NO MIXED DANCING.

Colonist, Volume LII, Issue 12753, 28 March 1910, Page 4

NO MIXED DANCING.

At the London School of Economics Mr "Wheeler, lecturing upon 'The Children on. the Treasury Islands (Solomon Islands), said the natives ol Arloo and Mono were much darker than those living to the eastward and whereas they used to wear their frizzy hair long, they now had it cut short. Neither did they bleach their hair with lime so as to make* it yellow, which was a custom followed by some of their neighbours. The features ot tho majority were not negroid, and some of them were very, finely cut. In height they were below that or the average Englishman. The chief development of tho women, who did all tho heavy work, such as carrying loads, was in the legs. At the present day, both sexes wore the same kind of dress, namely, a calico petticoatreaching down to the knees. They did not go in for "tattooing, their only decoration being a number of marks across the back and shoulders. These were made by putting pieces of mater- j ial in a row on tße flesh, and then setting light to them. This operation left either "blistery" looking patches or small pits like smallpox. The natives also had a great love of decorating themselves with scented leaves, but tho lecturer sometimes found the scent rather offensive to tho nostrils. They were very musical, their chief instrument being a pan pipe made of bamboo, and their "harmony struck him as being very much the same as that to which they were accustomed in Western oivilisatioii, They were also fond of singing and dancing and taletelling. Men and women, however, never danced'together. Disease, war, and contact with Europeans was leading to a- reduction in the number of people, and the birth rate was decreasing. -