Melanesia Changes

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 945, 11 April 1930, Page 8

Melanesia Changes

STUDENT IN AUCKLAND WHEN Dr. C. E. Fox, a New Zealander in the Church of England Melanesian Mission, went among the natives 29 years ago, he was offered human flesh; today, there is apparent in the Solomon Islands the indications of a vast change—the result of unflinching mission work and of European influences. The islands are untroubled by warfare. Dr. Fox, who is in Auckland at present, tells an interesting story of this upheaval in Melanesian life.

A deep student of Melanesian life, Dr. Fox, is a doctor of literature of the New Zealand University through his compilation of a dictionary of the language spoken on the island of San Cristoval, and his authorship of a book on the life and the customs of Melanesia. He is widely known as an ethnologist. A blood-brother of a native chief, he has studied Island life extremely closely. In the Solomons, Dr. Fox, with his sister, two white men, and native instructors as assistants, conducts a school for youths at Ugi. in the Eastern Solomons. Its pupils are drawn from islands throughout the group. And, it is this intermingling, coming so rapidly after the days of cannibalism, which has made the Solomon Islanders realise they can be a united race. Among Dr. Fox’s first memories of the Melanesians are recollections of the carnage when village fought against village. This was the Melanesia into which the missionaries ventured. In very few years, Christianity has broken down age-old creeds and practices. BEWILDERED BY TRANSITION But, today, the missionaries are confronted with the pressing problem of guiding a race rather bewildered by the suddenness of the transition. As among some Polynesian races, the Melanesians are forgetting their arts. Dr. Fox makes this clear when he mentions that a considerable amount of carving and decorative work, with all the personal adornment of the savage, depended on the making of weapons, that fascinating native dances and chants frequently were the product of religious cults, and that ancient rites were attached to other works of the people. The passing of conflict and the .destruction of religious cults and law have meant the decline of native works. In the Ugi school today there is a curious paradox of instruction in native dances being given to scholars whose fathers were once swayed by those same rhythmic motions. The missionaries are endeavouring to save desirable arts and accomplishments. The Church of England conducts two other schools for Junior boys and a school for girls in the group. The Roman Catholic, Methodist and Baptist churches are achieving successful

work in their missions, and yet another paradox apparent in the Solomons, due to the growth of church work and the effects of trading, is the increasing use of the English language as the speech for the islands of the group. . . _ , There are about 50 clearly-defined languages in the Solomon Islands alone —not mere dialects after the position among the Polynesians. In Bishop Patteson’s time, the use of the Mota speech as a standard language was begun, but, in the Solomons now, the peculiar thing is the obvious preference shown by the natives for English. ENGLISH PREFERRED Dr. Fox set the students at Ugi. undoubtedly representative types of the young generation of the Solomons, an essay, and there was practically a unanimous decision for English. The Melanesian languages are actually fertile, and Dr. Fox will mention that his San Cristoval dictionary has some 25,000 native words. A fascinating study presents itself in the strange language employed by 120 people or so (and they are quickly declining) on the Island of Laube. This language is not related to Melanesian, the negrito tongues further west to the Papuans of New Guinea, or Polynesian. It stands as a problem. One indication of its complicated nature is that plurals can be formed in about 32 ways. Fresh from their freedom, the Melanesians are finding it difficult to comprehend the motives of the Government. They regard taxation with suspicion, and are disposed to censure the whites for the ravages in the islands of dysentery, influenza, measles and paralysis. While they complain against the Government, they have an intense patriotism for the King, whom they have idealisedWhile the population of the New Hebrides islands is decreasing and a similar position obtains in parts of the Solomons, there are places in the Solomons where the declines have halted.

To this complex life, Dr. Fox returns in six or seven weeks. The change of the Melanesian is not yet complete, and he regards as a necessary move the efforts to increase medical work in the Islands.