THE SOLOMON ISLANDS

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 343, 16 February 1889, Page 3

THE SOLOMON ISLANDS

Tins schooner Enterprise, which arrived no Sydney la&b week from tho Solomon Is'ands brought news that when she loffc San Christ, oval on the lOfch ult. fighting was life at several of the group, notably Savn, Guadalcanal-, and at San Christova'. Thirty men, women, and children wero maseac»ed in a single village at one onslaught. Annoyed ab the petty rubbeiies of their pigs and other belongings by tho "buahmen," or men from the interior of the islands, the coastal 1 tribes at the islands named weie making raids upon the villagers inland, killing many, and capturing alive considerable numbeis of women and their families. Cannibalism still continues to be rampdnt amongst them". The men taken prisonersin the raids now reported were in many instances aftcrwaids kilJed, cut up in pieces, and roasted, after which they would be packed in leaves and carried in canoes from place fco place for distribution. The boys and girls and the women are usually disposed ot by sale or barber. Blaveiy in its very worst form is at this day as openly practised in the group as at any bygone period. Such is the testimony of white traders. Many of the poor, helpless creatuies in these times of bloodthirsty incursions would gratefully avail themselves of any means of escape from the pavticulur island ab which the outrages are proceeding, and some of them besought the master of the Enterprise for this purpose, but he was nob in a position to take them in his vessel. Recruiting labour for the Queensland plantations is to some extent cauied on at the Solomon Group, and the present would seem to be a most opportune time for the visit of such vessels as are employed in that business. The young natives, male and female, are neither badfeatured nor hopelessly vicious, and they are said to be quite capable of being trained to follow useful occupations. The staple trade with the Solomon Islands, the trade in copra, is reported to ha\e suffered to some exfent by Ihe cribal fights that are being unfortunately carried on at one or two of the principal places in the group. The attack made upon a village is invariably followed by setting fire to every building therein, and as many of these are storerooms containing large quantities of copra^ the destruction has be°n very considerable. It is said that were it not for this reverse in the export trade of the Solomons, the copra season this year would have been the best seen there, the production of the article having been engaged in by the natives to a very much larger extent than ab any previous period.