shores of New Guinea, from Sabelo to the Cape Dory, where
they have been described fully by M. M. Quoy and Gaimard.
These insular-and littoral tribes are in fact, as the writers
above mentioned have proved, a mixed race, between Malay
settlers and the genuine Papuas. This has been inferred
from the mixed state of their .language, as well as of their
physical characters and their religious customs, which par-
lake in some parts more, in others less, of the corrupt
Mahomedanism of the Malays and the Paganism of the native
Papuas. The same conclusion appears highly probable,
when it^s.considered that the small tribes' into which these
people are divided, under the rule of petty chiefs termed
rajahs, are spread over tracts, ju s t intermediate between the
Malayan isles, and the Land of the Papuas, namely, on the
shores of smalltslands clustered together under the equator,
and continually receiving new Malay settlers from Tidor and
Temate, as well as Papuas from New Guinea, and-, even
some Alfourous from the mountains in the interior. The
governing and the commercial caste, are the Malays,; who hold
the mixed Papua race in subjection. The latter are described
as indicating by their puny stature, timid, character,
and the leprous diseases which are prevalent among them, the
unwholesome influence-of the tracts which they inhabit, and of
their mode of life.”
Such, as M. Lesson observes, are the Papuas, who were
visited by d’Entrecasteaux, Rossel, La Billardter&, de Frey-
cinet, Quoy and Guinard. They must be distinguished
carefully from the genuine Papuas, who inhabit the northern
parts of New Guinea and the great adjoining islands of New
Britain, New Ireland, as well as the groupes which extend
southward into the Pacific Ocean, and which are distinguished
in maps by the terms of Louisiade, Bouka,Santa Cruz, and
Solomon’s Islands.
The results obtained by M. Lesson from his researches
into the history of these races, differ' materially from the
opinions advanced by Mr. Crawford. According to Lesson
the Papuas bear the closest resemblance to the Madeeasses
or as he terms them, Cafro-Madecasses, the race of people
who occupy the greater part of Madagascar; this remark
applies to many of the habits and traditions, as well as to the
physical constitution, common to these races. The Papuas,
as Lesson concludes, are not the aborigines of the Indian
Archipelago; their migration appears to have been posterior
in time to that of the Oceanic tribes, a migration which has
not reached into the remote .spaces of the Pacific, which
spread itself along the northern ^oast of New Guinea, then
over New Britain, New Ireland, the Isles of Bouka, of Bougainville,
the Admiralty Isles, the Archipelago of Solomon, of
Santa Cruz, the Tierra Australe ■ del Espiritu Santo, and
New Caledonia. These inhabitants ,of New = Guinea distinguish
themselves by the name of Papuas, reserving the denomination
of. Endamenes to the black tribes with sparse
and lank hair, who inhabit the interior of the-same' country.
The lattef are. the people who are termed by various^ writers
Alfourous, Alfoërs, or Haraforus. They are, according to the
information obtained by M. Lesson, the | aboriginal inhabitants
qf the great islands of the Malayan archipelago: they
still » occupy all the inland and mountainous parts of New
Guinea, and all the southern coast, whence they appear to
have* spread themselves in miserable and scattered hordes
over the barren wilderness of New Holland. They appear,
however, never to have passed the strait which cuts off from
that continent the Land of Diemen. In the latter country,
the woolly-haired , rape can only be supposed to have'found
their, way -byMpassing alongJhe groupe of the Ne$b Hebrides,
and from .New- Caledonia.*
Such is ihe- theory adopted by M. Lesson,.respecting the
migration of these people, which I have alluded to in order
to point out the probable connexion of different tribes, and
to give a general idea of the extension of the Papua races.
In a future part of this work it will be my turn to collect
what traces I may-be enabled to find for the élucidation of
this subject. I shall now proceed to the physical description
of the Papua race, and shall then collect some further notices
of the Alfourous. -
“ The woolly-haired race spread over the northern parts of
* Mémoire sur les Papouasou Papous, par M. M. Lesson et Gamot. Annales
des Sie. Nat. tom. x. 1827, p. 93.