Territories TALK-TALK

New Hanover, a less-known area of the New Ireland dis trict than other parts, came into the news the other day when a section of the population insisted on voting for US President

Lyndon Johnson.

THEN, later on, a Health Depart ment official made some interest ing comments on his “discovery” of sun-worshippers’ temples on a high hill on New Hanover and, according to the New Guinea Times-Courier “revived the theory of an ancient, forgotten civilisation in Papua and New Guinea”.

He described his find as a “vol canic rock obelisk set amidst smaller stones . . . facing the rising sun”.

Local natives claimed it was “something belong Before” and that they were “spirit stones”.

The story goes on to quote Jack West, old-time resident in the Terri tory, who spoke of similar obelisks he had observed on Bali Island, off Talasea (New Britain) and on Wokeo Island in the Schouten Group (Wewak).

Other “spirit stones” are still stand ing (so far as I know) on the north coast of Buka and on Jame island, off the Buka mainland. Natives in the Buka areas whom I asked about them some 50 years ago “hadn’t a clue” as to their origin and shrugged them off with the usual: “Something belong Before.” I have heard of other obelisks in the NG Highlands.

I took little notice of the obelisks in Buka at the time, but a few years later a bell rang when I read W. J.

Perry’s The Children of the Sun : A Study of the Early History of Civili sation, in which he told of the pere grinations of the people of the ancient cult of sun-worshippers, start ing from the cradle of civilisation, wandering throughout the world and settling in areas containing pearls and/or gold. And, if I remember rightly, mention was made of New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.

The theory opens up a potentially vast field of research. I remember I was rather intrigued at the time when reading the book to realise that early religionists had the same tendency as our modern sectarians who are not above giving due regard to the pearls and gold of this age.

With Tolala

Modern Sun-Worshippers

IT is quite true that New Guinea has had its more modern sun worshippers who, at the beginning of the 1900’s, emigrated from Ger many and settled on an island in the Duke of York group.

There were some four or five cul tists at one time under the leadership of August Engelhardt—a tall, strik ing-looking blond, with flowing hair and beard, like a character out of one of Wagner’s operas.

He was a most intelligent indi vidual, though generally described by the locals as a “crack-pot”.

I met up with him in 1911 when I visited him on his Kabakon Island and he honoured me by donning a lava-lava (usually he was in the raw), and greeted me in perfect Eng lish.

He was the last of the band that came out from Germany. He was a graduate of the Bonn University and spoke several languages. Other mem bers of the cult had died and one, Willy Bradkte, had departed from the faith and taken up plantation in terests on New Ireland.

Engelhardt’s religious discipline

consisted of worshipping the sun through the medium of the coconut palm, a product of the sun which provided him with his only food and drink and means of shelter. He would bask in the sun for hours, although there were times, he told me, that he sinned and sought the shelter of a giant mango tree and enjoyed his beer or a bottle of wine and the more orthodox food, which in those days came out of a tin.

I visited this man many times in those days and this was over 50 years ago. I enjoyed his company and his extensive library. I saw him again in an internment camp in Rabaul at the

oeginning of World War I. He was only a shadow of his former self, re duced to the official diet, unable to sun-bake and suffering general frus tration; he died shortly afterwards.

His old island of Kabakon, planted up by his energetic follower, Bradkte, is still producing good copra, after having changed hands many times.

The Tin Can Mail THERE came an aerogramme from Sunny California the other day and I was immediately struck with its compact neatness in comparison with our own rather sloppy, untidy aero grammes, requiring opening on top and side, while the US type, folded differently, opened only on the one side.

Added to which the text of the missive was written on a machine with an artistic italic type-face. And there was not one typographical error. Such typing appeals to a two fingered artist like myself whose MS. must always be an added bugbear to an editor’s life.

The writer was Mrs. Gertrude Baker, a lady with itchy feet who loves wandering through the Pacific isles. She has made two trips and starts on her third trip this month.

A woman, I surmise, of keen obser vation from her candid comments on the various islands she has visited and the receptions she has received.

She was favourably impressed with P-NG where “she was treated like a queen”.

