A Chieftain Comes Home

t Native agriculturists in the Western Highlands, New Guinea,* will soon be producing peanuts for 1 local and overseas markets. Half a-ton of first grade Virginia Bunch: peanut seed was distributed recently, and will be planted under the super vision of Agricultural extension officers.

High Chief Henri Boula, 22, who has spent the last three years in the French Navy (he saw service in France, Tahiti, United States, Saigon) and has now returned to assume his role of High Chieftain on Lifou Island, one of the Loyalty Group. In June he was waiting in Noumea until someone arrived from Lifou to take him back home—that is the custom.

Boula comes from an interesting family that is part Scots. His uncle, Louis Boula, from

whom he inherits the title had a Scots grand father and a part-Scots mother who was edu cated in Sydney. The district where the Boulas rule is noted for the number of people with European blood —the result of desertions from ships that in the early days called at Lifou for supplies. The district is strongly Protestant it was a Boula who permitted the first English trained Samoan evangelists to land and spread the faith.

Photo: F. E. Dunn.