King Goroi and the First Invasion of Shortlands

Francis Drake Of Bougainville Straits

By K. W. Seton

Australians, now fighting along the Buin Road, in Southern Bougain ville, are coming into an area which has a history as interesting as any in the Pacific. The story of Buin-Short lands (for the two are inseparable, though an international deadline has separated them for 20 years) is one of piracy, murder, and slavery.

Out of this welter of wild sea-roving and bloodshed emerges the figure of Johnny Gorai, tall and jet black in colour, after the Melanesian type of the Western Solomons, He and his huge black war-canoes, full of savage war riors, were feared for a hundred miles in all directions, in the ’seventies and ’eighties of last century.

Shortland Island, a bare 600 feet high, small as a footstool to mighty Bougain ville, which towers over it, was the home of the conquerors of all the sea coast villages almost to Buka Island, in the north. The raiding canoes ranged as far east as Senga, on Choiseul, and to Mundi Mundi, on Vella, in the south, for they thought nothing of crossing 50 miles of open sea. On the other hand, Gorai was always a friend to the white man, and he befriended naturalists, traders, and German officials, with fine lack of discrimination.

GORAI came of a line of conquerors.

His father, Porosei (pronounced - Por-o-sey) who was King of Mono (or Treasury Is.), where the Allies now have a base, swooped across 25 miles of sea to conquer the Shortlands about 1860, when Gorai was a boy. The original occupiers of the island were, I believe, of a Papuan or Negrito type, and had long lived in terror of the fierce Mono tribes, on whose account they had built their villages in the heart of the jungle.

I have seen the old village sites along the Hisiai River, opposite Buin. There are still clumps of bananas on the bank, wild descendants of those planted by this beaten tribe, and in the river bed can be seen huge flat rocks with worn grooves, where these islanders sharpened

their stone-age implements. To reach this place one must climb for many hours, traversing steep gorges and water falls, surrounded by towering forest. As the lazy present-day natives live on the sea coast, and never walk if they can help it, one would flush huge eels, up to four feet long, which had never seen a human being. in gangster parlance, Porosei seems to have “done over” the Shortlands with great thoroughness, killing out the pre vious folk almost in toto, save for a rem nant that fled across six miles of sea to Buin, on Bougainville, and founded a vil lage, called Toriu, where they are to this day, still speaking and thinking Shortland—if the Japs have not run them out.

Many girls and children were kept alive as slaves, and these later inter married with the Mono natives, to pro duce the Shortland native of to-day, called the Alu. One of these children, an old man, was still living on Fauro several years ago. Slaves do not seem to have received unduly harsh treat ment, and the Mono natives always had plenty of them, caught young on their sea-raids, i"\NE hears gruesome stories of the last V/ stands put up by these original Shortlanders, mainly centring round small hills, where the women would huddle at the top with the cooking pots, whilst the men fought to the death at the base. One gathers that the fights, concluded with charges of Amazons, armed with pottery. Certainly, all around these places to-day you cannot pick up a handful of earth that is not studded with small pieces of earthen ware. This is of some interest to the archaeologist, because pottery-making is rather rare in these parts, and these jars were made out of a special clay to be found on Poporang (another place bombed by the Allies when we were cleaning up the big naval and air bases in Buin-Shortlands nearly three years ago).

Porosei had two important sons by blue-blooded mothers. Bwarn was the eider, but he remained very much a busn kanaka all his days, living in his village of Maliai, on Morgusaia. The other son, Gorai, was early taken abroad by a whal ing ship and spent some years in Europe and other parts of the world. He spoke English well.

Gorai is famous for two things. First, for his friendship for the whites; and, second, for his prowess as a naval fighter, with an ability to establish a beach-head anywhere and come home in triumph with his booty when his ends had been achieved. These two features are blended in the story of the avenging of the death of Captain Fergusson, at Numa Numa, far northwards along the Bougainville coast, where, even as this is bemg writ ten, Australians are fighting patrol actions with the Japs. The following account, translated by me, occurs in “Chez Les Cannibales,” written by Count Festetics de Tolna, who spent some months in the Shortlands in 1895.

