AN UNKNOWN ISLAND.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 1580, 11 March 1887, Page 3

AN UNKNOWN ISLAND.

SAVAGE AND SCIENTIFIC HEAD-HUXTEKS.

The October issue of the Bulletino of the Italian Geographical Society contains an account of an excursion made during the summer by E. Modigliani, to the rarely visited island of Nias, which lies some 30 miles from the west coast of Sumatra, a little north of the equator. The explorer spent two months in the place, but owing to local feuds, was unable to penetrate beyond Fadoro, a large village near Telok Dalam Bay on the south side. The natives, apparently of Malayan or Indonesian stock, but speaking a language quite different from Malay, and by Crawford described as " a mild, simple, and primitive race," he found, on the contrary, to be fierce and treacherous savages, everywhere addicted to head-hunting. Their hostility was such that he failed to make any botanical or zoological collections; but fortunately secured eleven human skulls from the south districts, which have been sent to the Anthropological Museum of Florence. No similar specimens appear to have hitherto reached Europe, nor are any found even in the Batavian collection. Head-hunting is taken so much as a matter of course, that on Signor Modigliani offering to purchase some skulls, the rajah of Bavoloualani on the south coast quietly remarked that it would be rather an expensive business, as an expedition would have to be specially fitted out and sent to the hills to raid upon some neighbouring tribes and carry off the required number of heads. He had uo idea of craniological specimens being collected except from the living subject. The interior of Nias still presents a promising field of exploration, rever having been Yisitefl by European travellers.