THE PYGMY QUESTION
By Dr. A. C. HADDON, F.R.S.
Pygmies, as their name implies, are very short men, and the first question to decide is whether this short stature is normal or merely a dwarfing due to unfavourable environment. Although stature cannot be taken as a trustworthy criterion of race, since it is very variable within certain limits among most races, there are certain peoples who may be described as normally tall, medium, or short. The average human stature appears to be about 1·675 m. (5 ft. 6 ins.). Those peoples who are 1·725 (5 ft. 8 ins.) or more in height are said to be tall, those below 1·625 m. (5 ft. 4 ins.) are short, while those who fall below 1·5 m. (4 ft. 11 ins.) are now usually termed pygmies. One has only to turn to the investigations of the Dordogne district by Collignon and others to see how profoundly la misère can affect the stature of a population living under adverse conditions, for example in the canton of Saint Mathieu there are 8·8 per cent. with a stature below 1·5 m. But when one finds within one area, as in the East Indian region, distinct peoples of medium, short and pygmy stature, living under conditions which appear to be very similar, one is inclined to suspect a racial difference between them, and the suspicion becomes confirmed if we find other characters associated with pygmy stature.
Pygmy peoples are widely distributed in Central Africa, but these Negrillos, as they are often termed, do not concern us now.
Asiatic pygmies have long been known, but it is only comparatively recently that they have been studied seriously, and even now there remains much to be discovered about them. There are two main stocks on the eastern border of the Indian Ocean, who have a very short stature and are respectively characterised by curly or wavy hair and by hair that grows in close small spirals—the so-called woolly hair.
(i.) The Sakai or Senoi of the southern portion of the Malay Peninsula are typical examples of the former stock, their average stature is slightly above the pygmy limit, but they need not detain us longer as they belong to a different race of mankind from the woolly-haired stock. It may be mentioned however that cymotrichous (curly-haired), dolichocephalic (narrow-headed), dark-skinned peoples of very short stature, racially akin to the Sakai, have been found in East Sumatra and in Celebes (Toala) more or less mixed with alien blood; and quite recently Moszkowski, as will be mentioned later, has suggested that the islands of Geelvink Bay, Netherlands New Guinea, were originally inhabited by the same stock. All these peoples together with the Vedda and some jungle tribes of the Deccan are now regarded as remnants of a once widely distributed race to which the term Pre-Dravidian has been applied; it is also believed by many students that the chief element in the Australians is of similar origin.
(ii.) For a long time it has been known that there are three groups of ulotrichous (woolly-haired), brachycephalic (broad-headed), dark-skinned, pygmy peoples inhabiting respectively the Andaman Islands, the Malay Peninsula and the Philippines; to this race the name Negrito is universally applied. We can now include in it a fourth element from New Guinea. The physical characters of these several groups may be summarised as follows:
1. The Andamanese, who are sometimes erroneously called Mincopies, inhabit the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. Their head hair is extremely frizzly (woolly), fine in texture, lustreless and seldom more than two or three inches long, or five inches when untwisted, its colour varies between black, greyish black, and sooty, the last perhaps predominating. Hair only occasionally grows on the face and then but scantily. There is little or no hair over the surface of the body. The skin has several shades of colour between bronze or dark copper, sooty, and black, the predominating colour being a dull leaden hue like that of a black-leaded stove. The average stature of 48 males is 1·492 m. (4 ft. 10-3/4 ins.), the extremes being 1·365 m. (4 ft. 5-3/4 ins.) and 1·632 m. (5 ft. 4-1/4 ins.). The head is moderately brachycephalic, the average cranial index (i.e. the ratio of the breadth to the length, the length being taken as 100) in male skulls is 81, thus the cephalic index of the living would be about 83. The features may be described as: face broad at the cheek-bones; eyes prominent; nose much sunken at the root, straight and small; lips full but not everted; chin small; the jaws do not project.
