haunted plantation...cook islands (1936)

7/28/2019 Haunted Plantation...Cook Islands (1936)

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Chronicle (Adelaide, SA : 1895 - 1954), Thursday 25 June 1936, page 63

National Library of Australia http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92344425

THE HAUNTED PLANTATION

CompleteStory

By Captain A* J. Carfax

ABOUT two thousand miles uorth

east of New Zealandlies

a smallgroup of islands known as the Cooks.

The seat of administration is Baro

tonga, a wocded, volcanic isle about

twenty miles square, peopled by brown

skinned folk who are close relations in

bjood and speech of the New Zealand

Maoris.

They are a wonderful race, with all

the amiable characteristics of South

Sea natives — excont where the 'white

shadow' of trading and exploitation

has fallen. Then they are quick to

assimilate European vices, and often

prove to be more cunning and un

trustworthy than the average.

The island is steeped in tradition.Nearly every point in Raratonga has a

history— generally of death, battle, or

sacred rites. The islanders are, superficially, happy-go-luclry people, wearinga smile much more readily than a

frown; nevertheless, one senses an

undercurrent of melancholy, a half

hifdsn sadness which is difficult to

define.

The Polynesians still believe in fcheir

old gods, even though they revel in

the' ceremonial and hymn-singing of

the various missionary societies. To

them the tupapako. a ghostly visitant,

can' be real

embroider their stories of uncannyhappenings so thickly that one cannot

be sure how much of them is true.

During the year 1927 I was living in

Auckland. New Zealand, and was con

sidering the purchase of a certain plantation in Rarotonga. During my In

vestigations I came on several letters

mentioning th'.t the estate was

'haunted,' greatly to the detriment ofits production, since no one was bold

enorgh to stay on the place and workit nroperiy.

I am not superstitious, however, and

am and

the idea of 'ghosts' merely amused me.

The place had certainly been neglectedfor yeprs, and the house had stood

empty for a considerable period — and

emuty houses, as everyone knows, have

a knac'* of bre?dine rMfflttlons lecrmrts

Fi'-al'y I decided to buy; the price

vr?.s low, and the nrosiects looked good.The fact th^.t. in addition to Delng'haunted,' the estate was supposed to

be unlucky did not weigh with me at all;

I had teen in so many tightish corners

during my lifetime th?t I had come todiscount luc': as a serious factor. To

day I am not so sure, for the signing

of that purchass-asTeement un

doubtedly marked the beginning of a

series of reverses, financial and otherwise, whioh have greatly changed the

aspect of things for me. But let me get

I landed in Rarotonga in October,1927. laden with a weird and wonderfuloutfit I took with me sufficient im

plements to subdue any wild growths*enough arms to frighten truculentnatives or belligerent ehosts; and all

sorts of other gesr including an upto-date tractor. Methinks the oldtimers must have smirked at my en

thusiasm and self-confident manner!When I mentioned that I had bougnc

the estate of A ?

some of them smiled,

while others looked grave; but everybody I met agresd that I was a fool tohave taken it. This unanimity puzzledma for. on the face of it, the placelooked an excellent proposition.

It was certainly a little unkempt,owing to long neglect, but hard work»wi'U wu' ancx irixat. W Hell X WttS

told, again and again, that the previous owners had all 'gene broke' andthat one had even shot himself, I was

not impressed; I felt confident I couldsucceed where my predecessors hadfailed.



The estate itself was beautiful and

very conveniently laid out. The packing sheds were close to the beach, .chile

the house was situated on a slight rise

inland, across a taro swamp. Ssaward,the lagoon stretched to the main reef

a mile away. Around the homesteadand on the fiat land between the beachand the hilJs the tall palms were

planted in rc?ul?.r lines. Altogetherquite a little Paradise, I thought.

After inspecting the house i saw thatsome weeks must elans* before I shouldbe able to live in it, for it was verydirty and needed certain repairs. I

therefore had a thatched hut built onthe beach and shifted my kit into it.

Next I started gangs of 'boys' no

work, cleaning up the weeds, collecting

coconuts, making copra, plantingbananas, &c, and very soon I was

thoroughly enjoying the new life. Mydaily tasks on the estate were inter

spersed with riding, fishing, canoeing,and shooting — altogether a healthy di

versified, existence, colorful and absorbin?.

One day, in conversation with my

my intention of putting the house in

order and moving in; I was gettingtired of my cramped quarters in thenut He had spoken to me about thehouse on several occasions, always making it plain that the. place was hauntedand very unsafe to live in. Each timeI had laughed at his statements, butnow I was secretly surprised at hisvehemence in trying to persuade me

against carrying out my purpose, hese?med genuinely upset

'What is really wrong with theplace, Kakxno?' i demanded. 'Don'ttell me any more fairy-tales about thetupapako. but give me the truth. Whyshouldn't I live there?'

