King Cam’s Book Bound

In Human Skin’

A 300-year-old book, which is claimed to be bound in human skin, was on its way from Samarai to Sydney at the end of April.

THE book belonged to Cyril Barnevelt Cameron, popularly known as King Cam of Kitava, who died at Port Moresby on March 28 at the age of 78.

Cameron lived for more than 50 years on Kitava, in the Trobriand Islands of Papua, where he owned a coconut plantation.

Born in 1887, at Chudleigh, Tas mania, where his great-grandfather, a prominent member of the Clan Cameron, settled in 1817, Mr.

Cameron went to Papua in 1909 as a goldminer, and three years later sailed to Kitava, where he pitched a tent and started his coconut plant ation.

From then until his death, he left his island only rarely. Two of the occasions were when he went south during the two world wars and another was in 1926 when he joined the Edie Creek gold rush.

Belonged To Ancestors

His ancient book is said to have been bound in the skin of one of his ancestors, who took part in an in surrection. Certainly it is bound in skin.

There seems to be some doubt as to who the ancestor was.

One member of the Clan Cameron wrote in the Sydney Press after Cam’s death that one of his ancestors, John Cameron, third son of the 18th Laird of Lochiel, was beheaded in 1753 as the last of the Jacobites.

But King Cam also appears to have been a descendant of the Dutch patriot, Johan van Olden Barnevelt, who was executed in 1619.

At any rate, his book, which was published in 1670 and is a revised and corrected version of one pub lished the previous year, has reposed in the safe of the Bank of NSW at Samarai for some years.

King Cam’s will provided that it be given to the museum in Hobart after his death.

The book is printed in old Dutch, and measures 6i in. x 41 x 2 in.

It is bound in “fine skin” and is in good condition. It has about 700 pages, including about half-a-dozen copper engravings.

The contents comprise letters from Queen Elizabeth and the Kings of France and Sweden, but most is taken up with the political and re ligious arguments of the Dutch pro vinces engaged in throwing off the Spanish yoke in the 17th century.

Like many of the other facts about Cameron’s life, nothing seems to be known about how he came to be in possession of the old book.

No Harem

His lonely existence on Kitava led to much speculation on the main land of New Guinea and in Australia.

He was said to be the ruler of a free love island with a harem of more than 80 Papuan girls during his years as “king”. But he strongly denied this.

Samarai copra inspector, Doug Askew, a New Guinea old hand, said in April: “Old Cam could have pulled out of there a long time ago and had a bit of comfort somewhere else. I’ve seen him only three times in the last 10 years here.”

Mr. Basil Hall, of Ringwood, Vic toria, who called on Cameron with ADO Ben Hall, in 1938, remembers him as being on the beach to meet them—“a gaunt figure in black silk shirt and shorts, with a sheath knife thrust ‘skean dhu’ fashion into one ragged puttee.”

In recent years the sheath knife gave way to a filed-down hacksaw blade, with which he cut up his “trade twist” tobacco in pieces small enough for his pipe. In the other puttee he thrust a small block of wood he used as a chopping board for the tobacco.

Mr. John Stuntz, MHA, a Milne Bay district plantation owner and a friend of Cameron’s, describes him as “a fine old gentleman who liked his privacy”.

There was rarely any trouble on the island, as Cameron was respected.

Cameron’s 300-acre plantation will be bought by the NG Administration and made available to the local people, probably on a co-operative basis.