Eyes On Pitcairn Island

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 136, 11 June 1938, Page 19 (Supplement)

Eyes On Pitcairn Island

I AND! The first sight of it after *-< nine days at sea, since leaving New Zealand! Although we were all too comfortable and too well fed to rise to full dramatic heights, it was exciting enough to see something solid, firm —of the earth, earthy and static.

By--Mamie J. Sparrow

Our eyes ran over the rough outline of Pitcairn Island with almost sensuous enjoyment. Everyone rushed to get vantage points on the ship. Later on. we could make out the white surf boats of the islanders bobbing up and down about a mile off shore, looking like the survivors of a shipwreck. They waited for us to elow down. .Soon we stopped, and the moment the rope ladders were down the maddest ■wamble of women and children, yot'ths and men, thin, dark and very agile, surged up the side of the ehip, fighting with their big baskets of fruit, and each most ungallantly eTbowlng his way aboard. They rushed the passengers with their wares. Bananas, greenskinned oranpee, crude little carved nov.-ities of . ative woods, frangipani and ferns, and basketwork made in the long slow days between the shipe.

The people are strange, too, crude and simple, high-cheekboned, noticeably poor teeth, high-arched horny feet with curious toes. They have a shambling and angular gait without either the grace of the pure native or the solidarity of the ■white man. * Presently amongst the scrambling figures two men in khaki and topeet came aboard. Both were Americans who had been on the island for three weeks and had wireleseed the ehip to be in readiness for a three weeks' thirst for Pitcairn is teetotal! They were going back again to finish the biggeet job of work yet done on the island —the erection of a wireless transmitting etation on this press-button of land. American warmheartedness is mainly responsible for this amazing innovation. It seems that one of the islanders had built a Morse receiving and transmitting set, and when this became known a citizen of the United States decided to present the islanders with a complete broadcaeting equipment to bring them into constant touch with the world. When thinking of the island's history it seems all the more astonishing. Much has been written and filmed about the mutiny of the Bounty 150 years ago. It seems that the 28 remaining mutineers and native men and women fled in the Bounty from the wrath of the British Government and sought sanctuary on a Pacific island. After many adventures they landed on one of the loneliest spots on earth, then uninhabited, and since named Pitcairn. With the fear of being captured, and with the courage of desperation, they burnt their boat after scuttling and

removing everything of value. They caet their fate on to the stony lap of this mile and a half long crag of volcanic land rising steeply from the sea. It has no harbour and a precarious water supply. They had a few animals and plant* and scanty necessities. With this stark beginning they began their communal life on the island. Their isolation has be-en complete except for an occasional whaler and some English Teasels. Twice during their lonely sojourn they were forced to leave the island. Lack of water and starvation threatened their existence. In 1831 to Tahiti they went, then back they came. In 1856 they were transported to Norfolk Island, but like wild ocean birds they packed back to their lonely rocke again and fought to keep their precious isolation. Despite addition from time to time of some of the necessities of life (an organ and sewing machines were landed into the surf-boats), their existence of utter simplicity seemed likely to last for a long time to come. When in 1914 the Panama Canal was opened big shipe came noting around curiously to see this test-tube civilisation so amazingly content with its seclusion. Gradually the idea of barter gave way to simple trading, and so the first definite waves of the outer world heat on those unaccommodating chores, bringing the disputes of an existence complicated by greater pos^ssions. Captains of passing ships now act as mediators over such simple laws ad the following: — AS TO DOGS.—If a dog kills or otherwise injures a goat, the owner of the dog Po offending must pay the damage. Should suspicion rest on no particular dog, the owners of dogs generally must pay the damage.

AS TO FOWLS.—If a fowl is seen trespassing in a garden, the proprietor of the garden is allowed to shoot it and keep it, while the-owner of the fowl is obliged to return the charge of powder and shot expended in killing the bird. To ensure recognition the fowls are all toe-marked. AS TO PIGS.—If a pig be seen trespassing no one ie allowed to give information except to the owner of the land that he may not be balked in whatever course he may think to adopt. AS TO CATS.—If a cat is killed without being positively detected in killing fowls, however strong the suspicion may be, the person killing euch cat ie obliged as a penalty to destroy 300 rate whose tails muet be submitted for inspection of the magistrate by way of proof that the penalty has been paid. And so life goes on in the simple village of Adamstown, called after Adams, last of the mutineers who died at the age of 65, when he had bet;: 39 years on the island. There had been much strife on Pitcairn among the survivors of the Bounty, but they settled down and lived like one family under the fatherly control of Adam* who, by means of a Bible and prayer book (the only two books saved from the Bounty), taught the young folk to read and write. Their little shacks snuggle down among the coconut paling overlooking Bounty Bay. Isolation, however desirable, is extremely difficult to maintain in a world where science is opening door after door, and Pitcairn's inarticulate seclusion has at last been invaded by the miracle of radio. From now on ehe is to be a vocal point on the earth. Three island children are forced willy-nilly to march in step with the rest of the world.