The Pioneering of Brother
p. 57 · Read in the full issue
Jones!
Some Interesting 8.5.1. History
THE following is part of an interesting letter, sent to the “P.1.M,” by a Solomons Islands resident, who resents the implications in “Brother Jones Among the Headhunters’’, pub lished in October.
The interesting feature is that the writer is a full-blooded Solomons native. Many Poly nesians acquire this degree of education; but it is rarely met with among Melanesians.
IWAS surprised to read an article under the heading, “Brother Jones Among the Headhunters”, in the October issue, and to note the statement made by Brother Jones as revealed by Pastor Watson, with regard to his pioneer work in the Solomon Islands, and related by your correspondent, “M.”. I doubt whether Brother Jones really did any pioneer work at all in the Solomons.
"Pioneer” means one that goes before, to prepare the way for another.
As every schoolboy knows, the Solo mons had been long settled, by white traders, before any missionary ‘set his foot in this group. The island in which Brother Jones claimed to have done his pioneer work was apparently the island of New Georgia. At the south side of the island is the Roviana Lagoon, and to the south-east is Viru Harbour. There is a village of about 100 natives, and just at the entrance of the harbour is a trade store, long established by Euro peans.
This is the first village to have ac cepted the Seventh Day Adventist Mis sion in the Solomons. Even these na tives were not “savage headhunters” be fore the arrival of Brother Jones; but, of course, they lived according to the native religion. After that, the Seventh Day Mission moved to Telina Island, in the Marovo Lagoon, just opposite Lilihina Island, where the traders had established a store before any S.D.A.
Mission representative settled in that la goon.
Not only Lilihina Island was settled by white men, but several islands in the lagoon had been planted with coconut trees, for many years. There was also a Government Station established there in 1906, and the Methodist Mission had been there for several years before 1915 (the year claimed by Brother Jones for his pioneer work in the Solomons).
The Southern and Eastern Solomons had been “civilised” by the Church of England and other Mission bodies, so it was ridiculous to say that the Solomons had been “pioneered” by the Brother.
Brother Jones said that in 1915 he arrived in a small launch; “and then, dear friends, they found amongst that people savage headhunters, and didn’t dare sleep on the land for eight months”.
This statment is Brother Jones’s own imagination. There were no “savage headhunters” in 1915 on those islands.
It may be true that the white men who traded in these islands among the natives did very little to stop them from killing one another. It was the Gov ernment which really did the pioneer work in making the natives live in peace and order. In 1899 the first Resident Magistrate (as it was then styled, prior to the title of District Officer) was sta tioned at Gizo, and he (Mr. A. Mahaffy) did his best to make the natives live in peace, before the arrival of the Meth odist Mission in May, 1902, headed by the Rev. J. F. Goldie (still Chairman of the District Mission, after 37 years),
Mr. Rooney, and a band of Solomon Islands natives brought back from Fiji They first settled on an islet, Nusa Zona near Kokeqolo, in the Roviana Lagoon but were later moved over to the main land at Kokeqolo, the present headquart ers of the Mission. This Mission body has been well established there, and the natives in that part have been well edu cated and “civilised”. The people were living in peace and order, without a trace of “headhunters”, before 1915, the year Brother Jones claimed to have started his “pioneer” work. It may be that he is the ‘“pioneer” among his Mis sion, but he is not a “pioneer” among “headhunters” in the Solomons. I visited Roviana and Gizo, in 1913, when I was a small boy, and I saw men and women and children, all happy and well dress ed, as in other civilised countries, and they were far advanced in other mat ters.
Golden Deeps, N.L., incorporated in N.S.W. in May, 1934, and registered in New Guinea the following month, will be struck off the list of New Guinea mining companies in January, unless cause be shown to the contrary, accord ing to a recent official announcement in the New Guinea Government Gazette.