Forgotten Missionaries Of 1847

French and Germans Who Worked Heroically in New Guinea Seventy Years Ago.

By Mollie Lett.

THOUGH we pay homage to the earlier missionaries and pioneers in Papua, who endured such over whelming privations and trials, yet the missionaries of to-day, who live in the remoter districts under more peaceful conditions, still deserve their tribute of praise.

Their tenacity of purpose and energy are remarkable in the face of the stifling inertia of the native, as is also their undiverted attention to a cam paign which must become, at the best of times, disheartening. To convert to Christianity the Papuan—steeped in superstitions and fettered by sorcery— must be a thankless task, and the re sult, after a life’s work, but skin deep and superficial.

For very many years now, the differ ent missionaries in Papua have carried on their work. Though the famous missionary and explorer, Dr. Chalmers (Tamate) is invariably quoted as being the pioneer of all Papuan missionaries, yet the palm should go to yet earlier men—to the heroic Marists who, as far back as 1847, landed on the Papuan shores.

It is interesting to read a report of 1890 by Sir William MacGregor, in which he writes of an expedition in 1899 to Murua (Woodlark) Island, one of the Louisiade and D’Entrecasteaux group, east of Papua. When he was questioning the Guasopa people on the island, they spoke of the missionaries there, of long ago, whom they recol lected well. Makavasi, a Guasopa man, was asked by Sir William whether he knew the language of these mission aries. He promptly replied, “Travaillez comme ga”; but beyond these three words, his mind was a blank. He re membered nothing of their ways or teachings.

These Marist missionaries, according to the “Histoire de la premiere Mission Catholique au vicariah de Melanesie,” by Verquet, Bishop of Antiphelles, ar rived on the brig “Anonyme” at Wood lark (Murua) on the 15th September, 1847, and the priests Fremont, Mon troussier, Thomassin and Willien joined them in 1848. Their Bishop left later in 1848 for Rook Island, taking Fre mont and Willien and leaving the two priests Montroussier and Thomassin be hind, alone. The Bishop and Willien died of fever.

Thomassin and Montroussier strug gled on alone, under great hardships, at Murua, but made no impression on the natives, failing utterly in their en deavours.

In 1851 Montroussier, who had been at work at Guasopa since 1847, wrote: “We are still sowing in tears. To this day we have had no other consolation than to suffer and accomplish the Will of God. You are acquainted with our trials. The islanders resist grace and we find ourselves without anything to do —although we do not decline work.”

Eventually, in 1852, Murua was aban doned, though some Italian missionaries, under Pere Paul Reina, made vain at tempts, after the Marists, for a short

time. Of these later missionaries, the natives of Murua had no recollection.

“It is pitiful to think that, except for the words ‘Travaillez comme ga’—these words, no doubt repeated daily, hope lessly, by these priests—are (writes Sir William MacGregor) the only remem brance of the teachings of these men who laboured five years with devotion which seems to have been admirable in a work which they had recognised to be hopeless.”

Of later missionaries, one finds in the writings of 1862 of Alfred Russel Wal lace, the famous explorer and natural ist, referring to two German mission aries. While exploring the north-west shores of Papua (Dutch New Guinea) in 1858 in search of Paradise Birds, he discovered them, settled on the island of Mansinam, off Dorey Harbour. Their names were Otto and Greisler. Greisler was assisted by his young wife. Wal lace mentions that they had been there two years and that Otto had already learnt to speak the Papuan language with fluency and had begun translating some portions of the Bible (1858). It appears the only converts they had made were women and children—the children attending school but making little progress.

“There is one feature of this mis sion,” Wallace wrote, “which I believe will materially interfere with its moral effect. The missionaries are allowed to trade to eke out the very small salaries granted them from Europe and, of course, are obliged to carry out the trade principle of buying cheap and selling dear, in order to make a profit.

The natives must look upon the mis sionaries with some suspicion and can not feel so sure of their teachings be ing disinterested.”

The first thing to be done, Wallace thought, was for the missionaries to convince the natives that ‘‘they come among them for their benefit alone and not for any private ends.” He strongly disapproved of the tradings of these men. He goes on to express how, in his opinion, a missionary station should be run, and he regretted “the super ficial varnish of religion” that was meted out to this savage race.

In the meantime, poor Otto and Greisler pursued their difficult and

heart-rending task —seventy-four years ago, in a country which to-day is not without its dangers—while Wallace, like a ship in the night, passed by with all his criticisms back to civilisation and its comforts. For he writes, later on: “It was a great treat to me to find my self back again in my comfortable home, enjoying milk in my tea and coffee, fresh bread and butter and fowl!

New Guinea had quite used me up.”

It is easy to criticise. Can anything be more praiseworthy than the hope less persistence and courage of these Marists and of Otto and Greisler in their attempts to benefit the wild Papuan of 1847 and 1858 —quite out of touch with the world, when isolation amounted almost to banishment —when, unvisited and solitary, they carried on without any hope of success.