Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate

by C. A. W. Monckton

Captain Barton and I then went together to the Governor, who was talking to Judge Winter, and Barton told him about my protest. “I have been assured by Mr. Moreton, that he walked across the island with nothing but his walking stick,” said his Excellency. I groaned. “Moreton has been guilty of that folly, sir; but Moreton is known to the people, and what he can do another cannot; also he only risked his own life, and not the lives of the Governor and the Chief Justice.” “You really think it unsafe to cross unarmed, Monckton?” asked Judge Winter. “If we do it, sir, I consider that we shall incur an unnecessary and very grave risk,” I replied. The Judge turned round, walked to his cabin, and returned wearing a heavy revolver at his belt. The Governor turned his shoulder to me pettishly; but when we got into the boats, I noticed that both Barton and Murray were wearing their revolvers. As soon as we got on shore, Barton told me to take command of the police. “Then first detail two men to keep the Governor in sight all the time,” I said. Mr. Le Hunte carried a butterfly net, was a very slow walker, and kept perpetually crashing off into the scrub in pursuit of butterflies.

We halted for lunch in a village: the chiefs were presented to the Governor, a large crowd of natives assembled, and the personal servants of the Governor, the Judge and Murray, began trading with them for curios and betel-nut. Suddenly, there arose an angry clamour among the local natives, and we heard the voice of the Governor raised in anger. I yelled to the police to stand to their arms, and—with Barton—rushed off to Mr. Le Hunte, whose orderly we found holding a native by the arm, whilst a large number of others chattered angrily. It appeared that the Governor’s boy had paid a native for a large bunch of betel-nut, the native had then tried to bolt with both betel-nut and payment; the boy complained to Mr. Le Hunte, who promptly commanded his orderly to seize the man and demand return of either the betel-nut or the payment—hence the row. The affair was soon arranged. “Well, sir,” I whispered to Judge Winter, “you see how easily friction can arise, out of nothing; what sort of fools should we have looked, ten minutes ago, without our revolvers?” “His Excellency seems to be very impulsive,” remarked the Judge. Sir George Le Hunte (as he afterwards became) certainly was very impulsive, and it was made worse by an entire lack of fear of consequences. I remember once, at a later period, visiting a village on the Fly River with him, and getting a bad fright, through that same trait in his character.

I was returning from leave, and joined the Merrie England at Thursday Island. Barton was then Commandant, and there had been a fuss on the Fly River, brought about in this way. A native Mission teacher had gone up the river to an enormous Dobu, i.e. a huge tribal house, divided by partitions into family quarters, meeting halls, etc., in which there was a sacred place, where the natives kept some sort of god. The fool of a Mission teacher had torn down their god, and had just managed to escape, but it was in the midst of a storm of arrows. He then complained to another fool—a Government officer—who proceeded to the spot and burned down the Dobu: destroying not only the building that sheltered about five hundred people, but also the whole of their personal belongings and property with it. The homeless natives, suffering under a sense of injustice, became as venomous as a lot of scorched snakes. Sir George dismissed the officer responsible, and was proceeding there to restore friendly relations, and to compensate the natives for their loss.

The site of the Dobu was in a narrow mangrove-fringed creek, running into the Fly River, and afforded excellent cover for archers. Barton and myself were in the constabulary boat, which was filled with keen-eyed men, who were prepared to fight at a moment’s notice. Sir George was in his own gig, manned only by her crew, who of course all had their backs towards the direction in which they were going, and who would have had to drop their oars in order to seize their rifles. The proper course, and the course adopted by us—with the Governor’s consent—was, that the fighting boat should be in advance. Imagine, therefore, our disgust and dismay when, just as we were well within comfortable arrow range of the mangroves ahead, Sir George suddenly stood up, and commanded us to fall to the rear. “What shall I do?” said Barton. “Don’t hear him,” I said; “if he is killed, we shall be blamed.” A very angry and imperative bellow now came from behind us, to which Barton was forced to pay attention, and very reluctantly we dropped to the rear. By a lucky chance the natives did not see us coming, so we were able to land before being discovered by them and then to make peaceful overtures; but a more unreasonable, impulsive, and dangerous action than that of Sir George I have never known; for he not only exposed his own bulky form to the risk of arrows, but the backs also of his defenceless crew, and our crowded boat as well; since we should not have been able to come into action, for fear of killing him.

