Head-hunters, black, white, and brown

A travel and ethnographic account of field investigations among island and mainland communities in the Torres Strait, parts of New Guinea, and Sarawak, presenting detailed observations of customs, beliefs, social organization, material culture, music, language, medicine, and economic practices. The narrative interleaves descriptions of journeys and encounters with methodological notes on linguistic work, experimental psychology, photography, and physical measurements carried out by an organized scientific party. It stresses the increasing loss of traditional knowledge among younger generations and aims to record rites, objects, and oral information, illustrated with plates, textual figures, and maps.