Tropicalities

Magazine Section

Ilk For School Children

i NATIVE teacher at Ihu, on the L west coast of Papua, is to be congratulated on being the first introduce a daily cup of milk to s pupils. The milk supply comes om carefully tended goats. The acher is also planting citrus trees id Australian lemons so that the itive children will be able to have daily supply of fruit, too. In ihiti, it has long been the practice r children to receive a lunch of ait and milk.

Witness Of Horrible

Ceremonies

HIS curious object was presented to the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, by a well known ident of Rabaul, when His High s visited New Guinea last member. t is described as a head, and it 1 been broken from the full ire (a stone representation of a n) and mounted. The figure was d by the ancient Tolais (the ive people at the eastern end of v Britain) in horrible cannibal .ctiqes. ’he ceremony took place in an a known as Moromoro. The p-er i selected as the victim was

stabbed with a sharp bamboo knife; his blood was collected in a half coconut shell; the men present (no women were allowed anywhere near) drank the blood; they danced around the victim; and then the dead man was eaten.

The gentlemen who took part in this ceremony were called Iniat; and thenceforth they were for bidden to eat pig.

The area called Moromoro is known and feared by the Tolais of the present time.

How Wild Is “Wild”?

TWO “wild” dogs from the High lands of New Guinea made

newspaper head lines in Australia in March. Cap tured in the NG Southern Highlands, these were the same dogs described for PIM by Sir Edward Hallstrom in February PIM. (P. 17).

Passengers o n the ship were warned about these ferocious creatures —it was said that they would bite and scratch and, if the hated human kept clear of their teeth and claws, they might even spit.

Then, one morn ing, a woman shrieked. Her baby boy, she cried, was being mauled by one of the wild dogs.

Rescuers came at the dou b 1 e—to find the dog and the child having a romp together.

Thenceforth, they were nearly killed with kindness.

They are de scribed as “re sembling an Aus tralian dingo, but they howl instead of barking.”

A Stab At The Pearlshell

Mystery

JUST how,” many intelligent people have asked, “can the pearlshell industry sustain the high prices that this product has fetched in recent years?”

When Mr. Mikimoto perfected the genuine home-made pearl, popular opinion had it that there could be no great future in nuturing pearl shell beds just to become buttons on gents’ shirts. No longer, it was thought, would expensive limousines be seen on remote coral strands. In future, skin divers would have to walk home to their two-storeyed mod-con residences on the lagoon edge.

With plastic buttons now being stamped out in million dozen lots, it is certainly difficult to imagine MOP being bought for the same purpose at the current price of over £6OO per ton.

This nacreous product is shipped to strange places these days; Geneva and Stuttgart, for example, and a mysterious atmosphere that pervades case marking and shipping has convinced the cynics that, in

Brother J. Delabarre, of Papua, proves his point that Job's-tears are for women (PIM April, p. 18). This widow of the P-NG Southern Highlands, as a sign of mourning, is covered with mud and many pounds weight of the dried seeds, strung as necklaces.

Photo: J. Delabarre.

Cold-War tactics, pearlshell is a average pearlshell buyer in the field is an elusive fellpw who flits around the world with lips tight against importunate enquiries.

Nothing can be gained in pursuing him. Not in business hours, anyway.

But suppose, as an island resident, you have a friend a pearlshell buyer in New York, and you write and ask him for a straight answer to this MOP mystery.

That’s just what happened, and, in an apparently unguarded moment, the Manhattan man came back with a very interesting answer.

Pearlshell, he wrote, can prevent barrel-flash in gunfire, and is mixed with explosives for that purpose.

This is the best that we have heard yet, and we will consider it confirmed if strong denials are re ceived from top levels. —G.R. (It would be even more to the point perhaps in these days of push button warfare, if it prevented fall out after atom-bomb explosions.—

Ed. Pim).

Has Your Community Got A

Bigger Thirst Than This?

A SMALL European coastal com munity in Papua-New Guinea, permanent population 20, last year purchased from the local store 1,000 dozen bottles of beer.

Our arithmetic makes that 600 bottles per person per annum. Quite a thirst.

In addition, extra hundreds of dozens of beer are bought direct from Port Moresby: and there is also a good healthy trade in whisky, gin, rum, etc.

I WANT TO GET ON WITH MY

Garden

AN advertisement in the Cook Islands news-sheet in mid- March'.

EXCHANGE: Have one rake and one garden fork. Will exchange for either a garden spade or a shovel.

Apply Community Development Office.