Islands

Pacific

Monthly

July, 1956

Vol. XXVI. No. 12.

iblished 1930

[Registered at the G.P.0., Sydney, for mnskbam by'vostys a newspaper]

WHEN the Bastille was stormed by a Paris mob on July 14, 1789, and so triggered the French Revolution, few Frenchmen of the day could have thought that "Bastille Day"—July 14 —would have persisted down the years, and half a world away. But Bastille Day is the year's biggest celebration in Papeete, Tahiti, and it does not last merely a day, but prolongs itself into a week, or two, or maybe more.

It is a time of dancing and singing, and if some of the dancers do not know the historical significance of The Day, the festivities are no less enthusiastically entered into for that. Our photograph (taken last year, by V. Kavka) is of a Papeete Bastille Day dancer.