Amazing Ceremony

Manawatu Times, Volume 60, Issue 231, 1 October 1935, Page 3

Amazing Ceremony

ABORIGINAL “DIVORCE”

GIEL WHO DABED DEATH HUMAN TABGET EOB SPEABS SYDNEY, Sept. 18. Pursued continuously by an old warrior to whom at birth sho had been promised in marriage, a 12-year-old aboriginal girl dared death for a “divorce” under an old tribal ceremony at the newly-establ'ished Pork Keats Mission, Northern Torritory. The natives gathered and whilo the whito priests watched, hopelessly outnumbered, tho old warrior armed himself with ten spears. Ho paced 30 yards from where the girl stood, then turned and threw each of the ten spears at her. Tho girl stood fixed on one spot, but as the spears hurtled about her head or close to her, sho swerved swiftly, and contorted her slim body, so that all ten spears missed their mark. By thus escaping death at the -warrior's hands, she had wiped out his claim on her; she had gained her divorce decree, and surely none more absolute. Young Farmer Intervenes Tho warrior had pursued tho girl for months, and always she had raced to tho newly-erected mission station houso, seeking protection. On a recent occasion, the old man chased the girl into tho mission house, and sought to follow her. Pat Ilitchic, a young farmer from Dubbo, New South Wales, who is helping to launch tho mission at Port Keats, stopped tho black, -who expressed his iutention of stabbing tho girl. Bichio closed with the native, eventually taking a knife from him. Further wrangling followed, and eventually tho tribal divorce ceremony was staged. Although the warrior recognises he has, through this divorce, lost all claim to tho girl, her trouble is not yet over, for ho is very jealous, and will not permit a rival to approach her. At the mission, which is in a district where the nomadic natives aro still uncivilised and hostile to whites, an Englishman, with black murderers as his assistants, is trying to rnako the jungle blossom. Ho has come from his quito English countryside, where the bees drowse among tho sweet-william and mignonette, to tho steamy heat of Port Keats, which in tho monsoon season is lashed by the fierce winds that sweep down from Java. Murderers as Helpers

He is Jolm Johnson, who toils without wish of material reward. His service is a gift to tho new Catholic mission station. Calling himself “cookgardener,” Johnson is making the wilderness into a garden. Ho has helpers—shining-skinned natives who tramped through the bush, curious about this new mission station; natives who came to prey, and stayed to work. Johnson’s native helpers aro armed with spears, for tho local tribes are warlike. Chief among tho workers are natives who speak English fluently, although they are Myall, .the most ferocious of Australian aboriginals. They learned their fluent English in Fanny Bay Gaol, where they served sentences for murder.