BLACK MAGIC

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 29, 29 October 1934, Page 11

BLACK MAGIC

Savage Community Still Believes in Necromancy

Black magic even to-day plays a part in the lives of many primitive races. It lias only very recently been forgotten in New Zealand, where it was known as “tohunga-ism”; it is still rampant in Haiti and many places in the West Indies. Even in Europe peasants in many places carry charms to avert the evil eye. In a very erudite treatise on "Law and Order in Polynesia” (Christophers), Mr. H. lan Hogbin, M.A., Ph.D., describes several cases of sorcery among the natives of Ontong Java, whore he was living for some time, engaged in anthropological research.

“There was one actual case where black magic was suspected while I was living at Ontong Java,” says Mr. Hogbin. *About a week before I arrived at Pelan village one of the leading men, by name Hangaya, had died He was too old for active work, and had stayed at home to mind the children, while the men went fishing and the women gardening. While they were away, one of the children had accidentally set fire to the house. Hangava eseaped, but a few hours later be was taken ill, and in two days was dead.”

This may have been largely due to shock, Mr. Hogbin suggests. The relatives, however, suspected that sorcery had been used, and the day following Mr. Hogbin’s arrival, his son began to dig in front of the house that had been burnt. Sure enough, a human bone was dug up within a foot of the surface. The whole village was profoundly shocked, and for some days no one spoke of anything else. The culprit was never discovered, although the relatives were still searching months afterward.

Some years ago a certain sorcerer, known to be skilled in black magic, was caught ih an act of theft by the headman, whose property he was stealing., The headman attacked and wounded the magician. In return the latter made spells against his enemy, who fell ill immediately. His relatives, without delay, went to the sorcerer’s house, bound him hand and foot, and threw him into the sea. Another famous sorcerer, Kepaleia, met a similar fate. He made an’ enemy of "an important man of the tribe, but while working charms against him -was speared by the man’s friends.

The island of Ontong Java is a coral formation, situated to the north-east of the Solomon Islands, iu the Western Pacific. It '> about a hundred and sixty miles from the large island of Ysabel. Ontong Java consists of a hundred tiny Islets scattered round the circumference of a lagoon forty miles long and twenty broad. The largest of these islets, Luangiua, is only four or five miles long and a few hundred yards across at its,widest point. Nowhere does the land rise more than a few feet above sea-level, and the tallest palm raises its head a bare eighty feet above the sea. In facf, Ontong Java is a very typical atoll.

The most interesting feature of the island is that although situated in Melanesia it is peopled by Polynesians, whose fair skin and wavy hair are in contrast with the swart, fuzzy-headed natives of Malaita and Ysabel. As the island produces little except coconuts and taro-root, the islanders live largely by fishing. They are a primitive race, not radically affected by European civilisation.

The island, although under the administration of the Resident Commissioner of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate, is ruled by a native king. The first king, Vila, began to reign in 1878, a few years after the massacre of the first -European visitors to sail into the lagoon. Vila was followed by Keaepea, who died in 1915. His successor, Mekaike, is still in power In 1893 Germany annexed the atoll, but it was handed over to Great Britain in 1900, along with Choiseul aud Ysabel, in exchange for the British qights in Samoa.