Chapter II: Another Island Night’s Entertainment (2)

At any rate, when we were back on the beach Buia told me that if I could give him and Mua the specimen tins, and would make examinations before the two Big Masters came, maybe it would be all right. I had offered a large fishhook and a small fishhook for every specimen, which may have been why we got a few. We found a light infection, but under such adverse conditions we were unable to determine whether the hookworms were ancient, modern or what. It was interesting to observe the watchful care with which our tin containers were returned. Each man would squat in front of our worktable and never take his eyes off the specimen until we had finished and thrown it into a hole in the sand. They were taking no chances on our being witch doctors, come to make black magic.

If I had been given the ghost of an opportunity I might have reached some conclusion; I might have washed out their specimens according to the regulation field technique and studied the parasites under the microscope. This might have added important clues in the search for Rennell Island’s history, for the hookworm contents of a race may tell a great deal about the origins and migrations of a people. Dr. S. T. Darling, eminent in tropical medicine, had developed theories on this parasite, which he collected all over the globe. He demonstrated that the original habitat of the _Ankylostoma duodenale_ was north of twenty degrees north latitude, while the _Necator americanus_ stemmed from a region south of that line. This is a point which has not been given due weight by anthropologists. All my work over the Pacific added validity to Darling’s theory. Certainly I found that both Melanesians and Polynesians living south of twenty degrees north latitude--provided that they had not been contaminated by Asiatics--carried only the _Necator americanus_--an evidence that their origin and migration must have been from south of this latitude.

You can imagine my disappointment in learning so little from the tabu-haunted Rennellese, to whom the intimate details of a worm-count would have been a capital offense. On all the island there was nothing like a latrine; like the followers of Moses, these primitives dug holes in the sand and carefully covered “that which they had done”--this as a precaution against some witch’s charm. Sand, however, is far too porous to hold down the enterprising larvae, especially when the hole is only a surface scratch. We devoted much time to examining blood for filariasis, which was conspicuous for its absence. Our spleen examinations revealed no malaria, either on Rennell or its little neighboring sister, Bellona, although both were definitely in the malaria belt. Neither did we find an anopheline mosquito.

The complete absence of dysentery was interesting, because it had once been brought there by an apparently clean ship, and had decimated the population. It had died out, probably because the Rennell flies, although they flew in swarms, did not seem to light on human beings; also there was no water supply to be contaminated--the beach natives drew water from holes at the bottom of the cliffs, the interior natives drank out of the Lake. Food was no carrier, for it was cooked in the skins.

There was little sign of past devastations, although there was evidence that the few visiting ships had brought them influenza and an infection of gonorrhea, from which they had recovered.

Wandering about, I finally came upon a few miserable beings, hidden away from intruders. They were suffering from yaws. The people had not talked about yaws. They seemed to be ashamed of it. It was quite evident that they had kept the disease from spreading by an age-old, self-taught practice of segregation.

The Rennellese wore their one garment until it was threadbare; by day it was trousers, by night pajamas. Since the water in the Lake was hard to get at and the water below the cliffs came in driblets, only expert swimmers knew the pleasures of bathing. They rather disliked the touch of salt water, but this prejudice was not responsible for a certain skin condition.

Scabies was present, but not serious. The prevalent disease on Rennell, I think, was something they called _onga-onga_, a sort of itch. The inhabitants claimed that it had been brought there by Dr. Deck’s unpopular missionaries. Apparently it only appeared as a dermatitis, the result of scratching. Constant scratching was a native gesture. When the disease first came, they told me, everyone went mad, ran to the bush, threw away their clothes and dug their nails into every part of their bodies.

Within a month after we left the island all of us came down with it. To me it was a most unpleasant visitor. It began at my thighs and covered me from knees to waist, like a pair of shorts. I could see no discoloration, save where my nails had torn my skin. Hot baths irritated it. Successive days of treating myself with saturated solution of salicylic acid in strong tincture of iodine, then with Deek’s ointment, brought relief. My skin peeled completely away from the infected area, and I haven’t heard from _onga-onga_ since....

* * * * *

Shortly after we had re-established headquarters on the _France_ natives from the interior came flocking to trade mats and baskets for beads and knives and fishhooks. Obviously the situation was growing touchy, with jealousy between inland-dweller and beach-dweller. There were one or two wrestling matches, not too good-natured--strange combats, in which two strong men pulled each other’s hair until the weaker fell. These were dogfights, and we were the bone of contention.

The situation tightened when Panio, Tahua’s strong-arm who had helped do away with Deck’s missioners, came aboard and proceeded to make himself obnoxious. Panio was unlike the other islanders. He dramatized himself as a murderer. With much diplomacy we had reached a point where we could keep the people out of our cabins for short intervals--but not Panio. In blustering ward-heeler style he would walk in, throw out his chest and take possession. He was angry with Buia for getting more than his share of good things; also he had a social bee in his bonnet; his daughter wasn’t being recognized by the local _haut monde_.

