NOW, REALLY!

Feilding Star, Volume IV, Issue 1105, 9 February 1910, Page 4

NOW, REALLY!

Bishop Wilson, of the Molanesian Mission, tells in the Southern Cross hog how news is spread among tho natives of the Solomon Islands. He writes:—

News spreads quickly in these islands (the Solomons), and I was shown by the chief of -Rumatiri how it was managed. Ho took his drum, made of a hardwood log, and beat irregularly upon it, very much as a telegraph clerk jerks out his message on his instrument. When he had finished he said that it meant: 'To-morrow j«o feast will take place; come to it. and behave, well'at it. Let there be iio quarrelling amongst ourselves, or be second to the enemy.' A sain hebeat out a. different tune, wV.-b ho said, contained the names of all Ho villages invited to the feast," an I exactly what food was provided, :>>•<] that it would be dealt out fnirlv'to all, without favour. Then lie h.at out that the, enemy was appr.nchm..', and the villages around must muster with .spears and shields. 'Lot me -, t suppose that all was well, for dan<»was at hand.' Then be varied h<tniuj again, ami told all that his drum would bark that 'the villago had been raided, and so many had been killed. Jiiven on the drum it was a melancholy story played m a minor koy, and extremely expressive. These drmn messages carry lor miles in the still air •'l' tho lorr.sfc, and can bo road by v low in every villa-go, and passed on. So I,lm news is .spread."