LIFE ON CANNIBAL ISLAND

Hokitika Guardian, 28 March 1929, Page 7

LIFE ON CANNIBAL ISLAND

TINY HUAI AN DWELLINGS. In a land where a wife can be bought lor u pig, and were cannibals still exist. Mr John A. Baker and his wile encountered thrilling adventures amid primitive and savage races. Ilieii story was related to the Hoyal Gcogiaphica! Society in London recently. Assisted by the Percy Shulcn Memorial Fund, Air Baker headed an expedition to the unexplored part of the not thorn New Hebrides. Ibe islands are under the joint control ol Great Britain and France. The explorer spent most of bis time in Hie islands of Espirito Santo and Gaua. in Sakau there are only seven white persons, and none in the interior. There are five run as in Sakau society, and a man rises from one to the other by dancing all night and killing a stipulated number of pigs. “Cannibalism still occurs, though rarely,” related Air Baker. “To my mind this is not so terriole a vice as it is usually considered, for they do not kill people to eat them, but only eat them when they b« ve been killed for other reasons. Between my two visits a white man was killed in the south-west of Espirito Santo. ,ne people are polygamous, but onl> a few men have more than one wife At n village called Tungwi, which had not previously been visited by a whiMj man, Air Baker found what must be some of the smallest human habitations in the world. The tops of all the houses, except the men’s club house, were only as high as his shoulder.

Accompanied by Air J. de H. Morel and his wife, Air Baker crossed to Gaua Island after waiting some months for a boat. There was no white person there, and the native women insisted on patting Airs Baker to be quite certain she was a white woman. Mr Baker called a native conference, and addressed them in pidgin-Eng-lisli, which was interpreted sentence by sentence, with the result that he got 30 recruits for poterage. When they reached the lake, the basin of which is part of an immense extinct volcano, Air Baker and his wife explored it in a collapsible boat. In searching for the source of the geysers, the visitors found the only native living in this vast deserted district. He showed them the pools, some 60 tcet in diameter, full of boiling water. These hpt springs warm the only inhabitant’s taro-garden. He uses the hot steam to cook his taros. On leaving, the explorers gave him some safety pins, which he unfastened and thrust through his ear. One European lives on the 100 miles of this coast, and none inland. The visitors crossed the crest of a range of four mountains, which the explorers have named the Linisupe-Arusnsari Range, discovered another range thej named the North Pua range, and then started their climb of 6000 feet to the summit. It would have been impossible hut for the vegetation. The party clambered from root to l,ranch and branch to root along a knife edge with a sheer drop on each side. Brilies of tinned meat failed, to eei the guides to ascend the adjoining peak, and the party returned.