VENDETTA WARFARE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2450, 24 March 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

VENDETTA WARFARE.

Killing Women and Children.

LIEUTKNANT-CoMMAXDEtt MoOKK, of her Majetty's ship Dart, in a report in which he wrote in August, ISB4, describes a visit he paid to Pleasant Island before the English Government took action. It is inhabited by about 1,200 people, none of whom have any religion, who for the most part drink to excess of sour palm toddy, who are well armed, and who are ever fighting among themselves with arms and ammunition supplied by eight white men, five of whom were agents for the Imperial German Consul. Two of these agents, William Harris and Thomas Jack, were British subjects. The report says :—The members of one small tribe, of which there are eleven on the island, are every now aud then lying in wait for members of another tribe, and shooting them from behind an ambush. It is vendetta warfare on a small scale. In this way about 250 women and children have been killed or wounded in the last four your years ; among the killed is a son of William Harris, whose body was found With six bullets in it, he being at the time of his death on the war path, intending to shoot somebody else. . . . If a family or tribe wishes to revenge itself upon another family or tribe, they first proceed, cocoanuts in hand, to their particular trader, and purchase ammunition. The trader, knowing perfectly well, that the cartridges he is now exchanging for nuts will be used within the next week, possibly that night, for the coldblooded murder of women and children (for these people do not confine their warfare to the men), eagerly sells it. The purchasers then stalk their victims, and if the latter do not happen to be looking out, shoot them from behind trees and run away. The family of the people shot then go to their trader for cartridges and proceed, when a good opportunity presents itself, to stalk the other family. The more quarrels in the island the better for the trader. Each of these persons are married to a native woman, and the people of his tribe are constantly in and out of his house and hanging about his premises. He has excellent opportunity for keeping up a tribal quarrel, and thus putting money into his pocket and that of his principal, Consul Hernsheim or whoever he may be. When old enough to handle a rifle, as waa the case of the son of Harris, the children of the trader no doubt join in with the natives. It is more than probable that the bullets found in the body of young Harris were sold a few days before by an agent for the same firm as that for which his father was trading."