A NATIVE OF MERAUKE.
(Wearing the claws of an eagle in the nose.)
NATIVES OF MERAUKE.
Some of the more dandyfied individuals are loaded with necklaces of shells or teeth of dogs, sharks and crocodiles, and bands or belts of the same things are crossed on the chest. Rings of boars’ tusks and plaited fibres almost cover the upper arms, and in the ears are worn bunches of large rings of tortoiseshell and bamboo. The hair is long and is plaited with a mixture of mud and grass and feathers into a solid bunch, which hangs down beyond the level of the shoulders. In some of these head-dresses I saw plumes of the Greater, the Red and the King birds of Paradise; it appears that when once they are made these head-dresses may be added to, but they can never be undone, and they are accordingly indescribably dirty. These people are characterised by a pungent and most disagreeable odour, quite different from the sickly sweet smell of the sago-eating Mimika people.
Another curious custom of the Merauke natives is their habit of wearing round the waist a belt of pigskin, which cannot be removed, and is so tight that it constricts the man to an (apparently) most painful degree; the women of the tribe do not indulge in this practice.
Two days after our arrival the monthly mail-steamer came bringing our forty-eight new coolies from Macassar, and on the following day it sailed again, taking Shortridge on his way back to England. For a week longer I received the most kind hospitality from the Resident, Mr. E. Kalff, until we returned to the Mimika. During that week of waiting our new coolies, who had heard terrible stories of the Mimika, declared that they would never go there, and they attacked with knives the guards who were placed to keep them in order. When I told them that if they had no liking for the Mimika they were perfectly at liberty to go and live near Merauke, the stories they heard of the habits of the Tugeri put an immediate end to the strike, and they came contentedly enough to the Mimika. They were more fortunate than some of their predecessors, and all returned to their homes at the end of the expedition.
The Dutch have a pleasant sentiment with regard to the customs of their native land, and at Merauke, the most remote outpost of Holland, the feast of S. Nicholas was celebrated with due ceremony. All the Europeans in the place, as well as the Javanese sergeants and clerks and their children, assembled to meet the Saint, a huge Dutchman disguised out of all recognition, and all of us, brown and white alike, received at his hands a present or a mock flogging according to our deserts.
After spending ten very agreeable days at Merauke we sailed on December 18th and going by way of the Island River, where we landed fresh men for that expedition, we arrived again at the Mimika on the 22nd December.