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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 September 2009
That the extensive island of New Guinea (by the Malays denominated Tanah Papūah or land of people with frizzled hair) should be less known to Europeans than almost any other part of the Eastern Archipelago, may be chiefly attributed to the savage manners of its inhabitants, whom the more civilized race of people in the neighbouring islands have always represented as cannibals; but of the justness of which imputation no direct proofs have hitherto been furnished by our navigators. How far the following detail of circumstances may warrant a belief that a practice well ascertained to exist in Sumatra and New Zealand, prevails also in a district of this country, the reader will form a judgment for himself, upon estimating the degree of credit to which it is entitled. The evidence of what is so abhorrent from our nature ought, doubtless, to be free from the suspicion either of credulity, or of a disposition to the marvellous; but on the other hand it may be questioned whether those who, from attachment to preconceived opinions, endeavour by captious arguments, or by ridicule, to discredit what is supported by unexceptionable testimony, are not equally enemies to the cause of truth, with those who by plausible relations give colour to what is false.
page 126 note * It appears from the journals of Dampier, Forrest, and others, that the inhabitants of the islands on the western side of New Guinea, and even of one so near to the coast as Pūlo Sabuda, are of the race commonly termed Malays. At an island of this description it was that M. Sonnerat had intercourse with some Papūah people, and not on the main.
page 127 note * This name is not found in the maps, but I read it in a Malayan letter from the Sultan of Tidore. The European called the place of his captivity, Yaloupe; but the prisoners may have been distributed among different villages.
page 127 note † The Battas of Sumatra, in such feasts, use both; the red or chili-pepper being understood.
page 128 note * For an account of their method of preparing this bread, see Forrest's Voyage to New Guinea. He brought to England and gave to Sir Joseph Banks, one of their earthen ovens for baking it.
page 128 note † Such worms are also a common article of food with the natives of New Holland, who climb old trees to procure them.
page 128 note ‡ I do not find this island laid down in any chart, but in Valentyn, vol. iii., incidental mention is made of it. Captain Forrest's Voyage also contains the following passages that seem to apply to it:—“North-east of Goram, one day's sail, is Wonim. In Keytz's Voyage mention is made of Onin, which I take to be Wonim, being 20 leagues north-east of Goram. …………The people of Ef-be told me, that a day's sail south of Wonim, a gulph stretched far into the land of New Guinea.” If this gulph, as is probable, be meant for M'Cluer's Inlet, Onin should lie between the first and second degree of south latitude, and we may suppose it to be the island described by Dampier, in lat. 1° 43' S., the inhabitants of which, he says, “are a sort of very tawney Indians, with long black hair, who in their manners differ but little from the Mindanayans and others of these eastern islands. These seem to be the chief; for besides them we saw also shock, curl-pated, New-Guinea Negroes; many of which are slaves to the others, but I think not all. …They have large boats and go over to New Guinea, where they get slaves, fine parrots, &c, which they carry to Goram.”
page 129 note * Their language, as appears from scanty specimens, is a dialect of the Polynesian, or general language of the eastern islands, of which the Malayan itself is a cultivated dialect.
page 129 note † Captain Henry Wilson, in the East-India Company's packet-ship Antelope, was on the north-eastern coast of New Guinea, near Schouten's Island, about the time of the Northumberland's accident on the north-western side. The country thereabouts he described to me as being remarkably populous. Upwards of fifty canoes came off to the ship, and many of the natives were allowed to come on board, who returned to the shore in a peaceable manner. By means of Captain Forrest's short Vocabulary of Papūah words (collected by him at Dory Harbour, but differing from those spoken at Braou), he managed to make himself pretty well understood. Upon the third day, however, they came off in such multitudes, and with an appearance so evidently hostile, that he found it necessary to repulse them with his small arms. Much had been previously said by them about a large ship, the purport of which he did not comprehend until his arrival in China, where he found the Northumberland and was informed of her disaster. The Antelope sailed from Canton in June, and in August 1783 was wrecked on one of the Pelew (Pīlīc) islands.
