Tropicalities

What did the delegation from Noumea, headed by South Pacific Games organiser Tony Bertrand, say to sports officials in Suva when they went to Fiji early in November? What did the Suva people say to the New Caledonians? And why was no official statement issued after the talks?

THE talks, after all, were of con siderable importance to several territories, notably Fiji and Tonga.

They concerned the programming of a number of athletics and team events in Noumea on Sunday, December 11.

This has been a sore point with Fiji sporting authorities for more than a year, and, until the talks in Suva, they had made a number of repre sentations about it to the Noumea Games officials without positive result.

The Fijians had insisted that they would not compete in any events on the Sunday. The Tongans’ attitude has been the same. The Fijians also thought the athletics events should be spread over the whole Games season instead of being grouped over a few days so that the athletes would have the benefit of maximum rest.

It was reported in Suva after the Suva meeting that little could be achieved to settle the points at issue because of the late stage reached in the preparation of the Games. How ever, the Fiji Amateur Sports Asso ciation was said to have “fully appreciated the courteous gesture by

The Great

Games

Mystery

the organising committee in sending the delegation to Fiji.”

At the Noumea end, our corre spondent, Fred Dunn, reported that “although no communique has been issued, it is thought that the mission’s visit was a success, and that all is now well.”

We certainly hope all is well, any way. But how can it be if the organ isers insist on Sunday events, and the Fijians say that they won’t take part in them? It is the Great Games Mystery.

The answer, we suppose, is that the organisers will see to it that only those territories which have no scruples about playing sport on Sun days will be asked to play on that day, and that no events in which the Fijians and Tongans are to take part will be staged on that day.

Born At Last —And

A Bonny Baby

AFTER a series of complications, which almost reduced the mid wife and other attendants to despair, the Journal of Pacific History, whose imminent arrival we heralded as far back as last June (p. 91), has finally been born.

It’s a bonny baby of 250 pages— the brain child of the Department of Pacific History at the Australian National University, Canberra.

The accouchement took place at Oxford University Press, Melbourne, to which city the midwife, Mr. Harry Maude, made two or three anxious journeys, and suffered (so we’re told) more labour pains than any one else.

Harry is Professorial Fellow in Pacific History in Canberra. He is co-editor of the new journal with the Professor of the same subject, Jim Davidson. The journal is to appear annually from now on.

Its aim is to “provide an inter national medium for the publication of original research in the field of Pacific history, defined in its broadest sense to include archaeology, pre history and ethnohistory, as well as contemporary government and political development...”

Some two dozen writers have con

tributed to the first issue. Their subjects range over the entire Pacific in time and space, and, generally speaking, they have come up with some lively stuff—despite a few formidable titles.

“On the Incidence of Alcoholism and Intemperance in Early Pacific Missions,” for example, is actually a fascinatingly human essay on a little-suspected subject, which we (with our eye for colour, tin tacks and irreverence) would have been tempted to call “Boozy Brethren and Tippling Parsons of the South Seas.”

Anyway, besides history the Journal contains articles on current affairs (we have quoted some extracts from one of these on p. 36), plus book reviews, a bibliographic feature on new publications on the Pacific, and a section on recent or little-known manuscript discoveries, for the benefit of research workers.

To subscribe to the Journal, you should write to: The Editors, Depart ment of Pacific History, Australian National University, Box 4, PO, Can berra, ACT, Australia, sending $3.50 or its equivalent (£Stg.l/10/-;

£Nzi/10/-; £Fi/12/6 Or Sus 4).

From Russia—

With Scholarships

T/'ADIM KASSIS, deputy editor of * the foreign section of Izvestia, spent a week in Western Samoa in early November.

There was much speculation before his visit that he might have some thing to say on Prime Minister Mataafa’s recent statement about the possibility of seeking aid from the Communist bloc if this aid was not forthcoming from the West.

But he produced nothing more spectacular than an offer of three scholarships for Samoan students to study for five years, all expenses paid, at the Friendship University in Moscow.

During an interview, Prime Minister Mataafa reiterated his previous statement on aid. But Mr. Kassis gave no indication as to what might result from any approach for aid to the USSR.

The Prime Minister told Mr. Kassis that when any decision was reached on the scholarship offer he would contact the Russian legation in Wellington.

Mr. Kassis is the first Soviet journalist to visit Samoa, and a pleasant, easy conversationalist. His main impression of the country was the frank and friendly attitude of the many people he met.

Mr. Kassis has written 14 books,

including one translated into English and Japanese called Eighty Days in Tibet.

He will be writing a series of articles on Samoa for Izvestia and other publications in Russia.

