Speech. Papuasian and Tasmanian: agglutinating with postfixes, many stock languages in West Papuasia, apparently one only in East Papuasia (Austronesian); Negrito: scarcely known except in Andamans, where agglutination both by class prefixes and by postfixes has acquired a phenomenal development.
Religion. Papuasian: reverence paid to ancestors, who may become beneficent or malevolent ghosts; general belief in mana or supernatural power; no priests or idols; Negrito: exceedingly primitive; belief in spirits, sometimes vague deities.
Culture. Papuasian: slightly developed; agriculture somewhat advanced (N. Guinea, N. Caledonia); considerable artistic taste and fancy shown in the wood-carving of houses, canoes, ceremonial objects, etc. All others: at the lowest hunting stage, without arts or industries, save the manufacture of weapons, ornaments, baskets, and rarely (Andamanese) pottery.
Main Divisions.
Papuasian: 1. Western Papuasians (true Papuans): nearly all the New Guinea natives; Aru and other insular groups thence westwards to Flores; Torres Straits and Louisiade Islands. 2. Eastern Papuasians: nearly all the natives of Melanesia from Bismarck Archipelago to New Caledonia, with most of Fiji, and part of New Guinea.
Negritoes: 1. Andamanese Islanders. 2. Semangs, in the Malay Peninsula. 3. Aetas, surviving in most of the Philippine Islands. 4. Pygmies in New Guinea.
Papuasians.
General Ethnical Relations in Oceania.
From the data supplied in Ethnology, Chap. XI. a reconstruction may be attempted of the obscure ethnical relations in Australasia on the following broad lines.