ISLAND" SCHOOLMASTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LVIII, Issue 234, 4 October 1927, Page 8

ISLAND" SCHOOLMASTER.

AUCKLAND VETERAN RETURNS

35 TEAM AT UVUIA. CANNIBAL FEAST RECALLED. A picturesque figure In Ida suit of white drill and white sun helmet, Mr. Garner Jones, the veteran schoolmaster of the Fijian islands, stepped ashore from the Tofua at wharf today after an absence of 20 years. Mr. Garner is a Welshman by, birth, but he eamo to New Zealand many years ago and was on the original staff of the Napier Street schooL Now, at the end of 36 years' work as schoolmaster at Levuka, he has come to Auckland to undergo an operation for cataract. Failing eyesight is the veteran's only physical disability, for he is hale and hearty despite his long years under tropic okies. If there could be an "old identity" for the South Sea Islands it is surely Mr. Jones. He has known every governor of Fiji since Sir John Bate Thurston, and many New Zealand notabilities have lived under his hospitable roof.' He retains happy memories of the time when Mr. Richard Seddon, the Prime Minister, stayed with him,1 for "Dick" was ono of his greatest ! friends.

Mr. Jonee is wry proud of his island pupils, many of whom have risen to the rank of chief amongst their people. They did well in the Empire's time of need, too, for 75 of them went to the front. The snowy-haired schoolmaster has vivid recollections of the last cannibal feast held in the islands. This, he says, was in 1897, at Yanganga, on the north coast of Vanua Leva. There wiis trouble between the tribes and the native police, and the steamship Clyde wont up to quell the disturbance. A member of force was killed— •tabbed to the heart with a fish spear— and the body was duly prepared for the unholy feast. As a matter of fact all that were eaten were portions of the palms of the hands and the whole affair was more a "gesture of defiance" asainst the authorities than a return to cannibal practices.