The "Dreaded" Duk-

Duk

Letter to the Editor IN the “New Digest” published in New Zealand an article “Magic in the Jungle” appeared which contains the following:— “New Guinea, so much in the present war news, land of weird cults and many unsolved mysteries, contains immense tracts of country not yet trodden by the feet of white men. It is somewhere in these regions, mostly covered by virgin forests and densest of jungle, that the Billy Paaso and the Duk Duk, two of the most secret and mysterious cults in

the world, are believed to have their headquarters.”

I cannot speak about the “Billy Paaso” which plays its part in New Guinea, but I do know all about the “Duk Duk” of New Britain.

Through the influence of two petty chiefs, I became a member of the “Young Men’s Society,” a society of young people who have not been able to obtain a wife either through purchase or labour. They were living in a building about 40 feet long, close to my station in Kobaira.

When I became a member, after under going a lot of foolish doings, I found out that their society was nothing else than the so-much-dreaded “Duk Duk.” This “Duk Duk” cult, the entry into which is shrouded in the greatest secrecy, is the most dreaded of all the secret cults in the South Pacific. Its members wear the most terrifying masks.

No crime was too bad for them. In addition to being cannibals, they stole, blackmailed, and even murdered, defying the law with impunity because they had the reputation of being under the pro tection of “Tabasan,” the New Britain Devil of the Woods and Forests, the very mention of which makes Papuan non members of the “Duk Djuk” cult shiver and tremble—of which I was an eye witness during my three weeks’ member ship.

F. T. Goedicke.

Lotofoa, Tonga, 25/11/45.

Corporal Roger Ludeau, a New Cale donian who served in Libya, Tunisia and Italy, has been awarded the Croix de Guerre.