THE NEW HEBRIDES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23528, 17 June 1938, Page 7

THE NEW HEBRIDES

VISIT BY NEW ZEALAND MODERATOR (From Our Own Correspondent) NEW HEBRIDES, May 10. The Rev. T. E. Riddle, ModeratorDesignate of the New Zealand Presbyterian Church, accompanied by Mrs Riddle and their two sons, has just concluded a two-months visit to the New Hebrides On returning to New Zealand from India, where they have been labouring as missionaries for 27 years, they broke the journey at Vila in order to visit the islands with which they were formerly associated. Mr Riddle was a missionary on Epi for eight years before embarking on his life work in India, while Mrs Riddle is a daughter of the late Rev Peter Milne, of Nguna, where she spent her girlhood days. The natives of Nguna and Epi highly appreciated the friendly visit of Mr and Mrs Riddle and accorded them a rapturous welcome, while Mr Riddle’s old friends sprung a surprise upon him by proposing that at the close of his

moderatorship in New Zealand Mr and Mrs Riddle should return to Epi and spend the remaining years of their lives as their missionaries. Still another surprise awaited them. The last thing they expected in the New Hebrides was to have their movements and dining appointments broadcast by radio, and in so doing Mr Harvey, of the Bonkovia Radio Station, Epi, did a signal favour to Mr and Mrs Riddle’s friends throughout the New Hebrides. The Foreign Missions Committee of the New Zealand Church commissioned Mr Riddle to visit as many stations as possible with a view to laying before the church a comprehensive survey of the existing situation in the New Hebrides. In pursuance of this plan, besides visiting Nguna and Epi, Mr Riddle paid visits to Vila, Tongoa and Paama, where he had extended talks with the missionaries, elders and teachers.

In contrast to anthropologists visiting the New Hebrides who turn their backs on the thriving communities of civilised natives and hasten to the untamed savages of Big Nambas and Santo, Mr Riddle’s supreme interest was to study the impact of Christianity upon the natives who came under its sway. His Indian experience taught him to recognise that in presenting natives with the Christian outlook, linked with the amenities of civilisation, care must be taken to avoid denationalising the native race and disrupting the social order.

Mr Riddle made a careful scrutiny of the thorny question of native dances, and was keenly interested to learn the reaction of the young missionaries to ancestral customs and practices. Before the advent of the missions the chief pastime of the natives was the revelry associated with their heathen ceremonies, and naturally the early missionaries were wary about lending countenance to amusements which might lead to a recrudescence of heathen dancing. But- in the intervening years there have grown up two generations of Christian converts ignorant of the heathen practices of their forefathers. Recognising the necessity of healthy sport to meet the growing requirements of her pupils Miss Nettie Frater introduced drill and action songs into the curricula of the Epi and Paama schools. But so conspicuous has been the allround development of the Christian natives that Mr Riddle considers the time opportune for granting still greater privileges and freedom of action, and accordingly recommends the Mission Synod to encourage “ the young people’s natural desire for amusement through play or expression through physical movement.” In a letter addressed to the synod he contends “that the iconoclastic efforts of the early missionaries went too far, and not sufficient effort was made to conserve what was harmless or capable of cleansing," Mr Riddle is persuaded that a programme for the Christianising of play is necessary for the Christian communities, and believes that with the help of reliable chiefs, elders and teachers, “ it should be possible to introduce controlled plays. action songs, dramatics and folk dances that would supply the want the young peonle now feel.”

Mr Riddle regards it as calamitous that after 30 years of Condominium rule no assistance has ever been given to education, while the grants given for medical work were only the eouivalent of fees for medical services He asserts that the failure of the Colonial Office to give grants for nrimary education has resulted in the N°w Hebrides being the most backward in education of all the British islands in the Pacific Mr Riddle suggests that the synod should reonest the Aborigines Protection Society to have a question asked in the House of Commons as to why the Colonial Office has noelected orimary education in the New Hebrides, and whv no effective effort at welfare work has ever been undertaken Mr Riddle maintains that nrovision for education of a more advanced nature than that given by the mission schools is urgently needed