Scientists On Tikopia
p. 109 · Read in the full issue
UNDER an arrangement with the South Pacific Commission and with the blessing of officialdom, the famous anthropologist Dr. Ray mond Firth is at present making a six months’ stay on the island of Tikopia (or Tucopia) which is an isolated member of the British Solomon Islands administration, and which carries a healthy and attrac tive community that is predomi nantly Polynesian. Dr. Firth spent a year there about 20 years ago, and his published descriptions of this community are of considerable sci entific interest. On the island also, on a twelve-months visit, is a Mr.
Sellars, a Canadian. They have a teleradio set and sound-recording instruments.
Tikopians as Labourers Messrs. Hayling Brothers, who run the kauri-timber enterprise on Vanikoro Island, have tried to solve their native labour difficulties by recruiting Tikopian natives. Out of the 40 men taken to Vanikoro two have died and three have been re turned to their homes.