2. The Semang live in the central region of the Malay Peninsula, some of them are known under the names of Udai, Pangan, Hami and Semán. The hair of the head is short, universally woolly, and black. Skeat says it is of a brownish black, not a bluish black like that of the Malays, and Martin alludes to a reddish shimmer when light falls on it, but says there is not a brownish shimmer as in the Sakai. Hair is rare and scanty on face and body. Skeat describes the skin colour as dark chocolate brown approximating in some Kedah Negritos to glossy black, and Martin says the skin of the chest is dark brown with reddish tinges, while that of the face is mainly dark brown, the remainder being medium brown, with reddish or pure brown tinges. The data for the stature are not very satisfactory, the best are a series of 17 males by Annandale and Robinson, the average being 1·528 m. (5 ft. 0-1/4 in.), with extreme, of 1·372 m. (4 ft. 6 ins.) and 1·604 (5 ft. 3 ins.). The average cephalic index is about 78 or 79, the extremes ranging from about 74 to about 84. The Semang are thus mesaticephalic on the average. According to Skeat the face is round; the forehead rounded, narrow and projecting, or as it were “swollen”; the nose short and flattened, the nostrils much distended, the breadth remarkably great, five adult males having an average nasal index of 101·2, the 20 measured by Annandale and Robinson varied from 81·3 to 108·8 with an average of 97·1, but four men measured by Martin had an average index of 83·5. The cheek-bones are broad; jaws often protrude slightly; lips not as a rule thick, Martin remarks that very characteristic of both the Semang and the Sakai is the great thickening of the integumental part of the upper lip, the whole mouth region projecting from the lower edge of the nose; this convexity occurs in 70 per cent., and is well shown in his photographs.
3. The Aeta live in the mountainous districts of the larger islands and in some of the smaller islands of the Philippines. It is convenient to retain this name for the variously named groups of Philippine Negritos, many of whom show admixture with other peoples. The hair of the head is universally woolly except when mixture may be suspected or is known; Reed says it is uniformly of a dirty black colour, sometimes sunburnt on the top to reddish brown; Worcester describes it as usually black but it may be reddish brown, and Meyer as a dark seal-brown to black. Reed says that the beard is very scanty but all adult males have some and that there is very little body hair, but Worcester states that the men often have abundant beards and a thick growth of hair on the arms, chest and legs. The skin is described as being of a dark chocolate brown, rather than black, with a yellowish tinge on the exposed parts (Reed), sooty black (Sawyer), or dark, sooty brown (Worcester). The average stature of 48 men is 1·463 m. (4 ft. 9-1/2 ins.), ranging from 1·282 m. (4 ft. 2-1/2 ins.) to 1·6 m. (5 ft. 3 ins.), but some of these were not pure breeds (Reed); other observations also show a considerable range in height. The cephalic index of 16 males averages 82·2, ranging from 78·8 to 92·3, ten range between 80 and 85 (Reed). Features: typically the nose is broad, flat, bridgeless, with prominent arched alæ and nostrils invariably visible from the front. Of 76 persons measured by Reed 4 males and 3 females had nasal indices below 89, 10 and 3 of 90-99, 20 and 13 of 100-109, 7 and 7 of 110-119, 6 and 3 above 120; the median of the males is 102, the extremes being 83·3 and 125, the median of the females is 105, their extremes being 79·5 and 140·7; in other words they are extremely platyrhine. The eyes are round. The lips are moderately thick, but not protruding. A somewhat pronounced convexity is sometimes seen between the upper lip and the nose in the photographs of Meyer’s and Folkmar’s Albums. Meyer says the projecting jaw gives an ape-like appearance to the face, but Reed says the Aeta have practically no prognathism, a statement which is borne out by his and Folkmar’s photographs.
