PAPUAN SALESMANSHIP

Evening Star, Issue 21634, 1 February 1934, Page 13

PAPUAN SALESMANSHIP

COMMON RULE APPLIES One rule of salesmanship seems to be tho same all over the world —get the women on your side and the men will follow after with the purses. And this is the principle traders wqrkon in Papua, according to an Australian business man who has just returned to Sydney from that part of the world. “ My arrival at native villages was often the cause of great jubilation and the presentation of baskets of fruit and flowers, with a young sucking pig for tlie chief dish of the evening meal,” he says. “ The unfortunate pig is suspended from cross-sticks on a pole passed through its four feet, which are tied together. _ Then a lire is lighted under it, and it is roasted alive amid heartrending, squeals, which seem to give great > enjoyment to the 1 gentle ’ Papuan maidens. Whfcn everything is ready lor the banquet, the dusky ladies stage a singsong, keeping time to the beating of tomtoms bv the men. , , “ Then, with appetites whetted by music and dancing, tho gorge begins, and goes on without interruption until the women can eat no more. t; That is the psychological moment ior us. Our porters are ordered to open the trade-boxes, and hand round treasures ’ irresistible lo female hearts —beads, pocket mi rors, and strings of round brass bells. “ Next day we suggest to the ladies that, as a return favour, they might persuade their men to trade with the white visitors. “Payment is made by the natives # m various forms of currency, including enlistment for labour and sometimes alluvial gold. “ Thus we get on the good side of tho women before tackling the men.”