- 37 - Monday 1/6/53: The fine southeasterly weather of the past several days continue. Clouider than usual, as if preparing the shower. Mammal speci- imens are drying well on a rack up under the roof of the rest house. Botanized along the foreshore of Menapi Bay as far as the tip of a point of land to the east which shelters the anchorage from the southeast wind and sea. Foreshore of rough dead coral reef, sometimes masked by small sandy beach. A hamlet of about 5 houses on the point of land, where there is a steep sandy beach and a canoe landing. Small clumps of low Rhizophoramangrove occupy slightly raised patches of coral close off shore. The beach in places screened by a line of Avicennia and Sonneratiarooting on the coral a few yards out. Narrow low sand dunes behind the actual beach carry a forest largely of Thespesia, 30-40 ft. high. Excoecaria, feared by the boys because of its caustic latex, scrambling Bauhinia binata, Clerodendron inerme, are mangrove-strand forest transition species. Acrostichum aureum white-flowered Acanthus, and Derris sp. are man- grove salt marsh transition elements. Easter winding up with the celebrations at the mission this afternoon an evening. When Geoff and I walked up at about 5 o'clock to view the proceedings two female teams of eleven were playing soccer, and 16 men were dancing under some mango trees. Perhaps a hundred onlookers of all ages, including Father Chisholm. Dressed in multicolored and very voluminous grass skirts, and in a 8 few cases a bandana around their upper parts, the girls did some pretty fair punting and occasionally got to pushing, and kicking the ball off field. The men doing the usual New Guinea shuffle and prance, in double file, moving, in one direction, or split in equal eights and facing each other. All the men carried and thumped on hour-glass drums. Some fairly elaborate headresses, the biggest shaped like an expanded fan, some mere tufts of white cockatoo feather: The fan shaped head gear of one man was topped with a red bird-of-paradise plume. The only other feathers noted were several tail switches of cassowary plumes. Shredded pale green young coconut leaves hung from waists and arms. All were dressed in tapa loincloths. These mostly decorated with designs in brown (real New Guinea), but one colored partly purple in front with store dye. Other white man's materials were bunches of shredded white paper which most ma wore at waist and threaded through braided armbands. One man sported a figural paper napkin stuck into his armband. Another had a five-celled, nickle-plated electric torch in his belt. Several of the older dancers appeared to be under the influence of betel nut. Their teeth were blacked from habitual betel chew- ing. The younger men flashed white teeth. Only one man, a tall fellow who carried the flashlight, had the frizzy mop of hair which unsophisticated natives of the East End affect; the others had trims about halfway between native and conventional European. The whole crowd looked healthy and well fed and I saw no sores or skin disease. At five-thirty the dance stopped and the soccer game broke up. A man in a loincloth tolled a bell hanging under the trees, the dancers moved in double file toward the thatch church, outside of which stood a white-draped table with two candles flanking a cross, and Geoff and I departed. Tonight there are slow drum beats, and singing. The weather has become squally, and just now one of the head-dressed dancers passed the resthouse on his way home.