The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1917, Page 23

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pid
ii ! then the number of inhabitants has greatly in-
|} creased. But most of these people are still estranged
‘from God, walking in the darkness of Moham-
medanism and the gross darkness of heathenism.
B+) | [Besides copra, great crops of rice, sugar, quinine,
Fi and coffee come from these islands.
f ie New Guinea. — The most backward of all the
; ? Malaysian Archipelago islands is New Guinea, where
the sago palm nourishes the workless people, where
ithe sugar palm furnishes every man with a free
gin palace, and where traffic in birds of paradise
} brings wealth without effort. It is an Eden where
' toil is not known, and where the inhabitants are
| dying off because of the lack of action. The Ger-
| © man portion of this island is the field for the
missionary endeavors of two Lutheran missionary
“societies, who up to the time of their forcible re-
smoyal by the British, soon after the outbreak of
jthe Great War, were working there most success-
fully among the degraded. Papuans.

Tne Dyaxs or Bornro.— No young man is
;admitted to full tribal rights, nor can he win a
bride, until-he has at least one skull to advance his
suit. ‘The Dyaks believe that all those whose heads
;, they take will have to serve them in the hereafter,

i and that the strength of each victim is added to
18 his own in this life. They have an idea that a
‘ white man’s skull is of no value, because they do

“not believe that white people make good servants.
| 1A child’s skull is by them considered the most
lvaluable of all, and a woman’s comes next, be-

I cause, to have acquired either of these, they have
| usually had to fight all the male protectors of the

‘} family. Despite their unpleasant habit of gather-
} ing the heads of their enemies, the Dyaks are-honest
_ and honorable, and have other good characteristics.
Theft is practically unknown among them, so un-
known that there does not seem to be any tradi-

i tional law for its punishment. The Dyaks are also

» very truthful, and they are said to punish the liar
in a strange way. They heap up a pile of branches
| on a pathway between villages, and every passer-by

} considers it a sacred duty to contribute to the pile

' and curse the man in whose memory it was erected.

~ The Lutheran Church has been working among the
Dib yaks since 1835, but in the bloody Malay insur-
rection of 1859 seven stations were destroyed. Dur-
“ing recent years the Rhenish Society has been work-
| ing here with signal success.

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hj
i
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i!

Suararra. — Since 1861, Lutheran missionaries’

) of the Rhenish Society are successfully working on
' this island, though often under great difficulties

’

i The Lutheran Pioneer. 23

and amidst great dangers. More than 100,000 Lu-
theran native Christians are the proof of the faith-
ful work of such men as Dr. Nommensen and
Dr. John Warneck. ‘The native Christians build
their own churches and schools and largely sup-
port their pastors and teachers. On the island of
Nias the work of the Rhenish missionaries was
also attended by great success. Whole villages have
recently decided for Christ, and the missionaries
are penetrating into the interior more and more.
The number of native Christians in Nias is about
15,000.

Tnp1a. — With its 300 million people and 120
languages, India is one of the greatest of all
mission-fields. Lutheran ‘missionary endeavors be-
gan in India as early as the year 1706, when
Ziegenbalg and Pluetschau, two Lutheran mis-
sionaries, landed at Tranquebar. Some years later
another Lutheran missionary, the great Schwartz,
carried the Gospel to the southern extremity of
India. At the present time the work of the Ger-
man Lutheran missionary societies is greatly crip-
pled in consequence of the expatriation of many
of the missionaries. But before the outbreak of
hostilities extensive work was carried on by them
among the Kols of Northern India, and the Tamils
and Telugus of Southern India. The American
Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church is hay-
ing considerable success among the Tamils of the
Madras Presidency and among the natives of the
independent native. state of Travancore. The Lu-
theran General Council and the Lutheran General
Synod are making marked progress in their work
among the Telugus. The Joint Synod of Ohio,
which was just about to take up work in a field
ceded to them by the German Hermannsburg So-
ciety, has been much hindered by the refusal of
the British government to permit their missionaries
to enter India because of their German names! The
total number of native Lutheran Christians may
reach several hundred thousand.

AFRICA OwneED BY EuROPE. Bis, (a has a total

. area of twelve million square miles, and of this im-

mense area only 200,000 square miles is not under
European control. Liberia in the west and Abys-

sinia in the east alone are under natiye government.
While France holds the largest share, England lays
claim to the richest portions. Some of the Euro-
pean powers, notably Belgium under Leopold, exér-
cised a most atrocious control over the natives.

Congo Free State —never did a state less de-
serve the name!— was a veritable slave state and