"There is also the fast of Nyualátu, which lasts a day and a night, during which time food and sleep must be abstained from. This fast must be held on the first or the fifteenth of the month."
FOOTNOTES:
[303] In the estimate is probably included the population of those districts on the island of Sasak or Lombok, which are subject to the chiefs of Bali.
[304] Having repeatedly had occasion, in the course of this work, to advert to the slave trade, and the sources whence the supplies of slaves were obtained, it may not be uninteresting to introduce to the reader a native of Papua, or New Guinea[306], stolen from his country in the course of this traffic. The lad represented in the plate came into my service at Bali under very peculiar circumstances, and has accompanied me to England. Since his arrival he has excited some curiosity, as being the first individual of the woolly haired race of Eastern Asia who has been brought to this country. It is known, that on the Malayan Peninsula, in Luconia, Borneo, and most of the larger islands of the Eastern Seas, there are occasionally found in the mountainous tracts a scattered race of blacks entirely distinct from the rest of the population. Some have conceived them to be the aborigines of these countries; others considering them as of the African race, adduce them in proof of an early and extensive intercourse between Africa and these islands. I shall content myself with observing, that they appear at the present day to form the bulk of the population of Papua or New Guinea. The following remarks upon the individual now in England, whom we sometimes call Papua, and sometimes (more to his satisfaction) Dick, were obligingly communicated to me by Sir Everard Home, Bart.
"The Papuan differs from the African negro in the following particulars. His skin is of a lighter colour, the woolly hair grows in small tufts, and each hair has a spiral twist. The forehead rises higher, and the hind head is not so much cut off. The nose projects more from the face. The upper lip is longer and more prominent. The lower lip projects forward from the lower jaw to such an extent that the chin forms no part of the face, the lower part of which is formed by the mouth. The buttocks are so much lower than in the negro as to form a striking mark of distinction, but the calf of the leg is as high as in the negro."
[305] This description is taken from Bliling, one of the independent states, and with slight variations may be considered as applicable to all.
[306] Couto, on the 3d chapter of the 3d book of the 4th Decada, gives an account of the discovery of Papua by Don Jorge de Meneges (about the year 1528 or 1533) who, in a calm was hurried by a strong current with extraordinary rapidity to the eastward, until he arrived at a country inhabited by a race as black as negroes, or the natives of the southern coast of Africa, from the Cape of Good Hope to Mosambique; they visited the king on shore, who was as black as the others.
The monsoon detained Meneges here some months, during which time he had a friendly intercourse with the natives, who became very familiar, supplying him in barter with what he wanted; but they informed him that in the interior there were men who eat human flesh.
"Here," says he, "our people saw both men and women as white and as fair as Germans, and on asking how those people were called, they answered 'Papuas,' and on account of the little knowledge which we had at that time of the country, we concluded that they were islands. But from what we afterwards understood, this must be the country which Marco Polo, the Venetian, calls Lechac, and which he says is very rich in gold."