Guinea People

Language as Key to New

Noted Scientist’s Theory

£ "|XLY by a systematic, thorough, and tedious study of the languages spoken by the natives of New Guinea will the key to the origin and migrations of the people of that great island be found, was. the theory propounded by Rev. Father Franz J. Kirschbaum in a lecture to members of the N.S.W. Anthropological Society at the Australian Museum, Sydney, on November 10.

Father Kirschbaum, who is a Roman Catholic missionary of the Divine Word Order, has spent 25 years in North-west New Guinea. He is a distinguished anthro pologist, and is regarded by scientists as the leading authority on the natives, their languages, cultures, and customs in that part of the Territory.

There are two distinct language groups in New Guinea—Melanesian and Papuan— Father Kirschbaum explained. Melanesian is spoken in practically all coastal districts from the Dutch border in the north right around the whole island and along the southern seaboard to the Dutch border in Papua. There is a definite affinity between all the Melanesian dialects spoken on the coast.

The languages classified by scientists as Papuan are those used by the inland tribes of New Guinea and Central Papua. There are many complex tongues and, so far, it appears that they are entirely dissimilar.

There have been many successive migra tory waves through New Guinea, both from the north and from the south, said Father Kirschbaum, and each prehistoric race left traces of its culture and, in some instances, imparted a lasting influence upon the people who occupied the land.

Pestles and mortars of stone have been found in various parts of the Territory and, since the present inhabitants have no knowledge of their original use, the arti facts apparently indicate the migrants’ routes through the island.

The lecturer mentioned that a Roman Catholic missionary had recently shown him a pestle in the form of a rampant bird that had been found among the newly discovered people near Mt. Hagen. Al though he had seen six similar shaped pestles in Northern New Guinea, this was the first in which the design appeared to have been, burned in like pottery, instead of being carved. From a scientific point of view this was a discovery of first-rate importance.

Dealing with the New Guinea pygmies.

Father Kirschbaum related that they had first been reported by a German anthro pologist, Dr. Richard Thurnwald, in 1908.

On the outbreak of war, in 1914, Dr. Thurn wald visited the Catholic mission and told him of the discovery of more pygmies on the Sepik headwaters.

Later information supplied by Mr. Ivan Champion, who accompanied the Karius expedition across New Guinea, tended to disprove this latter report, as Champion met only tall natives in the Upper Sepik region, added Father Kirschbaum.

The German missionary himself found a race of pygmies on the Ramu River in 1926, and it was interesting to note that they were cultivators of the soil, tilling the land instead of hunting with bows and arrows, as is the practice of pygmies else where. He believed that the pygmy people were possibly the oldest in the island.

The lecturer referred also to the systems of counting among the natives; to the Tuo people of the Middle Sepik who appear to have a higher culture than other natives inhabiting the mighty Sepik Valley; to the

old-established trade route across New Guinea, from the Papuan coast up the Purari River, through the Hagen area to the Yuat River (a tributary of the “Sepik), and so to the coast of Northern New Guinea, and to the value placed upon cowrie shells by the natives along this route who have bartered for hundreds of years; to the archaeological finds in the Middle Sepik region; and to the influence of Polynesian culture in certain areas.

Proposing a vote of thanks, Mr. F. L. S.

Bell, an anthropologist who spent some time in New Guinea for the Australian National Research Council, said that photographs offering definite proof of the pygmies reported on the Sepik headwaters in 1914 had just been published in Man, the journal of the Royal Anthopological Society of Great Britain.

The proposal was seconded by Professor A. P. Elkin, of the Department of Anthro pology, Sydney University, who stressed the importance of the scientific work being carried on in New Guinea by missionaries and more especially that done by such a noted figure Father Kirschbaum.

Father Kirschbaum returned to the Man dated Territory in June last from a four years’ sojourn in Germany, to complete a book he has been workng upon for some years, and also to lead an expedition from Harvard University to study all aspects of the culture of the Sepik River tribes. On his return he learned that the areas wherein they wished to penetrate had been declared “uncontrolled,” and permis sion to enter was withheld by the N.G.

Administration.

The expedition has been cancelled for the present. But Father Kirschbaum has been granted access to the Ramu region, where the pygmies live, and for the next two years he will continue his anthropolo gical research work among those queer,

fascinating little people.

S.C.H.