CANNIBALISM

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 7, 8 July 1931, Page 10

CANNIBALISM

Ml NEW HEBRIDES

DREADFUL TRIBAL

CUSTOMS -

(From "Tho Post's" Representative.) 'SYDNEY, 29th June.

Pastors W. G> Turner and A. Gr. Stewart, .who this week arrived back in Sydney1 from the New Hebrides by the steamer Makambo, state that while in the islands they visited tribes who have never been in touch with white men before. The missionaries, when visiting the island of Malekula, found that the customs of burying children alive and cannibalism were still practised. Mothers, they said, would unblushingly answer questions about the loss of their unwanted children. They admitted that they had killed their children by burying them alive when they became a nuisance, and the missionaries could see that the women had no sense, of wrong-doing. Similarly, cannibalism, which was involved in the traditional rites of the tribes, was still practised, though it was confined to a few occasions when there was temporary freedom from surveillance by white men. Pastor Turner said that several of the islands were dominated by active volcanoes that helped to darken the livos of the natives. On tho island of Ambryn the mission station had been, engulfed in a sea of lava twelve miles long, and a mile broad, two years ago. This volcano and one on the island of Tanna belched forth showers of ashes. Every few minutes there were dull rumblings from the cratcra.

, Except for the' isolated posts, he said, the natives were untouched by civilisation. The men dressed only in a brightly-coloured garment ■woven from grasses, and the women had a further covering suspended from their shoulders. Among the Nambus tribes of Malekula the women* had two front teeth knocked from their jaws with stones when they were married. The ceremony was performed by elder women. Many times during the year the tribes met at dances, when as many as 700 pigs were slaughtered for a single feast; Eight dancing grounds were found on the island of Atchin, which is only four miles in doing all they could.to assist the missionaries these practices, were becoming rare.

Pastor Turner is the president of the Australian Union Conference of the. Seventh Day Adventists. Pastor Stewart is a vice-president. They said that the natives appreciated the work of the missions. Several chiefs had 'been* impressed by their usefulness, and were doing all they could to assist the missionaries.