Those New Hebrides

Musketeers Are Still At It

“The interior of Malekula is not very well known and the natives are reputed to be unfriendly and danger ous—it is the home of the notorious Big Nambas”

THAT particular sentence has been a permanent fixture in the New Hebrides section of our Pacific Islands Year Book ever since the Year Book was first published in 1932—and it looks as if it will be there for some years yet.

Recently, when two Italian camera men visited Malekula to make a film for Italy’s only television station, RAI-TV, of Rome, they found that the natives of the interior had not changed their ways a bit. In fact, the cameraman had the dubious dis tinction of being shot at.

The two cameramen are Messrs. A.

Cifariello and G. Atteni, who are on a world tour, which has already taken them to Papua-New Guinea, the BSIP, the New Hebrides and Fiji, to film aspects of life in out-of-the-way places.

Mr. Cifariello described his and his partner’s experiences at Malekula in an interview in Suva early in March.

“We had heard of the hostile people in the Malekula area and wanted to include them in our film,” he said. “It is a very wild country and the track we followed was taboo.

“We started off all right, but when we got inland we were shot at with rifles and had to retreat to safe

country. We made two other attempts but failed.

“However, we were able to film the men, who wore almost no clothes, when they came out into the open, “I don’t know where the people obtained their rifles, but they were certainly capable of using them. We were told that they used stones, which they packed with gunpowder, for bul lets.”

The "Black Musketeers" who shot at Messrs. Cifariello and Atteni were prob ably a bit younger than this one, who was photographed a couple of years ago by Reece Discombe, when he estimated his age at about 90. This old musketeer said that he bought his musket, a Snider, at McDonald's store at Havannah Harbour many years ago, and that with it he shot at the first missionary who landed there.