Air Search for N

N. Britain Nomads

From a Special Correspondent THE District Officer of Rabaul (Mr. J. K.

McCarthy) has stated that an air re connaissance of the mountain terri tory of the elusive Mokolkol peoples, on the island of New Britain, has just been completed, and a village has been observed.

A patrol will be sent out to try to contact these natives.

The Mokolkol is a fierce nomad tribe, which has consistently evaded capture during the entire years of the Europeans’ rule of New Guinea. The only Mokolkols ever captured are children, abandoned by their parents in flight. There are believed to be two of them at present in Rabaul, now grown up, who were captured in this fashion. These young Mokolkols, it was hoped, could be trained and sent back to their village to civilise their own people but under the influence of civilisation they soon lost the Mokolkol tongue.

These fierce natives hunt with a primi tive axe, descending upon a village and leaving a trail of dead behind them, then disappearing again into the surrounding hills, where they live in temporary camps Other New Britain natives live in mortal fear of the Mokolkol. (Ed. Note: These people sound as though they could be related to the Mumi of Guadalcanal. See March, 1950, PIM p. 17.)

At left F’ei bananas growing in the New Hebrides; at right a bunch from New Caledonia