PAPERS READ. NOTES ON SOME INDIGENOUS SAGO AND TOBACCO FROM NEW GUINEA. By J. H. Maiden, F.R.G.S., Curator of the Technological Museum, Sydney. SAGO. This sample of Sago meal or flour was brought by Mr. Theodore Bevan from Evorra village. Jubilee River, 16 miles north-east of Bald Head. This locality had never, in all human probability, been visited by a white man before. It is of course of native manufacture, and is from indigenous sago (? Sabal Adansonii which forms forests in New Guinea and New Ireland, or possibly Sagus Konigii and S. Iceve). Mr. Bevan took a photograph of natives engaged in the operation of making sago. (1) Tlie following description, taken from Balfour's Cyclo-paedia of India, of the process as carried on in the Archipelago, serves fairly for a description of that which obtains in the interior of New Guinea, as described by Mr. Bevan to me, and as depicted in the photograph alluded to. "A tree is cut down close to the ground, the leaves and leaf-stalks cleared away, and a broad strip of the bark taken otf the upper side of the trunk. This exposes the pithy matter, which is of a rusty colour near the bottom of the tree, but higher up pure (1) At page 349, Vol. X. Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., Miklouho-Maclay says that sago Sagus sp. (" Buam"), is regarded as a luxury on the Maclay coast, and is not used commonly as food. Mr. Bevan, however, reports sago to be plentiful in the district he visited.
BioStor
