The following quotations from a recent scientific work published by the Oxford Press—“The Northern d’Entrecasteaux,” by D. Jenness, and the Rev. A. Ballantyne, 1920—are also examples of the dangerous and heedless tampering with the one authority that now binds the natives, the one discipline they can be relied upon to observe—that of their own tribal tradition. The relations of a church member who died, were “counselled to drop the harsher elements in their mourning,” and instead of the people being bidden “to observe each jot and tittle of their old, time-honoured rites,” they were advised from that day forth to leave off “those which had no meaning.” It is strange to find a trained ethnologist, confessing that old, time-honoured rites have no meaning! And one might feel tempted to ask: for whom it is that these customs have no meaning, for the natives or for the writers of the passage quoted?

The following incident is even more telling. A native headman of an inland village was supposed to keep concealed in his hut a magic pot, the “greatest ruler of winds, rain, and sunshine,” a pot which had “come down from times immemorial,” which according to some of the natives “in the beginning simply was.” According to the Authors, the owner of the pot used to descend on the coastal natives and “levy tribute,” threatening them with the magical powers of the pot if they refused. Some of the coastal natives went to the Missionary and asked him to interfere or get the magistrate to do so. It was arranged they should all go with the Missionary and seize the pot. But on the day “only one man turned up.” When the Missionary went, however, the natives blocked his path, and only through threats of punishments by the magistrate, were they induced to temporarily leave the village and thus to allow him to seize the pot! A few days later the Missionary accordingly took possession of the pot, which he broke. The Authors go on to say that after this incident “everyone was contented and happy;” except, one might add, the natives and those who would see in such occurrences the speedy destruction of native culture, and the final disintegration of the race.