The Lutheran Pioneer St. Louis — 1933, Page 124

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124

THE LUTHERAN PIONEER

independent of any relationship to the community.
Woman can no longer depend upon the cooperation
of her sex in the production of food, so that it is
more difficult under the new conditions for her to
regard motherhood with complacency.

This radical change from entire dependence
upon the cooperation of his fellows to an almost
complete independence of them has been promoted
by unexpected causes, such as the enforcement of
intertribal peace and the consequent intermixing
and intermarrying of former neighboring and
enemy tribes. This far-reaching effect, brought
about suddenly by government ordinances, cannot
be overestimated. Among other things it has dis-
pensed with the primary necessity for the clan
system — united action against a common foe was
necessary for self-preservation. It has been one of
the chief factors in forcing individualism upon the
people.

The introduction of steel axes, knives, fish-hooks,
matches, and a hundred other things which com-
merce has popularized and which become imme-
diately indispensable and easily procurable, has
struck a death-blow at the center of the Papuan
social system. Stone axes and shell necklaces,
which Papuans used to prize, have lost their value
because steel axes and imported beads are found in
the white man’s stores in unlimited supply. Any
native can get the necessary price by selling a few
fowls or pineapples or by engaging in some kind of
service for the white man. It was with his former
wealth that the Papuan secured a wife, and to make
an initial present to his bride’s family he had to
solicit the help of every one of his relations. He
therefore had to satisfy them in his choice of a wife,
so that marriage was a family, almost a-tribal, as
well as a personal contract. Commerce has helped
to change all this by destroying old values and by
making the indispensable new things so easily ac-
cessible. If a man wants to get married to-day, he
is no longer restricted to the former friendly tribes
in his choice of a wife, nor is he dependent upon the
help of his relatives.. He pleases himself, and both
the man and the woman have a new sense of in-
dividuality. The change which has made marriage
easy has also made divorce easy. Under the old
system, in order to put his wife away, a man had to
break a contract between two tribes. The present
which his family had given to the parents of his
bride was an important investment, the equivalent
of which was in after-years returnable to them and
then passed backwards and forwards between the

two peoples. No man dared lightly to break such
a contract. If he did, he could not remain with his
divorced wife’s tribe; he could not return to his
own people, and if on rare occasions he might break
through conventions, what chance had he of re-
marriage? This new independence brings him no
responsibility and no restraint; consequently divorce
is common.

It can easily be seen how, for similar reasons,
adultery has spread within recent years. Under the
old native law the offense met with the penalty of
death. There was no escape from this, and it acted
as a powerful deterrent. Under British rule adul-
tery is punished by the infliction of a fine or a few
months’ imprisonment !

In former days home-building, like agriculture,
was a community affair. Heavy timbers and ma-
terials for walls and roofing had to be fetched from
long distances. To-day the Papuan cannot obtain
labor on the old terms by merely providing the
laborers with food while they work. Now a native
looks upon labor in the light of dollars, so that
house-building has become a more difficult proposi-
tion; hence poorer houses are built.

These are illustrations of ways in which Western
contact with these backward people has resulted in
some form of retrogression. The two largest factors
in their general declension, however, will need no
explanation, namely, the introduction of diseases
formerly unknown to these people: venereal,
phthisis, measles, whooping-cough, etc.; and the
fact that by compelling the Papuan to live at peace
with his old enemies, many of his former industries
and nearly all his art have been destroyed.

Notwithstanding the seriousness of the present
situation, however, there is no reason why the
changes should result in such tragic disaster to the
Papuan. The decline is not inevitable if we are
sufficiently awake to the danger and sufficiently in-
terested in his welfare to give him needed help. The
Papuan has proved himself ready to seize an op-
portunity of self-improvement. He is teachable,
capable, adaptable, and if he is carefully trained
when young, he becomes industrious. We must give
him instruction in such branches of skilled mechan-
ical work as shall fit him to make the best of his
latent abilities and to equip him to be of service to
his fellow-men.

The task of assisting this backward people
through this transition period will be neglected un-
less it is undertaken by the Christian Church.
Philanthropy and humanitarianism are not long-