Modem Island, about 60 miles N.N.E. of the Great Ke, is occupied by Papuans. It is the south-westernmost of a group of high islands which were at one time considered to form part of New Guinea.
Brumer Island is on the south coast of New Guinea. The women are tattoed on the face, arms, and front of the body, but generally not on the back, in vertical stripes, less than an inch apart, and connected by zigzag markings. On the face these are more complicated, and on the forearm and wrist they are frequently so elaborate as to resemble lace-work. The men are more rarely tattoed, and then only with a few lines or stars on the right breast. • Sometimes, however, the markings consist of a double series of large stars and dots stretching from the shoulder to the pit of the stomach.
The Aru, Aroe, or Arru group of islands is situated on the northern verge of the great Austra lian bank. They extend from lat. 5°52' to 7° S., and in long. 133° 56' E., running for upwards of 100 miles N. and S., and between 40 and 50 miles in breadth, and lie between the Timor Laut group and the S.W. coast of New Guinea. The more northerly of the islands are rarely more than 5 or 6 miles in circumference.
The Aru islanders are Papuans, with black or sooty-brown skins, woolly or frizzly hair, or strongly curled • thick-ridged, prominent noses, and rather slender limbs. There are some mixed ' races among them. The Papuan talks, laughs, and without intennisaion. Papuan 1ioya sing cheerily as they walk along, or talk aloud to themselves, which is quite a Negro peculiarity. The men, in height, are from 5 feet 4 inches to 5 feet 8 inches. The women delight in combing and forking their frizzly hair, which is tied in a bunch at the back of the head, using a fork with four diverging prongs to separate and arrange the long tangled frizzly mass. The Aru Papuans told Mr. iVallace that sonic of their tribes kill the old folks when they can no longer work, but he saw many old people. On a man's death, all the chattels which he has collected during his life, including tusks, gongs, and precious China dishes, are broken in pieces and thrown away, and heaps of these fragments are to be seen in the villages.
The produce of the islands is pearls, mother-of pearl, trepang, tortoise-shell, paradise birds, and timber. They are given to intoxication. The men are jealous, and easily roused to anger by abuse of their women or ancestors. Their food is sago, fish, molluscs, the luxuries being tobacco and betel. They redden their hair by washing it with wood-ashes. They ornament their houses with brass trays called dulam or talam, and with elephants' tusks, all of which are destroyed on the owner's death.
Timor Island, in lat. 8° 21' to 10° 23' S., and long. 30' to 127° 15' E., is occupied by tribes much nearer the true Papuan than those of the Moluccas. Slender figures of medium height ; they are dusky-brown or blackish, with busby frizzled hair, and the long Papuan nose, with the overhanging apex which is so characteristic of the Papuan, and so absolutely unknown among races of origin. The houses of the Timoreso Papuan mountaineers are raised on posts. Their dead are laid on a stage 6 or 8 feet above the ground, sometimes open, sometimes covered, and retained there till money for a feast can be obtained, when they are burned. They are said to be great thieves, and the tribes constantly at war with each other, but are not very courageous or bloodthirsty. They respect the custom of tabu, which they call poinali. In their excitable disposition, loud voices, and fearless demeanours, the Timorese closely resemble the Papuans of New Guinea and the Aru Islands. The women talk to each other and to the men with loud voices, and with a self-assertion quite different from Malay women.
In the islands west of Timor, as far as Flores and Sandalwood Islands, a very similar race is found, which also extends eastwards to Timor Laut, where the true Papuan race begins to appear.
Negros or Buglas Island extends from 9° 4' to 9° 50' N. Scattered tribes of Negritos occupy the mountain range which extends throughout the length of the island.