ISALNDS OF DEEP SHADOW.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 845, 17 June 1910, Page 3

ISALNDS OF DEEP SHADOW.

A WOMAN'S NARRATIVE. *' 1 I Mrs. Ivens, who has lived for. many J®. ar3 . m Melanesia with her husband, who is attached to the Melanesian Mi--f l ?",'. 1 ! a f,.B iv en two or thro* addresses latelj telling.something of the life down in those islands. It is not the rough, romantic, brilliantly-coloured life described by so many writers of South Sea romance, but 011,9 that can he best paint- ■ ed In lurid colours, and deep dark shades purely natural -life, where nature is fearsome to be feared. For a. long time. Mr. and Mrs. Ivens . lived on Malaita, that island of the colomon group which as a recent cable message told was crossed for the first time by a white man when Dr. D'ck traversed it last sumuiet. It was Here that Mr. and Mrs. Ivens lived and worked among the natives, entering as far as posnb 0 into their lives in order to en,,„V, 0 4^lr tllo "sMs and svmpathks. Vf '? fu l' of the' thought of eul, rai d - Mrs. Ivons, "one can never got away iron) it. Our house was built oil a place that was said to bo the abode of demons; 110 native would come near it after dark, and it was sometimes almost impossible not to feel oneself ■' a " bi " thcir thought of the horror Ihe poor mothers of that island hang themselves if their baby dies or even if a grown-up child dies. They do this because they fear the wrath of their husbands, or ' the demons, or the little • child itself." One can hardly imagine anything more awful, than that a mother should be terrified of the wit of her little dead child. Mrs. Ivens told how the spirits of the dead are supposed to nang about, irresolute, not knowine whore to go until they learn to under--1 « -e. °" lcr ghosts tell them, and then they make their way across a precipice to an island near by, and as J;H? /f"; n f ever ,. a ß ain rccross the preciP'°? t.'iMr families arc safe from them, /his journey takes about five davs, and for those, days the village is deafened with the noiae of tora-toms, beaten to scare the new-made ghost away. When a-woman dies in giving' birth to , a child, her ghost earnestly longs for the baby, ami to derive her she is buried .i, a stick carefully wrapped up in ln r h .r ?i Tms ; ,ITh| K licr first nw> u u js of death she is supposed to wander, about nursing this, quite- content, and when she wales to a know. leJge of the deception that lias boe n practised on her, she is over the precipice, and can never more return. In this island there is no such thing as obedience, except the obedience rendered from fear, to a chief, otherwise no one obeys .anyone, and from babyhccd they all do exactly as tliey plea=e only anxious to know what the spirits command. To contradict or to thwart a native in any way gives the most dire and unforgiveable ofTence. "Near our house," said Mrs. Iven.", "there was a pit whero a great snake lived. There arc lots of snakes theie quite harmless one-, that like to come into the 1/ouse. I iise to 'shoo' them nut, and fay, .'You've a nice home near here! fo off to it.' The big snako was held in gTeat veneration by the natives. It was an oracle, almost a god to them, and before deciding on any course of action they would go to the snake ami ask what they should do. If lie puffed himself out and grew very fat, he was angry and disapproved. If ho remained his usual size they knew thov might do as they proposed. For tin sharks with which the coast is infested they have the game veneration." Mrs. Ivens told some impressive stories showing how the natives respond- , ed to the teaching of missionaries, and how well worth while was the work they .were able to do in those islands.