Tropicalities

A READER tells us that on the after noon of New Year’s Day, the Administration held an organised sports and sing-sing for the natives at Lae, New Guinea. A cash prize of £3 was offered for the winner of the 120 yards race, run in heats; a case of meat for the best tug-of-war team; and two cases of meat to the best sing-sing team.

Some of the sing-sing teams according to our reader, were really pathetic. One team of Markhams held banana fronds to represent spears and simply pranced in one spot. Another crowd, obviously short of kundUs (small nativp hand drums) used 2 ounce tobacco tins, enamel jugs and empty cigarette tins in lieu thereof. “Majority of performers wore lap-laps, which always tend jto spoil the general effect of a native dance, which, if properly prepared and presented, has universal appeal.

“It is recognised that some of the per formers- were at a disadvantage due to the fact that they came from outlying centres. But surely the Administration, if it wanted to organise a sing-sing, could arrange for the participants to obtain what they require to do the job properly.

“Dancing is one of the native arts and those who perform in public should be made to wear correct costume —not odds and ends of Western origin. ‘The performance put on by the Butibum natives, on this occasion, ap peared to be the best of a bad lot.” * * * THIS reminds us of another New Guinea sing-sing which we witnessed a number of years ago. It was staged in a newly opened-up part of the New Guinea mainland —an area which, until a few months previously, had seen practi cally nothing of civilization.

Several thousand of the local natives, whose fashion it is to go absolutely naked except for a few bone and shell orna ments, attended, and it was the intention of the Patrol-officer and Medical Assist ant, who organised it, that not one thing of European origin or manufacture was to spoil it. This sing-sing was to be the “dinkum thing”.

On the appointed day, therefore, there gathered together literally a sea of shining brown flesh, thousands of tossing paradise plumes, cassowary feather head dresses, hideous masks, and shell orna ments galore. And, to open the show, they were all herded down onto the banks of the river, perhaps twenty feet below the level of the drome that was to be their stage, the idea being that they were to form a long, sinuous line and, appearing dramatically from out of tall kunai grass, were to wind their way onto the arena for the benefit of the spectators.

There was a sense of the dramatic about it. too, as we waited there in the heat, watching the kunai that screened the river-bed and hearing the muffled beat of a distant kundu. Then they came, a long weaving file of bent, brown bodies, -skin glistening, golden plumes tossing, drums beating. Paga/n, beautiful; the kind of thing of which coloured movies are made. But no touch of the West—?

Leading them on to the field was the most ancient luluai in the district. Naked, be-plumed, as instructed, and his skinny shanks prancing like a well-trained circus

horse, while over his head he whirled and twirled the largest thing in bright-blue trade umbrellas! * * * THESE gems were collected by a New Zealand teacher who taught native students in Fiji for some time: CONCERNING BALBOA: Balboa saw the big ocean lying on his feet. He was the Spainish man who was the first Englishman to discover the Pacific Ocean.

Concerning Captain Cook; Cap

tain Cook went to Hawaii, where he was killed, and back to England to his home again. Cook went to New Zealand and went through one river and he enters there, when he went there the native of that place eats all his sailors and Cook was left. And he named that river the Endeavour. When he went home no body with him, only by him self.

DRAKE: Question: How and where did Drake first see the Pacific Ocean?

What was the object of his journey?

Answer: Drake seemed to see the Pacific Ocean when he was lying under a tree and the object he use to carry was a gun and a bag of water.

AND AGAIN: Drake see the Pacific from Central America on a fig tree. It took him one month 25 days to sail round the world. The great object of his journey was the things he stole from America. * $ % IT seems to look more like Buenos Aires than Suva” was the local com ment when an advertisement in the New Zealand Herald, Auckland, on January 7, offered four competent typistes, aged under 30, “salaries of £384 (sterling) per annum; tropical allowance, £2O per annum; free passage to New Zealand every two years; five months’ leave every two years, and modern, self-contained flats provided free”.

The advertisement purports to come from “a newly-established American con cern in Fiji”, but so far no connection can be traced between any American concern in Fiji and the advertisement.

When inquiries were being made in official quarters, the first official come back was the hopeful query: “Where are the modern, self-contained flats?”—S. * * * THE decision of Powers-That-Be, some where, to call a graduate of the Central Medical Bchool, Suva, in future, Assistant Medical Practitioner, instead of Native Medical Practitioner, is one of those very silly things character istic of this sloppy, post-war habit of “kidding” to indigenous peoples.

Under Dr. Hoodless, the School was built up in a fine tradition; the young native students learned —and rightly—■ to be proud of their race, their School, and their chosen profession; and their record of service in the field has been so good that there was no need for any apology for the addition of the honour able letters, “NMP”, to a man’s name.

Now, the Native Medical Practitioner is being called “AMP”; and, as any in telligent young Islander naturally will ask the reason for the change, and will learn that the European boss has de cided that the description “native” is

unbearable, a bad impression is given.

Why cannot these interfering Planners leave well alone? * * * IN an interesting little booklet issued by . the CSR Company, “Sugar in Fiji” (see article elsewhere this issue) there is recorded the prayer of Ratu Namani, Roko Tui Ba and Yasawa, which he offered at a meeting of Chiefs at Nadi, early in 1900. The prayer was as follows: Oh Lord who dwellest in Heaven, we thy people have met together this even ing to thank Thee for the good tidings which we have heard about our District.

We have here this evening the Com pany’s (CSR) Chief, Mr. Fenner, from Rarawai, and Mr. Markham, the surveyor, to look at the land to see if it is good for cane cultivation. They have now seen Drasa, Vei Togo, Na Moli and Vei Seisei.

Take pity on us oh Lord and cause the Holy Spirit to enter into Mr. Fenner and grant that he may be inclined to look with favour upon our land. The land at Drasa and Vei Togo has seemed good to him; grant that our land at Nadi may also find favour in his eyes and that we may have a very large mill. Ba has a mill and Labasa and Nausori and there are also small mills at Mago and Vuna.

Take pity on us and let us have a large mill as we are very poor. Let Mr.

Fenner think favourably of our land and make it seem good in his eyes so that we may no longer be poor. Watch over Mr. Fenner wherever he goes and protect him and help him in his inspection of our land. —Amen, Apparently Mr. Fenner did look with favour upon their land. The CSR built their large mill at Lautoka within the next three years. * * * ONE of our Christmas cards this year was from Miss Dorothy Stewart, of the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Rabaul, New Guinea. It contained this verse, which we think she must aim at Aus tralia, in general, rather than at us:

Who Am I?

I am the foundation of all business; I am the source of all prosperity; I am the salt that gives life its savour; I have laid the foundations of every fortune; I can do more to advance youth than his own parents, be they ever so wealthy; I must be loved before I can bestow my greatest blessing, and achieve my greatest ends.

Loved, I make life sweet, purposeful and fruitful, All progress springs from me.

I Am Work

Those who know Miss Stewart will, at all events, agree that it is entirely appropriate to that energetic young woman. * * ❖ ANEW GUINEA planter asked the Director of Education, Port Moresby, if there were any truth in a current rumour that some form of assistance was contemplated for Territories parents who had children at school in Australia.

The Department head replied that there was no such provision, and added: “Our representations, which the Administration here has strongly supported in sub missions to the Department of External Territories, have been unsuccessful.” The planter, commenting on this, remarked: “Residents here suffer under two grave disabilities: they have white skins, and they have no vote.”