WOMAN'S PLANS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 108, 10 May 1939, Page 21

WOMAN'S PLANS.

YEAR'S SOJOURN. WITH UNSTUDIED TRIBE. •HOT-GUM OWI.T WEAPON, (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, April 28. Dr. Phyllis Kaberry, young Australian anthropologist, who returned from England recently, has left for New Guinea to live for a year with an unstudied tribe. She will study their culture under the terms of a fellowship granted by the Australian Hesearch Council. The territory selected is in West New Guinea, north of the ( Sepik River. She is bound for the village of Kulabii, where the natives are of the Abelam tribe. Nobody i-.in speak their language. Apart from a shotgun she will be unarmed. Dr. Kaberry will be accompanied by a native man and his wife to carry out domestic duties. "I shall be wearing a large hat and jodhpurs. I shall present tfie chief with a tomahawk and ask him if he will build a house in the village for me. I am told I shall be able to build a three-roomed house with a verandah for £5. The tribe ie highly cultured. They are excellent wood carvers. For this reason they prize razor blades highly." She explained that razor blades would form a large part of her stock-in-trade. For one razor blade she expected she would be able to purchase a buach of bananas, while for one box of matches she would get a basket of yarns.