BISHOP OF PAPUA

Taranaki Daily News, 9 June 1930, Page 7

BISHOP OF PAPUA

DIFFICULTIES OF TASK. LONG JOURNEYS ON FOOT. After spending 32 years in New Guinea, the Right Rev. A. G. de Boismencu, Viear-Apcatolic of Papuasja, passed through Auckland on the Niagara on his way to Rome to pay his third visit to the Pope, to whom he has to give an account of his administration every ten years. He is accompanied by Father Morin, who has not seen his homeland, France, for, 20 years. Boismencu went to New Guinea from Brittany in 1898 as & missionary and received the bishopric only two yearn later. His headquarters are on Yule Island, which is GO miles from Port Moresby. The work of the Roman Catholic mission, including religious teaching, visitation of the sick and education, extends to places eight or

nine days’ journey from the coast. Describing the life of the missionaries, Bishop de Boisniehcu said it involved, a great deal of travelling, both on horseback and on foot, to visit the scattered inland and coastal mission stations. The spread of Christianity was rendered doubly difficult in the country owing to the multiplicity of languages, and in the early days of the mission the task was not only difficult but dangerous. “Yes, I suppose you could say my life was threatened on one occasion at least,” he said in answer to a question. “But that was in the beginning of my long term in the country, and we did not° know the native mind then as we do now. 7e used to engage carriers and change them when we reached new tribes, but at one village carriers were refused us, and fearing that we would inform the authorities of their refusal when we got back to the coast they decided among themselves that it would be safest to kill us all. We had a very narrow escape, I have no doubt, and knowing the natives as I do now I have no hesitation in saying the incident would never have occurred but for our own ignorance.” Bishop de Boismencu said most of the trouble that occurred with the natives in days gone by was due to the white men misconstruing the native demonstrations. Thinking they were hostile, the white men used firearms, with fatal results. It was not at all unlikely that cannibalism was occasionally resorted to in remote fastnesses of Dutch New Guinea, but no cases had been reported recently in British or mandated territory. Anything might happen in such places when a tribal war was in progress, and no one be any the wiser, for the natives would be the last people to speak about such practices. In British territory they were perfectly reliable, and the Australian sisters who belonged to the mission moved through the heart of the country without fear of molestation. The ways of the natives, however, were still .very primitive. ■ < His Lordship attended the Eucharistic Congress in Sydney, and during his visit to Europe he hopes to see hi§ old (home in Brittany - and visit England,