Tasman Islander For PM Medical Instruction

PM Medical Instruction

From a Special Correspondent IMRST European to visit the Tasman Group in four years was Dr. J. T.

Gunther, Director of Public Health for Papua-New Guinea. (.The Tasman Islands Groups, one of the small Poly nesian outliers in Melanesia, are included in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea and lie about 250 miles north-east of Bougainville).

When he left the Group, Dr. Gunther took back with him to Port Moresby a fine stamp of a lad named Tekuhu, alias Momia.

Coming from such an outlandish place, cut off from the outside world, one would expect to find Tekohu a very shy boy with a faraway look in his eye. But, not so. He is a pleasant, smiling, handsome youth of about 18 years, clear of eye, with a shiny, coppery skin and a mass of straight, black hair parted on the extreme right. He will be popular in Moresby, where he is to receive elementary in struction in medicine.

I wondered whether the knowledge gained would be of any real significance, for he said there were no drugs or bandages on the islands; that the natives have no sores, are never sick and they never die!

Food was plentiful, there being an abundance of coconuts, fish, fowl, taro and other native crops. The natives had no betel-nut trees and consequently did not go in for the pernicious chewing habit.

Tekohu was wearing a red lava-lava when I saw him. He speaks Pidgin. He is about 5 ft. 7 in. in height and is in ex cellent physical condition, with a tendency to over-weight, if anything. From the Adam’s apple to just above the navel he has a long, straight tattoo mark about half-an-inch wide. He says it represents a snake. On his chest is also tattooed his other name, “Momia.” He smiled shyly when I asked who was “Tauka” tattooed on his right-arm, but instinct told me that before long the handsome Tekohu may take unto him Tauka for a bride. Across his forehead, not in artistically, was tattooed a wide band of straight, broken lines interspersed with dots. It enhanced his attractive Poly nesian features.

He belongs to the Church of England— it was the first time I had ever heard a New Guinea native say he was “Church of England”—they are usually “Talatala,”

“Sewendei,” “Popi” or “Metades.”

Men outnumber the women in the Tasmans. The females wear lava-lavas, but the men wear only the briefest of at tire. None of the natives was engaged in war service. No Japanese landed on the islands, but on perhaps two occasions enemy planes bombed the coconut planta tions, but no one was injured and little damage was done. There was one half caste—product of a former white resident.

Life is harmonious and there are no feuds or domestic infidelities. Marriage with neighbouring islanders keeps the stock from deteriorating and there are frequent visits to and from Ontong Java, British Solomons. I left the smiling, handsome, unsophisticated Tekohu, with thoughts of enchanting, emerald, tropic isles, moonlight nights, dark Polynesian beauties—a land far-removed from Ord inances and Regulations and the prying, irritating tactics of over-zealous officials.