SUPERSTITIOUS BELIEFS

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 48, 26 February 1927, Page 20

SUPERSTITIOUS BELIEFS

WHY SAVAGES ATTACK WHITES.

Though a blind surging of the blood lust is sometimes responsible, savages usually. have; the, most definite reasons for an outrage such as has just happened in interior . New' Guinea, which' resulted in the death of three miners and the decision to send troops, writes Jack M'Laren in the "Daily Mail."

Being almost always in a state of in-ter-tribal war, the hill people of New Guinea are apt to mistake the approach o- presence of a white man and his long string of'native porters for a warlike invasion, and take offensive measures accordingly. I know of four attacks which were: made: for thia reason, though the white men concerned were quite peacefully inclined. ■

Carelessness in the selection of porters can ; cause trouble. I was once-att-acked because among my porters were some coastal natives who were the hereditary enemies of the hill people in whose territory I was travelling. In order to be saved, from further attack I had to send these particular porters back. . i

A superstitious belief that a man with a white skin is an embodiment of an evil spirit has been the cause of attacks on Europeans. Another cause is the custom of christening a new house with human blood—a. stranger's blood, if possible.^A few years ago this was the: cause of the murder of a harmless old man named Weaver near Port Moresby, the. capital of New Guinea. ■ :•.'• ■'. ';•:'■■' ■ - '■ •

Robbery is, of course, a motive, also the avenging of ill-treatment. But the. latter happens very seldom, as experienced travelles, knowing the danger, are generally careful to avoid any appcarrince of harshness or injustice in dealing with the'natives. ;

Having, an acute sense of land-pro-prietorship, tribes often object, to strangers travelling over the ground, and nearly always the sinking of shafts

and other mining operations cause disputes. On tho Warria Biver, New Guinea, there is a tribe wheih regards the digging of a large hole in the ground as the grossest sacrilege, and another tribe objects to tho erection of any kind of building anywhere on certain large areas, the areas being tabu—that is, sacred.

Infringement of tabus is a frequent source of trouble, and so many are the tabus that no European can ever hope to know them all. In the Solomons I once got into a N deuco of a disturbance because, in making a clearing, I felled a certain trco. The fact that I did not know the tree was tabu made no difference.