DRIED HEADS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 715, 15 July 1929, Page 14

DRIED HEADS

Grim Papuan Relics for Museum N.Z’S EARLY TRADE One of New Zealand’s earliest and its most gruesome trades—the barter of dried native heads—is recalled by the presentation to the Auckland War Memorial Museum of two smoke-dried heads from the Sepik River, in the heart of New Guinea. r T'HE gift is being made by Mr. W. R. McGregor, of the University College. He recently toured New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago, off the north-east coast. The grim relics are included in a collection of skulls and the removal from the country, for the purposes of science, because traffic is illegal, was sanctioned by the administrator of the Mandate, Brigadier-General Evan Wisdom. Barter in human heads was an unfortunate outcome of the association in the early days of white traders with not too many scruples with the natives of Melanesia and Polynesia. New Zealand became concerned in the grotesque business and ships from New

South Wales managed to buy many finely tattooed heads—interesting, apart from their gruesomeness—from Maori tribes. The Government soon took rigid measures to stop the trade, but many heads found their way to England. English country houses to this day hold historic and highly valued Maori weapons and ornaments—part of the haul of the early traders. SAVAGE MELANESIA The accomplished head hunters of New Guinea and Malaya have earned an unenviable reputation for savagery. Even today human skulls occupy a not important part in the worshipping paraphernalia of some remote villages, but the hand of civilisation is certainly taking its effect in modern times. For fierceness, the Melanesians undoubtedly were ahead of the Polynesians. Robert Louis Stevenson named the Maoris and the virile Polynesians of the Marquesas Islands, East Pacific, as inveterate cannibals,

but the general life of both peoples did not have the bizarre, savage quality of that of many Melanesian peoples. One instance of what, in European eyes, is the Melanesian mania for cruelty is the ceremony for initiation to manhood. Mr. McGregor, describing this, said, that in some parts of New Guinea the practices were revolting. Possibly a link with Indian influence, the dead are cremated in some parts of New Guinea. Other customs, such as the placing of bodies in trees or on platforms, followed by the removal of heads after a certain stage of decomposition, are followed by other disDIVERSE CUSTOMS One of the facts that intrigues an ethnologist in New Guinea is the remarkable diversity in the practices of some of the tribes. On the north coast oriental customs are sometimes encountered, in the south there is native culture that has even spread to some of the northern aboriginal tribes of Australia, in the east the atmosphere of the Pacific is provided, and west, Malaya’s voice is heard. But it is this diversity which hampers civilisation. In the Torres Strait, between New Guinea and Australia, are the only instances outside New Zealand of a dance akin to the Maori poi. Weird rituals accompany cleaning of skulls and restoration of heads, but the practices have fallen off, notably in the Solomon Islands, where missionary work and modern trading methods are having their effect. In the east of New Ireland, masterly restorations of heads are occasionally found. Community shrines are sometimes decorated with grotesque skulls, with discrimination between those of the inhabitants’ ancestors and those of their luckless enemies. On the other hand, the natives may perch their ancestors’ visages in the rafters of the family dwelling.