Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1892 — AMONG SAVAGE PAPUANS. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

AMONG SAVAGE PAPUANS.

Adventures of a German Explorer Who Spent Three Years In Now Guinea. Ik Linnemann, an engineer representing the agricultural department of the German government, arrived at San Francisco recently after three years’ explorations among the cannibals of New Guinep. Germany owns, or rather has a protectorate over, about half pf these islands, while England and other countries control the others. Mr. Linnemann, as representative of the home government, adjudicated claims and visited tho interior of both New Guinea, so-called, and New Britain, which are governed by the English, on exploring expeditions and roughly surveyed the wilderness of Npw Guinea back from the sea coast, lie had many thrilling experiences among the savages and had to be on his guard very warily on many occasions because of the danger that surrounded him. “No European had ever before invaded those forests," said Mr. Linnemann to an Examiner reporter. “My feet pressed the earth remote from the explorations of the Caucasian

race. It was the native homo of tho Bavages. Many of them had never been near the coast and had scarcely any knowledge of it except by hearsay, consequently their knowledge was very vague. “I was interested beyond measure in their strunge customs. They were naked. Not a thread of any kind do these natives wear. Men and women alike appear as on the day of their birth. They are large, stalwart savages, strongly built and with crispy black hair and eyes. Their skin is scarcely so dark as that of the Samoans or Hawaiians. For, Indeed, they are of another race. The Samoans and Hawaiians are Polynesians, but these arc Papuans. Mauy of them are 0 feet high, but most of them are about 5 feet 8 or 5 feet 10 inches. “The women arc also of good size, well developed und often handsome. Tho women, however, have no influence over the men. A white man can buy a woman for enough of the native money to make, say, from two to five pounds. A very pretty Woman can be got for that, and often for less. One who is not very pretty can be got for half that and an ugly ono for a good deal less. “When a man has bought a woman she is his absolutely, and if she violates her faith with him she is killed und oaten. They ware very strict about that. They will not kill and eat her at or near our trading posts, l’or years ago we began inflicting severe punishment on them for cannibalism, but they will lure her away to the woods and then cut off her head and cook her up. We never hear of such wopien again. “It is only for such things that a tribe will so dispose of one of its members, but tribe preys upon tribe, steals men and women away from each other and eats them. The German Government and the New Guinea Company do all possible to prevenf this, but they cannot stop it. The savage accomplishes it in the woods remote from tho posts, and all we know is that the natives are disappearing. No member of tho tribe will come down to the coast and tell of it."

A CANNIBAL OF NEW GUINEA.