An Aggrieved Anthropologist

Letter to the Editor.

INSTEAD of confining himself, in your January issue, to matters raised by me, Mr. W. C.

Groves has surveyed a vast amount of irrele vant material, which has little or no bearing on the main issue and which has not been called in dis pute.

Mr. Groves, a teacher from the Victorian Edu cational Department, came to the Territory on loan in 1922 to take charge of the newly-established Government Native School of Kokopo. During the whole of his short stay in the Territory he was en gaged in teaching native children drawn from different and widely separated parts of the Terri tory. I met him during the early part of 1924, and afterwards, rather frequently, until his return to Victoria.

About three years ago Mr. Groves returned to the Territory as an anthropologist. I met him on the steamer and I well remember his anxiety to get in touch with Father Neuhaus, the an thropologist. On Mr. Groves’ return from New Ireland I again met him and discussed with him matters relating to native education. Our rela tions were always frank and friendly.

Your September leader, Mr. Editor, entitled “Un co-ordinated Mission Effort,” contained a state ment in parenthesis by Mr. Groves to the effect that “every mission should have an organiser of joy, someone who can supply the natives with occupations for their minds and bodies which will take the place of the songs and dances we have taken from them.” The tone of the leader, as I observed, tended to create the view that the Missions are destroying useful native customs to the detriment of the native races. As is usually the case, a bald statement without any proof was advanced reflecting on the Missions. I wrote a reply which embodied an answer both to your leader and to the statement in parenthesis at tributed by you to Mr. Groves. My letter was entitled “Missions and Native Customs.” I drew attention to the want of justice in making sweep ing statements reflecting on Missions without making any attempt to indicate who the offenders are, where they reside and practise their mis

chievous work, or even what the customs referred to consist of. As your leader, in my opinion, was based on the statements which it embodied from Mr. Groves. I observed that Mr. Groves’ state ment was misleading and that it was a pity that Mr. Groves, who was helped by the Missions, did not discuss with them what he considered weaknesses in missionary activity before leaving

the Territory.

I then endeavoured to show that Catholic Mis sions throughout the world have a uniform, definite and clearly-defined policy in dealing with native customs and that is, to do nothing until a native custom is thoroughly understood, then encourage, foster, and preserve what is good, leave alone what is indifferent, and gradually weaken and eventually destroy only what is bad for life, health, or morality.

My letter was directed primarily as a corrective, yet Mr. Groves sees in it only a personal attack on himself, and allows his own fertile imagination to manufacture bubbles which he explodes to his own complete satisfaction. 1. The title "Missionaries or Anthropologists” was not used by me. “Missions and Native Cus toms” was the title that I wrote on my letter. 2. To show that he has been keeping good company while in the Territory, Mr. Groves urges his close personal friendship with my confreres, Fathers Bley and Lakaff, and also his admiration for the late lamented Bishop Louis Couppe. Mr.

Groves’ conjectures that my attitude may cause a breach of the friendship that has, he alleges, existed since he went to Kokopo. My reply is that Mr. Groves has a very contracted memory if he fails to remember the unjust and offensive statement that appeared from his pen in a Mel bourne daily, many years ago, against the Mission at Kokopo, and the prompt and decisive stand taken by Dr. Couppe to counteract it. It is no pleasure for me to dwell on or even mention such a matter now, except to show that at least for a considerable time very strained relations existed between the Mission and Mr. Groves. 3. Mr. Groves suggests that I suddenly find

in him an enemy of the Mission. The suggestion is quite gratuitous. The only enemies of the Mis sion are people with a purely materialist outlook of life, those who can see in the native only what a farmer can see in his horse—a means of making money. Mr. Groves is a man of high moral qualities. I regard him as a man—a friend—who has blundered in stepping over the border-line of a teacher and anthropologist in presuming to dictate to missionaries in a matter he is not qualified to comment on. There is no necessity to be angry or lose one’s head. 4. Mr. Groves alleges that I suggest calling up

