Ion L. Idriess (1889-1979) is one of Australia’s best-loved writers, with fifty-six books to his credit and millions of copies sold. When he returned from the First World War he wrote The Desert Column, about his experiences with the 5th Light Horse. Prospecting for Gold was his first major successful work; it immediately sold out and was reprinted constantly in the following years, as were many of his books. Idriess spent much of his life travelling throughout Australia, collecting material for his true-life stories, including Flynn of the Inland, Lasseter’s Last Ride and Back O’Cairns. He was awarded the O.B.E. in 1968 for his contribution to Australian literature.

      Also by Ion Idriess from ETT Imprint:

      Nemarluk

      Prospecting for Gold

      The Red Chief

      Flynn of the Inland

      Horrie the Wog Dog

      The Desert Column

      Forty Fathoms Under the Sea

      First electronic edition published by ETT Imprint, Exile Bay 2017.

      First published in Australia in by Angus & Robertson 1933 (four times). Reprinted 1934 (twice), 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1942 (twice), 1944, 1947, 1949, 1951 (twice), 1962, 1966, 1967, 1973, 1977.

      Copyright© Idriess Enterprises Pty Ltd 1933, 2017.

      This book is copyright.

      Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of private study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to the publishers.

      ISBN 9781925706314 (ebook)

      Internal photographs from the original edition.

      FOREWORD

      To one who for a good many years has lived among the tropic isles of Torres Strait, and whose constant regret has been that their romantic attractiveness is so little known even to Australians, the Drums of Mer comes with very strong appeal. There are some who may think that Mr Idriess is giving us simply an imaginative picture, but the author has travelled the Strait with the discerning eye and contemplative soul of the artist who is satisfied only with first-hand colour, and who, while blending history and romance with subtle skill, at the same time keeps within the region of fact. The records and documents placed at his disposal by those who have patiently collected them in the interests of history, of ethnological and scientific research, and (if one may be allowed to say so) even of missionary theological science also, provide the rich store upon which he has drawn for the thrilling story he has woven round the people of Mer and the other islands of Torres Strait. We have been waiting for someone to catch the charm and appealing mysteriousness of these islands, and to visualize the days, not so very long past, when the great outrigger canoes, with their companies of feather-bedecked headhunters, traversed the opalescent waters a couple of hundred miles down the Barrier, to return perhaps with cowering white captives or grim human trophies for the ceremonies of the “Au-gud-Au-Ai,” the “Feast of the Great God.” And if it seems that the starkness of tragedy throws a cloud here and there over the dramatic episodes which the author has so well narrated, possibly it is a good thing for present-day tourist-travellers (and others too!), to realize that a trip along the Barrier and through the Strait on the way to China was not always so free from danger.

      Although they extend almost right up to the beach of New Guinea, the islands of Torres Strait, with their curious mixture of people, form part of Australia, and are within the boundaries of Queensland. Hydrographic charts reveal how ocean currents seem to chase one another right across the Pacific and up the east coast into the centre of the shoals and reefs which make a network of the Strait; and the strong south-east winds, which blow for the eight or nine months of the year when the nor’-west is not casting its lowering storm-clouds over the islands, may, in combination with the currents, help to account for the migratory canoes of legend. These, setting out for new lands in South America and New Zealand, found themselves cut off from the main body, and, passing through channels of the Great Barrier, landed (possibly four or five hundred years ago) in the group of islands round which the author writes his story. Chinese junks and Malay proas knew these waters, probably also the Dutch and the Japanese; but the honour of discovery has gone to Torres, concerning whose voyage the recently published Relación of de Prado has given us much additional light. And when the enterprise of Captain Cook was followed up by those epic-making voyages of the Bounty and the Pandora, which placed new names on the chart, Torres Strait began to come into prominence as a new sea-highway to the East. White-winged ships, singly, in pairs, or half a dozen at a time, braved the unlighted and unmarked course along the Barrier, facing the dual dangers of concealed coral reefs and the aggressiveness of the headhunting Island “Indians,” as they were then called. The treacherous reefs took heavy toll, as witness the long but yet incomplete list of wrecks in the Australian Encyclopaedia. The beautiful palm-clad islands became linked with dark tragedy; and so it is that, as one journeys from island to island and listens to native story and legend and song from the lips of the old men, it is possible to piece together the tale of some ship’s mystery of earlier days, when the craft herself vanished without trace of passengers or crew. Sometimes it is the discovery of an old inscribed ship’s bell that has set one on the track; or some coral-encrusted relic retrieved from the reefs; or perhaps old, quaintly worded documents which have somehow escaped the devastating hand that would consign everything to the flames.

      But with the tragedy there is also romance. The Strait teems with it. The anthropologist, who hopes to solve the secrets of the mysterious Bomai-Malu Cult, which had its headquarters at Murray Island (Mer, right up at the top of the Barrier, where so many ship-skeletons lie); the conchologist, who discovers wondrous things of delight in the great marine gardens of the strait – these and many other “ologists” find a lure within its waters; and the seekers of marine wealth in the shape of mother-of-pearl and trochus and trepang, as well as the treasure-hunters who from time to time have come upon rich hoards of Spanish gold (and still hope for more!) realize its potentialities from the utilitarian standpoint.

      Ships now pass right alongside the islands of the once dreaded “Indians,” whose descendants still hunt the waters, not for human heads but for the store of marine produce which adds to Australia’s wealth. But under the palms on shore the old men sit and pass on the stories of the “Drums of Mer.” In giving us his latest book, Mr Idriess has helped to preserve a little-known portion of Australia’s northern history with a vividness of colouring which makes it extremely realistic and enthralling, and not least so to those who know the place and people well. One looks forward with eagerness to further stories of the Strait from the same pen, for Mr Idriess has by no means exhausted the riches of the historic mine which he has opened up, where, often, truth has proved so strange that as fiction it would provoke the smile of incredulity.

      Wm H. MacFarlane

      Mission Priest, Torres Strait.Administrator of the Diocese of Carpentaria.

      31 July 1933.

      AUTHOR’S NOTE

      This story is in all essentials historical fact. Almost every chapter contains an incident in the comparatively recent history of a little understood but once remarkable people, told in detail by the last survivors of those best able to know. As to the voyages, the fights and massacres, the mysticism and cruel customs described – well, such were once part of the life of these people; and this book would give a false impression if the few ruddy incidents occurring at the period of this story, were deleted.

      Ethnologically, too, the story is correct. Here, I am greatly indebted to the splendid Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Strait and to that living mine of Torres Strait ethnological lore the Rev. W. H. MacFarlane (the well-known “Wandering Missionary of the Strait,”) who put me in personal touch with the Island historians.