Chapter V

A VISIT TO THE R.C. MISSION--BISHOP COPPÉE ON VARIOUS
ISLANDERS--THE NUNS--THEIR SCHOOLS--MURDER OF TEN
MISSIONARIES--CONGREGATION OF NATIVES

During the course of a lengthy visit to the Roman Catholic Mission at Vunapope, twenty minutes’ walk from the hotel, I learnt much that was new to me. As I sat in the spacious parlour of Bishop Coppée’s two-storied residence, with its wide entrance looking out to sea, and listened as he spoke of the different islands he had visited with a view to ascertaining the practicability of establishing missions, I was interested not only in his conversation, but in the man himself. A tall, dignified, handsome Frenchman, wearing a simple white suit of clothes like everybody else in these latitudes, with the addition of a handsome gold chain and cross on his breast, he struck me as a man of great character. In the language of the modern occultist, one instinctively sensed refinement, skill, knowledge and power. Many years before he became Bishop, in 1892, he had laboured in the Archipelago, building with his own hands schools and churches, and he was universally respected and admired by those who were not in accord with his views. Producing an enormous chart, he pointed out to me three groups of islands in the north of the Archipelago to which he was referring. The inhabitants of these--the Anchorites, the Hermits, and the Exchequers--are rapidly dying out. Intermarrying, manifold diseases, such as elephantiasis, scrofula and others introduced by the landing from time to time of American or European whalers and trading-ships, were adduced as the causes of their rapid disappearance. On the Anchorites the Bishop had found the natives so low as to be eating their own children. Only about sixty still exist, and on the Hermits the curious circumstance of an island possessing forty inhabitants, of which the youngest was sixteen some two years ago, demonstrates most forcibly how lacking in vitality the islanders have become, since they are too weak to reproduce their kind. Yet, not so many years ago, labourers were recruited from this group to work in the plantations. In fact everything points to the belief that a healthy population, possessing a social polity of their own, with a skill in native art superior to that of many other islands, was once in force. Portions of very richly decorated long canoes, fitted to carry fifty persons, are preserved by German residents in the colony. In the year 1881 the population was between three hundred and four hundred, to-day there are not more than eighty.

The Exchequer Islands, which with the two already mentioned groups are mostly of coral formation, possessing the same mixed type of natives, are better in this respect; that is to say, that complete extinction is not quite within measurable distance. About four hundred natives live on the group, but their number, too, is gradually diminishing.

“What a marked contrast to the Admiralty Islanders!” I had remarked, and the Bishop had proceeded to tell me how strikingly different are the conditions which each island presents. The intelligence of the Admiralty natives, their populousness, virility and fierceness, with, so far as is known, freedom from decimating diseases, stands out in prominent relief from the majority of the Bismarck Islanders. On the chart I was shown Douro and Matty lying with one or two islets west of the Admiraltys. Here, I was told, an ethnological problem of deep interest lies in determining the origin of the inhabitants. These low-lying coral islands offering no anchorage, rich in tropical vegetation--the cocoanut-palm, the bread-fruit tree, bananas, taro--never visited until a few short years ago since Carteret discovered them, are the home of a race altogether different from any other in these seas. It is neither Papuan nor Polynesian, nor Melanesian. None can understand the language, though attempts are now being made to study it. Some of the curious weapons of the islanders had been sent to Berlin, and Herr von Lüschan considered they resembled some ancient Chinese weapons which had passed through his hands.

“Where do _you_ think they came from?” I had asked, for the Bishop had brought away some children on his visit, and they were in the schools I was to visit.

“Personally, I think they are the descendants of Malay or possibly Chinese castaways who have been wrecked on the islands,” was his reply. Frequently, it seems, canoes are swept out of their course, or wrecked on adjacent islands, when outside influence of this kind assists materially to mix the races. Thus, in 1899, a Buka was driven on to one of the Sir Charles Hardy Group. In attempting to return he was, instead, landed on the coast of New Ireland. Sometimes it has happened that when the natives have successfully landed on strange shores, they have fought with, killed and eaten the inhabitants, taking the women as slaves, thus affording another addition to the racial confusion. In this way, it is not improbable that many islands have gained their populations. The fact that a loom was found in the island of St Matthias, inhabited at present by people of the lowest culture, points to the influence at one time of a higher race. Another factor in the situation is the endless fighting between the islanders, leading often to the retirement into probably uninhabited spaces of the weaker people. Thus a few years ago the natives belonging to two small islands to the north of New Ireland withdrew into far removed islets to escape the attacks of the New Irelanders. The same thing has occurred in the Admiraltys.

To return to the inhabitants of Douro and Matty. The Bishop told me that they were deft carpenters, their skilfully built houses unlike any other, but they too, he feared, would shortly disappear from the Pacific. Mentioning that the Danish Captain of the _Sumatra_ had remarked on the predominance of females over males in these islands, the Bishop remarked that the circumstance might have been brought about by the ravages of the fever which had wrought such havoc in 1903. Unfortunately, this had been followed in 1904 by a catastrophe which had carried off full five hundred people. It occurred in this way. The natives had killed a manager and two Chinamen. When the next ship was seen approaching, they had been seized with panic and had taken to their canoes and gone out to sea. Unfortunately, a storm arose, during which they, in their frail craft, had succumbed to the fury of the waves. The natives in these two islands, although ethnographically related, are curiously enough quite antagonistic to each other.

The schools which I afterwards visited under the guidance of the sisters were very interesting. Here I soon learnt to pick out the different types which children brought from several of the adjacent islands afforded--the black-skinned Bukas, the lighter-coloured intelligent children from New Ireland. I was also able to identify those which the Bishop had brought from Matty. They were absolutely different from the others, lighter in colour, finer in feature, and, if I saw rightly, showed distinct Mongol influence.

