[57] See Annual Report for June, 1910, which on p. 5 speaks of “several villages round about the Mission, known as Sivu.”

[58] Compare the Koita system, under which under certain conditions the son of a chief’s sister might succeed him (Seligmann, Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 52).  Such a thing could not take place among the Mafulu.

[59] I do not know how far this pig-killer may be compared with the Roro ovia akiva, or chief of the knife, referred to by Dr. Seligmann (Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 219).  The Mafulu pig-killer cannot be regarded as being even a quasi-chief, and his office is not hereditary.  It is noticeable also that he is the man who kills the pigs, whereas the ovia akiva only cuts up the bodies after the pigs have been killed by someone else.

[60] I do not suggest that these defences are peculiar to the Mafulu area.  I believe they are used by other mountain natives of the Central District.

[61] Though this curious-shaped hood in front of a house is apparently a speciality of the mountains, so far as British New Guinea is concerned, I do not suggest that it does not exist elsewhere.  In fact, some of the native houses which I have seen in the Rubiana Lagoon district of the Solomon Islands had a somewhat similar projection, though in them the front wall of the house, with its little door-opening, was carried round below the outer edge of the hood, which thus formed part of the roof of the interior, instead of being merely a shelter over the outside platform, as is the case in Mafulu.

[62] Dr. Haddon refers (Geographical Journal, Vol.  XVI., p. 422) to conical ground houses with elliptical and circular bases found in villages on the top of steep hills behind the Mekeo district and on the southern spur of Mt.  Davidson, and says that in some places, as on the Aduala affluent of the Angabunga (i.e., St. Joseph’s) river, the houses are oblong, having a short ridge pole.  I think that the elliptical houses to which he refers have probably been Kuni houses, to which his description could well be applied, and that the oblong houses have been Mafulu.  The villages with very narrow streets, and the houses of which are, he says, built partly on the crest and partly on the slope, are also in this respect typically Kuni.

[63] This photograph had to be taken from an awkward position above, from which I had to point the camera downwards to the bridge.

[64] See also description of suspension bridge over Vanapa river in lower hill districts given in Annual Report for June, 1889, p. 38.

[65] Compare the Koita system under which the owner of the house owns the site of it also, and the latter passes on his death to his heirs (Seligmann’s Melanesians of British New Guinea, p. 89.)

[66] See note 1 on p. 128.

[67] Father Egedi describes in Anthropos a Kuni method of preparing a fruit similar to the one described here, and which also gives rise to terrible smells.  The tree is referred to by him as being a bread-fruit; and Dr. Stapf thinks that the malage may possibly be one of the Artocarpus genus, of which some have smooth or almost smooth fruit, and some are said to have poisonous sap, and the seeds of many of which are eaten, or of some closely allied type.