'Aue— no good!' he cried in terrorstricken accents. 'Too much ghost! Thespirits kill you.'

'The ghosts will kill me?' I echoed.'Rats! Listen to me, Kakino You findme six good men to paint and £x him

up. Tomorrow!'After a lot of argument the foreman

finallv agreed to get hold of some men;but then another obstacle presenteditsslf. No one in Titikaveka Settlement

would takeon

the Job! The nativeswe approached offered all sorts of

excuses. There were 'too many gho—j;''the house was unlucky;' 'the badspirits would get them.'

The firmness of their refusals andthe strength of their belief in the baleful inflrences attached to the housegreatlv impressed me. Seeking an ex

planation, z learnt something new, The

house, I was told, was accursed be

cause, in defiance of a native tabu, it

had been built on holy ground— partof an ancient marae, or sacrificial

of an ancient marae, or sacrificial

area. This had greatly angered the

spirits, who took their revenge on any

one rash enough to endeavor to live in

the place.

Well, I couldn't shift the house now,

and I wasn't responsible for its erect

tion on forbidden territory. Moreover,it was my property, bought with my

hard-earned money, and I was jolly

well going to live there, despite all the

hunted around tillI came across some

Palmerston islanders, who have a

strong strain of European blood in their

veins, and speak a queer patoisEnglish. They are a hard-bitten lot, and

readily agreed to do the work re

quired.

By this time the news of my inten

tions having circulated, it seemed that

the entire population of Rarotonga was

interested in persuading me to leave

the house alone. I received an as

tonishing amount of advice and criti

cism, but the opposition only mademe

more determined to renovate that

house, take up my residence there, and

at all this superstitious non

sense.

I roused the Polynesian 'boys' to

a positive frenzy of energy, which re

sulted in the place being painted and

rendered habitable inside a week. New

verandahs and a general clesn-up

worked miracles with the house itself,

and a pretty flower garden laid but

round the clearing gave charming vis

I had my goods and chattels car

ried in, stocked the larder, and tried

my 'prentice hand at arranging thefurniture. Then, with things more

or less ship-shape, I engaged two ser

vants gave a house warming party, and

laughed gaily at the gloomy warningsthat had been showered on me.

But I lauehed too soon!

Disquiet of mind, vague forebodings,

strange spells of melachonly-^th^ethings came to me so quietly, so subtly.

that I cannot remember when I first

realised their effects.'

And worse was

to follow.

Each evening, after work was over,

I used to sit alone on my verandah my

mosquito net protecting me from theassaults of insects. Sometimes I read;

sometimes I was content to watch the

moonbeams play hide-and-seek among

the palm fronds. The scene before

me was so beautiful as to be almost

K1UU Ui: Oil CbJ. u UUU ***\* T? c*0 uivmvww

comfort; I was living exactly as I

wanted to. I should have been utterly

happy; yet, after the first few days, I

realised that I wasn't.

At times I was too tired, after a

strenuous day of charging up and down

the lines on the tractor, or tramping



the lines on the tractor, or tramping

round the bush, to do more than lounge

the evening away. This probably en

couraged a certain amount of intro

spection, which isn't always good for

one. At any rate, I gradually became

aware of a curious, mental discomfort,

a sense of dissatisfaction with my

progress, and something that almost

amounted to fear of the quietness all

around.

I was completely at a loss to account

for this state of affairs for I was not

at all the kind of fellow likely to

'imagine things,' and nothing whatr

ever had occurred to upset me. In

deed, for a house that was popularly

supposed to be brimming over with

evil influences, my new residence was

behaving exceedingly well.

Then, one evening while I was stand

ing on the verandah gazing idly out to

sea, I suddenly heard a scuffling foot

step behind me, es though someone

had turned sharply on their heels.

Rather startled; forthe sound was

quite close, I whipped round.

There was no one in sight!

Seizing my torch, I huntea ngnt

through the house and then quartered

the grounds, but could find no trace

of any intruder. I told myself it

must have been a rat, yet inwardly I

felt certain It wasn't.

Next morning, reaching for my rid

ing breeches in their accustomed place.

I found them gone. Gone also was

my gold watch and twenty-nine poundsfrom the table drawer.

?'So it was a human footstep after

all!' I

thoughtgrimly. 'There's a

thief about! Well, I knew how to

deal with that sort of happening!'In due course the police came along

and questioned everybody, but en

tirely without result.

