Tropicalities

Magazine Section

Jekyll-And-Hyde Mynahs

THE mynah bird, as well known in the Pacific islands as the sparrow in European countries, is a native of southern India and Ceylon. It was brought into Tahiti early in the century to exterminate insect pests, particularly wasps.

At that time the coconut palms of Rarotonga were being attacked by the “stick” insect, a creature three or four inches in length which was causing great damage to the trees.

This prompted Colonel Gudgeon, the then Resident Commissioner for the Cl, to write, in about 1906, to the British Consul in Tahiti re questing information about the habits of the mynah bird.

The birds were subsequently im ported into Rarotonga, where they killed off the “stick” insect with

commendable efficiency and rapidly increased in numbers. They then turned their attention to the local birds, which they harried out of the sky, so that to-day most of the few remain ing native birds are only to be found in the in land valleys. The exception is the fairy tern, which continues to lay its eggs on the midribs of coco nut leaves, defying the mynahs, and winds alike.

The mynahs have acquired a taste for ripe to matoes, paw paws and citrus fruit, but do not harm unripe crops. As all fruit is, of course, ex ported before ripening, the mynahs have not affected the Cl export trade, and this fact, to gether with the mynah’s useful qualities, have prevented an “open season” for them in the C®ok Islands. W. H.

Percival.

Wild Irishman Of

Rarotonga

ENTERING the Union Steam Ship Company office in Raro tonga one morning, I found the place virtually in a state of siege.

There was old William Mcßierney pounding the counter with his heavy walking stick, and laying down the law in no uncertain terms to the Rarotongan clerk, who was not enjoying the performance.

But then Mcßierney is almost a law unto himself. Even at his ad vanced age he strikes terror into the hearts of clerks and departmental officials every time he’s sighted in town. For there’s going to be trouble for someone!

Through half-closed doors or from behind some filing cabinet, all

hands watch his progress—slow as it is to-day—from the time he alights from his cart until it is clear which way he’s heading. Then some relax —and the unfortunates who are “for it” brace themselves for the storm.

Though fearful for the victim, to hear old Mac in action is an educa tion and a delight to the onlookers.

Truly he is one of the most out standing characters of the South Seas to-day. The story of his life is amazing, unbelievable, and largely untenable. He is extraordinarily well-read, a poet in his own right —and the classical Wild Irishman that one reads of but rarely meets.

He has always been a thorn in the side of the Administration, but he knows his rights and entitle ments and certainly stands up for them. Perhaps he’s lost a little of his fire as Father Time creeps up on him—but not so much that you’d notice! His like will probably never again be seen in the Islands, or, indeed, elsewhere.— JPS.

Sorry, Wrong Number

CORRESPONDENT Nordman, of Tahiti, reminiscing oh his ser vice in Matson trans-Pacific vessels in the immediate pre-World War I days, recalls an occasion

when Governor Schultz, of German Samoa, was one of his charges.

First day at sea he knocked on the door of the Governor’s cabin to take his breakfast order. The Governor was in his berth reading.

“Would you care for an orange before breakfast,” asked Steward Nordman. “Nine,” said the Gov ernor, without so much as a glance.

Nordman quietly closed the door, somewhat surprised, but neverthe less soon returned with the nine oranges in a dish.

Again entering the cabin, the Governor glanced at him in amaze ment —then roared with laughter.

“I said ‘nein,’ ” he explained— “that means, ‘No.’ ”

Which reminds us that it is not difficult for the uninitiated to get himself deadlocked in the Islands even when both parties are speak ing English. The Islander’s affirm ative reply to a European’s negative question has trapped more than one.

Concerning Fig Jam, Etc.

IHAVE just left the Noumea restaurant waitress after five in tense minutes, in which I tried to explain to her that I do not like fig jam for breakfast, for distress ing reasons well known to wearers of dentures. I feel completely thwarted; and, from the girl’s now guarded behaviour towards me, I am afraid that she is convinced that I am eager to bite her, but am de terred only by the gallant thought that I may hurt her. How does one discuss fig jam in relation to dentures, in French, anyhow?

A while ago my immediate neigh bour here, a shy woman from Bris bane, retired hurriedly Within her bungalow bedroom with an ex pression that sounded like “God Almighty.” She had made some re quest of the servant, and the willing girl had quickly—and coyly—re turned with a partially covered article. I do not know what the lady really wanted, but it obviously was not a chamber-pot.

There is a great deal to interest and amuse the tourist in this charm ing country of New Caledonia. But if the mutually profitable traffic is to develop, our French friends should learn a little more English —and the language-lazy Australians should learn a lot more French. —

Rwr.

Fun With Words

AS Shakespeare asked, “What’s in a name?” Certainly, some of the things that 59me native people have done to staid old Eng lish, brighten it up quite a lot.

In much-despised SW Pacific Pidgin, a lady’s brassiere is some times described as a “banis belong su-su.” Banis being a “fence” or something similar: and su-su, of course, being “milk.”

Now, in a recent issue of Carona, a homecraft officer tells of her dif ficulties with a sewing-circle of native women in Kenya. The women

were enthusiastic sewers and had one burning ambition—to make an “apron-ya-titty”—which, after much puzzling, their instructor found to be the local name for brassiere.

Tragedy Of Half-Castes

COUNTLESS articles have been written about the unhappy status of the half-castes in the Pacific Islands, and it is not much use adding here to that tragic record.

I do hope that, as the years pass, a more suitable place will be found in this community for the many people in Papua and New Guinea— especially New Guinea—of part European and part Asiatic blood. I refer particularly to half-Malays and half-Indians, born usually of a European father and an Asiatic or mixed-race mother.

The children of such unions are usually equal in quality to the best European average in the Territories, and it is a cruel thing that they are so often pushed away into a community by themselves. There are a number of instances of girls of an attractive type, with a reasonably good education, who have been compelled either to marry natives or part-natives of a grade considerably below their own, or to tie up with some of the poor-class Europeans introduced in the im mediate post-war, simply because of what some folk regard as “the stigma of mixed blood”—R.