Those Pygmies

Lord Moyne and Father Kirschbaum

Letter to the Editor 1%/3’Y attention has only just been called to Father Kirschbaum’s letter in your issue of November, 1936. Not wish ing his attack to remain any longer un answered, I am sending you a cable for insertion in your next issue, and posting you this letter by air mail in amplifica tion.

Father Kirschbaum is very indignant with certain reports dealing with an exhibition of ethnographical material brought back by me from New Guinea for the British Museum, and also those at Oxford and Cambridge. I understood that

German Museums are well provided with exhibits from New Guinea but, in view of the complete absence from our British Collections of articles from the Ramu up to the time of my journey, Father Kirs chbaum’s sarcasms seem uncalled for.

His letter shows annoyance that there was no mention in these cabled press reports to a journey previously made by himself. Repeated discussions which I had with Mr. E. J. Wauchope, also en quiries which I made at Rabaul and Madang, and from eminent anthropolo gists in England had failed to reveal any information as to Father Kirschbaum’s visit to the Aiome country in 1926, or his very interesting account of the in habitants in Anthropos, Vol. XXII., 1927.

The Administrator at Rabaul had writ ten to me before I felt England mention ing that his officers had reported the existence of pygmies near Atemble. The pygmy country is unadministered and, as far as I could learn, has not been visited by any Government officials. On leaving the Ramu, I sent a telegram to the Ad ministration, asking whether they could refer me to any Government or other report on the subject of these people be yond those already in my possession, but they were unable to do so. Both Mr.

Chinnery and Father Kirschbaum were at the time absent from New Guinea and this perhaps accounts for the lack of in formation about the latter’s visit to the pygmies.

Father Kirschbaum’s suggestion that I personally claim to have discovered the Aiome pygmies could not have been made if he had either communicated with me direct when he first saw the press report, or had read my book Walkabout. I have there referred to those who had previ ously visited the Aiome country, particu larly Mr. Evan Stanley and Mr. E. J.

Wauchope, and expressed my disappoint ment that the Government had since prohibited entry into this “uncontrolled territory.” As I also mentioned in my book that the pygmies come down to trade at Atemble, it is quite evident that the missionaries who happened to be absent from their station at the time of my visit, must often have seen them.

As Mr. Wauchope is at present in Aus tralia, I cannot fipd out before posting this letter whether it w'as he or Father Kirschbaum who first visited Aiome. In any case, this issue seems to me a very petty one. But as Father Kirschbaum attacks me on account of a claim which I never made, I cannot help wondering how he justifies the titles of his article in Anthropos , “Ein Neuentdeckter Zwerg stamm auf Neu-Guinea” (A Newly Dis covered Dwarf Race on New Guinea), and “Eine Reise zu Bisher Unbekannten Zwergen in der Schrader-Kette . . .” (A Journey to Hitherto Unknown Dwarfs in the Schrader Chain . . .), in spite of Mr.

Evan Stanley having seen the same people whom he described as of short stature, five years previously, as quoted in my book, p. 180.

I am, etc.,

10 Grosvenor Place, London, 31/3/37.

Moyne.