Tropiclities

rOM the “Sydney Morning Herald” of September 2: “Twenty-two months after the epic action at Milne Bay, seven Australian Diggers have voluntarily erected a per manent monument in honour of their fallen comrades, on the northern tip of Turnbull Airfield, where the Japanese had their first decisive defeat of the war.

“The monument, just erected, was designed and supervised by Lieutenant R.

E. G. Cunningham, of a works company, which served in the area. He and six Diggers of his platoon carried out the work'in their spare time. No official sup port or encouragement was received.

“The construction, which is 8 ft. 6 in. high, is made of reinforced concrete. Two brass plates are let into the side of the monument. One shows the rising sun and the other contains' the following inscription:— “In memory of the officers, NCO’s and men of the 7th and 18th Aust. Inf.

Bde’s who gave their lives in defend ing Turnbull Airfield.

“This marks the westernmost point in Milne Bay of the Jap advance, Aug.-Sept., ’42, also the southernmost point of the Jap advance in the S-W Pacific. Eighty-three unknown Jap Marines lie buried here.

“Erected as a tribute by Australian forces serving in this area, June, 1944.

“The graves of Squadron-Leader P. R. (Pete) Turnbull, DFC, commander and hero of one squadron of the defending air forces, in whose honour “The Strip” was named, along with those of Squadron- Leader C. R. Gurney, after whom another strip at Milne Bay was named, and Cor poral Jack French, Australia’s first VC winner in New Guinea, in Milne Bay War Cemetery, have been the scene of many a silent moment spent in admiration and respect of these three men whom Aus tralia proudly calls her heroes.” * IN August, 1943, the “PIM” published a photograph of the original memorial erected on Turnbull Field—a rough cairn of stones around a piece of coconut tree trunk, on which were nailed two inscriptions.

This cairn and the inscriptions were erected soon after the Milne Bay action, but a few months after they were put up the inscriptions were souvenired, and grass and jungle grew over the cairn. rE Christian names under which native children are registered in Mangaia continue to be of the same limited type—totally unsuited to modern island life. They are names of diseases (often of a repellent nature), misfortunes, and negative happenings of unedifying or uncheerful kind.

No child ever receives a European name, a floral or poetic one, or indeed anything attractive. The reason for this is native superstition and the belief in demoniac influences. A child with a name like Piles or Dysentry (two of the mildest!) need not fear demons—demons are unlikely to be attracted by such a pame!—E.G. ♦ SOLOMON Island cannibalism was head lined for the delectation of the New Yorkers’ literary palate in early August. A Solomon Islands native chief, it was stated, had told American officers that the Japs had brought a woman with them to the Solomons when they in vaded in 1942. An officer asked the chief: “How can you be so positive that there was a woman with the Japanese party?”

Answered the “chief,” with aplomb: “I

know, because I ate her.

Old residents of the Solomons are m clined to doubt this self-confessed canni balism. The Rev. A. H. Voyce of the Methodist Mission said he did not believe the press report from New York. Fully 90 per cent 0l the islanders were adherents of t he Christian faith. Cannibalism had long cea sed to exist, * * CCORDING to a correspondent in the Sydney “Mirror” some New Guinea native may write MD after his name some day . it may take two or three generations, but at least a beginning has been made in two medical schools of natives taking a three months’ medical course . The schools, the correspondent are one of the many ideas of

Angau.

Many Territorians will hasten to prove th£it someone thought of it before AN GAL —but it is a shame to spoil a good story.

Tlie regt it goes; “Approaching a small sago-thatched h U t i n New Guinea, you may hear an Australian speaking in Pidgin. He is describing the symptoms of a man with J “‘Suppose head he pain, skin he hot, backside he pain, man he no like kaikai. what name belong this fellow some thine'?’ “Like eager children the class of New Guinea y0 6 uths ansW ers, in a throaty

. ‘Malaria ’

