TALES OF PAPUA.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 20, 25 January 1939, Page 7

TALES OF PAPUA.

THE CORONATION. STORY OF THE TAILED MEN. ■TOPKISUro FACETS. n .. . . MELBOURNE. Odd stone, of native life i„ the Aus-south-eastern part of New Guinea, are contained ,n the latest report of Lieutenant Governor Sir Hubert Murray. of£VrL h r a <™u„t 0 f the coronation connoTl!,■ *•!, Y h ven to a village Wetel l " P*? 1 ? n » ,ißh V"> interpreter, who had listen ing to the broadcast of the ceremony. Thfs is how he described the circumstances:— son vl CiC ? r,r , e he dead - N«mber one son, Edward, he no want him clothes. Number two son he like. Bishop he make plenty talk along new Kin-. He 9ay: , ~°}J. ,ook out S ood »'*>n S all the people?' King he talk: 'Yes.' Then bishop and plenty Government official and storekeeper and soldier and bank manager and policeman, all he stand up and sing and blow him trumpet. Finish." Interpretation Drolleries. , There were many long-drawn-out Ahs" from the village councillor during this recital. Sir Hubert Murray observes that from a Papuan point of view the description i* accurate enough. "The picture of storekeepers and bank managers blowing trumpets is a very happy thought," he humorously adds. * Sometimes the village councillors give strange explanations of taxation imposed on the natives, which is expended for their benefit in schools and medical patrols and other avenues of betterment. One councillor explained the taxation in this way:—"London made a big war, and the money was to give the poor widows and orphans in London some money to buy food ami clothing with." Another said: "The Government takes the tax to help the missionaries to buy clothing for the poor widows and orphans. They have to have plenty of clothing and food, because it is very cold in London." Another village councillor proposed a new law. If two or more women, were found gossiping together, he said, thev should be punished with gaoling for two morfths. Only To Be Played Once. There are still persistent stories in Papua of the existence of tailed men, which remind Sir Hubert of the tale told by a much-travelled native he met 30 years ago, who declared that he had met a tribe of tailed men on the Fly River and that in their hmww, raised on piles, a hole for each inhabitant was cut In the floor, through which his tail hung when he sat "or lay down. The narrator affirmed that once he crept under the house, gently tied a knot in eaeh dependent tail and then raised the alarm that a hostile force was approaching. The men in the room above sprang to their feet, but the knots caught in the holes and flunjr them on their backs. It was a joke, the joker was careful to explain, that could be played only once. Papuan character, says • Sir Hubert, has surprising facets, as witness the story of the youth who, torn and mangled by a shark, lay at the point of death and asked that he might speak to a magistrate. When the magistrate came he explained that it was while looking for shell money with which to pay his tax that he had been attacked, and he wanted the Government to know why the tax had not been paid. When told not to worry about it, he smiled and closed hi* eyes, never to open them again.