TOC H.

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 34, 8 August 1925, Page 8

TOC H.

SECOND GUEST EVENING

SAMOAN ADMINISTRATION DIS

CUSSED.

Members of Toe H held their second guest-evening last Thursday evening in the Barn Tearoom, when there ■were fourteen members out of the nominal twenty present. As on the previous guest evening each brought with him, one guest. Mr. Mark Kobinson presided, while. Mr. Sanderson-Cooper was the guest of the evening. The latter delivered a thoroughly interesting talk on "The: Sampan Island ' Administration." Mr. Sanderson-Cooper was Government Resident Agent' at Mauke for a number of years, taking up that position in 1913. He said that it was astonishing how little New Zealanders know about the Cook. Island Group, which is under the administration of the New Zealand Government. The group lies 1600 miles from New Zealand, and not, as the speaker had known people to believe^ in Cook Strait. The speaker then outlined .the. history of the discovery of the group. Cook founds Harvey Island i n 1773 and. Mauke in 1789. Aitutaki was discovered by Captain Bly, of the ill-fated Bounty, in 1789, and this left three islands undiscovered which later were found by the missionary John Williams. He heard the natives talk of a great island to the south, and determined to find it. With the help of a chief named Rongimitani, he finally landed in Tonganui in 1822. •Williams, on first landing, fought a battle with the natives of Tonganui, and the site of the battle" is now covered by the Resident Agent's house. Mr. Cooper added that he had found 60 or 70 human sculls and a number of other bones, which were obviously the relics of a feast, the skulls being marked by blows from axes.

The speaker next described the formation of the islands, and gave a geographical outline of each island. Rarotonga, he said, is about 20 miles in circumference, the centre of the island being ruggy and mountainous and clothed with rich vegetation, which grows right up to the skyline. The island has a good road right round it, and contains five villages. It is also thought to be the final jumping-off place of the New Zealand Maoris, as its inhabitants are not very dissimilar to the Maoris, though physically the latter are a finer type. The Samoans believe they came from the island of mystery, Havaiki, which is. also supposed to be the ancient home of the Maoris. They have a great genealogical knowledge, and can trace back for 50 generations. In character they are very childish and primitive, and have not lost a great deal of their unsophisticated manners. The formation of the island of Mauke, which is the largest island of the group, said Mr. Cooper, has no fringing reef with the usual lagoon inside, though there is a thin coral reef four feet .under the water. The wall of dead coral which is found on the edge of these islands rises to.a sheer height of 100 feet and stretches for a mils inland till it opens into a huge basin. Having discussed the .smaller islands, Mr. Cooper then went on to tell his listeners of gome of' the extraordinary and unlooked-for duties which fall to the lot of the Government Administrator. He was his own Magistrate, medical officer, Collector of Customs, postmaster, engineer of Public Works, Registrar of Births, Deaths, and Marriages, and held a hundred other, important positions. When he and his family arrived at Mauke, Mrs. Cooper was the first white woman to settle there, although Beatrice Grimshaw, the authoress, had once spent half an hour on the island previously. The speaker amusingly related the diffir culty of landing in a boat, though the natives were apparently becoming pastmasters in the art. In conclusion, Mr. Cooper told of some of his exciting experiences during the w.ir. These islands were ope n to great danger when the German armed vessels Wolfo and Seadler wove patrolling in the Fncific. He also told of a German prisoner lie had kept on tho island for some lime, but who misbehaved himself so badly" tliat it was thought advisable to deport him to Auckland, when he was sent io the island of Motue. Tlie same prisoner was one of the party who escaped from the island On a Government schooner.