CANNIBALS OF THE SWAMP

Hokitika Guardian, 21 July 1928, Page 4

CANNIBALS OF THE SWAMP

(Bv Jack McLaren, the well-known South Seas traveller, who wrote “Sun Man” and “My* Crowded Solitude.”)

The Delta Division of New Guinea, where a number of natives (given as 503 by two missionaries and as 18 by the Papuan Government) have been killed in tribal fights, followed by cannibal feasts, is a remarkable place for human beings to inhabit. It is a land or mud and slush, and the people are swamp-dwellers like the early inhabitants of the earth. In the Delta Division one might travel for days and never see a scrap of dry land.

Til© village* are built on tall stilts, with gangways from one house to another. The natives are remarkably adept in getting about through the mud. Where a white man would sink waistdeep, the natives seem to skim over it—so much so that an early explorer believed they must have had webbed feetl The chief reason is, however, that the natives know where, just under the slush, are mangrove or other roots. Even so, it is uncanny to wateli them skimming along. I know these tribes'very well. They are the strangest mixture of kindliness and utter savagery I have ever come across. It was in this region that I made my first acquaintance with the South Seas, having .been cast ashore unconscious . from a sailing-cutter wrecked on a river-bar. I was utterly at their mercy, and they placed great value on a white man’s head; yet they treated me with every consideration and nursed me back to health as if I were ono of their own. The first thing I knew, for instance, as I came out of my unconsciousness was that a wrinkled and hideously painted old ,man was breathing into his cupped hands and holding them to my mouth. I learned later that lie was striving to transfer the breath from his lungs to mine.

Yet some years later I was compelled to fight‘for my very life against those same people! There was no'particular reason for the attack it was merely an outburst of their impulsive savagery. It is reported that native police in uniform were leading the the recent conflict. But it is most unlikely that they arc the regular police the armed native constabulary, the finest body of police in the South Pacific. The police mentioned are no doubt village oonstaibles. , These men have a blue loin-cloth for a uniform and wear suspended on their chests- a metal disc inscribed “V.C.” village constable. The V.C.’s are usually very proud of their position, but when it comes to a tribal fight they often forget it.

Most of the fighting is done at night the natives being warriors of the kind that rely more on strategy and surprise than on frontal attack. Tltcse sliadqwv shapes flitting over the mud in tiie dark, holding their spears, hows and arrows, and clubs so that they will not rattle, are one of the most unnerving sights I know.