“When the course is completed they wd i d e sent to villages, some far from the reacd 0 f W hite men, to cure the coughs f ailing children and diagnose beriberi, * A d » yaws ana aengue> * WW „ T ™ T TT .. . .. -c*.- 11/HEN Harold Cooper, of the Fiji TT Information Office, recently visited the Gilbert and Ellice Islands again he brought back some good stories. Two of them follow: When Gilbertese women decide to sup port the Allied war effort they don’t do things by halves. On the island of Abe mama, recently, I watched the British District Officer receive a deputation repre senting the “women’s committee” which had been formed only a week before in one village. The members of the depu tation filed past the DO’s desk and handed over various small sums which added up to the princely total of £lo— a year’s income for average fami lies in these parts. It was to be paid i nto the Colony’s war fund, i assumed that this was a special ges ture that, would not be repeated for some time, but to my surprise another deputa tion, with one or two changes in person nel, but representing the same women’s committee, turned up the next day and went through the same procedure.

These incidents are typical of the spirit i found among the womenfolk through out the Group. On one island I arrived a t Government headquarters just as a middle-aged woman and her daughter were handing a large mat to the District officer. I asked what price they wanted for so fine a specimen of native handi work. The DO smiled and unrolled the mat. Woven across it in bold letters was the inscription, “Our present for the war.”

The DO explained that the mat would be sold through American post-exchange and proceeds would be given to the Red Cross, * mHE Japanese who occupied the island X of Abemama, in the Gilberts, thought that they might be able to make a Quisling out of Tekinaiti, an hereditary High Chief of the island. The

dictatorial powers that had been enjoyed oy Teklnaiti’s forebears had been abro gated under British rule and the Japs jumped to the conclusion that he must therefore have long been nursing resent ment.

They changed their minds, however, the first tune they saw him without the white singlet which he almost invariably wore.

Tatooed across Tekinaiti’s chest was an enormous Union Jack.

After that, Tekinaiti, far from having special favours showered upon him by the Japs, was regarded with suspicion as bemg “probably pro-British.”

AN exhibition of 40 oil and water colours of island subjects attracted considerable attention in Auckland, NZ, in August. They were the work of Mr. A. H. Gouwe, a Dutchman living on the island of Raiatea, French Oceania.

The paintings were sent to the Dominion by the artist, who requested that the proceeds of their sale be devoted to the Netherlands Soldiers and Sailors Fund.

The fund should benefit substantially— half of the pictures were sold shortly after the exhibition opened.

The pictures are of native life and scenery near the artist’s home, and are described as having nothing of the “Hollywood South Seas” about them.

The wrapper in which the paintings came is also on display—for the 62 stamps which were used for postage. The stamps include Vichy and FF issues and the wrapper will be auctioned at the conclu sion of the exhibition —also towards the Netherlands Sailors and Soldiers Fund. * THE story of how Fred Narruhn won the American Silver Star decoration, for bravery and initiative, during the recapture of Makin (Butaritari) by the United States Marines, in November last, is told on page 23.

The Narruhns are an old Central Paci fic family. Fred’s grandfather, a Ger man, came into the Line Islands a long time ago, and his father* Robert Narruhn, married one of the well-known De Brunn family and settled in the Marshalls while they were still a Germany colony. But the Japanese, after 1914, hunted all Europeans out of the Marshalls, and Robert Narruhn settled at Butaritari. in the British Gilberts, and obtained British naturalisation. Until 1941, there was a Japanese firm trading in Butaritari, and Robert Narruhn and the Japanese mana ger were next-door neighbours. But they did not love each other. Robert Narruhn’s children had been deprived of consider able land rights in the Marshalls, by the Japanese.

When war came, the Narruhn family moved south into Fiji; and it was in Fiji that Fred enlisted. It is an interesting sidelight on racial trends in the Pacific that the sons of two former German ■families —the Narruhns and the Rey monds—should have distinguished them selves in the service of the Americans, while fighting against the Japanese to recapture the British Gilbert Islands. * rAT it is easier to bring up a young family in New Guinea, in spite of that land’s much-publicised draw backs, than in free, white Australia, is the opinion of Mrs. A. H. B. Beavis, for merly of Milne Bay, Papua. There is no help for mothers at all in Australia, she says.

Mrs. Beavis told a Sydney newspaper m August, that she had lived for 14 years in the Territory and used pigeon-post as a means of communication, particularly during times of sickness. High on her mountain-top above Milne Bay, she regu larly sent her grocery list* off to Samarai, 40 miles away, per bird.