They were being taught to sing by cipher notation, the time kept was remarkably good. I could not fail to remark upon the practical, well-built schoolhouses. “Die Väter hallen alles gethan” (the Fathers have done it all) was the explanation. The buildings in this part of the world are all constructed with a view to withstand frequent shocks of earthquake. They are generally erected on concrete blocks and are so constructed that in case of violent shocks the whole structure sways together.

Thinking of the intense heat, the risk of fever, of the often inadequate supply of good food, of the menacing volcano across the bay, and of the dangerous, treacherous natives, I asked the nuns if they did not long to go home sometimes? “We are here for life,” was the quiet reply. Then I questioned them about a disaster which had happened to some of their number shortly before, and I was told that on the 13th of August 1904, at the newly-established station of St Paul, some forty miles along the coast westwards, encircled by the Baining mountains, Father Rascher, with four of his fellow-priests and five sisters, had been murdered. The grief of the little community at Vunapope had been excessive, when through a native source the awful news had burst upon them with the suddenness of a thunderclap. It appeared that Father Rascher, who had the previous year compiled a dictionary of the Baining language, and had nearly completed a grammar, was in the habit of shooting pigeons with a native lad who carried his gun. Unfortunately the latter had learned to shoot from his master, and apparently it was preconcerted that when he should shoot the priest the rest of the Bainings should steal up to the mission-house and brain the other white people. This was done so effectually that not one of the little band escaped. One sister was found dead in front of the altar of the newly-erected chapel. Fortunately their bodies were left _in situ_, the native being afraid to eat white man’s flesh, since he is afraid of the revenge his spirit may take. The bodies of these martyrs were collected by their mourning friends and buried in one large grave. To punish the natives, a punitive expedition was sent out by the Governor into the Baining country, when several natives were shot, fortunately including the ringleader.

Nothing daunted by this terrible catastrophe, the places of those who had perished were speedily filled, and the mission continues its labours. In this district Bishop Coppée has inaugurated an industry which helps to support the community. A sawing-mill sent out from Europe prepares timber supplied from the Baining mountains, which is loaded on to vessels and taken wherever wanted.

This was the first of several visits to the order of the “Heiligen Herzen Jesus,” which has its headquarters at Hiltrup near Munster in Westphalia. To see the kanakas at their best, the nuns advised me to come the following morning at seven o’clock, when they walked in from all parts of the district to attend Mass. This I resolved to do.

That afternoon I received a visit from Mr Parkinson, in reply to my letter, and I arranged in accordance with his kind invitation to spend a day at his house early the ensuing week to witness a market held on the verandah, when the natives bring in their agricultural products, receiving payment in tobacco for the most part.

It was early as I set forth the first Sunday of my stay in New Britain to hear Mass at the Roman Catholic church. There is no other place of worship, so that one’s choice is limited.

The way led across a wooden bridge to the coast where many devotees were inverting the apostolic admonition and taking their dip before going to service. Women in twos and threes peered shyly, yet curiously, at me as I walked slowly past. Weakly creatures they looked, ill-shapen, painfully thin; some toiled along with children slung on in front, whilst all carried heavily-laden baskets on their shoulders, the weight suspended by a cloth or bark bandage passing round the temples. Their features were small, and as a short, smart, tropical rain suddenly came on, they produced coverings of pandanus leaves fastened together to protect their heads. As I approached the sheds and landing-place belonging to the community, to turn sharply on my right to ascend the height whereon the church is built, a motley crowd of natives followed. The church was calculated to hold about four hundred. Not a seat was vacant when the service began, and outside on the grass numbers sat who could not be accommodated within. A chair had been placed for me on the side where the women sat, from which I turned to watch the congregation filing slowly into place under the guidance of one of the Fathers. The mats and baskets of the women remained outside the building. The feathers and finery had been taken out of the men’s vari-coloured hair, also their pipes and other personal adornments were left on the grass outside. Their behaviour was orderly and reverential in the extreme. It really was a wonderful sight to see row upon row of converted men-eaters kneeling and rising at given signals; not but what their white, red and yellow moppy heads, their lips stained with betel chewing, gave them a ferocious aspect. They sang hymns too, in their own kanaka tongue, and listened to a long but eloquent address also in their own language with evident enjoyment. As I studied them, the words of Lowell came to my remembrance:--

“For whom the heart of man shuts out
Sometimes the heart of God takes in.”

I confess my mind was much disturbed by worldly thoughts as the service proceeded. Around me there was scarcely a native who was not covered with ringworm, and the scratching that went on continuously did not tend to devotion.

This Mission, founded in 1885, claims to have baptised 13,000 converts. On one occasion, I inquired as to how much and how little of the somewhat complicated doctrinal teaching of the Church of Rome was imparted to the kanaka? I was told that the most rudimentary elements of religion comprised the instruction given. With the dread of evil spirits which haunts the native from his birth to his death, it was something to get him to believe that there was a good spirit who controlled evil. That which had led to the murder of the missionaries at Baining is now believed to be the way in which the priests had insisted upon their converts having only one wife. This the natives were unwilling to accede to, though desirous of being admitted into the Church.

On my way back to the hotel I pondered over the interesting scene just witnessed. All that, from the ordinary standpoint, makes life worth living, these missionaries had sacrificed, not temporarily, but permanently. No one could fail to be greatly impressed by the heroism of the life of sympathy.

“For heavy is the weight of ill
In every heart,
And comforters are needed much
Of Christ-like touch.”