AMONG THE MAN-EATERS OF NORTH QUEENSLAND.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue II, 3 December 1889, Page 3

AMONG THE MAN-EATERS OF NORTH QUEENSLAND.

An Interview with Explorer Lumholtz. Mr Lutnholtz is a tall, strong, | handsome Norwegian naturalist, who j v/ns scot by the College of • hris tiania to explore portions of Queensland. One of these four years he devoted to the canuibal tribes inhabi ing a terrible wild tract of country a couple of hundred mifrs north of Townsville. In November i^Mr John Murray will publish a ' handsome volume containing an j a-count of the naturalist 's wander- j ings and discoveries, which wi 1 be read with avidity by every botanist, every zoologist, and parirularly by every anthropologist. It i^ in the study of the Australian b ac!<s, or | rather chocoLtt js, that Mr Lumholtz j finds his greatest de ighfc, and, as is mentioned in the following interview one of our reprcs ut-ilives had f^wi'.h him, among whom he risked his lite daily f .r tweive months. Quite Prepared To Die. " Th^re were day^ and days." he said, •, wheu I was quite p-ep r d to die." (He boks about thtrty-two or thr c.) " But I am ambitio s. and there wns a little marsupial tiiier wh'ch I. had determined to find before I came h me. My party of blacks — 1 had no whites With me — « ere faithfu euougu at first, hut when the novel yof me wore off it very dangerous. You see I was among, tribe* which ha I never ' seen a white man. I started fiom a sugar )lautatii>n on th^ HerberRiv^r, aud worktd up to a disused cattle staton which had been deserted owing to the murdering attacks of the blacks. I was *lone. j I had two horses, a scant outfit of clothes, a small quantity of stoi cs, a few handbooks, a gun, a revo ver, a lo: of stick tobacco and some arsenic and naturalist's tools. The sticks of tobacco were mv money." A Queer Cuisine Indeed. " Then when you left your horses on t l ie lowlands and went up into . the taages, how did you exist ? I suppose watar was your chief dif ficu ty ? " — " No. we never wanted for wafcor, for it raiued every night, and shone every day, ana we coustuntiy even on ihe ridg-s came aoros3 water-holes. We lived <n snakes, lizards, grasshoppers, treegrubs, the larvte of beetles, hru^hturkeys' eggs, wild h ney— in fact the scrub is full of fo<id when you how to get it. The bst p^rt of a snake is the liver, wh oh s ov<-r a foot long in the b ; g snakes By the way, the na ives tie er eat fo d that }B no 1 cooked. A sna'<e's liver is decidedly good, and hag a g my fla onr. Lizard's fl.sli v li<f . oh'ck.n. Th*» beetle larvae are popped into tho fire, and ea'en with wi d honey ; they t ste like an omelette Grasshrppe s grilled are a'si • ayital »'a'iug, *ith a nice, nutty ¥^ flavour. Three or four female brush turkeys form a comLimtion Th<y scratch up a gr- at mound of decaying vegetnble matt- r in which th/y di'pos't their eg s t-> hatch by ;he artificipl heat. We usel io uppr - pria c the eggs and cook them in the fihell. I d)n't iak^ t»a or c iff«e, » and as n sub titute used lrney ani water, but tow rds the en-1 when hoi'ey was unpnenrabe I had the greatest difficu ty in eating anything.

