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Two Years Among New Guinea Cannibals / A Naturalist's Sojourn Among the Aborigines of Unexplored New Guinea cover

Two Years Among New Guinea Cannibals / A Naturalist's Sojourn Among the Aborigines of Unexplored New Guinea

Chapter 21: CHAPTER XIII LAST JOURNEY TO THE COAST
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About This Book

The narrative recounts two years of scientific fieldwork in New Guinea, combining natural-history collecting with ethnographic observation. The author describes arduous inland travel, coastal settlements and village life, local crafts and watercraft, dialectal diversity, ceremonies, and everyday material culture while recording birds, insects, and new species. Chapters detail camps, transport challenges, encounters with various tribes, and practical arrangements for collection and study; appendices present specimen records and scientific notes. Illustrations and a map accompany practical accounts of landscape, wildlife, and indigenous technologies.

CHAPTER XIII
LAST JOURNEY TO THE COAST

A Dangerous Stream-Crossing—Babooni—Sunshine once more—Successful Work—Poor Fare—Messengers to Ekeikei—The Tree-Cabbage—Method of Cooking Tree-Cabbage—A Great Curiosity—Spiders’ Webs as Fishing-Nets—Dancing Festivals—Back to the Kebea—Our Bean Crop—A Papuan Parliament—We obtain Credit—A Wife-Beater—My only Act of Perfidy—The Journey to Ekeikei—Back to the Land of Plenty—Last Visit to Epa—Mavai unfriendly—He is talked over and supplies Carriers—Example better than Precept—The Coast again—An Accident—The Natives drink Sea-Water—Good-bye to the Mountaineers.