PARALYSED WITH FRIGHT

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 134, 8 June 1929, Page 10 (Supplement)

PARALYSED WITH FRIGHT

JUNGLE ADVENTURE WITH

CANNIBALS.

"HERE IT COMES NOW."

WITH THE BLACKS ON GROOTE

EYLA2STDT.

(By SIR HUBERT WILKINS, the Famous Flyer and Explorer.)

"There is an episode in my life in which aeroplanes play no part, and during which I received such a fright that it hung by me for a long time. It came about because I decided that I wanted to find out about a more or less mythical cannibal tribe of aborigines. I was on Groote Eylandt, a large island, as its name implies, in the Gulf of Carpentaria, situated in the tropics north of Australia. For some years I 'had heard about these aborigines, but no one seemed to know anything much about them. It was my ambition to lift the veil and scientifically determine what manner of people these were. ' Impersonating a Lunatic. I knew that they were hostile to white men; practically all the natives are, and they do riot have to be cannibals, either, to feel that way. Now, it is a well-known fact that these very untutored aborigines, like other of their kind, fear and respect only two classes of people. These are missionaries and lunatics. So long as the missionary sticks to his religious demonstrations they regard him with awe and superstition, and he is safe. Lunatics and weakminded persons generally are those who have some pull or other with the gods, and must therefore be treated with care and kindness. In fact, these aborigines take better care of their lunatics than we do of our geniuses.

So I had the choice. Either I must stalk my cannibals as a missionary, or I must lead them to believe that I was quite weak in the head. I could not impersonate a missionary, and perhaps I would not, have done so if I had felt I' could make a go of it. Hence the alternative.

So I literally plunged into the jungle home of these man-eaters with no weapons of any kind. I had nothing for either offence or defence. In my small boat I wandered up and down the crocodile-infested river of their country, fighting my way through the jungle for several days. From the very beginning I felt that I' was being watched. Eyes were always on the back of my neck, but I could not even get glimpse of any of the people. Cornered in the Jungle. , After a little while I began to feel fairly safe. If they had intended to murder me, it seemed to me that they would have been about it. before then. However, I must admit that the constant surveillance had its effect on me. It made me feel jumpy, and I would never have been surprised to have had to dodge a spear or two.

For the first few days nothing was touched in my camp, although .there were signs that it had been investigated. One day, however, I returned to 'find that some bait that I carried for small mammals had been taken. 1 had this because I was doing some zoological work for a London museum. Well, I thought, they are becoming mofe familiar; perhaps I shall see them soon. And I was not mistaken. That night I turned in as usual under the boat with mosquito netting as my only covering. . I was lying on my back getting drowsy when I was snapped into life again by hearing stealthy footsteps. It seemed as though there must be at Teast two men coming on. My impulse was to jump to my feet and face them. Then I realised that they would interpret my actions as hostile, and a shower of spears would follow. I caught my breath and then decided to lie perfectly still and pre■ten<l thcit I was asleep. If there had been light, those two warriors would have seen my hair stand with fright. A' moment later and two , sharp, jagged,flint spear points were pointed at my chest. The men stood on either side of me, their spear points seeming to quiver with eagerness for the kill. I should have shut my eyes, but I was fascinated by them. Each savage nodded to the other as though saying, "You start the ball rolling and I'll join in." I could feel the jagged flints tearing my flesh.

Scared to Death. I was too scared to move, even if I had wanted to. I know now what it means to be paralysed with fright. Then suddenly one of the men nodded more emphatically, and I thought, "Here it comes now." But to my intense relief both suddenly lifted their spears and faded into the bush. I had been given a reprieve. My life had been spared. But for how long? I remembered that it was said that these natives never killed anything, not even their enemies, except during the period between dawn and sunrise. It was several hours before down, so I decided to go to sleep and wake before the dawn, ready for any emergency. Not having any arms, I was a bit hazy as to what. I would do, but I had an idea that I might go through some incantation or ritual .that Would make them think I was either a lunatic or making witchcraft.

Many watches kept at sea have given me the faculty of sleeping at will when tired, and of waking at any time I wish. So I slept and waked just before the first flush of dawn broke across the velvet darkness of the tropic sky. Turning on my face with my hand resting on my bended arms, I waited for the crisis. It was not long. As the first streaks of colour were shot out by the rising sun I saw a bundle of spear shafts filtering through the bush. The men themselves were hidden by the undergrowth. So intently did I watch their oncoming that I forgot to look in any other direction. Then suddenly I was startled by seeing out of the corner of my eye a bended figure with arm drawn back and a spear pointed at me. So scared was I that I let out a yell, and the spear struck the ground a few feet short of me. There was a rustle for a' second—the natives had bolted! I was utterly disgusted with myself for having shown so little control, but I determined, now that I had seen the aborigines, to follow them up. Evidently they were not going to kill me on sight, so 'i made up my mind to get into communication with them. I tracked them for several miles, all the time calling out the few words of friendship I knew in their dialect. At last my pursuit made an impression. The men halted. They could not understand a word of what I said, and I spent a busy half-hour 'making motions that indicated my friendly feelings toward them. But they did not seem to want to be convinced; they milled back and forth with upraised epearsj all the while making guttural

noises in their throats and ehaking their throwing sticks in a threatening manner. Of course I realised that they were as afraid of me as I was of them, but they could not see how shaky my knees were on account of my trousers. It was only after they had made sure that I was a poor inoffensive white man that they calmed down and allowed me to come close to them and touch them. After that I would not let them out of my sight. I had found my cannibals and I intended to know all about them. Later that day we came to their settlement, and there I found others of the tribe, and among these were several who spoke a little pidgin English. One of the first questions I wanted the answer for was why had the two men refrained from killing me. Through these natives who spoke a little English I asked the two men why they had desisted. They told me' that they had agreed to slay me as I slept, but when it came to the sticking point each one wanted the other to let the first blood. The interpreter put it in this quaint manner: "Everybody all about want you kill. Two men say something inside" —here he put his hand above his heart —"won't let him" do it."

I became . quite friendly with these people, and lived with them for two months. I found that they were not willing cannibals —that is, they did not eat human flesh because of any uncontrollable desire for it. They ate their fellow men only when the desire for fat became impossible to resist. There are no fatty products in their country; none of the game has fat meat, and there is no vegetable fat to speak of. Hence they get along as best they can. (Anglo-American N.S. Copyright.