“Captain Fergusson was commander of a steam vessel engaged in trading. One day, whilst off the Bougainville coast at a place called Numa Numa, he was killed with all his crew by natives. A young cabin boy hid in the water tank and was the sole survivor of the massacre. The locals took off all the cargo they could, intending to return later to continue pillaging. The boy, pro fiting by their departure, came out of his hiding place, filed the anchor chain, started the engine, took the wheel, got out of the Numa Numa passage, and, without knowing the least thing about navigation, yet succeeded in reaching a German island.

“Gorai, King of Shortlands and Bou gainville, was a great friend of Captain Fergusson. When he heard of his death he swore to avenge it. He collected all his warriors and went to Numa Numa, which was about 150 miles away. (The Count’s estimate errs somewhat on the generous side.) “A German warship, sent a little after wards from the German islahd, found their work had been done for them. The beach was littered with corpses. The King, Gorai, was not consoled by the vengeance he had meted out to the murderers. He continued to weep for his friend, and so that his name should not be forgotten he gave it to his son. That is why the present King of Shortland and Bougain ville is named Fergusson.”

I have heard that he carried back with him many slaves from this avenging raid.

There are still many natives named Fer gusson living around the Shortlands.

AN interesting corollary to this tale is one told by Dr. Guppy, whose book is still the most informative writ ten about the Bougainville Straits. Of one occasion, travelling with Gorai in his canoe, he says: “I could see the chief and his crew looking attentively towards the coral islet of Ballalai, where in the winter months of the year a light shines. This is believed to be the spirit of Captain Fergusson of the ‘Ripple,’ killed at Numa Numa some years earlier.”

Guppy often tried to see the light, but was never fortunate enough to do so. He suggested to Gorai that it had its source in flares lit by boys fishing round the reefs, but the chief was quite positive he knew better.

I myself used to keep watch, as unsuc cessful as the good doctor’s, on the north ern end of the island whenever we went past it in the launch at night. Ballalai, which lies three miles off the coast of Shortland Island, is the site of a famous Japanese fighter field, which was blasted to pieces by Allied planes in 1943.

Another yarn I heard was of a huge octopus that lived half-way across to Ballalai, and I was ,told that, in former times, local natives going past on their canoes would see monstrous tentacles curling towards the surface, and would hastily jettison bunches of banana, and taro, and any other edible they had, in order to appease the brute. These octopi do grow to a great size, for once, off Kamaliai, by moonlight, I remember seeing something go past the launch like a huge tree stump with roots trailing . . . a big octopus with all its tentacles lying parallel as it travelled along. “Big feller too much,” the launch tyoys said. “This feller he savvy takim launish.” (Big enough to take the launch.) Dr. Guppy often mentions Gorai, and describes his war-canoe as being 50 feet long and manned by 18 paddlemen. He pays frequent tribute to the chief’s help fulness to white people.

ANOTHER instance of this was fur nished in the 70’s, when a whaler was wrecked on the reef near Munia, an island 12 miles from Short lands. Local natives helped the sur vivors to salvage practically everything and carry it ashore, when they found themselves surrounded by avaricious looking Melanesians, all black as pitch.

The greatest prize amongst-them was the captain’s wife who had beautiful red hair, still remembered with admiration and regret by the beholders, even up to the time when they were old men.

Gorai got word of the coming massacre just in time to gather his warriors and rush to Munia in his war canoes. He ordered all the loot to be loaded in canoes and the ship’s boats, and had it and the castaways brought to his village at Saenai. They were accommodated in the village and fed and cared for until another whaler came that way about a

year later, and they were able to get away on it. Gorai did not lose by his good action, for the grateful captain and crew presented him with the ship’s boats, and sent him presents after they reached their homes.

The missions had not quite penetrated to the Bougainville Straits; and Gorai had no illusions about what would become of his harem of 150 odd, if they did come. He asked pathetically how he would get his gardening and other work done if he were restricted to one wife.

VIEWED from the anthropologist’s standpoint, the most interesting fea ture of his smash and grab raids consists of the constant influx of new blood into the Mono natives through the children who were captured in other parts of the Solomons, and brought back as slaves. These grew up in the midst of their captors, and seem to have been quite kindly treated, but their children were always regarded as of slave ancestry, and of no standing socially.

