BLOW-PIPE MEN

Evening Star, Issue 19412, 22 November 1926, Page 2

BLOW-PIPE MEN

THE PEOPLE OF HEW BRITAIN CARHIBAI RAIDERS As you sail along the’ coast of the great island of New Britain (says a writer in the Sydney ‘ Sun *) mountains covered to their summits with dense forest rise tier behind tier against the sky. _ Hero and there at wide intervals wisps of smoke rising from the trees betray the existence of native villages. Each village ‘has its little clearing and its gardens, but these clearings form no noticeable break in the forest covering. In these mountain villages and amongst the forests dwell the wild natives who raid the coastal villages from time to time. They are utterly beyond the control of the Administration. Indeed, a large part of the island (which has an area of 10,000 square miles, or more than a third the size of Tasmania) is utterly unknown to whito men. In forests are men still living in the Stone Age, This is the case with the falasea district, in the Nakanai region, of which three—probably four-white men were recently killed by _ the natives. Even in the Rabaul district, which includes within its limits the capital of the New Guinea territory, the discovery of a new tribe was officially reported in 1925. „ A patrol traversing the Wide Bay district, not much more than fifty miles from Rabaul, came on this tribe, the Kols. They appeared to be of Papuan stock, resembling the natives of the Baining district. They cultivate the ground, but as soon as a clearing has produced one or two crops they give it d? an d move on to another site. The number of these people was estimated at something like 1,000. ONE-SIXTH UNDER CONTROL. In the same return which mentions this discovery it is stated that, of the 00 000 square miles of the Now Guinea Territory, only 15,520 square miles, or about one-sixth of the whole, are under any form of Government' influence or control. While the largest area of uncontrolled country is on the mainland of New Guinea, most of New Britain is in the same position. Long stretches oven of the coast are not laid down with any great accuracy. When Group-captain Williams reached Rabaul in the course of his Pacific Islands flight, he is reported to have stated that H&‘ had observed several largo rivers of which the existence was mifcomu ,

In the Gasmatta district, in _ the south of New Britain, a region with a rainfall of 200 in a year, and forests of wonderful luxuriance, lives a littleknown but most interesting people, who use the blow pipe. This curious weapon is not known anywhere else in this part of the world. The nearest country where it is used is Borneo.

The Mow pipe is, of course, very widely.employed by the Indians of the basins of the Orinoco and the Amazon, in South America, who tip their little blow-pipe arrows with the deadly curare poison. As far as Lieutenant Chinnery, the Government Anthropologist or the Territory, could learn, the_ Gasmatta people do not poison their arrows. They use the blow pipe for killing birds, and rely on the effect of the arrow alone. Lieutenant Chinnery obtained a blow pipe, which he has presented to the Melbourne Museum. The Nakanai people who killed the white men do not use the blow pipe. They use the bow and arrow and the spear, the common weapons of the country. The black palmwoocl bows which they use and the arrows, a good deal longer than the clothyard shafts of tho English archers of the Middle Ages, are formidable enough. “MARY GOOD KAI-KAI.” Unlike the Baining natives who killed seven German missionaries in 1910, the Nakanai tribesmen have not previously attacked white men. They nave not, however, had many chances. It is officially recorded - that in 1925 the Nakanai men raided a coast village and killed several of the inhabitants. A patrol was sent to Commodore Bay, where the raid took place, but the raiders had retired to the bush. This custom of _ raiding the coastal villages is an ancient habit, and, like other things, it dies hard with this; conservative people. Like tho Baining men, the Nakanai people are cannibals, and the slain furnish an addition to the rather restricted menu, while women and children aro carried away as captives. Cannibals do not always confine themselves to their enemies. There is a grim story of a planter who had some Baining men working for him. One of them asked leave to go to his village, saying that he had heard that his Mary (woman) was dead. _ The planter began to condole with him on his loss, on which the widower grinned and said; “ Now Mary dead we eat Mary; good kai-kai.” In the Gasmatta district it was the custom to strangle the widow when her husband died. The district officer points out that in 1924-25 only one instance of this occurred, and this was in an area under only partial control. One is - reminded of _ tho Maclang district officer (on the mainland of Now Guinea) who reported that steps had Jieen taken to discourage the native

custom of children eating their parents. Even the pious custom of burying the dead under the family hearthstone is not officially regarded with approval. While the white man’s innovations are well meant, the natives often show a marked lack of enthusiasm for them. Over a great part of New Britain, an well as of the mainland, they go on doing what they have always done. The Talasca incident shows that their objection to new-fangled ways is jot always passive.