Of Fr. Dubuy
pp. 64-67 · Read in the full issue
On Mt. Albert Edward
The Three Crosses Of Fr. Dubuy
Readers of June pim (p. gi who cannot turn up the issi for September, 1938, may 1 interested in knowing that the bi elaborate iron cross pictured these issues and referred to as tl highest cross in the Southe: Hemisphere, was not the first cro raised by Roman Catholic missioi aries on the summit of Mt. Albe Edward, in Papua (see PIM April 1957, p. 77; Aug. 1957, p. 20 Further, all credit for the crosses apparently there was succession of three of them—shou go to that fine pioneer priest, t] late Father Jules Dubuy of tl Mission of the Sacred Heart.
Father Dubuy was one of tl founders of Ononge Mission, eta' lished in the Vanapa or Vetaj Valley in 1913, at an altitude about 6000 feet. For almost 40 yea he was in charge of Ononge. Wi a handful of natives for compar he made his first ascent of IV ATbert Edward in 1925. In your it signed article of September, 19: it is stated that on June 26, 19 (obviously a misprint for 1926 Father Dubuy planted on the sur mit of the mountain a cross bush timber, which, in Octob 1928, he replaced with a cross ma of sawn timber.
The accompanying photograj shows what must have been t: second wooden cross, set in a caii of stones, on top of the centi peak. I made the picture on Jl 12, 1933, when we of the First Arc: bold Expedition to New Guin ascended the highest of the se
al peaks of the mountain for a xmd time (the first was on June ) from a camp which we occupied r 29 days at a boiling-point alti ie of 12,072 feet on the southern ipes. Standing beside the cross is chard Archbold; sitting is Austin Rand, ornithologist; in shirt eves, and apparently feeling the id, is C. J. (Bill) Adamson, our insport man; and, clad in Bill’s irm military tunic is his Kuni ?rom his Ononge Mission Father [buy made the three to four-day ;ent of the mountain a number times, as a religious exercise, d in 1933 he told us of his hope raise on its top a permanent >ss of iron fabricated in his tive France. 3ut Father Dubuy was not the st missionary to climb Mt. Albert ward. That distinction rests with ; Reverend Percy Money, of the glican Mission, who in 1906 ac npanied Resident Magistrate C.
W. Monckton on the first ascent the mountain made by Euro ms.
Jative Papuans have hunted wal ies and wild pigs on the alpine islands of the upper levels for
a long time, camping in low, fleainfested bark huts built in sheltered places below timberline, but far above their villages and gardens in the valleys.
According to the records avail able to me, 15 different white men made the ascent of 'Mt. Albert Ed ward before the celebrant party
(Continued column 3, page 65)
[?]ather Dubuy's second cross, and members the First Archbold Expedition, American [?]eum of Natural History, on summit of [?]ral peak, Mt. Albert Edward, Papua, July 1933. Left to right: Aia (Kuni cook), D. L. Rand, C. J. Adamson, Richard bold.
Photo: L. J. Brass.
which helped Father Dubuy erect his permanent cross in July, 1938.
But I think that to all who know that part of the country, Mt. Albert Edward is Father Dubuy’s moun tain.
It would appear that until 1937, when he was an ageing man, and lame, his only companions when he climbed the mountain were native parishioners. To him it was a lonely shrine. He was a man too devout ever to have thought of the big iron cross as a personal monument, but it might justly be regarded as such, and called Father Dubuy’s Cross.