ABORIGINAL “DIVORCE.”

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 258, 28 September 1935, Page 16

ABORIGINAL “DIVORCE.”

GIRL WHO DARED DEATH. 1 - Pursued inveterately by an old war- • rior to whom at birth she had been 1 promised in marriage, a 12-year-old - aboriginal girl dared death tor t “divorce” under an old tribal ceremony 3 at the newly-established Port Keats - Mission, Northern Territory. The natives gathered and while tlie ) white priests watched, helpless against t their numbers, the old warrior armed 1 himself with 10 spears. He paced 30 yards from where the girl stood, then 1 turned and threw each of the 10 spears ’ at her. The girl stood lixed on one spot, 3 but as the spears hurtled about her 3 head or close to her, she swerved swift- [■ ]y and contorted her slim body, so t that all 10 spears missed their mark. 3 By thus escaping death at the warrior’s hands, she had wiped out liis J claim on her; she had gained her di- " vorce decree, and surely none more 3 absolute. The warrior had pursued the ‘ lubra for months and always she had ' raced to the newly-erected mission station house, seeking protection. On a recent occasion the old man chased the o-irl into the mission house, and sought to follow her. Pat ltitchie, a young farmer from Dubbo, New South Wales, who is helping to launch the mission ab Port Keats, stopped the native, who expressed his intention of stabbing the o-irl. Ritchie closed with him, 'eventually taking the knife from him. 1< urther : wrangling followed, and eventually the 1 tribal divorce ceremony was staged. : Rut although the warrior recognises i he has through this divorce, lost all 1 claim to the girl, her trouble is not ’! yet over, for he is very jealous, and will I not permit a rival to approach her. At the mission, which is m a district 1 where the nomadic natives are still uncivilised and hostile to whites, an Eng- ’ lishman, with black murderers as Ins ' j assistants, is trying to make the jungle ' blossom be has come horn his quiet I English' countryside, where the bees I drowse among® the sweet william and ' mignonette, to the steamy heat of Port 'I Keats, which in the monsoon season is lashed by tlie fierce winds that sweep ‘ down from Java. He is John Johnson, I w ho toils without wish of matenal ic-. ■ ward. His service is a gilt to the new I Catholic mission station. Calling him- , self “cook-gardener, Johnson is making, | the wilderness into a garden. Ho has I helpers—shining-sk i lined natives who ; tramped through the bush, cunous • about this new mission, station natives who came to prey, and stayed to work ; Johnson’s native helpers are armed with spears, for the local tribes are warlike, ndef among Johnson’s workers aie ; : natives who speak English fluently, al-, though they are Myall, the most feioeioug : of Australia’s aboriginals. Ihcy learnt their fluent English m Fanny. Bay goal,, where they served sentences loi niui-. 1 der, i