[53] Loc. cit., p. 517.
[54] Annual Report Bureau of Ethnology, iv.
[55] Cf. map by author in a paper “On the Geology of Torres Straits,” by Professors A. C. Haddon, W. J. Sollas, and G. A. J. Cole. Trans. Roy. Irish Acad., xxx., 1894, pp. 419-470.
[56] An interesting example of reversal is found on a bamboo tobacco-pipe which I obtained on the island of Mabuiag in Torres Straits, and which I have given to the National Museum at Washington, U.S.A. On one side of the pipe was cut ᑎAЯIЯ, and on the other MÖRAP; the latter is the name for a bamboo pipe, and the former I understood was the name of the place in Daudai where the owner had cut the bamboo from which he made the pipe; possibly it was his own name. It will be observed that this name, which is really RIRAU, is printed backwards, and the final U is upside down. I suspect that the occasional reversal of words is due to the method of counting on the fingers which these people employ. They always begin with the little finger of the left hand, and pass from the thumb of the left hand to that of the right. If a man was spelling out a word letter by letter as if he were counting he might readily fall into the error of putting down the first letter in a place corresponding to the little finger of the left hand, and so on. If the man who carved the pipe began with RIRAU, that word would utilise all the digits of the left hand, and so MÖRAP would come right end foremost on the right hand.
[57] F. H. Cushing, “A Study of Pueblo Pottery as illustrative of Zuñi Culture Growth,” Fourth Ann. Rep. Bureau Ethnol., 1882-83. Washington, 1886.
[58] According to a legend collected by the author in Torres Straits.
[59] Dr. Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 126.
[60] M. Uhle, “Holz- und Bambus-Geräthe aus N.W. Neu Guinea,” K. Eth. Mus., Dresden, vi., 1886, p. 6.
[61] M. D’Estrey, “Étude ethnographique sur le Lézard chez les Peuples Malais et Polynésiens,” L’Anthropologie, iii., 1892, p. 711.
[62] Dr. Codrington, The Melanesians, p. 126.