STRANGE NATIVE RITES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18067, 19 April 1933, Page 12

STRANGE NATIVE RITES

1 NEW GUINEA PROBLEMS SUTTEE PRACTISED INFANTICIDE PREVALENT CANBERRA, April 8. Why the Federal Government insisted upon such high qualities in the 10 young men wiiom it has selected from more than 20C0 applicants for cadetships in the New Guinea service, can be understood when one reads the marvellous documents which New Guinea patrol officers send periodically to Canberra. These men are continually making new discoveries on this largely unknown island, and only last week one report disclosed the discovery of- two entirely new villages in a remote part of the island, where suttee is demanded bywidows as a woman's right, and infanticide is rife. Australia, so Jatelv herself a colony, is now engaged in widely varied colonial problems, for, in addition to Papua, she has under her care New Britain, Norfolk Island, and Nauru and Ocean Islands. In the administration of these territories, which for the time being are under the control of the Minister for Health and Repatriation, Mr. Marr, many delicate problems arise, hut none more delicate than in New Guinea, where hundreds of the natives have never seen a white man. The direct administration is carried out hv Brigadier-General T. Griffiths, win? has just been appointed for a further term of two years. It is the duty of the patrol officers, whose numbers' will he increased after their three years’ apprenticeship by the 10 new cadets, to explore the native villages, learn their customs and varied dialects, and extend to a timid and suspicions people, always in fear of aggression from neighboring tribes, the sphere of civilised influence. HEAD BINDING Like the Northern Territory police, but faced with even more complicated problems, the patrol oflicors are away for months on their expeditions. Accompanied only by two or three police boys, die patrol officer sees no other white man on such tours, and his life depends entirely on his resource and tact. Some extraordinary customs have been revealed in a recent, report by Patrol ’Officer H. R. Niall of an expedition across New Britain. He found that in all the areas he visited it was the custom to bind the heads of young infants, the process beginning about a week after birth. There are only a few natives with natural heads, and they are regarded as ugly. Mr. Niall sees little hope of ihe fashion of elongated heads disappearing with the advance of civilisation. He found that suttee was widely practised among the natives of the Passismanua and Lamogia areas, but could trace no definite case, except one in Gasmata, the natives being impressed with the fact that the practice was frowned on by the white man. The process is to strangle the widow, and generally she herself insists on her right to be killed, so that her spirit mayjoin that of her husband. TWINS NOT WANTED “On some occasions the men, being afraid of the consequences, have refused co strangle a woman,” writes Mr. Niall. “Then it sometimes happens that the woman takes oil her grass sKirt and hands it to the men, telling them to put it oil aud saying that they aro only women and not real men. This so shames the men tnat they reluctantly kill her according to the custom. “It is the duty of a woman’s brother or her nephews on the maternal side to perform this ceremony of slow strangulation. A native baric cloth is wrapped once around the woman’s neck aud one man pulls on each end till she is choked, another man holding her in a kneeling position to prevent struggling.” Mr. Niall says that until the custom is abolished it is difficult to see how tne population can be increased, since many of the women are of child hearing age. Another barbarous custom is the destruction of one child where twins are born RESCUED BY NATIVE Explaining the tribal customs that are responsible for many murders, Mr. Niall says that in one area when a young man is "first given a pair of boav tusks, which are greatly prized as neck ornaments, lie must first dip the tusks in the blood of some person whom he or a near relative has just speared. Around the Yakas district Mr. Niall found blowpipes were being used to propel arrows for killing birds. They are not used for fighting, nor do the natives tip the ends with poison. The only other place in the Southern Pacific where blowpipes are used is in a portion of the New Hebrides, where head-bind-ing is also practised. Mr. Niall owes his life on this expedition to the fidelity of a native constable. He was thrown out of a canoe, which was smashed on a reef by heavy seas. He was struggling in the undertow when the native dashed into the boiling surf and rescued him. Had the breakers caught them and thrown them on the .reef, the fascinatin'? report which Mr. Niall has sent to Canberra would not have been written.