llage with great pomp.
For this solemn ceremony their faces, necks, and breasts are whitened
with a thick layer of chalk, while red stripes, painted round their
mouths and eyes and prolonged to the ears, add to the grotesqueness of
their appearance. Their eyes are closed with a plaster of chalk, and
thus curiously arrayed and blindfolded they are led back to the village
square, where leave is formally given them to open their eyes. At the
entrance to the village they are received by the women, who weep for joy
and strew boiled field-fruits on the way. Next morning the newly
initiated lads wash off the crust of chalk, and have their hair, faces,
necks, and breasts painted bright red. This ends their time of
seclusion, which has lasted five or six months; they now rank as
full-grown men.[481]

[Sidenote: Simulation of death and resurrection.]

In these initiatory rites, as in the similar rites of the neighbouring
tribes on the mainland of New Guinea, we may perhaps detect a simulation
of death and of resurrection to a new and higher life. But why
circumcision should form the central feature of such a drama is a
question to which as yet no certain or even very probable answer can be
given. The bodily mutilations of various sorts, which in many savage
tribes mark the transition from boyhood to manhood, remain one of the
obscurest features in the life of uncultured races. That they are in
most cases connected with the great change which takes place in the
sexes at puberty seems fairly certain; but we are far from understanding
the ideas which primitive man has formed on this mysterious subject.

[Sidenote: The natives of Dutch New Guinea.]

That ends what I have to say as to the notions of death and a life
hereafter which are entertained by the natives of German New Guinea. We
now turn to the natives of Dutch New Guinea, who occupy roughly speaking
the western half of the great island. Our information as to their
customs and beliefs on this subject is much scantier, and accordingly my
account of them will be much briefer.

[Sidenote: Geelvink Bay and Doreh Bay. The Noofoor or Noomfor people.
Their material culture and arts of life.]

Towards the western end of the Dutch possession there is on the northern
coast a deep and wide indentation known as Geelvink Bay, which in its
north-west corner includes a very much smaller indentation known as
Doreh Bay. Scattered about in the waters of the great Geelvink Bay are
many is