Tropicalities

Director’S

Conundrum

Mr Mahe Tupouniua, director of the South Pacific Forum’s Bureau for Economic Co-operation, has a conun drum of the chicken and the egg kind.

He was over in Australia from Suva in July as a guest of the Aus tralian Government, responding to an invitation given to him personally by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam in Apia for the Forum meeting in April.

He did the usual rounds, had talks with trade and Treasury officials in Canberra, saw people and things in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane and dined with PIM when he told us that, after his talks, he was sure of one thing—the Islands had to have two things from their more fortunate, developed neighbours, aid and trade.

What he wasn’t sure of was whether trade should follow aid or vice versa. Maybe the two could go together?

He said he was well-satisfied with his talks and the attitudes of govern ment officials although, at the outset of his visit, he complained that Aus tralia’s trade barriers were hamper ing the Islands’ development. Tariffs on sugar, copra and coconut oil were causing him most concern, and moves towards relaxation of the barriers would be welcomed. He also suggested expanding the Forum group into a common market of the type created not so long ago in the Caribbean.

Around the same time came the announcement that Australia will introduce a new system of reduced tariffs for exports from developing countries.

There’s a snag of course. Goods already competitive in Australia or likely to become competitive very soon won’t be included. No doubt, the government was thinking then of the decision announced on July 18 to cut all import tariffs by 25 per cent in an effort to bring down prices in Australia and stem the serious rise in living costs.

It’s a safe bet Island bananas

won’t get in, which is a pity since Australians have forgotten what a real banana tastes like since the Country Party got the Australian market closed to Fiji banana growers through the imposition of a heavy tariff in the early 19205.

Sim abolished

in the Tokelaus

Religion and the philosophy of Theodore Roosevelt—“ Speak softly but carry a big stick”—keep the youngsters in line in the Tokelau Islands to the north of Samoa.

That’s the way American Samoa’s Chief Probation Officer Napoleon E. Tuiteleleapaga sees it after a five day tour of the Tokelau and Swains Island to their south-west.

It all sounds very dull but the crime statistics for Fakaofo, southern most of the Tokelaus, read like a chief constable’s prayer—no crime of any sort; at least, not since 1968, when it was a case of unsuccessful rape by a 16-year-old boy on a 15year-old girl.

And on neighbouring Nukunonu, according to Tuiteleleapaga, life’s not so different. There the teenagers are under such strict church regula tions that they are afraid to do any thing wrong lest their parents be scolded or punished by the priest, a Samoan.

And on Atafu, according to a “spokesman”, there have been no unlawful acts committed by juveniles except trespassing or disobedience to parents. Even these offences, he said, were controlled by close co-operation among the island leaders, the church and the schoolteachers.

On Swains Island, said Tuitelelea paga, “the head schoolteacher re ported no juvenile delinquency except a few children who want to get smart, disobey their parents or the teachers. But there is no stealing.

One can leave his property anywhere and it won’t be touched.”

With populations like 700 (Faka ofo), 360 (Nukunonu), 600 (Atafu) and 34 (Swains Islands) these extra ordinary statistics are going to do little to average down the inter national trend.

But there may be a lesson for non plussed lawmen and around the world in at least the methods which the Tokelauans use to keep their offspring under control. The young chap whose passions got the better of him in 1968 was brought before the Island Council and punished by flog ging. In cases of mischief on Fakaofo, offenders are first given a warning and then spanked if they repeat the offence. On the spiritual side on Fakaofo, the persuasion comes from Catholic and LMS churches.

On Nukunonu, under Roman Catholic control only, the physical resort in case of misdemeanour is not revealed. But on Nukunonu, like Atafu which is under the control of the LMS, there is a law which prevents boys and girls marrying out side their denomination. Tuitelelea paga didn’t spell out the link between this draconian by-law and the good behaviour of the local teenagers.

And for those youngsters who get out of the Tokelaus and visit such sin-ridden spots as Samoa, Hawaii, New Zealand or the US mainland, there’s a firm lecture awaiting them on their return: “When you return to Tokelau, act as a Tokelauan.

Anyone for the Garden of Eden?

Ho ii ii ty gives

Bi|» a eannon Twenty-two-year-old Steve Christian dived to the floor of Bounty Bay, off Pitcairn, early in July and searched among the remains of HMS Bounty, which his famous ancestor and the other nine mutineers de stroyed 180 years ago.

Then Steve and several companions brought up another piece of history, one of the Bounty’s small cannon— the first Bounty relic to be retrieved since the stern anchor was brought up in 1957. The cannon, about three feet long, is in good condition and likely to join the anchor in Adams town’s public square. The rudder, which was found in 1933, is in the Fiji Museum in Suva thanks to the dual role exercised by the then- Governor of Fiji, who was also Gov ernor of Pitcairn and thus able to purloin pieces of the Bounty.

This is the second cannon to be re

covered. The first, brought up on a date unknown, killed one of Tom Christian’s grandfathers, Tom told the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s radio centre in California in July.

