Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate

by C. A. W. Monckton

The title to a claim consisted of a document called a “Miner’s Right,” which permitted the holder to peg out and keep the above area, or as many more of similar dimensions as he chose to occupy or man. A miner’s right cost ten shillings per annum and ipso facto constituted the holder a miner—sex, infancy, or nationality notwithstanding, the only ineligibles being Chinese. “Manning ground” consisted of placing a person holding a miner’s right in occupation thereof, the wages that person received being immaterial. Thus a man employing ten or a dozen Papuans, at wages ranging from five to ten shillings a month, could, by merely paying ten shillings per annum per head for miner’s rights, monopolize ten or a dozen claims. The wages of the European miner ranged from twenty shillings a day and upwards, this, of course, being the man contemplated by the Queensland Mining Act, and adopted by New Guinea, as the person likely to man and work ground held by the miner holding ground in excess of that to which his own “right” entitled him.

In theory, it is of course manifestly unfair, that the native of a country should be classed as an alien, and debarred from any privilege conferred by law upon Europeans; but in practice, the granting of miner’s rights to them merely means that the European able to employ a number of natives can monopolize claims, to the exclusion of other Europeans. The native gets no more wages for his privilege of holding ground, and were the privilege withdrawn would still obtain exactly the employment he gets now, as his labour in working the claims is necessary and profitable to his employer, and the supply of native labour for the miner is never equal to the demand.

An interesting feature in connection with gold-mining on Woodlark Island was that frequently the gold-bearing gravel ran under old coral reefs, thus showing plainly that the whole gold-field had once been submerged under the sea. A warm spring running into one of the streams was, however, the only indication of past volcanic action. In the pearling ground off the island of Sudest, there occurs again under the sea, at a depth of fifteen fathoms, a big quartz reef running through the live coral and sand bottom—whether gold-bearing or not I cannot say—and dipping underground as it nears the shore.

Some time after my arrival at Woodlark the schooner Ivanhoe came in bringing provisions, tools, etc., for the gold-diggers, together with a number of fresh arrivals, among whom was a Russian Finn, the meanest and, in his personal habits, the dirtiest beast I have ever met. This fellow proved most successful in his mining; but eventually, while prospecting near his claim, lost himself in the forest. Upon his being missed, a search party was organized by the diggers to look for him, but after some weeks the quest was abandoned as hopeless and the man given up for lost; a considerable amount was, however, subscribed and offered by the diggers as a reward to any one finding or bringing him in. The Finn, in the long run, was discovered in a starving condition by some natives who, after feeding him and nursing him back to life, brought him to the mining camp, where he learnt of the reward offered for his recovery. He then had the ineffable impudence to object to its being paid over to the natives, on the ground that it was subscribed for his benefit, and that therefore he should receive it, magnanimously saying, however, that the natives should be given a few pounds of tobacco. Needless to remark, his views were disregarded, and the natives received the full amount; the man, however, as he was yet in a weak state of health and professed to have lost all his gold, was given sufficient to pay his passage to Samarai and maintain himself for a month from a fresh “hat” collection. At Samarai he resided for some time cadging, loafing, and pleading poverty, until one day the repose of the inhabitants was disturbed by wails of bitter grief proceeding from the interior of a small building, which was built over a bottomless hole descending through the coral rock, and was used by the islanders as a receptacle for refuse. Inquiry disclosed the fact that, during all the time he was lost and later, the Finn had worn a belt next his skin containing over two hundred ounces of gold, which he had kept carefully concealed. Having cadged a little more gold, he had gone to the small building, as being the most secluded place, to add it to his store when, being suddenly startled, he had inadvertently knocked the belt into the hole, where it lies to this day.

This was an instance of a man losing his gold, and well he deserved it; but I knew of another instance in which a large amount of gold was lost and recovered in a manner so miraculous, that but for the fact that many men are yet living in New Guinea, fully acquainted with all the circumstances, I should hesitate to tell the story.

