TACT NECESSARY

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 520, 2 May 1933, Page 2

TACT NECESSARY

new guinea pajrols LONELY LIFE IN EXTENDING CIYILISED INFLUEN CE& TO TRIBES. SOME STRANGE CUSTOMS. Canberra, Saturday. Why the Federal Government insisted upon such high qualities in the 10 young men wh'om it has selected from more than 2000 applicants for cadetship in the New Guinea service can be understood when one reads the marvellous documents which New Guinea patrol ojcers send periodically to Canberra. These men are continually making new discoveries on this largely unknown island,' and only last week one report disclosed the discovery of two entirely new villagies in a remote part of the island, where suttee is demanded by widoWs as a woman's right, and infanticide is rife. Australia, so lately herself a colony, is now engaged in widely varied colonial problems, for, in addition to New Guinea she has *mder her care Papua, Norfolk Island, and Nauru and Ocean Islands. In the administration of these territories, which for the time being are under th'e control of the Minister for Health and Repatriation (Mr. Marr), many delicate problems arise, but none more delicate than in New Guinea, where hundreds of the natives have never seen a white man. The direct administration is carried out by Brigadier-General T. Griffith's, who has just been appointed for a further term of two years. It is the duty of the patrol officers, whose numbers will be increased after their three years' apprenticeship by the 10 new cadets, learn their customs and varied dialeets, and extend to a timid and suspicious people, always in fear of aggression from neighbouring tribes, the sphere of civilised influence. Head-binding. Like the Northern Territory police, but faced with even more eomplieated problems, the patrol officers are away for months on their expeditions. Accompanied only by two or three p'olice boys, the patrol officer sees no other white man on such tours, and his life depends entirely on his resource and tact. Some extraordinary customs have been revealed in a recent report by Patrol Officer H. R. Niall of an expedition across New Britain. ^ He found that in all the areas h'e visited it was the custom to bind the heads of young infants, the process beginning about a week .after birth. There are only a few natives with natural heads, and they are regarded as ugly. Mr. Nill sees little hope of the f-ashion ,f elongated heads disappearing with the advance of civilisation. He found that suttee was widely practised among the natives of the Bassismanua and Lamogia areas, but could trace no definite case, except one in Gasmata, th'e ntives being impressed with the fact that the practice was frowned on by the white man. The process is to strangle the widoW, and generally she herself insists on her right to be killed, so that her spirit may join that of her husband. Dipped in Blood. "On some occasions the men, being afraid of th'e consequences, have _refused to strangle a woman," writes Mr. Niall. "Then it sometimes happens that the woman takes off her grass skirt and hands it to the men, telling them to put it on and saying that they are only women and not real men. This so shames the men that they reluctantly kill her according to the custom. "It is the duty of a woman's broth'er or her nephews on the maternal side to perform this ceremony of slow strangulation. A native back cloth is wrapped once around the woman's neck .and one man pulls on each end till she is choked, another man holding her in a kneeling position to prevent struggling." Mr. Niall says that until the custom is abolished it is difficult to see how the population can be increased, since many of the women are of childbearing age. Another barbarous custom is th'e destruction of one child where twins are born. Rescued by Native. Explaining the tribal customs that are responsible for many murders, Mr. Niall says that in one area where a young man is first given a pair of boar tusks, which are greatly prized as neck ornaments, h'e must first dip the tusks in the blood of some person whom he or a near relative has just speared. Around the Yakas district Mr. Niall found blowpipes were being used to propel arrows for killing birds. They are not used for fighting, nor do the natives tip the ends with poison. The only other place in the Southern Pacific where blowpipes are used is in a portion of the New Hebrides, where head-binding is also practised. Mr. Niall owes his life on this expedition to the fidelity of a native constable. He was thrown out of a canoe, which was sttiashed on a reef by heavy seas. He was struggling in the undertow when the native dashed into the boiling surf and rescued him. Had the breakers caught them and thrown them on the reef, th'e fascinating report which Mr. Niall has sent to Canberra would not have been written. ,