Scientist may be expelled

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33251, 14 June 1973, Page 1

Scientist may be expelled

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter— Copyright) STOCKHOLM, June 13. The anthropologist, Dr B. E. Danielsson, a member of the KonTiki raft expedition in 1947, fears he might be expelled from Tahiti, where he has lived for more than 25 years, reports a Swedish newspaper. The expulsion was likely because of Dr Danielsson’s political views, said the “Arbetet,” of Malmoe. Dr Danielsson, an authority on Polynesia, visited Christchurch in July, 1970, to pick up exhibits lent to the Canterbury Museum for a special display. Later that year, the Governor of Tahiti (Mr Pierre Angeii) appointed him director of the Polynesian Anthropological Museum in Papeete, but last September he was dismissed. Political opinion “The Governor said that the decision was taken only because of the political opinions I had expressed,” said Dr Danielsson, a Swede. He admitted that in private he had criticised the French nuclear tests in the Pacific and the political situation in Polynesia. He was afraid that having been deprived of his official functions, he would be expelled from Tahiti, which would mean he could no longer continue his anthropological studies, he said. A member of several scientific expeditions in South America, the South Pacific, and Australia, Dr Danielsson has written several scientific and popular books, and from 1967 to 1971 was director of the Swedish Museum of Ethnography.