SAVAGES AT PLAY

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 74, 24 September 1927, Page 20

SAVAGES AT PLAY

GRIM PASTIMES.

. Savages are as fond of sport as we jsrej but many of their games would . appear to be unduly risky (writes Jack M'Laren in the "Daily Mail"). One such is "clam-baiting," played on the @reat Barrier Reef (Coral Sea). The procedure is for a man to swim directly over a giant clam—which may weigh several hundredweights—as it lies wide •pen on the bottom, waiting to entrap fl»h and other food, and drop a stone into it' This causes the clam to bring itotwmendous serrated "lips" together with monstrous speed, and the danger lies in the rush of the water caused by this sadden movement, sweeping the man into the creature's grip, from Vy'hich there would be no getting away. I have seen more than one narrow «scape, : and' have heard of cases where the man was actually caught. But the satires think it great fun, and talk delightedly of how they had made the clam "think he got something to eat, When he only got a stone.". ■ ';■ Then, in certain parts of New Guinea |larticolarly, there are sham battles— ajffairs of clubs-and spears ana ferocious gestures and yelling —which often develop into real fights, with broken heads aid other wounds complete. But there ■H bo ill-feeling, afterwards.' Cooled down, the natives realise it was only a game that got a bit out of hand.

Other sports have a certain grimMeM. The favourite game of the childttu t>t » tribe of head-hunters' I once Urn« across was to roll a coconut down • ilop« «ad shoot arrows into it. The tHmaeis lay in the fact that, not content with a coconut being naturally' About;the sire and shape of a human l*aa, the little players had made it 4uite lifelike, by painting eyes, p, nose, and mouth on--.it. They were pleasant youngster*, too, full of smiles and quick laughter. They were very expert with ti«ir miniature bowa and arrows.

i There are, seldom prizes connected with the»e gports; savages seem to be ■well-seised of the idea that the game's the thing—or else in their great backwardness the notion of prizes has not occurred to them. Indeed; the only case I know of when there was a stake ■was-when two Solomon Islanders held a" series of under-water swimming contesta to decide the possession of a woxnan. Hundreds of natives followed tbie swimmers in ,- canoes, and rarely k»ve I known such tremendous excitenient. Nor have I ever seen such renwrkaWa under-water \swimming. I behave some of the distances so covered are records. ...'■■ ■