Yes, it was getting ticklish. Like all bullies, Panio was putting up a dangerous front because, probably, his gang was behind him. For all I knew we were a dozen against fifteen hundred. All the rights were on their side; we had come unasked, and they had entertained us with the best they had; on the _France_ they were merely returning our visit, and it was impossible for them to understand why we shouldn’t give them the run of the ship and whatever they fancied in the way of food. When we asked for privacy they no doubt thought of us as stingy, grasping strangers. Remember, these people were all born communists.

Our nerves were wearing thin. Something must be done about Panio. One night when we cleared the cabin he refused to budge. This time I made my voice firmer than Rennell diplomacy required; he stood his ground, looking not at all pretty. I told Hamlin and White what I was going to do, and when they nodded I used my clearest pidgin on Panio. Would he get out or be thrown out? Rather a ridiculous question, for he was years younger than I, immensely powerful and in the pink. Facing him, I thought, “I’m in for it now. I’ll _have_ to put him out....”

* * * * *

(Here I paused to drip cold coffee into my cup. Templeton Crocker asked, “And did you?”)

* * * * *

What happened next (I said) was a sort of psychic curiosity. Panio stood firm and looked for a long time straight through my glasses into my furious eyes. My glance didn’t swerve. Suddenly his nerve seemed to ooze away. He dropped his eyes, shuffled, turned and marched out of the cabin and up the stairs. When I got on deck he was gone.

I don’t mind confessing that after the thing was over I had the “wind up,” as the British say; so much so that I went to my grip and found my pistol. Next morning the relations between us and our guests seemed a bit strained, and I was dreading the consequences--when back came Panio, carrying a broad grin and a tribute of baked _panas_ for me. To this day I don’t know how I subdued him, with only a look. Possibly he was afraid that my glasses would slay him with the spell of the evil eye. Possibly I had quelled him the way, I am told, you can quell wild beasts, by a fixed and powerful stare.... I should hate to try it on a Bengal tiger.

* * * * *

The native name for Rennell Island is Mungava (Big Rennell) and for Bellona Island it is Mungiki (Little Rennell). The _France_ hadn’t visited Bellona on its other trip; very few Europeans had ever dared to go ashore there. After Buia told us that one of the kings of Bellona was his cousin and might make things easy for us, Hamlin was particularly anxious to touch there. Then all the population of Rennell Island clamored to be taken along. Mua, son of Taupangi, was the most clamorous of all. I promised to take these two young men, provided and agreed that they would smooth the way for me to get plenty of hookworm specimens. If we hadn’t taken Mua, his father would have been furious because his son had been left behind and Tahua’s representative had gone with us.

After talking things over with their two Big Masters, Buia and Mua made a quaint suggestion. The people of Bellona might be “cross too much.” As we were approaching the shore Mua and Buia had decided that it would be a good idea to dress up in European clothes, put shotguns over their shoulders and look like hunting naturalists. This disguise would impress the natives, for some undisclosed reason, and after that everything would be smooth going.

We reached the little bay in the little island, which was a stone-walled Rennell in miniature--about four miles long and three wide. It had much more soil on it and looked much more fertile. When we found anchorage we shouted and fired guns to attract attention, but nothing stirred. Jagged masses of coral endangered our anchorage; on a windy day we would have been beaten to pieces. As it was, our keel got a terrific bump on a hidden snag, the anchor chain parted and we were set adrift. The four-mile engine got us around at last; we worked all night and finally dropped an improvised anchor. Our survival was a compliment to the stout teakwood hull of the _France_.

In the early morning canoes appeared, coming out to us. Buia and Mua hastily arrayed themselves in white men’s raincoats and hats, and when the natives drew alongside our amateur detectives began shouting at them in the vilest and most profane pidgin English--evidently their conception of trading skippers approaching an island. Buia and Mua looked their parts so little that you wouldn’t have thought they could fool a baby. But the Bellona folk stared anxiously up at them, and when our impersonators began to address them in their native language the listeners were bewildered. Who were these foreigners who spoke so fluently in the speech of Bellona?

Suddenly Buia and Mua threw off their disguise. A sigh of wonder went over the reception committee, then a shout of welcome swelled to an ovation. It was a breath-taking occasion: native boys had actually come as guides to a European vessel! The people of Mungiki, very like their relatives of Mungava, swarmed aboard and rubbed noses with their heroes. Every visitor bristled with bows and arrows, spears and clubs; they looked fiercer and wilder than the Rennell folk. Surrounding us, more curious than hostile, their every gesture seemed a threat. The few who could speak pidgin went anxiously among us, asking, “Captain, Captain?” They wanted to know which of our party was top dog.

