How Rev. “Mac” Dealt with

“Tree of Skulls.”

I AM indebted to Ion Idriess, Aus tralian author, for this little story of how “the wandering parson” put upon a Torres Straits island a hoodoo that was stronger than the age old superstitions of the natives.

In pre-European days, and until recent years, the savage Tugiri people used to come down the Kussa River, from Dutch New Guinea, and cross over to Boigu, Saibai and Dauan Islands, off the coast of Papua. At times, they attacked the inhabitants of those islands; sometimes, they joined forces with them, and carried out ferocious raids along the Papuan coast.

On Boigu Island, they established a sort of ceremonial ground, where they celebrated their victories in horrid fashion. There was a “zogo”, or a place where the priests and sorcerers performed; and there was a great tree, from which most of the small branches had been cut, and on every lopped-off limb a human skull stuck. The “Tree of Skulls”—or, in native lan guage, Sibu Poi —was notorious in that part of the Pacific.

Then there came to the Torres Islands, the Rev. W. McFarlane, known affectionately nowadays all over York Pennisula and Torres Strait as “Mac ” and the “wandering parson.” He looked Boigu over, and he did not like it a bit —neither its tree of skulls, nor its "zogo”, nor the unpleasant effect of the place upon the superstitious natives.

So, alongside the “zogo”, the Reverend “Mac” built a little church, where he sometimes held services;. and upon the “tree of skulls” he fixed a brass plate, giving its name and its cruel, grisly history. Thus did he exor cise the devil; for, from that time, the influence of Boigu Island in native affairs waned. Priests and sorcerers came no more to perform their rites, and the island lost its terrors for the natives.

But the “wandering parson’’ still pays his occasional visits to this section of his widely-scattered flock; and the mana of the little church is still stronger than the hoodoo of the zogo.