MEN EAT WIVES

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19042, 16 June 1936, Page 8

MEN EAT WIVES

BARBAROUS TRIBES

AFE IN AFRICA AND PAPUA

No other white woman lias ever venturocl - into some- of the wild ami dangerous, places where her work has taken .Miss G. F. Yerbury, of the Unevangelised Fields Mission, who is at present visiting Wellington. She. has keen among cannibals and witch doctors of the Belgian Congo and the head-hunters oi Papua. For. the organisation to which siie belong* sends its. emissaries only to such uncouth and barbarous regions as would be otherwise wholly beyond the range of any sort of missionary endeavour.

Formerly, said Miss Yerbury, she was at Maganga, in the Stanleyville district of the Belgian Congo. There some SO missionaries were working in an area of tO.OCO square miles. Cannibalism was commonplace there, even to-day. "I have spoken to many men who have killed and eaten their wives," said Miss Yerbury. "Women arc -mere chattels there, to be bought and sol/1 for a strip of hippn hide. Many of.the chiefs, practising polygamy, have as many as. 100 wives." • Witchcraft was another of (he di.'lieultaes. with which the-.evangelists had (o i contend. The- witch-doctors, who bad great prestige among, the natives. spread the belief that physical illnesses were due- to spiritual causes, and that it was necessary to cut an opening in the patient through which the evil spirit might escape. "One day a boy of ten was brought in to the 'mission, blinded by a, witch doctor. Ariothcr time a small b'a.bv was-bfcbngltt, cut deeply in a number of places, in order to let out tho bad spirit," said the missionary.

CHRONIC DRUNKARDS . These.- natives were chronic drunkards. They had no need of European ■"hqiidr for*; their potions ; they drained the sap. of a certain tree and left it in the Run to ferment. Another vice was '. the. smoking at,a herb named "bengi," which Imd a similar effect to opium - "\Ve went where no white man has I been before, "through the great Huri

Forest, lull of leopards, lions and venomous snakes," she said. More recently, Mis Yerbury was stationed in Papua, in the Fly River district of New Guinea. Tin' mission there comprised four men and two young women. Much of their work was among the wild natives, and. although they had not- actually been attacked, they went in constant peril from these tribes. Only a short time ago a rumour had come to them that the mission was to lie raided, and for three days and nights they were hourly expecting attrack. But'filially the throbbing of a distant drum told them that the bnshmeii were retreating. Since then, the hostile natives had moved their camp closer to the mission, probably with sinister intentions.

Tl]fise wild natives were head-hunt-ers. • "They kill people, cut off their heads, dry them, and hang the skulls around their huts," said Miss Yerbury. "New tribes are still being discovered from time to time. Only recently a hitherto unknown tribe. 100,000 strong, was discovered in the interior of New Guinea. The natives with whom the mission came in contact were, on the whole, a fine type, courteous and responsive to teaching, eager for knowledge and Christianity. At the newstation of Pisi, on the Oramia River, SO or SO natives came, to school daily, keen to acquire knowledge. They were taught to read and write, both in their own language and in English. On Sundays, long lines of canoes came floating down the river, bringing the natives to church.

HOUSES HALF-MILK I.ONO I These people built, a. peculiar type of house, characterised by its great length. A 'whole vilfage comprised a single house, perhaps 400 yards long. In Borneo similar houses were up to half a. mile ] long. Miss Yerbury described graphically a journey into the interior, by sago swamp, jungle, and river. Part, of the way led ■through open grass country infested with' deadly serpents. In the swamps she had to ford creeks alive with leeches and cross nlligator-haunted waters by slippery tree-trunks. On the rivers, they navigated tortuous waterways in native J craft, while alligatoi'B plunge* "often within a yard or two. "Oiio cam? to take it more or less, as a matter of course," she said. "It- did not seem particularly frightening at the time, and we did not expect the canoe to capsize at. any minute. Another time the two girls did capsize, and had to swim 200 yards to the bank,"