Finally Buia led us ashore, and we were surprised at the neat little houses among the heavy palms. Everything we saw was clean and well kept, including the villagers. For some lost reason they seemed to have learned the art of taking care of themselves. When we returned to the boat Buia’s cousin, one of the three kings, sent word that he was ready to receive us. We returned the compliment by asking him aboard, only to be told that it was tabu for a king to come on a stranger’s ship. There had been war between the three kings; and how in the world there was room for three wars between three kings is another South Sea mystery.

As the soil looked richer, so the people looked healthier than those of Rennell, where epidemics had killed many elderly folk. On Bellona there were many of the old and wizened. They were fine-looking, very light in color, their features well cut. When I sent again to the three kings, telling Buia to say that they wouldn’t get an ax or an adze or any other dainty unless they came, their Triple Majesties showed up. They were polite enough, and after I bribed them with an ax apiece I told Buia to tell them the object of my visit: hookworms. Whereupon they informed me that they did not want doctors, they did not want missions, they did not want government, and they would give me no census. Quite courteously, they preferred our room to our company.

Even an overnight inspection showed the good results of quarantine against foreign-borne disease and custom. Although pathologically I was unable to look into the case, they seemed to have nothing to fear, except petty wars. Their teeth were poor in comparison to the handsome mouths of the Rennellese. This was due, perhaps, to a different method of betel-nut chewing.

Then we sailed back to the White Sands, where by the demonstration they made we might have been to Peru and back. Big Master Taupangi grabbed my shoulders and tenderly rubbed noses with me. Marking my surprise, he shook with laughter and extended me an invitation to attach myself to his court and stay there the rest of my life. For one with God in his head, he was feeling very jovial and stood back to back with me to prove that he was an inch taller. When I went over his chest, thighs and belly with a tape-line he was proud as a peacock to know that he was larger all around than the largest European on the vessel. Each day before we left he came back, as God’s vicar in Tenggano, and presented me with a basket of yams and a basket of _pana_ in trade for a tin of bully beef, a tin of salmon and a few ship’s biscuits. This human reservoir of divinity was extremely fond of tinned fish. So were they all. Every few minutes a Rennellese brave would show up and say, “Master, belly belonga me he hongry too much.” Our Solomon Island crew looked down on these people. Once Hamlin said to me, “Doctor, these Rennellese live almost like dogs.” Whereupon little Ga’a chipped in, “Master, dis fellow he no dog. Dog he know somet’ing.”

Our departure was the end of a field day. Tahua, always a businessman, had been selling us the finer mats and baskets which the Lake people had made. Mats were coming in faster than we could handle them, but we still gave in exchange the best we had to these kindly, likable islanders. Everybody wanted a lock-box, because I had promised one to Buia. I had only one left, and that I gave to Tahua, out of respect for his superior station. Tekita and Mua were clamoring for ones just like it. Then down came my old college chum, Taupangi. If Tahua had a lock-box, where was his? Imagine my embarrassment. Finally I found an old wooden box in the engineroom, got Bella to hinge a cover on it and to nail on the brass locks of my own tucker-box. The Lake people cheered _en masse_ at the presentation, but Buia and Tahua looked very glum. The small pressed-paper boxes I had given them were nothing compared to the grand prize which the Lord of the Lake carried away.

The people saw that we were actually going, and the prices of mats and baskets fell to almost nothing. Rennell’s little stock exchange was having a slump. Before we started for Tulagi I doled out fishhooks to the two rival kings. I served out the hooks with Spartan justice, first two to Tahua, then two to Taupangi. I started in with a box of large-sized ones, and when that was finished Tahua hastily picked up the box of smaller ones and thrust it in my hand. He was afraid I might forget about it, or change my mind. Appreciative laughter from the crowd, who probably realized that Tahua was a chronic go-getter.

Lock-boxes, however, were the treasures of treasures. It wasn’t until we were out at sea that I realized why. To them these things, with lids that you could fasten with your own key, represented privacy. Here was something where you could store away small objects that were your very own. From birth to death in Rennell’s primitive society there was no such thing as a door to close or a curtain to draw when you wished to be alone and mind your own business. Instinctively the untaught savage longed for a sanctuary, away from prying eyes. I had to have lived on communistic Rennell Island to understand and value civilization’s greatest boon--privacy.

When we got back to the comparative civilization of Tulagi we found that Resident Commissioner Ashley had worried because we were overdue and had started out on an expedition to find us. He had taken thirty armed policemen aboard the _Renadi_, for the luck of former visitors to Rennell Island had given the place such an evil reputation that the Protectorate had ordered that nobody should approach it without an armed guard. Captain Ashley had put a machine gun on the _Renadi_, and Dr. Steenson had gone along with a hospital unit.

