PAPUAN CANNIBALS.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3533, 22 July 1920, Page 2

PAPUAN CANNIBALS.

SOME SAVAGE CUSTOMS. .\ 1A A KILEI AG C it HE MO AIES. A liuuigh Australia is steadily extending her hold over Papua by far the gieacer portion cf the wide and wild interior is still the home of numerous cannibal tribes, who are as yet quite untouched by civilisation, writes our Sydney correspondent. A magistrate named Mr Beaver, who had penetrated deeply into this region and studied the customs of the cannibal tribes, wrote an interesting report before he went in 1917 to the war, where he was killed; and his observations are contained in a recently published report of the Administrator of Papua.

Among most cf these tribes, no male is. considered to have reached manhood I until lie has the sea'p of another man l at his belt. Each tribe lias curious | customs and ceremonies surrounding >. the business of man-killing. In most , cases it is essential that the body of j the slain man be brought home to the j village and eaten. When the, killer \ returns with the killed he wears a kind jof red amarantnus in his armlets. As soon as he arrives, all his friends and j relatives gather round, and do obeisl ance. The corpse is hung up for a time —varying from one to seven days j —and strips of cloth are threaded I through the slayer's ajrm(l.ets, which jhe wears for a month. The corpse is insultetl in various ways, both in song and action. In due course,, if is eaten, with much ceremony—but the Slayer never, in eircmn eats the body of the man he has slain. The slayer has rather an uncomfortable time of it. For a week, he must not sit on the ground, but only on sticks; he musT 'eat nothing except roasted tafro and bananas, and Ills. only drink is muddied water and. hot cocoanut milk. Then comes an elaborate ceremony by which lie is admitted to manhood, the badge of which is a different kind of sporran. It is a common custom for the slayei*"*to take his victim's name, or combine it with his own. When the newly-creat-ed man, having done this, finds the new name distasteful, he gets out of the difficulty by killing another man, whose name lie is then permitted to take. The interior of this great island — New Guinea is the largest island in the world —contains the most untamed and dangerous natives in the world, with the possible exception of some parts of Africa.