She adds: “On my first trip the woman from Air France who fixed my ticket advised me against going to the Territory (P-NG). She said it was too dangerous for a lone woman, but she was nuts.”

To get down to tin-tacks: What Gertrude wants especially is a copy of the book Tin Can Island, by Ramsay. Can any reader help? Her address is: 2320 Via Pacheco, Palos Verdes Estates, California 90275.

Usa.

The Mails Must

Get Through

WRITING as I do at this particular time (early April) when Her Majesty’s Royal Mail has struck a trade union bottle-neck in Sydney, it certainly seems that with all our wonderful progress we still have to cope with the human element when it comes to basic necessities.

The delivery of mail in the earlier days of New Guinea, especially on outstations, was always No. 1 priority.

On steamer days red-tape went by

the board and willing unofficial hands often coped with the sorting if the Government official was engaged on other important matters; temporary post-offices were established at steamers’ ports-of-call and the mail sorted on the spot; neighbours’ mail was popped in a bag and taken by planters and traders. Police-boys were often sent miles along the coast to deliver mail. The mail must get through!

I cannot recall in NG any unique service such as Tonga’s Tin Can Mail on Niuafoou, but perhaps one of the

most unorthodox methods was that prevalent during the early days of World War I in the more settled areas of New Britain, when the Ger man planters were confined to their estates and all communications were censored.

To evade censorship, German plan ters would send inter-plantation mes sages by medium of the Sore-Legged Bandage Service. The native messen gers would carry the paper wrapped in a bandage on the leg, the outer portion usually considerably soiled, so that even the most conscientious

military searcher was not anxious to disturb it.

I had an experience of uncensored messages in October, 1914, when I was on Arigua plantation down in Bougainville. Our troops had landed at Rabaul in September, but Bou gainville was still, ostensibly, under German control until December of that year.

One day a Police boy arrived with a typed news-sheet in the German language, containing the first war news we had received. It was de pressing: “The Crown Prince had been crowned King of Paris; the British fleet was bottled up in the Thames; the Lusitania had been sunk by torpedo (actually she was not sunk until May 7, 1915 —seven months later) and London had been heavily bombed.

The source of this information was a mystery to us Australians. How had the Germans received it?

It was our first introduction to cold war tactics, which we innocents swal lowed —hook, line and sinker.

Preserve The Native Arts And Crafts A COUPLE of enterprising NG gentlemen are reported to be making a “good thing” out of cashing in on native arts and crafts and they have orders to fill from Britain, America and Europe.

As live business-men with an apti tude to “make hay while the New Guinea sun shines” throughout the world one must appreciate their in tuition and energy.

On the other hand, if the report be correct, the exporting of NG artifacts by the ton and the denudation of

“sacred huts of their decorations to sell them” should give the Adminis tration food for thought if it is at all concerned in the preservation of New Guinea’s original arts and crafts as distinct from the constant urge to inoculate the primitives with our own particular brand of culture.

In pre-war TNG, before the Mam mon Deity was such a sacred cow as it is today, there was an ordinance which gave the Administration full control to prevent the export of native arts and crafts from the Terri

tory. And it was, furthermore, rigidly policed.

I should be sorry to see this curio industry expand to such an extent that artifacts become replaced by shoddy, mass-produced articles for trade, and the genuine, dinkum curios exported to adorn museums and rich collectors’ homes in foreign lands.

In a few years’ time we shall see in the antique shops of the world the famous Hagen axe stamped in some obscure corner “Made in Japan”.

And what of the tourists, who may come to the Territory, in answer to the proposed tourism drive of which one reads? Will they be satisfied with shoddy, Brummagem articles? All tourists these days are not mugs.

It is up to the Administration to show its hand. Its obligations as trustee of New Guinea certainly do not call upon it to eliminate all trace of the genuine past.

Ng Boys' Brigade

On The March

The Boys' Brigade has spread to P-NG from other islands in the South Pacific, where it is very popular. An official of the Boys' Brigade Australian Council said in Rabaul, which he visited in March, that Brigade potential in P-NG was "tre mendous". Here is the 1st Rabaul Com pany on the march.— Photo: C. H. Meen.