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and round the helix, mostly of silver or gold. The men wear in the lobe very heavy lor-lora of gold, which stretch it often so as to break out the hold. Besides these they wear those of bone and ivory and ebony and of the tooth of the dugong (Halicore). Both sexes tattoo a few simple devices, circles, stars, and pointed crosses on the breast, on the brow, on the cheek, and on the wrists; and scar themselves on the arms and shoulders with red-hot stones in imitation of immense small-pox marks, in order to ward off that disease. I have, however, seen no one variola-marked, nor can I learn of any epidemic of this disease among them. Few diseases exist on the islands. With the exception of that curious skin disease so common among these races, whose cause has been referred to a species of fungus, of the shrinking of the tendons of the arms or hands from rheumatic affections, and a little scrofula, the people seem healthy.

They cultivate, in gardens made in the forest-just like those in Sumatra and in the uplands of Java-eena (Batatas edulis), Dioscorea sp., and Toeal (Janipha Manihot) Tevoe (sugarcane) and Selaroe (Indian corn), their staple food, and a little rice, but this grows very badly here: also two or three species of legumes. They grow cotton and make their own thread, as well as cultivate tobacco, whose leaves they chew entire.

The chief meal of the day lasts from about 8 A.M. till nearly noon, and consists of boiled Indian corn-meal pounded in the tridacna shell, mixed with mashed manioc and dry peas, along with a little putrid fish, and a very great deal of sagueir from the coco palm. Very few of the older men leave the meal sober. The women seem to eat in private, but the men repair to houses open at the gables, or to roofed sheds at a short distance from the village; the place, too, where they generally distil their arrack. This house serves for a common assembly room.

Their life from day to day seems very monotonous. In the morning, after arranging their hair, they remove from the trees the bamboo containing the sagueir or, toeak, collected during the night, and trim the stump for running during the day to supply their evening libations. While ascending the trees they invariably chant a song, or invocation, all using the same form of words as far as we could judge. At this task the lithe and elegant figure of the Larat man shows to the greatest advantage, the brown skin and yellow hair showing well against the grey stem of the palm as he ascends. Some of the men accompany the women, by prahu, to the gardens to fetch the necessary stores, while the older men and boys spear fish by the margin of the sea. In the clear calm nights the boats go to the bay in quest of fish by torchlight, and while not too far from the shore, the lit-up figures of the men and of the boats, and the reflec

tion in the water, form a beautiful picture. They kill the fishes with barbed arrows, or with various forms of harpoon, and occasionally use hooks brought by the Macassar men; and sometimes they intoxicate the fish with rice steeped in poisonous climbing plants. The older men are incapable the greater part of the day, and in this condition are boisterously talkative and pugnacious. A quarrel arising often ends in bloodshed. The day is closed with the evening toeak collecting and drinking. The women employ themselves with their looms and in the preparation of the food, and in fact do most of the hard work. In time of war, as now, the village safety is watched all night by the villagers, eight or ten at a time in rotation, who dance the Tjikaleleh round a figure, the representative of their deity, or Doeadilah, each man beating with his hand a cylindrical drum, singing to its music a song, or invocation, with a wild and sonorous chorus. At the time of full moon they will often play for several days and nights without intermission.

Their arms are a shield, often elaborately carved and adorned with the hair of their enemies, bows and arrows, and various forms of iron-pointed lances and spears, which they use with the greatest precision, and a buckler of buffalo hide in which is stuck a long klewang, or sword.

Marriage is here, as was to be expected, the purchase of a woman from her parents-girls are all ventoeng, or profit. When a man fancies a woman he repairs to the house of her parents, taking with him a gift of lor-lora (earrings), and tells the father that he would like to have his daughter. The father then calls an assembly of all the people. Nothing can be done of such import as the disposal of a daughter without the advice, assistance, and witness of all the villagers; women and youths being admitted as freely to speak as the elder males. They reply to the wooer that if he wishes the woman indicated, he must search for gold earrings and elephants' teeth. No wife can be purchased without elephants' tusks, and consequently they fetch an immense price. They are brought chiefly by the Buginese traders, who in the last monsoon frequent the ports of Sumatra, where I have seen them give 200 to 300 florins for a tusk. In the west monsoon these tusks are brought to these "far far east" shores and exchanged for trepang and tortoiseshell.

The price of a wife is as much as three elephants' tusks, four klewangs (or swords), one small and two large gold and three large silver earrings, one bredak, one gold boental, one large gold boelang, and 30 fathoms of cloth. When the man has paid part of the price he may receive the woman, but she remains as a hostage in her relatives' house till such time as the

full price is paid. Sometimes the girl will run away with some man she has taken a liking to, with only the permission of her parents in this case, on their return, the husband must pay 18 fathoms of cloth, one plate, five large and one small silver and two gold lor-lora (earrings), with one elephant's tusk. If, however, the woman has been, or is about to be, disposed of to another man, and she elopes with some other whom she prefers, she is forcibly taken possession of, and the man is punished with death.

When a woman is about to be delivered of child she is bathed in and drinks a little of a hot decoction of mango and other leaves. When the child is born there is given to it to drink a small quantity of a warm decoction of tabakaleat (Morinda citrifolia), and it is bathed in the same decoction, to which is added a little baked kamirie (Aleurites triloba); it is then put to sleep in the Siwela, or cradle. This is a flattish basket, made of woven rattan ropes, suspended so as to rock over a fire placed beneath, with only the spathe of a palm under its back, the head generally lying on rough rattan, and with a small piece of rag thrown over its stomach. The fire below the cradle, which not unfrequently sets fire to it, is partly to keep off mosquitoes, and partly to keep the child warm during night. The smoke is often so great as almost to suffocate the infant.