4. The discovery of pygmies in Netherlands New Guinea by the Expedition has drawn public attention to a problem of perennial interest to ethnologists. Nearly twenty-five years ago Sir William Flower stated, “that it (the Negrito race) has contributed considerably to form the population of New Guinea is unquestionable. In many parts of that great island, small round-headed tribes live more or less distinct from the larger and longer-headed people who make up the bulk of the population.” (Lecture at the Royal Institution, April 13, 1888, reprinted in Essays on Museums, 1898, p. 302.) No further information is given, nor are his authorities mentioned. Perhaps he was alluding to the following statement by de Quatrefages, “L’extension des Négritos en Mélanésie est bien plus considérable. Ici leurs tribus sont mêlées et juxtaposées à celles des Papouas probablement dans toute la Nouvelle Guinée” (Rev. d’Ethn., 1882, p. 185); subsequently he wrote, “La confusion regrettable (namely the confusion of the brachycephalic Negrito-Papuans with the dolichocephalic Papuans, of which Earl, Wallace, Meyer and others have been guilty) est cause que l’on n’a pas recherché les traits differentiels qui peuvent distinguer les Negritos-Papous des vrais Papouas au point de vue de l’état social, des mœurs, des croyances, des industries.” (Les Pygmées, 1887, p. 97, English Translation, 1895, p. 62.) Dr. A. B. Meyer, from whose essay these quotations have been taken, adds, “No, the confusion has not been in this case in the heads of the travellers; a Negritic race, side by side with the Papuan race, nobody has been able to discover, just because it does not exist, and it does not exist because the Papuan race, in spite of its variability, is on the one hand a uniform race, and on the other as good as identical with the Negritos.” (The Distribution of the Negritos, 1899, p. 85.) When reviewing this essay in Nature (Sept. 7, 1899, p. 433), I stated that I was inclined to adopt the view that the various types exhibited by the natives of New Guinea “point to a crossing of different elements,” and do not “simply reveal the variability of the race,” as Dr. Meyer provisionally believed. While agreeing with Dr. Meyer that the “different conditions of existence” (p. 80) in New Guinea probably have reacted on the physical characters of the natives (about which, however, we have extremely little precise information), we have now sufficient evidence to prove that the indigenous or true Papuan population has been modified in places by intrusions from elsewhere, and of late years data have been accumulating which point to the existence of a pygmy population. Shortly before his death, Dr. Meyer drew my attention to a more recent statement of his views, in which he says, “Although I formerly stated (Negritos, p. 87) that the question whether the Papuans, i.e. the inhabitants of New Guinea, are a uniform race with a wide range of variation or a mixed race is not yet ripe for pronouncement, I am now more inclined, after Mr. Ray’s discovery of the Papuan linguistic family, to look upon them as a mixed race of ‘Negritos’ and Malays in the wider sense. I am eagerly looking forward to the exploration of the interior of that great island, for may it not be possible there to discover the Negrito element in that old and more constant form in which it persists in the Philippines, Andamans, and in Malakka.” (Globus, XCIV., 1908, p. 192.) This later view appears to me to be less tenable than his earlier one, as it is difficult to see how a mixture of pygmy, woolly-haired brachycephals with short, straight-haired brachycephals (Malays) could give rise to the taller, woolly-haired dolichocephalic Papuans.
The racial history of New Guinea has proved to be unexpectedly complicated. We are now justified in recognising at least two indigenous elements, the Negrito and Papuan; the effect of the island populations to the east has not yet been determined, but in the south-west two immigrations at least from Melanesia have taken place, which, with Seligmann, we may term Papuo-Melanesian. (Journ. R. Anth. Inst., XXXIX. 1909, pp. 246, 315; and The Melanesians of Brit. New Guinea, 1910.) It is, however, almost certain that future researches will reveal that the problem is not so simple as that just indicated.
Writing in 1902, Dr. Weule states (Globus, LXXXII. p. 247) that he has no further doubts as to the existence of pygmies in New Guinea, though it is not yet clear whether they live in definite groups or as scattered remnants among the taller peoples. He points out that information as to the pygmies was of necessity scanty, as expeditions had always followed the course of rivers where encounter with them might least be expected, since they are for the most part mountain people. Through the activity of Sir William MacGregor and others, British New Guinea is “the least unknown” part of the whole island; there is therefore more likelihood of pygmy peoples being discovered in German or Netherlands New Guinea, the latter being entirely a terra incognita from the geographical standpoint. Dr. Weule’s article contains various references to previous literature on the pygmy question, and three photographs of pygmies from the middle Ramu are reproduced, which show three men well under 142 cm. (4 ft. 8-3/4 ins.) in height.
