This is not a fanciful construction of what an erroneous opinion might be, for I could give actual examples proving that such opinions have been set forth, but as I am not giving here a criticism of existing theories of Primitive Economics, I do not want to overload this chapter with quotations.

It is hardly necessary perhaps to make it quite clear that all questions of origins, of development or history of the institutions have been rigorously ruled out of this work. The mixing up of speculative or hypothetical views with an account of facts is, in my opinion an unpardonable sin against ethnographic method.

Comparing the frail yet clumsy native canoe with a fine European yacht, we feel inclined to regard the former almost in the light of a joke. This is the pervading note in many amateur ethnographic accounts of sailing, where cheap fun is made by speaking of roughly hewn dug-outs in terms of “dreadnoughts” or “Royal Yachts,” just as simple, savage chiefs are referred to as “Kings” in a jocular vein. Such humour is doubtless natural and refreshing, but when we approach these matters scientifically, on the one hand we must refrain from any distortion of facts, and on the other, enter into the finer shades of the natives’ thought and feeling with regard to his own, creations.

The crab-claw sails, used on the South Coast, from Mailu where I used to see them, to westwards where they are used with the double-masted lakatoi of Port Moresby, are still more picturesque. In fact, I can hardly imagine anything more strangely impressive than a fleet of crab-claw sailed canoes. They have been depicted in the British New Guinea stamp, as issued by Captain Francis Barton, the late Governor of the Colony. See also Plate XII of Seligman’s “Melanesians.”