Looks At

Woman Doctor

Easter Island

In mid-November, 1964,

team of Canadian doctors an scientists left Halifax, Nov Scotia, aboard a Canadian navs ship to make a detailed study c the health of the people of Easte Island.

THE expedition, which was finance by the World Health Organisj tion and the Canadian Governmen was Canada’s contribution to th International Biological Year, 1965.

Its purpose was to try to determin what was in store for Easter Island 1,200 people after the opening c an international airport on the islan destroyed their age-old isolation an put them in contact with numeroi travellers from the outside world.

One of the members of th expedition was Dr. Helen Evans Rei( a specialist in child health, who hi written a warm-hearted account c what the expedition did. In the prc cess, she has given the world a vie l of Easter Island that it has seldoi had before. • Unlike most of the previous liters ture on Easter Island, which hs almost invariably been concerne with trying to solve the mysteries c the island’s past, Dr. Reid’s boo deals almost exclusively with th present, and breathes scarcely a wor about ancient statues, rongo-rong boards, and such like.

Letter to President

It makes an agreeable change.

One learns from Dr. Reid, rathu to one’s surprise, that the Easte Islanders are interested in politics lik everyone else, and that only a wee before the Canadian expeditio arrived on the island, a group of th island’s leaders sent an open lette to the President of Chile setting fort a whole series of grievances.

The islanders complained that th Chilean Naval Governor of th island did not treat them with th dignity to which human beinj were entitled; that they were m permitted to travel freely either o their own island or to Chile; thu they could not vote in Chilean ele* tions even though they were citizer of Valparaiso Province; that the could not speak by radio in the

>wn language to their children in etc., etc.

The letter mentioned that the faster Islanders were of Polynesian ilood and it hinted darkly about a Polynesian Union that Tahiti wants o form”.

In conclusion, the letter asked that olonialism should end so that the faster Islanders, as a community, ould sing, “but without being irdered to sing”.

The Chilean Government did not ake the islanders’ letter lightly.

Vithin a few days of receiving it, two /arships, a special commissioner and party of marines were dispatched 0 the island to try to sort things ut.

The situation remained tense for ome days. The islanders spoke of hooting the governor at one stage, nd the Chilean marines went around dth fingers on their triggers.

But peace was finally restored, with he Easter Island ringleader being lected mayor; and the Chilean com lissioner promising to try to get a ew constitution for the island with civil administration.

The Canadian expedition was there y able to get down to the job for fhich it had come.

Besides giving an interesting account f the expedition’s work, Dr. Reid iscusses Chile’s problems in admini tering an island whose only income 1 from wool, and which has always een a financial liability; and the faster Islanders’ problems in being smote and isolated, and dependent n Chile almost for their survival.

Dr. Reid has high hopes for the Liture, with the opening of the island > tourists.

“The airport will end isolation and ependence, the things from which le people now seek to flee,” she says.

It will bring material possessions and ie standards of living for which they ow pine. If somehow they can con nue to keep a little of the island’s eace, if their tourist attractions are eveloped with discriminating good iste instead of blatant com lercialism, they may be successful.”

Dr. Reid’s book was first published i Canada in 1965. Its publication i Australia now is timely in that laster Island’s international airport as just been opened ( PIM , May, p.

3).

RL.

(A WORLD AWAY. Angus & Robertson td., Svdney. $3.)