The Papuans of Dourga Strait are admirable canoe men, and paddle with singular skill and power. They always stand while paddling, a plan whereby they obtain a great increase of power, though perhaps at the expense of muscular exertion. They give as their chief reason for preferring the erect position, that it enables them to detect turtle better than if they were sitting, and to watch them as they dive under water after being wounded.
Skirting the coast of New Guinea and proceeding northward from Dourga Strait, we come to the Outanata River, at the embouchure of which is a tribe that differs much from those natives which have already been described. They are a finer and taller set of men than those of Dourga Strait, and seem to have preserved many of their customs intact since the time when Captain Cook visited them. Their skin is a very dark brown, and is described as having a bluish tinge, and they are said to rub themselves with some aromatic substance which causes them to diffuse an agreeable odor.
It is probable that the bluish gloss may be due to the same aromatic substance with which the body is perfumed. Mr. Earle thinks that the odoriferous material in question is the bark of the tree called the “rosamala.”
The blue tinge is never seen among Papuan slaves, and this circumstance adds force to Mr. Earle’s conjecture.
The features are rather large, especially the mouth, and the lips are thick. The custom of filing the teeth to a sharp point prevails among this tribe, but is not universal. The eyes are small, and the septum of the nose is always pierced so as to carry a piece of white bone, a boar’s tusk, or some similar ornament. The hair is thick, and, instead of being trained into long tails like that of the Dourga Strait natives, it is plaited from the forehead to the crown.
The men wear scarcely any real dress, many of them being entirely naked, and none of them wearing more than a small piece of bark or a strip of coarse cloth made either of cocoa-nut fibre or of split bamboo. They are, however, exceedingly fond of ornament, and have all the savage love of tattooing, or rather scarifying, the body, which is done in a way that reminds the observer of the same process among the Australians. The scarifications project above the skin to the thickness of a finger, and the natives say that this effect is produced by first cutting deeply into the flesh, and then applying heat to the wounds. Anklets, bracelets, and other articles of savage finery are common, and a man who does not wear an inch of clothing will pride himself on his boar’s teeth necklace, his bracelets of woven rattan, and his peaked rush cap.
The women always wear some amount of clothing, however small, the very fact of possessing apparel of any kind being conventionally accepted as constituting raiment. Their solitary garment consists of a small apron, about six inches square, made from the cocoa-nut fibre.
It is rather remarkable that these people have the same habit of placing their new-born children in hot sand, as has already been described when treating of the now extinct Tasmanians. When the mother goes about her work, she carries the child by means of a sort of sling made of leaves or the bark of a tree.
The architecture of the Outanatas is far superior to that of their brethren of Dourga Strait. One of these houses, described by Lieutenant Modera, was at least a hundred feet in length, though it was only five feet high and six wide, so that a man could not stand upright in it. There were nineteen doors to this curious building, which was at first mistaken for a row of separate huts. The floor is covered with white sand, and the inhabitants generally seat themselves on mats. Each of these doors seemed to be appropriated to a single family, and near the doors were placed the different fireplaces. Over the roof a fishing net had been spread to dry in the sun, while a number of weapons were hung under the roof.
This house was built in a few days by the women and girls, and was placed near a much larger building, which had been raised on piles.