A YANKEE DOCTOR
IN PARADISE

To my father, William Walter Lambert, who made
sacrifices for my education, who never pressured me
with advice; I did the things he would have liked
to do.

AND TO

Eloisa Tays Lambert, my wife, who has moved in and out of a hundred homes, took care of me when I was sick, and pushed me to keep going when I wanted to give up; there wouldn't be any story without Eloisa.

In 1927, two chubby New Yorkers on vacation in California were enjoying their time in Fiji: Martin Egan and Wallace Irwin. I was thrilled to meet the creator of my childhood idol, “Hashimura Togo,” and I was pleasantly surprised when he asked me to turn my half-finished adventures into a book. I remember our three-day trip to Mbengga to see the fire-walkers; I was captivated by his experiences as a writer from across the globe. He could talk at a rate of two hundred words per minute, which beats my record. Our meeting sparked a casual correspondence that lasted several years. When I returned home with a trunk full of my own notes, I naturally reached out to him for help. I want to thank him for his patient editorial advice, which helped me gather a lot of mixed material and put it into some kind of order.

I have so many people to thank besides those mentioned in the text—most of them have been incredibly helpful. I’m probably most grateful to the British in the South Pacific colonies, both officials and ordinary people. If a Brit had come to an American colony and taken on the critical role my job required, he would have been tarred and feathered and kicked out. Their remarkable patience reminds me of the Arizona saloon motto: “Don’t Shoot the Pianist. He’s Doing His Best.”

We felt welcome in the different communities as we traveled. My daughter, Sara Celia, was born in Suva, Fiji; I owned a house there, and on important occasions, Henry Marks, Alport Barker, and Pat Costello would ask for my vote. I was a member of the Fiji Club. Uncle Bill Paley and I sorted out my problems and the world's issues in just a few minutes every morning. What else does the future hold?

Space didn’t allow me to fully express my admiration for New Zealand’s excellent handling of native affairs. I received great advice and support from the Permanent Head of the Prime Minister’s Department[Pg viii] and the Director General of Health, as well as throughout the Civil Service.

If I had the chance to create my Personal Honor Roll, I would definitely list Fiji’s Colonial Sugar Refining Company near the top. Without W. P. Dixon and F. C. T. Lord, I wouldn’t have gotten very far in my Fijian efforts; back in 1922, the island's communication was nearly non-existent, and almost every area affected by hookworm was located over the sugarcane fields they managed and opened up for me. We lived in their quarters, used their track cars and railway, and had the support of the managers and lower officials of this massive Australian company that operated in both Fiji and North Queensland.

And I want to thank my Field Inspectors, young guys who could do just about anything—except complain; men like Chris Kendrick, Kenny Fooks, and Bill Tully,—whose Irish mother said, “Doctor, you’ll take care of Willie, won’t you?”—and the adventurous American guy, Byron Beach.

And Malakai, the Fijian practitioner with a strong medical conscience. In the jungle, swamp, or canoe, no one would want a stronger heart or a sharper mind.

I was just a part of the Rockefeller Foundation’s worldwide humanitarian efforts. Dr. Victor Heiser offered me my first job in the South Pacific; Dr. Sawyer, now Director of the International Health Division, helped me out when my favorite project seemed to be on the verge of failing. With Dr. Heiser, I explored Fiji and Samoa, discussing various tropical health issues. Once or twice, he turned to me and asked, “Lambert, why don't you write a book?”

This is the book.

S. M. L.

Walnut Creek, CA

Part One

SHORT NOTICE FOR A LONG CHORE

“Lambert, I have a great one for you this time. I’m sending you to Papua.”

Dr. Victor G. Heiser, the well-known Director of the East at the Rockefeller Foundation, announced this as if Papua were just around the corner.

"That's cool, Doctor," I said, "totally cool."

Papua? Where was Papua? I desperately searched for bits of geography and came up with images of tropical islands where black warriors asked visitors how they preferred their missionary, rare or well done.

Dr. Heiser sat behind a simple desk in one of the smallest rooms at 61 Broadway, giving a sort of introduction to a performance that had dragged on longer than a Chinese play, one that had continued through the summer of 1918. I had finally found a successor and stepped down from my position as the superintendent of the United Fruit Company’s hospital in Costa Rica; I was in New York to offer my help. But Uncle Sam wasn't in need of medical officers with poor eyesight.

Now Dr. Heiser’s friendly voice was praising and guiding one of the family because I had finally joined the Foundation. There he was, kneeling at his desk, telling me nothing about Papua, saying that my experience in Costa Rica and Mexico had especially prepared me for work with the International Health Board, not mentioning that the war had taken away many of their doctors. He focused on the three months of hookworm training I had already undertaken, sponsored by the Foundation, among the hillbillies of Mississippi… kept me busy, didn’t it, going door to door?... Lambert, you’ll work a lot faster in the South Pacific, where you’ll give lectures and treat groups of fifty to five hundred... You’ll need to cover a lot of ground down there... Bring plenty of khaki, and leave the evening clothes behind... Get your family ready and start the day after tomorrow.

“And on your way to Papua, Lambert, you should check in with Waite,[Pg 4] who’s in charge of our work in Australia. There’s a significant hookworm campaign happening in North Queensland. It’s a great chance to get up to speed on what you’ll need in Papua. You’ll discover that Australians are great people, like our Westerners—rough, generous, and open-minded—they haven’t been cramped together in big cities and become narrow-minded.”

During our argument, I mentioned to Dr. Heiser that a mining syndicate wanted to take me to Peru. I didn’t bring it up again, or say anything about General Gorgas’ half-promise to overlook my blinking eyes and assign me to the venereal section of the Medical Corps.

When I left that morning, I was captivated by Heiser’s charm; a charm that has inspired countless scientists, big and small, to explore jungle paths all over the globe, working tirelessly. In the years that followed, I walked with him along some of those paths, and my admiration for him grew with every step. There’s something almost divine about Heiser that keeps him on the pedestal he deserves. Call him flawed if you want, but he’s still a giant who has dominated the public health field for two decades—and has faced plenty of jealousy from his peers. In 1937, when I was at a League Conference in Java, I heard a jealous American voice say, “Yes, I've read his American Doctor’s Odyssey, and I wonder why he didn’t call it Alone in the Orient.” That gave me the perfect chance to respond: “Did you see him start public health work in the Philippines? Alone in the Orient captures it pretty well.”

******

I found an atlas and looked up Papua. I was told, rather boringly, that Papua is located on the southeastern edge of New Guinea, the second-largest island in the world—definitely the hottest neighbor of the Australian continent since its northern tip brushes against the equator. The brutally savage names of its many tribes, the seemingly endless fertility of its soil, and its wealth of gold, copper, and pearls only sparked a dull flicker in my imagination. I was heading to a place called Papua, not to flirt with rubber-bellied brunettes in grass skirts, but to sensibly look for yaws, malaria, dysentery, tuberculosis, and intestinal parasites. And to find the hookworm just as easily as I had done in polluted Mississippi.

That was 1918, when making a trip to Paris and back was a big deal. The armistice hadn’t yet brought back a million soldiers with a bit of inappropriate French. Global cruising hadn’t become a major industry. Today, any debutante who has traveled around the world can tell you more about fire-walking in Fiji and sword-swallowers in Arabia than anyone except a professional explorer knew back then.

******

No, the hereditary Lambert isn’t a geographer. We’re a family that prefers staying at home, and I often wonder how the colonial Lamberts ever had the guts to leave England for seventeenth-century New Jersey. They definitely settled down once they got here; only hunger and Native American raids could make them move. My dad, who was a tanner and often used his best leather to teach me manners, was seen as a bit of an adventurer because he once drove mules along the Delaware and Hudson Canal towpath. Relatives in Ellenville, New York, where I was born, were shocked when they found out that Dad was moving us to Little Falls.

Our devout Methodists always saw Father as a free thinker, and wasn’t it just like him to want Sylvester to become a doctor? Mr. Babcock, the head of our Free Academy in West Winfield, was even more progressive. A boy should get a college education before he starts studying medicine. I had worked with the tannery gang long enough and had picked up too many of the rich, brown curses they spat out along with their chewing tobacco. Hamilton College was where I could prepare for medical school. Hamilton College! My mother’s hands shot up at the thought of a place so far away that Sylvester would have to travel overnight by train.

