ing me not to show it to anybody. He wrapped it up so
carefully, that the small object made an immense parcel. Some of the
masks are now used for fun; the men put them on and run through the
forest, and have the right to whip anybody they meet. This, however,
is a remnant of a very serious matter, as formerly the secret societies
used these masks to terrorize all the country round, especially people
who were hostile to the society, or who were rich or friendless.

These societies are still of great importance on New Guinea, but here
they have evidently degenerated. It is not improbable that the Suque
has developed from one of these organizations. Their decay is another
symptom of the decline of the entire culture of the natives; and other
facts seem to point to the probability that this decadence may have
set in even before the beginning of colonization by the whites.

My visit to the men's house ended, and seeing no prospects of acquiring
any more curiosities, I went to the dancing-ground, where most of the
men were assembled at a death-feast, it being the hundredth day after
the funeral of one of their friends. In the centre of the square,
near the drums, stood the chief, violently gesticulating. The crowd
did not seem pleased at my coming, and criticized me in undertones. A
terrible smell of decomposed meat filled the air; evidently they
had all partaken of a half-rotten pig, and the odour did not seem to
trouble them at all.

The chief was a tall man, bald-headed, wearing the nambas, of larger
size than those of the others, and with both arms covered with pigs'
tusks to show his rank. He looked at me angrily, came up to me, and
sat down, not without having first swept the ground with his foot,
evidently in order not to come into contact with any charm that an
enemy might have thrown there. One of the men wanted me to buy a
flute, asking just double what I was willing to give; seeing that I
did not intend to pay so much, he made me a present of the flute,
and seemed just as well pleased. Still, the others stared at me
silently and suspiciously, until I offered some tobacco to the chief,
which he accepted with a joke, whereat everybody laughed and the ice
was broken. The men forgot their reserve, and talked about me in
loud tones, looking at me as we might at a hopelessly mad person,
half pitying, half amused at his vagaries. The chief now wished to
shake hands with me, though he did not trouble to get up for the
c