FROM WILD SUDAN

Hokitika Guardian, 6 September 1929, Page 8

FROM WILD SUDAN

N.Z. MISSION Jill RETURNS. After another'two years among the J)inka tribe (the tallest people in the world), Mr Keith Rimmer has again returned to Auckland from mission work in the Sudan. With Mrs Rimmer and their young son, he arrived last week with another collection of interesting news items about life in the arid tract of land in southern Egypt. Cotton growing, Mr Itimmer says, is being watched by experts and merchants as an industry of still-growing importance, and although the crops cultivated further north than the settlement at which lie was stationed (503 miles south of Khartoum) were produced till the year round, owing to irrigation, they were not as good in quality as those grown by the natives in a short rainy season. Realising this, English buyers had started a scheme by which hundreds of acres were broken up by tractors for the natives who were then set to cultivate them, reaping a crop after the wet months. It is difficult to make cotton growing a very payable proposition if laboui has to be employed,” said Mr Rimmer, “ but if the natvies, who are naturally lazy, can be induced to tackle the work as part of their lives, it is well worth while.” j / ‘ ' CHRISTIANITY’S PROGRESS. Progress in the work of teaching Christianity among the natives is reported by Mr Rimmer. When he and Mrs Rimmer first went there, he says, the men and women yvere “ mildly curious,” but now many of them are enthusiastic. Some of them have been diligent enough to learn to read simple j exercises, and all are willing to help in j such tasks as repairing and keeping the church-building in order. It was only ‘natural that Mr Rimmer’s soil should learn to speak the dialect of the Dinka natives as readily j as English, as lie was only a year old when the family took up the station, and there were no other whites in the region. Until they left Africa' and encountered whites, Mr Rimmer declares, the boy, when spoken to, would almost invar ably answer in the language used by the natives. Some idea of the difficulties of the task undertaken, by Mr and Mrs Rimmer may be gathered from a desciiption by Mr Rimmer of the reception given to his wife when they arrived there. The natives were amazed at the sight of a white woman and immediately held a korcro ”to decide Mrs Rimmer’s species. Finally they clung to the belief that she was neither man nor woman. Beasts’ are used as “coin of the realm ” among the Dinkas, and cattle are grazed in large herds. They are used in exchanging everything, even wives being bartered. Modern business methods do not frighten the men, for women and other “articles” can be bought on the instalment system. Terms’ used for the purchase of a wife are: Five head of cattle as a deposit and another fifteen head when the marriage ceremony takes place. “THE ONE-LEGGED PEOPLE.” One of the most peculiar traits of the tribe with'which Mr and Mrs Rimmer have been working is that the people often stand on only one leg. Stork-like, they will stand for about a quarter of an- hour on one member, at the same time resting the other foot on the knee. Then they will change and remain another fifteen minutes on the other leg. From this odd habit they have earned for themselves the name of “ the one-legged people.” Animals of every kind are found quite close to the settlements of the Dinkas. At night one can lie awake in bed and listen to the snorting of the hippopotamus in the Nile, not more than 25 yards from the dwelling. Crocodiles infest the streams and often lay their eggs close to the natives’ huts, Lions do not trouble the people much, but hyenas are frequently seen slinking about the villages. Although these animals will, if they number more than two or three, attack a lion and chase it for some distance, the}’ are, at the same time, by nature cowardly. If one creeps near a hut it will be driven off. even by a timid child. Occasionally hyenas visit the villages and carry off infants. The elephants of the region are greatly feared, especially by the women-folk, who will not go into the jungle for firewood if they know an elephant is-near. The beasts are not so large, nor are they so valuable for their ivory, as those who are found 100 miles further south. It is to that more southerly district that big-game hunters go for their sport. “'The natives’ fear for wild beasts is largely due to superstition though,” says Mr Rinimei. “ No animal will attack except under extraordinary circumstances. Even the formidable reverses whiel cannot be forgotten cannot dampen th enthusiasm of such workers as Mr tin Mrs Rimmer, and, although they wer forced to leave Africa for -Mrs Rimmer’s health, they intend to return if it is at all possible, to.carry on the task.