HEAD-HUNTING IN THE SOLOMONS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3254, 26 July 1916, Page 31 (Supplement)

HEAD-HUNTING IN THE SOLOMONS.

Interesting comment was made on the reported revival of head-hunting in the Solomon Islands (says the Auckland correspondent of the Wellington Evening Post). In the opinion of the Rev. G. K. Moir, of the Melanesian Mission, whose work in the British group of islands in the Solomons has given him an intimate acquaintance

■with the customs of the natives, the recrudescence of head-hunting among the natives of Choiseul Island, who are reported to have threatened the natives of Eonongo, Vella, Lavella, and New Georgia, is the result of a species of anarchy consequent upon the removal of German officials and the present absence of an equivalent to the latter's rule. All the islands mentioned formed portion of German New Guinea before the war. Mr Moir said that on the Island of Mala, in the British

group, there had been considerable unrest. Not only missionaries, but also traders, had experienced this, and had come to the conclusion that it was time the British Government did something. The group being governed from the Foreign Office, difficulty existed in quelling head-hunting expeditions, because at Gizo, the headquarters of the Protectorate, just south of Choiseul, there was no available force or police. The Acting-Commissioner of the British group was many miles away

eastward, at Tulagai, on the Island of Florida. He had a force of native police, but no armed gunboat. What was needed was a man-of-war patrol. The natives of the Solomons had always been dealt fairly with by naval caotains, and they looked up to them as to no one else, excepting the missionaries. An obsolete gunboat would serve the purpose, though, in addition, a force of Indian soldiers should be obtained to police the islands. An increase in the number of missionaries would

also go far towards solving the problems. The fact that a world war is in progress, has, in Mr Moir's opinion, influenced thee present recrudescence of head-hunting.. The natives' view would be that, as the British were busy fighting, it was a goocti opportunity for them to indulge in their tribal wars. The trouble was largely dueto the unsettled condition of the world' just now. It was impossible to have &- great European war without it reacting.* upon the savage races.