Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate

by C. A. W. Monckton

I set his arm in splints, and then said, “What do you mean, you old scoundrel, by killing the Arifamu, who are my people, and attacking my camp?” “I did not know the Arifamu were your people, I know nothing about you; if I had known, I certainly should not have been fool enough to interfere with you,” he said. “What are you going to do with me? Kill and eat me?” “No. Take you home with me, mend your arm, and teach you the ways of the Government; then return you to govern your district for the Government. You are a strong brave man like Bushimai of the Mambare.” “I have heard of Bushimai,” said old Oiogoba Sara; “is he one of your people?” “Yes,” I answered; “the man who held your arm, while I tied it up, is his son.” I kept him for some months at Cape Nelson, and then returned him to his tribe as Government chief, and he proved a very useful man.

Complaint was often made in New Guinea that the Government recruited its constabulary and village constables from the gaols. This was true in many instances; but it must be remembered that many of the prisoners were not criminals in the European sense of the word, they were merely men of strong personality, like Oiogoba Sara, who had found their way to gaol from simply following the ancient customs of their people, and were quite ignorant of any feeling of wrongdoing; and such men almost invariably proved the best servants of the Government, for they brought their already existing authority among their people to aid them in enforcing their newly conferred strange authority from Government. The result was, that a strange tribe of raw savages could frequently be brought into a state of law and order, without their perceiving the real change that was being effected, and without undue disturbance of the tribal or communal life.

OIOGOBA SARA, CHIEF OF THE BARUGA TRIBE

The village constable and Government chief system in New Guinea had been originated by that very wise man, Sir William MacGregor, with the assistance and advice of Sir Francis Winter; it was a splendid thing, for by it one was enabled to make the people govern themselves, and that without their feeling that any undue restriction or coercion had been used. I think after the departure of Sir William, I was the sole man in the country who really realized the value and potentialities for good work of this service, and also utilized it to its fullest extent; and it always seemed to me ten thousand pities that this was so, and that it had not been developed to its uttermost limits. Only a brilliant brain such as that of Sir William MacGregor, or Sir Francis Winter, could have originated the scheme. Let me take an example: assuming a murder, or any serious crime, had taken place in a village of raw natives without a village constable or Government chief, and I heard of it; then, the arrest of the offender would be made by constabulary—strange armed men—and the whole community would be alarmed; the women, children and witnesses would all fly for the bush, and regard the whole matter in the light of a hostile raid by a foreign enemy. Take the same village and the same offence with a village constable or Government chief firmly established; then, upon the offence being reported, it was only “old so-and-so,” whom the villagers knew well, who donned his uniform and, accompanied by the elders of the village, seized the offender and hauled him forth for judgment; and this without in the slightest degree disturbing the village life or alarming the uninvolved people. The difference, to draw a parallel, was simply this: supposing some English villagers saw one of their number seized by a patrol of Russian or German soldiers,[A] they would be alarmed and indignant; but if they saw him collared by their own local bobby, they would not bother their heads further than to gossip.

[A] Written before the War.

In weak villages, the village constable gave the villagers a sense of protection, for he was a constant reminder that a force existed able to protect them from their enemies, with which he was intimately connected; whilst in strong and turbulent villages, his presence was a constant reminder of a watching Government, and therefore a deterrent to crime. They were not without their faults and drawbacks, of course, but no people are, unless kept under constant supervision; their main fault was to levy blackmail. The natives, however, very soon learnt what their constable’s powers were, and then would lose no time in reporting any abuse of them. In the North-Eastern Division, I had the younger village constables drilled, and they formed an excellent reserve for the constabulary.

In the Northern Division, in later years, I had in one instance a woman as village constable; she had a very masterful personality and had ruled her village before the advent of the Government. She did splendid work and only once gave me trouble, and that was when she summarily divorced her husband; he was rather glad than otherwise, as the position of consort to the official lady was not altogether a bed of roses. But then she picked out a fine-looking young man of her village, about ten years younger than herself, and ordered him to marry her. He was struck with consternation at the prospect, and bolted for an adjoining village; she pursued him, and ran him in upon the charge of disobeying the village constable. Two other village constables near-by were scandalized at the affair; they ran in the pair and brought them before me, when, in answer to my inquiries, the lady official stated her grievance. “Why won’t you marry her?” I asked the man. “It seems the best way to settle the matter.” “I’d sooner go to gaol,” he said briefly. “Well, I am blessed if I see any way out of it,” I said; “if you return to your village, I believe she will marry you sooner or later. Wanting to marry you is not a crime.” “Can I enlist in the Armed Constabulary?” he asked; “I should be safe there.” “Yes, that will be the best; I’ll send you to Cape Nelson.” “Are you not going to make him marry me?” asked the redoubtable dame. I shook my head. “Then I suppose I’ll have to take so-and-so back again,” she remarked, naming her recently divorced husband; which I may mention she finally did.

I have mentioned crocodiles tearing at the bodies of the dead in the mouth of the Barigi River. In New Guinea there appear to be two different species of the brute, for in some rivers they are small and innocuous, while in others they are large and of extreme ferocity; the latter species I have known to attack and take a man out of a canoe—Crocodilus porosus I believe the reptile is named. On another occasion one of the beasts, sleeping partly submerged in the mouth of the Vanapa River, was struck by the prow of the Ruby launch, and promptly came open-mouthed after her; and yet another time one rose out of the sea in Buna Bay and nearly grabbed one of the crew of the lugger Peuliuli, whilst he was painting the vessel’s side. This particular species is equally at home in either salt water or fresh; it ranges from China to Persia, and south to New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. Dr. Gray, in his “Catalogue of the Crocodilia,” refers to this particular reptile as “the salt-water crocodile”; but I have found the Crocodilus porosus in fresh-water streams in New Guinea, miles inland, and just as savage and dangerous as in the mouths of tidal rivers.

On one occasion, in order to cross a flooded stream at the head of the Kumusi River, my men felled an enormous tree, which fell with a resounding splash into the water, sufficient, one would think, to scare away every reptile within half a mile. Hardly had the sound ceased and the splash subsided, before a private of the constabulary was running across the tree trunk, which was a few inches under the surface of the water; before he could reach the other side, a crocodile arose and made a grab at him, catching him by the red sash about his waist; fortunately, however, the man managed to slip off his sash, and then tore across the tree, while the crocodile disappeared under the surface with the sash. I have been told by the Mambare natives that the brute has a trick, if any person unwarily stands on the edge of a muddy river, of swimming rapidly past and knocking that person into the river with a blow from its powerful tail, after which it disposes of its victim at its leisure. The brute makes a sort of nest and lays its eggs in marshy jungles, which occur on the banks of rivers, and I have found them a hundred miles from salt water.