WHITE WOMEN CAPTIVE

Taranaki Daily News, 26 July 1929, Page 3

WHITE WOMEN CAPTIVE

IN NORTH AUSTRALIA. DOUGLAS MAWSON SURVIVORS It was recently cabled from Sydney that the Thursday Island police had been informed by friendly blacks that several white women are living in captivity with the dangerous Caledon Bay natives and. the suspicion is strengthened that the women comprise the survivor's of the steamer Douglas Mawson, which foundered in the Gulf of Carpentaria a few years ago, and that the police accordingly had given the friendly natives pencils and paper to take to the women, on which they could write a message, which would facilitate their rescue alive. In March, 1923 the Government steamer Douglas Mawson was wrecked in the Gulf of Carpentaria during a heavy storm. She had a crew of thirteen men and carried as passengers Mr. and Mrs. Willett and their five children. The ship carried a stewardess also. No trace of any survivors has ever been found. The sinking of the ship and the tragedy that accompanied it had almost been forgotten when, on July 18, 1924, the ketch Maskee reached Port Darwin with an alarming story. The master stated that while they were at Cape Wilberforce a native informed a member of the native crew that the missing steamer Douglas Mawson sank in a big storm and that the-crew and passengers, including two white women, landed. The natives in the locality gathered and attacked the castaways, spearing the men and burying them on the beach. The native further stated that two white men later visited the blacks and, after taking a large sum of money from them —money which the blacks . had taken from, the Douglas Mawson survivors—they departed, warning the blacks not to talk or there would be trouble. ’ On July 20 Dr. Wade, leader of a mining party, reported that at three places on the coast he had heard from blacks a story about a wreck, the massacre of the male survivors and the capture of two women. The story of the capture of the women was scouted by many, it being. pointed out that since the Douglas Mawson was wrecked many ships had visited the locality without hearing anything. On October 14, 1924, a party returned to Port Darwin after making- a fruitless search of Arnheim Land. The leader reported that the party had. met some blacks at Point Bradshaw, who had informed them that there were white women at Caledon Bay. The horsemen went to this area, bub found no trace of the women. They' pursued a party of blacks, but were unable to catch them. The constable in charge was convinced that there were no white women in that vicinity. On October 23 the report that an Arnheim native had told of the missing women was officially denied, as it was pointed out that no wild Arnheim natives had been in Darwin. On October 20 the vessel John Alec left Port Darwin for Boorooloola conveying mounted police and two black trackers for the purpose of establishing a police station on Elcho Island, in the hope of collecting some information regarding the women. In addition the citizens of Port Darwin fitted out an expedition to proceed overland to Arnheim Land.

It was also reported that a blackfellow from Arnheim stated emphatically that when the police approached the area in which the women were held captive, the Caledon Bay natives embarked with the captive women in canoes and landed on an island in the Gulf.

On Octover 21 a cable message said that the movements of missionary women in the Northern Territory were thought to be at the root of the stories of the Douglas Mawson -survivors. On "December 2, 1924, Mr. Campbell, manager of the Government station at Oenpelli, reported that blacks had informed him that the women had been taken captive by two young natives of a different tribe from theirs. These two were afterwards killed .by two older warriors of another tribe.