Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits
Perhaps a few words are necessary to explain why we visited a district apparently so insignificant as Torres Straits. As explained above, I had a good deal of unpublished material on the ethnography of the people and it would naturally take less time to gain a good insight into the life of a people about whom a fair amount was known than to begin afresh on a new people. From what I knew of my old friends and acquaintances I was sure that we could at once get to work instead of having to lose more or less time while entering into friendly relations with a people who, after all, might prove to be suspicious and refractory. Our experience fully justified the good impression I had formed of the Willingness of the Torres Straits islanders to impart information and to render personal assistance.
For the special work we had to do it was necessary to visit a people who were amenable and with whom communication was easy; but, on the other hand, who were not far removed from their primitive past. This peculiar combination was found in these people.
This region has some ethnological importance as it is on the frontier between two large land areas inhabited respectively by Papuans and Australians, and it was a matter of some interest to determine whether any mixture had taken place there and also to endeavour to find out if any traces could be found in the islands or on the adjacent coast of New Guinea of a migration of the Australian stock from North to South. The islanders are as a matter of fact distinctly Papuan.
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