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Show NATIVES ARE TOO POLITE Papuan Unable to Carry Friend Across Kills Him Because He Did Not Wish to Be Rude. P,elated to the weakness which induces in-duces the Papuan native to lie in order to humor the European is the courtesy which he often displays on the most unexpected occasions. You may tell the same story two or three times to a Papuan, but he will laugh just as heartily or express just the same astonishment the last time ns the first. No hint will escape him .hat he has heard the story before. And even in the crimes which he not infrequently commits mostly crimes of violence he is not always forgetful of the rules of politeness. "He wanted me to carry him across the water," said a prisoner who was charged with murdering another na tive whom he had met and done to death on the bank of a river, "but he looked very heavy. Of course I could not be so rude as to refuse to carry him, so I thought that the best way out of the difficulty was to kill him." Courteous, too, was the explanation given to me by some natives of the mountains inland of Kigo, who were charged with attacking a police patrol. "We had never seen policemen before," they said, "and we did not know what they were. If we had thought for a moment," they added, "that you attached at-tached any importance to these persons, per-sons, we certainly would not have thrown spears at them, we did not think that they were any good." Stead's Review, Melbourne. |
