NEW GUINEA

Hokitika Guardian, 14 December 1932, Page 2

NEW GUINEA

ADMINISTRATOR’s REPORT

SOAIE BARBAROUS CUSTOMS

SYDNEY, December 1. The annual account of the administration by Australia of the mandated territory of New Guinea makes interesting reading, and from it it would appear that the Commonwealth i s performing a- notable service in circumstances that ar e particularly difficult. According to the report the native population is increasing, justice % recognised native customs are being preserved (except the more vicious ones, #ucn as widow strangling, sorcery, witchcraft, and tribal raiding) and the native luluia-s endeavour to that there is fair dealing between native and native m accordance with their own standards of right. An effort is now being made t 0 prepare the natives for some form of self government, but they ar e ‘not yet ready for that. The medical men are concentrating upon conquering mosquito-carried diseases and hookworm, and are also training native medical tultul-s.

One medical patrol found all the native of Lihir bearing small, elongated scars on their foreheads. It had been th© custom to make ineusions in th e forehead* of children to preventthem from becoming afflicted with headaches when they grew older. A dreadful custom in the hinterland of Moewe Harbour- was the strangling. Q i a widow by the husband's relatives so that 6 he might be burled with him. The Administration has found this practice difficult to suppress. On© patrol officer learned that the death? of two men had been closely followed by the deaths of their widows. He was told that one had died 'as the result of witchcraft, and that the other had been burned to death when her grass skirt accidentally caught fire. After careful inquiries ho had strong suspicions, but he -could not prove 4-Hat they had been strangled. Th e natives were warned of the penalties of this practice.

Patrols carried out by the young officers of the Mandated Territory service are of two kinds—administrative patrols in areas which are under complete Government control, for the purpose of tax collection, census taking, inspection of native labour, investigation of complaints, inquiries into land matters, and inspection of village®, roads, and bridges; -and penetrating patrols into th e new areas for the purpose of expanding the influence of the Administration. Vast areas remain to bo penetrated and brought under control. These penetrating patrols are sometimes dangerous, and in the swampy areas, frequently unhealthy. Sometimes the patrols are attacked by the natives, and the obliged to allow hie native boys to lira on the attackers.

Spears were thrown at a patrol near the village 0 f Indipi, in' the Bombita area, and two native guides and o native constable were injured, 1 The patrol officer left with the wounded for hospital, and during his absence the acting native sergeant arrested the natives concerned. He learned that the spears had been thrown at brie of the carriers from a nearby village who had married a woman from Indip: against t-he wishes of her stepfather. An attack on the Government party was not intended. At the time the report was being written the culprits v ere calmly awaiting their trial.

The patrol officers have many quaint problems to s<>lv e . Early in the year four natives from the Wau district claimed to have been miraculously born, a s a- result of which they also claimed that they had supernatural powers and that they could make crops grow. They advised the natives in the locality to destroy their cookiug pots, which would be replaced by better ones which would be produced by magic. They declared that the native officials wore of no importance, dn a few months the Europeans would leave the Territory and their chattels would become the property of the natives. The fame of these four men spread rapidly, until the patrol officer arrested them and removed them to another district where, although they still believed in their own powoxs, no one else believed in them.