EXPLOPATION OF NEW GUINEA. THE NATIVES OF NEW GUINEA. [By the Auckland " Star's " London Correspondent. ]

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 54, 14 June 1884, Page 5

EXPLOPATION OF NEW GUINEA. THE NATIVES OF NEW GUINEA. [By the Auckland " Star's " London Correspondent. ]

Mukpay Island, March 10, ISS4. SAVAGEDOM VEKSUS CHRISTENDOM. I have chosen the heading of this paper as a fit subject for a few introductory remarks upon the natives of New Guinea. We al doubtless believe that we belong to one of the most civilised nations on the face of the earth ; that wo have made and arc still making wonderful progress, and look down upon savages (some with pity, others with contempt, and many with indifference) as being far below us. Yet few seriously consider amidst this intellectual and material advancement what is really the end aimed at. What is the ideally-perfect social state towards which mankind ever has been and still is tending ? There must be some goal, some state of perfection which we may nevei reach, but to which all true progress must bring us nearer. Our best thinkers maintain that " it is a state of individual freedom and self-government, rendered possible by the equal development and just balance of tho intellectual, moral, and physical parts of our nature — a state in which wo shall each bo so perfectly fitted for social existence by knowing what is right, and at the same time feeling an irresistible impulse to do what we know to be right, that all la^n s and all punishments shall be unnecessary. In such a state every man would have a suiHciently well-balanced intellectual organisation to understand the moral law in all it 5*5 * details, and would require no other motive but the free impulses of his own nature to ebey that law." Now, where do we find the nearest approach to such a perfect social state ? Amongst savage or civilised nations ? Some say that it is to be found in one part and some in another of Christendom ; but who ever thinks of looking for such a state of things in Savagedom ? and yet I do not hesitate to say that I have found the natives in the South Seas and New Guinea, in their low state of civilisation, approaching nearer that ideal perfect social state. My object in this paper is to lead the reader to consider a few things which may be observed in each of these kingdoms worthy the attention of all who are interested in human progress. First, let us take

A PEEP AT SAVAGEDOM. Many people form their opinion of Savagedom from the miserable hordes of natives that hang on the skirts of European settlements, leading a precarious and vagabond existence. These are too commonly composed of degraded beings, corrupted and enfeebled by the vices of society without being benefited by its civilisation. Their spirits are humiliated and debased by a sense of inferiority, and their native courage cowed and daunted by the superior know - ledge and power of their enlightened neighbours. Society has advanced upon them like one of those withering airs that will sometimes breed desolation over a whole region ot fertility. It has enervated their strength, multiplied their diseases, and added to their oiiginal barbarity the low vices of artificial life. It has given them a thousand superfluous wants, leading to selfishness, covetousness, and arousing the basest passions of the soul. They become drunken, indolent, feeble, thievish, and pusillanimous. In savage life they were gentlemen, as far as having the means to supply their wants goes to make a gentleman ; but in the face of civilisation they feel keenly their numerous wants and repine in hopeless poverty, which, like a canker of the mind, corrodes their spirits, and blights the free and noble qualities of their natures. Like vagrants they loiter about the settlements, once their happy hunting ground?, now covered with spacious dwellings replete with elaborate comforts, which only render them sensible of the comparative wretchedness of their own condition. Luxury spreads its ample board before their eyes, but they are excluded from the banquet. Plenty revels over the fields, but they are starving in the midst of its abundance. The whole wilderness has blossomed into a garden, but they feel as reptiles that infest it. It is not amongst this class that we must look for the "noble savage " ; not where civilisation has met him and clothed him in its most filthy garments, but in New Guinea, where the natives are found in their primitive sim plicity, the undisputed lords of the soil, displaying a proud independence, their lives void of care, and with little to excite either ambition or jealousy, as they see everyone around them sharing the same lot, enduring the same hardships, feeding on the same food, and arrayed in the same rude garments. They have no laws or law courts (so far as we know), but the public opinion of the village freely expressed. Each man respects the rights of his fellow, and any infraction of those rights very rarely takes place. In these communities all are nearly equal. There are none of those wide distinctions of education and ignorance, wealth and poverty, master and servant, which are the product of our civilisation. There is none of that widespread division of labour, which, while it increases wealth, produces also conflicting interests. There is not that severe competition and struggle tor existence, or for wealth, which the dense population of civilised countries inevitably creates. All incitements to great crimes are thus wanting, and petty ones are suppressed, partly by the influence of public opinion, but chiefly by that natural sense of justice, and of his neighbours' right, which seems to be in some degree inherent in every race of man. These remarks of course apply to separate communities. There are tribal wars as in civilised countries, although the natives do not yet understand the art of wholesale slaughter as we do, and, moreover, the man who makes the quarrel has to lead in the fight. Still they consider it perfectly right to plunder and kill the enemy. Now look at