The later history of the discovery of a pygmy substratum in the population of parts of New Guinea is as follows:—
Dr. M. Krieger had visited the Sattelberg and the neighbourhood of Simbang where he heard reports of dwarfs from natives, but no European had seen them (Neu Guinea, 1899, p. 143); subsequently Dr. R. Pöch stayed from December 1904 to February 1905 in the Kai area, which lies inland from Finschhafen in German New Guinea. In the Mitt. aus den deutschen Schutzgebieten, 1907, he writes (p. 225): “During the first part of the time I remained chiefly on the Sattelberg itself, and observed and measured the various Kai frequenting the Mission Station. In them I became acquainted with a mountain tribe entirely different from the coast peoples previously visited. In fifty men I found the average height to be 152·5 cm. (5 ft.); the skulls are, as a rule, mesocephalic to brachycephalic. Towards the coast (Jabim) dolichocephaly becomes more usual and the type also changes. Very small people are not infrequently met with among the Kai.” Among 300 adult males he found twelve ranging from 133 to 145·6 cm. (4 ft. 4-1/2 ins. to 4 ft. 9-1/4 ins.). “For the present,” he adds, “it cannot be determined whether this is merely a variation in stature or whether we have here survivals of an older smaller race not yet entirely merged in the Kai” (cf. also Sitzungsber. der Anth. Gesellschaft in Wien, 1905, pp. 40 ff.). In the Zeitschr. f. Ethnol. XXXIX., 1907, p. 384, he states that on the north coast of British New Guinea and in Normanby Island he often came across very small people. Dr. O. Reche, in describing a journey up the Kaiserin-Augusta river, says that, “the population consists of three clearly distinguishable types or races, two of which have long, very narrow skulls, and one a short broad skull. Inland from the river bank there seems to be in addition to these a pygmy-like people of small growth; at all events, I found in some of the villages situated on the upper river, among other skulls, some which were remarkably small and of a special type, and which must have been taken from enemies living further inland.” (Globus, XCVII. 1910, p. 286.)
Neuhauss studied the Sattelberg natives and is very certain that a pygmy element occurs there. He notes the stockiness of certain individuals, who have a long powerful trunk and short limbs, whereas the Papuans are lean and slender; the shortest man measured by him was 1·355 m. (4 ft. 5-1/2 ins.). Again, the cephalic index of 260 Papuans averages 76·8, while that of thirty-two short individuals averages 78·8, and on the Sattelberg 79·7, some even ranging from 83-84·6. He also noticed that the ears were short, wide and without lobe; the hands and feet were unusually small. Von Luschan draws attention to the convexity of the whole upper lip area as in African pygmies. Neuhauss insists that the pygmies are almost merged into the rest of the population, and that their low stature is not due to poor conditions. (Zs. f. Ethnol. XLIII., 1911, p. 280.)
Dr. M. Moszkowski found that in Geelvink Bay the hair is not always ulotrichous (woolly), as is usual with Papuans, especially on Biak and Padeido Islands the hair often recalls the cymotrichous (curly) hair of Veddas. Other points of resemblance with wild tribes of Further Asia are:—A very dainty graceful bone-structure, small hands and feet, relatively short limbs compared to the trunk, low stature, few being above 156 cm. and most below 150 cm. (4 ft. 11 ins.), and now and then the characteristic convex upper lip of the wild tribes (Zs. f. Ethnol. XLIII. 1911, pp. 317, 318). On these grounds Moszkowski inclines to think that the islands of Geelvink Bay were originally peopled by pre-Malayan wild tribes allied to the Vedda, Sakai, Toala, etc., and thus the present population is the result of crossing between these and immigrant Melanesians; true Malays came later. Moszkowski has not yet published any head measurements of these interesting people, and the evidence is insufficient to decide whether this is a Pre-Dravidian or a Negrito element in the population of these islands, the curly character of the hair may be due as elsewhere in New Guinea to racial mixture; the photograph of a “Vedda-type” from Padeido island is by no means convincing (l.c. p. 318).
