We have here an interesting example of the confusion that arises in the transition between one economic condition and another. Formerly communal labour was the rule. If a well had to be sunk or a house built, all friends would lend a hand, a feast with the concomitant excitement being a sufficient immediate reward, the reciprocity being, of course, fully recognised. Pedro’s loan of a boat on the hire system of purchase is well understood. Before the white man came it was customary for the Torres Straits Islanders to purchase their canoes on what was virtually the three years hire system. The crew demanding wages belongs to the new economic custom introduced by the Europeans.
Pedro, the owner of the boat, was drowned in the hurricane that swept across Northern Australia in March, 1899, and Jimmy had to pay D. Pitt the balance due on the boat.
The new Erub (Darnley Island) church was to be opened in September; and when the Murray Island contingent was about to start to take part in the festivities, Finau could not get a passage for himself or family unless he went with the Murray Islanders; so he asked Jimmy to lend him his boat. Jimmy said he could not lend it.
Two months afterwards Jimmy’s cutter went to Garboi sandbank to fish, and the crew slept on shore the first night. When they awoke next morning no cutter was to be seen; she had parted her chain in the night and had drifted away. So poor Jimmy lost his boat and all his labour, and the worst of it is, he has the haunting fear that it was the direct act of God because he did not lend his boat to the South Sea teacher when he asked for it. All the people assert this is the true explanation of his loss.
Jimmy is a happier man since his wife has ceased to be a boatowner, as she now condescends to roast yams and cook fish for him. Debe and he are as good friends as ever, and are always plotting how they can get as many shillings as they can for the least amount of work, and on the whole they succeed very well.
Debe is now the proud father of a pretty little daughter, and devotes a good deal of his time to nursing it. Occasionally he has a row with Kaima, his wife, when he considers she is not doing the nursing in a scientific manner. Then he generally takes the management of the baby for a time, but the infant does not fail to proclaim when it is Debe’s watch on deck.
On Friday, August 4th, 1899, there were two earth tremors on Murray Island. I cannot do better than transcribe Mr. Bruce’s vivid description of the occurrence. “I had just sat down to lunch when the iron roof and the verandah floor made such a clatter that I could not at all make out what was wrong; about five minutes later there came another and stronger shock. I jumped up and went on the verandah.
“There was a great crowd of men playing hockey on the sand beach in front of the house, and at first I thought some of them had been larking on the verandah, but when I went out everything was quiet. They were sitting down; not a word broke the deathlike stillness. I thought at first they were resting after their game, but even then they never sit still. I asked, ‘What’s wrong’? Then some of them came up and said, ‘Why, ground he jump up and down all the same as sea’!
“Then it struck me at once what had happened. I asked them how they felt when the shock came. They said the whole beach was heaving like the sea so that they could not stand. Some said they felt sick and wanted to vomit; others said everything looked blurred and indistinct, and men’s faces were all distorted when they looked at them.