Cook Islanders on the Increase Latest Census Figures

Increase Latest Census Figures

From Our Own Correspondent

Raratonga, Nov. 2.

IT was refreshing to scan the results of the recently-completed Cook Islands census and find that these handsome and vigorous people are not in immedi ate danger of vanishing from the earth.

We find that there are over 2,000 more people living in the Group than in 1936 (the date of the last complete census) and a 4,000 increase since 1926.

As the European residents have de creased and there have been few im migrants from other Groups, the increase is mainly a natural one.

Actual population figures are: 1936, 12,246; 1945, 14,571. Of these, European residents numbered 253 in 1936 and 228 in 1945. Of the latter figure, 71 are part-native. Anyone with over 50 per cent. European blood is counted as Euro pean in the census.

A study of the returns shows a con siderable ebb and flow of the populations of the various islands within the Group.

The opportunities of employment and participation in the souvenir boom af forded by the construction of air bases and the movements of American troops have attracted many natives to Penrhyn, Aitutaki and Rarotonga. During the war years a large number of Cook Islanders have been employed on the phosphate island of Makatea (French Oceania) on yearly contracts. At the present .time, there are 483 Cook Islanders, including workers and their families, In Makatea.

Because of a strong policy of exclusion of other coloured races, the Cook

Islanders have remained characteristic ally Polynesian, but there has been a considerable infusion of European blood which has been to the advantage of the islands.

Many Polynesian women have a real handsomeness of their own; but the in fusion of white blood has a refining ef fect which produces remarkable beauty.

In Rarotonga, one finds many girls who would be called beautiful in any langu age. A portrait gallery of the part- Polynesian wives and children of Euro pean residents of the Cook Islands, which includes many Administration officials and leading businessmen, would reveal a remarkable collection of good-looking and intelligent women, and many beau tiful children.

This intermingling of the races is naturally selective. Europeans are at tracted to the best-looking and most Europeanised girls when seeking a wife, and the children of these unions are one step higher up the scale. Euronesian boys prove themselves fully equal to their white brothers, when given full oppor tunities of development.

Mrs. Eva Standen, who with her hus band founded the Bamu River Mission, in Western Papua, is about to return to her “mission in the mud.” Before she left Sydney, her friends and admirers organised a social gathering, where speaker after speaker praised, not only her good work among the poor natives of the Delta region, but also the splendid service she rendered as a hospital nurse and assistant during the war years, after she was compelled to leave Papua. Mrs.

Standen hopes soon to be joined by her husband, who also has been engaged in war work.