Tropicalities

THE Australian Government is consider ing giving Norfolk Island a postage stamp of its own, for the first time in history.

External Territories Minister Ward and Administrator Wilson, who preside over the destiny of the Island, are of the opinion that Norfolk would reap a large income from philatelists, and that the issue of such stamps would promote tourist traffic.

The stamps, if or when they are issued, will depict some incident in Norfolk’s history.

H* SOME time ago there was a controversy in the “PIM” about the meaning of the word “Kanaka.” It was taken, generally, to be an offensive term.

Recently an old-timer in New Guinea interviewed two natives, old-timers too, engaged prior to the war for many years in contract service. In the course of the conversation these two natives said; “Government ’e no likem master; gov ernment ’e no likem boy; government ’e likem kanaka that’s all.” The definition of “Kanaka” was then given as “man ’e no got contract,” Other boys were des cribed as: “’E no boy tru, ’e makem contract for one year, that’s all.”

Herewith the meaning of the word “Kanaka” is established as meaniing a non-indentured native. —NR. * * * THE unhappy Gauguin—who “jazzed up” the South Sea Islands, and became the Father of “Things What Ain’t So” about Tahiti, has turned up again in the news. A United States illustrated journal has revived the Gauguin Legend and has given several pages to reproductions of the artist’s extraordinary paintings.

The principal exhibit is two Chinese girls and a panfull of hibiscus flowers, labelled “Two Tahitian Women with Mango (!) Blossoms.”

A friend of mine. Monsieur —, knew Gauguin very well. Monsieur —, had a lot of Gauguin’s smaller canvasses and drawings, acquired in payment for loans.

“They were so hideous,” said Monsieur —, “that I stowed them out of sight in an old clothes-press, and forgot them.”

Years later when the Gauguin Vogue had been created by a syndicate of picture merchants and news of it had reached Papeete, Monsieur recalled his treasures in the dusty old clothes-press.

But when he went to get them, the cupboard was bare.

He summoned Madame —. Yes, she remembered the collection. “Why,” she said, “long ago, when I cleaned out that dirty clothes press, I burned those awful Gauguin things with all the other rubbish.”—ACß. * * * IN these decadent days, a voyage from the Outer Cooks to Rarotonga, by whale-boat or canoe, is considered a feat that—if any crew had courage to attempt it—rates a double VC. No aspi rants for the honour are forthcoming to-day. Yet the trip is as feasible to-day as it was when Rika-Rika, a Mangaian chief, paddled, with his henchmen, over to “Tumu-te-Varo-Varo” in the eighties, did their business there with the Makea’s men, and returned home again—by dint of sheer strength of arm, without sails!

The clan of Rika-Rika are still a

numerous and powerful tribe at Mangaia Island, and large landowners. Holding firmly to the older style of Maori village life, they represent a link with the real Polynesia that, on Rarotonga, has given way to more sophisticated living—EG. • • • KAPOK had a lot of publicity in “PIM” some time ago. We grow it in the Cook Islands, too! But no one here ever bothers to remove the seeds when stuffing a bed pillow. As a result, one is often entertained at night by weird buzzings and groaning noises, apparently in one’s ear (the ear pressed to the pillow.) The explanation is simple. As the pillow grows warm, a little insect that lives in the kapok-seeds begins to feel oppressed by the increase in temperature, and pipes up- hence the buzzing sounds.

These noises cannot, of course, be heard when the ear is removed from the pillow; but they are quite loud to the “listener in,” and have alarmed many who seek repose after a night with the Froth- Blowers ! —“ETI.” ♦ ♦ • A FORMER resident of the British Solomon Islands. Mr. Geoffrey W.

A. Norton writes from Barbados, West Indies, on the vexed subject of the correct spelling of one or two Solomons Islands names.

“One thing always grates me—Guad alcanal I knew this Island so well when the head-hunters were many. Now it is called Guadalcanal.

“I was on Lever Bros, steamship ‘Kulambangra’ during a long voyage. Now the name is spelt ‘Kulambangara.’ when talking of a small piece of land. The Kulambangra I know that mountain.

