e in settled villages, and till the ground. Every year they make a
fresh clearing in the forest by cutting down the trees, burning the
fallen timber, and planting taro, bananas, sugar-cane, and tobacco in
the open glade. When the crops have been reaped, the place is abandoned,
and is soon overgrown again by the rank tropical vegetation, while the
natives move on to another patch, which they clear and cultivate in like
manner. This rude mode of tillage is commonly practised by many savages,
especially within the tropics. Cultivation of this sort is migratory,
and in some places, though apparently not in New Guinea, the people
shift their habitations with their fields as they move on from one part
of the forest to another. Among the Yabim the labour of clearing a patch
for cultivation is performed by all the men of a village in common, but
when the great trees have fallen with a crash to the ground, and the
trunks, branches, foliage and underwood have been burnt, with a roar of
flames and a crackling like a rolling fire of musketry, each family
appropriates a portion of the clearing for its own use and marks off its
boundaries with sticks. But they also subsist in part by fishing, and
for this purpose they build outrigger canoes. They display considerable
skill and taste in wood-carving, and are fond of ornamenting their
houses, canoes, paddles, tools, spears, and drums with figures of
crocodiles, fish, and other patterns.[402]

[Sidenote: Men's clubhouses (_lum_).]

The villages are divided into wards, and every ward contains its
clubhouse for men, called a _lum_, in which young men and lads are
obliged to pass the night. It consists of a bedroom above and a parlour
with fireplaces below. In the parlour the grown men pass their leisure
hours during the day, and here the councils are held. The wives cook the
food at home and bring it for their husbands to the clubhouse. The
bull-roarers which are used at the initiatory ceremonies are kept in the
principal clubhouse of the village. Such a clubhouse serves as an
asylum; men fleeing from the avenger of blood who escape into it are
safe. It is said that the spirit (_balum_) has swallowed or concealed
them. But if they steal out of it and attempt to make their way to
another village, they carry their life in their hand.[403] Among the
Yabim, according to Mr. Zahn, religion in the proper sense does not
exist, but on the other hand the whole people is dominated by the fear
of w