It is a very interesting point that the

days of the greatness of the Mono natives coincide with this outbreeding, especially when it is considered how the present-day Shortland natives have decreased in numbers and in resistance to disease from the prolonged inbreeding to which they have been subjected since Buin was arbitrarily cut off from Short lands when New Guinea Mandated Ter ritory was made to include Bougainville, in 1919.

Because Bougainville was captured Ger man territory, and had to be adminis tered by Mandate, an imaginary line was drawn through the six-mile distance which separates it by sea from Short lands, which is in the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. Natives were for bidden to go across at will, as in the old days. Entry from Shortlands to Buin could only be made after securing a clearance from the DO at Shortlands, and then going about 70 miles to Kieta, the port of entry for Bougainville. To go that six miles one would have to take a trip of about 140 miles, with all the worry and bother of Customs and,health

clearances, which are expensive things also, and then one would have to reverse the whole performance in order to return to Shortlands, During this trip a boat must carry a yellow flag and not land anywhere except at Refuge Island, half way. It was a bad enough trip in a well found cutter and, of course, out of the question to natives in canoes. They would be unable either to light a fire to cook food, or to lie down to sleep.

The Shortlanders accepted the only alternative open to them. They stayed at home, becoming more and more in bred and consumptive or rachitic, and their only contact with their kinsfolk at Buin was made by meeting secretly on a small island half way between Moila Point and Malahuna Point, where they could exchange news and gossip—but not collect a wife. Such a new arrival in the district would have created quite an international problem, and the young men must have thought longingly of the days of Gorai. when wives were plentiful.

Many of them were relegated to bachelor hood for an indefinite time, as men out numbered women in their declining tribe.

The incidence of sterility was high, and numbers of marriages were childless.

I do not know just the numbers of the Shortlands natives prior to the enact ment of this very high-handed tabu, but there seem then to have been villages full of natives, where now there are deserted groves. I have been told that the population of Shortlands and Fauro was estimated at 1,100 about 1940. It is about 50 miles to Vella Lavella, and nearly that to Choiseul, so the other islands of the British Solomons are too far awav for intermarriage on a useful scale. Now. after three years of Japan ese occupation, one cannot feel that there will be too many of Gorai’s tribe left in the Shortlands. rE garden lands now being cleared of Japanese, by the Australians, near Buin, used to feature heavily in the economic structure of Shortlands society.

Men in canoes loaded with fish, oysters, clams and crayfish from Bougainville Straits used to go across to Bum to barter their wares of sea food for huge yams and other produce of the fertile Buin gardens.

The loss of this may also be a feature of decay, for the Shortlands never had very good gardens, and the natives became so wealthy and lazy with the decline in their numbers and too many coconut groves available per head that they would neither garden nor go out and work on plantations, where their health would have improved Kipau, chief of Shortlands in 1942, traced his descent from Gorai through his mother, Evelui, that worthy’s eldest daughter, by a high-ranking mother. He had some concern over a successor and, just before the evacuation, held what is perhaps destined to be the last big Kai Kai of his race in order to designate his successor, who would be, I think, a grand nephew. . „ . . , The chief wife or wives of a chief were always high-born princesses and had an extraordinarily high standing, otherwise their children could not inherit. Guppy records that when Gorai’s principal wife died during his stay there, in the 80s, Gorai wept for her for a long time.

It is on record, in fact, that one of these high-born ladies was known by the Mono equivalent of “God Almighty (which in the native tongue sounds re markably like “Turn Turn” to the Cauca sian ear!). She was so aristrocratic and so holy she must never be allowed to set foot on the ground, and was carried everywhere in a chair. If she alighted it must be only on bead mats made for that purpose.

APPARENTLY, Kipau’s children, if any, were not from a wife high-ranking enough to inherit his chiefdom, and his choice fell on a small boy of three in Koliai village, where the feast was held.

All local natives were invited, and came in their hundreds, even from Fauro and from Mono. Whites were also invited, headed by the District Officer and his wife, and other guests were indentured Malaita and Guadalcanal boys from the plantations.

