CHAPTER X

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The night before I sailed from Samarai, Sione came to me and told me that he had recently been married, and that Moreton had promised to allow him to take his wife on the next round trip of the Siai; he also asked a like permission for Warapas. I remarked, that if Moreton had given leave I had no objection, and that if one woman came, I saw no reason why two should not. “Very good, sir,” said Sione; “if you have no objection, Warapas will get up anchor and take the Siai out when you are ready, and a new boy, who signed on to-day, will act as mate; I will go off in a canoe and pick up my wife and Mrs. Warapas, and come on board as you go through the passage, since the tide will not allow me to come back.” To this I consented, telling Sione to order Warapas to send a boat off for me at midnight, when the tide served.

Night and eleven o’clock came, my books, papers, and private stores were sent off to the Siai, when Poruma—Moreton’s private attendant who had been handed over to me during his absence—said, “You have no whisky on board, sir.” Accordingly I went up to Billy’s pub to buy some; emerging from there, with a bottle of whisky clasped in each hand, I encountered a boat’s crew from the Siai, and the newly signed-on acting mate. That potentate gazed at my bottles and me, and then commanded his boat’s crew to seize me and take me on board; protests, curses, and threats were unavailing; seized I was, held firmly, dragged on board, and shoved down into my cabin, to be joined the next moment by a frightfully angry and protesting Poruma. “What the devil is the meaning of this, Poruma?” I demanded. “I don’t know, sir, I think the new mate is mad.” The cabin door was locked, and I cursed through the ports, while Poruma abused the crew in Suau and threatened the vengeance to come. Slowly the Siai dropped down the harbour, until a canoe scraped alongside and Coxswain Sione came on board, and in a moment the cabin scuttle was unfastened and Poruma and I released. Foaming with rage, I paraded the crew on deck and demanded an explanation of the outrage, which was explained in this way: the acting mate had served in a trading vessel at Thursday Island, where his master was in the habit of getting beastly drunk on the eve of sailing, and refusing then to come on board; and he always instructed a boat’s crew to land, dodge about outside the pub, and carry him on board whether he liked it or not. Going ashore with a crew to fetch me, he had been told by Poruma that I had gone to the pub; he had followed me there and, seeing me emerge with two bottles of whisky in my hands, had concluded that his old Thursday Island custom was to be carried out. My violence, threats, and curses he had taken as quite in the natural order of events. I listened to the explanation, and then gently suggested that the acting mate should spend the next two days at the mast-head; Poruma said he ought to be ironed and put in the hold, as his violent action had prevented him from telling me that there was no soap on board. “Where is the ship’s soap, Sione?” I asked. “That has nothing to do with my private stores.” “Mr. Moreton,” said Sione, “met plenty ships and plenty dirty men; when a dirty man came on board the Siai, Mr. Moreton would say as he left, ‘take this with my compliments,’ and give him a bar of soap. I suppose Mr. Moreton or Poruma forgot to tell you that it was all done.”

At Dobu I landed and called on the Rev. William Bromilow; as both he and Mrs. Bromilow had spent many years engaged in missionary work among the islands and were great friends of Moreton’s, he acted as a sort of bureau of information in regard to the native affairs of Normanby and Ferguson Islands. He nearly always had a long list of native crimes for one to investigate, principally murder, sorcery and adultery; the two latter, unless promptly attended to, invariably ended in the former. Bromilow gave me word of the man Ryan, and some particulars as to where I could find the native witnesses to the murder, which he had been reported as having committed; off accordingly I went, and arrested him.

The affair shortly was this. Ryan and his mate had been prospecting Normanby Island for gold: having no luck, they had gone to a native village and endeavoured to hire a canoe and some natives to take them to Dobu, where they hoped to find a vessel bound for Samarai. The natives undertook to take them there, “to-morrow”; several days passed and it was still always, “to-morrow.” The two white men became angry, thinking that the natives were merely fooling them and keeping them hanging on for what they could get in the shape of tobacco and “trade.” Accordingly Ryan had gone to a canoe that was lying on the beach and threatened that, unless the natives launched it at once and took them to Dobu, he would break it up; it was explained to him that the owners of that canoe were away and therefore it could not be used. Ryan refused to believe the natives and began to smash it with a tomahawk; at once a native, armed also with a tomahawk, rushed at him to protect the canoe. Ryan then drew his revolver and shot the man. I committed him to the Central Court for trial; and, not wishing to carry him and his mate about with me on the Siai, decided to run back to Samarai and lodge him in the gaol, pending the arrival of the Chief Justice.

