GIWI AND HIS SONS
Old Wanigela, a chief of the sub-branch of the Maisina, whose people had been subject to constant attack by two foes, the Okein by sea and the Doriri from the mountains, took heart of grace from Giwi’s defeat of the Okein, and laid plans for the discomfiture of the next raiders. His plan was, however, with the exception of the long light spears, much simpler than that of Giwi; for all he did, was to abandon his village at the approach of the hostile canoes, and permit them, unopposed, to enter a narrow river which ran alongside the village. After the Okein had plundered and burnt to their hearts’ content, and had lumbered up their canoes with loot, they essayed to return, and were jostling and crowding together in the current of the narrow entrance to the river, when Wanigela suddenly appeared on the bank with his men and fairly hailed spears upon the now packed Okein, who were taken entirely by surprise by the unexpected attack from people whose fighting qualities they despised; thrown into confusion by the immediate loss of many men, and unable to charge home with the favourite weapon of the Binandere people—the stone-headed club—they were all slaughtered, with the exception of one canoe-load of warriors, which managed to put to sea and escape.
The two defeats had for a time cooled the ardour of the Okein for raiding on the coast; but later, having been strengthened by fresh families from the virile Binandere, they turned their attention to a new field, and raided and slaughtered the Baruga people of the Musa River. The Baruga were now in an evil case: they could not go back, for then the Doriri from the hills raided them, that people’s war parties sweeping the whole of the flat country. The Baruga’s sole method of escape from the Doriri had originally been by canoes and river; but now the canoes of the Okein were driving them up and from the river, into the very clutches of the Doriri. Fortunately, however, Sir William MacGregor fell in with a fleet of Okein canoes returning from a raid up the Musa, laden with human flesh, and he inflicted yet another crushing defeat upon them; a defeat from which they were only just recovering when I came to Cape Nelson. They were to get yet another reverse, and at my hands next time; but that was to come much later.
Wanigela’s victory over the Okein was, however, to prove his undoing; for he and his people, cock-a-hoop over their defeat of the redoubtable Okein, decided to try conclusions with the first war party of Doriri entering their country. It was not long before a war party, a small one of about fifty Doriri, appeared in the district: Wanigela located them and their line of march; then, assembling his own men and many hundreds from the parent Maisina tribe, he laid an ambush for the Doriri. This stratagem proved entirely successful, the enemy marching into the middle of the hidden men; Wanigela then yelled, “Now we have you where we wanted you!” which was his signal for the attack; his men leapt to their feet; the Doriri merely replied with a curt “Have you?” and charged. Wanigela and thirteen of his most redoubtable fighters were killed, many were wounded, and the rest broke and fled in every direction. Nothing after this would induce the people of Collingwood Bay to stand up to resist the Doriri, who now began a policy of sending very small parties, which ceaselessly snapped up and killed men, women, and children. Sir Francis Winter, Moreton, and Butterworth, made an attempt to seek out and deal with the Doriri, but failed, in consequence of taking Collingwood Bay carriers with them, by whom they were deserted on the very first night.
CHAPTER XVII
At Cape Nelson, I was now busy in the erection of my new Station. A New Guinea Government Station consisted of the R.M.’s house, police barracks, storerooms, magazine, married quarters, native visitors’ house, police cells and gaol. I had applied for a grant of forty pounds for building my own house, intending to have one made of native material, i.e. hard hewn timber and a thatched roof; Sir George Le Hunte, however, said he was not going to have his R.M.’s house like that, and accordingly instructed the Survey Department to expend three hundred pounds in getting timber and iron from Australia for a European house of four rooms. Russell directed me to have cut a number of piles of hard wood, ten feet in length, upon which the house was to be built. He, being a surveyor, was also supposed to be an architect; as a matter of fact, his knowledge of building was about equal to a Berkshire pig’s grasp of navigation. This is the house that he, after great travail, designed.
He altogether forgot windows, railings, and steps; and this, too, for a house the flooring of which would be ten feet from the ground.