JAPANESE TARGET

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 4 February 1942, Page 6

JAPANESE TARGET

ADMIRALTY ISLANDS SHVITLE NATIVE PEOPLES DOGS’ TEETH AND INFLATION The other day we heard that the. Japanese had bombed Lorengau, the I j capital of the Admiralty Islands, 120 1 1 miles north of the New Guinea coast.! This group belongs to the old German ; colonial settlements that were taken over by Australia in 1921 when the | Society of Nations handed over the' | mandate to Canberra, writes a special, correspondent of the “Herald ” Since that day the Admiralty Islands, the Bismarck Archipelago, the northern half of Bougainville Island and also Buka, in the Solomon Islands group, and the north portion of Eastern New Guinea have been calledthe Mandated Territory of New G u i nea. The whole Admiralty Islands group is a cluster of small islands with coral reefs anl lagoons grouped around one larger island called Manus- The capital, Lorengau, is a very small administrative centre with a couple of official buildings, a store and a few native houses. JAPANESE POACHERS The last time I visited the place a few Germans lived on the island and the German Catholic Mission had its missionaries strung all through the group. The Japanese fisherman, pearlshell poachers and trepang hunters came over quite often using hit-and-run tactics. Some of these ships were even equipped with small aeroplanes, which enabled them to quickly investigate the possibilities of the different reefs and also to spot the approach of any vessel. Five years ago no patrol vessel ever visited these islands regularly. Fast German vessels belonging to the Nordeutcher Lloyd Line and running down from Hong Kong to Rabau and back were then the principal means of communication with the outer world. The few planters living in this group shipped their copra by these ships and got German beer and other goods also through this medium. These German ships called also on the Japanese mandated islands situated to the north and they were making a real effort to regain a footing on these territories they considered as their own. The German missions were getting their goods and shipping, their products and reports, through these vessels, without the local authorities having any possibility of controlling their activities. PEOPLE UNSPOILED The natives were quite unspoiled. These people have a complete economic and social organisation of their

own. They do not depend on the outside world for anything. The islands are situated at the junction of the great east-west current of the Pacific with other currents coming from east and north. On the small island of Pak pieces of shipwrecked canoes from the Carolines, debris from Polynesia, and paddles from the New Guinea coast can often be picked up on the beach. The natives living there belong to three different races and came over to populate the islands in three different migrations- The Vsiai were the first. They established themselves on Manus and turned their minds to agriculture and some incidental woodcarving- They are so well adapted to the land that they have forgotten what navigation is. They use canoes as barges to bring their crops from their settlements to the market place up or down one of the numerous rivers that start in the jungle and end in a mangrove bush on the edge of the lagoon. ARTISTS AND MIDDLEMEN Small, reddish, with beaky noses, these people of ancient Papuan stock wear their hair done in ornamental qnd enormous cones that stick out at the back of the head. The women do all the hard work while the husbands discuss the local politics. The second migration brought the Matangkor somewhere from the west. These tribes found all the good soil of the big island under cultivation and, also, they did not like the wild and wary little Vsiai, so they went and settled on the small islands. There the soil was not quite so good. They did not mind much, as they were essentially artistic folk. Excellent craftsmen, they very soon got . a monopoly as canoe-makers, drummakers, carvers and also obsidian

head spearmakers. Their conventional designs are typical of the Admiralty Islands’ art. The people of the third migration, coining down from Micronesia, found all the available land occupied and settled on the lagoons round the is- ; lands. They built their villages on piles and started making pottery and lived by fishing. But very soon, thanks to their big seagoing outriggers, which could easily house a whole family for a long journey, they found a new and more profitable way of living. They became middlemen. They travelled around the islands picking up the manufactured products of the Matangkor that they brought alongside with their own fish and pottery and sold or exchanged at the Vsiai markets against products of the soil. SPURIOUS CURRENCY The local currency is dogs’ teeth. At the beginning of the century three teeth were equal to one German markBut then some unscrupulous traders introduced porcelain from China and real teeth from Turkey where dogs were getting to be quite a nuisanceinflation followed. One had to pay 30 teeth for things that were only worth three before. The Government at Rabaul issued a decree banning new importations of dogs’ teeth, but the harm was done, and it took a very Jong lime to stabilise the currency, on a base of live instead of three teeth in the old days. The Admiralty Islanders like silver coins, and the Government accepts them for taxes, but between themselves, when they marry, buy or sell lands or goods, they still like their dogs’ teeth and wear them as necklaces.