The Natural History of the Varieties of ManLatham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
Science
The Natural History of the Varieties of Man
Latham, R. G. (Robert Gordon)
Ethnology
In appearance, however, they agreed. Their huts were raised on piles,
of moderate dimension, and with small plots of imperfectly-cleared
ground around them. The coast was low, and intersected by numerous
freshwater channels; and the name given to the country by the
Erroobians was Dowdee.
In Darnley Island, a female from the Dowdee coast was seen and
described by Mr. Jukes, she was lighter coloured than the Erroobians,
being of a yellowish-brown; had the septum narium pierced, and was
tattooed, which the females of the island are not.
_Masseed._--The natives were "a well-made, fine-looking people, of a
different type from the Australians, with muscular limbs and frizzled
hair. They had the oval epaulet-like mark on the shoulders, but no
other scars. Their hair was dressed into long, narrow, pipe-like curls,
smeared with red ochre and grease, and they wore a band round the
forehead."--Vol. 1. p. 159.
_Murray Island._--Native name _maær_--Volcanic. Covered with
cocoa-nuts, and having a language almost identical with the Erroob.
_Darnley Island._--Native name, Erroob--Volcanic. The natives here
"were fine, active, well-made fellows, rather above the middle height,
of a dark brown or chocolate colour. They had frequently almost
handsome faces, aquiline noses, rather broad about the nostril,
well-shaped heads, and many had a singularly Jewish cast of features.
The hair was frizzled, and dressed into long, pipe-like ringlets,
smeared sometimes with red ochre, sometimes left of its natural black
colour; others had wigs not to be distinguished from the natural
hair, till closely examined. The septum narium was bored, but there
was seldom anything worn in it. Most of their ears were pierced all
round with small holes, in which pieces of grass were stuck, and in
many the lobe was torn and hanging down to the shoulder. Their only
scars were the faint oval marks on the shoulder. The hair of their
bodies and limbs grew in small tufts, giving the skin a slightly woolly
appearance. They were entirely naked, but frequently wore ornaments
made of mother-of-pearl shells, either circular or crescent-shaped,
hanging round their necks. Occasionally, also, we saw a part of a large
shell, apparently a cassis, cut into a projecting shield-shape, worn
in front of the groin. The women wore a petticoat round the waist,
reaching nearly to the knees, formed of strips of leaves sown on to
a girdle. These formed a very efficient covering, as one or two were
worn over each other. The grown-up woman's petticoat, or nessoor, was
formed, we afterwards found, of the inside part of the large leaves of
a bulbous-rooted plant, called by them teggaer, of which, each strip
was an inch broad. The girl's nessoor was made of much narrower strips
from the inside of the leaf of the plantain, which they call cabbow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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