Chewing tobacco, ten-cent store vegetable knives and brass wire were the items carried by P. T. L. Putnam '25 in his recent trip to Dutch New Guinea; and intelligent use of this stock in trade enabled him to bring back to the Peabody Museum an interesting and valuable, collection of articles used by the natives.
Native weapons, ceremonial drums, clothing and all kinds of trinkets affected by the inhabitants for personal adornment comprise the store obtained by Putnam in exchange for his own collection of worthless articles. The representations of native life come from a section of Papua, a Dutch East Indian island hitherto unrepresented in the cases of the Museum.
Dispatched by the Museum on an anthropological expedition, Putnam traveled inland from Merauke, a Dutch village on the coast with only 17 white inhabitants, going from village to village up the rivers in native canoesor in the barks of Chinese bird of paradise hunters. Overland travel was impossible, due to the non-existence of roads in the sections traversed.
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