WHERE ONLY WOMEN WORK

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 10 September 1921, Page 9

WHERE ONLY WOMEN WORK

A LITTLE-K^OWN PACIFIC ISLAND.

Rapa—orj Rapa iti, to give its full name—an island about ?0» miles south of Tahiti; untouched by the corrosive blight of civilisation, whose natives live in a state of primitive simplicity, istlescrbed as "undefiledby.Paris fashions or high-heeled ehoeß." Indeed, they have no fashions at all, except such of a cast-off nature as may be supplied at very rare intervals by the good people of Tahiti when the missionary schooner chances to be going that way. 'Rapa would be the ideal resort for the tired business man. It is a plat* where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary may find rest if he be df the masculine gender. In Rapa the women do' all the work, tilling the fields, preparing the meals, and even feeding their lords and masters. All the. men have to do is to go out on an occasional fishing expedition, and the rest of the time they sleep. When dinner time arrives they are awakened, and the women of the ■ house feed them by rolling the food in little morsels and tossing them into their mouths. The only effort the men are obliged to make is the act of chewing, and when "this wearies them they resume ,their slumbers until the next meal '.time. . '1 ' ; ' • VUnfortnnatelv, Rapa is remote and inaccessible. ■ There is no direct communication from Tahiti, -except when the French gunboat-*makes a voyage that way —once a year or so—-or the missionary schooner makes its rounds even less often. *5 Being well out offrthe tropics, the cocoanut tree .does not thrive there, the 'only product; of any commercial value'1 being coffee, ''^his is not, how••eveiv worth going after, as sufficient coffee 'is raised on .^Tahiti and the nearby" islands to supply the" demand. 'Scientists areinterested' in Rapa oh .account of- some massive stone works situated on the hills _ that look like fortifications. "Who built them and for what purpose are problems yet un- ! solved. . ,;. ■...•■ Representatives from the Bishop ! Museum of Honolulu are endeavouri ingl, to get to Rapa in order to study these remains and to solve the mystery of their builders.