I started with the class of 1903, and knowing all that my dad sacrificed to send me there made me a serious student—plus, he threatened to send me back to the tannery if I didn’t do well. I’m grateful that Hamilton and Syracuse Medical, where I attended later, were both small schools because in small classes, the instructor understands each student’s needs and weaknesses. I worked hard, but I wasn’t overly intense about it. I found time for football, which toughened me up for the tougher years ahead. Traveling with the team to rival colleges became my first adventures in exploring new places. Colgate, flush with toothpaste money, was an easy win for us back then. Williams handed us a tough loss, and I walked off the field in tears, limping after a 4-0 defeat.

Sometimes in my late middle age, I wake up swearing. I’ve been dreaming about a game with the Carlisle Indians. That big guy, Red Water, is lined up against me, towering over me, still grinning. The ball is snapped, and his long arm reaches gently over me, grabbing the seat of my pants...

In 1904, I was set to go to Johns Hopkins, but Mom wanted to know what I'd be doing all the way over in Maryland. Syracuse was in New York State, anyway, and that was far enough for anyone.

Syracuse had a surprisingly large and talented faculty for such a small student body. The standard for scholarship was intense; if a student lost focus, they were quickly brought back on track. The quizzes felt like intense interrogations, and recitations weren’t a place for daydreamers. Studying under Elsner, Jacobson, and Levy made you appreciate the Jewish commitment to education. Dr. Steenson from the Pathology Department had a strict sense of time, and you’d better not miss his 8:30 bell. We nicknamed him "Johnnie Cockeye" for his obsession with the gonococcus germ. I spent countless hours staring through the microscope, barely seeing anything on the slides. My eyesight was already going, but I could read just fine. By the time I got to class, I theoretically knew what I was supposed to see under the lens—which is how I managed to get through Steenson’s surprise quizzes.

******

The highly respected Dr. Frank William Marlow, a graduate of the Royal College of Surgeons, has passed away, but he concluded his career with a book titled The Relative Position of Rest of the Eyes. Taking a course with him left my eyesight, quite literally, in a state of disarray. And this is how it happened.

Toward the end of my third year, my brother got seriously ill, and I had to take him to Arizona. There, to my surprise, I found out that this Lambert had a wandering spirit. In Tucson, I followed a wild impulse and joined the outlandish medical unit of a construction crew working along the West Coast of Mexico. I had time to get romantic when I arrived at the lovely old hacienda of Mr. Eugene Tays, an American mining engineer. The dark eyes of his beautiful daughter, Eloisa, made me forget all my ambitions to go home and focus on my tough medical studies. She was half Spanish, part of the powerful Vegas family around San Blas; but she had enough common sense to tell me to go home and graduate. She said I could come back and marry her once I had my own practice. She waited five years, but she kept her promise.

So I went back to Syracuse, weeks behind on my work and facing[Pg 7] the final exam in ophthalmology. I only had three days and nights to catch up. All I had was a photographic memory to help me out. With a cleverness fueled by desperation, I focused on Marlow’s key subjects. When I finally walked into the classroom, I had memorized half a dozen selected pages. I got lucky; iritis, conjunctivitis, glaucoma, and myopia were all there for me to tackle. I wrote my answers almost word for word from the pages my mind had stored. Dr. Marlow was so impressed that he shared my paper with the faculty; everyone was pretty convinced that I had cheated. I might as well have done that, because after a long, exhausted sleep, I found that I had forgotten half of what I had crammed. And my eyes were never the same after that experience.

No point in diving into the details of my almost ruined vision just yet. Microscopy became essential for me over twenty-five years of work. I've been really lucky with the assistants I've found or trained to use the lens for me. With glasses, my intermediate and long-distance vision stayed pretty good. This was fortunate because during my travels, I had to see many beautiful and terrible things.

Photographic memory plates tend to fade quickly. A few years later, I got accepted into the Costa Rica Medical Faculty after another round of intense studying. The professional standards in Costa Rica are high and not particularly welcoming to American doctors. Even though I passed the tough exam, I'm not sure it was my studying that earned me my degree; my journey included plenty of cocktails with many influential medical officials. Those connections matter in Central America.

******

That was during a quieter time after spending four years in Mexico, where I practiced medicine amid raids by Carranzistas, Villistas, and Yaquis. Twice, I settled with my wife and baby on the West Coast, close to Eloisa’s home. Twice, the United States Navy ordered us to flee for our lives, and we left the country as refugees.

Those years were filled with adventure. There was the time when smallpox swept through the helpless people like a cloud of poison gas; I worked alone among hundreds of peons who were all against vaccinations and died surrounded by their own filth, hidden under dirty clothes. Time and again, I performed emergency amputations on kitchen tables, with my Chinese cook providing the anesthetic. I diagnosed myself with malaria, only to realize later that I actually had a bug from an atypical typhoid group. I lost forty pounds to dysentery, and Donna Angela helped my recovery with iguana stew. I brought a girl in hysteria back from a near-death state by scaring her with a sharp knife. One day, I gasped in horror as I saw a native midwife helping a woman give birth by tying her to high rafters and yanking on her legs. One afternoon, I barricaded my wife and baby behind sacks of beans and performed a tonsillectomy while the Yaquis broke into a liquor warehouse. Still, there were sweet, gentle months under a warm Aztec sun; then came a night when I smelled burning houses and heard the distressing screams of women being raped by Indians.

******

One adventure I might quickly mention. The feared Yaquis had teamed up with General Obregón. Colonel Antunez, ever the reliable guy, was in charge of the Indians. They had been leaving us alone in Mochis, but danger was always lurking in a place that never knew where it stood. One day, much to my surprise, this Colonel Antunez hobbled in. He complained of pain in his groin, and a large swelling suggested he needed surgery. He urged me to hurry; he had to be at the front because he was the only one Obregón trusted to handle the wild Yaquis.

When I got in with the knife, I found a tumor that had spread into the major blood vessels. Removing it was a serious operation. As soon as he came out from under the anesthetic, the war horse snorted again. He had to get back to the front. I told him that his condition required three weeks of complete rest; he got so worked up that his temperature spiked and I had to stop arguing. While he was recovering, his officers and their Yaquis were always nearby.

One morning, I discovered his bed was empty. They had sneaked him away in a bumpy truck, through a chilly rain. He passed away in Navajoa, of peritonitis or phlebitis, one of the unavoidable consequences.

The next day, I was summoned to the office of His Honor, the Sindico of Mochis, and was taken aback when a captain tapped me on the shoulder. I was under arrest. It was a long journey to the death house. They first locked me up in Mochis, where I was able to exchange a few words with Meade Lewis, my friend who was the American consul and had red hair. I shared my suspicions with him: I was likely scheduled to be executed because one of Obregón's top officers had died after my operation.

[Pg 9]

My cart to Topolobampo was like a train car loaded with rifles; half the town and their dogs followed along to see the gringo who was going to be tried—which really meant he was going to be executed. I had only been allowed a quick look at Eloisa and our baby. The cell where I spent ten days felt like a Yaqui butcher shop when it wasn’t housing the condemned. Finally, my jailer came in with the smell of rotten meat to tell me that the trial and execution were scheduled for Saturday morning. And today was Friday.

On Saturday morning, I had gotten my guilty Methodist-born soul ready for a serious future when the officer in charge swung open the door, saluted respectfully, and announced, “Doctor, you are free!”

Not until I got back with my family did I find out what this, or anything else, was really about. They said I had become an international issue. Consul Meade Lewis had practically disconnected the lines between Topolobampo and Washington. William Jennings Bryan had sent a cruiser down from San Diego. The captain of that cruiser sent a dramatic message to Mexico City: “Free Lambert immediately or I’m coming to get him.”

It made a sensational newspaper story. Up in Newark, my brother Fred had been visiting some Mexican friends who told him how great I was doing in Mochis. After the party, Fred passed a subway newsstand and saw the bold headline, “JAIL DOOR SWINGS WIDE FOR LAMBERT.” He felt proud of the family when he read about how William Jennings Bryan had taken action.

******

I’ve noted down a few facts about myself so my readers can figure out how well my experiences have prepared me to be an international health physician. I hope they’re not as uncertain as I was that day in September 1918 when I put my family on the train for our first long journey to Papua.

BY THE RAM'S HORN ROAD

It was early May 1920 when I finally saw the barren hills and tin roofs of Papua’s capital, Port Moresby. Back then, it would have taken a regular traveler six weeks to get there from San Francisco. But I was no regular traveler. The brief stop in North Queensland that Dr. Heiser had recommended turned into a year and a half of working on one of the toughest hookworm campaigns in the history of this parasite. The moment I met Dr. Waite, who was leading our efforts, I was shocked by how the tropics can affect someone dedicated to public health. Malaria had turned his skin yellow, and a terrible fungus called “sprue” had left him so weakened that he was heading home to die. He didn’t die, but I came very close to it, suffering from the same disgusting affliction that lays a man's intestines bare from mouth to anus.

