The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1925, Page 173

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER.

178

of smoked human flesh. When he has been suffi-
ciently ‘hardened’ to the process by eating the pre-
served flesh used on all these occasions, he will be
given the opportunity of becoming a full member
by assisting at the consumption of a fresh corpse.”

On the art side, weaving is the principal occu-
pation of the men and embroidery that of the
women. ‘The men weave beautiful cloth, the pile
of some of it being very short and very close — like
the finest velvet.

Another cloth is made with damask designs, and
among the colors used are “a very delicate mauve-
yellow, with a good black.”

But it is as sculptors and carvers that the
Bushongo shine most, although the real artists
among them seem to be dying out.

The principal objects produced are boxes, cups,
dishes, drums, chairs, and, ranking above all, human
figures, of which the most remarkable are statues
of their ancient kings.

Flere we see again how intelligence and mental
vigor will not lift man morally. There is but one
power that can lift man from moral degradation ;
there is but one light that can guide man to God
and safety; there is but one influence that can calm
the savage breast and instil love toward his fellow-
men into the human heart — the Gospel of Christ,
the power of God unto salvation, the light that
shineth in a dark place, the message of God’s won-
derful love in Christ Jesus. F.J.L.

Australian Aborigines.

We read the following in a number of The Bible
an the World: —

“Tt will surprise many of you, no doubt, to learn
- that there are still tribes in the center of Australia
_ living like savages and going about without clothing.
For one of these, called the Aranda, our society is
publishing the Gospel of St. Luke.

“These people still fashion their spear-heads
and knives from flint or sandstone, and with such
instruments they perform the most daring surgical
operations. ‘Their features are said to be of the
Jewish type, and they are light-hearted, merry, and
prone to laughter. It is reported that before mis-
sionaries settled among them they had never been
known to wash, and the only land privately owned
was that which was not overcarefully concealed
about their persons. They did not cultivate the
land, but lived entirely on what they took in the
chase. They had no permanent dwellings, but

usually camped just where they happened to be
when night fell or they were tired out. They can
travel for hundreds of miles through the pathless
bush and reach the exact point they are making for
without fail; they can track animals over rocks
and stone where a European eye would be unable
to distinguish a mark.

“These people live in the very center of the
Australian Continent, where there is an elevated
tract of country known as the Macdonnell Range.
These mountains have, to a large extent, prevented
the surrounding country from becoming an absolute
desert, for they attract the tropical clouds, and dur-
ing the occasional heavy showers large volumes of:
storm-water rush down their barren, rocky slopes
into the Finke River and its tributaries, which over-
flow, and the land is flooded. The ground being
warm, as soon as the water has subsided, within
a month there is a luxuriant growth of vegetation.

“Missionaries from Germany opened their first
station on the Finke River in 1875, at a place which
they called Hermannsburg, about ninety miles from
Alice Springs. ‘They were 900 miles from the
nearest railway, and all their goods had to be car-
ried that long’ distance on camels. After eighteen
years of hard work these early missionaries with-
drew, but after a short interval others took their
place, and one of these, the Rev. C. Strehlow, labored
among them for a period of twenty-eight years,
until his death. He acted as pastor, teacher, doctor,
and manager of the station. He toiled early and
late, compiled a vocabulary, wrote a grammar,
translated Bible stories, and finally completed the
translation of the New Testament.”

With regard to the commencement of the work
by “missionaries from Germany,” the above-quoted
journal is not quite correct.. The first missionaries
from Germany to labor in Central Australia were
the late Pastors Homann and Goessling, who went
there in 1866. In 1878 the late Pastor Schoknecht
was there for a short time. Although none of these

‘succeeded in establishing native congregations or

even a permanent mission-station, still they blazed
the track for those who labored there with greater
success in later years. — Australian Lutheran.

German Missionaries.

Ten years ago the total number of missionaries
supported by German Protestant missionary. socie-
ties in foreign fields was 1,564. They were at work
in fourteen countries at 623 stations. Their schools