Why People are Killed

"Because”

Why People are Killed in Papua

From Our Canberra Correspondent THE reports of Sir Hubert Murray, Lieutenant - Governor of Papua, interesting reading.

Referring to a case from the north eastern division, he says that two men came to the camp of the divisional officer and “told him they were guilty of some rather bad murders, for which they had no reason, except that two women had asked them to kill certain persons. They had themselves no ob ject to gain, and had probably never before seen their victims. When asked why they had obeyed these women, they could only answer ‘because’.”

Sir Hubert goes on to say: “Such cases are not uncommon, and no Papuan would feel the slightest diffi culty in understanding the motives of

these men and in applauding their action; but a case which certainly seemed rather strange to me was one in which Romney, a mission native, and his wife Hilda were murdered by a man called Baiburu and others. For, in this case, the murderers appeared as hired assassins who had been paid to kill these unfortunates, whom they had themselves no wish to injure.

“Baiburu’s story was that he hap pened to go to Komabun village and that certain people whom he did not know, but could identify, proposed to him that he should kill Hilda and Romney as they came to their garden.

The victims were to be speared; pois oning, he was told, was unsatisfactory.

He did not, he insisted, kill Romney and Hilda ‘for nothing’; he had good ground for killing them, inasmuch as he was paid for it. His reasoning seems to have been the same ,as that of certain cannibals in Africa who ex press the greatest horror of tribes who are not cannibals and who, ‘like snakes’, kill wantonly and for no pur pose.”