16 
MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM. 
SOME NOTES ON THE ASSASSINS’ BATONS 
OF MALAITA. 
By Douglas Rannie. 
(Plate IX.) 
]\Lvlaita^ the largest and most densely populated island in the British 
Solomon Group, is one of the few localities at the present time left unexplored. 
Truly wonderful rewards await tlie scientific explorers who have the courage to 
face and overcome tlie difficulties lying in the path of those who would penetrate 
and probe the mysteries of' these superstitious, wild, savage, and murderous people 
who dwell in the dark forests and mountain retreats of that beautiful island. 
A hundred miles long and tAV'cnty-five across, the island appears from the sea to 
be one vast forest, which, clothing the sides of a thousand hills, rises to far-off 
mountains. Throiigh the .jungle and glades of this dark forest there swarms a 
silent, desperate, cruel, and treacherous i^eople. They kill and are killed, and 
feast on human flesh. 
The bush people and mountaineers for generations past have Avaged a 
deadly feud with the coastal tribes, and stray trespassers on one another's terri- 
tories, if surprised, meet Avith instant death, or, if captured alive, Avith a lingering 
death of torture. At stated times, by mutual consent, hostilities are suspended, 
and the sea-coast and country parties meet on neutral ground set apart as market 
places, Avhere their women exchange and barter their varied produce and 
commodities, under the protection of armed guards of men fi*om both sides. 
The mixture of races on i\Ialaita is also indicated by the variety of Aveupons 
and implements used in warfare and hunting, as avcII as the ornaments adopted 
for personal adornment. Whereas in most islands throughout the Solomon Group 
the natives confine themselves to particular kinds of lethal Aveapons, discarding 
all others, the Malaitans employ all the offensive Aveapons commonly used by all 
races inhabiting the neighbouring and adjacent islands, such as clubs and Avooden 
swords of Amrious designs, together Avitli spears, boAvs and arroAVS, slings and 
stones, as Avell as daggers made from AAa)od, shell, and bone. IMany of their 
arroAA'S and some of their spears, in AA'orkmanship, are peculiar to jMalaita, but 
most of the other AA^capons have their counterpart in different islands. But the 
baton-shaped implements shoAvn in the illustration of some of the specimens in 
the Queensland Museum are peculiar to the southern district of Malaita only. 
They are ImoAA'n by repute but ne\’er seen in any of the northern or central 
parts of the island, and they are quite unknoAvn in any other part of the Pacific. 
On the south-east coast of the island they get the name of Ilau,” and on the 
