And Clothes

Mission Natives’ Food

Letter to the Editor THE article of your correspondent who signs himself “Solomaniac,” published in the March issue of the P.I.M., is full of inaccuracies and malicious falsehoods.

Seventh-day Adventists do not prohibit natives of the Solomon Islands or those of any other South Sea Island Group, the use of flesh foods and fish as articles of diet.

The Book of the Sacred Law condemns swine’s flesh as food. This is the text book of Seventh-day Adventists, hence the tabu.

Leading medical men and anthropolo gists who have studied the question of diet for natives agree that tobacco, and betel nut, are definitely not beneficial to the physical and moral well-being of those who use them. Tobacco as used by natives is a most unclean habit. Betel nut chewing causes pyorrhoea, drugs the user and is a filthy habit. The eating of half-cooked swine’s flesh—the scavenger of the village —is most unhealthful and unhygienic.

The natives of the Territory of New Guinea are not prohibited from wearing clothes other than a lavalava. All the police boys in the Territory have issued to them each, a woollen pullover, shorts and khaki coat. Most of the women in the Territory wear blouses; in fact, in his own

village a native can wear just as much or as little as he desires. The women of the Solomon Islands are not compelled to wear bloomers, neither are the men compelled to wear singlets.

Your correspondent should first of all acquaint himself with facts and then write the truth. I am, etc.,

G. Mclaren.

T.N.G. Mission of Seventh-day Adventists.

Matupi, New Guinea, 4/5/’34.