The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-11-18
PAPUAN WIRELESS.
How Savages Send I-ong-Distance
Messages.

messages.
Barbarous tribes in various parts OF
the world employ signal fires at night
ana other methods for the rapid con-
veyance of information. In some re-
spects the system employed among the
mountains in the interior of British
New Guinea is the most effective vet
devised.
A. Z. Pratt. the naturalist, who re-
Gently spent two years among the ma
tlVes OF this great island, gives in his
new book rather more detailed infor-
nation on this subject than earlier
writers have done. More than once he
round the extraordinary system of in
, accommodation among the Papuans
OF the greatest assistance to him in his
work. He calls it the wireless teleg-
raphy Of the wi,ds.
one day he needed to send a message
to native named Gaberio, who was
collecting butterflies and birds for the
expedition. His whereabouts were not
exactly known, but he was to the north
east somewhere, about twenty niles
away.
From the naturalist's camp could be
seen hill after hill rising to the north,
each of them crowned by native viii
lagos Men with specially good voices
are assigned to the service of passing
these wireless messages from hilltop to
hilltop until they reach their destina-
ton.
Mr.. Pratt set the service in motion
RI "a arin nd 6oli he
to him. He says that after he had
given the order at his station he heard
in a few minutes the natives calling
those attitudes their voices carried
magnificently for long distances and
village answered village with perfect
ease from ridge to ridge.
A little later the natives who were
attending to this biography at Pratt's
camp came to him with the tidings
that Gaberio had been found in a viii
lage only about ten miles away. The
message was delivered to him and he
returned word that he was coming
back by the same route he had fol-
lowed on the outward journey and
would reach camp next day.
A few months later Pratt, who was
collecting grounds, found that he could
not secure carriers from the natives
around him to transfer his baggage to
the other field. One day some big,
strong men of the Ivala tribe, with
their chief, called on him and he ar
ranged with them that, when they
were summoned by wireless biography,
they would start from their homes,
twenty miles away among the noun
tains, and carry his baggage to the new
camp. He felt sure that they would
respond to his call because he promised
them tobacco in payment, and they are
very fond of the weed.
Several weeks elapsed before he was
ready to move Then he set the tele-
graph in motion; one village called up
another, and so, stage by stage, the
message was communicated to the dis
tant home of the picturesque noun
taineers.
1t seems astonishing, but Pratt says
that this message was delivered TO the
chief to whom it was sent IN less thaii
ten minutes after it left his tent. Inc
on foot between these two ,
places among the steep mountains re-
1uires five days, though the distance
IS only twenty miles. !
In the afternoon the answer came
that the natives would be on their way
the next morning. So in due time they
appeared on the scene eager TO earn !
heir tobacco.