TANGANYIKA

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIX, Issue 94, 25 August 1923, Page 5

TANGANYIKA

ADMINISTRATION'S ~ TROUBLES.

PRACTICE OF INFANTICIDE. /

(Re” ter). (Received IJX4 a.m )

London, August 34.

The difficulties in administering Tanganyika are emphasised in the official report for 1922, which dwells on the increase of big game, and States that lions retained their taste for human flesh acquired during the war. Their boldness is incredible, and whole villages are terrorised. Tlie'r extermination by speciallytrained native tmpners is most difficult, as they conceal themselves in dense bush in the day time and raid the villages at night.

Sixty-seven people were k'lled in the Tahora district alone. Rewards wero paid for three hundred lions, and 800 leopards were killed during the first half year. Elephants and eland are most destructive to the crops. Eland are particularly fond of cotton.

The report regrets ..there is Salons rivalry .’among Christian i> missions in a certain district, t resulting- in - undignified competition'- and (the bewilderment of the; natives, >and urged the Christian • societies, to , recognise the principle of spheres of influence, which will profit Christianity equally with pagans. ,

Owing to the want ?of tribal: cohesion, the chiefs lack > r control of their subjects, as the old tribal, organisation -was destroyed In the process of establishing German authority. Numerous > petty ... headmen sprang up, commanding : little' respect. The administration’s .;•• policy * of restoring : the authority of right- 1 ful paramount chiefs is showing, pleasing results. . f r ..,<A ;V, The report In alluding .'S ''to}, the $ efforts to stamp out -. "witchcraft, .' says: Medicine men are u re- ; sponsible for whlch/is I still prevalant among_; the Wapar tribe. They destroy children afflict- i

ed with the slightest abnormality by suffocation, poisoning,; or starvation, because the medicine men - declare such children unlucky. ,j; The Wa- ■ ; chagga and WasiMa| ‘tribes ii imye abandoned these abominations,,*' and it is-hoped the Wapare "will ''shortly , follow* theiF'b¥am#ib. K 4 *