“GOING NATIVE.”

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 15 November 1924, Page 15

“GOING NATIVE.”

SAD ISLAND SECRETS. Sydney Sunday News) Away in the island groups which dot the broad expanse of tne Pacific, many strange things happen, so that white men living there have come xo accept them as part of the routine of affairs without making any attempt to explain them. Among them all, there is hardly anything stranger than that impulse which on occasion impels' previously clean and decent living Europeans to suddenly forsake the civilisation to which they belong, and, in the jargon of the islands, to “go native.” " Probably a skilled psychologist is the only person who could account for the sudden developement of this kink in the human brain, which generally brings in its train tlie most tragic circumstances. “Going native” is not to be confused with “living native,” notwithstanding that the two arms are often practically synonymous in actual megnipg. The latter is usually a characteristic of the most degenerate and the lowest type of Island derelict and simply means that the man to whom it is applied prefers the filth and sloth—neither of which are entirely foreign to his nature —of the native village in which he has taken lip his residence to th© more strenuous pursuit of earning a living by working for it. In ninety-nine ont of a hundred cases, the man who “goes native” is of a different calibre, socially and mentally, to this other abandoned and outcast tvpe. A CLASSIC CASE Probably the most classic case is one that occurred in the Solomons about ten years’ ago. A young man of good family and excellent education arrived there from England to work for a trading company, and as he applied himself diligently to his duties from the start, it was not long before he was in a financial position to bring out from London the girl' to whom he was engaged to be married. ' -Just-about the time that he received a wireless from her to say that she had arrived in Sydney, and would be coming to the Islands on the next boat, it was noticed by his friends that a considerable change had occurred in the prospective bridegroom. Instead of being buoyantly enthusiastic at the arrival of his fiancee, he seemed moody and reserved, avoiding the cociety of others, and going off for long walks in the bush by himself. Then, quite without warning,, he disappeared, less than a fortnight before the ship carrying the girl was due. Fearing foul play, the other white men in the .settlement hurriedly organised search parties and commenced to look for him. For three days they searched, and then the hunt was brought to an abrupt encj by the receipt of a message from the missing man which almost paralysed them. The message, brought by a native, was to say that the man for whom they had been searching was quite safe, and desired them to stop their “foolishness.” He was- living in a native village some twelve miles inland, where he wished to be left in peace, as he had done with civilisation for all time. Also, that he had married, native fashion, the daughter of one of the headmen of the village. Noix a word about the girl who was soon to reach the place in the expectation of marrying him. NO TURNING BACK The concensus of opinion was that the young lhan had gone temporarily insane, probably through heat and the malaria with which he suffered at times, and ‘that in due course, he would return to his senses and come back to settlement, thoroughly ashamed of himself, and perhaps in time to marry his fiancee, who need not know anything of what had happened. But some of the other men did not Incline to this optimistic belief. They had known of men to go native before, and they knew that when a white man does so. he enters thoroughly into native ways, generally becoming filthier .and lazier and more degenerate than the worst of the natives themselves. And they knew also that there was no turning back for the man who betrayed his race, his colour, and his civilisation in this way. The next day, a deputation of his former friends visited the renegade at the village. They were received with curses and language so . unspeakably vile that they could' scarcely believe that he was the same man. Also, they noted the changes that had taken place in him even in so short a time. Convinced that it was hopeless to try to induce him to return with them, they left and went to the settlement again. . That night, a wealthy 'Chinese merchant, who lived in another island,’ but chanced to be there on business, went secretly to the village, and saw the man who had'gone native Without comment, the Chinese offered to appoint him liis agent there at a salary of twelve hundred pounds a year—twice as much as he had been getting before, and more than the Chinaman’s business in that island was worth —on the sole condition that he. returned in time to marry the white girl on her way to the place and resumed his normal manner of living. The white native refused the kindly offer, and without thanking his would-be benefactor. walked off to his hut in the village. HAPPY IN SQUALOR, Until he died a few years ago, the victim of the kink lived there in the village, apparently quite lmppv and contented amidst its unutterable filth and squalor. M hen the girl arrived a. few days later, she was told that her fiancee bad been accidentally drowned while in swimming, and that his body had not been recovered'. As she bad spent practically her lhst penny to come to the Islands, a subscription, headed by a hundred pounds from the Chinese merchant, was taken up to enable her to go hack to England. The white men on the island kept the secret well, hut unfortunately, gome time after she had returned home, she learned the real , story quite accidentally. This incident is only one of a number similar happenings that have occurred 'n those parts of the world and to-dav hidden away in villages off the beaten ‘rack, ptc men who have moved them--elves tr.i'to-s to then* colour by unuatiirnlly abandoning it for a mode of h’fe, the mere thought of which b- , mo:joh to mate the average man feel \\ bv +hey should do so is beyond all peculation or guess. „i- -L! . - ■WIMIIIMI t

— < =mch n speech shadows a distant ob’iterntioii of sex rivalry, as of national -erfare, a time when we may all work or thp rommon good of humanity ; To follow knowledge like a sinkirm star Beyond the utmost hound of human thought.