CHRISTENDOM AND CIVILISATION. What do we find ? Take our country for example. "We are the richest nation in the world, and yet one-twentieth of our population (of course I am speaking of the Old Country, which most of us still like to call home) are parish paupers, and one-thirtieth known criminals. Add to these the criminals who escape detection, and the poor who live mainly on private charity — which, according to Dr. Hawkesley, expends £7,000,000 sterling annually in London alone— and we may be sure that more than one-tenth of our population are actually paupers or criminals. Each criminal costs us annually in our prisons more than the wages of an honest agricultural labour. We allow over 100,000 persons known to have no other means of subsistence but crime to remain at large and prey upon the community. Yet we like to boast of our rapid increase in wealth, of our enormous commerce and gigantic manufactures, of our mechanical 3kill and scientific knowledge, of our high civilisation and Christianity, although, perhaps, it might be more justly termed a state of social barbarism. Nearly all of us, I suppose, associate eavages^with dark skins, and seem to think {

that white savagos cannot exist, but only people, who, if trouble enough were taken and money enough spent, would become, at least to an endurable degreo, civilised persons. They do not wish, it is alleged, to be savages, and are only forced into that condition by pressure of circumstances, lasting perhaps for generations. That comforting theory may of course bo true, for wo hardly know what effects generations of untoward circumstances will cause ; but those of us who have beon behind the scenes in the South Sea Islands, Now Guinea, and in some of the large cities in the O'd Country, know very well there are thousands of persons (and some of them well educated) who hate civilisation, with all its restraints, with a hatred which is incurable by any tear or any reward or any kind of inspection. They are not criminals as a rule any more than the Avild tribes are ; but thoy are savages, loving above all things to live lives untrammelled by tho infinite scries of minute restraints and obligations which go to make up civilisation. If the climate is cold they will wear clothes — they will hardly do that in warm climates— but that is the solo concession they will mako to the claims of civilisation. They don't care to clean anything, or preserve anything, or provido for anything. It is useless to give them furniture, for thoy prefer to camp ; useless to store food for them, for they will consumo it all at once. They m ill work when there is nothing to eat, but if they aro full they abhor work until they are empty again. It is possible to live without washi ing, or deconcy, or furniture, or foresight, or care ; and they prefer so to live, though tho result seems to the civilised unqualified misery and pain. They do not think it unqualified, but qualified very greatly by their freedom, holding only three things to be essential — food, sleep, and wives, and only three to be luxuries — more food, drink, and tobacco, just as the millions do whom wo all agree in calling savages. I have no hesitation in pronouncing the savages of Christendom infinitely worse than those of heathendom, and infinitely more diih'cult to improve. And "whatever my views may be about tho " development theory," I am forced from known cases, to admit the possibility of complete retrogression from a civilised state, although many "writers deny it. And I believe that in every civilised community there is a considerable percentage of both men and women to v horn the first condition of external chilisation — the incessant taking of minute trouble — is utterly hateful, and who, if left to themselves, would not take it, but would prefer a condition of pure savagery. The rich, of course, seldom reveal this disposition, because others take- the trouble for them ; but unskilled labourers in the Old Country, who earn possibly only twelve shillings a week, a\lio know nothing, and are pressed by no public opinion, are constantly tempted to throw off the burden of respectability, abandon furniture, give up the small decencies and formalities of life, and camp in a room on straw, as uncleanly and nearly as free as savages would be. They li\ c from hand to mouth, shift trom room to room, arc beyond prosecution for money, drink if they have the cash, smoke .somehow whether they have it or not, and are perfectly indifferent to the opinion of society— are, in fact, savages.

A REMEDY. J Now, I can conceive but one remedy for this savagery wherever it exists, and that is religion— a pure, simple, elevating religion, like that of Jesus Christ. You cannot elevate savage tribes in heathendom by giving them tomahawks and tobacco, beads and blankets ; for they will soon sell these, and even their food, for brandy. Nor can you elevate the savages of Christendom by putting them in good houses and providing them with honest v, ork, for very soon your model houses Avould be like styes, and the honest work abandoned. My contention is, however, that supposing both classes of savages to embrace the Gospel, those of heathendom find themselves nearer the goal which civilisation has been aiming at and striving for during many centuries. What we are pleased to term civilisation generally begins in despotism, or, I might even say, in murder and plunder. A country is seized, the land appropriated, and the natives subdued, and placed under laws. Then as education advances, and the subdued begin to feel their power, the struggle begins, and goes on for a;*es between Radicals and Conservatives ; the one trying to regain the rights and liberties of their fathers, and the other trying to retain what was gained by conquest. All I can say i.s that I devoutly hope that New Guinea may be preserved from such civilising influences.