Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/70

60 bring home some of the produce for the evening's meal. They have throughout the year a succession of fruits and vegetables either wild or cultivated, and are thus never half-starved like the Australians. On the whole the women are well treated and have much liberty, though they are considered as inferiors, and do not take their meals with the men. The children are well attended to, and the fathers seem very fond of their boys, and often take them when very young on their fishing or hunting excursions.

As in the case of most other savages, we have very different and conflicting accounts of the character of the Papuans. Mr. Windsor Earl well remarks, that whenever civilized man is brought into friendly communication with savages, the disgust which naturally arises from the first glance at a state of society so obnoxious to his sense of propriety, disappears before a closer acquaintance, and he learns to regard their little delinquencies as he would those of children; while their kindliness of disposition and natural good qualities begin to be recognized. Thus many writers make highly favorable statements respecting the Papuan character and disposition; while those whose communications with them have been of a hostile nature are so impressed with their savage cunning and ferocity, and the wild-beast-like nature of their attacks, that they will not recognize in them any feelings in common with more civilized races.

Many of the early voyagers record nothing but hostility or treacherous murders on the part of the Papuans. Their visits were, however, chiefly on the northwest and southwest coasts, which the Malays have long been accustomed to visit not only for commerce but to capture slaves. This having become a regular trade, some of the more warlike coast tribes, especially those of Onin in McCluer's Inlet, have been accustomed to attack the villages of other tribes, and to capture their inhabitants, in order to sell the women and children to the Malays. It is not therefore surprising that unknown armed visitors to these coasts should be treated as enemies to be resisted and if possible exterminated. Even Europeans have sometimes increased this feeling of enmity through ignorance of native habits and customs. Cocoanut-trees have been cut down to obtain the fruit, apparently under the impression that they grew wild and were so abundant as to be of little value x whereas every tree is considered as private property, as they supply an important article of food, and are even more valued than the choicest fruit trees among ourselves. Thus Schouten, in 1616, sent a boat well armed to bring cocoanuts from a grove of trees near the shore, but the natives attacked the Europeans, wounded sixteen of them, and forced them to retire. Commodore Roggewen, in 1722, cut down cocoanut-trees on the island of Moa on the north coast, which, of course, brought on an attack. At other times houses have been entered in the absence of their owners, a great offense in the eyes of all savage people, and at once stamping the intruder as an enemy.