r over them.[502] Mourners sometimes tattoo themselves in honour of
the dead. For a father, the marks are tattooed on the cheeks and under
the eyes; for a grandfather, on the breast; for a mother, on the
shoulders and arms; for a brother, on the back. On the death of a father
or mother, the eldest son or, if there is none such, the eldest daughter
wears the teeth and hair of the deceased. When the teeth of old people
drop out, they are kept on purpose to be thus strung on a string and
worn by their sons or daughters after their death. Similarly, a mother
wears as a permanent mark of mourning the teeth of her dead child strung
on a cord round her neck, and as a temporary mark of mourning a little
bag on her throat containing a lock of the child's hair.[503] The
intention of these customs is not mentioned. Probably they are not
purely commemorative but designed in some way either to influence for
good the spirit of the departed or to obtain its help and protection for
the living.

[Sidenote: Rebirth of parents in their children.]

Thus far we have found no evidence among the natives of New Guinea of a
belief that the dead are permanently reincarnated in their human
descendants. However, the inhabitants of Ayambori, an inland village
about an hour distant to the east of Doreh, are reported to believe that
the soul of a dead man returns in his eldest son, and that the soul of a
dead woman returns in her eldest daughter.[504] So stated the belief is
hardly clear and intelligible; for if a man has several sons, he must
evidently be alive and not dead when the eldest of them is born, and
similarly with a woman and her eldest daughter. On the analogy of
similar beliefs elsewhere we may conjecture that these Papuans imagine
every firstborn son to be animated by the soul of his father, whether
his father be alive or dead, and every firstborn daughter to be animated
by the soul of her mother, whether her mother be alive or dead.

[Sidenote: Customs concerning the dead observed in the islands off the
western end of New Guinea.]

Beliefs and customs concerning the dead like those which we have found
among the natives of Geelvink Bay are reported to prevail in other parts
of Dutch New Guinea, but our information about them is much less full.
Thus, off the western extremity of New Guinea there is a group of small
islands (Waaigeoo, Salawati, Misol, Waigama, and so on), the inhabitants
of which make _karwar_ or wooden images of thei