Finally Guppy, Ribbe and Rascher report the occurrence of very short people in the interior of the larger islands of the Bismarck Archipelago and of the Solomon Islands; recently Thurnwald refers to very small people in the mountainous interior of Bougainville who speak a non-Melanesian language, one man from Mari mountain had a stature of 1·39 m. (4 ft. 6-1/2 ins.). In the mountains the mixed population consists of types recalling the Solomon Islanders and “representatives of a small short-legged, broad-faced, short-skulled, very hairy, wide-nosed people.” (Zs. f. Ethnol. XLII. 1910, p. 109.)
Discussing the pygmies of Melanesia von Luschan referred in 1910 (Zs. f. Ethnol. XLII., p. 939) to bones brought a century ago from the Admiralty Islands which must have belonged to individuals 1·32-1·35 m. (4 ft. 4 ins.-4 ft. 5 ins.) in stature; it is unlikely that the type persists, though Moseley mentions an unusually short man, a little over 5 ft. (Journ. Anth. Inst. 1877, p. 384). In the collection made by the German Marine Expedition there are a number of extremely small skulls from New Ireland, which von Luschan is convinced belong to pygmies. Finsch brought from New Britain over thirty years ago the smallest known skull of a normal adult person; it came from the S.W. coast of Gazelle Peninsula. Like four other extremely small feminine skulls from New Britain this one is dolichocephalic (ceph. index 73). Von Luschan is of opinion that the small people of Melanesia represent an older stratum of population than their tall neighbours.
While other travellers have come across what is now accepted as a pygmy element in the population, the members of this Expedition have for the first time proved the existence of a pygmy people, known as the Tapiro, who may be regarded as predominantly Negritos. The hair is short, woolly and black, but seemed brown in two or three cases, there is a good deal of hair on the face and of short downy hair scattered about the body. The skin is of a lighter colour than that of the neighbouring Papuans, some individuals being almost yellow. The stature averages 1·449 m. (4 ft. 9 ins.), ranging from 1·326 m. (4 ft. 4-1/4 ins.) to 1·529 m. (5 ft. 0-1/4in.). The cephalic index averages 79·5, varying from 66·9 to 85·1. Features: The nose is straight and though described as “very wide at the nostrils,” the mean of the indices is only 83, the extremes being 65·5 to 94. The eyes are noticeably larger and rounder than those of Papuans. “The upper lip of many of the men is long and curiously convex.”
At the same time that the Expedition discovered pygmies in Netherlands New Guinea, Mr. R. W. Williamson was investigating the Mafulu, a mountain people on the upper waters of the Angabunga river in the Mekeo District. He has shown (The Mafulu Mountain People of British New Guinea, 1912) that in all probability these and some neighbouring tribes are a mixture of Negritos, Papuans and Papuo-Melanesians. Their invariably woolly hair is generally dark brown, often quite dark, approaching to black and sometimes perhaps quite black, but frequently it is lighter and often not what we in Europe should call dark; a beard and moustache are quite unusual. The skin is dark sooty-brown. The average stature is 1·551 m. (5 ft. 1 in.) ranging from 1·47 m. (4 ft. 10 ins.) to 1·63 m. (5 ft. 4 ins.). They are fairly strong and muscular, but rather slender and slight in development. The average cephalic index is 80 and ranges from 74·7 to 86·8. Features: The average nasal index is 84·3, the extremes being 71·4 and 100. The eyes are dark brown and very bright. The lips are fine and delicate.
It is worth noting that Pöch had in 1906 measured two Fergusson Island men with statures 1·403 and 1·425 m. (4 ft. 7-1/4 ins., 4 ft. 8 ins.), who told him that “all the people in that tribe were as small or smaller.” (Zs. f. Ethnol. XLII. 1910, p. 941.)
