A Narrow Escape from The “Tree

“Tree of Skulls.”

IT was not only in pre-European days that the savage Tugiri people came to Saibai Island to collect further me mentoes for their grisly ‘‘Tree of Skulls,” as Ion Idriess would suggest in his story in the P.I.M., 21/9/32.

Mr. A. W. Minshull, of Brisbane, writes that he was on Saibai as a child during one of these raids. He says: ‘‘My mother, sister and I were on Saibai when the Tugiri men came in their war canoes within a mile of the shore. We were ordered into the church with the women folk and, after a battle, the Tu giri men were beaten off. Thank God! for otherwise we wouldn’t be alive to tell this tale.” ‘‘We were still on Saibai when the Rev. Chalmers and Tomkins were mur dered. My mother and sister were the first white women and I was the first white boy there. That was in 1901 and the Tugiri men often came to Boigu, not far away, during our two years’ stay at Saibai. ‘‘My mother was school teacher and my sister assistant at Saibai and we afterwards went to live on Badu. On the whole, I have very pleasant recollec tions of both places.”