Fieldworkers for the Foundation don’t go around bragging about the bugs they pick up along the way. In twenty-one years, I think I’ve caught everything the tropics have to offer, except for yaws, sexually transmitted infections, and leprosy. I’m not entirely sure about leprosy. It develops so slowly that you can’t be sure you have it until you’ve died of something else.

******

We were finally leaving North Queensland on the boat Morinda, heading to Papua. In the heat of Australia, I had been the Buffalo Bill and Jim Farley of a whirlwind effort. I had been the director there until October 1919, when Dr. W. A. Sawyer arrived to take over Australasia. After that, I spent six months assisting him with the organization.

The North Queensland campaign combined the thrill of a Blitzkrieg with the fervor of a Methodist revival. I had shouted my sore throat raw. I had promoted a Yankee's message to Australasia—more toilets and better sanitation! Our top hygienist, Mr. Chic Sale, could never have felt prouder of his Temple of Necessity than I felt about my fly-proof, worm-tight toilet when it was recognized as a model by the committees of North Queensland. I was leading a crusade, and people were listening. At Shire Council meetings, discussions about soil pollution ignited like torches; labor unions went on strike, energized by the thousands of feet of lumber needing to be gathered and assembled into latrines; commercial travelers joined the cause and were asking their customers, “Have you got one of those things the Yankees are selling up and down the coast?”[Pg 11]

******

Now it was May 1920, and that was all in the past. The little Morinda was off Cairns; we would be moving, maybe, when the tide rose. I laughed mischievously, remembering what the broken Dr. Waite had said when he left North Queensland in my care. “Lambert, if you last, you'll probably go out feet-first.” Well, my feet were still under the deck chair where I relaxed and reflected on eighteen months of hard campaigning.

We had overseen the construction of 4,000 model latrines and fixed up 4,000 more to meet the standard. We had treated thousands of hookworm cases; from Proserpine to Cooktown, we examined 98 percent of the population for intestinal parasites. We didn’t find a lot of infections, but I took pride in the difference made for many people by simply having a decent toilet behind every house. People were regaining their brightness in their eyes and skin. Healthy children were playing.

Yes, Australians are like us Westerners. When there's work to be done, they dive right in with full commitment. The recent improvements in North Queensland’s health demonstrate what these people are capable of.

******

The story of hookworm disease and its treatment has been told over and over, probably thousands of times in medical libraries. But since this topic is relevant to my years of work, I want to share a bit about a problem that was so widespread in 1918 that it had only one competitor—malaria. Just as Dr. Heiser stated, one-third of the people on our planet had hookworm.

It’s one of the oldest diseases documented in history. The Ebers papyrus, from around 1500 BCE, mentions “worms in the abdomen” and suggests in hieroglyphs that the issue was caused by “too much handling of sand.” It’s more likely that the infection originated from the sacred scarab, a creature so filthy that it’s often referred to as the “dung[Pg 12] beetle.” Moses told his followers in the wilderness, “And you shall have a paddle with your weapon; and when you have to relieve yourself outside, you shall dig with it, and then cover up what comes from you.” Without that wise precaution against the infesting parasite, the Children of Israel might never have reached their Promised Land.

The Greeks likely had a name for it; years later, an Italian doctor named it Ankylostoma, which is a pretty good Greek term for “hookmouth.” Caesar’s legions brought it from Africa to Italy. In 1838, Dr. Dubini of Milan found 105 cases in post-mortems, and a year later, it was discovered that Italian workers had brought hookworm into the Alps. Australia got its share when it brought in people from Asia and the Islands to work on its plantations.

Hookworm and his wife came to America thanks to Africa’s contribution to slavery. No worm travels far on its own; it’s the human body, to mix a metaphor, that gives wings to the pest. During the Spanish-American War, Colonel Bailey K. Ashford from our Medical Corps examined “coffee picker’s anemia” in Puerto Rico; he identified the hookworm in these cases and notified Dr. Charles W. Stiles of the United States Health Service. Stiles became our leading researcher in the South, almost a martyr to science. He named this type of worm Necator americanus (American murderer), although it might have been more accurate to call it Necator africanus. The presence of the Negro in our land could be confirmed by the infection he has left behind, even if the race were to vanish. Scientific researchers like Darling have studied hookworm—satisfied to trace major racial movements.

Investigation and treatment of hookworm disease is not a job for a florist. A lot of the work involves examining human waste under a microscope. But the doctor is a realist, and every function of the body has, for him, the equal rights of a true democracy.

Here’s the life cycle of this awful little parasite: Its eggs can’t hatch in the intestine, where the hungry mother clings and lays them by the thousands. They need to exit with the bowel movement and be exposed to moist, warm, shady air; under those conditions, they hatch within twenty-four to thirty-six hours and start their journey as tiny larvae looking for human flesh. They infest the soil for several feet around the filth where they developed. Resourceful ones[Pg 13] crawl up weeds and can even burrow into ankles through thin stockings.

Once inside the body, the embryo finds the bloodstream and makes its long journey—through the heart, through the lungs, up the throat; then down into its destined home, the upper intestine, where it latches on and grows by what it consumes, human blood. With just one drop of blood a day, it grows nearly to the size of a pin and develops jaws as strong as wire-cutters. Multiply these blood drops by a hundred, by a thousand, and see the pale anemia that leaves the host vulnerable to the first epidemic that comes along.

In the affected areas, the health physician's role involved routine diagnosis and treatment. When we needed to treat and assess entire villages and tribes within a short time frame, we would gather as many people as possible into a group and give lectures in whatever language they spoke. After the lecture, we distributed small tin containers, each labeled with a person’s name. We carefully instructed them to place a small sample of each individual’s next bowel movement into the tin with their name on it. We emphasized that all tins should be returned the next morning. We typically examined these specimens using the "Willis salt flotation" method. This routine was developed by a brilliant young doctor, Dr. Willis, an Australian whom I trained during the campaign in 1919. In the Willis test, a sample of excreta the size of a small hazelnut is mixed in a tin container with a saturated salt solution. The solution rises to the top of the container, and a glass slide is placed over it. The eggs float to the surface and are collected with the salt solution when the glass is lifted. Under the microscope, the floating eggs can be observed. When the Willis test was positive, the patients were set aside for treatment—if we had the time and medications to complete the task. Those were the days of "the awful oil of chenopodium," as it was often referred to. It was seen as a specific treatment; however, it was relatively ineffective and dangerous to use with large groups. I will discuss that later.

Much of the work planned for Papua involved conducting "surveys," which means a medical census of vast areas that feel as far removed from our usual earthly experiences as many lunar landscapes. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself and emphasizing ankylostomiasis, the hookworm disease, too much. Our later efforts took us into research on every tropical illness, from ringworm to leprosy.

[Pg 14]

At last, Papua and exciting adventures awaited me, if we ever made it there. The Morinda was nosing into the blue water, doing her best. It was Sunday morning, and our captain was an old-school practical joker. Captain Teddy Hillman, short and round, seriously invited me to his cabin to listen to his phonograph play “Shall We Gather at the River?” He sadly asked me what I thought, and when I replied, “Fine, you old so-and-so,” it felt like the perfect answer, because he slapped my knee and cheered, “Then we’ll make you a member of the Gin Club!” Gin Club members ordered drinks by pushing buttons that had hidden needles. The drinks came in those novelty glasses that squirt gin all over your shirt when you lift one. It was all very childish, but anything went on slow-moving boats like the Morinda.

The task ahead weighed heavily on my mind. We had seven months to cover a territory that had largely resisted explorers, where the population estimates were basically guesses, and where there were thought to be a thousand natives for every two Europeans. The inspectors I brought along were four of the six men I had intended to assign to different surveys or use for lab work. They were Australian guys, except for Chris Kendrick, an Englishman seasoned in tropical environments and one of the most capable assistants I've ever sent out into the field; with a kind of calculated boldness, he used his brain so effectively that he could have gone through hell and brought back the Devil’s hookworms. With few exceptions, all my inspectors had that adventurous spirit—“Tomorrow, by the living God, we’ll give it another shot.” The youngest of those who traveled with me on the Morinda was Bill Tully, just eighteen; the oldest was thirty. A huge shortage of tropical doctors made helpers like these absolutely essential. They had been trained to recognize and treat a limited number of native diseases and to lead our expeditions wherever the work took them, from dark swamps to rugged mountaintops. It was a tough job, and they were up to the challenge.

