LAST STRONGHOLD OF THE STONE AGE

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 178, 14 August 1937, Page 15

LAST STRONGHOLD OF THE STONE AGE

Native? of New Guinea Still Work and Fight With Stone Sharpened Bone and Live as Their Fathers Did a Thousand Years Ago \

rj'HlS TIME LAST YEAIi I was oa a scieiitillc expedition in Kew Guinea, the great tropical island, about six times as big as England^ which lies at the "top" of Austrnlia, nqar the Equator, said A. J. Mars kai], an Australiau Zoologist who took part in ihe Oxford XJniversity expedition to the New Ilebrides. Jt is the last stronghold of the Stone^Ago natives---people who are fading almost everywhere else, but who have remained unknown and unniolested bekind the vast mountain barriers which defeuted the early explorers. In England there are many scieutists who want to get a scientific accouut of these people who still work and fight with . stone and sharpened bone. A kirge expedition will go out early next year to make detailed studies in zoology, botany and other subjects as well. J was fortunate enough to be the preliniipary reconnuissance necessary before the expedition could be^ planaed. The Spaniards and the Portuguese found tlie country fiist; one expedition called it the '114 del oro1 because ii found traces of gold, Another called it ' Papua' (a name still used for the South-east -section) because the natives had such frxzzy hair — puapaa ds a Malay word meaning 'frizzy.'' A third name was 'New Guinea'; because the sailors . thought that the tropical coagtline seemed very similar to that of Guiu&a, in Africa. ' The . part of New Guinea where I worked once belonged to Germany, but it is now administered by Australia nnder mandate from the League of Nations. Even to-day, very few white men live on this great island which has a native Melanesian population of many huadreds of thousands. When I left the coast, I left behind the white man and his works in all except a few iocalities. Then the adventures begant for much of the cofintry is still uncontrolled, and the natives in many areas wild and dangerous. The further I travelled, the less sophisticated I found the brown men of the jungle. In the coastal country they have almost entirely given up their traditional dress and wear coloured calieo; they fish with fish-hooks and use paraffin lamps, mirrors and all manner of things traded from the white man 's stores at the missions and plantations. Crossing the coastal dividing rango I found the people less sophisticated, and still further into the interior I met people still living in the Stone Age— killjng each other with

stone axcs, stabbing one another with dag'gers of bone. These people of hinterland New Guinea are often completely untouehed by European influencc. They have never seen a white faee, and would not kuow what a gun was, .They wear i'antastic head-dresses of fur and feathers and ii'vie in nxuch the same manner as did their ancestors of say, a thousand years ago. New Guinea is the last place in the world to-day where men, living uuder completely Stone Ago conditions, may be studicd. Sago, or sak-salc, is the staple diet of these savage natives, Sago is obtained from the inside pith of the trunk of a spiky palm which grows an the swamps— the sago palm. The pahus are feficd with stone axest split open ny tlio men of the tribe, and the women wash the fibrous^pitk in an ingenious contrivance made from a hollow palm-frond supported by a series 'of sticks over a creek or pool. The women do all the cooking, and when the dry sago is ready to bc converted into a meal they put it in a special carved bowl and pour boiling water on it. It then becomes the grey giuey mess which, varied with such vegetables as taro, yams, sweetX30tatoes and various kinds of native cabbage, spiuacli and bananas, forms, the bulk of their diet. The'- vegetables are usually ©ooked in long hoilow tubes of greeu bambooj water rs boiled , in earthenware pots. As you niight imagine, one must buy a considerable amount of food every day to feed comfortably thirty hungry native porters. Rarely did we find difficulty in bartering for enough kai- kai, as food is called throughout the Pacific. We carxied heads, bright calico, razor-blades and coarse salt as 'trade.' Years ago the natives used to sbave with fragments of quartz; later with bits of broken bottles. Now they like cheap razor blades. Salt with them is & luxury. It is difiicult to get in the interior, and they eagerly lick dt from their hands just as a white child would a sweet. And when hinterland natives are brought to the coast to work on the plantationsf they sometimes walk into the sea and lap up salt water in huge enjoyment, gasping at " the very wonder of it. Villages are invariably built high up on precipitous ridges. The houses are thus moderately safc from enemy attack, for the one or two paths that lead up from below ca"n always be well guarded, and they are so sleep that a couple of honre-defenders could hold the village

against an army. . On some ridges acg@§§ tb.e villages is further complicated in a most inge? nious manacr, Giant fig-trecs grow nbuadantly on the heights, and from their lower- branches trail curious acrxql xpots whicli grow dpwAwards and finally reach ihe soil. The native has learned to train thepe tTailing xpots into erdgrpfi pattern, and he builfis with them a, iwisiy, living fence of tough thick roots. tkrough which not even a pig cquld enter pr leave the village precincts. It is often eight or ten feejb high and may only have qne opening-— a smalj tunnel a couple of i'eet high through which onp must creep to enter the village. Again, on© man could hold the village "gale" against PVprwhelining numbers. I found them to be a happyj, uuspoilpd people, these natives of tlxe New Guinea hinterland. I often think that we, the eiyilised, could learn many lossons from them in the art of . living, They wear exactly enough pf the right kind of clothing to suit the weather. ponditions of their environment. Everybody has enough to eat and a house to live in. The greatest and wisest man in the community has , no better house than an prdinary man, and the whole community feasts when food i§ plentiful and the various crops are harvested and , fasts together, too, on the rare occasions when food supplios inexplieably fail. There is a communal belt-tightening; there is no sUch thing as one man having a better time because ho possesses more worldly goods than another.. The sight of a European concern dumping a consignment of good fish overboard to prevent a glut would render them speechlegs. If they . saw farmers. ploughing into the ground hundreds of cases of good fruit, they would cast grave reflections on our sanity. And the idea bf farmers uselessly killing their pigs off at the behest of economists would fill them with horror. They just would not understand. * As a matter of fact I can't understand it myself either. In a "primitive'' community over-production is a signal for happy leisure, and great feasting and dancing. In our " civilisation ' ' it seems to be the cause of forced unemployment, unhappiness and often hunger and misery, Sometimes I think that the primitive kanaka is not such an unsatisfactory person after all. I have now been six lnontbs in civilisation, and I am again longing fbr the green shpres of New Guinea.' And *• I am going back with the expedition, . '