Waist-Long
p. 84 · Read in the full issue
Islanders Wore Waist-Long Beards In 1931
Tench Island was so named in 1790 by Henry Lidgbird Ball in honour of Captain Watkin Tench, of the Royal Marines, who came out from England with Ball in the First Fleet to Botany Bay.
Ball “discovered” the island while sailing from Sydney to the Dutch East Indies. However, the first European to have seen it appears to have been the Spanish navigator Antonio Maurelle—in 1781.
The native name for the island is Nusi, although this is not indicated on any map or in any reference book that “PIM” knows of.
According to Seventh-day Adventist headquarters in Sydney, two Germans are said to have been killed on Tench Island during the German ad ministration of North-East New Guinea from 1884 to 1914.
The first visit to the island after it came under Australian administration was in 1931 when Captain G. McLaren visited it in the Adventist mission ship “Veilomani”. On this occasion, the natives still went naked and the men wore plaited beards reaching to their w r aists.