Deaths of Islands People

Dr. R. Nayacakalou One of Fiji’s most distinguished scholars, Dr. Rusiate Nayacakalou, OBE, died suddenly in Suva on February 6, aged 45. Dr. Nayacakalou, who died in an ambulance taking him to the Colonial War Memorial Hos pital after he had suffered a heart attack, had a distinguished academic career in anthropology. He played an important role in establishing reforms within the Fijian administration. He had been manager of the Native Land Trust Board since 1969 and was the first Fijian appointed to this post.

Dr. Nayacakalou graduated B.A. with honours at Auckland University in 1956 and subsequently lectured and did research work there. Two years later, he was appointed to assist Professor O. H. K. Spate in his in vestigation into the economic prob lems and prospects of the Fijian people. He then went to the Univer sity of London, where he was awarded a Ph.D. in 1963.

In 1964, after appointment to the lecturing staff of Sydney University, he was released to undertake the im plementation of a report by a Council of Chiefs committee, which had examined the Fijian administration and Fijian regulations.

Dr. Nayacakalou was awarded the OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last June. His citation said: “The general acceptance and successful implementation of the important re-

forms of the Fijian administration are largely the work of Dr. Nayacakalou and in this achievement he has made a significant contribution to the future of his people and the dominion.”

Dr. Nayacakalou leaves a widow and six young children.

Mrs Florence Binskin The death of Mrs. Florence Binskin of the Island of Dreams, Vella Tavella, occurred on January 27th She was 78.

One of the well-known identities of the Western Solomons, she was the eldest child of Norman Wheatley, the early trader, and was born on August 5, 1893. She was educated in Sydney but otherwise spent the whole of her life in the Western Solomons. In 1910 she married Joseph Binskin, who began his career in the Solomons working for her father, and whose home on a small island off Baga was the scene of the “Binskin massacre” the year before, when the first Mrs.

Binskin, Unga, and her two children were killed in a raid on the island while her husband was away on a trading voyage.

Despite the grisly history of the island, Florrie preferred it to any where else in the world. It was she who gave the island its name, from a popular song at the time of her wedding. She and Joe lived happily on the Island of Dreams and had three children Florence (1912), Josie (1914) and Bill (1915).

Joseph Binskin died in 1941, just before the Japanese invaded the Solomons, and at about the same time Bill went off to join the Australian Army. Florrie turned down the oppor tunity of evacuating to San Cristobal, and was soon plunged into the war when the enemy occupied her home.

She took refuge in various villages in the interior of Vella Lavella for the remainder of the occupation, assisting the coastwatchers and other allied personnel and evading capture.

On her return home after the fighting, Florrie discovered that she had lost everything. Among items looted or destroyed by the enemy were the stock of the trade store valued at £12,000, the 40-ft ketch “Alice” and 5,000 head of cattle on the plantations. The plantations them selves were a mass of overgrown bush.

Undeterred, Florrie set to work to make a living, and for the first three and a half years lived all by herself on the island. In 1952 she formed a partnership with Jeff from Malaita and they were able to get the plan tations operating sufficiently to scrape a bare living from them.

Always cheerful and with wide interests, there was nothing Florrie liked better than for a visitor to call on her at her Island of Dreams and' to have a cup of tea and a good chat. She was related to the Wheatley, Wickham, Palmer and Talasasa. families of the West and had many tales to tell of the old days which were still so vividly retained in her memory.

Her grandson Paul Scobie was with her at the time of her death, and her funeral was attended by her son Bill and about 50 people, mainly from Vella Lavella. She was buried, as she wished to be, in a grave beside her husband on the Island of Dreams.

Elder Kaltosak Sokomanu A well-known personality of south Efate in the New Hebrides, Elder Kaltosak Sokomanu, died in the Paton Memorial Hospital on February 9.

Elder Sokomanu was 80 years old.

He served in the British Police and later in the Condominium Post and Telecommunications Department, re tiring in 1957.

Elder Sokomanu was awarded the Western Pacific Certificate and of Honour in June, 1962. He is sur vived by his son, A. G. Kalkoa and three daughters.

Dr. R. Nayacakalou.

Mrs. Florence Binskin.