MUTILATION OF NATIVES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 5193, 19 October 1927, Page 4

MUTILATION OF NATIVES.

A MISSIONARY STORY. A description of how the practice of mutilation, widespread in Central Africa 30 years ago suffered its first ■modification in the country south of Lake Tanganyika, was given, to the Rotary Club at Wellington on Tuesday by the Rev. A. Johnson, Moderator of the Union of Congregational Churches, and pioneer missionary in that territory. '

After describing how two men from his village had been mutilated, one losing his nose for accenting a pinch of snuff from a chiefta.in’s wife, the other having his eyes gouged out for fleeing from a chief .tain’s retinue after receiving appointment as official musician, Mr Johnson told how he had heard that a boy was to have his thumb, cut off at on t e end of his village. In the street he load found a crowd surrounding the boy and a tall fellow with an axe who was about to chop off the lad’s thuml j. Making inquiries, he had been told that the boy was to be punished for smashing the thumb of the girl. I t appeared that the boy had taken some sheep away and sold them, purchasing a gun. This consisted of an old piece of piping stuck into a wooden stock, with a very tricky hammer. On arrival back at the village! the first person to whom he had been able, t/o display hist newly acquired gun wais the girl, and while they were Handling it the hammer had fallen, thei full charge of powder had exploded, 'and the, girl’s thumb had been snrashed. So,' accord} ng to the custom of the country, they were about Vo punish the boy.

Facing the natives, missionary had ’made an appeal to tlttem and had beep struck by an idea. Finding the parents of the girl, h<e had asked them what she was wort h- Every girl th Africa was real property and: had a price. The answer had been “Forty yards of calico?’ This was a high price—he had employed men on labouring work amd h;ad never paid them m®te than 'two y r ards of (calico a day, which was a good union rate, and the girl was being set down as worth fiv>e months!’ earnings. He had then offered the 20' yards of calico ftor the thumb, they had taken it, an d the boy. had. been glad to come' with him. and work out the advance made cm his behalf by ths missionary.

'From that' day a new principle h’ad begun t.o be understood among the natives-—the principle of compensation. The injured party had come to see that it was better to be paid than to have revenge, and the other would do anything rather than suffer mutilation, so both sides had been pleaised. It was due to the work of the wlhite, men that this had happened, an id that the other practice of slaughtei: at funerals had been ended, due to g /ood government officials and mission? tries, whose work ran along parallel lines. If ever they had doubts about the usefulness of the work i n these regions this should be remem ibered. It was well worth while on hr ttnanitarian grounds, for King Georg ;e had over 40 millioiiis of African , c mljjects.