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Updated: June 20, 2025
Nevertheless, although I do not absolutely deny that such is the case, the evidence of the whole body of ethnological fact e.g. those connected with the moral, intellectual, and physical conformation of the two populations is against it. Are we then to say that all the words of the table just given are borrowed from the Australian by the Papuans, or vice versa? No.
I now had my first view of Papuans in their own country, and in less than five minutes was convinced that the opinion already arrived at by the examination of a few Timor and New Guinea slaves was substantially correct, and that the people I now had an opportunity of comparing side by side belonged to two of the most distinct and strongly marked races that the earth contains.
They reminded him of the natives of Otaheite, Tonga Tabou, and New Zealand, much more than of the Papuans of Darei Harbour, the Harfous of Bouron, or the Malays, with their square bony faces.
The public mind is much exercised in discussing whether Her Majesty's Government should annex the whole rather than proclaim a protectorate over a part; it hardly cares to remember the names of those who have died in trying to make known to the fierce Papuans our common brotherhood in Christ Jesus.
I have never seen these people myself, but from the numerous accurate descriptions of them that have been published, I have had no difficulty in satisfying myself that they have little affinity or resemblance to the Papuans, with which they have been hitherto associated. In most important characters they differ more from the Papuan than they do from the Malay.
That, however, was an unnecessary caution, since the Papuans take great care never to disturb these nests or bowers, even if they are in their way. The birds had evidently enjoyed the greatest quiet until we happened, unfortunately for them, to come near them.
Herodotus states of the ancient Egyptians that in some parts they slept on top of high towers to avoid mosquitoes and the malaria that they brought. The Papuan seems to have arrived at the same idea. Sorcery is a great evil among the Papuans. In every village almost, some crafty man pretends to be a witch and to have the power to destroy those who are his enemies.
The natives of Banda are very much mixed, and it is probable that at least three-fourths of the population are mongrels, in various degrees of Malay, Papuan, Arab, Portuguese, and Dutch. The first two form the bases of the larger portion, and the dark skins, pronounced features, and more or less frizzly hair of the Papuans preponderates.
At first I was inclined to regard the last more as degraded Papuans than as improved Australians: I am now, however, fully convinced that they afford an example of an Australian tribe so altered by contact with the Papuan tribes of the adjacent islands as at length to resemble the latter in most of their physical, intellectual and moral characteristics.
It is well known, however, that the interior of these countries is inhabited by various tribes, differing from the Malays and each other, and presenting numerous gradations of early civilization: the Dyaks of Borneo, the Papuans of New Guinea, and others, beside the black race scattered over the islands.
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