witnesses from Matupit and Nodup to prove the superiority of the present order, and that he can draw on a wider experience. I arrived in the Territory in March, 1924, and studied the native language—the first and only means of ever under standing natives thoroughly. My work during the past 11 years has been that of a Catholic Mission ary on Matupit Island, living among the people,

teaching the children in school, and identified with every phase of native village life. In addition, among the three or four thousand native labourers in Rabaul there are hundreds of Catholics drawn from at least twenty different and widely separated parts of the Territory. My experience with them is unique. Mr. Groves, on the other hand, came to the Territory in 1922 to take over a recentlyfounded native school. He was and is to-day unacquainted with any native language. His stay in the Territory was short and uneventful. When he returned as an anthropologist he set out for a locality in New Ireland, among a people whose language he did not know, and from this district he offers to introduce me to some old native men who are not particularly pleased with the present order. Most probably they are the few old sorcerers found in isolated places whose crude and cruel practices were found out by missionaries and stamped out by the Government. They certainly do not appreciate that aspect of the present order, which has abolished their lucrative practices 5. Mr. Groves seems deeply grieved that I should have used the expression that “he was so liberally and gratuitously helped by the Missions in his educational and scientific work in the Territory. This, at least, was the impression that I gathered from Mr. Groves’ own expressions. Referring to Bishop Vesters in his letter, Mr. Groves says that Dr. Vesters has always extended to him “the greatest possible assistance.” Again, nodding his head in the direction of a pile of books, many years ago Mr. Groves intimated to me that he secured them from the various Missions to understand his educational work better. When he arrived in the Territory as an anthropologist he was most anxious to meet our eminent anthropologist, Father Neuhaus. Surely then it is no exaggeration to say that Mr. Groves, as others, has been assisted in his work by the Missions. 6. As Mr. Groves suggests that I have made a hasty and ill-considered attack on anthropological work in New Guinea, I shall explain clearly my meaning.

Anthropology is a highly interesting as well as a very useful study, particularly in missionary countries, and a sound grasp of the principles of anthropology are to a missionary what a sound grasp of the principles of psychology are to the school-teacher. This explains the fact that the most advanced anthropologists in the Territory

are found in the ranks of the Catholic missionaries, The science of Anthropology, as well as Ethno logy, have been studied by Catholic Missionaries with the sole end in view to understand better the native races. Yet it does not follow that be cause one admires a science and respects those who pursue it, a person is bound to highly value or adopt unreservedly the conclusions of all anthro pologists. So far, at least, much that has been written is neither of great importance nor well established.

One observation, however, that has forcibly im pressed me in reference to anthropological in vestigation is, what useful field-knowledge can be obtained in a few months or even a year or two by one unacquainted with a native language and with no previous knowledge of a people? All native races are reticent in dealing with strangers, and it is usually a long time before natives will surrender their treasured customs even to their friends. Yet some anthropologists who are still in their swaddling cloths talk with the confidence of veterans and become quite annoyed unless their theories are adopted. 7. After many insulting references in his long letter, Mr. Groves quite surprisingly pulls up at the winning-post exhausted, with a plea for impartiality and sweet reasonableness-charming phrases if they are sincere. He is evidently satisfied that what he terms a regrettable controversy has demonstrated that he is not anti-mission and that (a more ambiguous term) my views are not shared by New Guinea Missionaries. I regard the incident not as a controversy but as a correction, and if, as I fondly hope, I have demonstrated satis factorily a. That the Catholic Mission does not interfere with good, indifferent, or useful native customs, and b. That a mature teacher but a new-born anthropologist, is not a reliable authority when he departs from his own domain and presumes to advise missionaries who were on the mission field before be was born what they require for their work among the natives, then what has been written will serve a useful purpose.

I am, etc.,

J. G. Madigan,

A Catholic Missionary.

Rabaul and Matupit Island, New Guinea, February 14, 1935.