Hardly had the Siai dropped anchor in Samarai harbour, than Symons came running down the beach yelling, “The Mambare men in the gaol have broken loose; they have cleared out the warders and are now armed with crowbars and picks. For God’s sake hurry up!” Hastily I ran up to the gaol, followed by my armed boat’s crew, and in a few minutes we had the Mambare men in irons. Then I sent for Armit, to ask his advice as to what I should do with them. “Flog the ringleader and keep the lot in irons,” said Armit; “there is nothing else to be done.” The following morning, as visiting Justice to the gaol, I held an inquiry into the whole affair, the result of which was that I ordered Goria, the murderer of Clark, and Bushimai, who were responsible for the outbreak, each to receive six lashes with a “cat of nine tales.” This being done, and Ryan having been safely lodged in gaol, I sailed again for Dobu and the Trobriands.

At Dobu I learnt from Bromilow that Fellows needed me badly, and so went straight on to the Trobriands. One morning at daybreak, when the Siai was about twenty miles away from the group, Sione came to my cabin and said, “The Eboa is in sight, sir.” I went on deck and sighted Graham’s old tub about five miles distant, and palpably endeavouring to dodge away from us. “Chase, Sione,” I said. “Give the Siai all she can carry.” It was a dirty morning, with a rough sea and nasty fierce rain squalls at intervals. Until the Eboa was sighted we had been dodging along under mizzen, staysail and jib only; Sione—who was at all times only too pleased to carry on—at once set mainsail and topsails, and the Siai, with her lee rail under water, tore after the Eboa as if she liked it. We began rapidly to overhaul her, while the wretched Eboa tried every point of sailing in an effort to escape. “Look, sir,” said Sione, “a guba to windward.” A guba is a fierce blinding rain squall, very narrow in width—sometimes only half a mile and seldom more than three miles—tearing its own track across the sea, and rarely lasting more than half an hour to an hour in duration. I looked at the guba, then I looked at the wriggling Eboa, still carrying every possible stitch of her ragged canvas. “Carry on, coxswain,” I said; “it would be a disgrace for the Government ship to shorten sail while that old tub carries it.” Whish! came the guba; on her beam ends went the Siai; bang! bang! bang! went topsail, staysail and mainsail; and, amidst the devil’s own din, we brought the crippled Siai up into the wind, hove-to, and began to clear away our wreckage. Nothing was to be seen more than fifty yards away in the blinding rain and spray torn from the tops of the waves by the squall. “God help the Eboa,” I said to myself, “for she must have gone to Kingdom come.”

