Los Angeles herald., 1910-06-26
Queer Customs
of C0nnibdIs
Many Tribes, but All Unite in a
Fondness for Eating of Human
Flesh and Piercing the Ears

Capt. Ernest G.. Rason of the British
the New Hebrides. who passed through
New York recently on his way to Eng
land, had an interesting story to tell of
the quaint ways and customs of the
cannibal natives of those distant South
sea islands, which have but recently
come under the joint dominion of
France and Great Britain.
For those who nave no school atlas
ready at hand it may be we'll to recall
taht the New Hebrides are a group of
about a dozen large volcanic islands in
the South sea, lying some 1900 miles
from Australia, due northeast from
Sydney. They were discovered in 1906
by the Spanish explorer Gueros, but
they were never formally claimed as
one of the colonies of Spain.
The New HebrideS are thickly inhab-
tied by various tribes of Papuans,
brown cannibals commonly called Ne
gritos. These tribes differ very much
from each other-in physical character
istics, in speech, customs and dress.
In the northern islands the men some
times attain a height of six feet and
more, whereas in the southern islands
the average height is about five feet.
On the Solomon islands all the natives
go stark naked, but on the New Heb
rides proper most of the men wear a
poor excuse for a breech cloth, a kind
of geestring, while the women wear a
thin gown of one piece that comes
down to their knees. All the children
up to the age of 10 or thereabouts run
naked.
A boy is considered a man as soon as
he can throw a heavy spear. Girls are
married from the age of u upward.
The men do up their hair in braids or
tassels, often very grotesque. This
headdress, like their garments, varies
according to the tribes. There are
some forty tribes with no less than
thirty languages.
The only traits these tribes have in
common are their fondness for eating
human flesh, their custom of piercing
the nose and a peculiar trading lingo
for intercourse with European traders,
known as beche de mer. This queer
speech, made up of hodge podge or ma
tive words, Spanish, French and pidgin
English, bears resemblance to SINH
larly made up lingo of the West Indies,
the papimento of Trinidad and Cura--
Goa.
The Papuans have ten degrees of
caste or rank, graduated strictly ac-
cording to a mans ownership of pigs.
Wives, too, are rated according to the
number of pigs it took to purchase
them. The Papuan who has but one
or two razorbacks is a plebeian, while
he who can boast of a whole drove of
pigs is rated as a magnate and will
thus rank in heaven. In addition to
this there is a system of promotion by
which men who enter heaven rich will
become richer, while those poor souls
who had the misfortune to die pigless
stay poor forever.
Pigs, by the way as we'll as chickens
and a species of mongrel terriers, are
indigenous to the New Hebrides, at
least Captain Cook, the explorer, re-
ported that he found these animals do
there when he first touched
among these islands. Our other do
nestle animals, such as cats, sheep,
goats, horses and cattle, have been in
troduced into the New Hebrides only
during the last century by mission
aries. In the native tongue horses