I wish Ashley had seen me rubbing noses with the chiefs when we bade farewell to Rennell....

* * * * *

(Templeton Crocker looked around the porch and said, “Good heavens, it’s daylight!” Sure enough, it was. “I’d better be getting back to the _Zaca_,” he said. “We sail at noon. But tell me one thing, Doctor. Will these queer Rennellese go on, pretty healthy and contented, just as they’ve always been? Or what?”)

* * * * *

“Something will have to be done about them,” I said, “and the thing to do is to let them alone. What worried me most was the business enterprise that the Lord of the White Sands was showing. Anything for iron. Trade the women’s services for a knife or a busted chisel. Rennell is leaping from the Shell Age into the Iron Age. They’ve never touched the Stone Age, because they hardly know what stone is. Before somebody brought in the white man’s ax they did surprisingly well with a clamshell on the end of a stick. They don’t seem to like missionaries, but they’re mad to learn European ways because that knowledge will bring more trade. Their ‘virtue’ as we call it? Well, virtue is about the same the world over. In some countries women are tabu. They don’t happen to be in Rennell, where the women are the only thing that appeals to the white man as trade. From a doctor’s angle, virtue’s great virtue is this: It’s prophylactic.

“Imported disease; that’s what threatens Rennell, sure as God made little apples. Now they’re healthier than the average in San Francisco, say. From what I could find out, their only ills have come from the few visits white men or Japanese have made there--except hookworm. I wish I knew more about that parasite on Rennell.

“They’re so susceptible to imported germs that I’ll tell you what happened. Before the _France_ came to the White Sands, remember, I examined everybody on board for the slightest trace of anything ‘catching.’ Except for the sore-eyed cook, whom we tried to keep out of the way, we were all apparently clean as a whistle. Yet we hadn’t been on the island ten days before an epidemic of head colds swept the people. They didn’t know what was the matter with them; they didn’t even know how to blow their noses.”

“Where did they pick up those colds?” Crocker asked.

“They caught them from us. Our noses and throats were full of latent germs to which we had an immunity, whereas the Rennellese had none. They wore few clothes, they slept out in the rain, they were exposed to winds and drafts, yet the common cold was an absolute stranger to them. They had had an influenza epidemic, once; the white man brought it. They had had gonorrhea, once; the white man brought that too. Once they caught dysentery, from a ship that was supposedly clean of it. Bring in more ships and Rennell will go down and out, as so many other islands have. And I don’t want Rennell to go down and out.”

“Because they’re a unique people?” Crocker asked.

“Because they’re the only living relic, that I know, of a prehistoric race, changed so little that they will make an invaluable study for scientific research. But not for casual sailors and traders. There’s nothing on Rennell Island worth trading for.... What I should like to see done is this: Have the Government put ‘NO ADMITTANCE’ on both Rennell and Bellona--except for an honest scientific expedition, coming there for no other reason than legitimate research. For those islands are nothing more or less than studies in the history of mankind.”

So Templeton Crocker went back to his ship.

* * * * *

And all this led up to my brandy-and-eggs conversation with Raymond Fosdick. In fact, it also led up to one of my most interesting adventures.

For when morning broke, after my Arabian night with Crocker, Eloisa reminded me again that he was in need of fresh eggs and that we had plenty in the hen-house. “I’ve gathered three dozen,” she said, “and you might put them on the _Zaca_ when you go down to the office.”

I took the eggs over to the _Zaca_, which was busily preening herself for a long haul. I left them with my compliments and best wishes. The _Zaca_ sailed at noon.

A few days later a messenger came over from the Fiji Club with something wrapped in the _Times and Herald_. Unwrapping, I found four bottles of 1835 brandy. There was no address on the package, and I thought there was some mistake. I asked Amos, secretary of the Club, and he said: “Well, if you don’t want the stuff, I do. But Mr. Crocker seemed to say that it was for you.”

I wrote my thanks to Templeton Crocker, and this opened up a lively correspondence. He was about the way I had been when I first heard about Rennell Island. He couldn’t drop the subject, and as months went by his keenness seemed to grow. Early in 1933, he wrote that he had made some changes in the _Zaca_ so that it would be more handy for collecting scientific specimens. He finished by asking me to go along and show him the strange country I had told him about. Of course I wanted to see Rennell Island again, but I secured an invitation from the High Commission first, then wrote Mr. Crocker, “I’ll go willingly, if you’ll spot me around where I can inspect our work in the Solomons and make a tuberculin survey.” I also suggested that he bring an anthropologist along. He found the man and added a plant collector and an entomologist to the _Zaca_ party.

* * * * *

That was the way Eloisa’s eggs came to roost, if I may scramble a metaphor. In a roundabout way they gave me a chance to revisit a spot which interested me more, perhaps, than anything I had seen in the Pacific.