******

We stood on a dock in Port Moresby, squinting at a bunch of hot tin roofs, the white man’s contribution to the tropics. It was sweltering and steamy. The town was on the dry edge of an island known for its humidity; the relentless sun seemed to suck the moisture out of everything except sweat. A team of Papuans came to help us, loudly pushing small flat carts to carry our luggage. They were tall, dark-skinned men with oiled skin, wearing nothing but lavalavas. Their curly hair was two or three feet wide, and their cheerful smiles softened their fierce appearance. These were the first Papuans I had encountered, and I was already picking up a word from their language. They looked at me with respect as they repeated, “Bogabada, Bogabada!” I thought this must be some kind of native greeting. I accepted it with a smile. “What does Bogabada mean?” I asked the Irish customs inspector. “Big belly,” he replied.

Some of the 235 pounds I lost during the tough months that followed. However, I knew that Bogabada would still be there for me.

My Papuans pushed the luggage up a metal-sheeted street to the metal-sheeted hotel. Ryan’s Hotel became my main base. The bedroom walls stood about seven feet tall; above them was a large open space that let in breezes, bats, and mosquitoes. If elephants could fly, they would have gotten in, too. These ventilation holes carried all kinds of gossip, as you could hear every whisper and speculate on who was seeing whom now. Like most tropical hotels, it was filled with unhappy guests; they drank too much, claiming it was to wash away the taste of Ryan’s food.

******

Almost right away, I took on the role of advocate for human health. The financial details were sorted out. Papua, Australia, and the Foundation were to split the expenses evenly. When I met Governor Murray, he was courteous but noncommittal, with a smile that indicated our work had been forced upon him, and that every hookworm we might discover would be an additional embarrassment to his administration, something that could lead to issues with the higher-ups in Melbourne.

He shared some discouraging statistics and mentioned that counting the population in Papua could only be an estimate. When you say there are around 300,000 people, you always have to add "give or take." There are so many areas that white people rarely or never visit. How can you be accurate about a Territory that is 87,786 square miles on the mainland alone, and 90,540 if you include the surrounding islands? You have to deal with mountains that are nearly impossible to climb, rivers that can’t be navigated, and tribes that even explorers can’t find. He stroked his graying mustache over a thinning mouth.... Yeah, his own medical service was pretty good, he thought. (His fading eyes wandered a bit, trying to see which way Parliament was leaning[Pg 16].) Yes, Lambert, this Rockefeller idea might actually help here.... When can we have dinner?

I’ve had time to change my initial opinion of Governor Murray, who lived to be over eighty and passed away with a solid administrative record. He just didn't like us, that was all. So I had to go to the very capable Chief Medical Officer, who completely understood the situation and provided us with the most generous assistance. The planters supported us all the way.

Below is a short piece of text (5 words or fewer). Modernize it into contemporary English if there's enough context, but do not add or omit any information. If context is insufficient, return it unchanged. Do not add commentary, and do not modify any placeholders. If you see placeholders of the form __A_TAG_PLACEHOLDER_x__, you must keep them exactly as-is so they can be replaced with links. ******

I chose to start with quick assessments of the plantations surrounding Port Moresby. Heiser and Waite had advised me not to bother with the villages since all the parasites were on the plantations. It didn’t take me long, just a week, to understand that they had come to this conclusion only because they hadn’t ventured beyond Papua's unusual dry area, where the Ankylostoma can’t survive. I discovered that the villages in the humid region were teeming with hookworm.

After our quick tour ended, we were set to venture into the remote interior. We decided to provide mass treatments wherever possible; otherwise, we needed to leave medicine and instructions with planters and missionaries along the way. It was all talk during the first few days, and I felt like a wild horse, eager to get going. I had plenty of action before my seven months were over.

******

There was a hint of craziness in this small hotspot of semi-civilization where Queenslanders had come to create another Australia. The hospital's superintendent, Dr. Mathews—(“Dr. Mathews, one t in the name, please”) paused his work to quote a Bible verse he believed proved that the world would end in 1925. He had calculated it mathematically; exactly 144,000 people would be saved from fire by a race-aware Creator. Most of these would be Papuans, who would rise up and inherit the earth from England. He despised England. His prediction of destruction, he told me, came to him when he was fifteen, in the middle of a football game.

Port Moresby, during the war scare of 1914, genuinely feared that German New Guinea could invade at any moment to burn and loot. At the Papuan Club, after a few drinks, they could laugh it off. They talked about native sentries stationed around town, told to shoot on sight. One gray dawn, a sentry spotted an extremely smelly scavenger’s wagon coming in and mistook it for the enemy. The password was “Vailala.” The guard nervously aimed his rifle and said, “If you don’t say Vailala I’ll shoot.” The confused Motu driver replied, “I don’t know Vailala. This isn’t a shoot-cart. This is a shit-cart,”—and rolled away into the mist.

The Motu is a domesticated and friendly person who only kills when it’s truly necessary. In the Port, he’s very much a city person, sporting his big bushy hair with flair, but not in an aggressive way. His kind brown eyes show no resentment towards the white people who assign him small household tasks. He tends to be shy, but in Papua, you shouldn't trust kind brown eyes too much. Even the fierce Koiaris and the cannibal Goaribaris can look at you with charming gentleness when you visit their villages.

******

Viewed from every angle—geographical, political, medical—our situation wasn’t easy.

Here were three thousand miles of coastline, with mountains so close together that there were no roads by the sea; the nineteen-mile road from Port Moresby to Sapphire Creek was the only one that wasn’t just a goat path or a postman’s trail. The Governor’s yacht was out of my reach, so we rented or borrowed the canoes that took us up rivers; as a result, for transportation, we were mostly at the mercy of recruiters and planters.

We were only there because we had to be, since the Australian Government that managed the Territory decided to ignore local authority. The depression of 1920 had the planters begging for subsidies to support a Territory that, considering its tropical location, is surprisingly unproductive. Governor Murray was completely frustrated trying to maintain his tight-fisted policy with the help of ship engineers and stewards whom he had turned into fairly competent magistrates and district officers.

The entire medical service was reduced to a top-notch Chief Medical Officer with no resources, a doomsday prophet running the local hospital, and one doctor assigned to each of three distant districts. These five, along with a few nurses and two European dispensers, were meant to cover around 90,000 square miles. The officer in Samarai was efficiently modern; the other three were old-timers. This was typical of the overall medical situation in the South Pacific.

[Pg 18]

Sometimes I wonder how we ever got our teams organized. Finally, we brought in two extra inspectors from Australia and scattered like scalded dogs from a boiling pot. In my weeks of preparation, I discovered that I had the Papuan Club behind me. That meant support from the most capable colonials in the South Pacific: Loudon, Bertie, Sefton, Jewel, Tom Nesbitt, and a dozen more. I couldn’t have lifted a finger without the help of these men and their friends. These were the forward-thinking ones who wanted to restore native labor to health, to revitalize races that, at that time, seemed destined for extinction.

At the Papuan Club, I couldn't say anything without getting a burst of wild laughter and shouts of "More! More!" A new guy would walk in. "Harrigan, have you heard the Doc's latest? Doc, tell it again!" I felt pretty proud until I realized what they were actually laughing at: it was my funny American accent.

WHERE THE DEAD MEN SPEAK

Only a day by truck from the metal buildings of Port Moresby, untamed Papua surrounded us—a wild place that could suddenly rise up with huge cliffs amidst flat, drylands, a country where people's souls seemed constantly torn between harsh materialism and a deep belief in ghosts and magic. Maybe the mystic spirit of the black man gave his white conqueror a haunting belief in the undead.

Papua doesn't have a lot of what people need. It's either dry and parched or soggy and humid, leading to overgrown weeds that have no nutritional value. A hemp plantation, as large as a Texas ranch, was one of a certain development company's failures; nearly every venture in Papua appeared to be failing. Over there, a shut-down and rundown factory showcased the company's unsuccessful attempt to produce a trade tobacco that would be unpleasant enough to match the local taste.

Everywhere in the Pacific, tobacco is the local currency. A few sticks can buy a man's labor for a week or a woman’s company for a night. Government rules have set a standard allowance: two sticks a week. But the locals will only accept the terrible twist that traders bring in from Virginia. The development company had a bright idea: they would create their own trade tobacco and dominate the market. They spent £50,000 trying to replicate that unique awful taste. The local guys tried it in their pipes but weren’t tricked. “I want tobacco!” they shouted. So the company brought in an expert from Virginia. That didn’t work either. Maybe the local tobacco was just too good. The factory closed down, and more shillings slipped from the pockets of hopeful investors.

