A GILBERTIAN LIFE.

Wairarapa Age, 20 March 1929, Page 6

A GILBERTIAN LIFE.

Off the Beaten Track. UNCORRUPTED ISLANDERS. THRILLS OF Interesting particulars of life in the little-known Gilbert Islands were given in Sydney the other day by a young wireless operator, Mr. Ivor Johnson, when he arrived on three months’ leave from his post at Tarawa. Already he is anxious to return, "for,” he say a, "life in the cities is madness; life in the Gilberts is isaniity. ” For the Gilbert Islanders' Mr. Johnson has nothing but praise. They are stil comparatively uncorrupted by white civilisHtion. The population is increaising in the Gilbert Group, he says, while in other groups it is decreasing at such a rate that extinction of the islanders is within measurable distance. The only menace, according to this observer, eomes from the half-caste, who learns to read Australian newspapers; absorbs the theory and practice of strikes and deems it his duty to> .spread disaffection, among the natives. Again, according to the same observer, the missions, by persuading the natives to adopt European ideas, are virtually tempting the natives into committing suicide en masse'. INDEPENDENCE OF NATIVES.

Copra is the chief commercial product of the islands. Two companies operate —one is Chinese and the other Australian.. The natives work for about £2 a month, which is not cheap labour, as about a dozen natives do the work of one white man. It is useless to attempt "speeding up,” for any ignorant white guilty of doing so would be told gently by any native whom he chided; "If you do not like my way of working there are cocoanuts on the trees and fish in the sea. ' I can live without you, so I shall now leave you." Taxes are*levied in the L form of copra. A Government ship

calls at the various islands and the natives pay their tribute in kind. A missionary ship comes along and collects donations in the form of copra, but the natives are gradually becoming less willing to pay what they regard as a second tax. The chief sport among the islanders is canoe racing. Recently the northern men of Taputcouea—& Gilbert Island —raced the southerner-. As all racing crews are equally skilful the races depend almost entirely upon the construction of tho canoes. All the accumulated knowledge of centuries is packed into the making of a racing canoe. In the race the northerners' beat the southerners and the tribal poet of the northerners made a song, of which the following is a. rough translation:— You southerners can’t build canoed:, You can. drink cocoamit milk; Bus when it comes to a race, You cannot build canoes! "Bough-and-tumble” Battle.

The song was so maddeningly reiterated by the winners that the southerners became seriously annoyed, collected Knives and other weapons—guns are x aboo by Government decree—and a rough-and-tumble war-began. All the women and children took refuge in the mission stations. The war was just becoming interesting and a lew drop* of blood had been' died when the Government boat arrived for the tax copra. The war was immediately abandoned. Northerners and southerners iraternised in order to hurry enough copra on board to satisfy the tax coillectors, but the schooner was hardly out of sight when the war .began all over again. Before that 'little difference of opinion was settled a force had to be sent from the wireless station.

Mr Johnson added: "The keenness of these fellows in sport is almost as great as what I used to see in Melbourne at certain football matches, when isquads of police haid to be rushed on to the ground to queill the fighting.”