The Natural History of the Varieties of Man

by R. G. Latham

In Darnley Island, a female from the Dowdee coast was seen and described by Mr. Jukes, she was lighter coloured than the Erroobians, being of a yellowish-brown; had the septum narium pierced, and was tattooed, which the females of the island are not.

Masseed.—The natives were "a well-made, fine-looking people, of a different type from the Australians, with muscular limbs and frizzled hair. They had the oval epaulet-like mark on the shoulders, but no other scars. Their hair was dressed into long, narrow, pipe-like curls, smeared with red ochre and grease, and they wore a band round the forehead."—Vol. 1. p. 159.

Murray Island.—Native name maær—Volcanic. Covered with cocoa-nuts, and having a language almost identical with the Erroob.

Darnley Island.—Native name, Erroob—Volcanic. The natives here "were fine, active, well-made fellows, rather above the middle height, of a dark brown or chocolate colour. They had frequently almost handsome faces, aquiline noses, rather broad about the nostril, well-shaped heads, and many had a singularly Jewish cast of features. The hair was frizzled, and dressed into long, pipe-like ringlets, smeared sometimes with red ochre, sometimes left of its natural black colour; others had wigs not to be distinguished from the natural hair, till closely examined. The septum narium was bored, but there was seldom anything worn in it. Most of their ears were pierced all round with small holes, in which pieces of grass were stuck, and in many the lobe was torn and hanging down to the shoulder. Their only scars were the faint oval marks on the shoulder. The hair of their bodies and limbs grew in small tufts, giving the skin a slightly woolly appearance. They were entirely naked, but frequently wore ornaments made of mother-of-pearl shells, either circular or crescent-shaped, hanging round their necks. Occasionally, also, we saw a part of a large shell, apparently a cassis, cut into a projecting shield-shape, worn in front of the groin. The women wore a petticoat round the waist, reaching nearly to the knees, formed of strips of leaves sown on to a girdle. These formed a very efficient covering, as one or two were worn over each other. The grown-up woman's petticoat, or nessoor, was formed, we afterwards found, of the inside part of the large leaves of a bulbous-rooted plant, called by them teggaer, of which, each strip was an inch broad. The girl's nessoor was made of much narrower strips from the inside of the leaf of the plantain, which they call cabbow.

"The younger women were often gracefully formed, with pleasing expressions of countenance, though not what we should consider handsome features. The girls had their hair rather long, but the women had almost all their hair cut short, with a bushy ridge over the top, to which they, singularly enough, give the same name as to pieces of tortoise-shell, namely, kaisu. Many of the elder women had their heads shaved quite smoothly, and we never saw a woman wearing a wig, or with the long ringlets of the men. At our first landing, all the younger women and girls kept in the back-ground, or hid themselves in the bush. On strolling to the back of the huts, we found a small native path, along which we went a short distance till we came to a rude fence in front of a plantain-ground, where the men objected to our going further, and we heard the voices of the women among the trees beyond.

"There were four huts at this spot, all bee-hive shaped, sixteen feet in diameter, and as much in height. They stood in small court-yards, partially surrounded by fences formed of poles of bamboo, stuck upright in the ground, close together, and connected by horizontal rails, to which they were tied by withies. Inside the huts were small platforms covered with mats, apparently bed-places; and over head were hung up bows and arrows, clubs, calabashes, rolls of matting, and bundles apparently containing bones, which they did not like our examining. Outside the huts were one or two small open sheds, consisting merely of a raised flat roof, to sit under in the shade, and a grove of very fine cocoa-nut trees surrounded the houses."

The arms of the natives were the bow and arrow, and in holding the former, especial care was taken that the part of the wood which was uppermost as the tree grew, should be uppermost when used as a weapon. Rough imitations of the human figure were common; but whether they served as idols or not was uncertain. The use of tobacco was general. The language was different from that of the Australians, and the willingness of the people to communicate, greater, also. On the part of the females, the reserve and decorum of manner formed a striking contrast with the very different habits of the Polynesians.

Turtle-backed Island.—Primitive—Cocoa-nut trees; no gum trees—"We came one day on the first symptoms of cultivation of the ground we had ever seen among the aborigines of this part of the world. This was a little circular plot of ground, not more than four or five yards in diameter; but it had evidently been dug, though in a rude manner, and in it were set several young plantain-trees, one or two other plants, and two trailing plants, somewhat like French beans in appearance, which we afterwards found were a kind of yam. The huts on this island had the appearance of a first attempt at a house, having side walls about two feet high, and a gable-shaped roof rising four feet from the ground. They were about ten feet long and six feet wide, made principally of bamboo and thatched with grass and leaves."

Mount Ernest.—Primitive—Cocoa-nuts—Captain Blackwood "landed upon Mount Ernest (807 feet high), and found a group of huts much superior to any we ever saw in Australia, a small grove of cocoa-nuts and another of large bamboos. The natives did not show themselves till after he left the island; and though he spent a night on it he did not suspect their presence at the time. In the huts were found parcels of human bones, ornamented with red ochre, a mask or hideous face made of wood and ornamented with the feathers of some struthious bird, and one or two bundles of small wooden tubes, eight inches long and half an inch in diameter, the use of which we never could discover. The feathers so abundantly used as ornaments on their canoes and other articles by all these islanders, were at first taken by us for emu feathers, as a matter of course, and supposed to be procured from the mainland of Australia. I was afterwards, however, induced to doubt the correctness of that supposition; and on comparing them (in company with my friend Mr. George Bennett, of Sydney,) with the feathers of the emu, in the Sydney Museum of Natural History, we found them to be totally distinct from any emu feathers. They are probably, therefore, feathers of the cassowary or some similar bird, and are derived from New Guinea instead of Australia."

Of all the islands of Torres Straits, this is the one nearest to Australia, whereof the population is apparently derived from New Guinea.