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 ceremony. We smiled pleasantly at each other, and then he took me to his house, which, according to his high rank, was surrounded by a stone wall. He rummaged about inside for a long time, and finally brought out a few paltry objects; I thought best to pay well for them, telling him that as he was a "big fellow-master," I was ready to pay extra for the honour of having a souvenir of him. This flattered him so much that he consented to have his photograph taken; and he posed quite cleverly, while the others walked uneasily around us, looking at the camera as if it were likely to explode at any moment; and as none of them dared have his picture taken, I left.