THE ANDAMAN ISLANDERS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20234, 19 April 1929, Page 14

THE ANDAMAN ISLANDERS.

Sir, —I do not wish to intrude upon the controversy between Dr. Pettit and Mr. Alexander Fraser. Dr. Pettit is well able to fight his own battle. But when Mr. Fraser goes out of his way to attack the little Andaman Islander why—l shall champion the islander every time. .Mr. Fraser tells us—tells the whole world—that ho has contrasted an orang eutang with an Andaman Islander, and of the two, for an ancestor, would have chosen the ape. Just so. "Every one to his taste," as the old lady said when she kissed the cow. Personally, I would choose the Andaman Islander. The Andaman Islander, however low physically, is gifted with self-consciousness and selfdetermination, the mysterious and inalienable gifts of human personality. He is capable of being lifted from his depraved condition to a higher level both mentally and morally. A monkey is always a monkey; he is never responsible. A man, unless mentally deficient, is always responsible. • Can a monkey make the spears, bows and arrow's, and domestic articles that an Andaman Islander makes! Can a monkey make a fire ? African travellers have related how monkeys will' sit round a deserted fire and howl while it dies down, but it never occurred to one to throw on another stick. . Can a monkey talk, or laugh, or pray, or reason! I would remind Mr. Fraser of Mr. Darwin's experience with the Patagonian savages. In his account of his voyage, published on his return to England, he declared that the Patagonians were irreclaimablv brutalised. Soon afterwards Christian missionaries went to that inhospitable land and when Mr. Danvin read an account of the results of their work, he was so impressed that he confessed his error, and sent a subscription to the missionary society. No, sir, giv> me the Andaman Islander every time! J. Farquiiarson Jones. April 17, 1929.