GOVERNMENT PATROL

Hokitika Guardian, 21 March 1932, Page 7

GOVERNMENT PATROL

NEW GUINEA POLICING. MISDEEDS OF HEAD HUNTERS AUCKLAND, March IT

A lull and varied liie was the way in which Mr A. Barnes described his experiences in New Guinea, He is employed by an Island trading concern, and has been there for 34 years. He arrived this morning by the Mu ram a lor a holiday of 21 months. On the coast the natives were civilised, he said, but further back in the interior they were as wild as ever they were ](K) years ago. He was a friend of one of 4the Government patrol men, and the latter had told him some tales of the doings of the back country tribes Some time ago a tribe called the Suki raided another tribe } the Weridais, about 100 miles up the Fly Giver, anti took some enemy heads back « it! them as spoils to the victor. It was the joh of the Government patrol, a white man ueeompuniod merely bv some unlive ‘‘boys", to go and find the murderers and bring them to justice. Mr Barnes said the oll'rer was ignorant ol 111 1 * tribe at flu* tune. Me did not know where the outrage had taken place. In fact, he knew nothing. He had 1" march through fever-ridden jungles until he stumbled across his quarry. Ho did it in II days, and brought back with him 28 prisoners, and the h««ds into the bargain. This was the on’mil story of the patrol men. As a Mile, however, they were close mouthed men.