Pitcairn Islanders

Mrs. H. E. Maude’s Interesting Address to PI Society

A LARGE meeting of members of the Pacific Islands Society, in Sydney, in October, listened with much interest to an illustrated address by Mrs. H. E.

Maude, on Pitcairn Island. Mr. and Mrs.

Maude spent some months there after the war, to introduce an administrative system for the Western Pacific High Commission.

One of the officers who accompanied Bligh in the famous open-boat voyage, after the mutineers ran away with the Bounty, was Lieut. Millett, an ancestor of Mr. Maude. The mutineers took the Bounty back to Tahiti, and subsequently, with Tahitian wives, they hid themselves away on Pitcairn, in 1789, and scuttled the ship in Bounty Bay, where her re mains still may be seen. Her rudder is now in Suva, en route to the British Museum.

In the following 20 years, all the men died or were killed. When found again, the community consisted of 10 women, 25 children and old John Adams. From them, there has grown the present com munities on Norfolk and Pitcairn Islands.

When Mr. Maude settled down to his job, he asked for the Pitcairn Island official files of correspondence. They looked blank; but presently all the essen tial documents that had been kept were found in an old sugar bag.

When the Maudes went there, the Pit cairn Island public funds did not exceed £5O. But after the first issue of Pitcairn Island postage stamps, the island had a financial nest-egg of over £30,000.

The Pitcairners were most hospitable folk, and, although some supplies had to be taken from tins, everything the fertile

island could grow in fruit and vegetables was freely at their disposal.

The cockroaches in the pit-sawn timber houses were beyond belief. “They could chew up clothes in a single night,” de clared Mrs. Maude.

ONE day, when gardening, Mrs. Maude’s rake turned up out of the soil the original Bounty wedding-ring—the ring which old John Adams used, along with his Bible, when marrying his young men and women during their period of complete isolation. The ring—lost, and

happily found again—is now in the Auckland Museum.

Some coconuts grow on Pitcairn. Sugar is obtained from local cane, per medium of a Heath Robinson crushing contraption of their own. Salt was made once a year, by evaporation of sea-water. They made coffee from dandelion roots.

Everything is done communally. They all fish on Wednesday, for example; the gardens are tended on Thursdays; the week-end food is prepared on Fridays.

All are Seventh Day Adventists, and the

Sabbath is observed strictly on Saturday.

A tenth of their income goes to the church.

The people speak English; but, among themselves, they use a peculiar Anglo- Polynesian dialect.

The island had been once inhabited by some unknown race—there was evidence of that in the large number of stone axes found there.

The island’s trees, in the course of the years, have been whittled away. There has been no re-planting—consequently, a serious timber problem is imminent.

Mrs. Maude spoke affectionately of the Islanders, for whom both she and her husband had formed a high regard.

AMONG those present at this meeting of the Pacific Islands Society were the Hon. Camilla Wedg wood, Mr. and Mrs. R, E. Christian (Mr. Christian being a descendant of Fletcher Christian, the leader of the famous Bounty mutiny), and Mr.

Young, also a descendant of one of the mutineers.

New members of the Society: Mr. and Mrs. H. E. Maude, Mr, and Mrs. C. Griffin, Mrs. McLelland and Mrs. Middenway.

Christmas Party: The Society will hold a Sherry Party at History House on De cember 16 from 5 to 7.45 p.m.

The death occurred at Suva on October 28 of Mr. C. H. Price, who has been a resident of Fiji for the past 28 years. Mr.

Price is survived by his daughter, Mrs.

W. L. Hunt of Tailevu.

Nearly complete files of the Pacific Islands Monthly for 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945 and 1946 may be obtained without any cost on application to Mr. H. J. Rutledge, McGrath Street, Toowong, Brisbane. Early application is necessary.