Norwich bulletin., 1919-05-23
IN THE DAYS NEWS
That Skull In the Peace Treat,


Germany is to restore within six
months the skull of the Sultan
Okwawa, formerly in German East
Africa, to his Britannia Majesty s
government"
This sentence from the official
summary of the peace treaty presented
to the Germans at Versailles set off
cial Washington wondering and
| swamped libraries and scientific in
S itutions in the Capital with in
National Geographic Society.
Among some tribes of Africa, in
; Guiding German East Africa, skulls
of former rulers, called sultans, are
held in high veneration, and thei1
possession often is of marked polit
ical value.
There are numerous tribes in Ger
| man East Africa alone, and as many
of these sultans as there are sribes
1t is apparent that Sultan Ottawa
was sort of Mohammed or Con-
| fEcius among his clansmen, and that
that nation which assumes sover-
| eighty over the people who revere
| his memory. and probably worship his
| skeletal remains, will be received
i with greater friendliness if it can re-
store the precious talisman
T., Furthermore the removal of he
skull sheds a sidelight upon the long
arm Of German propaganda, reach
! ing even into darkest Africa in con
! temptation OF der tag of Prussia
| day under the scorching equatorial
! sun.
The German government contrib
| uted a goodly sum for an expedition
headed by Adolphus Frederick. Duke
F.; of Mecklenburs, which ostesibly made
| a scientific udy of the German
!protectorate in Africa in 1907-0
! There is good reason to believe
! that the explorers were not wholly
unaware of political advantages ant
! by way of q tribal coup d'etat tool
/ away with them he skull which nov
| has gained such unlocked for pub
licity.
The Duke wrote book about his
! travels in which he states. in sum
marizing the results of his expedition
that 1917 skulls and about 1905
ethnographica were collected
! He described visits 20 variou.
/ 'sultanS.' At one point he digresse.
from botany and linguistics to give
! this naive comment on German mol
| icy: TT is desired to strengthen ant
enrich the Sultan and persons in au.
thority, and % increase thereby theil
| interest in the continuance of Ger
! man rule At the same time. BY
f-steadily controlling and directing The
Sultan and using his powers. civil
! izing Influences would be introduced
Thus by degrees. and almost i'm.
perceptibly % the Sultan himself. he
eventually becomes nothing less thar
the executive instrument of the Res
1 ident German governor).'
| But Germany's early policy in he1
African colonial expansion wa:
marked by no such adroit methods
| rather by just such disregard O
| native customs and ruthless meas.
ures as that indicated by her remova
of the skull referred to in the treaty
Karl -Peters, one of the first Ger
mans to seek to exploit AFRICAN re
sources, instituted such a reign O
/ terror among the natives by inhumal
treatment and especially by whole
i sale murders of their women that tn
German government was compelled t,
remove his commission until tn
! storm of civilized protest blew over
i But Peters was soon restored an
other bureaucratic German official
rudely deposed native rulers. instea,
i of cooperating with, them as did tn
British, and thus melted numerous
native uprisings. One Of these, i