it be a slave who was ill for a long time.  War prisoners are sometimes eaten.  The children are very much petted and loved.  Old and feeble war prisoners are killed, the others are sold as slaves.  They have no religion, no gods, no idols, no authority of any description; the oldest man in the family is the judge.  In cases of adultery a fine is paid, and part of it goes to the negoria (the community).  The soil is kept in common, but the crop belongs to those who have grown it.  They have pottery, and know barter-trade—­the custom being that the merchant gives them the goods, whereupon they return to their houses and bring the native goods required by the merchant; if the latter cannot be obtained, the European goods are returned.(22) They are head-hunters, and in so doing they prosecute blood revenge.  ‘Sometimes,’ Finsch says, ’the affair is referred to the Rajah of Namototte, who terminates it by imposing a fine.’”

When well treated, the Papuas are very kind.  Miklukho-Maclay landed on the eastern coast of New Guinea, followed by one single man, stayed for two years among tribes reported to be cannibals, and left them with regret; he returned again to stay one year more among them, and never had he any conflict to complain of.  True that his rule was never—­under no pretext whatever—­to say anything which was not truth, nor make any promise which he could not keep.  These poor creatures, who even do not know how to obtain fire, and carefully maintain it in their huts, live under their primitive communism, without any chiefs; and within their villages they have no quarrels worth speaking of.  They work in common, just enough to get the food of the day; they rear their children in common; and in the evenings they dress themselves as coquettishly as they can, and dance.  Like all savages, they are fond of dancing.  Each village has its barla, or balai—­the “long house,” “longue maison,” or “grande maison”—­for the unmarried men, for social gatherings, and for the discussion of common affairs—­again a trait which is common to most inhabitants of the Pacific Islands, the Eskimos, the Red Indians, and so on.  Whole groups of villages are on friendly terms, and visit each other en bloc.

Unhappily, feuds are not uncommon—­not in consequence of “Overstocking of the area,” or “keen competition,” and like inventions of a mercantile century, but chiefly in consequence of superstition.  As soon as any one falls ill, his friends and relatives come together, and deliberately discuss who might be the cause of the illness.  All possible enemies are considered, every one confesses of his own petty quarrels, and finally the real cause is discovered.  An enemy from the next village has called it down, and a raid upon that village is decided upon.  Therefore, feuds are rather frequent, even between the coast villages, not to say a word of the cannibal mountaineers who are considered as real witches and enemies, though, on a closer acquaintance, they prove to be exactly the same sort of people as their neighbours on the seacoast.(23)