The Doctor Goes Astray

Letter to the Editor

SUCH weird and wonderful things have been written about the islands of the South Pacific and their people in the past, one almost invariably looks for a host of inaccuracies in any books about the islands.

However, this is not usually true of writers of standing in the scientific world, and therefore some observations by Dr.

Victor G. Heiser in his book. “A Doctor’s Odyssey,” come as a shock. I do not know if this book has been referred to in your columns previously, but if it has not, there are one or two passages which I think are worthy of comment.

The doctor, whdfee connection with the Rockefeller Foundation has made his name almost a household word in sorrfle parts of the world, refers in his “Odyssey” to Fiji, and here are a couple of gems: “Fiji has had a number of economic setbacks in recent years.” (The date of the edition I quote from is 1936.) “The coconut palm was destroyed so com pletely on Viti Levu that many grown Fijians have never seen a coconut, else where the staple product of the South Seas.”

Describing a trip in the well-known Fiji Government vessel “Adi Beti,” the learned doctor says: “As soon as the native canoes drew within hailing dis tance of the yacht, a great shout of ‘Sabua’ would greet us. call back the correct reply of ‘Moli,’ which meant literally orange juice, or ‘Your words are sweeter than oranges.’ ”

As one who lived for 11 years on the island of Viti Levu, I would very much like to meet the Fijian inhabitant or, for that matter, an inhabitant of any other race, who had never seen a coconut, and while I make no pretensions to being a Fijian linguist, I would suggest to Dr.

Heiser that in his second piece of infor mation the answer is a lemon. He prob ably heard someone call out “Moce” (mothe) sometimes used where in Eng lish we would say “Good-night,” though it also means “sleep.”

I am, etc.,

R. C. Macpherson

Mackay, Queensland.

April 18, 1945.