The Malay archipelago : the land of the orang-utan ... - Wallace Online

XX.XIV.] NEW GUINEA.—DOREY. 37&their battles with the savage Arfaks of the interior, who oftencome to attack them. A large boat-shaped council-house is supportedon larger posts, each of which is grossly carved to representa naked male or female human figure, and other carvingsstill more revolting are placed upon the platform before theentrance. The view of an ancient lake-dweller's village, givenas the frontispiece of Sir Charles Lyell's Antiquity of Man, ischiefly founded on a sketch of this very village of Dorey ; butthe extreme regularity of the structures there depicted has noPAPUAN.KEW GUINEA.place in the original, any more than it i^robably had in theactual lake-villages.The people who inhabit these misei'able huts are very similarto the Ke and Aru islanders, and many of them are very handsome,being tall and well-made, with well-cut features and largeaquiline noses. Their colour is a deep brown, often approachingclosely to black, and the fine mop-like heads of frizzly hairappear to be more common than elsewhere, and are considereda great ornament, a long six-pronged bamboo fork being keptstuck in them to serve the purpose of a comb ; and this is assiduouslyused at idle moments to keep the densely growing mass