the religious schools. Few if any natives of the Wahgi 
have been taught English. Only the missionaries and 
Dr. Reay have set out to learn the language of the 
Wahgi valley, and they are modest in speaking of their 
attainments. The peoples of the two races meet on com- 
mon ground in Pidgin, a language that filters out all that 
is distinctive and most that is of value in both cultures. 
Only now, at last, since Don and Janet Phillips of the 
Summer School of Linguistics have taken up residence 
at Tomoil, outside of Minj, is a start being made to- 
ward a deeper understanding of the native tongue. 
In the first ethnographic document ever published 
about the Mount Hagen natives, by Father William A. 
Ross, S$. V.D., there is already a reference to the ‘mush- 
room madness’. Written in 1934, the year after the 
Leahy brothers penetrated into the area on the first 
patrol, I’ather Ross’s account has this to say: ‘The wild 
mushroom called nonda makes the user temporarily in- 
sane. He flies into a fit of frenzy. Death is even known 
to have resulted from its use. It is used before going out 
to kill another native, or in times of great excitement, 
anger or sorrow.’ Father Ross wrote this statement after 
he had been in the country only ashort time. Inevitably 
it is inaccurate, but it shows the initial impact on an in- 
telligen: observer of a peculiar cultural manifestation, and 
it served to draw the attention of the learned world to 
the problem. ' 
Rev. Wm. Ross: ‘Ethnological Notes on Mt. Hagen Tribes’, 
Anthropos, 31, 341-363 (351), 1986. In a footnote Father Ross ex- 
plains thet he composed his notes on the basis of ethnographic and 
linguistic observations of the Rev. Fr. J. Kirschbaum and Dr. Cbr. 
von Firer-Haimendorf. 
Of the following references the first three reflect Father Ross’s 
observations. 
(a) Gitlow, Benjamin L.: Economics of the Mount Hagen Tribes, 
New Guinea. Amer. Ethnological Soc., Monograph XII, 1947. (The 
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