The Background Of Marching Rule

Late Henry Kuper Gives Some Curious Solomons History

By William Burrows

INTERNED during World War I, rather than deny the country of his birth (which was Germany), Heinrich Kuper was a resident of the island of Santa Anna, in the Solomons, before and after World War I, until his death in February, 1950.

He was a keen naturalist, and it was in this line that he and I made contact, for I never met him. The particular in formation he sent me was his recorded dates of the rising of the Balolo: but this was by no means all. His letters were full of interesting facts, and of his own ideas concerning the people of the Solomon Islands.

The last letter I received from him followed up a telegram which read, “Pa renga (the local name for Balolo) rose dutiful October 31 and November 30, cheers and seasonal greetings, Henry Kuper.”

Those were the dates which I had sent him as being the likely ones for the rise at Santa Anna. The letter, which reached me towards the end of 1947, was six pages of closely written matter, some extracts from which may be of interest even at this date: THE natives of the Solomons have lately shown how little admiration, respect or what not, they have for the brave new sort of a show they have nowadays in the Solomons. There are, however, still a few old-timers of us for whom the natives have retained respect and, I trust, will keep it.

“As you may have heard, we almost had another sort of Rising in the Solomons, not of the famous Palolo but of our local Orangotangs.

“As you know our local Melanesians are still of a most primitive type, although we have WT radio operators, clerks and even AMP’s. The mass of the people are still very ignorant. They haven’t sprung very far yet from the old Breadfruit Tree, so to say.

“In the last six or seven years, owing to the American occupation and the pre sence of the whole mechanised parapher nalia of modern warfare, and the presence of some thousands of American troops, our locals jumped rather a bit too fast, away from the old B. Tree—too fast to be good for them.

“Being what he is, and given by nature to be easily swell-headed, he promptly be came that. It —the movement amongst the natives latterly known as Marssinga Rule, Masian Rule or Marching Rule— began with a fellow named Nori, of Mela, who joined the Labour Corps on Guadal canal, where he saw an American general smoking a golden pipe. ‘General,’ mind you; ‘Golden pipe,’ mind you.

“Idiotic it sounds, but things are idiotic in the Solomons —or have an idiotic origin.

“As Nori, though he had worked several years for Messrs. Burns Philp in pre-war days, had not attained the affluence when he could have smoked a golden pipe, he questioned the general: ‘How come— golden pipe?’ The general told him how to attain that affluence, which was to start the Marssinga Rule.

RETURNING missionaries of a famous sack-cloth and ashes mission found their mission influence sadly on the wane. To break the show up, they in tended to start a religious revival from it. They did not realise to what an extent the natives had been saturated with foolish anti-European-British propaganda by some—quite a lot—foolish Americans.

“Instead of accepting the religious re vival, the natives—crafty, cunning con trary Melanesians as of yore—made the stunt anti-European, anti-Government and anti-anything; hoping to force us all out and then invite the American to come and take over, and shower his notes about, as he had previously done, “Our young officials of the Administra tion, who mostly came here with the New Zealand and Fiji Forces during the war very fine and decent young fellows all — unfortunately lacked the experience to

understand the aim of the movement.

Most of them thought that it was directed against the European exploiters, whoever they might be.

“To my knowledge, backed up by such men as Bishop Baddely, C. of E.; Mr.

Goldie, of the Methodist Mission; Bishop Aubin, and Mr. Norman Deck, of the SSE Mission—all men with many years of resi dence in the Solomons dating back to 1900 —there has never been any Euro pean exploitation here for the last forty years.

“The firm of Burns Philp, in Suva, knows the financial position of the planters and traders in the Solomons, all of whom were totally, or almost, bank rupt prior to 1942, and worse off now.

“We are still wondering who the Euro pean exploiters were.

THE Chinese, Cantonese all, who had increased from none to 200 in the last 30 years, however, had managed to drain the Protectorate of all cash. They made fortunes out of the Americans, quietly and surely, but they say nothing about it, and are very eager to return to Canton. They invested nothing in plantations, etc., and so have escaped the notice of our young officials.

“The movement became very anti- Government, and assumed large dimen sions, and the character of a true Cargo Cult.

“Mass hysteria set in. Things like that, with a primitive Melanesian, become dangerous, and might have led to blood shed. It was a great relief to all of us, out in the outlying districts, when His Honour, the Resident Commissioner, ordered the arrest of all ring-leaders.

“The movement is still (1947) present, but has lost its danger. However, matters for the commercial population, the few who have returned to re-start, are still very precarious.

“You folk in rich and prosperous Fiji cannot very well understand the position of the ‘Poor Old Sorrowfuls’ isolated up here.”

One cannot help but think that Henry Kuper will be sadly missed, by both Euro peans and natives alike in the poor old “Sorrowful” Islands.