As we worked at our wreckage, the guba passed as swiftly as it had come, and when the sky cleared we sighted the Eboa uninjured, still carrying all sail, the squall having missed her altogether. While we watched her, she apparently became aware of the crippled state of the Siai, for she suddenly went about and stood down to us; when within hailing distance Graham jumped on her rail and hailed: “Black Maria, are you in any danger?” “No,” I yelled back, “but there is a fine big bill for sails, thanks to you.” “All right, good-bye, this is no place for me;” and away went Graham, while the Siai proceeded to crawl into the Trobriands. I did not again fall in with Graham for many months, by which time he had paid his debts and the summonses had been withdrawn. When I did fall in with him, however, there still remained the matter of the anchor and chain. “Touching the matter of that anchor and chain,” I remarked. “There will be nothing further said about it by either Moreton or myself; that matter is settled once for all, after the way you stood down to my assistance in the guba, knowing well that, even if you helped me, I should have been obliged to serve the summonses on you and haul you into Samarai to answer to them, and that if I discovered the Government anchor and chain in your ship, I should also have had to jug you. I have reported the gear as lost, and if there is any further fuss, either Moreton or I will pay for them; but I want to know whether you really did collar them?” “If nothing further is to be said,” replied Graham, “I don’t mind telling you that I did take them. By the time I had refitted the Eboa, I was up to my eyes in debt to the stores; and they—knowing that they had the security of my boat whilst in Samarai—would not sell me an anchor and chain, for fear of my clearing out to German New Guinea and leaving them in the lurch. I always meant to pay my debts to them, but I couldn’t do it while the Eboa was tied up in Samarai; I would not steal the gear from a trader who could ill spare it, but I thought the Government could well afford an anchor and chain for an enterprising pioneer. Accordingly, one night I quietly sailed alongside the Siai, when only a few of her crew were on board, and sending a couple of my boys to her with a concertina and a supply of betel-nut, they wiled her anchor watch into going into the forecastle. I then unshackled the Siai’s chain at her windlass, fastened it on to my own, and—as the Siai drifted away—got my own boys back on board, lifted the anchor and went out to sea. The rest of the story you know; but, as a matter of fact, when you chased me, the Siai’s anchor and chain were the only ones I possessed. Now they are at the bottom of the sea, for as soon as I had money enough to pay my debts and buy some gear, I let her anchor and chain go in deep water.” I only met Graham again once or twice, but he afterwards took an appointment under some German prospecting company, and was killed in German New Guinea.

VILLAGE IN THE TROBRIAND ISLANDS

At last the Siai came to anchor off Kavitari, and I called upon the Rev. —— Fellows, and asked him what all the trouble was about. The first thing was, that there had been an epidemic of some sort among the natives, scores had died, and been buried a few inches below the surface in the houses of the village; truly the stench was appalling. The village was situated only a few score yards from the Mission house. I sent for the village constable, and demanded what he meant by allowing burials in the village. “I cannot do anything with the people,” replied the village constable; “they will not listen to the wise orders of the Government or the good advice of the missionary.” “He is a liar,” said Poruma; “make him dig up the corpses and put them in the cemetery. That man has got ten wives, and is always gammoning Mr. Moreton; some of his relations are buried in his own house.” “Is this village constable to be altogether trusted?” I asked Mr. Fellows. “No,” was the reply; “I regret to say that he gives me more trouble than any one else, and shelters himself under the protection of the Government and his office.” “Then, Mr. Fellows,” I said, “I should be greatly obliged if you would send off your Mission boat to the Siai, to carry a messenger from me, who will instruct Sione to land all available men, whilst I pay a visit to the v.c.’s house.” Poruma told the v.c. that we were going to his house, and he at once tried to make excuses to leave, upon the ground that he wished the village and his house cleaned up to a fitting state to receive me. “Don’t let him go,” said Poruma; “the last time we were here, he got ten pounds of tobacco from Mr. Moreton to buy yams with, and then got called away to see a sick mother.” Poruma then kindly leading the v.c. by the hand, we proceeded to his house; there—as Poruma had said—we found several bodies just beneath the floor, which the v.c. swore must have been placed there without his knowledge.

Going along through the village, Poruma still kindly leading the v.c. by the hand, we found everywhere freshly buried bodies. Mr. Fellows, who had at first accompanied me, then, at my request, went back to the Mission house, for the village was now swarming like a hive of angry bees. Sione, Warapas and a dozen armed men having by this time made their appearance, I ordered the v.c. to tell the villagers at once to disinter their dead and bury them in the cemetery. For a few minutes we were defied, but the police—mercilessly using the butts of their rifles on the heels and bare toes of the men—made them see reason, and drove them to the graves, where they were compelled to gather up the rotting remains of the corpses in baskets, and carry them to the cemetery. Once, and once only, they turned nasty; but Warapas immediately withdrew a boat’s crew and, before half a dozen levelled rifles, the Kavitari men funked. That exhuming of bodies was altogether a sickening and disgusting business, for matter and beastliness dripped the whole time from the baskets, and carriers, police and myself were seized by periodical fits of vomiting.

