IN WILD AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 36, 11 February 1926, Page 9

IN WILD AUSTRALIA

MISSIONARY'S EXPERIENCES

WINNING OVER THE SAVAGE.

(From Our Own Correspondent.)

SYDNEY, sth February. Many thrilling adventures have fallen to the lot of the Rev. James Watson, a •Methodist missionary in the far north of Australia, and much knowledge of the natives and their ways have come to him through long years of varied experiences and adventures. In Sydney for the first time for many years to have a holiday and commence a lecture tour, Mr. Watson spared a few minutes to relate to a newspaper reporter some of his strange happenings. Alone and unarmed, he has eat in the innermost councils of the wild tribes whose territory range from the country east of Darwin, in the Northern Territory, to the Gulf of Carpentaria. He is a full member of one of those savage northern tribes and is known as "Bungawah, the Big Boss, or "Bun-gawah-Bapi," the Big Boss Father. To white people, he is head of the Methodist Mission stations in Arnheim Land, and Protector of Aborigines under the Federal Government.

Mr. Watson 's field'covers an area of 36,000 miles. Low-lying mangrove coats hem the area on the north and east, and large rivers have their watersheds in the mountains inland. The climate, intensely oppressive at the beginning of the wet season, which lasts for four months, is splendid for the remainder of the year. Buffaloes range the great stretches of coarse grass and the forests. The natives, particularly towards the Gulf of Carpentaria, are wild and at times troublesome. Massacres and murders' of Japanese and white parties give a grim warning to others venturing into their haunts. Through this wild region and among these tribes, Mr. Watson has travelled constantly. A keen observer, greatly interested in the blacks as objects of scientific study, as well as of moral and ethical teaching, he has amassed a wealth of information of interest to anthropologists.: . TTKIQtTE KiroWIiEDOE. Mr. Watson'is conversant with the dialects of the blacks. His knowledge of the customs, the ramifications of their tribal lore, and their psychology is probably unique. For two years the elders of one tribe kept him under examination before they admitted him as a member. Under this prolonged and exacting teat, he proved to them that his knowledge of neighbouring tribes was greater than their own. The examination included observations of the' missionary's private life. Through their corroborees, which, arc ceremonial conferences,, prolonged, sometimes for three months, the blacks kept up communication with neighbouring tribes. Mr. Watson has participated in many of these eorroborees. . Absolute peacefulneßS is the attitude with which he approaches the natives. One one occasion he landed from his launch alone, and unarmed, in the face of 300 natives gathered to resist his landing. Advancing towards them, he sat down, and paid not the slightest heed to any of them. "They did not know what to make of that," Mr. Watson explained. "It puzzled them. Then gradually we got to know each other Only blacks go with me on my trips. No other white man accompanies me. "The reason for this is that I know what I am going to do in any circumstances, but I would not know what' another white man was going, to do." On another occasion Mr. Watson landed, the natives who had been awaiting his arrival went into the bnsh. He and his black companions walked towards them. There was no sign of any of the others. Then a boy in his party called out, "Bungawah!" The effect was magical. Blacks streamed from the bnsh and surrounded the missionary with manifestations of friendliness. It was not until later that they found the ground at the back of a sandbank strewn with spears and other weapons. The boy's shont had saved him from walking into an ambush. Mr. Watson's, work among the wild tribes is devoted to bringing his influence to bear to change gradually the more brutal and injurious of their customs. One of these is the custom of betrothing a girl at a very early age, sometimes from the day of her birth, to a man then middle-aged, and the practice of polygamy. The advisabiilty of letting all men in the tribe have a wife has been put before the elders, and persuasion has done some good. Another direction in which the missionary exercises his persuasion is to obviate the brutal treatment of lubras. For trivial offences the women are speared, thoir hands smashed or their legs broken. The lubras themselves are often a bar to reform in this direction, asserting that they; deserved their punishment.