SCOUTING AS CURE FOR HEADHUNTING

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29931, 19 September 1962, Page 16

SCOUTING AS CURE FOR HEADHUNTING

(New Zealand Press

AUCKLAND, Sept. 18. Scouting was the only thing which could make the headhunting tribes of New Guinea stop hating each other, the international liaison officer for the Boy Scout movement in Auckland (Mr R. G. Whale) said today. Mr Whale, who is awaiting confirmation of his appointment as the first New Zealand international liaison officer, has recently returned from a trip to New Guinea. Fiji and South-east Asia. He said scouting was the only bond of fellowship among the tribes. “Apart from that they hate each other," he said. “While I was over there there was a case where one tribe crept up and just slaughtered another. “But scouting is teaching them brotherhood,” he said "They come in to the schools and they learn English and Scouting “Then the natives go back into the backblocks and teach English and Scouting to other tribesmen

“This knowledge of Scouting is doing more than anything else to bring the tribes together.” Mr Whale said Scouting had a great following in New Guinea and Papua and was spreading rapidly. “They think it is just great.” he said. “One village. Hanuababa, near Port Moresby, is run just like a big Scout troop. That’s how much they think of scouting. “The village is divided into four sections of 1000 each and each section has its own court of honour where they settle matters, and there is a big court of honour for the whole village,” he said. Scouting was so popular with the people wherever he went that he always had someone to meet him at the airport or to come and see him at the hotel, said Mr Whale. “If I hadn’t been a Scout 1 wouldn’t have got to know any of them," he said. “But as it was. everywhere I visited I met some Scout people. “In places like that Scouting is doing its real work. You can see Europeans and natives mixed in the Scout troops with no thought of a colour bar at all.”