Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Red Bird of Paradise (
Paradisea rubra
)
The people of Waigiou are not truly indigenes of the island, which possesses no 'Alfuros,'
or aboriginal inhabitants. They appear to be a mixed race, partly from Gilolo, partly from
New Guinea. Malays and Alfuros from the former island have probably settled here, and
many of them have taken Papuan wives from Salwatty or Dorey, while the influx of people
from those places, and of slaves, has led to the formation of a tribe exhibiting almost all the
transitions from a nearly pure Malayan to an entirely Papuan type. The language spoken by
them is entirely Papuan, being that which is used on all the coasts of Mysol, Salwatty, the
north-west of New Guinea, and the islands in the great Geelvink Bay,—a fact which indic-
ates the way in which the coast settlements have been formed. The fact that so many of the
islands between New Guinea and the Moluccas—such as Waigiou, Guebé, Poppa, Obi, Bat-
chian, as well as the south and east peninsulas of Gilolo—possess no aboriginal tribes, but
are inhabited by people who are evidently mongrels and wanderers, is a remarkable corrob-
orative proof of the distinctness of the Malayan and Papuan races, and the separation of the
geographical areas they inhabit. If these two great races were direct modifications, the one
of the other, we should expect to find in the intervening region some homogeneous indigen-
ous race presenting intermediate characters. For example, between the whitest inhabitants of
Europe and the black Klings of South India, there are in the intervening districts homogen-
eous races which form a gradual transition from one to the other; while in America, al-
though there is a perfect transition from the Anglo-Saxon to the negro, and from the Span-
iard to the Indian, there is no homogeneous race forming a natural transition from one to the
other. In the Malay Archipelago we have an excellent example of two absolutely distinct
races, which appear to have approached each other, and intermingled in an unoccupied ter-
ritory at a very recent epoch in the history of man; and I feel satisfied that no unprejudiced
person could study them on the spot without being convinced that this is the true solution of
the problem, rather than the almost universally accepted view that they are but modifica-
tions of one and the same race.
The people of Muka live in that abject state of poverty that is almost always found where
the sago-tree is abundant. Very few of them take the trouble to plant any vegetables or fruit,
but live almost entirely on sago and fish, selling a little tripang or tortoiseshell to buy the
scanty clothing they require. Almost all of them, however, possess one or more Papuan
slaves, on whose labour they live in almost absolute idleness, just going out on little fishing
or trading excursions, as an excitement in their monotonous existence. They are under the
rule of the Sultan of Tidore, and every year have to pay a small tribute of Paradise birds, tor-
toiseshell, or sago. To obtain these, they go in the fine season on a trading voyage to the