[Pg 20]

******

On one trip to these regions, I went with Inspector Chris Kendrick, a farmer named Sefton, and Archie McAlpin, who was the chief inspector for the major development. Also with us was my “guy,” Ahuia.

In Port Moresby, I created a uniform for my local interpreters. It consisted of a jumper and a skirt in flashy blue trimmed with bright yellow braid, and on the chest was a large yellow H. The H stood for Hookworm, but it made the boys puff out their chests and walk around like it represented Harvard University at the very least.

Down there, they refer to every male native as a “boy”; Ahuia was my main guy. Dressed in his new uniform, he looked like a Malay pirate coming aboard with a big knife in his teeth. He had more hair than I had ever seen on anything, living or dead. For special occasions, he loved to decorate it with lilies. To the natives, he was an oppressor; to me, he was a caring protector. He could wash clothes, collect hookworm samples, and clean camp dishes. He could cook and sew. He could scare the daylights out of the group of carriers who carried our gear. He spoke Motu fluently when he translated. Motu is the lingua franca along the dry belt. In more remote villages, they didn’t understand Motu. But in every settlement under government control, Ahuia would hire the village constable, usually a murderer who had graduated with honors from Port Moresby jail. Jail was the native’s university, where he could learn more in three years than his family could teach him in a lifetime. The authorities always had a job lined up for a good ex-con. Ahuia, a seasoned traveler, knew any constable with a Port Moresby jail diploma could speak Motu. Ahuia was a resourceful guy and, like most natives, was as afraid of ghosts and magic as a rabbit is of a hound.

******

At the large hemp farm, workers crowded around our truck to help us with our load—odd guys with sloping foreheads topped with tightly curled hair. Their long, pointed noses gave them an ironic look; they had the sad, pleading eyes of mistreated hunting dogs, and they didn’t look healthy. Some of them had the horrible ulcers of that false syphilis we call “yaws.” Others were too pale for brown men—suffering from hookworm infections and malaria.

“What’s this guy’s name?” I asked Ahuia.

“Him Goaribari.” Ahuia spat.

Goaribaris! I had heard terrifying stories about these savages. It[Pg 21] must have been a long journey for them—around seven hundred miles from the Delta area they haunted. Here they worked with their heads down, or looked up almost in a submissive way.

The plantation manager showed up and welcomed me into his cozy house with a balcony. These planters truly have the big hearts of all good Australians. “And it’s a blessing that you Americans are pushing the Government a bit. Maybe half a million locals, and not even half of them are fit to lift a finger.” When I asked about the Goaribaris who had quietly helped us with our stuff, the manager said: “Cannibals? Well, kind of. When they’re at home, they’ll eat anything, from maggots to raw eels.”

I asked about the sanitary conditions. He said, “When the recruiters bring these boys in, they’re covered in the diseases they’ve picked up in their bad villages. The ones you saw are new arrivals. After six months on a decent plantation, they’ll improve.”

He looked at me thoughtfully. “The plantation's a bit rundown now, but we have two amenities we're proud of.”

Behind the cabins, he took me to one of those latrines designed by Dr. Strong, the Papuan Chief Medical Officer, who worked so hard for the people but never received any recognition. It was built with a simple wooden railing, and the pit was about twenty-five feet deep. The darkness below wasn’t appealing to the dysentery-carrying flies, and the sides were too steep and tall for the hookworm larvae to climb.

That was impressive, I said. And what was the second health improvement that he was so proud of?

Beyond the hemp fields, messy Black women lounged in the shade, showing their sagging breasts; they were spitting dark streams of betel juice or smoking short clay pipes. “We have fourteen now,” the planter said. “We’ve sent some away—gonorrhea, you know. Bring a few more in this week. Yes, they have the ration of trade tobacco, rice, and canned food. They’re all married, so it’s just a matter of seeing the husband.”

Admirable. But what did that have to do with sanitation?

The manager looked at me with sharp gray eyes and said, “Do you know what happens to men without women? These people are just animals. You’ve seen how animals act when they can’t get what they naturally want, right? Putting men in forced labor, taking them away from their wives and sex workers, just leads to nonsense. Europeans don’t believe that primitive men turn to homosexuality. Nonsense! Missionaries think that savages will live like Christ, and they’ve made it illegal to have prostitutes on plantations. Well, these women here are just good, hard-working wives. Ask any of the big planters—and they’re tough guys if there ever were any—ask them about the native guys who sway their hips and stare at the work crews as they pass by. We call them ‘queens,’ and they’re a problem we really need to deal with.”

The planter’s idea was harsh, like Papua. But his goal was kind and, in its own way, scientific. Since then, I’ve seen a lot of simple people turn to twisted ways. The tough Queenslander, as manly as a frontiersman can be, was doing his best to break the vicious cycle.

******

That night I saw my first ghost. We had stayed up pretty late with the manager, who was mumbling in a corner with Archie McAlpin. At one point, I heard him ask, “Is it still around?” Heads were huddled together, voices low. Finally, Archie McAlpin, who had polished off his share of whisky—and mine—stumbled upstairs. I followed him up because I was tired. That evening, there had been a long lecture in front of a crowd of serious cannibals, who were intently focused on what I told Ahuia to say in Motu to a Goaribari interpreter.

The Papuan servant never wakes you abruptly, because when you sleep, your soul has left your body to roam through dreams. If you wake the body too suddenly, where is the soul? Still hanging around in a dream. That’s how you die. When Ahuia wanted to wake me, he would shift a chair or give a gentle cough. His cough would rouse me, and I’d see him, shadowy in a bit of moonlight. His nervous voice was asking the taubada to “Look along the veranda.... The devil is outside.”

A voice was chattering somewhere. I looked out and saw a white figure that seemed to float as it gestured. I didn't have many hairs to raise, but they all stood up. Chattering, chattering, the voice of the pale figure delivered a long speech in Motu, then in English. “No, don’t come here again!”

The ghost turned. It was Archie McAlpin. The voice hadn’t belonged to a drunk; under the white moon, his expression was serious. He shook his head; the argument was finished. He didn’t see me; he seemed not to see anything as he went back to bed.

“Ahuia, what was he seeing?” I whispered, because the locals know[Pg 23] a lot about devils. His dark eyes were blank in the white night. “Maybe he sees nothing, Taubada,” he whispered.

In three days, I finished dosing two hundred Goaribaris. I discovered that newcomers carried the most worms, contradicting the common medical belief that plantations were dirty and villages were clean. Labor was transferring disease from the towns to the farms.

The plantation that was cleaned up by sex workers and state-of-the-art restrooms, run by compliant cannibals and filled with unseen presences, vanished in a cloud of dust as our truck drove off toward the incredible cliffs of Hombrom Bluff. When I mentioned ghosts to Archie McAlpin, he looked away, avoiding my gaze with his steel-gray eyes.

We stayed at the small inn at Sapphire Creek, where the ghosts cried out again, at least in the mind of the English landlady I helped with a mild case of alcoholism. Poor woman, she had taken care of two husbands and fourteen kids, and had been a tough Florence Nightingale to the sick miners during the last flu outbreak. She looked up from her pillow and said, “No, Doctor, I’m not seeing things—just what’s all around us, all the time. Strange things happen in Papua.” She closed her eyes to block them out.

******

Hombrom Bluff towers over the scorched scrub of the flatlands below. All of Papua looks like that, a huge bear rug, shaggy and crumpled in a hundred folds; humans are the pests that have to crawl up and down, back and forth, to navigate these endless tangles. Stretching my neck to look up at Hombrom’s peak, I noticed the change in vegetation from choking tropical vines at the bottom to temperate evergreens that draped over the top. Squinting at three thousand feet of it, I asked Archie McAlpin, “How do we get to the Sogari District?”

Archie said, “We don’t travel around. We go over.”

They brought us horses, and I awkwardly got on, being thirty pounds too heavy for the little shaggy animal. Then we went up, four crazy miles of cliffside trail that was barely more than a yard wide. It would have been a tough climb for anyone, but my Papuan horse must have been bred from a goat. On one side, we were pushed by huge vines; on the other side, loose pebbles tumbled into empty air. At one high turn, the forests sloped down to Port Moresby harbor, where the reefs looked like fine lace, tattered over the vast expanse of the blue sea. Another turn, and one of the world’s great waterfalls, Rona,[Pg 24] connected diamond necklace to diamond necklace as it met the wild Laloki River, cutting through savage green.

