The natives who inhabit the islands of Torres Straits are a black, frizzly-haired, excitable people, and therefore belong to the Papuan, as opposed to the Australian stock.
Daudai is the native name for the contiguous coast of New Guinea, and it forms with the islands one ethnographical province. Between their respective inhabitants was a regular trade, chiefly in canoes, bows and arrows from the mainland, and in turtle-shell, pearl shell, and other marine shells from the islands.
Fig. 1.—Bamboo tobacco-pipes; one-tenth natural size. Torres Straits. Drawn by the author from specimens in the British Museum.
Unless otherwise stated, the following description applies to objects from the Torres Straits islands, the natives of which appear to be rather more artistic than those of Daudai.
There are two methods of decorating smooth surfaces—(1) by carving the pattern, the intaglio portion of which is often filled up with powdered lime (Fig. [2]); or (2) the design is engraved on the surface of the object by means of fine punctate or minutely zigzag lines (Fig. [5]). The former method is alone applied to wooden objects, and also mainly to those made of turtle-shell (“tortoise-shell”); the latter is that employed on bamboo pipes and on many turtle-shell objects. Unbroken lines are very rarely engraved.
It is characteristic of this district that the patterns are inscribed within parallel lines, whether it be a comb (Fig. [2]) or a bamboo pipe (Fig. [1]) which is to be decorated. The parallel lines are first drawn, and then the pattern is delineated. A noticeable peculiarity is the preponderance of straight or angled lines to the exclusion of curved lines. Simple semicircular curves and circles are common, it is true, but they are not combined into curved patterns; reversed or looped coils and complex curved lines, such as scrolls, are completely absent.
