[Note: this transcription was produced by an automatic OCR engine]

THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE Ig
time, and did not therefore make even the roughest estimate
of the number of natives inhabiting the island at that time.
During the nineteenth century Malekula suffered, as did
Erromanga and other of the islands of the New Hebrides, from
the ravages of the black—birders and of the diseases introduced
by European vessels. So great was the toll on the natives that
in 1886 Inglis wrote of this archipelago : “ Let the present state
of things go on, and in a comparatively short period of time
those lovely islands will be uninhabited wastes." 1 With the
ofï¬Åcial suppression oi black-birding tho rapidity with which the
depopulation was progressing was somewhat checked no doubt,
but the Malekulans continued to dwindle in number. European
diseases, such as measles and influenza ; the sale of alcohol to
the natives which continues more. or less surreptitiously for all
that it is illegal; the sale of ï¬Åre-arms—illegal but nevertheless
carried on~~--as :1 result of whose use native warfare has become
a much more deadly occupation than it was formerly; the
depressing effect of the loss, under European influence, of old
customs and old interests—all these have helped to reduce the
population year by year. In 1910, at the instigation of the
British resident, an ofï¬Åcial estimate was made of the natives
oi the New Hebrides, and this is probably the most reliable one
yet recorded, though it cannot of course be regarded as having
been" quite accurate. The aboriginal population was judged
t|'§'§iiii‘tti,'be approximately 9,000. To-day the evidence suggests
thattthe ï¬Ågure -would tall considerably below this. As the people
ireiver been -ieduced in numbers so their culture has dwindled, and
tam has been a factor making for further depopulation.
'l)he decrease appears to have been particularly rapid between
theyears 1914 and 1926, as the iollowing extracts from Deacon’s
letters show. Writing from South-West Bay in r926, he reports :—-
‘ "The depopulation in the districts round here is terrible-
villages which existed when Layard was here “ having disappeared
completely. The death-rate is very high at present-two deaths
in the neighbouring village, Loorhenesang, last week ; two cases
of tetanus the week before; halt the men I have been working
w1th are down w1th fever or ulcers. Spanish influenza, brought
1 Inglis, 1ss6,‘p. 214.
4* 11/rr. John Layard wasworking in Atehin and Wale in 1914, and during
gnsHt1n‘:; he Kpent one fruitful week at South-West Bay. (Layard, 1922.)-