Having cleaned up the village, I again visited Mr. Fellows and asked him what his further troubles were. I found they were mainly due to the influence of the old paramount chief of the islands, Enamakala, who lived some ten miles inland, and who instigated thefts from the Mission and attacks upon the teachers. Plainly it was necessary for me to deal with the old chief, but I knew that, if I marched inland with an armed force, there would be a lot of bloodshed and the chief would escape; if I left, however, without doing anything, he would become bolder, and the position of the Mission after my departure would be an impossible one.

Accordingly, accompanied by Poruma and Warapas, I went off to his village, first sending one of the local natives ahead to tell him I was coming. Poruma wore Moreton’s revolver under his jumper, and I, a couple of revolvers under a loose shirt: Warapas carried my gun, for the ostensible purpose of shooting pigeons, but had a supply of ball cartridges in his pouch. For fighting in scrub, a double-barrelled fowling piece with ball is just as effective as a rifle—shot, of course, is not much use against men carrying thick shields. Passing through the numerous villages on the way to the centre one, where the old chief lived, I noticed everywhere fresh graves under the houses, and found there were large numbers of the villagers sick and dying from dysentery. Arriving at my destination, I found the chief seated on a sort of raised platform, surrounded by at least two hundred men, who all set up a tremendous clamour as I walked up to him. “Tell him, Poruma, that I have come to have a little friendly conversation with him,” I said, as I climbed up on to the platform alongside old Enamakala, who was an enormously fat man with a shaved and shining head. Poruma told him what I said, and he replied that it was good and he was pleased to see me. Then he wanted to know why Warapas and Poruma did not stoop half-double before him as did his own people. “Because they serve the great white Queen whom the Governor told you about,” I replied, “and stoop before no man.” Old Enamakala gave me some fruit, and I presented him with some cigarettes; then we settled down to business. First of all I asked him to make his people stop yelling, as it was not fitting that our conversation should be carried on in such a babel; a sort of grand vizier person, with a face like a fowl, screeched at the crowd and the noise fell to a murmur. The chief suddenly bent over to me and ran his hands over my waist; as they came in contact with the pistol butts he smiled knowingly at me and said: “That is good. Poruma, tell your master I wanted to know whether he was fool enough to walk the bush paths unarmed.” Poruma told him, that as an act of politeness to him I had covered up my arms (great always was the cheek of Poruma), as I did not wish to make him nervous, but that now, as we were on such friendly terms, I should wear them openly. Accordingly I slipped my hand inside my shirt, unhooked my belt and fastened it on again outside, Poruma doing the same.

Then, through Poruma, I told him the Government was exceedingly displeased with him for allowing his people to steal from the Mission, and for threatening the teachers with spears; also for permitting the burial of the dead in the villages, and for refusing to send the children to school. Then I demanded that some six men, whose names the missionary had given me as having behaved in a particularly outrageous manner, should be given up; also that he should come out with me to the coast and attend at the Court, at which I should punish the wrongdoers, as a sign that he supported the authority of the Government. The chief said he did not want to go to the coast, and that he did not know where the men were. “If I don’t get the men I want,” I said, “I shall keep you in gaol until I do get them; as for coming to the coast, you must do that, whether you like it or not; I promise you safety and release when I get them.” The devil’s own clatter was set up by the natives at this, but Poruma yelled at them to shut up. “Tell the chief, Poruma, that I have twelve lives at my belt, and if there is any hostility, I’ll blow a hole through him as a start.” Old Enamakala said, that he would not have seen me, if he had known I was going to treat him in such a fashion. “Tell the old reprobate, Poruma, that I know he thought he was safe, when he heard there were only three of us coming; and that I also knew, that if I had come with a strong force, he would have slipped into the bush, and set his people chucking spears.” The chief argued and protested for some time; then he said that he would come in his own palanquin, as he was fat, and also that it was not dignified for him to walk so far. “You tell him that the Governor is the biggest chief in New Guinea, and he walked right across the island, so that he can walk to the coast. I walk first, then he comes, then follow you and Warapas, and Enamakala can have as many men as he likes bringing up the rear.” The chief grumbled and complained, but at last we set off in the order named, with Heaven only knows how many hundred men following us, and the women all howling behind. Half an hour after we started on our journey to the coast, a messenger caught us up and told me that the six men I wanted were coming after us to surrender themselves.

