A QUAINT TRIBE.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 10729, 29 October 1928, Page 5

A QUAINT TRIBE.

PAL A EOLITHTC DWARFS

Writing in the March ‘‘Wide World Magazine,” Mr. J. E. H. Nolan describes a curious tribe of dwarfs that he encountered in the interior of New Guinea. “It- appeared that they had never seen a whiteman before, and at first- they cringed away from me. The height of the full-grown man varied from sft to oft 3in, the women being slightly shorter in stature. They were the most primitive types I have ever encountered. They were cliild-like in mind as well as in stature, hut they have compensated for their own lack of inches by putting their houses on stilts, thus placing them out ol reach of danger from any ordinary enemies on the ground, whether man or beast.

“Stark naked, save for a string tied round their middles, these pygmies were undoubtedly a pre-historic race. Bamboo knives, flint chips, and stone axes—implements of a palaeolithic type —were still in use. _ I observed some small plots of growing tobacco, but of pipes I saw none. I conjectured that these semi-pygmies have not always been accustomed to smoking, hut that the art had been newly acquired. “Bows and arrows were plentiful, and evidently ot local manufacture, both being about four feet in length. Most of the men wore a cane gauntlet of plaited rattan to prevent the wrist being hurt, by the smack of the bow string. The arrow-heads were very small, and made of bone. The warriors of the tribe wore a- curious kind of armour made of rattan which covered the upper part of the body as far as the waist and seemed to be quite arrow-proof.’’