The Results p The Expedition. .** Yes! I was o r ea ia. dnig-r. But I became indifferent to it There were the daopers iv m th • j aiiab^s, buh one -si.on f^r-.-ets t'>prn. ' Ofc-urße I hal hts of f ,a ri vHv squeaks. Bat he r^il, r WM from the wild n^ with w: om 1 was hying m one of themse!ves> lhesett-fra.on the coa^t egirded jne, 1 think, as a mariman to r sk my W« among the cannibal trie es, bnt it was the ouly way for an anthrrp >- ogist to pursue his st^v. t brought bnck 900 bird sinns, I discovered ionr new mamm .Is. the tree-climbing Kangaroo and three fresh variety of the opossum. I made many • sketches, and brought back hund reds of insects, but my strongest interest was in the cannibals the lowest form of man to le found in the world. Darwin Bays that there is nothing in nature too low or too insignificant t > be un worthy of study That is the creed oi evo y naturalist. So n y experunce of the Queensland natives —the lowest, the most brutal, the nearest tne animal creation— taught - me that even these degra eel tribes possess many qualities in common with the highly ci ilized European " About -J kb Ca'nibals. "To begin wih f don't imn^ne that becunss the tibes are cannib Is ,they are therefore loathsome or re julaive m appeal ance. 0 1 the contrarj.manyof the m«n are physically nne fellows, aud some of the women have pleasing f. atll es . Jhenwhenyouc.il them cannibals you must remember " that human flesh is a ve-y rare luxnry, f or thov only eat f o eign tribes. Native tribes, I mean, for the flesh of the whiteman is nasty to their' palate! He has a salty flavour which is very disagreeable to them." "That was lucky for you.»-Well, no- if I were once dead it mattered little to me how my body was disposed of J3ut being quite without morals and absolutely md.ffertnt to human life, they would bare killed m * if they had dared for the sake of the tobacco, and the few odds and ends I had with me. When I joined them first tneywere friendly enough. They were a good bit afraid of the white man, and for an inch of tobacco apiece were willing to serve you men they respected what they called my baby-g,m- my revolverwhich I fired off every night. But in time their fears wore rff, and there were sevrral attempts to tomahawk me, but I was lucky I had a splendid hunter with me, who twice teed. I should have shot him dead, but I was a little loth t » do s , as I was very ke?n about getting that specimen of the tiger marsupial, sol tolerated him. Might is right among them. If I had shot a few ort em my .dangers would have been considerably lessened.' The Choices! Parts op jiav "To resume about the maneating. I never paw a cannibal feast, but evpry night in the* huts the talk was of women and hum n fl-sh. Those were the stock subjects of ] convers tion." •• N t very d ff^nt from highly cultivator Enropeans. 7 Mr Ltimholta? Wo-nen and fl cook'ng."— T was nhL- to nnderstnnd them for I had i. a >nt the lm va «c and I gathered tint wh : te man was no good -too salty Chinaman was « not half bad. He fed on ric^, and l had a tender ve?e<abl<* flavour C abnut him. like a m aly caul'dower? 1 But of all varif ties there wa° < nothing so sweet as a native baby ] —so sweet, so juicy, so fat, so ten , aer. Old men and old women were naturally tough and sinewy and the favourite parts we-e t'-e flesh of the hind. The cannibal blacks have no rel gion, no ceremonial, no idols aud the only approach to. a charm was a bit of human fat wrapped up in er »s*. and ti d ronnd the neck as g od luck to your hunting. The Women Canntbai/!. "Tfyon want a wife, nnd you have monpy which is tobacco, or <> handberchief, or a tnmahawk— l should tell you ,thnt these a ticl s percolate through tne densest bnsh, and. over the" 1 wil-lest ranges— yo can bay p, wife. . You may inherit a nife by agreement. Ymi may get youu dead bro her's wife but the commonest m'th/>d of acquiring a wife is to go and, help yourself. If yon are a big fellow you walk into n hut an,d, take the lflrjy. Then thpre is a row, ad you have to fight a duel with a wooden bir afiswor », and the women com? down to thft figb* and howl and screech and back th' ir men, and there is a terrible todo. It is" the women wh « cav e all the rows, a 1 the wars, all the f ••■d». I*: is» "lways soniT choi'o'a'e Holen and some ravishing Paris." •' And dn O\" Ufa .« liir t c ih.t.- ! f^ of husbands ? "-T-" Tbpy go and d n't seem t-> mind in the' least ." " How do the men regard the women, then? "-^-" As useful dradrres, to do alt the wo»k and make them co nportable. The more women a w«n h*s, the biggnr sw 11 he is. The blick fellow hatfs work. If* only cjres fu- hunting. He hates to rise un'il the sun a well up in the heavens and the dew h s dirappea cd. Then be and hi* friend* depart into the forest and 'mnt, Feldom bring n? home-tbe food but dcvi urmg it in the t)i->h It is one of the reinar able t!iingß that the old men have alWayn the preit« st wma. . Thero at c no