[Illustration: FIG. 21.--A. Design on a lime-gourd from Kerepunu; B. Part of the decoration of a pipe from Maiva; C. Detail on a pipe from Kupele, in the Berlin Museum; D-I. Designs on pipes--G from Kupele (Berlin), H, I, from Koiari (Berlin). All the Figs. are to different scales.]
One of the most widespread of the isolated designs is that shown in Fig. 21, A, B, and Fig. 22, but it is subject to many variations. Similar designs are tattooed on people below the armpit or on the shoulder. Now that attention has been called to this and other designs, we shall probably learn what significance is attached to them. Occasionally we find what appear to be undoubted plant motives on pipes and other objects from this district, as, for example, on a pipe from Kupele in the Berlin Museum (Fig. 21, C), and it is probable that the designs just alluded to are also plant derivatives.
[Illustration: FIG. 22. Part of the decoration of a pipe in the Cambridge Museum; one-sixth natural size.]
Throughout this district, especially along the coast, the women are tattooed, and in some localities they are entirely covered with tattoo marks. The men are much less tattooed than the women.[8] The designs employed are for the most part the same as those used to decorate pipes and gourds. The angled design tattooed on the chests of women (Fig. 20, A, B) is found on a pipe in the Cambridge Museum. (Fig. 22.)
[8] According to Mr. A. C. English, Government Agent for the Rigo District, among the Sinaugolo tribe, the design Fig. 21, D, is called _mulavapuli_, and is tattooed on both sexes as a distinction for taking life; Fig. 21, H, I, _biubiu_, have a similar value; the angled chest-marks (Fig. 20, A, B) are called _boaroko_. (_Ann. Rep. British New Guinea_, 1893-94, pp. 68, 69.)
Noticeable features in the decorative art of this district are the preponderance of straight lines over curved lines; as well as the occurrence of dotted lines and of very short lines, which form a kind of fringe to many of the lines. (Figs. 21, 22, 51.)
Very remarkable also is the absence of the delineation of the human or of animal forms. Bounded on the north-west by a luxuriant art based on human faces and forms, and limited to the south-east by bird-scrolls and bird and crocodile derivatives, not to mention human effigies and representations of various animals, these central folk are unaffected by these two very distinct forms of artistic activity. The only exceptions, so far as my evidence goes, is in the transitional country north of Hall Sound, and a few carvings of crocodiles in certain tabu houses or _dubus_.