IN THE SOUTH SEAS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 28, 3 February 1932, Page 12

IN THE SOUTH SEAS

MISSIONARY LABOURS

WORK AMONG CANNIBALS

Pastor A. G. Stewart, ■who has spent over twenty years in mission work in the South Seas, arrived in Wellington yesterday from Auckland after having visited many of the chief towns in the northern part of the island, where he has lectured on conditions in some of the most primitive parts of the South Seas. Pastor Stewart speaks with first-hand knowledge of native life, having sailed from Wellington twenty-five years ago shortly after . having married Miss Stephens, of Canterbury. For. twelve years they worked in the Fiji Islands, and then proceeded to .Malekula and were stationed: among the wild cannibals of North Malekula. At that time it seemed almost hopeless to make any impression upon these people who were opposed to visitations from. Europeans, having no doubt been exploited by black murderers and early day traders. However, a marked change has come over the natives of these parts, and today hundreds are giving up their old vices and establishing themselves in new and better built villages. The cruel heathen practices are also vanishing, such as infanticide, when they buried alive their children which they did not want. Mr. and Mrs. Stewart have reared a little girl, who is now 16 years of age, and who was on the eve of being buried alive with the body of her dead mother while only two days old. The natives of. ■ the-New. Hebrides, which are under the condominium control of Great Britain and France,-are in great need of medical help, as neither Government has spent much money on the native people, - states Pastor Stewart. The various - missionary . societies at work are doing ..almost,.- a11.,-the medical work for. the native people. At a time of epidemic, such ■as dysentry, the natives die'.of£ very rapidly, and were it not for the energetic activities of the missionaries the native race would fast be blotted out. DEMAND FOB EDUCATION. Pastor Stewart has recently returned from Papua, as he -is' now General Superintendent of the work being done by the Seventh-day Adventist Mission in the South Seas, and reports that there.is a growing demand on the part of the primitive people of Papua for rudimentary; education. Thousands of young-people-are only waiting the opportunity- to attend schools, and the missionary societies at work there Have more than they can do to supply them with school , facilities and teachers: : The Seventh-day Advcritists nave 'recently established a Child Welfare Centre on the coast at a place called Aroma, where Nurse Wiles is in charge wtih native girls at : ■.- assistants. The Chief Medical Officer ,of the territory highly endorses this kind of work, as he contends that if the. children of the islands can be saved, the race will bo saved. The system adopted by this society is very much like the Plunket system so -well known in New Zealand. Hundreds of cases are being treated daily at this station, and native girls are being trained to' go. put in the villages and help care for the children of the primitive tribes. Pastor Stewart ;has taken several thousand feet of;very interesting films, which he will present in. connection with, his lecture in: the Town Hall Concert Chamber to-night. . '