Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XIII.djvu/67

 PAPUA PAPUAN EACE 57 The tree kangaroo is the most characteristic of the marsupials, which order is represented fur- ther by the flying opossum and four species of cuscus. According to "Wallace, the birds of Papua are more numerous, more beautiful, and afford more new, curious, and elegant forms than those of any other island on the globe. Eleven species of birds of paradise are known to inhabit the island, of which eight are not found elsewhere except in the closely contigu- ous island of Salawaty. There are 30 species of parrots, among them the largest and small- est parrots known to ornithologists ; 40 species of pigeons, including the beautiful crowned pigeons; and 16 species of kingfishers. The cassowary is also included among the 108 genera of Papuan land birds. Meyer's recent researches on the herpetology of this region show that there are 63 different forms of rep- tiles and batrachians in Papua and the ad- jacent islands, comprising more than 30 spe- cies of lizards, 16 serpents, of which one is allied to the Australian carpet snake, and one tortoise besides the marine tortoise. Insects are exceedingly numerous and noted for their beauty of form and color. Wallace collected 1,000 distinct sorts of beetles in a space of one square mile during a three months' residence at Dorey. The zoological affinities of Papua and Australia, together with the shallowness of the intervening sea, have been regarded as strong evidence of the former existence of land com- munication between these two vast islands. There is no means of forming any trustworthy estimate of the population of Papua. The in- habitants belong to the typical Papuan race, and have a facial expression not unlike that of Europeans. (See PAPUAN RACE AND LAN- GUAGES.) No other indigenous race has been met with on the island. The double extremity of the S. E. peninsula, visited by Capt. Mores- by in 1873, although very rugged and moun- tainous, is intersected by fertile valleys, which are well cultivated by the natives, who there excel as agriculturists. Their villages in this region are described as singularly neat, in which respect they contrast favorably with those in the N. W. part of the island near Dorey, where the houses are built on poles 15 ft. above the ground. Recent travellers re- port the prevalence of cannibalism in numer- ous localities, but its existence does not seem to be proved. The government of the Nether- lands is the only European power having co- lonial possessions in Papua. The are'a under Dutch control is said to be about 29,000 sq. m., with an estimated population of 200,000. The territory which has long been claimed by the Netherlands, however, is much more extensive, comprising nearly half the island. Dorey, a small village situated on a fine harbor on the N. side of the N. W. peninsula, is one of the principal Dutch stations frequented by European and Mohammedan traders. There are missionary posts in this part of Papua. Birds of paradise, tripang, wild nutmegs, and tortoise shell are among the chief articles of export in the active trade carried on with the Moluccas. Papua was discovered in the early part of the 16th century by the Portuguese, by whom it was named New Guinea from the striking resemblance between its inhabitants and those of Guinea in Africa. The Dutch in 1828 built a fort called Dubus on the S. E. coast, but the climate proved so unhealthy that they were forced to abandon it. They subsequently succeeded, however, in establish- ing trading stations at various localities. The S. E. coast was explored in 1845 by the Fly, a British government vessel, and in 1846 by the schooner Bramble. Another expedition in the British ship Rattlesnake in 1848 discover- ed the Stanley range, one peak of which was ascertained to be 13,205 ft. above the sea. A successful effort to complete this survey was made in 1873 and 1874 by Capt. Moresby of the British navy, in the ship Basilisk, who carefully examined the S. coast from Torres strait to the E. end of the island, and the N. coast thence westerly to Astrolabe bay. A Dutch scientific commission visited the "W. part of Papua in 1858. The natural history of that region was investigated by A. R. Wallace in the same year; by D'Albertis and Beccari, in 1872; and by Meyer, the German naturalist, in 1873. The most recent work on Papua is " Wanderings in the Interior of New Guinea," by J. H. Lawson (London, 1875), whose state- ments, however, have been called in question. PAPUAN RACE AND LANGUAGES. The Papuans are the original inhabitants of the islands of the Indian and Pacific oceans, but, driven out or extirpated from the coasts by the Malayo- Polynesian races, they are generally in pos- session of only the interior and inaccessible portions. The name Papua is derived from the Malay papuvaJi, crisp-haired, a descriptive term applied to the people. The Indian archi- pelago is considered the primitive home of the Papuans. Though the Malays have intermixed but little with the Papuan race, it is necessary to distinguish between pure Papuans and mix- ed Papuans. In the former class are counted the inhabitants of Papua, of the Key, Arroo, Mysol, Salawaty, and Waigioo islands, as well as the Aetas or negritos of the Philippines. (See NEGEITOS.) It is still doubtful whether also the inhabitants of Borneo, Celebes, and Gilolo belong to the pure division of the race, but most ethnologists agree in considering as such the Semangs on the peninsula of Ma- lacca, as well as the Andaman and Nicobar islanders. To the class of mixed Papuans really belong all the tribes of Oceania east of the aboriginal home of the Papuans. Conse- quently Wallace is inclined to treat all the Po- lynesian races as mixed Papuans, yet this des- ignation should be applied to them only where there has been a nearly complete typical change. As such are reckoned the Alfuros on the north- ern peninsula of Gilolo, the aboriginal popula- tion of Ceram, Booro, Timor, the islands west