Entered Papua

How Sacred Heart Mission Entered Papua Father Dupeyrat’s Fascinating Fhstory of 1883-1935

AN extraordinary amount of work, time and research has been put into a large book of 540 pages, which has just reached us from Paris. It is entitled “Papouasie,” and it is a complete, well documented history of the mission work of the order of the Sacred Heart, which has been done in Papua and New Guinea during 50 years (1885-1935).

The gifted author is Father Andre Du peyrat, M.S.C. It is obvious that he has performed a labour of love —he has taken a delight in telling the wonderful story of the hopes and sufferings and achieve ments of the Sacred Heart Mission in those one-time savage territories; and in doing his work with such thoroughness Father Dupeyrat has made a contribution of incalculable value to the historical and scientific records of Papua and New Guinea.

The book is by no means a dry record of historical facts. The author displays considerable literary skill and handles his fascinating narrative with a fine sense of dramatic values. He also exhibits that delightful sense of humour that one so often finds among the missionaries of the Sacred Heart in the South Seas. His story, moreover, is leavened with a char acteristic tolerance of outlook and a cheery philosophy.

Father Dupeyrat, of course, writes in French; and that, in a way, is a pity, because the mass of British people do not read French very readily, and this is a story that should be read by all of them— not only because of its real merit as a dramatic narrative but because it would give the British in these lands a better idea of the self-sacrificing work of the missionaries and the objects for which they strive.

Father Dupeyrat commences his story with the very earliest records of European contact with the Pacific Islands; traces the formation of the Vicariate of Mela nesia and Micronesia between 1826 and 1844; tells the story of the first tentative efforts at evangelisation by the Marists about 1845 and the martyrdom of Mon signor Epalle in 1845 and Monsignor Col lomb in 1848; describes the second effort made by the missionaries of Milan in 1852

and the martyrdom of Father Mazzuconi in 1855, leading to the abandonment of missionary effort by his Church between 1855 and 1885. He then shows how the attempt by the Marquis de Rays to es tablish a free colony at Port Breton, in New Ireland, about 1877 again stirred up the interest of the Church in the matter of evangelising these islands, and how, out of that interest, there was created an organisation of missionaries of the Sacred Heart, who, between 1880 and 1884, established a mission in New Britain.

The missionaries in New Britain and New Guinea met with many practical dif ficulties and official discouragements, among which was grave uncertainty as to what country actually possessed the islands in which they worked, but they continued with their chosen task. Fin ally, in October, 1884, they selected Thursday Island, in Torres Strait, as their base of operations, and from that point, in 1885, they launched the present organ isation of the mission of the Sacred Heart which has spread all over Papua and a large section of New Guinea.

The story is full of interesting refer ences to the political events and develop ments of 50 years ago—one reads again of Magistrate Chester, of Sir Peter Scratchley, of Fathers Vergius and Na varre, and of the strange conditions under which Queensland took possession of Papua. The way in which certain not able people tried to keep the Sacred Heart missionaries out of Papua, and the deter mination with which they pressed their claim for entering, is a story in itself.

Not the least interesting part of the story is that describing how the Roman Catholic fathers were assisted to transfer their establishment from Thursday Island to Yule Island, on the coast of Papua, by “Yankee Ned” (otherwise Edward Mosby), a man who settled in Torres Strait in the middle of last century and reared a large family in romantic cir cumstances. A Catholic missionary had befriended “Yankee Ned” when he was desperately ill in Cooktown, Queensland; and the remarkable old man tried to repay his debt by helping the Sacred Heart missionaries, when they were being kept out of Papua under an official ban.

“Yankee Ned” had quite a large share in guiding this great and successful mission to Yule Island.

The book carries a preface by Monsig nor A. M. Guyot de Boismenu, Vicar Apostolic of Papuasia, and an epilogue by Monsieur M. Georges Goyau, of the Academy of France. The publisher is Editions Dillen, 23 Rue Oudinot, 23, Paris.

The book is copiously illustrated by scores of excellent photographs, and some maps of unique value.

Mr. G. W. Cockburn, of the Fiji Gov ernment Printing Office, arrived in Suva by the Monterey on February 11, after a visit to Europe with his wife.

Rev. and Mrs. E. Codd, with their baby daughter, sailed for the Siota station of the Melanesian Mission in the Solomon Islands by the Malaita on February 22.

Mr. Codd previously was in the Banks Group, New Hebrides.

Mr. John Wadsworth, director of the Apia Observatory, returned to Samoa with his young wife in February from an ex tended holiday in England and Europe.

Mr. H. F. Baird, who was relieving at Apia Observatory during the absence of Mr. Wadsworth, returned to New Zealand to continue his work at the Christchurch Observatory by the Maui Pomare on Feb ruary 8.