HOW NATIVES TELEGRAPH NEWS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9663, 30 November 1909, Page 3

HOW NATIVES TELEGRAPH NEWS.

Europeans have frequently marvelled at the rapidity with which news spreads among the natives of barbarous and uncivilised countries. Bishop Wilson, of the Melanesian Mission, gives an interesting explanation of how it is done, in the current number of " Southern Cross Log." He writes:—"i News spreads quickly in these islands (the Solomons), and I was shown by the chief of Rumatiri how it was managed. He took, his drum, made of a hardwood log, ana beat irregularly upon it. very much as a telegraph clerk jerks out his message on his instrument. When he had finished he said that that meant, "To-mor-row the teast will take place, come to it, and behave well at it. Let there be no quarreling amongst ourselves, or be second to ten eneay." Again he beat out a different tune which, he said, contained the names of all the villages invited to the feast, and exactly what f od was provided, and that it would be dealt out fairly to all, without favour. Then he beat out that the enemy was approaching and the villages around must muster with spears and shields. "Let men not suppose that all was well, for danger was at hand." Then he varied his, tune again, and told all that his drum would bark that "the . village had been raided, and so many had been killed." Even on the drum it was a melancholy story, pleyed in a minor key, and extremely impressive. These drum messages carry for miles in the still air of the forest, and can be read by a few in every village, and passed on. Fo the news is spread."