An Illusive God

WHILE in the west of Papua, recently, a Government Patrol Officer found that the natives in one village wor shipped a crocodile as their god, their belief being that years ago the reptile ate an aged chief and that his spirit still dwells inside it and works for their good.

This spirit, so they said, kept them in formed of the movements of enemy tribes, and particularly if raids were con templated. Only the night before it had warned them of the patrol’s approach.

This, they explained ingenuously, was all to the good, for they were thus able to clean up the village before the party's arrival.

The officer was informed that an old woman, a relation of the dead chief, was the only person whose call the crocodile would answer. It was she who supplied it with food and talked to the spirit of the chief.

When the officer asked for a demon stration of her powers, the natives readily consented. Eight o’clock that night was the appointed time, on the condition that no lights should be showing.

Four hours the officer waited in the darkness, the silence broken only by the buzzing of mosquitoes and the croaking of frogs in the surrounding swamps, while at intervals the woman sent her shrill voice over the water, to be echoed by the impenetrable walls of the man grove-lined banks. But, alas, no god made his appearance.

Becoming apologetic, the natives at last informed the officer that their god must be displeased and that it must be due to his scepticism They declared that the crocodile never made his pre sence known to disbelievers: and they re fused to be laughed out of their super stitous belief. —ML.

Mr. F. S. Osborn, who occupied several senior positions in the Public Works De partment, Fiji, before retiring in 1922, re cently died in Auckland. N.Z., aged 72.

Mrs. Broederlow, who had lived for many years in Fiji, died in Suva hospital recently, aged 70. One son, Mr. Peter Broederlow, lives in Samoa.