There is a long, wide reef outside Koliai village, and when we anchored off it, the natives carried us ashore, shoulderhigh, in canoes. All the optimus quisque received us with handshakings and a really very fine courtesy, and they conducted us to the “talking house,” a small

open-leaf shed, to watch the dance, For this the Alus had bedecked them selves* with coloured clay and leaves, and they skipped round in circles waving spears, bows and arrows, and clubs, whilst either shouting or blowing their pandean pipes. On this occasion there was not the usual hollow, wood drum, but a short plank laid across a hollow, and two of the village elders jumped and sang on this, in a way that ought to have bene fited their waist-lines, but seemed m effective. They had already been dancing and singing for several days, whilst the womenfolk cooked the food and tied it up in leaf parcels for guests to take home. This food consisted of pork, fish, vegetables, and a very much valued pud ding made of sweet potatoes and narli

nuts. It was a lovely greyish colour, and oozed oil.

When everything was ready, the dan cing stopped, the natives gathered round the main road of the village, and Kipau came into view, heading a mass of rela tives and chiefs. Just behind him was the heir apparent, carried by his grand mother (for his mother was too ill to attend). He was a fine plump little boy, with bead ornaments bound round his kinky black head, and a network of specially-made beads covering his sturdy chest. The rest of him was in a pair of blue ranger pants that wouldn’t stay up as there was nothing to button them to, beads and nakedness being a poor sub stitute for a shirt.

Kipau was a fine-looking old man, with a snowy head above his dead-black face.

He took the child and held it high so that all the natives could see it, and told them in his own tongue that this was his heir, and was to be the next chief when he passed on. It was a short ceremony, but really a very striking one, despite the child’s wincing from the publicity and the proximity of grand-uncle, who had probably never held him before, and Kipau’s somewhat bewildered clutching of the slipping garment.

Both seemed relieved when the child was passed back to his grandmother, and the old chief, in a few words, asked the natives to be very quiet round the mother’s house as she was so ill. She did, in fact, die less than a week after wards, of TB. having never recovered from the birth of the baby. She was a gentle, attractive girl of 20, and the young father, too, was a slender, pleas ant-faced boy, but he too, did not look over-strong. „ .

That day, in the village, was the only time I have ever seen the manes dance.

It consisted of monotonous singing and a kind of hopping step, whilst they went round and round in a circle at the oppo site end of the village to the men’s dance.

RECENTLY, I heard that Kipau had died during the Japanese occupa tion, and I have been wondering what has become of that little boy, who should now be chief of Shortlands. His kingdom has been sadly diminished since the days of his great ancestor.

I have drawn a likeness between Gorai of Shortlands, and Drake, who, in olden times enlarged the kingdom of Elizabeth, and enriched her coffers by his beard singeing sweeps, and by his audacity on the high seas. The two have much in common, and, to deepen the analogy, one wonders if the Alus have any legend similar to that of Drake’s drum.

One fears that fantasy must wait upon history. Even if, when in ’42 the Japs came down upon Shortlands, the lalis of Gomai and Maliai had thundered for the return of Johnny Gorai, he may have found his comeback a little disappoint ing. He would have had to bring back his ghostly hordes of warriors to rally their lazy, effete descendants to the keep ing of the kingdom that was won for them in 1860 by Porosei of Mono.

Acknowledgment is gratefully made to the trustees and staff of the Mitchell Library for access to the following: Pestelics De Tolna, “Chez Les Cannibales”: Guppy, “Solomon Is. and Their Natives.”

The Reverend Dr. C. E. Fox, MA, who has such a long record of service in the Solomons, writes appreciatively of the kindness shown to him by American officers and men. Dr. Fox is at Siota at present. In addition to his work in teach ing. sermons translations, etc., he has a dictionary of 10.000 words of the Gela language which he recently “mastered.”

A collection of Solomon Island shells. 700 species, many very lovely, he recently presented to the USA Naval Museum.

The death occurred on July 24, in Suva, Fiji, of Mr. Robert Vickers, at the age of 79. He was an engineer, and went to Fiji from New Zealand in the early 90’s to work for Mr. J, J. Barker and Mr.

T. T. Nicholson, of the Fiji Shipping Company. He was both Master and En gineer of a number of vessels, including the “Victoria,” which ran between Suva and Lautoka. In later years he was em ployed in Suva as a leading boiler-maker.

At the time of his death he was in retire ment.