CUSTOMS OF PAPUAN CANNIBALS

Hokitika Guardian, 18 May 1920, Page 4

CUSTOMS OF PAPUAN CANNIBALS

SYDNEY, May 4

Although Australia is steadily extending her hold over Papua, by far the greater portion of the wide and wild interior is still the home of numerous cannibal tribes, who are as yet quite untouched by civilisation. A magistrate named Mr Beaver, who had penetrated deeply into this region, and studied the customs of the cannibal tribes, wrote an interesting report before he went in 1917 to the war, where he was killed, and his observations are contained in a recently-published report of the, Administrator of Papua. Among most of these tribes, no male is considered to have reached manhood until lie has the scalp of another man at his belt.. Each tribe has curious customs and ceremonies surrounding the business of man-killing. In most cases, it is an essential that the body of the slain man be brought into the home village and eaten. When the killer returns with the killed he wears a kind ot red ama ran thus in his armlets. As soon as he arrives, all his friends and ! relatives gather round, and do obeis- , knee. The corpse is hung up t°‘ | time- varying from one to seven days—and strips of cloth arc threaded through the slayer’s armlets, which he wears lor a month. The corpse is insulted »> various ways, both in song and action. , Jn due course, it is eaten, with much ceremony—but the slayer never, m anj ! circumstance oats the body of the man lie has .slain. The slayer has rather an uncomtort- ! able time of it. For a week -lie fnmd not sit on the ground, but only on , sticks j he must eat nothing excep roasted taro and bananas, and Ins only drink is muddied water and hot cocoanut milk. Then comes an elaborate ceremony, by which ho is admitted to manhood, the badge of which is a ditleient kind of .sporran. It it is a common custom for the slayer to Like his victim’s name, or combine it with his own. When the newly created man, having done this, finds the now name distasteful, he nets out of the difficulty by killing another man, whose name he is then permitted to take. The interior of this great ishuid— New Guinea is the largest island in the world— contains the most untamed and dangerous natives in the world, wit a the possible exception of some parts of . Africa.