LIFE ON NIUE ISLAND DESCRIBED.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18547, 22 August 1928, Page 7

LIFE ON NIUE ISLAND DESCRIBED.

DR MACMILLAN BROWN TELUS OF RECENT TRIP.

Niue, one of the Pacific Islands which is under the control of New Zealand, does not contain anything that would throw light on the problems of Easter Island, a lonely isle which is famous for its monuments and for the fact that there is no trace of its original inhabitants. Professor J. Macmillan Brown, of Christchurch, who has for many years been trying to solve the mystery of the inhabitants of Easter Island, returned yesterday from a visit to Niue, which he visited for the first time. In telling a reporter of his experience Professor Macmillan Brown 6aid that the island was not renowned for its monuments or for its problems, but for its loneliness. It stood apart from other islands almost as far as did Easter Island, but it was double the size of Easter Island, being 60,000 acres in area. It was of raised coral formation and was not volcanic as was Easter Island.

There arc roads right around the Island and across it. and it is possible to drive a motor-car almost anywhere, although it is rather bump}’ at times, he said. One of the most remarkable things that he encountered was that alongside the road round the coast, there were tombs every hundred yards or so. These tombs were often of pyramidical erection with rtops, but they were not very large. The same type of tomb was found in Samoa, continued the speaker. These explained the arrangement of the Easter Island burial platforms, which, however, were far larger, one being 520 feet long.

One curious thing that he found was in a village in the north-east portion of Niue. It was a statue made of concrete with, across the arm, the inscription “ Ikimana.” ” Iki ” meant chief, it being a contraction of “ ariki.” Of this statue the village constable, who was usually the most important and best informed man, could tell Dr Brown nothing, except that the man was a Christian, so that he must have lived in the middle part of the last centur>-, as Niue became converted in the forties of the last century. Although the Island was so large, added Professor Brown, it had no monuments except this recent one. Concrete tombs were sprinkled along the highway everywhere, which suggested to him that in the Polynesian mind, the idea was to sp»rcad out the tombs close to the coast, as they were at Easter Island. The same condition w r as found at Malden Island, a guano-coated isle four degrees south of the equator. The manager of the company that worked the guano deposits had told him that there were shallows at a distance around Malden Island, which indicated that there had been an archipelago and that the inhabitants evidently buried their dead on the central island. In the same way, Easter Island was apparently a necropolis of an empire of archipelagoes which had since sunk. Niue had been colonised in the most sporadic way that any Polynesian island was ever colonised. Apparently it had been peopled by stray canoes, a number of which came from Tonga, some from Fiji and others from other parts of Melanesia, for in the features of the people, he could see a mixture of pure Polynesian and Melanesian. “ It is the most mongrel Polynesian island I have ever been on,”' he added. “ It is similar to Rotmnah, to the northwest of Fiji. Its people and language have the same mongrel characteristics.” He had seen people in the villages who had brown hair that was almost blonde and yet had negroid faces. The blonde hair came from the Polynesians. The language was distinctly Tonganised and had many of the characteristics of the Tongan dialect. He added that a mariner who was wrecked at the beginning of the last century had dictated a book of experiences and adventures which had been set down by Dr Martin, in which he told of a custom that the Tongans had of punishing their rebels or criminals. These were put, with their families, into canoes with plenty of supplies, and allowed to drift. It was possible that many of the original inhabitants of Niue arrived in that way. The word Niue itself meant coconut. “ There is no doubt about it that the Government is dealing with the natives in a very generous way, and so it is in Samoa,” concluded the speaker. “ The Government is helping them a lot, although of course they have their complaints.”