The Mafulu eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 349 pages of information about The Mafulu.

The Mafulu eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 349 pages of information about The Mafulu.

[25] I must state that Plate 2 represents a scene taken from a spot near to Deva-deva, which, though close to what is regarded as the boundary between the Kuni and Mafulu areas, is in fact just within the former.  The general appearance of the scenery is, however, distinctly Mafulu.

[26] Dr. Strong’s measurements of seven Mafulu men referred to by Dr. Seligmann (Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 39, p. 329) showed an average stature of 59 1/2 inches, and an average cephalic index of 80.0.  It will be noticed that my figures show a somewhat higher average stature, but that my average cephalic index is the same.  Dr. Seligmann here speaks of the Mafulu as being almost as short as the men of Inavaurene, and even more round-headed.

[27] This is the index calculated on average lengths and breadths.  The average of the indices is 83.8, the difference arising from the omission in working out of each index of second points of decimals.

[28] Dr. Keith thinks they are all skulls of males.  They are now in College Museum, and are numbered 1186.32, 1186.33 and 1186.34 in the College Catalogue.

[29] Melanesians of British New Guinea, p.16.

[30] Dr. Haddon refers (Geographical Journal, Vol. 16, p.291) to the finding by the Mission Fathers of “another type of native, evidently an example of the convex-nosed Papuan,” in the upper waters of the Alabula river.  I gather from the habitat of these natives that they must have been either Ambo or Oru Lopiku.  I should be surprised to hear the Semitic nose was common in either of those areas.

[31] Dr. Seligmann, in speaking of the Koiari people, refers to an occasional reddish or gingery tinge of facial hair (Melanesians of British New Guinea,, p. 29).  I never noticed this among the Mafulu.

[32] Since writing the above, I have learnt that some of the dwarf people found by the expedition into Dutch New Guinea organised by the British Ornithologists’ Union had brown hair.  Mr. Goodfellow tells me that “the hair of some of the pygmies was decidedly dark brown”; and Dr. Wollaston gives me the following extract from his diary for March 1, 1911, relating to twenty-four pygmies then under observation:—­“Hair of three men distinctly not black, a sort of dirty rusty brown or rusty black colour—­all others black-haired.”

[33] This plate and the plates of dancing aprons were produced by first drawing the objects, and then photographing the drawings.  It would have been more satisfactory if I could have photographed the objects themselves.  But they were much crumpled, and I was advised that with many of them the camera would not indicate differences of colour, and that in one or two of them even the design itself would not come out clearly.

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The Mafulu from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.