ific. On the whole the _tapum_ are kindly and
beneficent spirits, who bring good luck to such as honour them. A hunter
or a fisherman ascribes his success in the chase or in fishing to the
protection of his guardian spirit; and when he is away from home trading
for sago and other necessaries of life, it is his guardian spirit who
gives him favour in the eyes of the foreigners with whom he is dealing.
Curiously enough, though these guardian spirits are all female, they
have no liking for women and children. Indeed, no woman or child may set
foot in a temple, or even loiter in the open space in front of it. And
at the chief festivals, when the temples are being repaired, all the
women and children must quit the village till the evening shadows have
fallen and the banquet of their husbands, fathers, and brothers at the
temple is over.[379]

On the whole, then, we conclude that a belief in the continued existence
of the spirits of the dead, and in their power to help or harm their
descendants, plays a considerable part in the life of the Papuans of
Tumleo. Whether the guardian spirits or goddesses, who are worshipped in
the temples, were originally conceived as ancestral spirits or not, must
be left an open question for the present.

[Sidenote: The Monumbo of Potsdam Harbour.]

Passing eastward from Tumleo along the northern coast of German New
Guinea we come to Monumbo or Potsdam Harbour, situated about the 145th
degree of East Longitude. The Monumbo are a Papuan tribe numbering about
four hundred souls, who inhabit twelve small villages close to the
seashore. Their territory is a narrow but fertile strip of country, well
watered and covered with luxuriant vegetation, lying between the sea and
a range of hills. The bay is sheltered by an island from the open sea,
and the natives can paddle their canoes on its calm water in almost any
weather. The villages, embowered on the landward side in groves of trees
of many useful sorts and screened in front by rows of stately coco-nut
palms, are composed of large houses solidly built of timber and are kept
very clean and tidy. The Monumbo are a strongly-built people, of the
average European height, with what is described as a remarkably Semitic
type of features. The men wear their hair plaited about a long tube,
decorated with shells and dogs' teeth, which sticks out stiffly from the
head. The women wear their hair in a sort of mop, composed of countless
plaits, which hang down in