The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-03-14
cANNIBALs or NEW HBBR1DEs.
Strange Mixture of Raoes-Their Pc

Strange Mixture of Races-Their Pe- culiar Customs and Rites. In Sou'west Bay alone I have seen, writes Beatrice Grimshaw in the Wind sor Magazine, describing the people of the New Hebrides, distinctly Jewish types of face, types suggesting the West African negro, types like noth- ing else on earth but themselves. There are in the bay three distinct languages, no one of which can be understood by the speakers of another; and in the rest of the island there are at least seven or eight other languages.
 The houses are of a very low and degraded type, being merely roofs set on a bamboo stockade a couple of feet high, but the hsnals, or sacred houses, of which each village owns one, are high, pointed, gabled buildings, with tiers of windows in the gable and lofty, narrow doors, apparently meant for the admission of very high proved canoes, which the New Hebrideans do not possess. There are certain Jewish rites in use among them; they have caste regulations suggestive of India, and they make mummies not very in~ ferior to those of Egypt. Also, they are cannibals, and they sing Gregorian chant or it's first cousin in their devil dances They worship the man-of-war hawk, which holds an extraordinarily high place In their religious beliefs; they set sn almost sacred value on pigs and the real object of their idols or images, which are hideous, no man knows.
 The existance of mummies, has, believe, been questioned. This is small wonder since they are always kept in the hanals or temples of the heather cannibal villages, and strangers are rot encouraged to meddle. had much difficulty in seeing one myself, as the temples are most strictly berred to wo- men. A native woman would be in- stantly killed if she so much as put her head inside, and 1 do not think it probable that 8 white woman would escape either if she were caught do- ing it. I was, however lucky enough in another part of Malekula to find a temple ungarded save by a few old wo- men squatting outside, and seizing the opportunity I entered.
 It was not a very good specimen, be- ing little better than a shed, and it was very dark inside; further I thought it well not to stay very long. However saw a number oi mummies, mounted on carved stretehers and painted red Nand blue hanging up around the sup porting parts of the roof; also good many skulls placed on rough shelves, their faces covered by ai mask of fib- rous stuff painted red, and some curl Iously curved spears, adzes and killing mallets hung around the walls. I got away again without being seen, and left that afternoon by the monthly steamer, it being the last day of my stay In Malekula. heard afterward, however, that i'll feeling had been caus- ed among the natives by my violation of their Bluebeard chamber
 | On another occasion I succeeded in seeing q, place into which no white per- son had ever ventured before-a forest ! cannibal fortress, six miles up in the I untraveled interior My host told mo | that If went with him quite unartned and with only couple of boys to guide us and carry our dinners our signif+ canoe would probably bring us through all right. Within the bamboo stockake that surrounded the houses dancing had begun.
 I have not space to relate the tale of that strange slght--of the wild, weird dance performed by band of bowling black demons, carrying cock | ed and loaded rifles, in the center of the square; of the deafening boom made by the hollow idols themselves as they were loudly beaten by the musicians; I of the strange solo dance performed by famous cannibal chief, wherein he enacted with unpleasant realism, a hawk bouncing down on it's prey, of the still stranger dance performed by another, who capered lightly about with a large, squealing live pig on his shoulder, of the extraordinary charac- ter of the dancing chant, as like Greg brian pointing and all, as small pea is like a big one.