IN TROPIC SEAS

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2856, 22 August 1916, Page 6

IN TROPIC SEAS

4 A PEEP AT THE ELLICE AND GILBERT GROUP WELL-GOVERNED LITTLE COMMUNITIES PROFESSOR MACMILLAN BROWN'S IMPRESSIONS Professor MacJlillan Brown, as frosli and buoyant as ever, was among the arrivals from Sydney by the Manuka yesterday. He returns after an absence of oyer three mouths from New Zealand, spent for the most part in making investigations and observations in the Gilbert and EllicoJslands, two groups of islands that lie in equatorial latitudes directly north of New Zealand, and which, with the Marshall Islands and Carolines, form a booiner-ang-shaped reef of island groups extending northward from the northernmost point of tho Fiji Islands, and westward through tho Carolines, the Marshall Group being at the elbow of the boomerang, j.ne trip through tho Ellico Group was made in the Tambo, and that through the Gilberts iu the steamer Germania, formerly a German steamer, but now leased by the British Government' to Burns, Pliilp and Co., of Australia. "The Ellice Islands," said Professor Brown, "are a very small group which were a British Protectorate up till the beginning of this year, when they wero suddenly proclaimed a colony by the British, which, I believe, had had advice to act in the matter iu tho pigeonholes for years. 1 'shrowdly suspect' that Mr. Hughes may have had sometiling to do with it. But that does , not matter now—the group is now a Of own colony. There is only a population of some 3000 natives in tho whole of tho dozen islands, which are merely reef islands—atolls —just above the level of the ocean, and covering afiout thTee degrees of latitude. The Ellice Islands have the most delightful climate in tho whole world. There aro no high lands to obstruct the free play of tho south-east trade winds, and when I was there it was quite cool; ; with the temperature between 70 and 80 degrees, it was difficult to imagine tiial you 'were just under the equator." A New Phosphate Island. "I should tell you first, however," said Professor Brown, "that I started from Sydney, and on the way across visited Walpole Island, about 50 or 60 miles off the coast of New Caledonia There is a valuable deposit of phosphates on this island. When I was in Noumea last year, Mr. Manning, a nephew of Judge Manning, of New Zealand, told mo that he was forming a company to work the deposit. The island is, I believe, a French possession. - . "Now, to return north —the natives of the Ellice Group cultivate copra,' and are Samoan in language—that is to say, they would bo understood by a Samoan, and could make themselves understood. A half-caste trader iu Tokelau told me that fheTongans 'used to raid the islands, and in some parts there were distinct outcrops of people with the black kinky hair of the Fijian's." How does that provide a link with Tonga? , "Oh," said Professor Brown, "it if well known that the 'l'ongans, not having suitable timber of their own for big canoes, had to go to Fiji for them, and as often as not used to take with, them.crows of Fijian sailors. I should say that in tho language of tho Ellico Islanders there is no "s," as there is in Samoan, but, generally speaking, tho languages aro closely related. A Disappearing Nation. "The Gilbert Islands, formerly German, now British, which lie to tho north, right on the equator, are a much more important group. .There are about a dozen islands, with a total population of 30,000, where formerly thore were hundreds' of thousands of people. In a volume of the_ Wilkes Expedition (American), published in 1841, it is stated that when these islands were visited they picked up two white men, an 'Englishman and an Irishman on Aperaama, who stated that on that island only they could raise an army of 8000 or 9000 alone. It would puzzlo them to collect eighty men there now. And tho causo of this human decay P Tuberculosis; undoubtedly introduced by the white man.,> "I was accompanied throughout tho Group by the Commissioner, . Mr. Charles Workman, an old guardsman, and Oxonian, a man of tho soundest common sense, and as loyal a Britisher as over walked. He looks after tho natives splendidly. Formerly they used to build their houses on the ground— he has taught them to build them on 3ft. piles to get ventilation; he attends to their hygiene, and in many ways endeavours to check the ravages of the scourge. In the copra season the improvident natives spend all they make, and on account of the diminishing output of native foods, rice is imported and doled out to them. Tncv arc lazy —they won't fish, and they live mostly on coconuts and bananas. The Government provides hospitals, and in the central one I mot one ' of tho most skilful surgeons I have over- come across, a native (his father was u. Fijian and his mother a Tongan), lianicd Suani. So prevalent is tuberculosis that it is not uncommon for Suani to perform three or four dozen operations in one day. I askod him if his operations wero successful. He replied that they were not in all cases, but thero was a good percentage of cures, through the agency of the knife. "Tho natives of the Gilbert Islands ha,ve to pay a tax—something like 51b. of copra a year—to the Government as a stand-5.v provision to reimburso tho Government for providing food for them in times of drought and famine. Tho Gilbert Group is in the drought belt— the doldrums—particularly the Southern Gilberts, and they niay not get any rain for a year at 'a stretch. There had been no rain for six months when I was there. A long drought meant no coconuts and no bananas, and everybody has to eat Government rice. Polynesian Origins. "What interested mo most was tho origin of two peoplo of tho group. I concluded that tbe 'Giibortians' had a distinctly Polynesian trend, though there wero gaps that had to bo bridged to establish a purely Polynesian origin. For instance, thoy have 110 tapa (native cloth), no kava, no taro, no yam, sweet potato, no bananas, and no sugar-cane ---all common to Polynesia. The only food they had cultivated, and that to a very small extent, was tlje tJrea'cl-Truit. They had not the dogs, pigs, and doublc-canocs of the Polynesians. Instead of the regulation double-canoe of Polynesia, they had great 60ft. canoes, with 20ft. to 25ft. outriggers. &till, they are Polynesian iu physiquo, fairly tall, with short legs, liko the Maoris, strong chests, and wavy black hair. I couldn't understand it at all! There had been a Polynesian ex reflux away to the north-west, in Kusaie and Ponape (where a submarine Venice exists), and yet it had not touched tho Gilbert Group, or it would have been reflected in tho culture of the natives. Another strong proof of Polynesian origin was the existence of the father right (descent through tho fathor). whilst between Polynesia and India it is all tho mother right (descent through tho mother). My solution, or rather tin, only hypothesis, is this—that as one migration wont south-east thoy peopled

