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There several groups of sea cows were living in family units. These were manatees, which belong to the order Sirenia, like the dugong and Steller's sea cow. Harmless and unaggressive, these fine animals were six to seven meters long and must have weighed at least 4,000 kilograms each. I told Ned Land and Conseil that farseeing nature had given these mammals a major role to play.
The mere paddling about in the canoe is a feat beyond the dexterity of an ordinary man. It must not be concluded that these blacks invariably have the co-operation of a sucker in securing turtle. Its use is comparatively rare. Generally both turtle and dugong are harpooned as they rise to the surface to breathe, the sportsmen being very cunning and skilful.
From such a tree he cuts a stout branch and makes of it the principal post in his fish-trap; for he believes that, just as the tree lured many birds to its fruit, so the branch cut from that tree will lure many fish to the trap. The western tribes of British New Guinea employ a charm to aid the hunter in spearing dugong or turtle.
Similar totemic clan functions appear in the islands of Torres Straits, the Turtle and Dugong clans performing ceremonies to increase the supply of turtles and to attract dugongs. The tribes just mentioned are those in which the social organization is definitely totemistic. In New Guinea the totemic character of the performances appears to be doubtful.
Is it he who is in secret communication with us by the well in Granite House, and has he thus a knowledge of all our plans? Was it he who threw us that bottle, when the vessel made her first cruise? Was it he who threw Top out of the lake, and killed the dugong?
The flesh of a young dugong is sweet and tender, and the blubber, dry-cured after the manner of bacon with equal quantities of salt and sugar and finally smoked, quite a delicacy. Not long since an opportunity was given of examining the effects of a bullet on a dugong.
When within distance, the bowman leaps out, strikes the dugong, and returns to the canoe with the shaft in his hand. On being struck, the animal dives, carrying out the line, but generally rises to the surface and dies in a few minutes, not requiring a second wound, a circumstance surprising in the case of a cetaceous animal, six or eight feet in length, and of proportionate bulk.
The resemblance, in the shape of the body and in the fin-like anterior limbs, between the dugong, which is a pachydermatous animal, and the whale, and between both these mammals and fishes, is analogical. Amongst insects there are innumerable instances: thus Linnæus, misled by external appearances, actually classed an homopterous insect as a moth.
The guinea-pig has teeth which are shed before it is born, and hence can never subserve the masticatory purpose for which they seem contrived, and, in like manner, the female dugong has tusks which never cut the gum. All the members of the same great group run through similar conditions in their development, and all their parts, in the adult state, are arranged according to the same plan.
He was big, and strong, and wilful, and how was a feeble man with no experience and a black boy confessedly frightened of the big horse to accomplish such purpose? Tom is at home on a boat, and enjoys outwitting fish and turtle and dugong.
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