On reading through the brief synopses which I have given it is apparent that, with the possible exception of the Andamanese, each of the Negrito peoples shows considerable diversity in its physical characters and this is more evident when more detailed accounts and photographs are studied. There appears to be sufficient evidence to show that a very ancient ulotrichous, low brachycephalic, pygmy population once extended over the Malay Peninsula and a great part (at least) of Melanesia and New Guinea, but the existing groups do not appear to be homogeneous judging from the diversity in stature, head index and nasal index. Stature, as has already been stated, is always recognised as subject to considerable variation, but the bulk of the measurements of these peoples fall below 1·5 m., and therefore indicate a predominant very short population. The head indices mainly show low brachycephaly; the occasional very low indices may be due either to a Pre-Dravidian mixture or in New Guinea, at all events, to a Papuan strain. The former existence of a Pre-Dravidian stock in New Guinea is highly probable, nor must it be overlooked that there may have been a hitherto undescribed pygmy or very short dolichocephalic ulotrichous stock in New Guinea and Melanesia. The nasal index of these Negrito peoples is very suggestive of racial complexity. Judging from photographs, in the absence of measurements, the Andamanese have by no means a broad nose, and a mesorhine index is found in all the other groups, some of the Tapiro and Mafulu are even leptorhine. A constantly recurring feature is the convex upper lip, but that also occurs among the Sakai. The problem now is to determine what foreign elements have modified these pygmies, and whether the Negrito stock itself will not have to be subdivided into at least two groups.
The Negritos have certain cultural characters more or less in common, some of which differentiate them from their neighbours. There is very little artificial deformation of the person. The Tapiro and Mafulu alone do not tattoo or scarify the skin; Skeat says that the Semang “do not appear as a race to tattoo or scarify,” and the Aeta scarify only occasionally. The nasal septum is not pierced for a nose-stick by the Andamanese and Aeta nor among the purer Semang tribes, but the Tapiro and Mafulu do so. The Semang women possess numerous bamboo combs which are engraved with curious designs of a magical import, similar combs are possessed by nearly every Aeta man and woman. The Andamanese have no combs.
With regard to clothing, the male Andamanese are nude, the females wear a small apron of leaves or a single leaf, but one tribe, the Jarawa, go nude. The male Semang frequently wear a loin-cloth, or simply leaves retained by a string girdle, sometimes the women wear this too or a fringed girdle made of the long black strings of a fungus, but more usually a waist-cloth. The Aeta men wear a loin-cloth and the women a waist-cloth. The Mafulu men and women wear a perineal band of bark cloth, while the Tapiro men wear a unique gourd penis-sheath. A gourd or calabash is also worn by men on the north coast of New Guinea, but not further west than Cape Bonpland, in this case the hole is in the side and not at the end as among the Tapiro.
The Negritos are collectors and hunters, and never cultivate the soil unless they have been modified by contact with more advanced peoples.
The Andamanese make three kinds of simple huts on the ground and large communal huts are sometimes built. The Semang construct “bee-hive” and long communal huts and weather screens similar to those of the Andamanese. They also erect tree shelters, but direct evidence is very scanty that pure Semang inhabit huts with a flooring raised on piles; they sleep on bamboo platforms. The Aeta usually make very simple huts sometimes with a raised bamboo sleeping platform inside. The pile dwellings of the Tapiro have evidently been copied from those of other tribes in the interior. The Mafulu build a different kind of pile dwelling which has a peculiar hood-like porch.
All the Negritos have the bow and arrow. The Great Andamanese bow is peculiar while that of the Little Andamanese appears to resemble that of the Semang. The Great Andamanese and the Tapiro have very long bows. Harpoon arrows with iron points are used by the Andamanese and Aeta, the arrows of the Andamanese, Semang and Aeta are nocked, but only those of the two latter are feathered. No nocked or feathered arrows occur in New Guinea. Only the Semang and Aeta are known to poison their arrows, and they may have borrowed the idea from the poisoned darts of the blow-pipe. Some Semang have adopted the blow-pipe.
