ABOUT MELANESIA
A CHANGE IN CONDITIONS
"Truly ho who works in Melanesia has undertaken a 'man-sized job,' and ho may give thanks that the lot has fallen to him on a fair ground, for if ever there was a place that needed a directing hand—the help, the bost of• forts of the white man—that place is Melanesia," writes a resident in the "Southern Cross Log." Though differing incize and character, the many hundreds oi' islets are very beautiful. One tiny one is scarcely more than, a line'of golden sand or white coral, glistening above tho blue water, picked out by the plumy fronds of coconut palms, that quiver in .the' heat. A few islands are 'large—some a hundred miles or more in length, and about fifty or sixty wide, irrigated by many a crocodile-in-fested1 river, whose source lies back on a massive group of mountains, ,some reaching to.about 8000 ft. Nearly every island is clothed in a heavy mantle of tropical foliage, green and impenetrable, and it is wonderful to find the native settlements, dotted with food gardens'and .low'hutSi thatched, and with smoke wreaths issuing hero and there. The scone is wonderfully beautiful, but the happenings under heathenism are very terrible. The people lived in a stato of inter-tribal warfare, in many parts cannibalistic, and in constant fear and misery because of the attacks of man, and from their fears of evil spirits—a dread which led to many revolting practices. The "black-bird-ers" invaded these islands —wild, unscrupulous men, who captured young Melanesians and took them off to plantations in Fiji and other parts, where they were sold to labour. Many a gruesome story is told of these cruelties, and natural retaliation took place, disorder and lawlessness prevailing everywhere.
After this brief sketch of the former conditions of Melanesians, which is written with strict moderation, appears an account of the islands which have been largely Christianised, and to which numbers of heathen who wish for instruction are regularly brought. ■ Instruction is also given in the heathen islands by devoted people who are far off from their own kind and. in most unhealthy situations. The story is a fine and interesting one, and a reply to those who talk, in their ignorance, of the "happy heathen," who should, in their opinion, be left in their ignorance, fear, and miserable conditions.
ABOUT MELANESIA
Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 36, 11 August 1930, Page 13
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