NATIVE MORALS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 40, 17 February 1941, Page 9

NATIVE MORALS

A DIFFERENT PLANE

ISLANDER CHARGED

Pleading for leniency to be extended towards a Niue Islander, Curly Tulipo. a labourer, who pleaded guilty to a charge of causing an indepent document to be sent through the post, Mr. N. T. Gillespie, in the Magistrate's Court today, referred to the different moral standards of the native races, standards, he said, which Europeans at times failed to appreciate.

Detective-Sergeant W, McLennan said that the wife of another Niue Islander received through the post a letter addressed to her husband written by Tulipo, and had had to pay 4d postage on it. When she opened it she found it contained an "indecent sketch accompanied by indecent writing. Mr. McLennan handed the letter to the Court.

Tulipo, said counsel, admitted that he made the sketch and put it into the envelope, which he addressed to the other Niue Islander, but" he did not intend to post it, a fact which was borne out by the absence of stamps on the envelope.

"It is a not uncommon practice amongst members of particular native races, so far as the men are concerned, to do sketches of this type," said Mr. Gillespie, "although they may appear to our more civilised standards to be indecent and obscene. These Niue Islanders among themselves may have standards of morals which we don't appreciate, but they take great care not to offend the susceptibilities of Europeans. What may be, according to their standards, perfectly all right, in our standards is definitely immoral."

Tulipo, continued counsel, did not intend to post the letter, but to ieliyer it. He had done the sketch one night after he had been in the company of the other Niue Islander, r ->d he intended to show it to him next time he saw him.

The Magistrate (Mr. J. L. Stout) im posed a fine of £3.