LUBRAS SOLD

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19137, 5 October 1936, Page 5

LUBRAS SOLD

JAPANESE ACCUSED

BARTER INCREASES

DARWIN, Sept. 24

Many instances of the sale of lubms to Japanese pearlers were given to-day by Monsignor Xavier Gsell, missionary in charge of the Bathurst Island mission station.

Monsignor Gsell, who is visiting Darwin, said the blacks took their women on- to the pearling luggers ana bartered them for food, tobacco, and other goods. The practice had increased to an alarming extent iu the last two years.

The mission had a .serious task in earing for the 2000 aborigines on Mel vide Island and Bathurst Island in the face of th& degenerating influences introduced'' by the visits of scores of Japanese luggers. When pearling operations were suspended during the very high tides as many as 70 Japanese luggers, in addition to Australian-owned boats, anchored off the coast. Girls as young as 10 years had beea traded. The number of Japanese half-castes had increased only slightly. Monsignor Gsell said that frequent visits by the Government patrol boat would assist in checking the evil. The elimination of the practice could be accomplished gradually by the training of aboriginal children. The mission was undertaking this work. Honsignor Gsell described a. feud which'has resulted in several lights among blacks on Bathurst and Melville Islands. The feud began about two years ago, following a dispute between two natives over a 12-year-old lubra, and it appeared that the whole aboriginal population of 2000 was now involved.

Monsignor Gsell said that fighting was not a serious problem for the mission, because it was seldom that a combatant was killed.