PAPUAN PIGMIES.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 115, 29 April 1911, Page 4 (Supplement)

PAPUAN PIGMIES.

to crawl to husBAND’S HUT.

Mr. Walter Goodfellow', the leader of .the JBritish expedition to the syw range' of Dutch New Guinea, who was invalided -back to England, paralysed from the .waist downwards:as a result of beri-beri and fever, has given an interesting description of the pigmies of New Guinea

, “We found the pigmies,” he said, ‘‘to the west of the Miir.ika, which was rather- off our track. Letters received since I left show that- further traces of their dwellings have been found. Mr. Grant staved in one of their villages, but they’all left, as they did not like his staying there Small parties of these little people used to visit our camp, but we Rave never seen a woman or a child. They were all hidden away, and even offers ot presents were useless to persuade them to produce one of the women

* “They are a scattered and probably not numerous people. # The" men aver- • age only 4ft 6ih. in height-—the tallest was only 4 ft. 8| in,—but they are beautifully developed. All have bushy - beards Their weapons are quite different from those of the lowland tribes. They- fiy huntijiz,' hut theyAalso cultivate . thg and we fffiuhdenormoUe clekrtrigs AJI. ’made .wfth. their little. stone axes. " The;,' live in small •Jint’s farmed of leaves.’l ; Mr. Goodfellow gave an account of a marriage’festivity of one of the tribes whichJhq witnessed at fl, -.village Apposite , .the camp. The aereinoriies lasted two days, but-the.bride oiily arrived on .the second qav, when she was Jyought up rivet by her own village people in gaily - d'eeprated cano?s, .and was landed alone except for fine* little girt. -The moment slife was'.disembarked the canoes and tbeir. ocettpants departed, leaving the bf-rae. Avhp-was ; enveloped from head to foot-in a grass catering, to crawl on hand? and- knees to her husband’s -house, some hundreds of yards distant. No* men’except--the’-husband, who was awaiting the, bikie in his hut, were presept*, but.-all-around were groups of silent, women, who watched the new arrival’s painful-progress on hands and knees .Previously the husband’s *peo< pie had paid over stone clubs-and other articles as the .price of-his. wife.