Picturesque Story Of China's One Time Allies

Northern Advocate, 22 February 1943, Page 2

Picturesque Story Of China's One Time Allies

LONDON. February 21

The Chungking correspondent of the United Press says that former cannibals, the Lisu, an aboriginal tribe on the Yunnan border mountains, will probably fight alongside the Chinese when an all-out battle for Burma begins.

The Chinese Government, in the autumn of 1942, began organising the tribesmen and exchanging bows and poisoned arrows for rifles. Approximately 10,000 Lisus are modernly armed.

It is estimated that 60 per cent, have abandoned cannibalism. Several hundred have been converted to Christianity. Lisus, armed with stones, halted the first Japanese attempts to penetrate their mountain fastnesses. The tribesmen. called to arms by guards sounding goat-horn trumpets, rolled stones down the mountain sides upon the advancing columns. Cannibalistic rites are reported to have been revived after the battle.

(It was among the Lisus that Mr. and Mrs. Christianson (nee Miss Galpin, of Whangarei, worked as missionaries for two years until ill-health furlough was granted. They were on their way homeward when war broke out and prevented their return to China).