is elementary arts
of sculpture and painting. They are built of wood in two storeys and
raised on piles besides. The approach to one of them is always by one or
two ladders provided on both sides with hand-rails or banisters. These
banisters are elaborately decorated with carving, which is always of the
same pattern. One banister is invariably carved in the shape of a
crocodile holding a grotesque human figure in its jaws, while on the
other hand the animal's tail is grasped by one or more human figures.
The other banister regularly exhibits a row of human or rather ape-like
effigies seated one behind the other, each of them resting his arms on
the shoulders of the figure in front. Often there are seven such figures
in a row. The natives are so shy in speaking of these temples that it is
difficult to ascertain the meaning of the curious carvings by which they
are adorned. Mr. Parkinson supposed that they represent spirits, not
apes. He tells us that there are no apes in New Guinea. The interior of
the temple (_parak_) is generally empty. The only things to be seen in
its two rooms, the upper and lower, are bamboo flutes and drums made out
of the hollow trunks of trees. On these instruments men concealed in the
temple discourse music in order to signify the presence of the
spirit.[370]

[Sidenote: The bachelors' houses (_alols_) of Tumleo.]

Different from these _paraks_ or temples are the _alols_, which are
bachelors' houses and council-houses in one. Like the temples, they are
raised above the ground and approached by a ladder, but unlike the
temples they have only one storey. In them the unmarried men live and
the married men meet to take counsel and to speak of things which may
not be mentioned before women. On a small stand or table in each of
these _alols_ or men's clubhouses are kept the skulls of dead men. And
as the temple (_parak_) is devoted to the worship of spirits, so the
men's clubhouse (_alol_) is the place where the dead ancestors are
worshipped. Women and children may not enter it, but it is not regarded
with such superstitious fear as the temple. The dead are buried in their
houses or beside them. Afterwards the bones are dug up and the skulls of
grown men are deposited, along with one of the leg bones, on the stand
or table in the men's clubhouse (_alol_). The skulls of youths, women,
and children are kept in the houses where they died. When the table in
the clubhouse is quite full of grinning trophi