A party of successful miners was returning to Samarai in a small cutter chartered for the occasion, the gold belonging to the individual men in their separate parcels or “shammys” as they are called—the name is derived from a corruption of chamois, the skin of which animal is fondly supposed by diggers to furnish the only material for bullion bags—being sown up together in a large hoop of canvas, and placed on the hatch in open view of all hands. The weather was fine and clear, no danger being anticipated, when as the vessel entered China Straits she was struck by a sudden squall, and heeling over shot the diggers’ shammys into the scuppers, through one of which they disappeared. So soon as the startled skipper could collect his wits and get his vessel in hand, he took soundings and bearings, and running hastily into Samarai, collected such pearlers as were there working, and offered half the gold to any of them recovering it. Several pearlers at once sailed for the spot, accompanied by the cutter of the bereaved diggers, which dropped her anchor at the scene of the accident and proceeded to watch operations. Diver after diver descended and toiled, diver after diver ascended and reported a soft mud bottom and a hopeless quest; pearler after pearler lifted his anchor and went back to Samarai, until at last the cutter hoisted her anchor also, preparatory to taking the diggers back to the gold-fields. A disconsolate lot of men watched that anchor coming up, but I leave to the imagination the change in their expressions when, clinging in the mud to the fluke of the anchor, they saw their canvas belt of gold.

After the departure of Sylvester I went into partnership with one Karl Wilsen, a Swede; he furnishing towards the assets of the partnership a poor claim and local mining experience, I, a well-filled chest of drugs and some knowledge of medicine. A couple of weeks after our partnership had been arranged, Lobb, the original prospector of the island, appeared at our claim with the news of a new gold find, at which he advised us to peg out a claim. At the same time he told me he was sailing for Samarai in a lugger owned by his partner Ede, in order to buy fresh stores, and asked me for company’s sake to go with him, holding out, as an inducement, that by doing so I could obtain some natives to assist in the heavy manual labour of the claim. Wilsen hastily left for the new find to peg out a joint claim for the pair of us, and I departed with Lobb for Samarai.

Lobb’s vessel, on which I now found myself, was an old P. and O. lifeboat, built up until of about seven tons burthen, lug-rigged on two masts, and carrying a crew of six Teste Island (“Wari”) boys. Lobb, I soon found to be absolutely ignorant of the most elementary knowledge of either seamanship or navigation; the seamanship necessary for our safe journey being furnished by the Wari boys, who had for generations been the makers and sailors of the large Wari sailing canoes trading between the islands. This kind of navigation consisted of sailing from island to island, being entirely dependent on the local knowledge of individual members of the crew to identify each island when sighted.

Shortly after leaving Woodlark we fell into a dead calm which lasted until nightfall—after which Lobb improved the occasion by getting drunk—then came on heavy variable rain squalls, during which the native crew appealed to me as to how they were to steer; being unable to see, they did not know where they were going, and Lobb was not by any means in a state to direct them. Fortunately I had noticed the compass bearing when we had left the passage from Woodlark and headed for Iwa, this being the line laid down by the crew in daylight; upon my asking them whether we should be safe if we followed that, and their replying “we should be,” I pasted a slip of white paper on the compass card and told them to keep it in a line with the jib-boom. When dawn broke, we had Iwa in front of us a few miles ahead, and running slowly up to it, hove-to in deep water, there being no anchorage off its shores.

Iwa is a somewhat remarkable island, and inhabited by a somewhat remarkable people. Rising sheer from the sea with precipitous faces, the only means of access to the summit is by the inhabitants’ ladders, made of vines and poles lashed together. The summit consists of shelving tablelands and terraces, all under a system of intense cultivation; yams, taro, the root of a sort of Arum, sweet potatoes, paw paws, pumpkins, etc., being grown in enormous quantities. The island of Iwa is quite impregnable so far as any attack by an enemy unarmed with cannon is concerned, and the natives have succeeded well as pirates in years gone by. From the top of Iwa, a clear view of many miles of surrounding sea could be had, and the husbandman, toiling in his garden, usually owned a share in a large paddle canoe, one of many hauled up in the crevices and rocks at the foot of the precipices of his island home. Sooner or later he would sight a sailing canoe, belonging to one of the other islands, becalmed or brought by the drift of currents to within sight of Iwa. At once, in response to his yell, a dozen paddle canoes, crowded with men, would take the water, and unless a breeze in the meantime sprang up, the traders usually fell easy victims. Reprisals there could be none, for no war party dispatched by one of the outraged tribes had a hope of scaling the cliffs of Iwa. The people there possessed an unusual skill in wood carving, their paddles, shaped like a water-lily leaf, being frequently marvels of workmanship.