Recovering the past for

the Gentle People

When, in 1952, Scripps Institute of Oceanography at La Jolla, Cali fornia, sent an expedition to the Paci fic, it was decreed by the authorities that, insomuch as the expedition was a serious scientific undertaking, no wives would be allowed to sail with it. So, the wives stayed at home—or to be more exact, all but one of them did. The exception was Helen Raitt, a determined young woman who de cided to fly from port to port meeting her husband, Dr Russell Raitt, wherever the expedition stopped.

Helen’s plan worked well until the expedition reached Fiji where it was decided the research vessel would spend some time exploring northern island grouns. Faced with the possi bility of being left alone in Suva, Helen decided to do a bit of ex ploring on her own and set off on a copra ship bound for Tonga.

When, a few days later, she sailed into Vavau, she was immediately struck by the beauty of its harbour.

Ashore, the friendliness of the natives won her heart. In no time at all she had become yet another of the many people who have come to feel that Vavau is a special place.

Being a generous person, Helen was anxious to share her new-found paradise with her husband and his fellow scientists so she sent off a cable imploring them to follow her.

There must have been a special urgency in her words for the expedi tion’s leader, Dr Roger Revelle, altered plans and down the ship came to Vavau.

The scientists found it all that Helen had said and out of gratitude to her for having brought them to a place so full of interest and beauty, lifted the embargo against wives and let her sail with them on the return trip to California. Out of her adven tures on board, she wrote a book, Exploring the Deep Pacific, which gave an excellent inside view of the day-to-day lives of working oceano graphers.

The following years were busy ones for Helen Raitt and it was not until 1971 that she was able to return to Vavau and the other Tongan islands.

Her second trip found her as filled with enthusiasm as she had been on her first. She saw again King Taufa’ahau Tupou IV, whom she had met on her first visit and later en tertained in La Jolla, and met Tongan nobles and officials.

Unlike many visiting papalangis, she was not content to stop there, but

talked also to village people all over the Kingdom, As she did so, she came to realise that memories of the old times of Tonga were growing dim and that the common people, proud though they were of their past, really knew very little of it. Being still a most determined woman, she decided to help them recover their history.

Her help came in the form of books sent to schools, to organisations, to individuals.

Back in California, where the Uni versity of California at San Diego had acquired the important Edwin C.

Hill Collection of Pacific Books and Manuscripts, she reproduced material about the old days. Many of the books she copied are so rare and so costly that had it not been for her, the bits of Tongan history which they contain would have been lost to the very people they are written about.

In 1972, Helen Raitt returned to Tonga laden down with books and Xeroxed copies of Tongan historical materials which, with generous en thusiasm, she distributed to interested people all over the Kingdom.

In Vavau, she met Donna Gerstle, a Peace Corps Volunteer from Louis ville, Kentucky who was in charge of the Teacher Training Centre there.

They were kindred souls. Donna loved Vavau as much as Helen did and was as eager to help the Tongans recapture their past. When Helen dis covered that her young compatriot had the ability to express herself in writing, an idea was born.

The idea materialised in 1973 when, with Donna’s help, Helen founded the Tofua Press which is dedicated to providing, at prices Tongans can afford to pay, books which tell present-day Tongans about their past.

It is altogether fitting that the first volume to be published by Tofua Press is Donna Gerstle’s own Gentle People. It is, very simply, a labour of love in which she attempts to set out, in the words of the early explorers, something of the feeling that she herself during her two years as a PCV came to have about Vavau and its people. Lest anyone be misled, she defines “gentle” as “sensitive and kind, yet proud; respectful and humble, yet dignified; intelligent and determined, yet tolerant; delicate and warm, yet vibrantly alive.”

By some Gentle People has been criticised for not being a complete historical account of Vavau. Of

course, it isn’t that. How could it be, , in 65 short pages?

What it is, is an introduction to J the many explorers—both the early ones and the later ones, who came to I Vavau and who were perceptive enough to appreciate the unique human qualities of its people.

Above all. Gentle People is an ad venture in sharing with Donna the joy that a sensitive, intelligent young person brought up in a busy indus trial civilisation feels for the slower tempo of an island way of life. It is a reminder to people everywhere that what is important is not the things a person acquires, but the way he lives his life and the people he lives it with.

Reading it one does, incidentally, acquire an amazing amount of Ton gan history. In that aim the text is aided by the well-chosen, carefully re produced illustrations. And the cover, with its tapa design, is a pleasing in troduction to the book.

All in all, Gentle People makes one look for further books from Donna Gerstle and makes one wish her and Helen Raitt and the new Tofua Press much luck and many books.— Patricia Matheson. (GENTLE PEOPLE. By Donna Gerstle lofua Press. 10457-F Roselle Street, San Diego, California 92121. $2.20.) IT would be pleasing to state that I- the new paperback World Atlas Jroduced by Pan Reference Books in issociation with Rand McNally In ernational fills the need we all have or a satisfactory cheap atlas. But mfortunately it doesn’t.

At $2.45 for 224 pages of full :olour, it is value for money, and it £ compact and comprehensive, as he publishers claim. But the maps lave had to be reduced to such a mall size for the paperback format hat it is virtually impossible to onsult them without the aid of a aagnifying glass—which is a serious etraction from the book’s usefulness.

Nevertheless there is a (readable) azeteer and 70 pages of quite excel mt (and readable) diagrams giving omparisons of national populations, ■ade, minerals, power resources, and ven languages, plus other useful inon flags and national oundanes beloved of schoolmasters nd quizmasters, which makes the tlas worth the price of admission.

Its just a pity about those maps.