Topicalities

ABABE-IN-THE-WOOD story—lslands

version. When a Fijian who had been born in Tonga arrived in the land of his fathers for the first time a few weeks ago, he could not speak a word of Fijian. Some time later he found him self in a Suva hotel and' was arrested and charged with being on “licensed premises unlawfully.” His defence was that, having lived in Tonga, he did not recognise a hotel when he saw one. He thought that it was a store!

The magistrate dismissed the case. * DURING the last few years, the in habitants of the outer Cook Islands have tried to join in the minor prosperity wave provided by the tomato market, which shows a much better return for one’s labour than time spent on bananas and oranges.

But it is a game of chance. So often their hard worked crops go to waste when, due to war conditions, the hoped-for ship fails to eventuate.

I was reading the news-bulletin outside the post office of one of the outer islands, at a time when a record tomato crop was rotting on the ground—after so much bush-clearing, planting and tending, so much weary carrying of water.

Then Little Lulu came round the cor ner. He is small and quaint, and his real name is Ruru. There is a dash of Scotch in his blood—(Scotch nationality I mean, of course). He is also an indus trious planter and a church-deacon.

“What is the news to-day?” Little Lulu asked.

I gave him a brief summary.

He shook his head sadly. “It is so silly, all this killing—killing. The white men came and taught us that it is wrong to kill —that we should love our fellow-men.

Yet back in their homelands they seem to spend most of their time killing each other. Bye-and-bye there will be no more white men; no more Germans; no more British; no more Americans.”

He spread his hands in a hopeless ges ture at the futility of it all, as applied to the Cook Islands. “And besides —look at

our tomatoes !”-

Wsb.

WHO will govern the Pacific Islands between New Guinea and Japan after the war? When this question was put to the Australian public by Gallup poll in November this was the result: Favour joint control by— P.C.

America and British Empire IS America and Australia 12 United Nations . 12 International 2 Total “joint control” .. .. .. .. 39 Favour control by— America 22 Australia 19 British Empire 11 Other answers 3 No answer 6 It is interesting to note that it was reported that among Labour voters, a high proportion favoured giving control to Australia. The state of inflation of the Australian Labour ego is a most interest ing phenomenon; but one still wonders what prompts this quaint notion. Aus tralia at present is riven by class war and industrial chaos: the Labour Gov ernment has proved that it cannot govern even its own trade-unionists. These things indicate that it should tend to its own knitting for some generations to come.

There is also the apparently unimport ant fact that these islands have been won back from Japan at considerable loss to the United States in both men and materials.

rE New Caledonian Administration— so says an Australian newspaper—is to import pre-fabricated houses from Australia to relieve that colony’s hous ing shortage. These—with corrugated iron roofs, and ranging in price from £245 for two rooms to £BOO for five rooms with bathroom and conveniences—will be imported duty-free.

Many Australian victims of the housing shortage will no doubt wonder why this “charity” does not begin at home, and why these pre-fabricated mansions are not available for home consumption. * SPEAKING at a Rotary Club luncheon in Auckland, in October, Brigadier J. G. C. Wales, former commander of the Fiji Defence Force, told of the lighter side of fitting the Fijians into the military pattern.

“The Fijians had to be put into full uniform, including boots,” he said, “and the Fijian foot has to be seen to be believed. He takes about a size 14. After a year or so, when he hast become accus tomed to footgear, he can wear about one size smaller.”

But the men rapidly became used to the uniforms and became very proud of them. To enable them to wear steel hel mets, their fuzzy hair had to be cut off.

But once they had been issued with hel mets it was not easy to get these off them again. They thought they were most beautiful and comfortable! They even slept in them.

Training the Fijians to eat European food was also a problem. Their natural food, of course, is vegetables, such as taro, yam and tapioca, and fish, but, after a time, even this difficulty was overcome. * “T>AGIAI,’’ who claims to be an author- Jt> ity on Pidgin English, writes as follows: “With reference to the phrase ‘bomb happy,’ in August ‘PlM’—in Pidgin as spoken in Netv Guinea, the words ‘please’ and ‘glad’ are almost unknown. Some of our sophisticated youths are beginning to use The word ‘please’ a little—the use of this and other words are brought about mostly through contact with the Army.

“True, the words may have been used in Kitchen Pidgin, which is the curse of Pidgin English—Rebaul being the leading culprit.

“ ‘Happy’ is a hard word to translate into Pidgin: the nearest you can get to it is ‘hamamas,’ but to use it in the sense required by Pastor Campbell would hardly be correct.

“To say, ‘ ’E hamamas long bomb,’ would actually mean ‘He is happy or joyful about the bombs.’ To get the native to under stand that a person was really ‘bomb happy’ you would have to say, ‘ ’lm ’e long-long long bomb ’e fire-up.’

“Believe me, the native of New Guinea knows more about bombs these days than the average Australian resident.

“Tell Territorians that they need not worry about the word ‘boong.’ It will leave with the Army, if not before.

“Actually, I first heard the word many years ago in New Guinea. An old North Queensland friend of mine always used it when making any reference to an Aus tralian aboriginal; it was commonly used by other residents of Papua who had lived in North Australia. There is no doubt that the word ‘boong’ is a cor rupt abbreviation of the word ‘aboriginal.’

“This is Captain Deland’s story about the word: “A new arival in Port Moresby was following a Police Boy (ex-Manda*ted Ter

ritory) along the street and kept calling Hey, Boong.’

The new arrival was left gasping when the PB swung round and said; ‘No can, masta. Me one fella, that’s all!”’

LEd. Note: For the benefit of non- Pidgineers, “boong” (or “bung”) in Pidgin means “all get together.”] * rE “Scratching Song” of a Serviceman in New Guinea (August “PIM”) reminds me of the nursery-rhymes of a teacher at the catechist’s college in New Guinea. The following jingle was designed to educate the Sepik natives to cleanliness and to cease their everlasting scratching. For the uninitiated, “kas-kas” is an irritating rash, suffered frequently by natives who are not overgiven to washing. “Kas-kas-man” is, therefore, simply a man who suffers from the itch.

“Broom ’im” means to sweep; “scrape” to scratch. The natives sang this song to the tune of “Lightly Row.”

The Pidgin has been anglicised for the benefit of readers.

Scrape, scrape, scrape—all kas-kas-man ’e scrape— Scrape ’im arm and scrape ’im leg— scrape ’im backside, scrape ’im neck!

Scrape, scrape, scrape—all kas-kas-man ’e scrape.

Broom, broom broom—all cook ’e catch ’im broom.

Broom ’im place and broom ’im house, broom ’im road—rubbish rouse!

Broom, broom, broom —all cook ’e broom all room.

“Pat.”