“It was the custom to fire it off for special occasions on the island,” he said. “Unfortunately, he made a mistake in loading it and died when it discharged into his chest.”

Steve and the other divers found a larger cannon and have managed to break it loose from the coral, but it was too heavy to bring to the sur face. An attempt will be made with the help of one of the longboats and the crew to bring it up.

It’s no use anyone offering to buy a cannon. The island’s laws ban the sale of Bounty relics.

Killing a

tourist attraction

The Japanese Government’s Graves Commission which, over the last few years, has scoured the Pacific War theatres for the remains of their dead servicemen, was due in Micronesia recently. First area for search was on Saipan and Tinian in the Marianas.

Some of the searchers will dive to the bed of the Truk lagoon in the Carolines to remove remains from a Japanese submarine which went down with all hands in an American air strike. Wherever the mission has been the locals have helped, but there’s a certain amount of luke warmness among the locals on Truk, to say the least, about the submarine operation. The Truk people regard their lagoon, the graveyard of the Imperial Japanese Navy, as their biggest tourist attraction and are loth to see it disturbed. There’s more drama for the tourist if, when he gazes down through the waters of the lagoon, he is looking at a shadowy ship full of bodies rather than at an empty shell.

The same sort of opposition is likely to arise when the mission turns its attention to Koror and Palau in the Western Carolines, especially when the searchers arrive on Peleliu which saw one of the deadliest battles of the war. The American Ist Marine Division lost nearly 4,000 men capturing the Five Sisters, the cluster of peaks on the island. The Japanese lost 9,000 men killed on Peleliu and 2,500 were taken prisoner.

The number of bodies in the caves on the island is unknown. When the

Japanese troops in the caves refused to surrender, oil was poured in and set alight. Now the caves are one of the main attractions.

Percy’s not

that fast!

Percy Chatterton, PlM’s popular PNG columnist, denies that he is as quick off the mark in his translation work as we gave him credit for in the July issue of PIM.

In a People paragraph we had him translating the complete Bible into Motu in 14 months, which was more than slightly under the actual time.

Writes Percy, “Sorry to spoil a nice little story but the fact is that this job took me 15 years on and off.

What Ron Lean and I have been doing since May last year is correct ing the proofs”.

Knowing so well how promptly Percy supplies our wants, turning in his Footnotes and other articles on the dot, we were quite prepared to believe he could do such a monu mental job as translating the Bible in 14 months.

Incidentally, the picture of the winsome Trobriands maiden and her mini-skirt illustrating his Footnotes on page 29 of this issue didn’t come from Percy!

The red cow

of Netche

“Pensions for farmers”, “Buy local produce”, “New election for the Chamber of Agriculture” . . , these were some of the banners carried by Caledonian farmers at a recent public demonstration staged at La Foa, 80 miles out of Noumea.

The protest march was organised by the Farmers and Graziers Defence Union, led by Thierry Schmidt and demanding especially that the island’s recent drought should be treated as a “national disaster”, with assistance provided accordingly.

The orderly procession was ob viously no surprise to the authorities and came with discussions of the farmers’ plight in the Territorial Assembly. Representatives of the French Administration indicated that about $Ai million was necessary to assist farmers, almost one-third of this amount being used to import bales of lucerne from Australia.

During the prolonged drought, New Caledonia’s annual rainfall to June was only a quarter of the amount usually reported. This has resulted in the loss so far of about 15.000 head of cattle, about 15 per cent of the territory’s herds. The result for the Noumea meat board has been a loss of 40 per cent of the availability of local meat this year.

While the authorities have been kept busy providing graziers with imported fodder and as much as 70.000 gallons of water a week, the administration has been urged to pur sue studies of the island’s under ground water resources.

The cattle industry is concentrated on New Caledonia’s dry west coast, with little grazing on the east coast or offshore Loyalty Islands. There is, however, the “Red Cow of Netche”, on Mare island . . . but Caledonians have a special appreciation of English: the “Red Cow of Netche” is the name of a recently-formed sporting club, no doubt inspired by the brand of an imported milk powder.

Mermaids are

getting scarce!

Have you seen a dugong, or a sea cow, or a manate, or a sirenian, may be a mermaid? With the very remote exception of the mermaid, they’re all the same animal. Their habitat in cludes Papua New Guinea but they’re getting scarce and their possible ex tinction is worrying the PNG Agri culture Department’s Wildlife section.

The department has circulated a questionnaire on the dugong, mainly around the coastal villages and the answers, it is hoped, will help the department to establish a conservation programme.

There are 34 questions ranging from sightings of the animal to what is done with the skin and bones when the flesh has been eaten, as eaten the dugong is. It’s an excellent source of protein and in very palatable form.

The animal has a fishlike tail and the upper part of the anthropoid in cluding, in the female, a pair of breasts. It’s safe to say that the stories of mermaid sightings, which go back centuries, were centred round the dugong although, not by any stretch of the imagination, unless it be that of a sex-starved seadog, could anyone see a beautiful mermaid in the dugong.