Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate

by C. A. W. Monckton

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.