RECONSTRUCTING

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 48, 25 August 1923, Page 7

RECONSTRUCTING

WHERE GERMANS RULED

PROBLEMS OP TANGANYIKA

WILD BEASTS AND WITCHCRAFT

(UNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—COPYRIGHT.) ' ' (REUTJER'S mEORAM.)

(Received 25th Auugst, 9 a.m.)

LONDON, 24th August.

The difficulties of administering Tanganyika are emphasised in an official report on the year 1922.

The report dwells on the increase in the number of big game, and states-that lions have retained the taste for human flesh acquired during the war, arid their boldness is incredible. Whole villages are terrorised, and their extermination by specially trained native 'trappers is most difficult, as they remain concealed in the dense bush in the daytime and raid the villages.'.at night. Sixtyseven people were killed in the Tabora district alono. Rewards were paid for the killing of three hundrftl ■ lions, and eight hundred leopards were killed in the fist six months of the year. Elephants and eland are .most destructive to crops; the eland are particularly fond of cotton.

The. report regrets that jealous rivalry exists among the Christian-missions in certain districts, and results in undignified competition and the bewilderment of the natives. It urges the Christian societies to recognise the principle of' "spheres of influence," which would profit Christianity equally with the pagans. Owing to the want of tribal cohesion, the chiefs lack control of their subjects, as the old tribal organisation was destroyed in the process of establishing German authority. Numerous petty headmen have sprung up, and they command little respect. The policy of.the Administration, of restoring the authority of the rightful paramount chiefs, is showing pleasing results. I The report, in alluding to the efforts to stamp, out .witchcraft, says that medicinemen are chiefly responsible for the infanticide which is still prevalent amongst the Wapar tribe. They destroy children afflicted by the slightest abnormality,, by suffocation, poisoning, or starvation, because the medicinemen declare that .such children are unlucky. The Wachagga and Wazigua tribes have abandoned these abominations, and it is hoped that the Wapar will shortly follow their example.

Tanganyika Territory is the name now applied to the territory formerly called German East Africa, acquired as a BriHsh territory by conquest during the war. Civil administration was established .by Britain as the conquest proceeded, and the complete administration was effected in 1919. The country, which has an area of 365,000 square miles and a population of about 4,000,. 000, is administered by a-Governor (Sir Horace Archer Byatt) and a council nominated by the Crown.