Now at the top, we got off on a narrow ridge. “What’s that lake over there?” I asked Archie McAlpin. The lake looked like a mirror, framed by the edges of a dead volcano. Archie’s eyes were as still as the lake; he stood silently at the edge of a cliff. Then I heard it again, the strange babble in Motu. I turned and saw that it was Archie, talking to the sky. I whispered to Sefton, “Is he a bit off his rocker?” Sefton replied seriously: “No. But that lake over there is where dead men go. Archie’s saying the invocation. It keeps ghosts from following us. You can’t get a local to go within a mile of that lake. They know what’s best for them.”

Perhaps the lake had cursed me too; maybe it just didn't like being photographed. When I was getting back on my horse, the saddle slipped and left me hanging in midair. Two hundred and thirty-something pounds of me was dangling by a creaking stirrup. Quick-thinking Chris Kendrick caught me just in time and pushed me back into the saddle. What I liked most about Chris was how he handled emergencies.

Far away, across a dizzying expanse of green, Mt. Victoria, a tall landmark in New Guinea, was wrapped in a misty veil. On this quiet trail, the sudden flap of a bird’s wings sounded like a gunshot.

“The mountain's like a ghost,” I told Archie McAlpin.

The trail had widened, so we could ride closer together. “I like it best here during the day,” he said. I asked him if he was scared of Koiaris—since they were the ones who killed with long spears. No, he wasn’t scared of Koiaris. Their territory was further ahead.

Sefton stared into the dim mountain light. “There’s a path that leads down from Jawavere where the Koiaris wait for anything that passes by. You don’t hang around on the Jawavere trail.

“I have a spot on the trail,” he said, “and I always look for anyone passing by to share a drink with me. It gets a bit lonely. One afternoon around four, a local comes running in and says he saw a white guy who had been riding along there, taking his time, just staring ahead. His horse was quiet, and the bushes didn’t even move. I thought that was just a bunch of native nonsense, and I was annoyed that the guy didn’t stop in for a drink. I asked around at the other plantations. Yes, they had all seen the rider, and it was about four o’clock that same afternoon—in places miles apart. Finally, we searched the bush and found the bones[Pg 25] of a man and a horse, around some charred stones. The Koiaris had killed him weeks before we saw him ride by.”

Archie said thoughtfully, “Yeah, and there was the woman in white. I couldn’t sleep one night, and there she was in the garden, bent over picking flowers. I talked to her, but she didn’t look up. She was the Englishwoman who married that guy from Cairns. She created a little English garden, but it never felt right for her. Always wanted to go back home; you know how the English are. Her husband thought Papua was good enough for her, until she died. Then he killed himself.”

“Do you ever see his ghost?” I asked.

“No. He’s too far gone in hell, I think, to escape.”

They really believed in the horseman who rode over the hill. They believed that lights showed up in the empty house from where another woman had fled with her baby.

We were riding quietly when our horses suddenly stopped, snorted, and sat back on their haunches. At first, I thought it was just a fallen vine, but then I saw it move. I jumped off and grabbed a nearby stone to throw at the eight black feet of the snake; that was a mistake because it came straight at me. Sefton cracked its back with a whip. “Is it venomous?” I asked. I can’t stand snakes. “Definitely,” Sefton replied, poking the poison sacs.

We continued on our way. Ghosts were real, and snakes were just a hassle in a place where anything could happen. Except for mules. According to the planters, there was only one mule in Papua, and his long ears flopped over a fence at the Seventh Day Adventist Mission. Locals were amazed and fed him offering yams because he was a part of God’s house, overseen by a missionary they nicknamed “Smiling Charley.”

The first time his prized mule wandered off, Charley rallied his team to search for it. They looked until they were exhausted. Charley cheerfully went over the next hill and found the mule. He thought it would be a good chance to show the power of prayer, so he returned and said, “Guys, let’s pray for guidance.” They prayed, and a few minutes later, they found the mule. A week or two later, it wandered off again, much to the annoyance of the team who had to carry everything when it was missing. Charley tried to organize another search, but the team was resistant. When he asked why, they said, “You should’ve prayed the first time, Taubada.” So Charley had to pray, but it didn’t work as well this time, because it took a week for the mule to come back home.

[Pg 26]

Dusk was settling in when we left Smiling Charley’s Seventh Day celebration. After shadows started to darken the hills, Archie McAlpin said, “We’re in Koiari territory now, and we should keep moving. Over there on the slope, you can see the graveyard.” The stones looked like skulls among the bushes. “Those are planters that the jungle overwhelmed.” Anyone who’s spent a week in Papua knows how the jungle takes down all but the strongest—malaria, accidents, bites, and infections all take a toll on pioneering whites.

A cold breeze swept down from the pale stones. A tall guy on a horse came toward us, and I tried to shake off the thought of the ghost on horseback. But Archie McAlpin called out, “Hey, Sam!” The horseman halted. Archie said, “Looks to me, Sam, like you’re not keeping a safe distance from this graveyard.” “Me? Archie, I’ve never seen any ghosts.”

“Then I guess, Sam, you wouldn’t have a problem sleeping among the graves?”

“I might be crazy,” Sam said, “but I’m not an idiot. If I see any ghosts, there’ll be one more horseman riding over the Bluff. He won’t be coming back, either.”

He rode on. No, people don’t hang around on the Jawavere trail. I was still thinking about the lonely English woman who couldn’t go home; her poor shadow was stuck on the ground in Papua.

How about the ghosts of indentured natives, confused spirits that can never find their way back to the villages they loved because they were born there? Here’s a note from my diary, written during a survey I conducted a little later:—

They walk on dreams.

On those first short trips, our main task was to count and report the sick. I often felt a deep sense of guilt when I left the villages just as I had found them, crying out for the healing I didn’t have time to provide. All I could do was lecture them, hand out the tins, and collect samples for testing at the next place I stopped. Sometimes the containers were returned in just fifteen minutes—such is the speed of the human gut. Faces would be full of smiles. They had filled the magic boxes just as I had instructed, hadn’t they? To them, that was all that was needed for the cure; fill the magic boxes, hand them over to the white medicine man who would say a few words—and poof! sickness would disappear from the tribe.

This was a kind of pagan scientific perspective that would have been funny if it weren't so tragic. I got used to it and left the people with a smile as bright as theirs. After all, the drug would be arriving soon, and I had explained to the missionary or planter how to give it.

When we had enough oil of chenopodium, we didn’t waste any time making diagnoses overnight; in this area, infection levels in the villages were so high it was basically 100 percent. So, we lined everyone up and dosed every man, woman, and child. With enthusiasm, they gulped down the unpleasant oil mixed with a spoonful of sugar and smacked their lips. They laughed about the bitter purge that followed. More than once, they stuck around to sneak the leftover Epsom salts solution, thinking that the more you take, the faster you get better. Only the kids hesitated. I’ll never forget the naked four-year-old who knew just enough missionary English to scream, “Oh, Jesus, no!” when his elders pulled him forward.

Many of these initial trips took us no farther from Port Moresby’s neat order than it is from New York’s city hall to Trenton. Yet with each mile, we discovered some strange or brutal aspect of human nature. There was always the white man, [Pg 28] standing one against five hundred locals, driven to conquer a wild landscape. Keeping the tribes alive for another day’s labor—that was the challenge. My early expeditions were all over the place. I took a dive into the sawmill area along the Laloki River to check out a mining company’s Kiwais, big cheerful guys like Virginia Black men; I stayed long enough to offer advice on how to use their lumber for pit latrines. I won’t forget the cleanest village I ever saw. The Company had surrounded it with a stockade and instructed the people to keep the streets clean and dispose of their trash. I had only one complaint: the dark-skinned villagers messed up the trash heaps they piled on the other side. These people should have been filled with hookworms. In reality, the infection was very minimal. Another medical mystery...

I occasionally encountered bizarre individuals. There was the paralytic at Kabadi plantation, who appeared to have lost muscle control on one side at a time; when he turned, he grimaced painfully with the effort. His walk resembled someone pushing along two sticks of wood. I questioned why they kept such a person, and then they explained to me. Oh, he was very useful. The Koiaris were so terrified of him that they didn’t dare raid the place.

In the black belt of the South Pacific, dreams feel incredibly real. When you sleep, your soul goes on wild adventures. If you fall in love with a girl in your dreams, she’s no longer just a girl when you see her in the morning. A nightmare where you kill someone isn’t just a bad dream; you’ve truly killed your enemy. So, if you run into him tomorrow while walking down the path, that doesn’t mean anything. What you’re seeing is just an illusion. Your dream has taken care of the person you dislike. And be careful how you treat that scary paralytic who stares at you in the fields. He might "walk through your dreams."

Too many things I saw walked through my dreams. There was that pageant at Boera....

