Rotuma’S 71 Years

As A British Colony

SUVA, June 19.

MR. W. J. E. EASON has recently been instrumental in focusing attention on Rotuma, small and little known-island outpost of

the Colony of Fiji.

He spent three months there early this year, suggested the May cele brations to mark 71 years of British rule and has now had published a book about the island.

His “Short History of Rotuma,” has been published by the Govern

merit Printing Department, Suva.

It gives a fascinating record of the origins of the unique Rotuman people who, after all but dying out after the impact of European in fluences, now' number nearly 4,000 and are steadily increasing. Their birthrate is the highest in Fiji higher even than that of the prolific Fiji-Indians.

He writes: “One cannot help feeling that such a people have been hindered and handicapped by civil isation and missions and would have been far better off had it been possible to leave them untouched.

The few things they have gained by contact with civilisation have been gained at the cost of civil war, hatred and bitterness, not to men tion the European diseases which mowed them down.”

Mr. Eason was primarily respons ible for the pageantry, dancing and feasting in Rotuma in May to com memorate the cession of the island to Queen Victoria in 1881. seven years after the cession of Fiji. The celebrations saw a vivid revival of Rotuman traditional culture in the performance of immemorial dances and songs by trained teams from each of Rotuma’s seven districts.

No one seems to have thought of celebrating Cession in that way before. (Copies of the History may be obtained at the Fiji Government Printing Office for 12/- Fijian.)