That same night, lying awake in bed,

I heard slow footsteps cross the ver

andah and enter my room. They were

heavy and deliberate, and sounded

rather muffled, as though the intru

der wore soft shoes. When theyreached the foot of the bed I sat up

with a jerk and switched on my torch.

It took me several seconds to realise

there was no one there! In a cold

sweat, z kept the light focussed, andlistened while the mysterious steps re

ceded to the door.

I was undoubtedly badly scared, but

somehow I found courage to jumpout of bed and search the house. I

ranged round the stoeps, flashing the

torch beam everywhere I fancied a

man could be hidden. Not content

with that, I went through the lower

plantation, and finally hid beside the

road leading to the village, hoping to

catch any prowling native when he

decided to head for home. But noth

decided to head for home. But noth

ing happened, and nobody appeared.

Recounting these experiences next

morning to Harvey, a~ planter living

nearby, I found he was quite ready to

believe me. He merely, smiled, tellin«r?

me that exactly the same tiling hadj

happened to another European who

had once managed the estate.

'I thought it wouldn't be long be

fore tbe 'influence' started on you,' he

said thoughtfully. 'If you persist in

remaining, you'll go through the same

ordeal as ether people who have at

tempted to live in that house. You'll

hear mysterious footsteps, baby cries,

muttered scraps of conversations, and

you'll see a woman crossing the garden at dusk. Finally,' you will be ?

'

He stopped abruptly. 'I won't tell you

any mere,' he added, 'in case it

Ideas in your head.'

I begged him to explain himself, butno amount of questioning would loosen

his

tonguefurther.

'Ask Andy when he returns,1' was

the only reply I could elicit. And as

'Andy,' a schooner captain, was awayat sea, the reference was not of much

immediate use.

To cut a long story short, althoughall Harvey's prophecies were eventually fulfilled — witih thr- pxrpntirm nf

the vision of the woman— and al

though I was terrified at times. I

stuck stubbornly to the house, half

believing in some supernatural in

fluence, bnt nevertheless .clinging to

the hone that some human agency was

fit work.

This hope w?s strengthened by the

constant pilfering that went on, in

spite ofall I could do to stop

it.

Copra, bananas, clothes, fruit, cigar

ettes, sugar—all these things disap

peared at varying intervals; and al

though I continually changed the

labor gang and servants the robberies

continued.

During the period while I was ex

periencing these mysterious happeningsit struck me as odd that the servants

and 'boys' showed no f°ar of the house

by day, although they lost no time in

leaving it as soon as night fall. It was

very different with the dog I bought!'

The seven days he spent there were

a misery to me. He never rested; at

msne ne prowiea msmauy rouna wie

verandah, dropping with a loud thump

on the boards at different places, only

to start up whining, a moment or so

later, and recommence his wanderings.

in the end I had to send the poor brute

away.

I need hardlv say that my nerves

suffered under the strain. At nights

I lay awake, and. it is nossible that the

ordeal playpd tri'ks with my imagina



ordeal playpd tri'ks with my imagina

tion. Be that as it mav, I heard in

turn, and reputedly all the noises de

scribed by Harvey — footsteps, babycries, muttered conversations. In day

cpIdVv and coolly, I

began to seek possible evnio nations,

but I never discovered anything.

Despite these distractions, the plan

tation work wenton

apace. I plantedsome thousands of bananas; I carefully

manured and tended my orange trees

and coconuts. But', «las, market prices

were dropping steadily! As my crops

came Into production, so something or

other happened to neutralise my profit.

?

I sm rather ahead of my story in

mentioning this, as these and other

set-backs were spread over a period of

three years. As time went on, how

ever it seemed as though the whole

universe was in a. conspiracy to rob

me of a livelihood and drive me from

My visitor of the heavy footsteps

was now so frequent a caller that he

no longer disturbed me; nor. indeed,

did the mysterious noises succeed hi

convincing me that the house should

be vacated. I grew, in fact, a little

'hard-boiled' over the matter. Baby

cries? Bah! A loose splinter of wood

somewhere, quivering in the wi«d. That

mutter of talk? Lab^r 'boys' at a

'bush-beer srhool' (illicit drinkingbout) in the neighborhood.

. The fontetens? Snme vagary of the

sea. poss'blv rosriw? un-ier the honey

combed reefer-rt. reverberating beneath

the house, AH these anneared sound

enou«rh. reasons 6ii'crfin'-il'y. but at

he«»rt I was not onvWea

One evening, while t.vnirig- a letter,

I bwatne a^are, bv tb°t sixth sense

which w« all possess.t*-pt somebody

was watching me from the back veran

dah.I got un casuallv enoueh, strolled

into my bp^room. and came ba'k to

the front w'th my pistol v*- my Rl*'»ve.