Half-way to the coast, we got one bad fright, for a terrific yelling broke out ahead of us and was taken up by the men behind. The chief gabbled excitedly to his followers, whilst I held him affectionately by the arm with one hand, and ostentatiously displayed a heavy revolver in the other. “Ask him what the devil all the racket is about, Poruma.” Then we found that a large body of natives was preceding us, warning the villagers, that they were not to interfere in what was taking place; this party had come into contact with a couple of boats’ crews from the Siai, whom Sione, getting nervous, had dispatched after me. I sent Warapas off with one of the chief’s followers to bring the Siai’s men to me, and told Enamakala that there was nothing to get excited about, as it was only an escort coming up to accompany me home in fitting state. When we arrived at the Mission Station, I found the six offenders whom I wanted, sitting outside, they having made a detour in the bush and passed us on the way. “Good Heavens!” called out Mrs. Fellows to her husband as I entered the Mission grounds, “here comes the great Enamakala, following Mr. Monckton like a little dog!” “Mrs. Fellows,” I remarked, “if you want to make a lifelong friend of the old fellow, you will give him some sugary tea at once, for he has walked further and faster than ever in his life before. He is not a bad old chap when you know the way to treat him.” The chief spent the night on board the Siai: I reassured him by permitting about twenty of his people to sleep on board also.

On the following morning I held a session of the district court at the Mission house, and sentenced the six offenders to varying terms of imprisonment. The chief at once became very friendly with the missionary, and begged him to intercede with me for the men, saying that if Mr. Fellows could get them let off, he would help the Mission in every possible way. Mr. Fellows accordingly begged me to let them go again, and I like a fool consented, thinking that I should encourage friendly relations, and at the same time save the Government the expense of six prisoners; but later, when the Governor heard what I had done, he gave me—as I have previously mentioned—a severe lecture for permitting the Mission to interfere with the course of justice. The old chief then made me a present of his own carved lime spoon; I told him that I should like to make him a return present, but that I did not know what to give him—the trade in pearls had filled his villages with tomahawks, print, trade goods, etc., and really I had nothing to give that he did not possess already. “I have not got a knife to cut off my hair with, such as that you used this morning,” he said; therefore I conferred upon him my razor, strop, and brush, with a couple of bars of yellow soap, which I got from the Mission. Old Enamakala was much pleased with the gift, and, when we parted, he swore there should be no further burials in the villages, or harrying of the missionaries.

At the Trobriands more outward and visible signs of respect were paid to the chiefs than I have met with in any other part of New Guinea. The old paramount chief never walked, but was always carried in a palanquin borne on the backs of men, and was invariably accompanied by his sorcerer and a sort of grand vizier. Before the old chief, women crawled on their bellies, and men bent almost to the ground.

I have lately received from Dr. Seligman, F.R.S., a book written by him entitled, “The Melanesians of British New Guinea,” in which he flatly contradicts a statement made by Sir William MacGregor that Enamakala was the paramount chief of this group of islands. Dr. Seligman is a personal friend of my own, and a man of world-wide celebrity as an authority upon anthropology, and he is a man to whose views, in most cases, I should immediately defer; but, in this instance, I have no hesitation in saying that he is not right.

Sir William MacGregor’s statement was quite correct; he is not a man in the habit of making rash assertions upon hearsay evidence. Moreton knew the Trobriand Islands better than any man either before or since, and he always held that undoubtedly Enamakala was paramount chief. I, when acting for Moreton, never had occasion to doubt this fact, and never met a chief who disputed his position as such; in fact, I myself have seen the chiefs stooping before him and paying homage. Certainly after his death, “Christianized” chiefs, under the influence of the Mission, declared that his successor had no authority over them, as did also other chiefs holding Government authority as village constables; but before the domination of Government and the influence of the Mission were established, there is no doubt Enamakala was supreme.

