VELE MAGIC.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 9695, 20 January 1910, Page 7

VELE MAGIC.

How httie the world knows or cares of what ia happening in the far away Melanesian Islands. They still lie beyond the pale of civilisation and of all law and order. .Rapine and murder stalk through these lonely isles; barbarism, heatnenism, cannibalism still flourish among their savage and ignorant inhabitants. Slowly, but surely, however, the patient and self-sacrificing in labour of the staff of the Melanesian Miaaion are bearing fruit. With the spread of the knowledge of Christianity and the diffusion of education, a marked change is being wrought in the live§ of the natives. But much yet remains to be done. Bishop Wilson, writing in the Southern Cross Log, describes some of the evils that still exist. He says:—"By far the Worst feature of Guadalcanar heathenism is the vele magic. Someone working in a lonely place hears a sudden hiss, and looking up, sees a man standing with left arm outstretched towards him, on the little fineer of his hand a small wicker charm bag about 3in long, containing bones or leaves. The charm works at oni.e, and the person falls to the ground hepeless. Then comea the man with the charm and touches his victim's legs just above the feet, then his knees and thighs, the joints of his arms, his forehead, neck, chest and stomach. He tells him he must die, and leaves him and hides. feThere is no violence, only magic, but the person dien on the day that the vele man has named.Through all the thirty miles which lie between the shore and the high mountains, j the people live in daily terror of the j vele. No wonder frequent attempts 'i are marie upon the school people' on | the coast to bewitch them in the same wa.v; but happily so far every attempt has failed. As the faith of the } heathen in the vele can causa his } death, sn the faith of the Christian j in God can prevent it. While 1 was at Savo, Kosi, the self appointed "policeman," had brought over to him a school boy who had been bewitched and also the young min from the bush who had practised vele on him. I questioned the schoolboy as to his feelings, and he said it was as though a heavy weight were over him; his head went round ar.d he nearly fell. I asked if he had not remembered that Go J was stronger than the vele and could protect him. fie answered, ' 'Yes, I remembered it; if 1 had not, I should have died."