A Leap From The Stone

Age

THE missionaries who first went to New Guinea, that great island to the north of Australia, found a race of people who were 10,000 years behind the times. Yet in 50 years many members of this race have jumped across the gap of time into 20th century civilisation.”

This statement was made by the Rev.

J. D. Bodger, who has charge of a mis sion station in Papua for the Australian Board of Missions, in a recent address in Melbourne.

“The Papuan on the mission station or the Government outpost,” he said, “rides in a motor-car, a motor-lorry, or a motor launch. He takes his water supply in the house from a tap instead of from a coco nut gourd. His wooden stick has been replaced by a plough drawn by a motor tractor. He often uses axes and knives of steel instead of the axes and adzes of the stone age. He is learning biology, anatomy, and surgery, and to build with cement and similar material instead of with grass and leaves.”

Mr. Bodger went on to say that, in stead of sitting and talking by the light of a fire, the Papuan switched on the electric light and read books printed in English as well as his native language.

He often fished at night with the aid of an electric torch instead of the primitive rush light. Instead of fighting and head hunting he now played cricket and football.

These great changes, he declared, had been brought about by the co-operation of the missionary, the Government and the trader.