Guadalcanal Ark

Mr. Noah and His Guadalcanal Ark

By Gabrielle Lawson

JUST after the sun has set out here in this part of the Pacific, loom dark sinister shapes, part of Melanesia; and here to-day, are still primitive people as old as Time itself, who believe in devils and ghosts in spite of Christianity.

Some of them are Christians, but no one can tell what they really believe in their hearts. The old Mission Father, who told me this story, remarked on the strange fact that so many of the old Bible stories had their counterparts among the natives.

This story tells how the natives came to be cousins of the Americans. They could, equally as well, have been cousins of the British. The native who told it just wanted to make the story fit the circumstances.

In the early part of the war with the Japs in the Solomons, two pilots of a US bomber aircraft failed to get back to the Carrier after they had been bombing Tulagi.

They crashed into the sea, but were able to launch their rubber rafts, and after three days landed on the west coast of Guadalcanal, hungry and very weary.

They were seen by some natives who thought that they were Japs.

The American pilots could see them talking and pointing, but apparently they looked so helpless the natives decided to approach them, and one old man questioned them.

This old fellow had seen Aus tralia in the old black-birding days, and he thought he would show his knowledge of the world, and asked if they had come from Mackay.

The Americans shook their heads, so the old man named a few other places which had somehow remained

Singapor$ ind Sydney ’ Melbourne - At last they were able to gasp Americans, Americans”. Forth with they were carried to a native village, and they heard the old man say Lookim good, this fellow master, him he cousin belong altogether.”

They were fed on boiled green bananas and coconut milk— normally not very palatable to a white man, but food from the gods to those hungry Americans.

Later on the old man was asked how he had come to call them cousins, and he told them that long ago, when the world was very young, there was much wickedness everywhere, and God grew angry with all except one man and his family. He was told to build a big ship, and the waters rose and flooded the world, but he and his family in the big ship remained safe. Later, when the world was clean again of all wicked people, he looked out and found his ship had settled on the top of one of the high mountains of Guadalcanal, and part of the ship still remains to-day for all to see the truth of the story. (Actually there is part of a ship on this high mountain—if one has a good imagination when examining the so-called remains!) Here the good man lived with his wife and sons quite happily, until one day, when he was bathing in a river, one of his sons stood on the bank and mocked him in his nakedness. He was exceedingly angry at this, and after holding council with the family later, he decided he would build another ship, and they would all sail off to America, except the one bad son who had mocked his father. This son was made to stay behind in the Solomon Islands, and his skin turned black. The rest of the family settled in America, and were white, hence the relationship.

IF the pilots had been British, of course, the family would have gone to England—natives always like to tell what they think will please the listener.

After the Americans had stayed in the village some little time, they were led to the nearest mission station where there was a hidden wireless transmitter, and contact was made with their base. They were given horses, and before they left with their guides for the part of the coast that had been selected by the Americans to pick up the pilots, they had to shake hands with hundreds of natives, including women and children, who had come from near and far to see the men who would save them from the Japanese.

This same old Mission Father, w r ho has been nearly 45 years in the Solomons, also told me that on Guadalcanal there is a peculiar formation-of stones, obviously hand

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placed and not put there by nature.

A native told him that long ago it was decided to build a tunnel through a mountain to unite two rivers.

A tremendous amount of work was done, and great numbers of men were engaged in the task.

One day before the work was completed, however, when the leader started to give orders, he found his men could not under stand him, nor could any of the men understand each other, and all was babble and confusion.

When they got back to their villages, they could understand each other again quite well but every time they went to the mountain to work the same thing happened.

They decided that some Unseen Power did not want those two rivers to meet, and only disaster would result if they continued.

These tales of the “Dark Islands” had their origin long before the missionaries brought Christianity to the natives.