STARVING TRIBE

Hokitika Guardian, 4 January 1930, Page 8

STARVING TRIBE

VICTIMS OF FAMINE AND DROUGHT. JOHANNESBURG, November 21. After a long-sustained drought, whoh sale poverty exists in the Bondels R< serve, which is situated some 10 mile from Kalikfontein, South-West Afric: Some natives have died in the pang t hunger, others are starving, and babe deprived of the sustenance with wliic under normal conditions, their mother could provide them, are languishing i the grave. Human forms reduced to mere sha dows totter painfully through the bus to the Gabis Mission Station in quest o alms, whil others, incapable of move meat, lie in their pondok vainly await in food. A people of emaciated form, mere skii and bone, without, in many instances as much as a shroud to clothe them and diligently tended as far as humai efforts jand bare necessaries will perinr by a little band of heroic missionaries—this, in brief, is the unfortunate posi tion which obtains and has obtained foi a considerable time in the reserve. None but the fittest may survive the ravages of the drought which has blighted the natives’ crops and reduced their flocks and herds. HOUSECRAFT FOR. GIRL'S. The basic cause of the poverty which has overtaken the Bondels lies in the lack of water, and until the reserve is provided with adequate boreholes there is no likelihood of improvement in their conditions.'. The Mission, established j some 20 years ago at the request of the German administration by the Order of St. Francis de Sales with the view to turning the native mind from lawless to peaceful and industrious pursuit, has done and is continuing extremely valuable work from the social standpoint. The native girls are trained by the Sisters in housecralit, knitting, mending and sewing, but with a limited demand for female labour, coupled with the reluctance of the Bondelswartz to leave the reserve, tlieir craft is applied to no commercial advantage.