NATIVE TYPES IN NEW HEBRIDES

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2244, 2 September 1914, Page 3

NATIVE TYPES IN NEW HEBRIDES

A SCIENTIST'S TOUR

BLONDE-HAYRED BABIES

'■ PROFESSOR MACMILLAN-BROWN'S d IMPRESSIONS '0 [- . ' s, . ' If Dr. Macmillan Brown, of Christ,l church, the distinguished New Zealand :- anthropologist, returned to Wellington from Sydney. yesterday on his return ,f from one of his periodic visits to the islands of the Pacific. During tho pr& sent winter, Professor Macmillan Brown nas been prosecuting his researches in 1? r 1 ? w , HeDricl es, and as the result of what he has seen there he regards the " p r^ nt . dua l control, or Condominium, ot Britain and Prance as an impractic- '*?• Such was the position to-day » that if things went on as at present i there would, ho, in a generation, no " more, labour in. the group to recruit i from. The labour that was taken for 1 work on the French plantations was un--1 willing labour, and the numbers recruited every year for that purpose were going down very rapidly indeed.. The French planters were mostly located in the northern, islands of tho group, and the death-rate was so appalling that • in some years it reached as high, as 44 per cent. The reason? Misuse, not • enough food, and no proper treatment. , There was no inspectorate of native | labour throughout the group. That led , to abuse and maltreatment. f "Whenever- a native makes a com- . plaint," Professor Macmillan Brown ret marked, 'the French judge invariably, > if not always,, rejects his evidence as un- ' worthy of credence, and the British » judges, who seem to be under an inj struetion to work amicably with the 1 French, agree when the charge is against I a French planter. When it is a British planter strict justice is handed out. Many natives are kept for years in prison at Vila awaiting trial. Altogether, in the opinion of not only the • British planters, but of many of the' French planters, the Condominium is [ ended. It will have to he ended if - the islands are to be any , use at all to the world, £ rs without. native labour they i are useless. "Britain must take over s the Group," said the speaker, "giving ia suzerainty to the Commonwealth of s Australia which could perhaps be arJ ranged at the conclusion of' the present 1 war by ceding other territory to France. 5 No, other arrangement will do." ; Queer Native Types, In the field of scientific research, Pro-' fessor Macmillan Brown found much to interest him in the New Hebrides. "For instance," he said,. "I "found .a ■ people who deform the shape of their [. heads, making-them something like the [ shape of an egg, with the more pointed 3 end uppormost. These people livo in ' the south-west district _of Makekula, one.of the largest and wildest islands of the ' whole group. There they are al- . ways at war, and yet they are the most ; industrious and vigorous tribes or peoi pies that are native, to, the Group. - Soon after they are born thelheads of the babies are bound tightly round with fibre or fibrous matting, so that as tho head grows it has no option but to grow upward. It is common on the island . to find some extraordinarily long heads, coming almost to a point at tho top. I do'not think that'the practice has hindered the dovelopment of tho brain, a« that organ is so plastic. What I was most-interested in-was that it was the .first and only.case of deformation of the head known in Melanesia, and' that in spite bf the fact that the people of the New Hebrides have been very sporadic, extending freely from island to island. There had been, too, a very large number bf migrations of peoples of various cultures and stages of culture, and from tho appearance of the languages and customs, I would say that these wero from Polynesia.' "The aboriginals of the New Hebrides - ivore pigmy negroids, as they are in tho Solomons and New Guinea averaging in height from Hi. 2in. to sft. in the case of fully matured men, the (vomen being still smaller." High up in the mountains- of Santo, Professor Macmillan Brown found in a village people with only the slightest infusion of immigrant blood from the coast. Tho immigrant people of the coastal villages are all tall, many of tho men being 6ft. nnd evon taller. He had been told of chiefs of the bluest blood being 7ft.,ln height, i The Polynesians wore tho tallest people in the world (the Maoris are Polynesians), so that he judged that the immigrants to the New Hebrides ' came originally from Polynesia. • "One people I found, at a place called Hog Harbour, on the north-east coast of Santo, wero, all tall, averaging perhaps 6ft., women as well as men. There : I also saw and took photos of native , children,' from six months to a year '■ old, with beautiful, blonde, curly hair } •—a touch of tho old Scandinavian blood ( introduced thousands of years ago. It ] was a wonderful sight to see these fat, ; brown babios with' fair curls soon to j turn to raven black. tf | Root of Paolfio Tongues. "I ara at present engaged," said Pro- 1 fessor Macmillan Brown, "in making i out a comparative analysis of the van- i ous languages <f the Malay AroMpela- i go, Now Guinea, the Carolines,' New ' Hebrides, and the Solomons. There l are between '■ three and four thousand languages altogether, but the common c elements,'in all extend from Easter ( Island to Madagascar, apd come out of 1 Polynesia. Still further/ I ; have found, , by digging into die matter, that a large 1 proportion of the root words aie the e same as those of the European—not the 1 Asiatic—languages. That confirms 1 what I. was saying about the-physique j of the Polynesian immigrants, and tho i blonde' curls of the three little girls ; [ photographed. j "Some of the languages of the New Hebrides are absolutely different to others, though they all have some Poly- 1 nesian elements./ In the language of the people of Santo the sound represented by the letters "th" occurs in nearly half the words spoken. This peculiarity puzzled me until I learned I that' the day on which a Santo man' f married he knocked, the two middle v teeth out of the upper jaw of his wife T as a sign of his.'superionty, which could d not help but make her lisp, and in t this manner a language had been af- c footed by an unpleasant marriage cuss torn. ~;•'. t To the south of Santo, at a place a called Tougoa, tho Presbyterians have 8 . a college, which is in charge of Mr. * Bowie, a brother of Dr. Bowie, who f was in charge of 'the hospital at Am- c hrym when the eruption took placo last r year. I was only at Tongoa for two s hours, but Mr. Bowie appeared to be doing' some fine work, and had some v splendid natives (one 6ft. 3in. tall) in I training as teachers, and I have never s met a larger number of cultured men J among the missionaries than the Pros- " byterians who arc engaged in the Condominium. '