Erritories Talk-Talk
p. 35 · Read in the full issue
By Tolala
ive” is Out lister Hasluck’s latest ukase to enchmen in the P-NG Admin ion again high-lights the con rsial subject of a name for the enes of New Guinea. Where 3le, says the Minister, the word ve” should not be used, unless l adjective. jarently some psychologist has amongst the newly sticated indigenes a sensitive which may develop into resent at being called a native. One dined to wonder when the alian native will take umbrage ng called an Aborigine, or just Abo. st Territory natives have had tags applied to them: Start ith “eingeborener” during the an regime, which changed in sarly days of the Australian ation to “Kanaka,” “Coon,” ’’ “Indigene,” and “Native;”
War II came the famed y Wuzzy Angel,” and the ful term, “Boong.” natives themselves, in the invariably referred to “a Man So and So,” or the “the People
from Such and Such an area” when speaking in their own dialects or in Pidgin.
Safeguards against offending coloured sensitiveness seem to be overdone these days, and only emphasise the Colour line.
An interesting aspect, of course, is how these various people are named in their own languages and dialects; not the English tag we tie to them. . . Methinks we do protest too much.
Natives Talk to UNO Mission The “Look See” section of the UN Trusteeship Committee is doing its regular check-up on Austraha’s re sponsibility in the Pacific and the natives so far have requested: • Representation in Canberra for the Trust Territory; • That Australia take over the Shortland Islands in the BSI.
Both are high-level questions which must have somewhat flabber gasted the members of the Mission;
they, none-the-less, are compli mentary to Australia.
It is only since 1900 that Ysabel, Choiseul, Shortland and small islands in the Bougainville Straits have been tacked on to the British Solomon Islands. Many people may not realise that Britain’s gain in this area was her erstwhile loss of Western Samoa, which Germany re ceived in exchange for the north western portion of the Solomons.
But the Teutonic reign lasted only 14 years, and when New Zealand troops occupied W. Samoa in 1914 it is recorded that this was “the first time in the history of the Empire that a British Dominion overseas had sent an invading force across the ocean and had captured a foreign territory.” And now, 56 years later the natives of that part of the BSI want to merge themselves with their old clans.
There has been general traffic be tween Buin (Bougainville) and the Shortlands for many years. In fact (under the lap) many Buin natives were employed in the Shortlands as casual labour on many occasions.
In these days, however, bits of a colonial empire cannot be swopped around as at one time, and even a Salisbury would find unending dif ficulties with all the multi-lateral and international organisations in control. Life is certainly more com plicated now. (Over)