Ng Highlands Missions

Methodists Select New Station At Mendi, South of Hagen

AFTER sending a survey party to in spect the Highlands of New Guinea, the Methodist Church of Australasia has decided to place its first New Guinea Highlands Mission close to the new air strip and Administration station that have just been established in the almost unmapped region between Mount Hagen and Lake Kutubu (in Papua).

The new air-strip was made in October last by Administration personnel from Mount Hagen and Lake Kutubu. It is at the junction of the Mendi and Menken Rivers, 18 miles south-west of the peak of Mount Giluwe, and it lies at a height of 5,000 feet.

It is estimated that there are 100,000 natives in the valleys thereabouts. They are of a virile type and are as yet prac tically uncontrolled. There appears to be no other mission station nearer than Hagen. The Methodist enterprise has re ceived the goodwill and active co-opera tion of the Administration.

Mendi (as the new station is called) is actually in Papua. The New Guinea plateaus (or river-valley systems) sweep away southward from the Hagen region; and Mendi is in the middle of the valley systems discovered and described by the Papuan explorer, the later Mr. " Jack Hides, and by Mr. Ivan Champion, and which lie between the limestone barrier in Papua, and Mount Hagen. The charts show that Mendi is almost exactly at the spot where the route followed by Mr.

Champion crossed that followed by Mr.

Hides.

The natives generally are of the same type as those in the Wahgi, Chimbu and Hagen valleys of the Highlands. They are aggressive, and attacked both the parties of Mr. Hides and Mr. Champion.

The Catholic, Lutheran and Seventh Day Adventist missionaries have been in the Highlands for some time. The Bap tists went in last year and settled in the Baiyer Valley, northwards of Mount Hagen. Each organisation, very wisely, is trying to keep out of the other’s sphere of influence.