Native Surgery
For most ailments the Papuan uses the old-fashioned remedy of bleeding. All sorts of pains in all parts of the body are supposed to be relieved by blood-letting, and the operation was usually performed by slightly cutting the skin with a shell, but now they have taken a step in advance and use a piece of glass. For headache, however, another instrument is used. Tima had been walking in the sun all day, and said his head ached, and Aisi acted doctor. He made a little bow and arrow, tipping the latter with a fragment of glass, and then, at very close quarters so that he did not miss his mark, nor lose hold of his arrow, he repeatedly fired at Tima’s forehead. In this case not much blood was lost, but I have heard of cases where half a pint has been withdrawn before the cure was considered complete.
CHAPTER XVI
The Aim
I have tried to make the Papuans real to you by stories of their daily lives, their vices and their virtues, their many fears and their few hopes, and want you to understand that they are men and women, and boys and girls who have their lives to live. They are not “something” to be laughed at, as many travellers seem to think, or exploited to put dividends into the pockets of investors in new companies.
I have tried to show you how we are helping the Papuan to live a fuller and better life than his father did. There is no talk about a finished article. You cannot make a Christian and a gentleman out of a savage as you can make a pair of boots, and say as you put them on the shelf, “There is the finished article worth so much.”
The Papuan may be turned in the right direction, but even then it means a long stiff climb, with many a backward slip. He needs all the help we can give him, by preaching, by schools, by industrial training, by constant watching and advising, even after he has learnt that there is One who came into the world to bring a message and a power that should touch man’s life at every point.
Some of the men and women I have told you about know this message, and are trying, as you and I are trying, to live up to their knowledge, but they deserve your sympathy. It is not an easy matter for them to rise. I have given you more than one story to show how the call of the old heathen life is always sounding in their ears and hearts.
To enlist your sympathy and help for those who know a little, and for the many who remain who have never heard of the message, is the aim of these Papuan Pictures.
“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, ye have done it unto Me.”
Printed by Butler & Tanner, Frome and London.