Unspoiled Islanders

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 458, 13 September 1928, Page 8

Unspoiled Islanders

LIFE IN GILBERT GROUP

Resident Doctor’s Experiences

A CLIENTELE of 25,000 Gilbert Islanders—probably the least spoiled by civilisation of the Pacific peoples is looked after by Dr. D. Murray \ oung, who is returning to bis out-of-the-way station after a furlough in New Zealand.

A N Edinburgh man, Dr. Young, has already spent three years on the tropical islands called the Gilbert and Ellice Groups, and he and his wife are both keen to go back to the placid existence among the simple folk, whose only vice seems to be an occasional bout on. “sour toddy,” the fermented sap of the coconut tree. The islands are cut off from the rest of the world except for the visits of the John Williams, a missionary ship, a Chinese trading schooner flom Sydney, one of the sloops'of the New Zealand Naval Division, and an occasional trader. Known as the “barren islands of the Pacific,” the groups grow only cocoanuts and a few bananas in the coral sand. Much care and labour is neces-

sary to grow pumpkins, bread fruit and taro. There is not enough pasture even for a sheep. “We never get any fresh mutton or beef,” said Dr. Young, “except when a ship gives us some. Chickens, ducks, pigs and turkeys are raised in the islands, but they have to exist on, fish and coconuts, “Fish similar to that of New Zealand waters abounds in the lagoons and outside, and I have even seen a swordfish which would compare favourably with Zane Grey’s catches secured by the natives.” TINNED BUTTER Butter and milk comes from America—in tins, but the doctor tries to open few tins of any other food. He would sooner have three fish meals a day than do it. # Though the equator runs through the Gilbert Group, the temperature is rarely above 94deg. in the shade. The islands are very low-lying, and though the doctor’s home is on the highest point of his island, it is only 10ft above sea level.

Dr. Young is in the colonial medical service under the High Commissioner

for the Western Pacific. There is another white medical man in the Ellice group. COPRA AND SHARK-FINS The Gilbert group consists of 16 islands and is inhabited by 25,000 micronesians, while the Ellice islands, eight in number, hold 3.000 to 4,000 Polynesians. Trade with the outside world is limited to copra and sharktins, which go to make the famous Chinese soup. The cable station of Fanning Island and Ocean Island, where the phosphates come from, are nearby. There is a population of 200 whiter on Ocean Island, but in the whole of the Gilbert'and Ellice groups there are only about 70, mainly missionaries and traders. Much of . his time Dr. Young is travelling between the 24 islands in one of the two small vessels, a steamer and a schooner, which in the groups. The services are not as regular as clockwork, and once the doctor found himself marooned on an island for four and a-half months, when he had brought only five weeks’ stores with Him. The islands are well out of the “tourist zone.” The visit of the Laburnum or the Veronica is a great occasion. There is always an Association football match, “boots v. bare feet,” which is regularly won by the Navy, and a cricket match which is won by the Islanders. Dr. Young has learnt the language so well that he no longer needs an interpreter, and he finds that the natives are willing and anxious to receive medical treatment. By his knowledge of the tongue he is also becoming acquainted with tradition and legend of the race which believes that the “happy hunting ground” is the Island of Bouru in the Cerebes Sea. The head of the Government of the Gilbert Group is on the Island of Tarawa, where in leisure times the white people amuse themselves with tennis, swimming and fishing. Each island has its own native Government, selfeleeted, ancl conducts its own affairs peacefully, submitting only knotty points to the district administration. There is a native medical practitioner, trained in Suva, on the Gilbert Group, and Dr. Young hopes to enlarge the skeleton medical service to a great extent with five or six white doctors and native dressers. The main hospital at Tarawa holds 20 comfortably, but in rush times it has held 60. Trained boys look after the patients,. who always bring an intimate friend along with them. AGAINST DISEASE

The general health of the islands is fairly good. Of the diseases there are “yaws,” “crab-yaws,” or Assuring of the feet, tuberculosis, and elephantiasis, which is spread by mosquitoes like malaria. There is no malaria. About one in every thousand is afflicted with leprosy. After every visit of a trading ship an epidemic of influenza is left behind. About 50 per cent, of the death rate which is 25 per 1,000 is due to consumption. The birth-rate is 34 per 1,000. “These figures show that the Gilbert Islands at any rate are not being gradually depopulated,” said the doctor. “Over a period of 10 years, they show distinctly that the population is rising by nine per 1,000”

The Gilbert Islanders are recognised as the best canoe-builders of the Pacific. In their outriggers they can teail at from 15 to 18 miles an hour, said Dr. Young, and the sport is wonderfully exciting.