Pages From The Past

By Julian Hillas

Captain Goodenough Visits

Rarotonga

THE credit for being the first white man to land on Rarotonga, in the Cook Group, is generally given to the L.M.S. missionary John Williams, to whom the approximate position had been supplied by converts in Aitutaki, 140 miles to the north.

To be strictly accurate, Williams was the third European known to have sighted the island —and the second to make a landing. The first and earliest was McCoy, one of the mutineers on the Bounty. Mention is made of this visit by the native pastor Maretu in his diaries, translated by Dr. Wyatt Gill.

“In that year (1788) there came here a very large ship, but the people did not land. Two canoes went off and bartered some goods, purchasing these with fowls, coconuts, and bananas. Makare (McCoy) was the name of the captain.”

On this ocasion, with characteristic op portunism, the Rarotongans managed to get away with a box containing among other novelties orange and pumpkin seeds, both of which were grown success fully on the island, so that the founda tions of the fruit trade which developed

a century later may really be ascribed to this fleeting visit of the Bounty.

THE second arrival, Goodenough, was a wandering trader. Little is known about him and such meagre information as has filtered down to us hardly re dounds to his credit. To posterity his sole claim for remembrance is that he was undoubtedly the first European to land and spend some time on Rarotonga.

In 1820, Goodenough’s vessel appeared off Ngatangiia and came to anchor in side the reef passage at Vai-kokopu. She must have been a somewhat larger ship than was usually engaged among the Islands, since her crew con sisted of six whites, including Good enough and his mate Stevens, two New Zealand Maoris, a couple of Tahitians, and a brace of blackmoors. There were also four white women on board, bring ing the ship’s company to a total of 16.

Sandalwood was ostensibly their ob ject, but in this they displayed a singular ■ lack of knowledge, and within a few days had set 60 native men on to digging up the nono shrub (Morinda citi'ifolia) under an impression that it was what they sought.

Trouble, however, was soon started by local natives, who encouraged the visi tors to take pigs, coconuts, and women

belonging to neighbouring tribes. In this they were probably actuated by a desire to work off old scores at somebody else’s expense and, in all fairness to Good enough’s men, it is equally probable that they were under the hoary and persis tent fallacy that everything in the South Seas is simply there to be taken away without payment by the first stranger who takes a fancy to it.

Bad feeling was also caused by the native women showing a marked prefer ence for the whites and being in turn carried on board the ship by them, a state of affairs which goes a long way to disprove the early missionaries’ con tention that Europeans were wholly res ponsible for the regrettable absence of morality in these places.

VERETINI, one of the two N.Z. Maoris, distinguished himself by alternately preaching the word of God and. in his more strenuous moments, leading the Ngatangiia people against their heredi tary enemies at Arorangi. In this latter and livelier work he was assisted by the Tahitian, Te Are, and together, on their initial outing, they accounted for four

of the Arorangi men who, being totally unfamiliar with the properties of the musket, had obligingly allowed them selves to be shot at short range.

Meanwhile Tupe, the remaining New Zealander, had been indulging in a some

what more dangerous intrigue. Living ashore with a son of the local chief, he concocted a feasible little plot by which the white members of the crew might all be killed, although for what reason is not known. Unfortunately for his plans, a relation of the chief disclosed the whole scheme to the ship’s officers.

The following morning a party from the vessel entered the village where he was staying and called him by name.

On his appearance outside the house they promptly caught and killed him before returning on board their schooner One would thought that at this stage Goodenough might have come to the conclusion it was time to leave Raro tonga, but neither discretion nor tact seems to have been his strong point.

With an almost insane temerity he now began cutting the nono which g'ew on the great sacred marae near Ngata ngiia. The desecration of their sacrificial and burial ground was in itself sufficient to invite reprisals on the part of the natives. But, apparently not content with what he had already done, Goodenough gave orders that a large store of coco nuts belonging to the chief were to be brought on board the ship.

Vl/’HILST this was being done, Rupe, ** a brother of the outraged chief, pursued the thieves and, overtaking them with their plunder, at Titama, informed them that two of their number would be killed in expiation of their defilement of the marae. Continuing on h’s way. Rupe borrowed an axe from the family which had sheltered the late Tupe and, armed

with this, set out seriously to find vic tims.

Passing through the district of Avana he came upon Veretini seated in the door way of a house. He was very drunk, and two Rarotongan women were busy clean ing his head of lice, a favourite occupa tion with the frailer sex, who, to this day, rather than use a hair comb, prefer the simpler and more lethal method of cracking the insects between their teeth!

Into this domestic picture Rupe the Avenger brought a discordant note. Cal ling Veritini, he waited until the stupi fied man turned to look at him and then struck off his head at a single blow.

Scarcely had he bundled the body back into the house when Stevens, the mate, accompanied by another European, ar rived on the scene. Rupe, taking the latter by surprise, cut him down without resistance. The mate meanwhile made off as fast as his legs could carry him and, reaching the beach a short lap in front of his pursuer, escaped in the ship’s boat.

The natives working on the vessel now became thoroughly alarmed lest they all be killed in revenge, but it must be placed to Goodenough’s credit that no harm befell any of them.

From Ngatangiia, Rupe went on to Matavera, where he found a third Euro pean whom he killed in the same manner as Veretini. At Pouara, he came upon a fourth and served him likewise. The bodies of both these men were subse quently cooked and eaten.

MEWS of this wholesale butchery came to the ears of another native, Moe itiki-oki, who immediately slaughtered the white woman Nati, at that time a guest in his house. By eating the body, he conferred on her the dubious distinc tion of being the first and last white wo man to figure on a local bill of fare.

That evening, the surviving Europeans came ashore in force prepared to fight, but, hearing of their approach, the Nga tangiia and Avarua people fled to the hills where they remained six days, tak ing with them their family gods and more portable property. At the end of this period, the high chiefs descended with peace offerings and, these having been accepted, the customary ceremony of nose-rubbing was gone through, after which the whites returned to the ship, paid off their labour and, with a comple ment reduced from 16 to 10, made pre parations for an immediate departure.

With the sailing of his vessel, Good enough reverted to the obscurity from which he originally came. History knows him not again. Like an echo from the past his solitary note rings once in the great symphony of Time and is heard no more.

Mr. and Mrs. F. Russell and their three sons, Trevor, John, and Phillip, of Nehone, New Caledonia, who arrived by the February Pierre Loti, are at present

spending two months’ holiday in Sydney.

Mr. Russell is an accountant with the American concern which is developing the chrome mine at Nehone.