Mt. Lamington Evacuees

Need More than Houses

rEklast issue of Oceania (June) is, as usual, of interest to students of the Pacific.

Of particular interest in this issue is an account, by Cyril S. Belshaw, of the social consequences following the Mt. Lamington eruption in

and their resettlement in new villages.

Resettling these people whose villages had been wiped out or were considered unsafe, was not, Mr.

Belshaw says, merely a matter of building new houses and making new gardens, It appears that these Orokaiva

people are, at the best of times temperamental, emotional and givei to fits of temper, crankiness am even petty violence.

The feeling of uncertainty follow ing the eruption and the death o 4,000 of their own people, thi normal strains and stresses of lif» in an evacuee camp and th business of pulling up their root and settling in new areas did no improve matters.

But most of them seem to believi that the eruption was punishmen from God for past disobedience t( Government or mission, or for th betrayal of Europeans during th early days of the war. Most seen to want to atone by doing bette in the future.

Mr. Belshaw outlines some of th problems that are being faced b; Administration officials in gettini the naturally intractable Orokaiva back to a smooth-working com munity life again.

According to Miss P. Heaney, hea mistress of a school at Lae, Ne> Guinea, European children at schoc in the Islands are being encourage to learn about native customs an folk-lore, and generally, to take keen interest in the Territory. Mis Heaney, who has been in Guinea for 2 h years, spent a shoi time in Brisbane recently befor leaving on a tour of Japan.