Many Anthropologists.

Work Extending In New Guinea, and Solomons.

from all over the world are displaying an increasing interest in the Pacific Islands within the Aus tralian sphere of influence—particularly New Guinea and the Solomons.

DR. RIO FORTUNE and his wife, Dr.

Margaret Mead —the former the author of “Sorcerers of Dobu,” the latter of “Growing Up in New Guinea” and “Coming of Age in Samoa”—who have spent ever two years on the New Guinea mainland in the region of Wewak and the lower Sepik River, re turned to Australia by the last “Macdhui.”

After visiting New Zealand, the home of Dr. Fortune, they intend to settle in U.S.A., the home of Mrs. For tune, where, as that lady puts it, “One must now write more books, I guess.”

With the Fortunes on the “Macdhui” was Mr. Gregory Bateson, who has been working along the Sepik River for over two years, doing research work for an English university. Mr. Bate son will return to New Guinea after a short holiday in Australia. With his outboard motor attachment on a native cance, Mr. Bateson has been able to cover a good deal of the waters of that immense stream.

At Port Moresby, Mr. F. E. Williams, author of numerous anthropological "Reports” and the volume “The Ora kaiva,” ex-Rhodes Scholar, member (captain) of the adventurous Dunster force during the latter stages of the Great War, and now official anthropo logist to the Government of Papua, joined the Fortune pair and Bateson at lunch aboard the “Macdhui.”

On board the “Montoro,” which was berthed beside the “Macdhui” at Port Moresby was Dr. Hugo Bernatzig, of Vienna University, who, with two volumes on African ethnology to his credit, has recently completed eight months in the Solomon Islands, where he made a special study of the dis tribution of language types on the island, of Choiseul. While in the Solomons, Dr. Bernatzig frequently crossed the tracks of, but did not encounter in person, Dr. Ian Hogbin, who had been seeking a satisfactory field for the study of culture-contact in the large island of Guadalcanar.

Dr. Bernatzig proceeded by aeroplane from Port Moresby to Wau, whence he hopes to get to the Upper Ramu.

There he will decide upon the location and nature cf his proposed work, and, after spending a year or two “writing up” in Vienna, will return to the field.

He hopes to complete a study of the culture of the people concerned, as he puts it, “before the gold-seekers get so far.”

He will, one thinks, therefore require to curtail his stay in Vienna, for it is certain that the region selected by him will soon be honeycombed with the diggings of the band of hardy pros pectors who are ever pushing farther afield.

On the same “Montoro” was Mr.

W. C. Groves, Research Fellow of the

Australian National Research Council, who was making, first, for Kavieng and the Tabar Islands, and will probably later work in the vicinity of Finsch hafen on the New Guinea mainland. In the current issue of “Oceania” is pub lished a comprehensive report of the nature and a summary of the results of Mr. Groves’s year’s work at Fisoa in New Ireland. There is also a very interesting account of an involved ceremony connected with mortuary rites in New Ireland.

Miss Camilla Wedgwood is still working on the island of Manam, near Madang; Mr. F. Bell has commenced his researches at Tanga, an island off the Nomatanai section of New Ireland; and Mr. J. H. Todd is settled at Arawe, on the South Coast of New Britain.

These three, like Mr. Groves, are working under the auspices of the Australian National Research Council, and under the direction of the Depart ment of Anthropology of Sydney University. The Council administers the Rockefeller endowment to Australia for anthropological research.

Mr. W. E. H. Stanner, who returned early this year from seven months of arduous field work with the aborigines of the Daly River district of North Australia, is acting as Assistant Lecturer for 1933 in the Anthropology School at Sydney University; while Dr. Sharp, from Chicago and with re cent research experience in Africa, is working in the Mitchell River district —the so-called ‘Gulf” country. Mr.

Donald Thomson, Research Fellow of Melbourne University, is still along the shores of the Gulf. It is reported that he recently had the misfortune to lose his motor launch.

Arrangements have practically been completed for the visit to New Guinea of Professor Thurnwald, of Berlin, who spent some time in the old German New Guinea Protectorate 20 years ago.

As one planter half-jestingly put it at a recent smokeroom gathering on one of the Islands vessels, “Soon a man won’t be able to live amongst the Kanakas for these scientist blokes.”

But, though extensive work is now being done, the field is a vast one, and there is still room for many more workers, more especially those who are prepared to apply the data their researches reveal to assist in the solution of the many pressing problems of native affairs that have arisen as a result of the impact of European influences upon the primitive cultures, and to suggest methods of assisting the native peoples to adjust their lives to the new conditions. By such means will anthropology justify itself in the eyes of those who, not being of the ultra-scientific school, are seeking to face the present realities of human social evolution rather than to write the story of the past.