HEAD HUNTING AND CANNIBALISM.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2449, 10 January 1893, Page 3

HEAD HUNTING AND CANNIBALISM.

A passenger from the Solomon Islands, who has had some years’ experience of trading with the natives, and who arrived by the barquentine Thistle, gives a melancholy account (says the S.M. Herald) of life among the blackfellows. One might have thought that the days of head hunting were at an end, and that in view of the commercial intercourse which for many years has been carried ©n between the whites and the islanders of the Solomons, this barbarous custom would have passed with many others into history. But it appears that quite the contrary is the fact. Head hunting is openly carried on both at Malayta and San Christoval, and the native is regarded as young and inexperienced by his fellows who has not shed human blood. Then, as to cannibalism, it is undoubted that it exists and is largely practised by certain tribes. The custom is to cut up the bodies of the victims and sell them piecemeal, pretty much after the style of an itinerant butcher, and evidence in the shape of human bones left after the cannibal feasts is abundant on the islands. To what fearful extent it is carried on in the bush on Malayta or San Christoval can only be conjectured from what is absolutely known to occur on the coast. It is said to be more than a white man’s life is worth to venture far inland, or for the matter of that a blackfellow’s either if he belongs to a beach tribe, for the “ man of the bqsh ” is by no means particular. Why they tolerate a white man’s presence at all on their territory is explained, apparently, by the fact that they are fond of tobacco and a few manufactured wares he is in a position to supply them with. He receives a quid pro quo in the shape of copra, beohe-de-raer, or ivory nut, and the intercourse is so far mutually satisfactory; but there are few, if any, white men who would care to trust themselves far away from their hut or store without firearms, for however friendly the natives in the immediate vicinity may appear, there are few to be implicitly trusted. With regard to the outrages on traders, the opinion in the Solomons amongst Europeans is that the smart lesson, taught the natives by Captain Davis of M.M.S. Royalist, has had a deterrent effect, at all events for a time. The mention of a return of the Royalist is not treated by the natives with that contemptuous indifference a threat to send for a British man-of-war was formerly. It is also the opinion of some traders that a great deal less head-hunting is carried on since tho Royalist’s action with regard to some of the chiefs of unwholesome celebrity in that line. Tho recruiting question is one about which there is a considerable difference of opinion. Some of the missionaries are strenuously opposd to it, also some of the traders, while there are also missionaries and traders who defend the labour traffic, and particularly to the Queensland plantations.