Louisiade Murders

Some Memories, By Fred

Bunting

IN the early days of British New Guinea (now Papua) many murders of traders and pearlers were committed around the groups by the treacherous natives.

One of the worst crimes was at Joannet Island, close to Sudest.

The boat’s owner, Captain Crone, was below in his diving suit when a swarm of natives attacked the boat, killed the native crew and cut the diver’s pipeline.

It took weeks to get a message to Port Moresby. The Governor, Sir William Macgregor, in his yacht Merrie England, hastened to the spot, to arrest the murderers. When he arrived, he found anchored close by a lugger owned by a well-known trader. Nicholas Minster, a Greek, who traded all around those parts.

A dinghy approached the Merrie England and Minster boarded the Government yacht, and met the Governor. He gave details of how he had punished the culprits a few days previously. He had crept up into the mountains on a moonlight night, and came on to the native village where a notorious chief lived, and had found him sitting among a crowd of natives. He shot the chief, and men, women and

children ran in all directions and soon the village was deserted.

Nicholas then returned back to his lugger to await the Governor.

The Governor coldly asked him the reason for his call. Nicholas promptly capsized his bag on deck, and out rolled the native chief’s head.

“There, sir, is the chief mur derer’s head,” said Minster.

The Governor had the other natives arrested by his Papuan police, and taken to Port Moresby for trial.

Brooker Island, which was not far away from Joannet, had a very bad record. The natives there were most treacherous, and nearly killed Minster when he was anchored there on a trading visit.

They came out one night, and crept stealthily on to his deck and murdered some of his crew. Nicholas was sleeping on deck, and had no time to get his rifle from below.

So he jumped overboard and was not seen, and hung on to the rudder of his boat. The natives rifled his goods right and left. Then he

sprang on to the deck, shrieking that he had come back from the dead to have vengeance. In terror, they all ran away thinking his ghost had come to haunt them.

But those primitive savages were not the only ones to commit hor rible crimes. Only a few years ago, early in World War 11, there was a tragic event on Moturina Island, near Brooker Island.

It will be remembered that, in

1942, just before the Battle of the Coral Sea, the Japs arrived and occupied most of the archipelagoes eastwards of Samarai. They occu pied Calados Lagoon.

A young half-caste planter, well liked, named George Burfoot, had a trading post on Moturina and, unaware that the Japs were there, he went to Moturina in his boat.

The Japs immediately seized him. I suppose they imagined he

had come there to spy upon them.

Anyway, they murdered him in a way too horrible to describe. From what I know, I would just as soon appeal to the savages of Minster’s time, as to the “little gentlemen from the land of the chrysanthe mum.”