Elaborately carved and painted shields and spears of heavy ebony were the arms of offence and defence of the Trobriand Islanders; both plainly showing, by their exaggeration of design and size, that long since, this people had finished with fighting or war as a serious thing. Broad-bladed wooden clubs, shaped like a Roman sword or a Turkish scimitar, were also carried; but all alike showed, from their fantastic carving and shape, that beauty of pattern and design had been far more considered by the makers than effectiveness as weapons. The Trobriand people, or rather their sorcerers, had brought poisoning to a fine art, using as their most deadly poison the gall of a certain species of fish.

The Trobriand people acquired so many steel tools from their trade in pearls, that afterwards, the astute German Harry made a good haul in money by purchasing back from the natives—for tobacco—hundreds of axes, adzes, and tomahawks, which he then sold to miners bound for the Mambare, or traders working at other islands where the steel tools still possessed a very high value. Leaving the Trobriands I fell in with his vessel, the Galatea, and held an inquiry into the death of one of his crew; he, however, came out of it with a clean sheet, and was rather aggrieved at the Government considering it necessary to watch him so closely. Harry’s vessel was loaded with native sago, cocoanuts, tobacco, and a deck cargo of pigs, which he was going to exchange for pearls. Parting with him, the Siai sighted and chased a cutter, but the people on board her apparently had bad consciences, for she fled over a reef where the water was too shallow for the Siai to follow, and disappeared into the night.

At Wagipa we caught Patten, and I committed him to the Central Court for trial for shooting a native during a quarrel; we also took with us his native wife, Satadeai, and half a dozen native witnesses of the shooting affray. The Siai left Wagipa towing Patten’s boat—a thing little bigger than a whaleboat, and hitherto manned solely by Patten and his wife. As we stood across the Straits between Ferguson and Goodenough Islands, the look-out at our mast-head reported a large canoe, crowded with men, and apparently trying to dodge out of our way. The Siai ran down to the canoe before a strong breeze; she came from the northern coast of Goodenough Island, but we found nothing suspicious in her; so, after exchanging a few sticks of tobacco for fish, we went on our way.

Night, a strong south-easter and rough seas came together; by morning we were still battling against the head wind, in much the same place as we had been on the previous evening. Again the look-out reported a canoe; this time a small out-rigger, struggling in the big seas, with but a single man in it. To the canoe went the Siai, only to find the man half paralysed by fright and exhaustion; time and again we got within a few yards, yelled at him and threw ropes, but all he would do was to look straight ahead and mechanically keep, with his paddles, his tiny craft’s head to the waves. The sea was too rough for us to drop a boat, but at last, sailing close to the canoe, Poruma and Warapas—secured by ropes round their waists—leapt into the sea and fastened a rope round the stranger and his canoe, whereupon we hauled the lot on board together. We found the native to be a Ferguson Islander, who had been taken by surprise and blown out to sea by the squalls of the previous night. The man at first was greatly relieved and overjoyed at finding himself safe on the Siai; then, when warmed and fed, he got in a funk that we should carry him away with us, as others of his people had been carried off by strange vessels. “Take me to my home,” he said, “and I will give you pigs or women, yams and sweet potatoes.” Satadeai told him we did not want his gifts, but would safely land him at his village when the weather permitted; also that I should be pleased if he would induce his friends to sell us all the yams and sweet potatoes they did not require. The Siai then put in three uncomfortable days, waiting for the weather to moderate sufficiently to permit us to land the man; then land him we did, and that was the last we saw of either him or his yams.

We learnt one thing, however, from his village friends and relations, namely, that the large canoe we had spoken the day before we picked him up, had been to Ferguson on a cannibal raid, where they had captured and eaten several people. I groaned as I thought how I had had that canoe full of malefactors in my hands, and had let them go; I also thought of the delightful story they would be able to tell in the villages. Poruma said, “Mr. Moreton would have known; he would not have let that canoe go. Mr. Moreton, he——” What Moreton would have done, I don’t know, as Poruma was asked to go to the mast-head and wait there until I needed him. Poruma at times was trying to the nerves! From here we sailed for Samarai.


                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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