The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1933, Page 123

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THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

123

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To-day, in the center of this same locality, there
is a small, growing township with three hotels,
three large general stores, various government of-
fices, bonded stores and warehouses, a bank,
a cinema theater, wireless telegraphy, a hospital,
and a number of private dwellings. A regular
line of steamers connects this port with Sydney,
New South Wales, calling every three weeks. White
men have taken up land along the coast and have
formed plantations for the cultivation of coconuts,
rubber, ete. The white population numbers about
700 people, who either reside in the township or
make it their business headquarters. The coast is

original rights and who have been given the benefits
of the Gospel. With the incoming of Western civiliza-
tion the Papuan has received many real advantages.
The local government has made good laws, and com-
merce has brought material benefits. Mission re-
ports are also encouraging. But in spite of the
good which these forces have brought to the Papuan
in both material and spiritual things, his old life
has been so shaken to its foundations that he is
faced with racial disaster. The new order has in it
destructive elements far more evident in their re-
sults upon his life than are the constructive forces.
Benefits have been doled out by the handful, while

Papua at Dance.

sometimes quite alive with the sails of white men’s
boats.

This drastic change in the conditions of the
country has been a serious matter for the Papuan.
Both government and mission reports state that the
native population is diminishing, and there is also
a marked declension in the alertness and vitality of
the people. The houses that the natives build to-
day are generally inferior in size and workmanship
to those they used to make with crude implements
before the advent of the white man. While most
of the glaringly vicious practises of their former
savage life have been set aside, abortion and
adultery have alarmingly increased, and divorce,
which thirty years ago was very rare, is now
common. ;

It may be difficult to understand how such havoc
is wrought among a people who have been brought
under a flag which is pledged to safeguard ab-

the things which are bringing about his material
doom have been distributed broadcast.

For example, abortion was always practised to
some extent by the Papuan; but formerly this was
largely due to the division of labor, which allotted
the work of agriculture to the women. The men
felled the heavy forests, chopped up and burned off
the timber, fenced in the garden, dug up the soil,
and left the cultivation of grain, tare, and sugar-
cane to the women. Every woman had to do her
share, or she and her family were short of food.
Often the woman could not spare the time to bring
up a large family of children, and this led to abor-
tion. But the marked increase in this practise is
due to the entire breakup of the old clan systems
under which these people formerly lived. In one
generation the Papuan has changed from a position
in which he had next to no responsibility, except as
a member of a clan, to one in which he is almost