Suspected Furphy From

3 Ft. Pygmies!

Suspected Furphy From N. Guinea

The following was published in the “Mudgee Guardian” (New South Wales) on October 19;— “A strange sidelight of the war in New Guinea is the discovery by Australian soldiers, patrolling in the area, of a new tribe of strange mountain pigmies. The tallest man in the village is just 3 ft. 2 in. high, and the majority are only 3 ft.

They are Moikodis, who tend native hill gardens, and clothe themselves in tree bark.

“There have been reports in the past of a small race of pigmies living in the jungles hereabouts, but the Australian troops are actually the first to confirm the reports.

“The tribe is numerically small and believed to be rapidly dying out because of interbreeding.

“The smallest people previously known in New Guinea were 4 ft. dwarfs of the Damu Valley, who were discovered shortly before the war by a miner who is now on active service.

“These people and the midgets of the Moikodi tribe are in direct contrast to the tall, fierce people of the Crokala tribe, who inhabit the remote western mountains. Average height of the Cro kalas is 6 ft.”

Editorial Note

The thing has all the earmarks of a furphy.

So far as is known, none of the New Guinea country patrolled or penetrated by Australian soldiers is unexplored, or unknown to Europeans. The only unex plored country lies far away to the west ward, between Mount Hagen, the Dutch border, and the headwaters of the Fly and Sepik Rivers, in a region not affected by the war. There may be pygmies in there. There are no Austra lian troops in that region—they could not readily get there even if they wished, except by parachute.

The only recorded pygmy community is in the Ramu country, over on the northern side of New Guinea—probably the place referred to above as “Damu.”

But those people, around 4 ft. 3 in., are fairly well known. They were originally discovered and scientifically reported and described by the late Father Kirschbaum, a well-known missionary who was killed in an aeroplane accident.

We have never heard either of 3 ft.

“Moikodis,” or of “tall, fierce Crokalas.”

Both would be interesting to science— especially the 3 ft. pygmies.

But we gravely fear that a Mudgee leg has been pulled.

Mr. E. D. Davis, formerly of the Aus tralasian Petroleum Co., in Port Moresby, and of late under engagement to Air craft Commission, Sydney, has resigned from the latter position in order to vol unteer for service with the New Guinea forces.

Corporal Ronald Hastings Sutton, NGVR, formerly of Wau, TNG, died of malaria and typhoid fever, in October last.

Mr. L. H. Wilkinson, formerly of Mis ima, Papua, who is now LAC Wilkinson, of the RAAF, writes cheerily from an Australian training-camp. He is “going well for a pilot”: but it appears there is considerable anxiety now among trainees lest the war will be over before they “can have a crack at them.”