The Editors' Mailbag

Fate of Captain Keller

From Cnrltnv Ynunaer formerly of Cape Marsh, in the ’Solomons, and now residing at 3 Dexter St., Wpct Rwdnhprn n • west Bunaaoerg. q..

“Captain Otto Keller, about whom you make an inquiry in June PIM, was killed, I believe, about 1912, while he was recruiting on Malaita.

I cannot recollect the name of the ™ l 1 schooner (not steamei) he was on, nor can I place the date of his death. I lost all my diaries in the Evacuation, and have no definite details. He was supposed to have been seen in Rabaul on a small steamer in 1920: but this I doubt.

Dick Laycock and Markham are both gone; but perhaps the Kuper boys would remember some details.”

Information, Please

Arthur C. Johnson aboard the bi*ig a ntine Fanfcee, writes for some information. I read in an old encyclopedia that there once were Galapagos tortoises (land turtles) on Rotuma. I inquired when we went there this time and gathered that there had been just one, but it had been ru ?, o™ a l ° rv l ? ome years ago. It had been kept by a Mr. Crocker. Does anyone know of either the tortoise or Mr. Crocker?”

I J anltl and lIS Laws From a man who until recently was a resident of French Oceania, commenting upon a Tahiti legal action which made the headlines not long ago: “There are people in those islands

who will start a libel action at the drop of a hat, regardless of how much truth there may be in what the defendant has written. The lawyers of Tahiti grow fat on such actions: and it is just too bad for the defendant if he is a foreigner.

No harm must come to French citizens when they go to law with foreigners! Furthermore, the Gov ernor of Tahiti can tell a foreigner, on his own decision, to get out and stay out —it has happened! . . . Some people have wondered why the Pacific Islands Monthly has never told the full, disgraceful story of the Kong Ah scandal, in which so many prominent merchants and shining fonctionnaires were in volved. But I. who once knew Tahiti so well, and the strange pro cesses of its laws, do not wonder.

That Kong Ah story should be pub lished — hut not until you have all the facts”

Answer to Promecotheca

A note from a New Guinea friend who did not enclose his name: Regarding an article in your March issue by my old friend Harold Koch, about Promecotheca.

The Scolia Wasp and the red ant are absolutely useless in the con trol of Promecotheca. But the Pleurotropis wog, from Fiji, is the answer. We found this most effective on Linga Linga and Lindenhaven Plantations before the war, and it is still there—but in decreased numbers. (Our article in June PIM supports above statement.)

Before Elizabeth II

From a private letter written by Fred Archer (Jame Plantation , Bougainville ) just before the Queen commenced her Pacific tour: I think Her Majesty will achieve much, if the gods be her way at all. Which reminds me. One day, away up in the dripping Bougain ville mountains, with the Coast Watchers, in 1942, I read in an old Blackwoods Magazine that a 15th Century Prophecy said: “England shall come to its greatest glory dur ing the reign of the Second Eliza beth.” I showed this to Jack Read, and he said: “H’m, maybe but it’s bloody doubtful if we’ll live to see her crowning. I reckon our main job. just now, is to keep clear of these Nips.”

At that time, the Japs were all over New Guinea and the Northern Solomons, and it was the job of the Bougainville Coast Watchers to keep the Yanks advised of their movements, so that every time the little swine stuck their heads out down Tulagi way, the Yanks could blast them. Little did we dream then that we should see Elizabeth crowned, and as Queen of the British Commonwealth making a formal tour of the South Pacific!

Who’s Who in Fire-walking

From a well-known resident of Fiji: I have a bone to pick with you.

In a PIM in 1953 there are photos of Indian fire-walking, and the caption said: “Indian fire-walking is generally considered more spec tacular than the Fijian, in that they walk the bare red-hot cinders, whereas the Fijians first cover the red-hot rocks on which they walk with green leaves. The distance walked by the Fijians is also shorter”.

I’ve never seen the Indian cere mony, and the Bega one once only; but I do vividly remember that the stones were absolutely white-hot when the embers were raked off — I think I am right in saying that they are heated for 24 hours.

Someone threw his handkerchief in at that point and it flamed, several feet above the stones.

The fire-walkers then appeared from their dressing shed, slowly and ceremoniously circled the pit over the stones —I think a couple of times —then the leaves were thrown in, and on these they sat or squatted in thick smoke.

Their legend says they could originally lie full length on the hot stones, and that they are able to transmit their power to anyone who trusts them sufficiently to be led by the hand around the pit. I know of only one chief who had the courage—in thick football boots— and that again may be only a tale!

Forgive this nationalistic out burst, but I couldn’t let those Indians get away with it! Another thing. Theirs is a religious frenzy, whilst the Fijians are normal —e.g. doctors have examined them before and after, found them to jump quite normally when a pin is stuck into their soles, or a lighted cigarette held there!

Don’t Ask Us—Find

It Yourself!

One of the major chores of PIM editorship is the acknowledgment of letters from people in all countries who want to get away from it all, and have decided that they can be happy on the kind of Pacific island they have read about somewhere.

Ever since Captain Cook’s cabin boys chased the lissome lasses of Tahiti around the palm-trees be hind Point Venus, imaginative writers have let themselves go on the subject of life in the Pacific Islands. Ardent readers in the chillier climes now believe that every dot of land, from Indonesia on to Oceania provides pleasant warmth, abundant food, scented beauty and ageless romance.

And so, when life becomes almost intolerable, they write excited letters to the over-burdened PIM editors —“where can I find an is

land m which I can make a real T ai l d , tben follow the writer’s ideas; of what he wants—a catalogue which almost always indicates that he hasn t a clue to what actually are the conditions in the South Pacific to-day.

Let them be warned. There probably are thousands of attractive which a manma? cannot hv Eve™ Oovii-r.mpnt anrf there y Ire l6— ha?

governing immigration lnd settll-

ment; every island has, as well as some possibly pleasant angle on life, some problem of environment.

The only possible way in which a European may settle in the Pacific Islands is to take a lot of time off, and go personally and woo the bureaucrats for permission to look for the right location.

Answer Could be ‘Rats’

Mr. R. F. Vaughan, of Sandakan, North Borneo, was intrigued by “Strange Case of the Missing Gnashers” in May PlM—a story of the mysterious disappearance of a set of false teeth in Kavieng.

I should say that rats provide the solution. I have known two cases of rats carrying off dentures. Each time, non-recovery would have been a serious matter the nearest dentist was very far away.

The one occasion was at a gold mine in the Celebes, and the other was when we were prisoners here under the Japs—and on both occasions the anxious searchers were successful. At the gold-mine the teeth were discovered in an attic, and on the second they were in a nearby concrete drain. 1 advise those who must wear dentures, and who discard them at ni e ht > always to put a cover over the tumbler in which the y re P° se and a weight on top of that ‘ ...

Hindustan , Please

A valued correspondent in Indo nesia challenges our reference to the Nehru section of India as “Hindustani”. That, of course, was an error—we intended to say “Hindustan”. Hindustani is, in a general way, Hindustan’s language an * Our point is that it is a mistake, now, to say “India” when we mean Hindustan. “India” is the former Anglo-Indian Empire, which com prised what, since 1946, has become the nations of Pakistan, Hindustan, and some more-or-less borderline native States under independent rulers. By far the larger part of the former Empire has gone into Hindustan, but that still does not make it “India”, in the former sense of the term.