HOW THEY TREAT GIRLS IN NEW IRELAND.

Dunstan Times, Issue 767, 29 December 1876, Page 3

HOW THEY TREAT GIRLS IN NEW IRELAND.

The following portion of the Hev. Gr. Brown’s lecture, describes one of the most horrible customs ever met with amongst any savage race, Mr Brown said :—I should like now to tell you something of a horrible custom, the practice of which we discovered when we began to make a few' journeys on the New Ireland Coast, which we had explored very often during the first six months. In fact we were very often not a week at home. We were all the time in the boat, or the steam launch, doing one work or another, sometimes conveying teachers, but often spending a good deal of time in the boat, and that was no easy work, I can assure you. I very much wished to cross to New Ireland, but of course, when I mentioned this, 1 received any number of warnings. If I had attended to the warning's I received from one and another, I should never have started out-df Port Hunter. We started from the West Coast of New Ireland, and got over to the east side. We crossed the mountains at an elevation of 25000 to 300 feet. I have not yet corrected the reading of the aneroid, but we were down to 27.20, and we started at 30. We got to the village of a chief called “The Strong Smelling.” The uame was given to him because the smell of human flesh, or roast pig, was never absent from his village: When I got there, 1 saw some strange sights, such as you have seen briefly mentioned in the paper. By and by I learned something about the houses in which young girls are confined. I will try to give you an account of what I saw tlidre. It was the most distressing sight we saw in all our.journey. If ydtrcan imagine a house, 1 suppose about : 25 feet long, standing in the hot, glaring.sun without apy shade, and fenced round 1 , tlofonly at the side once, but fenced with bamboos Outside that again, so that scarcely any air can get In at all. Well, imagine that in a climate four degrees only south of the Line, in a blatsng tropical sun, and you cab imagine the state ofthe atmosphere inside that house. Inside that house again, them are time conical cages—l am sorry I have not got some of the stuff to show you, but you can see it in the Museum. But 1 wish you con'd see how those cages were formed of broad leaves and battens. They were sown together- sp that they were apparently watertight These cages were all 19 or 12 feet iu circumference, with a height of 6 feet from the ground, when they taper away to a point. Now, on one side of these cages was an entrance closed by a double door of plaited cocna-nnfc leaves, and these all laced together with string. You can imagine that the inside of these cages would be perfectly hot, being almost air-tight ;‘ very little air could get in, certainly not much A bout three feet from the ground is a bamboo stage, on this stage a water-bottle. Now, we were told it was “ taboo” for anyone to go into one of these houses, but a few heads secured us an entrance into one of the large houses, in Which were three cages like candle extinquisbers. We were told that there was a young girl in each of these cages. I cCuld not believe it, and I said I did not. I told them I should like to see the inside of it. The chief said it Was taboo. I said we were white men and it did not apply to us, and I got some beads and held them up. He W’anted the heads, and ho ; sent for an -old woman to come and open the cages. While the messenger Was away 1 heard voices inside these throe conical cages. By and-by the old woman came along, grumbling l terribly at having to open the cages,-and then' Ihese young

girls came close to the oponing ( ttnd they held out their hands for the beads. I said I. cnnuqt go there, you must come but,here for the beads. 1 wanted to see the inside of ■ the, cages. Thpn they put some bamboo on the ground for the girls to walk upon, because it was taboo for them to walk on the ground at all, They came lor the beads, and then I went and looked in. The girls have to live in these hot cages for 5, 6, and sometimes 7 years. Now, mind .you, there is no mistake about this at all. Of course when we talk about years yon begin to ask what kind of years. I was anxious to ascertaid if there could bo any mistake because I thought it was really tohomble to credit that human life could be maintained ic such a den as that. I asked the natives about it, and I found without any mistake that the eldest girl bad been in there five years. The man, to convince me, said he had fished for the “ peloya” five times since the girl was put in, and they only do ■ thatouco a year. That settled the matter. Ho pointed to the little girl and said, The biggest girl was not so big as this little girl when she went in. there.” One of the girls eight, the other ten or twelve. They told us the eldest girl had been kept in there since she was younger than the youngest was then. The little one had the prospect of living at least five years, perhaps move, in one of these dens. Why, it haunted me. All the way I was walking across the mountains, on my return, the thought of these young iris, shut up in those fearful cages, haunted my mind, i tell you, I could have cried for those .girls. I asked the nativas df the girls ever got sick. They said, “Oh, 1 yes! sometimes.” I said, “ Well do they get out then!” They said, “ No.” I saw in a newspaper that the girls were allowed to come out and take R walk at midnight, but that is not correct. Mr-Got,teiell who was my collector, and who wrote that, was never on the side where I was, and I think he must have been misinformed. It might be allowed on on the side where he was, but certainly not at the place where I am now speaking of. ' , There were little wooden bowls placed at the foot oi each cage, and-the girls are -allowed to come out once a day to wash themselves. No man is permitted to see them, all the time they are in, except their own relatives, and they, only for a few minutes at a time, and they are always watched when they are out. They are only taken out -when they are to be married, and there is a great marriage feast. I saw a number of girls with fringes across their shoulders, and I asked what they were. We w r ere told that 'they were girls made sacred, and differing from the others. Their'parents could not afford the feast that was given on the marriage of the girls inside the cages. So you see that their being kept for years shut up in those dens, is regarded as a luxury, and only the rich can afford it. I put my hand into one of the cages and it wag terribly hot. I only wished I had a thermometer to try the temperature. But there are the facts. The girlshave to live in those cages five or six years, and see no one all that time except their own relations. We may add to Mr Brown’s remarks that Ivaplen, a young reformed connibal, states that he accompanied the Rev. G. Brown on his visit to the village, and was present when the cages were opened. Kaplen put his hand into one of them, and the heat Was so intense that in a few minutes his hand broke out with perspiration.