Lost People Of The

Pacific

Intriguing Discoveries In New Caledonia

PASTOR M. LEENHARDT, author and chief living authority on the natives of New Caledonia and of the Island’s pre-history, who is a prominent member of the Institut Francais d’Oceanie, ap peals to Caledonians to interest them selves in the island’s long distant past before it was peopled by Melanesians.

He draws attention to remains that have recently been found of the Lost People of the Pacific.

In 1939 a roadmender, working on the main road to Bouloupari, found what ap peared to be an earthenware pot which he proceeded to break with his pick. Some of the pieces were kept by the director of Public Services and found their way to the Musee de I’Homme at Paris, where they were found to resemble specimens sent from the same area in 1886, Two years ago Professor Orcel, the museum’s mineralogist, in a talk about these remains, said a microscopic exami nation proved them to have been fashioned from volcanic tufa such as is to be found in the Teremba Valley, be tween Ourail and La Foa, about 20 miles north-west of Bouloupari, It appeared that the pot in question had not been treated with fire.

M. Leenhardt adds that since then geologists have found similar remains also in the south-west region of the Colony— remains of whose existence colonists were already aware. At Moindou, M. Dijou had found such debris 18 feet down, generally the thicker parts of the arti facts, such as arms and legs, and more rarely the sides. But the island’s Melane sian pottery is made of clay, clumsily baked, and with neither arms nor legs.

Also found in the Colony are stones, apparently of serpentine, but of a rock less brittle than that used for native axes, and capable of being scratched with a knife. Sometimes these stones are pointed at each extremity, sometimes curved, sometimes in the form of an axe with stone handle but always with a boss, or gorge, showing a form of workmanship quite different from that of the kanakas, whose axes were directly polished on the stone. M. Leenhardt says these remains are no more of kanaka origin than the Archambault rock carvings or petroglphs (recently described in my story in “PIM” about traces of the lost Children of the Sun).

He adds that at the Isle' of Pines Messrs. De Sedouy, Lenormand and the geologists, Arnould and Avias, have found in a mound remains of vases and pottery, of which one notably seems to show that the isle was the calling place of ancient and civilised voyagers. These are now in the possession of the Musee de I’Homme, at Paris, or of the Institute.

He appeals to anybody who finds such relics to send them on to the Institute, together with particulars of exact posi tion, soil, depth, and so on, as such dis c' series are a great help in forming a more exact idea of the Lost People of

the Pacific.-

H.E.L.P.