There is very little I would like to say as to the statements regarding those tribes with which I am acquainted. The polished stones found in Kiwai, of which Mr. Murray has obtained no information among the natives, are axes or adzes brought in former times from the islands in Torres Straits in exchange for canoes. They were fastened to wooden handles, and could be used either as axes for cutting wood or, by twisting the stone in the handle, as adzes for hollowing out a canoe. Mr. Murray says that even in the old days there was apparently no ceremonial connected with the drinking of gamada (Piper methysticum, the kava of the South Sea) among the tribes behind Mawata. This holds good as to the drinking of gamada (or gamoda) on ordinary occasions. But the use of the beverage is in addition intimately connected with some of the ceremonies of the natives, particularly those referring to their agriculture. Thus they sprinkle gamoda in the direction of their gardens when invoking certain mythical beings to help them in their work, and they think it absolutely necessary for securing success in that respect. That is one reason why they yield so reluctantly to the inducements of the Government and Mission who want them to give up the use of gamoda; as one native put it:—"We fright (fear) Jesus Christ, one thing we fright our kaikai (food) too."
Sir William Macgregor, in his Introduction, says that Mr. Murray "has had opportunities of seeing into the heart of things in New Guinea in a way that no previous writer on that country could ever lay claim to," and it is refreshing to read a book dealing with ethnology, the writer of which, in spite of his vast information, contents himself with bringing forward and explaining facts without entering upon more or less premature theories as to the ultimate ethnical questions connected with the tribes he is describing.
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