I riawdlefl there a morrent. and then

suddenly dashed across the room to the

window, where I was sure the watcher

lurked.

Quick as I was. he move^ even faster;

he went so raoidlv and silently that I

fancied I must have been mistaken

'Jove! Is this j»noth«yr ghost?' I

thought. Then, looking down, I saw a

line .of damo footprints leading across

I rhuckied wi^h relief. This tune It

was human trickery for certain! Yet

that nleht I was to experience the cli

max of mv eerie adventures: one -which

has left me floundering in conjecture

ever since.

Briefly, I was throttled within an inch

of death, wakin«r to find mv neck In an

iron srin. mv lun-?s nawfn? with the

lark of air, mv hortv st'flflv rMd— and

of mv

my own hands gripping my thighs. The

pressure increased until I must hate

fainted for a moment. Then I found:

myself sitting up groping for my torch

I imagined, until my neck began to

pain me. that it had been a fantasti

cally vivid nightmare.

I searched as usual, but there was

nothing amiss anywhere in the house.

Next morning, considerably shaken, I

sought out Harvey. He was sitting in,

his packing-shed, and stared at me

closely as I approached.

'So it has happened?' he remarked.'What do you mean?' I asked. 'How

do

'Look at your neck, man.'' he cried.

I did so, and the mirror disclosed

angry finger-marks, rapidly turningblack.

'Look here, Jimmy,' he went on

gravely. 'Take my advice and get outof that infernal house. If you don't, it

;

will drive you crazy. This strangling'business is what I couldn't tell you about

!

the other day; it has happened before,

I

to other occupants Pull the wretchedI

place down and build another housedown at the beach!'

We discussed the matter from variousangles, and when Harvey finally sug

gested that I might somehow have con

trived to strangle myself, I rememberedwhere my hands had been.

wcu coon secue cnec, i saia, ana

pulTed up the legs of my shorts. Boththighs were marked with livid printswhere my fingers had gripped in my ex

tremity.

Going back home, I fought the problem out. Should I leave? Common

sense said, 'Yes;' my inherent stub

bornness said, 'No.' 'No' had it atlast; I stayed on, determined not to be

driven away.

During the following month nothing

happened to disturb me; even the footsteps and kindred noises ceased. Was it

possible that some human being hadthrottled me; and, if so, was he respon-

!

sible for all the other annoyances? Was:

some skulking rascal trying to scare me

'

away so that the place might again be

robbed of its produce?The idea seemed plausible, yet I

doubted whether any of the local na

tives would dare to tackle me either bynight or day; they had too much respectfor my prowess as a boxer. Nevertheless, I slept very warily, with my loadedpistol ready to hand under the pillow.

One night, about five weeks after the

strangling episode, a slight noise

awakened me. Bright moonlight re

vealed every article in the room, andI

presently drew my gaze to the doorway,where I detected a vague shape in the

shadow of the wall. Grasping my re



my re

volver, I quietly cocked it

'Who are you?' I bellowed, and as

the intruder started toward the doorwayI fired at his legs through the mos

quito netting, which immediately caughtfire.

'Aue!' groaned the unknown, swung

through the door, hurried across the

stoep, and crashed away through the

bushes just as I fired again. I scrambledout of bed, quickly extinguished the

burning net, and followed, only to find

that the intruder had completely disap

peared, leaving a few spots of blood as a

souvenir of his visit.

He was never found alive. Some weeks

after, however, when a certain man

irom an outlying island aiea of tuDercu

losis, he was found to have been suffer

ing from a neglected bullet wound in the

upper leg! This seemed suspicious, but

I could not trace any connection between

him and our villagers, nor could I find

that he had been in the vicinity of myplantation.

At this point my uncanny adventuresended, apparently for on amazing rea

son, which served to puzzle me still morethan ever, and still does.

Talking to an old chief one day aboutthe 'hauntings,' he confirmed the storythat my abode was accursed because it

wgs built on forbidden territory. He

added, however, that only the corner ofthe house stood on the marae, or holyground. He advised me to move my bedinto the other room; such an action

might appease the offended spirits. Idid so— and from that moment the eerie

experiences ended!

Though my supernatural troubles were

over, however, the more material ones

grew worse. My receipts dwindledsteadily, my pockets grew lighter andlighter. At last I was unable to standthe strain any longer, and left the estatea sadder and poorer planter still greatlypuj^led over the whole business.

I have never been able to solve theproblems presented by my experiences.

I. am told that the plantation re

mains a financial failure, and that thehouse is now left severely alone, shunnedby all. Haunted? Ghosts? Tricksters?

I wonder!

haunted plantation...cook islands (1936)

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