Sir George Le Hunte was a most kindly man and, as a rule, very considerate to his officers; but these impulsive actions of his were absolutely damnable. If he had been killed (as well he might have been), how could his officers have explained why the Governor, with a helpless crew, came to be in the position of danger? He would not have been there to exculpate us, and the result would have been that we—for the remainder of our lives—would have suffered under the stigma of leaving him in the lurch.

We completed our journey across the island without any further incident worthy of note, old Enamakala being very friendly. Then we sailed for Goodenough Island; there, Satadeai collected some natives, and gave an eye-opening exhibition of sling-stone throwing. “I never before realized, what a poor chance Goliath had against David,” remarked Judge Winter, after he had watched the slingmen for a few minutes. At Wedau, on the north-east coast, the Governor and Judge went up to the Mission Station, while Barton, Murray and I went shooting: as I noticed the state of the tide in the streams the idea occurred to me that my friends might like to witness a peculiar method of catching fish. “Would you like to see a fishing even stranger than the Dobu kite fishers?” I asked. They would most certainly: so I took them to the mouth of a small stream, where a row of four or five women stood in it, holding shallow scoop nets in their hands and attentively watching the water. Presently, first one and then another in succession leant forward and milked her breasts into the water; then very carefully and quietly she inserted her net under the surface, and brought it up full of tiny little fish; after which she emptied her basket, and resumed her watch.

“Ugh! disgusting!” said Murray. “No doubt,” I replied; “but you will see more disgusting things than that before you leave. Why, one of those very women and her daughter dug up a corpse and ate it, because they wanted to be with child; some sorcerer or witch having told them that it was the best way to ensure it.” “What happened then?” asked the shuddering Murray. “Judge Winter gave them six months for desecrating a sepulchre; there is no law against cannibalism,” I told him. Native tradition on the north-east coast tells how a fearful epidemic swept through the island many years ago; it must undoubtedly have been small-pox, as several old men still showed pitted faces caused by the disease. It was followed by a year of famine, during which the women exchanged their children with each other for culinary purposes, and every one went in fear of being knocked on the head and eaten by his neighbour. The people from East Cape to Bartle Bay are a miserable, decadent lot.

A great portion of the coast is hilly grass land, carrying excellent pasture for cattle, but containing also a nasty spear-grass, the seed of which will work its barbed way through one’s clothes, and in the case of sheep right into the carcase. The Bishop of New Guinea once bought a flock of sheep, intending to breed from them, and turned them out on the hills. I came along some months later, and noticed the sheep wanted shearing very badly. Bishop Stone-Wigg then told me that he had got shears, but no one in the Mission knew how to shear; so accordingly I volunteered to do it. The police rounded up and caught the sheep, and I set to work. I made two discoveries: one was that the breeding flock consisted mainly of wethers, the other, that their skins and flesh were literally stuck full of spear-grass seed, the skins feeling like a very worn-out horse-hair sofa. When I had concluded my shearing operations, I went to the Mission house, where I found that the natives, who had been lost in amazement at the performance, had sent to ask the Bishop, “What the poor sheep had done, to cause the magistrate and police to cut off all their hair?”

From Wedau, the Merrie England went on to Samarai, and thence to Port Moresby.

Upon our arrival at Port Moresby, I accompanied the Governor to Government House, there to await an appointment; in the meantime I assisted Barton in engaging native servants, and also in other things which were strange to a new-comer. There was at that time a European market gardener, named Weaver, living alone some miles out of Port Moresby (he was, by the way, afterwards murdered). He was remarkable for two things: the moroseness of his temper, and the size of his feet. He got his boots by special order through Burns, Philp and Co.; and on one occasion, the bootmaker to whom the size was sent, forwarded children’s boots, thinking that it could not possibly mean size thirteen in men’s boots. Weaver came in with a horse-load of vegetables, and went to Burns Philp for his boots, where he was given the parcel containing the children’s boots. When he had opened it and had seen what it contained, he nearly went mad—thinking a joke had been played upon him. At last, after he had half wrecked the store and frightened the unfortunate clerks into fits, he was made to understand that there were no other boots for him; he then seized his horse and brought it over to Government House, where I began to buy his vegetables.