LIFE IN NEW HEBRIDES
Sir,—Such comments on native life in the New Hebrides as are outlined in your report from the “Otago Daily Times” interview with Mrs A. R. Mills are ill-calculated to help a people possessing many fine characteristics, relatively poor opportunities and an increasing desire for improvement. The contrasting of the white woman’s “extremely busy” life (housework, cocktail parties, etc.) with the natives’ “no need to work” and “lack of fidelity” is unfortunate, and seriously misleading. “A little digging perhaps once a week” is a caricature of the average native family’s gardening activities, quite apart from copra production, house-building, work for the white man, etc. “Yam roots thrown on the ground,” for instance, do not flourish; these valuable roots are planted and their vines often tended with great care. Moreover, the New Hebridean’s attachment to his family and surroundings is close apd follows an intricate pattern not always immediately understood by outsiders.-—Yours, etc., B. R. C. NOTTAGE. March 24, 1954.
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Press, Volume XC, Issue 27307, 25 March 1954, Page 3
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162LIFE IN NEW HEBRIDES Press, Volume XC, Issue 27307, 25 March 1954, Page 3
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