The Claims Of T. H. Harrisson

New Hebrides Planter Returns To The Attack.

Letter to the Editor.

IN your issue of October, 1937, Miss Cheeseman takes up the cudgels on behalf of T. H. Harrisson in reply to my challenge in June issue, 1937. I do not say that Mr. Harrisson is an imposter, but there is abundant proof available that he did not see or hear certain things he claims to have seen or heard. I say em phatically that my indictments were jus tified and in the public interest. Self deception is not uncommon.

Miss Cheeseman can sleep in peace. I am not after blackmail nor actuated by petty spite. Whilst in the Group Mr. Har risson received quite a fair deal from me and mine, which I am told he acknow ledged in one of his addresses, and it is not my habit to indulge in personalities or mud-slinging. I am only interested in him so far as he concerns the people of this Group, native and non-native.

Dr. Codrington, an authority whom Mr.

Harrisson quotes largely, said, in one of his books on Melanesia: “A man comes to the Islands, and in two years knows all there is to know about the natives!

He stays on twenty years and learns he knows little”.

There is a story told of Sir William MacGregor which goes somewhat as fol lows: Meeting a young Missionary who appeared ratner confident of everything native, he asked him how long he had been in the Islands and on the young Missionary saying two years, MacGregor asked him if he had written his book yet?

On receiving the negative, he said: “Well, young man, you had better hurry up, for if you stay too long you will find you are not so sure of your facts as to make the book readable”. There you have it in a nutshell, from two unim peachable sources! Mr. Harrisson was in the Group, say, two years, and behold!!

He knows everything!

Should Mr. Harrisson Return?

By asking leading and suggestive ques tions of natives—for the most part more or less detribalised—he gets the replies the natives think he wants, not knowing whether it is the real or the whole truth.

I would suggest to Mr. Harrisson that he pay a visit to the Group again, leaving his superiority complex behind him, in England, learn a dialect, and stay, say, only ten years. At the end of that per iod he will realise he is not so sure of the conclusions he arrived at after less than two years in the Group.

Contrary to Miss Cheeseman’s guess, I have read th,e book. I have not seen the papers he read before the Geographical Society, though I have seen some of re ports of these.

After all, what constitutes an anthrop ologist? One who systematically studies the subject or one who simply dabbles in it? For many years this —and I suppose other Groups also—have had a succes sion of people, coming from this or that University, or Museum, or scientific body, and claiming to be specialists in one or other branch of science. A portion are genuine and keenly in search of know ledge, others are seeking notoriety, cheap or otherwise; others simply seeking local colour to clothe fiction or theories. The people of all the Groups have 'sufficient intelligence to sift the one from the other.

They appreciate and assist, in every way

in their power, the genuine article, but resent the spurious and the notoriety hun ter.

Miss Cheeseman says Mr. Harrisson never inferred he was more than three weeks in the Big Nambus. Let her turn to page 277: “Some of the most pleasant evenings of my life have been spent drinking kava. listening to the endless running flow, of words, the trivial, de scribed as only the ‘lowest’ savage and highest genius can describe it. so that every angle, incident, word and thing ap pears again to conjure up a scene not simply of ... I had not previously real ised that talk could be more than conver sation. . . Talk can be a people’s high est manifestation”. And then, bathos! “I did this for a year and it gave me much, friendship, pleasure, and prestige—espe cially as at the end I could drink any Big Namba under the table”.

As Mr. Harrisson could not speak nor understand ten words of any dialect it was really genuine courtesy for the na

wnS. th S ir d i es - s „ fl ™ °j , t l3 l En Sjjsh or pidgin . Good iU 1 *? 056 £ ls re aders appreciate this trait in the native character!

It does not seem to be realised that Mr.

Harrisson’s headquarters, during the brief period (five months, I believe) he was acting as locum tenens to the District Agent, was not in the Big Nambus area, nor within ten miles of the nearest village. Where he was, the dialect is quite different from that of the Big Nambus and unintelligible to them. The North West dialect and customs are more nearly related to that of the N.E. of Malekula.

T , . . ~. .

It is impossible in the space allowed to go into detail. He has given nothing new to science that will stand. His folk tales are over-edited and distorted. Any man who knows his way about, and more par-

ticularly if he knows a dialect, can col lect a dozen folk tales in a day, from the village story tellers. If left as told, they are valuable, if tampered with, they are valueless. Mr. Harrisson does not realise there are people, even within the Group, with a public school background, planters whose educational status is perhaps even superior to his. It is arro gance for him to think he has discovered Malekula.

Miss Cheeseman endeavours, by taking a sentence away from its context, to draw a herring across the path. The writer has been 34 years in the Group, and, though holding his own views, has suc ceeded in living and working alongside the Missionaries, without difficulty or quarrels. Mr. Harrisson was, say, two years in the Group and was not liked by the Missionaries.

Plenty of planters have been right in land and have even ascended the prin cipal mountains. There are few areas in the North of the Island that the writer has not been into. He was in Taumaro and Amok 32 years ago, with a planter named Robert Petersen, and a Mr. Mo roney, an artist and photographer, who took both sketches and photographs. He has been in Amok once since, and Tau maro several times. Taumaro has been visited constantly for 20 years.

Nowadays the white inhabitants all use boots. Twenty and more years ago a large percentage, owing to constant boat ing, went often barefoot, consequently a goodly percentage showed hookworm. Mr.

Harrisson himself never used boots, and it is possible that he himself was a hook worm positive. The term Tombat is never used in the sense given on page 410. Tom bat is the term applied to initiates in the societies and ceremonies. The term Nelag Sen is what he means. The Tom bats were often the Nelag Sen.

The Chief of Taumaro, the Miliun Vavau, was told of what Mr. Harrisson said of cannibal feasts and of his claim ing by inference to have participated therein. In his characteristic blunt fashion he said: “He lies! We do not eat human flesh in the presence of strang ers. It is absolute tabu for an outsider to see it, let alone participate”. This chief is an unquestionable authority. He is in fact, the man erroneously described as “King of Big Nambus” by a former visiting scientist, who even went so far as to send a spear to the late King George from “One King to Another”—an appar ently harmless freak, but in reality one which caused an endless amount of bad feeling and jealousy among the rival clans.

Planters’ Medical Work.

It is not in anyway true that the Mis sions are the only people who try to do anything for the natives. Many plant ers give medicine—including arsphena mides—free or at actual cost, and they have to pay for it out of their own poc ket at full price. Planters were the first to use both the bismuth and arsenic compounds when they came in, and plant ers were the first to consider the em ployment of N.M.P.’s in this Group.

There is an agreement, which can be produced, between two planters and the Fijian. Malachi, who accompanied Dr.

Lambert on his first survey. It was the existence of this agreement which actu ally shamed the Administration into taking the matter over. I am sure Dr.

Lambert can bear witness to this, as he did to the original agreement!

And what of the not inconsiderable work of the much-maligned Condominium Administration, which supplies the mater ial with which the Missions inject the na tives? During Mr. Harrisson J s stay on Malekula, let him count the number of times he saw Missionaries using arsphena mide injections, and how many times it was Rockefeller trust plus Condominium.

He will then eat his words I hope.

I am not belittling the work done by the Missions when I make this statement.

They will be the first to admit the truth.

In conclusion, I may point out that Mr.

Harrisson has graciously admitted that with few exceptions, the British planters are honest men. He has also told us there are no honest Frenchmen here!

How overcome with conceit the British planters must be at such commendation, and how downcast the poor French must be at their condemnation—and that com ing from such a source!

I am, etc..

E. H. Corlette.

Bushman's Bay, Malekula, New Hebrides. 19/12/’3B.