The ship of that name was sunk eventu ally. I cannot accept the present name — I suppose the Yanks spoiled it.” * * * ALTHOUGH Territorians who have managed to survive days and nights of native “Sing-Sings” will probably dispute it, it appears that there is some thing distinctive in New Guinea “music.

The External Territories Department (according to an Australian Sunday news paper) has been persuaded that there is, at any rate, and the Department is re ported to be considering the appointment of a “music education officer” at a salary of £552 per annum.

A Mr. Ray Sheridan is in line for the post. He served in New Guinea for three years during the war and in that time made some preliminary investigations on his own account. He would like further opportunity of collecting native melodies before they are lost forever.

Civilization, which has suffered Hawai’ian music for several decades, might well fear the worst at this new effort to put savage melody on paper.

Sing-Sing in Swing-time is something to contemplate; it would, at all events, give the vitriolic pen of Mr. ot Papeete, a new lease of life. —“MAC. * * * RECENTLY the Bishop of Melanesia, the Rt. Rev. W. H. Baddeley, whpse headquarters are in the British Solomon Islands, visited Vila in the New Hebrides. He wished to meet a ship and also to take the opportunity of seeing how Mama Ben Bani (a native minister)

was faring among his flock of Banks Island labour-boys.

Ben usually had a congregation of about 80 and on the first Sunday of his visit the Bishop took the service. Which, as he wrote to mission headquarters in Sydney recently, provided some shocks.

“I know,” wrote Bishop Baddeley, “that Vila is not ‘Melanesian Mission’ but it is South; and one ordinarily thinks of Mota as the lingua franca of the South. In the Vestry before the services, Ben said to me, ‘Mota?’ and I naturally answered ‘Yes.’ I took two services and preached for rather more than twenty minutes in Mota with such mental effort that I was literally soaked with perspiration. After wards I said to Ben: ‘What a fine crowd —and they sang well. It was a jolly service.’

“To my amazement he replied: ‘But it would have been much better if you had officiated in English. The boys—even those from Banks Group don’t know Mota. I take the services in English and preach in Pidgin,’ ” * * * SEVENTY-FIVE years’ ago this January —in 1872—a party of 75 daring adventurers sailed from Sydney for New Guinea where they hoped to found a new Colony. But Fate, early and cruelly, intervened. Of that number, only 29 survived; 27 were drowned; 3 died of exposure; and 16 were murdered by natives.

New Guinea was then practically un known to the white man. It was the undisturbed habitat of the native, who was both savage and cannibal.

The ill-fated boat and inexperienced crew soon met disaster. The ship ran aground at Bramble Reef, off the Queens land Coast and later at Tam O’Shanter Point, 30 miles from Cardwell. The skipper was fatally speared by an abori ginal, and three of the crew were drowned. But it is to men of their calibre that the entry to New Guinea by the white man was made possible.—JMH. * * * PAPEETE —the metropolis of East Polynesia, as Apia is of the West — was, in the period before 1914, the centre which every inhabitant of Polyne sia hoped one day to visit, and whither nearly every person of high-chiefly rank at one time or another, came as guests of the surviving members of the royal families of Tahiti and Ra’iatea.

These visitors were received with graci ous distinction and entertained with stately magnificence which made the Tahitian hospitality, of that time, a cherished memory for those who have known its charm. There was nothing quite like it, elsewhere in the world.

One who resided at Papeete, was not required to undertake perilous and un comfortable voyages by schooner, in order to glimpse island life in remote places of Polynesia. Sooner or later, he would see representatives of every archipelago and isolated island; from Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the East, to Samoa, in the West; from Hawai’i in the North, to Rapa-Iti, far south of Capricorn. Micro nesia was represented by colonies on Tahiti and Mo’orea —of Gilbert Islanders, survivors of Atimaono Stuart’s black birding expeditions to that archipelago.

The members of the Pitcairn Island Colony, at Papeete, resembled very much the people of Cape Cod, before that pic turesque section of Massachusetts had become “discovered,” and its quaint life overwhelmed by “art” colonies.

One day, long ago, this writer met, at Papeete, a stately Samoan lady, who was reputed to possess great estates on New Britain —later she became famous as “Queen” Emma.

One could extend indefinitely, the list of interesting people, from all parts of the island world, who have visited Papeete.—R.