[?] omed to extinction
pp. 99-100 · Read in the full issue
They used to say the [?]landers were [?] omed to extinction
In the 19th century, and even the early part of this one, it is a commonly held view long Europeans in the Pacific it the native people were omed to early extinction as a lult of contact with European :es, diseases and civilisation.
S an example of this, there are . the words of the French relist, Pierre Loti, in his Tahiti pired novel, The Marriage of Loti, ich was published in the 1880’s, scribing his Tahitian heroine, rahu, he said she was a “sad and hetic personification of the Poly ian race as it gradually dies out ier contact with our civilisation I our vices, soon to be no more n a memory in the history of ;ania”.
But the gloomy predictions of the tis and others have not come to is. The native people, far from ng out, are now on the increase, sir rate of growth, in fact, was cribed a couple of years ago “the highest in the world, perhaps highest in history”, \fter a century or so of European itact, the Islanders have developed esistance to the ills and evils that white men brought them, and y are now increasing stronger than :r. fust what their numbers were when white men first came among m, what exactly killed them off in early days, and how the survivors
began to increase again is now tl subject of a painstaking study t Dr. Norma McArthur, Professori; Fellow in the Department of Pacif Studies at the Australian Nation; University, Canberra.
Dr. McArthur, who specialises i demography, has been an adviser 1 several Islands governments in recei years on the conduct of censuses.
Her book, Island Populations c the Pacific , deals with six Islanc territories: Fiji, Tonga, the tw Samoas, the Cook Islands and Frenc Polynesia.
Dr. McArthur has done som prodigious research into the historic: literature of her six territories, an has dredged up an enoromoi amount of demographic mated: about them.
Her book is much more readab] than one might reasonably expe< such a book to be in that it is writte in a straightforward narrative sty] and it brings to light a great deal c interesting historical information th* is not to be found easily elsewhere.
Her book will no doubt be standard reference book on the terr: tories dealt with for many years.- RL.
(Island Populations Of Th
PACIFIC. Australian National Universil Press, Canberra. $9.60.) • Three papers on New Guine land tenure have been republished ii paperback form in Studies in Guinea Land Tenure by la: Hogbin and Peter Lawrence (Sydne University Press, 52.50). Hogbin’
“Land Tenure in Wogeo” and “Till age and Collection in Wogeo” wen originally published in Oceania, 1938 40, although a new section on socia structure has been added. Peter Law rence’s “Land Tenure Among th< Garia” was originally published ii 1955 as a monograph by Australia!
National University. There have beer some minor changes in the reprinting The three papers are based on fiek work carried out many years ago and describe systems with a mixtun of group and individual titles. Th< Wogeo have a form of matrilinea! descent, with relatively stable loca units; Garia society is cognatic oi bilateral, and there are no stable loca] units.