Boera was a depressing beach and housed a London Missionary Society station run by two Samoans. Samoa felt worlds apart from that isolated stretch of sand. These imported teachers, unfamiliar with the land, ended up like many white missionaries, just getting by with Christ’s work. Their intentions were good, but the results were unclear in a dreary routine of ringing bells, saying prayers, reading Sunday school lessons, and more bell-ringing. This duo, Mosea and Emma, seemed gently discouraged but had the lovely manners of Polynesian nobility. Mosea was already burdened with elephantiasis. His cousin Samueli dropped by to cheerfully report that conditions were “very bad.”... It’s strange how they travel. Years later, this same Samueli found me on a beach in Ellice Islands, far from Papua, and gave me a fresh-killed chicken. When I asked him how things were, he replied, “Very bad.”

At Boera, I got my first real glimpse of a community affected by yaws. This terrible condition was visible on the bodies and faces of at least a third of the people, men and women with noses turned into gaping holes in the middle of a flat scar. Fingers and toes were curled like dying twigs. Loads of flies spread the germs from the filth. I looked at baby faces and noticed how the healing process had pulled their lips together into a smooth surface with an opening so tiny you could barely fit a pencil through.

Yes, these Papuan spirits linger in your dreams. The tropics are like dreamlands, free from the constraints of Northern realities. Life down there oscillates between beautiful poetry and terrifying horror. I've seen many other villages like Boera since then, and I should have become numb to it all. I could adapt to the sight of injured adults, but the children always broke my heart.

It’s totally understandable that early travelers mixed up yaws with syphilis. It makes sense that this confusion still exists today. For all we know, yaws might just be a form of syphilis adapted to Stone Age conditions. We call it framboesia tropica (tropical raspberry). When discussing yaws, you always have to mention syphilis—the two are very similar, with some significant differences.

Captain Cook, who first visited the Pacific in 1773, wisely wrote: “Another disease with more harmful effects, which is also very common, shows up on all parts of the body as large, broad sores that ooze a thin, clear pus ... it is well known and even admitted by the natives themselves that they were affected by this disease before the English arrived, so it can't be a result of sexually transmitted infection, despite the similar symptoms....”

Here at least is an illness you can’t blame on white people.

The informed traders and missionaries who came after Cook briefly noted “syphilis.” All my work in Papua and my subsequent years of thorough research across the Pacific did not uncover a single case of syphilis, although I did come across one or two questionable diagnoses. I have never seen the characteristic chancre scar, which is a definitive sign. The symptoms of the two diseases are so similar that carelessness or lack of knowledge have unjustly tarnished the reputation of the native populations.

Yaws isn't a sexually transmitted disease, nor is it genetic. It's typically contracted in early childhood. Local mothers expose their babies to it hoping to “get it out of their systems,” similar to how some American mothers treat their kids when measles are going around.

Now here’s the confusing similarity. The yaws bacterium Treponema pertenue is so closely related to the syphilis bacterium Treponema pallidum that it's tough to distinguish between the two. Both diseases develop in three or four stages. The "mother yaw" first appears on any part of the body, and its secondary manifestation is numerous "daughter yaws" that spread widely across the skin and advance into the third stage, which looks remarkably like syphilis. Vascular changes and nerve damage (like in syphilis) can sometimes lead to general paralysis of the insane.

Missionaries have a simple explanation for yaws: it’s a curse passed down from cannibal ancestors. It definitely looks bad enough to have entered the world through that dark history.

And here’s another comparison. The treatment for yaws is exactly the same as the treatment for syphilis—arsenic injections. Framboesia was completely untreatable by medicine until Professor Ehrlich created his salvarsan. There's nothing more striking in medicine than the almost immediate growth of healthy tissue over a yaws sore after an arsenic injection.

The Pacific is the only place in the world where yaws isn’t complicated by syphilis. I’ve heard that in Tahiti, the two diseases exist, but a person never has both at the same time. On the Islands, there seems to be a cross-immunity, so the two germs can’t thrive in the same host. The locals have definitely been exposed to syphilis; East Indian laborers brought it to Fiji, resulting in a 75 percent infection rate. The Chinese and white sailors added to that and tried their best to spread it, but nothing happened. Something has made the locals immune, and that something is quite obvious.

[Pg 31]

The elimination of yaws mainly relies on focused campaigning. But what will happen once the battle is won? Will syphilis take the place of the spirochete it could never confront—on equal terms? That’s another dilemma for doctors.

******

The morning after we heard the planters’ ghost stories, I sent Kendrick ahead to check out the rubber plantations. Chris was totally in his element on rough seas or jungle trails. I took quick breaks along the trail, giving my sore backside a rest whenever I could. Then it was back on the horse, gritting my teeth at every jolt from the saddle sores. Picture a Coney Island roller coaster blown up a hundred times, and you’d get an idea of our wild ride, going up and down to reach an elevation of 3,000 feet. Down, down we went on a slope so steep that even a fly would land on its nose if it tried; I was once again amazed at how my horse managed to stay upright. On the final climb, I spared my butt and ended up scraping my heels, because even the horse was giving in.

Now the rubber trees surrounded me, above and below, their rough, tough leaves glinting like green glass that blinded my eyes in the afternoon sun. Below, there was a soft light, supported by pale trunks that resembled pillars of snakeskin. Naked men worked in quiet concentration, using sharp knives to make cuts in the bark; they would neatly peel away thin slices, and the tree’s milky white sap would flow into cups. As I watched, I thought: they are natural surgeons. Over the years, they’ve learned so much, dissecting human flesh with the razor-sharp edges of split bamboo. Train men like these to use the knife to heal instead of harm, and think of all they could achieve for their people…

The man closest to me turned. His curly hair, his sloping forehead, and his long, hooked nose told me he was a Goaribari. I looked at his companions. All Goaribaris, with that unmistakably Hebrew profile that earned them the nickname “the Lost Tribes of Israel.” But these were different from the skinny cannibals I had seen on the hemp plantation. They were fatter, better built, and their brown skin was starting to shine. They weren’t newcomers, and the planters had taken care of them. Back home, where they had the lively habit of going to war and feasting on their enemies, they hadn’t eaten very regularly. On the farms, the white man had fed them and tried his best to teach them proper hygiene; a tough job among primitives who[Pg 32] were as naive as cattle in their bodily functions. In later surveys all over the Territory, I could easily recognize the men who had been on plantations. They were the strong, healthy ones.

Rubber plantations have their own distinct smell, kind of like the scent of fried rubber boots. It wafts from the factory where the sap is being processed and turned into the wide, dirty-gray strips that are sent to market. My workers bustled around like busy bees, coming in and out of the door for the everyday task of providing raw materials for the raincoat industry. I looked around and spotted Chris Kendrick, smiling and confident, making his way through the crowd.

“You missed something yesterday afternoon,” Kendrick said. “The Koiaris came down and staged a raid on the Goaribaris. A bunch of workers were chilling in a field, and then out of nowhere, a naked guy showed up in the middle of them, brandishing a long spear in each hand. There was only one of him, and there had to be at least twenty Goaribaris. They might be tough back in their hometowns, but here they were acting like frozen lambs—until someone rushed in with a shovel and a hoe handle. Before you knew it, the Koiari was running for the woods, naked and screaming, shaking his long spears.

“But the Goaribaris caught him and—guess what?—handed him over to the management! What did he care? He'd got his man.” Like many of the more aggressive tribes, Koiaris kill because murder is a sign of manhood, and a warrior who hasn’t bloodied his spear is mocked, even by women.

“I got a photo of the guy he left behind,” Kendrick said, and showed me the print he had developed. A broken body lay in the bushes. The plantation manager walked up just then and smirked, “We buried him deep. His brother Goaribaris might decide to eat him, you know. Of course, they’re pretty well fed, but.... Sigh, farming’s just full of little problems like that!”

******

Yes, farming in Papua, even at its best, came with many challenges that a Secretary of Agriculture would never have considered. The experienced workers were not completely free of hookworms, even though their overall health had improved a lot. New workers were arriving with new parasites that emerged from the mess they made, despite the managers' efforts to supervise. Inexperienced laborers saw the well-made toilets as strange traps set by white people to trick them ... nice to look at, but be careful!

That night, I gave a lecture under the light of hurricane lanterns hanging from the beams of a huge, empty warehouse. The audience sat cross-legged in a wide arc, their shiny faces reflecting the light as they looked up at us. The front row was filled with Goaribari people, while behind them sat natives from gentler tribes. These individuals, being more civilized, understood Motu, which sounded like Greek to the Delta savages. So, it was up to Ahuia to bring the local constable, a very ugly man wearing a G-string and a policeman’s cap.

