HEAD HUNTERS' PLOT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 47, 18 November 1937, Page 9

HEAD HUNTERS' PLOT

Killing 0! White Men A head hunter 's story of the attempted massacre in Papua, last February, of three Europeans of the Island Exploration Company is recorded in the diary of Mr. Jack Hides, Australian explorer. Angry at missing their quarry, the tirebsmen fired fl'ights of arrows into >the ground where the whites had slept. Mr. Hides recently returned from an ■expedition into the Mandated Territory and Papua, where he xningled with hostile tribesmen. A statement made to him by a head hunter says-' — "Four Fly Biver meu went first up the river. They found the three white men, with three police and a lot of carriers, camped near the mouth of the River Kudu. This was in the time ofthe new moon (January or February). "The four men came back to Kuini with their talk, and all the Kuini people started to make their bahiboo knives sharp for taking the heads. Two Kuini men then came across to my people and said: White men are on the river. We are going to kill them.' "My people were not sorry. They said they would go and help. Uki is chief of my people, and he said all the Striekland people must go and help kill. Uki did not like white men being on the rivers. They blocked our fight roads upriver, where we take all our heads. "All the tribes went up to the camp, but they found the white men gone. All were wild at this, and they lired arrows into the sleeping places of the white men. Had they found the white men they would have killed them. "There were plenty of my people and Kuini people. They do not play at IkiUing." „