NEW GUINEA MURDERS.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 63, 14 March 1924, Page 9

NEW GUINEA MURDERS.

FRIGHTFUL ATROCITIES. FRIENDLY TRIBE MASSACRES. WHITE RECRUITER SPEARED. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, -larch 7. Two stories of terrible atrocities in Xew Guinea were brought back to Sydney by the steamer Mataram last week-end. Mr. Roderick, chief officer, supplied details of the death of a man named O'Dowd, whose body was frightfully mutilated. The murder was committed on the south-east coast of New Guinea, where cannibalism is rampant. The body, whicii had been pierced through by spears, was found close to a native village. Loaded with ammunition, O'Dowd had set out from his camp, in the company of several blacks, on a recruiting expedition. These men bad evidently sent word to a ferocious tribe, and an ambush was planned. But it is ptobable that O'Dowd's own men speared him from behind. A passenger by the Mataj ram, Mrs. O'Brien, who returned from lan extended tour of New Guinea, said j she knew O'Dowd fairly well. He was a barrister by profession, but bad the I wanderlust, and had abandoned the wig and gown for the rifle and the bunting i knife. I Just prior to his death Mrs. O'Brien had returned from a hunting trip on the ! Sepic River, where she witnessed a frightful massacre. Cannibals, she said, | roamed the banks of tbe river, and muri ders were of frequent occurrence. She arrived at the camp of tbe Main tribe the morning after the atrocities ! bad taken place. A tribe of kanakas had paid a visit to the Malu tribe, com--1 ing from Avanky and Yambu, but dur--1 ing the night they were set upon by their hosts, and most of them were murdered in their sleep. Mrs. O'Brien saw j the survivors. j Sixty-eight bodies were scattered j round the banks of the stream, aud hundreds of spears pinned them to the j ground. There were only thirty-seven survivors. "These stories rarely reach the outside world," she said.' "The things I have seen in the space oi a few months I would not care to see again during the j remainder of my life."