KIND-HEARTED CANNIBALS.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 July 1921, Page 11

KIND-HEARTED CANNIBALS.

I ADMIRALTY’ ISLANDERS. MISSIONARY’S EXPERIENCES. *‘l would bate liked io -stay, I tike tbe work and the people; tbase old oanuibals are lovely fellows, they art* so kind-hearted, simple, and ekildiikft.” Thia apparent contradiction -of terms in relation to cannibals was expressed in Sydney recently by the Rev. Henry Krafft, lately a missionary in the Admiralty Group, which lies about 3do miles to du? nortb-west of RabauL Mr. Krafft was connected with the Lieber.geller mission, a German society, which! followed hard on the heels of German; government agents when they rook over the administration of the group seven years ago. The natives were savages who maintained constant tribal warfare and practised cannibalism. Though a white planter was killed last year the missionaries were never attacked. Mr. Krafft lived on Manos, the principal island of the group. It took a long time to establish schools and to learn the language, but before leaving Mr. Krafft finished a translation of St. Mark's Gospel, which is now being printed by the Bible Society. The natives are vert’ handsome, with fine Caucasian features. Some of them have a fair skin. They show traces of a Semitic ancestry. The men are devotees to fashion. While the women shave their heads, the men dress their hair in marvellous style. There are about 10,000 inhabitants in the group, but the population is diminish ing rapidly. The natives appear to wilt away before civilisation. Mr. Krafi’t says that they seem to suffer from a tiredness of life. The infantile mortality is very high. In a village near tbe mission there were 37 births in seven years, and only three children survived. That is typical of all the villages except on the outer islets, so the native population must disappear before long.