The Andamanese appear to be one of the very few people who possess fire but do not know how to make it afresh. The Semang usually make fire by “rubbing together short blocks of wood, bamboo or cane. A common method consists in passing a rattan line round the portion of a dried branch, and holding the branch down by the feet whilst the line is rapidly worked to and fro with the hands.” Flint and steel are also used. (The Sakai employ similar methods.) (Skeat and Blagden, I, pp. 111-114, 119.) Among the Aeta flint and steel have almost replaced the old method of making fire by one piece of split bamboo being sawed rapidly across another piece. Semper collected from Negritos of N.E. Luzon, a split stick, bark fibre and a strip of rattan used in fire-making, these are described and figured by A. B. Meyer (Publ. der K. Ethn. Mus. zu. Dresden, IX, Negritos, p. 5, pl. 11, fig. 7 a-c). It is interesting to find that the Tapiro employ the same method and apparatus (p. [200]). Thus there occurs among Negritos in the Philippines and New Guinea the method of making fire by partly splitting a dry stick, keeping the ends open by inserting a piece of wood or a stone in the cleft, stuffing some tinder into the narrow part of the slit and then drawing rapidly a strip of rattan to and fro across this spot till a spark ignites the tinder. Pöch found it among the Poum, dwelling in the mountains inland from the Kai (Geog. Jnl. XXX, 1907, p. 612, and Mitt. Anth. Ges. in Wien, XXXVII. 1907, p. 59, fig. 2, 3). Precisely the same method was described by the Rev. Dr. W. G. Lawes who found it among the Koiari of Tabure on Mt. Warirata (Proc. R. Geog. Soc. V, 1883, p. 357). Finsch collected the apparatus from the same people (Ann. des K.K. naturhist. Hofmus. in Wien, III, 1888, p. 323; Leo Frobenius, The Childhood of Man, 1909, fig. 313, but Frobenius is mistaken in representing the rattan as going twice round the stick). Dr. H. O. Forbes had found it at Ubumkara on the Naoro, also in the Central Division (P.R.G.S. XII. 1890, p. 562). Mr. C. A. W. Monckton noticed it in 1906 among the Kambisa tribe, in the valley of the Chirima, Mt. Albert Edward (Ann. Rep. Brit. New Guinea, 1907). Pöch suggests that N. von Miklucho-Maclay was wrong in thinking that the strip was rubbed in the split of a stick (l.c. p. 61); this is the earliest Papuan record (1872).
From the above account it is possible that the split stick and rattan strip method of fire-making may be a criterion of Negrito culture, but it should be noted that the stick is not reported as split among the Semang, and that the unsplit stick is found among the Sakai and the Kayans and Kenyahs of Sarawak who are not Negritos. Also the split stick is found at several spots in the mountainous interior of the south-east peninsula of New Guinea where Negrito influence has not yet been recorded, but Mr. Williamson’s observations are very suggestive in this respect. Pöch (l.c. p. 62) points out that this method is nearest akin to “fire-sawing with bamboo, both in principle and distribution,” of which he gives details. A somewhat similar method is that described by W. E. Roth. A split hearth-stick is held by the feet, but fire is made by sawing with another piece of wood, a device which appears to be widely spread in Queensland and occurs also on the Lachlan River, N.S.W. (N. Queensland Ethnogr. Bull. 7, 1904, sect. 9, pl. II. figs. 17, 18).
So far as is known the social structure of the Negritos is very simple. Among the Andamanese there is no division of the community into two moieties, no clan system nor totemism, neither has a classificatory system of kinship been recorded; the social unit appears to be the family, and the power of the head-man is very limited. Our knowledge concerning the Semang and Aeta is extremely imperfect but they probably resemble the Andamanese in these points. The Andamanese and Semang are strictly monogamous, polygyny is allowed among the Aeta, but monogamy prevails. The only restriction at all on marriage appears to be the prohibition of marriage between near kindred, and divorce is very rare. All bury their dead, but it is considered by the Andamanese more complimentary to place the dead on a platform which is generally built in a large tree, and the more honourable practice of the Semang is to expose the dead in trees. The Mafulu bury ordinary people, but the corpses of chiefs are placed in an open box either on a platform or in the fork of a kind of fig tree. Nothing is known about the social life of the Tapiro, and Williamson says, “The very simple ideas of the Mafulu, as compared with the Papuans and Melanesians, in matters of social organization, implements, arts and crafts, religion and other things may well, I think, be associated with a primitive Negrito origin” (l.c. p. 306).