LITTLE-KNOWN PAPUA

Waipa Post, Volume 44, Issue 3181, 24 May 1932, Page 7

LITTLE-KNOWN PAPUA

TWO MINERS' ADVENTURES. Messrs Leahy and Dwyer, miners, made a really extraordinary journey from the Mandated Territory in Papua,; states the Lieutenant-Governor of Papua (Judge Murray) in his annual report. They were apparently seeking to cross from the head waters of the Ramu River to the head waters of the Sepik; but the nature of the country drove them across the Papuan border down a river, apparently known as the Tu, which runs into the Erewa River, and so into the Purari. The Erewa was followed by Messrs Faithorn and C. Champion from the Kerabi Valley to the Purari; the Kerabi Valley is the next valley to Samberigi, and the Erewa seems to come through a gap in the Rue Range, to the north of Samberigi. Mr Leahy speaks of meeting natives with "fair golden woolly hair," and he says expressly that the colour was iiot caused by lime. I have seen o native with blue eyes in Papua, at Bofuj in the Manugalasi country; but I never before heard of golden hair. The golden-haired natives were found in the Mandated Territory and so were some cave dwellers, whom the party found living, apparently in cliffs, about 200 feet above the river, which Mr Leahy calls the Menepo. "In these villages," says Mr Leahy, " we found that the trade wanted was shellsmuch preferred to axes, although stone axes only were in evidence." Dr Wirz mentions shells as currency in Dutch New Guinea, especially snail shells and cowrie shells. Naturally, the farther from the sea the greater value of the cowrie, and in the interior of the Dutch Territory a couple of ordinary cowrie shells will buy a little pig, and eight or 10 a girl.