The series of crania which I am happy in being able to send shows well the effect of this treatment. The side of the hinderpart of the head on which the infant is placed is quite flattened. It would appear that the child is generally placed in the same position in the cradle, probably depending on the place of suspension of the cradle in the house, whether it lay on the right or on the left side. In some living infants the deformity is extremely marked. No sort of binding is applied to the heads at any stage of their youth, and I feel no doubt, from the manner in which I have seen new-born infants placed in the Siwèla, that the rocking of the infant in the rough cradle is the cause of the deformity. In some crania the deformity is not very prominent; but this may depend, perhaps, on cloth or some soft substance being used to place the child's head on, instead of the palm spathe in general use.

The medicine woman who assists at the birth receives as her professional fee a plate, in which is placed a tortoiseshell bracelet, ten sirie leaves, and twenty pinang nuts, one sarong, and one (?) Tjidakie. The person who bathes the child receives one square bottle of Sopi (arrack distilled from the saguier of the coco palm). The happy father announces the birth by firing off three shots from his own or his neighbour's G.R. Tower gun, and gives twenty plates of rice to the people in attendance.

When the mother puts her feet to the ground again, the husband fires off two more. When the child's hair is cut for the first time, the person who cuts it receives a fee of one gold earring, beads, and one plate of rice. A man may marry as many women as he can purchase, but few have more wives than one.

When a man dies, his children and brothers and elders of the village assemble to mourn-which has, however, neither outward sign nor sound. They bring with them, as far as I was able to ascertain, white or red cloth to wrap the body in, sarongs and other clothes, some coco palm arrack, and a little gunpowder. A pig is killed, but I am in doubt whether it is given to the assembled people to eat or laid with the dead body, which is then placed in a portion of a prahu cut to the length of the person, and with the cut-off end closed up; or if it is a richer person, or the Orang Kaya, a decorated prahu-shaped coffin is specially made. This is then (though not with the poor) enveloped with chita, or calico, and placed either on the top of some rock by the margin of the sea at a short distance from the village, or on a high platform erected on the shore about low-tide mark. Among the poor the coffin is often made simply of gaba-gaba, or stems of the sago palm, pinned together. Sometimes the platform is erected on the shore above high-water mark, and near it is stuck in the ground a tall bamboo, full of saguier, and suspended over a cord are many batatas for the use of the dead man's Nitu. Two days after the burial, the family go to bathe and wash their hair; and after two days more they search for ten fishes and one tortoise wherewith to give a feast, which is finished with sirie and arrack ad lib. All who die in war or by a violent death are buried, and not placed on rocks or on a platform, where only such as die naturally are deposited. If a man lose his head in war a coco nut is placed in the grave to represent the missing member, and to deceive the spirits. When the body is quite decomposed, his son, or one of the family, takes the head and deposits it on a little platform in his house, in the gable opposite the fire-place, while he places the atlas and axis in his lovoe, or sirie-holder (which every man, without exception, carries about with him), to ward off ill luck. The dead man goes to Noesa Nitu, or Maramatta (near Ceram). On this island no one dare land, and it is with fear and great vigilance that they sail past it.

I am told by a man from a neighbouring village that their custom is to place the dead body in the open palm-stem coffin, in which the body soon decomposes, and that thereafter the bones are collected and placed in a wooden prahu-shaped coffin and placed by the edge of the sea. This cannot be the custom in all cases, for I have seen very many of the coffins of wood

and of gaba-gaba fallen to pieces, and the bones strewn on and around the rock on which it had been deposited; while all along the shore I have picked up femora, occipital and frontal bones, quite uncared for, and with the human bones I have seen jaws of pigs.

After death the goods of the deceased, if not heirlooms, are divided among his children: those living in a large house getting more than those in a small one. On the death of a parent the children remain with the survivor.

When a man is sick, the medicine man speaks first to his (the sick man's) nitu (swangie ?), or evil spirit, or part of self living in the earth, having power over the body of the man, if not appeased for ill; laying out for it a little rice and arrack and fish; thereafter he gives medicine to the sick man. There is no special medicine man, but several among the people pretend to knowledge in the science, and are recognised by the others as gifted. One man, while we were very sick with fever, came to the house extremely anxious to be allowed to give us medicine. He produced a few leaves which were not to be eaten, but to be kept about the person or preserved, and gave me a small smooth pebble, which if rubbed first on the tongue, then brought slowly down the mid-line of the body from the lower lip to the umbilicus, where it had to be allowed to rest a few minutes, would cause all sickness to leave the body. Before giving me these articles he placed them before him, repeating some formula. Before making any long journey, or making war, or doing any important work, he goes to propitiate his nitu (swangie ?), and make it some offering. In what locality in the forest, or by the seashore, or where else the nitu resides, or is supposed to reside, I have not been able to obtain information.

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When it is required of a man that he make an oath, the villagers assemble; and when a fowl or pig has been killed it is offered to Doeadilah (or the Toehan Allah). It is then cooked, when the person or persons of whom evidence or information is required relate what they have to tell; thereupon all partake of the fowl or pig. Whoever has spoken falsely will be seized with sickness or will die soon. Nearly the same custom prevails among the pagans of the Passoemah Lands in Sumatra, where I spent some time last year; the parties on both sides of a dispute, who are to swear, repair each with his Repala Kamping, or chief, to the grave of the Nene Poeyang of his own Monga: that is, to the grave of the first father of the village, and there, after each has given his version of the matter, they partake of food cooked over the grave. Sickness or misfortune will befall the person or the village of the one who has sworn falsely.

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