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Updated: June 23, 2025
Taking his bottle, Ruatoka poured a little water down the throat of the man. He then took the long piece of cloth, wound it round Neville, took the two ends in his hands, and stooping, he pulled and strained with all his great strength, until at last Neville lay like a sack upon his shoulders. Staggering along, Ruatoka climbed the hills that rose 300 feet high.
On entering the village we took them by surprise; the women shouted and the men rushed to their spears. We met the chief's wife, and she led us up the hill, where there are a number of good native houses. It was shouted on before us that foreigners and Ruatoka had arrived, and down the hill the youths came rushing, shaking hands, shouting, and slapping themselves.
It was a dark night and silent. The swish and lapping of the waters on the Port Moresby beach on the southern shore of the immense island of New Guinea, filled the air with a quiet hush of expectation. In a little white house sat a tall, dark man with his wife. The man was Ruatoka.
So Ruatoka had been trained as a teacher and preacher as well as a house-builder and carpenter; and his wife was taught how to teach children as well as good housekeeping. This was the brown man, Ruatoka, who sat that night in his little house at Port Moresby on the shore behind the great reef of Papua. Suddenly there came a knock at his door.
He spoke strong words to them which made their hearts turn to water within them when he showed that they did wrong. He often stopped them from fighting. Ruatoka, with his wife, had sailed from the South Sea Islands with Tamate, who was to them their great hero. "My fathers of old were heathen, savage men on the island of Mangaia," he would say.
If we touched him and he died, his ghost would haunt us for evermore." Ruatoka stood up at once and reached for his lantern, and turning to the men said: "Come and guide me to the place." They said, "No, we are afraid of the demon spirit. It is night. The man will die. We are afraid of the spirits. We will not go."
All along the coast the people were much afraid, expecting a raid, and at last news came in from Maiva that Motumotu and Lese were making great preparations that they would visit Motu, kill Tamate and Ruatoka, then attack right and left. Last year, when leaving, they said they would return and pay off accounts, kill the foreigners first, then all the natives they could get hold of.
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