MURDER BY BLACKS

Taranaki Daily News, 8 November 1932, Page 6

MURDER BY BLACKS

NORTH AUSTRALIAN CRIME '

JAPANESE FISHERMEN’S FATE. SLPRVTVOR’S VTVTD ACCOUNT. A vivid account of the killing of the party of Japanese trepang-fishers by aborigines at Caledon Bay, on the shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Territory, in September, is given in a letter which Mr. V. Kepert, of Katoomb’a, has received from Kinji, the sole Japanese survivor of the massacre. Mr. Kepert, who formerly lived in the Northern Territory, owned the lugger in which the Japanese were working. In his letter Kinji described how he and his companions were working on the beach at Caledon Bay, when he heard Inamori, one of his companions, 'who was cooking a damper, cry out. He turned to see what was the matter. Inamori was on the ground surrounded by blacks, who had spears in- their hands. Previous to this a number of blacks had been sitting on the sand ridge behind the beach. The guns of the Japanese were standing against a tree between Inamori and the others. Kimishuna and Kinji made a rush for the guns, but before they got there the blacks reached them. So they ran back to the -water. THREE COMPANIONS SHEARED. “'When we reached the water,” Kinji continued, “Kimishuna received a spear in the back, which pierced his body and came out of his chest. He kept on running. Tanaka then received two spears through his back. He still struggled to get away into deeper water. Higashi was the next to receive a spear, which went right through his body. He also kept running into deeper water. ‘‘We were all trying to get to a point on the west side of a small bay. The blacks reached that point before us. One of the blacks waved a tomahawk above his head calling to me to come to him. I was in deep water, swimming, and had lost signs of my companions. The king of the Caledon blacks was standing on a high rock commanding his men to run toward the creek to cut us oft’. This was spoken in their, own language, which I understood. The idea was to cut us off from Gray’s —another trepang camp on the other side of the bay —which we were trying to reach. I told our six black boys, who were swimming near me, to 'run the other way, and we all ran into 'the bush, and then turned in tfye direction of Arnhem Bay, which we reached 'in three days. SWIMMING ACROSS RIVERS. “We swam across many rivers. We 'walked around Arnhem Bay in a westerly direction first; then in a north'westerly direction for four days, then 'went bush again, and two days later 'we came out on the beach, and saw two 'luggers. We burned a big fire along the beach to attract attention, but no notice was taken of us by the luggers. The luggers were about eight miles out to 'sea.

“We kept walking along the beach, and next day about noon we saw one of our own boats about five miles off 'shore. From there we walked to opposite the Millingimbi mission station, 180 miles from where we were attacked. Three of the boys swam across to the station, and brought back some of the missionaries in a motor-launch. -We all went to the mission station, arriving there on October 1.

“I think we were attacked by the ■natives because they wanted to loot our 'tucker.’ I don’t know of any guns being fired by Japanese until we were ’on shore. We did fire guns while cleaning them on the. luggers.”