The New Papuan

Modern Example of Evolution.

From Our Own Correspondent.

Pt. Moresby, May 1.

TO many people, the interest in Papua lies in its ancient lore and customs, rather than in its present-day con ditions, for the Papuan of to-day they find strange and uninteresting, and say that the real Papuan character has changed; that he is no longer industri ous, no longer honest and no longer even Papuan.

This is a mistake; but if the Papuan remains fundamentally the same as he has the last hundred years, his social habits, his honesty, loyalty, and many other things have undergone a com plete revolution in the last 20 years; due entirely to his connection with Europeans and modern civilisation, and his strangeness is caused by the dif ficulty he finds in grasping events aq curately, and to his inability to fall in line and remain there.

You can find the Papuan, whose ways and customs are as our pioneers knew them, but not near Port Moresby, or at least not in the districts which are prominent in the world of trade with white men. There he would have no place. You must seek him either in the remote villages along the sea coast, where he is almost untouched, or in the hills, far away from the beaten tracks, unknown to commerce and trade.

Newcomers, fail to understand the modern type, because they have in mind the tales they have read, which may have been true once, or never true at all, and which certainly, at the pre sent time, are misleading and confus ing.

The Papuan of to-day, with his veneer of education and sophistication, together with his traditions, must necessarily be a complex character, to be taken only half seriously, for he is as yet neither here, nor there —he is merely on the way, and it is hardly fair to judge him yet, or to condemn him for his shortcomings.

Many examples could be given of the Papuans’ inability to grasp methods of justice and ordinary instances of every day life, as seen by our standards.

To give an idea, these instances are fairly enlightening: A native of the West Coast recently before a magistrate of the Western Division, demanded a bible, explaining at the same time that he had had a quarrel with a friend in a village and that he was “too much wild” and wanted to “make Court,” but before doing so, it was imperative that he have the book, otherwise it was useless to make court. Puzzled, the magistrate questioned, and the man at length ex plained that he had watched white men in court. The white man, he said, al ways had his book. If he wanted to win, he had only to hold it, smell it, and say “My God” and “he win him case all right.” He too, was anxious to win, for he was very angry with his friend. So could he please bring this book?

Again, a native, who had been im pudent to his mistress was being re primanded. He very indignantly ex plained that he had been working 12

years for white people and that he now knew them, and, was as a white man himself, so he could be rude to his mistress if he wished; they could not punish him.

So it would seem, in their confused efforts to understand the methods in which we deal out justice to them, that they are obsessed by old superstitions,

and by the age-old law that might is right.

It is inconceivable to all but a few of them that strength should be sub ordinated to impartial justice, and not used for its own profit, but to the maintenance of an ideal by which strength and weakness have the same rights and enjoy the same protection.