s are generally
situated in the midst of a dense forest; but on the coast the natives
build their houses not far from the beach as a precaution against the
attacks of the forest tribes, of whom they stand greatly in fear. A New
Britain village generally consists of a number of small communities or
families, each of which dwells in a separate enclosure. The houses are
very small and badly built, oblong in shape and very low. Between the
separate hamlets which together compose a village lie stretches of
virgin forest, through which run irregular and often muddy foot-tracks,
scooped out here and there into mud-holes where the pigs love to wallow
during the heat of the tropical day. As the people of any one district
used generally to be at war with their neighbours, it was necessary that
they should live together for the sake of mutual protection.[627]

[Sidenote: Commercial habits of the North Melanesians. Their
backwardness in other respects.]

Nevertheless, in spite of their limited intercourse with surrounding
villages, the natives of the New Britain or the Bismarck Archipelago
were essentially a trading people. They made extensive use of shell
money and fully recognised the value of any imported articles as mediums
of exchange or currency. Markets were held on certain days at fixed
places, where the forest people brought their yams, taro, bananas and so
forth and exchanged them for fish, tobacco, and other articles with the
natives of the coast. They also went on long trading expeditions to
procure canoes, cuscus teeth, pigs, slaves, and so forth, which on their
return they generally sold at a considerable profit. The shell which
they used as money is the _Nassa immersa_ or _Nassa calosa_, found on
the north coast of New Britain. The shells were perforated and threaded
on strips of cane, which were then joined together in coils of fifty to
two hundred fathoms.[628] The rights of private property were fully
recognised. All lands belonged to certain families, and husband and wife
had each the exclusive right to his or her goods and chattels. But while
in certain directions the people had made some progress, in others they
remained very backward. Pottery and the metals were unknown; no metal or
specimen of metal-work has been found in the archipelago; on the other
hand the natives made much use of stone implements, especially adzes and
clubs. In war they never used bows and arrows.[629] They had no system
of government,