The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-05-14
IA STORY OF TIE
 LAND OF PAQUA Prehistoric Race Still Eat
 Their Enemies IN NEW GUN E A Is Yet in the Stone Age-Walter Goodfellow Accounts Remarka-
 ble Adventures-Graye-
 yard of Explorers
From the Ohio State Journal.

yard of Explorers
 From the Ohio State Journal.
 Word at last from the brave Staniforth Smith, British ambassador for New Guinea, and his plucky party-they are safe. only the other day natives brought word to Goaribari that the yenturesome explorer and his party had been massa,- cred and eaten by natives, and they were given up for lost. They had deliberately set out to get into that district in British Paqua, where the natives are the worst of the whole population-all of them out and-out cannibals.
 But Smith and his men were not slain. They suffered great privations and hao many d brush with the hostiles. but not one of the Europeans was hurt. though they lost a few native carriers. Now they are safe at Thursday Island, after having been away since November IS last, much longer than was expected. But they have been where no white man has ever been before-to return alive.
 1neTG dl 0ldiDlCiS anu entire party were killed and eaten. A similar fate has met other white men who have essayed these tropic island wildernesses in other days. Even now less is known about the territory than is known about the North Pole. Tho upper Purari river is a sealed book-at least to white men.
 In 1908 a party under Colonel Mackey started to reach it, but failed. Earlier in the year two traders, Buchanan and tried the same route, ac- by a big party of friendly na- tives. all well armed, but they were driven. off before they had gone far on the lower Purari river These untutoned cannibals fought with the tactics of naval officers, handling their canoes and weapons with consummate skill. Their bowmen were so expert that they could shoot three arrows at one time.
 Just back in London from New Guinea is Walter Goodfellow, who led the Brit ish pathological expedition to Dutch New Guinea last year. After a series of wonderful experiences he has come home invalided. He tells some remarkable stories of adventure and recounts many interesting and hitherto unknown facts concerning the natives of that little known land.
 In Paqua No Metal Tool
 In word, New Guinea today is in the stone age. Perhaps there is no other spot under the sun where one can really wit ness prehistoric peoples and customs just as they existed aeons ago. These Paqu- a+o al sils, no nails, no knives, no axes of metal. Every tool, every weapon, is either stone or of wood. And their customs are as primitive as their tools.
 The Goodfellow party went there In January, 1910. When they were first sight ed off the New Guinea coast there was tremendous excitement ashore, because the natives had never seen white man before. In the whole island there are but 70 Europeans all told, and these are hun dreds of miles away from where MT. Goodfellow decided to land. When they put ashore their boat swere surrounded by canoes filled with naked, bowling sav- ages, 20 or 30 to a canoe. They landed at the mouth of the Mimika river and start ed towards its head waters.
 MT Goodfellow found that the land Is nearly all swamp. The whole country IOTHlS d system Ol enOTIlOuS TlNtTS ulS- charging their waters through wide deltas, a veritable network of streams. It was nothing unusual to cross 30 rivers in one days march of 15 miles. Elsewhere the dry land was an almost impenetrable jungle At one point it took three weeks to cut less than two miles of track through the jungle. For hours the men hacked at twisted masses of vines, creep CTS and thorns, bringing down showers of stinging ants and arousing nests of hornets.
 When we arrived In the country the natives were living in the stone age,' said MT. Goodfellow. They had no iron or metal of any description at all They used stone axes for cutting. The beauti- full carving on some of their weapons was done with bits of shell and pigs tusks. Each village seemed to possess at least one old man whose duty apparent ly was to sharpen their stone axes for them. These implements present very lit- tie difference from those which have sur vived from the stone age in England.
 When they began to understand the use of our iron axes their sole idea was to possess an axe of that kind. In some in- stances they were only too ready to give up their stone axes when we gave them an iron axe, which we sometimes did in exchange for a canoe--if it was a very l fine canoe.
 The Narrative of MT. Goodfellow
 "The natives we met on the Mimika
 average five feet eight inches to five feet nine inches in height. Their color is light compared with that of the na- tves of some parts of New Guinea. AL binism seems to be rather frequent with them. I saw a child who was perfectly white, with tow-colored hair and pink eyes. The father and mother, who were dark skinned, were particularly proud of their child. Some of the people are quite hardsome, especially the men None O, them have any power of counting beyond three. We spent hours in trying to gel them to go beyond that number, but the; were unable to do so. When we wanted to imply large number we put our hands together with the fingers touching, and sometimes put our hands to our feet They seemed to understand what was meant by this method of indicating mul- titude. N
 .Tbey wear nothing that we understand by the word clothes. So far as we could ascertain they have mo religion They are practically homogeneous, for although a man may have more than one wife, this is not usual; and I have known men of 20 or 30 years of age who were unmarried. man marries a woman in order to make her work-she is a beast of burden ab- sclutely Occasionally the men will go hunting if they want meat or will catch fish. But in general all the labor is done by the women, and the gathering of sago is entirely done by them The men only help to build the huts of the community,