It is among the Negritians of Africa that we find today the at-hand evidence of the attitude of man toward his progeny in the first stages of culture, or perhaps the last stages of savagery. It must be remembered that in Africa, however, habits of other races will be found grafted on the negro stock, thereby causing them to appear sometimes unusually gentle or again unusually advanced. In Africa the Semitic and the Hamitic grafts on negro stock provide many varieties of mankind, just as in Oceania, the Mongol (Malay) and the Caucasian (Indonesian) grafts on the negro stock have produced many varieties there. As an example of the methods of the lowest of savage tribes, there is, however, no better example than the Papuans of New Guinea of whom the ethnologist, Keane, says: “They stand in some respects on the lowest rung of the social ladder.” As an example of the low state of culture in which part of them exist it is said that those near Astrolabe Bay on the north-west coast of New Guinea had no knowledge of the metals, all their implements being of stone, wood, or bones; neither had they knowledge of fire, the grandfathers of the present generation being able to recall the time when they had no fire at all, but ate their food raw. In the study of these people we are studying contemporaries of our own neolithic ancestors. According to their most popular myth, a crocodile named Nugu was responsible for the frequent disappearance of children until the tribe made an agreement to supply him with pig’s fat instead. Here we have the beginning of the theory of sacrifice. [Illustration: A FAMILY OF ANTHROPOID APES. FROM A DRAWING BY DAN BEARD. (COURTESY OF THE MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK)] [Illustration: FAMILY OF POLAR BEARS (COURTESY OF MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY. NEW YORK CITY)] “In their treatment of children they are often violent and cruel,” says Alfred Russell Wallace,[29] and an example of their idea of kindness may be gathered from the following description of the “ornamentation” of a young Papuan: “The faces of both men and women are frequently ornamented all over with cicatrices either circular or chevron-shaped. The operation is a painful and costly one, as the professional tattooer has to be highly paid for his trouble, and not every child’s friends can afford the fee demanded. The instrument used is the claw of the flying-fox. The unfortunate patient is not allowed to sleep for two or three nights before the operation is performed, and then, when he is ready to drop from weariness, the tattooer begins his work, and completes it at one sitting. I never saw the actual process, but a child was brought for my inspection whose face had just been finished off. It was in a painful state of nervous irritation, and the face swelled to an enormous size.”[30]