conclusion to be drawn from these
facts appears to be that the Western Islands of Torres Straits were
formerly inhabited by aborigines of the Australian family, and that at a
later time they were occupied by immigrants from New Guinea, who adopted
the language of the aboriginal inhabitants, but gradually extinguished
the aboriginal type and character either by peaceful absorption or by
conquest and extermination.[274] Hence the Western Islanders of Torres
Straits form a transition both geographically and ethnographically
between the aborigines of Australia on the one side and the aborigines
of New Guinea on the other side. Accordingly in our survey of the belief
in immortality among the lower races we may appropriately consider the
Islanders of Torres Straits immediately after the aborigines of
Australia and before we pass onward to other and more distant races.
These Islanders have a special claim on the attention of a Cambridge
lecturer, since almost all the exact knowledge we possess of them we owe
to the exertions of Cambridge anthropologists and especially to Dr. A.
C. Haddon, who on his first visit to the islands in 1888 perceived the
urgent importance of procuring an accurate record of the old beliefs and
customs of the natives before it was too late, and who never rested till
that record was obtained, as it happily has been, first by his own
unaided researches in the islands, and afterwards by the united
researches of a band of competent enquirers. In the history of
anthropology the Cambridge Expedition to Torres Straits in 1898 will
always hold an honourable place, to the credit of the University which
promoted it and especially to that of the zealous and devoted
investigator who planned, organised, and carried it to a successful
conclusion. Practically all that I shall have to tell you as to the
beliefs and practices of the Torres Straits Islanders is derived from
the accurate and laborious researches of Dr. Haddon and his colleagues.

[Sidenote: Social culture of the Torres Straits Islanders.]

While the natives of Torres Straits are, or were at the time of their
discovery, in the condition which we call savagery, they stand on a far
higher level of social and intellectual culture than the rude aborigines
of Australia. To indicate roughly the degree of advance we need only say
that, whereas the Australians are nomadic hunters and fishers, entirely
ignorant of agriculture, and destitute to a great extent not o