Tolerant Rabaul

RABAUL, New Guinea, must surely be establishing an un beatable reputation for being the most religiously tolerant town in the South Pacific.

In the ecumenical atmosphere existing in the Gazelle Peninsula there have recently been these developments: • A wedding between a Roman Catholic groom and an Anglican bride in Rabaul’s Catholic Church, jointly conducted by Catholic and Anglican priests. • A “blessing of the fleet” ceremony at the town’s Aquatic Club, con ducted by Roman Catholic, Anglican and Methodist ministers. • The opening of a Roman Catholic community hall at Matupit vil lage, in a ceremony at which choirs from Methodist and Seventh-day Adventist churches sang.

Jolly Roger Flies

Over Norfolk

PIRATE radios are not confined to the Thames estuary or the New Zealand coast —you can find them in the most unexpected places. Such as Norfolk Island.

Norfolk, an Australian territory 900 miles north-east of Sydney and 600 miles north of Auckland, had its own pirate radio station for a few weeks in October, but who operated it and what, if anything, will be the sequel to its operation we can’t tell you because we don’t know. In official circles it’s all very hush-hush.

Norfolk Island has only one official station, with limited transmis sion hours. The pirate operated on 2.6 megs., which is allotted to small ships’ transmission, and it broadcast mainly between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.

There were never any announce ments. The broadcasts consisted mainly of vocal and light orchestral music.

There was quite a lot of specula tion about the source of the trans missions. And some people took the view that it wasn’t playing the game to use the small ship frequency in case of emergency. The pirates ceased operating on October 31.

At the November meeting of the Norfolk Island Council, Mr. Ken Nobbs wanted to know whether it was lawful for anybody to broadcast on Norfolk Island.

The Administrator, Mr. Reg Marsh, who is a former Territories Depart ment man from Canberra, made it clear that it certainly wasn’t lawful for anybody to broadcast without a licence and that the Administration station was the only lawful one on that tight little isle, apart from one “ham”.

What happens next? Don’t ask us!

It seems the legal fellows are sniffing about.

New Development

For Vunakanau

LESS than two months after the official opening of the Roman Catholic Women’s Teacher Training College at Kabaleo, near Rabaul, Bishop John Hoehne has announced plans for the complete rebuilding on anew site of St. Paul’s Men’s Teacher Training College, presently situated at Vuvu, but destined to move to the Vunakanau area, 10 miles from Rabaul and 1,000 ft up.

It’s an interesting spot.

Vunakanau was the site of the biggest Japanese wartime airfield in the New Guinea islands, A grass srtip is still maintained there as an emergency field, but many local people feel that ultimately the main strip for the Gazelle Peninsula should be in this area. The construction of an all-weather sealed road from Rabaul right to Vunakanau, which is proceeding, would mean a very short trip from town for travellers.

From Queensland,

\Vith Love

THIS Christmas’ Pitcairn’s popula tion of 90 will hear a “command performance” variety show presented by a Brisbane, Queensland, Little Theatre group especially for them.

The show will include vocal, instru mental and comedy—and it will all come on 60 minutes of tape.

The idea evolved from a letter which a Queensland shell collector, Mr. Syd Cameron, of Bulimba, sent to Pitcairn following an advertisement for shells he saw in PIM. He got a reply from Mrs. Mavis Warren, which he showed to a director of the Stariders Revue Company, Mr.

Des Neylan.

Mr. Neylan, who takes an interest in Pacific affairs as a regular PIM reader, asked Mrs. Warren for per mission from the Island Council to arrange and present the show “to brighten up their normally dull evenings”.

Mrs. Warren replied that all of Pitcairn welcomed the gesture and were looking forward to it. It’s on its way.

Remarkable Bure

Of Trevor Withers

our piece on Trevor * Withers’ pioneering work in Fiji’s Yasawas, of Blue Lagoon fame (Nov. p. 121) we’ve been reminded that the bure which the grateful Fijians built for Trevor at Yalobi is one of the finest in Fiji.

Set in a grove of coconut palms, in the centre of a magnificent swim ming beach, this remarkable building has no less than 21 plate-glass or louvred windows, eight doors, hot and cold water—and even a septic tank system!

Its interior is decorated with intricately woven reeds, fine tapa cloth and hundreds of valuable sea shells—it could become one of the “sights” for the evergrowing stream of tourists.

Captain Withers has not yet taken up residence there—he has been superintending in Lautoka the con struction of his new fast game fishing boat.

In this, when not benevolently observing from his Yalobi bure the operations of his busy successors (Captain Don Lane is now among them), he will be able to cruise and fish still uncharted seas of the Yasawas. Appropriately, his new boat is to bear the name conferred upon him by his Fijian friends, Turaga Levu which means “high chief”