with the fingers. In this way I had many
fine specimens of Papilios brought me by the children. Beetles,
however, were scarce, and birds still more so, and I began to
think that the handsome species which I had so often heard were
found in Ceram must be entirely confined to the eastern extremity
of the island.
A few miles further worth, at the head of the Bay of Amahay, is
situated the village of Makariki, from whence there is a native
path quite across the island to the north coast. My friend Mr.
Rosenberg, whose acquaintance I had made at New Guinea, and who
was now the Government superintendent of all this part of Ceram,
returned from Wahai, on the north coast, after I had been three
weeks at Awaiya, and showed me some fine butterflies he had
obtained on the mountain streams in the interior.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 37 of 213
Words from 18781 to 19307
of 111511