tho Gilberts—other migrations . went on, but had never refluxed to the Gilberts, and consequently their culture had never re-acted. Thirty per cent of their languago was pure Polynesian, thirty per cent, was mangled Polynesian, and the other forty per cent was—l don't know what. Best-Governed Colony in the World. '"Tho Gilbert Group is tbo best administered British colony in- the world —bettor administered than any German, British, or Dutch colony. Tho natives arc splendidly loyal, and subscribed between £4000 and £5000 to tho war iunus. They badly wanted to go to the war, but that was out of the question. Each island is governed by a council of natives, who administer tho affairs of tho island, judge all cases, and dictato what punishment offenders against the law are to receive. I asked if tho members of tho council were elected by the people. The answer was—"No —they growl" Wasn't that good? They took their places by right of talent. Tho Commissioner does not interfere—ho figures only as a sort of Court of Appeal when there is a particularly knotty problem to solve. And that has been tho custom from time immemorial in the group—they havo never had kings or chiefs—only the council. I had the pleasure of attending a meeting of tho council of Taputeuea (meaning wholly tho ruler). "In this group aro two little islands of immense value' and importance, Cfcean Island and Nauru Island—the two richest Jslands on tho face of Rio globo. They are worth more than all tho goldmines of Australia and all the nitrates of Chile put together. It win take centuries to exhaust' "-the phosphato deposits of these wonderful islands.' Once upon a timo they were ! beneath the surface of the water, but high enough for tho purposes of the coral insect which built it up and up until it became a coral island, and countless myriads of birds through long ages covered them with guano. Then they sank, and the water 'beeched' (filtered) the guano down into the cells, of tho coral, and so phosphate rock was formed. Then they rose ngajn, and more guano was piled up during aeons of time, until the 'land' stood 200 ft. above the sea-level—that is. all phosphates '(guano) of immeasurable value to the wholo world. Some 78 acres of' Ocean Island aro being worked by the British Phosphate Company, which obtained a concession .some twelve or fifteen years ago, and is to-day one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. But there are ten times that acreage yet to dig out. Steamers from all parts come aud load up. Down they'come from Japan, return with full cargoes, which are there turned into superphosphates, and as such aro sold to our own farmers. Because these aro the only two great phosphate islands in the world, there will in time be a struggle over them."