Such moments were Ahuia’s time to shine. He hit the trail shirtless, but at lectures, the flashy yellow H on his bright blue sweater stretched with every breath he took. And he didn’t forget to put lilies in his hair. He set the stage with our standard International Health Board chart, loosely bound pages featuring simple illustrations of how hookworms travel to the intestines; there were oversized drawings of the male and female parasites and the egg they produced together. There were large photos of a sick boy and a healthy boy—something like the patent-medicine guy’s “Before and After Treatment.”

Ahuia silenced the Goaribaris with his intimidating pirate glare, and in a striking silence revealed our prize number, a large bottle of adult hookworms pickled in alcohol. This was a prop we carried for demonstration purposes. Cannibal eyes widened as the collection was passed around.

Ahuia was memorizing his lesson, but I thought it was safer to give him a nudge. “First, tell them to pay close attention to what’s in the bottle,” I said. He spoke Motu directly to the interpreter: “Tatau bona, memero, umui iboumuiai inai gaigai ba itaia....” The native constable echoed him in the strange dialect of the Goaribaris: “Men and boys, all of you look at these little snakes.”

Education filtered through three languages. The group of predators sat very still; their long noses pointed up like the muzzles of longing hounds. Ahuia was explaining how the lady snake laid really bad eggs that fell out of the black boy and the black “mary”; how the eggs hatched tiny baby snakes that bit the black boy’s foot and crawled back into his belly. Now look at the picture of the sick boy and the healthy boy—they are actually the same boy. The healthy boy took the medicine the taubada brings, and the snakes came out of his belly. Now[Pg 34] he will stay healthy because he is a smart boy. He uses the clean toilet the white man built for him, so that the snake cannot come out and crawl back into him again.

Patiently repeating simple words to confused minds, we tried to help ordinary people understand the cause, cure, and prevention of a disease they might have carried over from Africa long ago; a disease so debilitating that the factories, rivers, and plantations were relying on half-sick workers to provide strength for Europe’s relentless ambitions.

Sometimes in my early lectures, as I looked over the hunched, dark figures, I would have moments of doubt. I would question whether it was worth it to save these curious individuals, so disconnected from anything our Northern civilization understood.

As time went on, I started to see how truly valuable it was.

******

The lecture was over, and I walked alone across a stretch of dim moonlight that led to the plantation house. I was eager to get to headquarters so I could jot down my notes and crash into bed. On both sides of me, rubber trees formed towering black walls, like something made of coal. My mind was focused only on today’s work and tomorrow’s; somewhere in the back of my mind, I might have sensed the risk of another Koiari spear like the one that had killed a man yesterday.

I looked up and saw the shape of three men coming out of the shadows. Even with my poor eyesight, they looked like a bizarre group, all moving awkwardly together. I had no choice but to rely on the white man's authority. I was unarmed. If I had called for help, it would have shown fear, and I knew these guys were in a rush. As they got closer, I noticed they weren’t carrying any weapons.

Two of them, who had been holding onto the third, started chatting in Goaribari, making friendly noises. Was this a trap? Luckily, Ahuia and the native constable came up swinging hurricane lanterns—even in the moonlight, they carried lanterns to scare away ghosts. Ahuia pointed to the guy in the middle. “That guy broke his hand in a fight. There weren't enough women to go around.”

All right, let’s take a look at it. We took the thwarted lover to my room where I checked his wrist and discovered a serious Colles’s fracture.[Pg 35] In the dim light of the lantern, I carefully set the bone, even though he had just scared me half to death. If he had walked into the clinic in Rochester with all the faculty watching, he couldn’t have received more precise surgical care. I even took the time to apply Doctor Moore’s famous dressing, which is complicated but flawless.

“All right, kid,” I said, “go ahead.” He stood there patiently, holding out his unharmed hand. What on earth was he waiting for? “Does he want to thank me?” I asked Ahuia.

“No, master.” Ahuia looked intensely sad. “He’s waiting for you to pay him. That’s how this guy operates.”

“What fashion?” My patience was wearing thin. “What am I supposed to pay him for?”

“For fixing his injured hand, Taubada.”

I growled, and Ahuia pushed him out into the night. When I was around, Ahuia didn't fear ghosts or Goaribaris. It seemed like the incident was over, but I knew that the cubicle next to Kendrick’s, where I slept, was pretty much doorless and exposed to the pale moonlight.

The next morning, I woke up to the sound of Motu voices softly arguing. Ahuia and Quai, who was with Kendrick, had noticed something was missing from our bags. This seemed likely. There was an unspoken rule among Motuan servants: never steal from your master—that was a serious taboo. However, it was acceptable to take a little something from your master’s host or from some stranger sleeping nearby if he happened to leave his bags open. It was considered honorable to swipe a handkerchief or a pair of new shorts and stash the small loot in your bag. When two white men were bunking next to each other, their servants watching the bags acted like cats watching mice. It was fine for a diligent servant to get away with a few cigarettes from the stranger for personal use.

There were other guests at the plantation, and I was curious about whose kid had slipped past Ahuia’s watchful eye when a lazy glance through the sunlit window snapped me to a genuine annoyance. There was the Goaribari with the bandaged hand, calmly chewing betel-nut. “For the love of God, Ahuia, what does he want now?”

Ahuia’s humorous English told me, “Taubada, he still wants to be paid. He slept on the porch all night.”

[Pg 36]

I jumped out of bed, pulling the mosquito netting with me. Like a fishwife in a bridal veil, I unleashed a stream of profanity. With a friendly smile on his betel-red mouth, the cannibal listened—and extended his good hand. Then I caught myself mid-curse and laughed like I never had before. This was socialized medicine turned upside down.

“Ahuia,” I yelled, “give this cheeky jerk two sticks of trade tobacco.”

Quite unemotionally, the savage accepted his payment and left.

I was still laughing when the planter came in, and he smiled. “It’s the trend—that's all a bush guy will say. They’re pretty confused about money values. To them, a white man is kind of a mix between Simon Legree and Santa Claus; when he shows up, it’s either to lock them up or pay them off.”

I complained, “Next they'll want me to hand out free tobacco before every hookworm lecture.”

“Of course they will,” he said. Then he went over the variations the planters had mentioned repeatedly. “Anything can happen in Papua.”

JUST THIS SIDE OF THE MOON

In July, I decided to lead my own expedition as far into the interior as possible to get a clear picture of the infestation in areas far from the reach of white traders and planters. I had been working hard along the coast, up rivers, into plantations, sea villages, and hill villages. My inspectors were always out conducting surveys and campaigns that spread out across the country like a fan. Communication was basic. Canoes, whaleboats, and makeshift launches navigated their risky paths among the endless shoals or got lost under thick trees where a wise Creator would turn on the rain at the slightest provocation.

I moved ahead of my inspectors, checked out the districts, handed them over to my team, and moved on to the next. Even though the government suspected I was a secret agent for John D. Rockefeller, they offered me a bit of leeway. Our biggest challenge was supplies, since Dr. Sawyer from the Foundation, who was my supervisor, couldn't believe that we needed such large amounts of medication to treat infected Papua. Where was all the stuff going? In Australia, where treatments had been relatively few, spending had been low. Sawyer just couldn’t understand the scale of the sick population in the Territory. But treating them en masse would have been the only solution. At that time, mass treatments had been attempted among laborers in Java; however, a large-scale curative campaign was unheard of.

Our workload had been so intense that we depleted the Central Office supplies. Even the next year, there weren’t enough to meet everyone's needs. We had to continue with what we had.

******

On July 21, I was really excited to be heading out to Yule Island, a patch of land about sixty miles from Port Moresby. This island is separated by a narrow stretch of water from the huge jungle-covered mountains that loom beyond Mafulu to the mysterious border some[Pg 38] still refer to as “German New Guinea.” Once again, we were cruising along on the little Morinda, with Captain Teddy Hillman and his Gin Club in charge. I had the two boys, Ahuia and Quai, with me. We brought along a bunch of “gear,” which was our term for the various things we needed to take into the field.

A white man planning a trip into the heart of Papua needs several travel bags—one for his sleeping gear, mattress, and mosquito netting; another for scientific tools; and a smaller one for random items. The number of food containers depends on how long he’ll be in the field. Once he starts the journey, he won’t have a chance to restock. He must pack the following: a frying pan, a teapot, water boiling cans, a can opener, a lantern with kerosene, an ax, and a variety of canned food. Engaging conversations around a Papuan campfire often revolve around the pros and cons of different brands of canned meats and clever tricks to mask the taste of tin.

The containers for hookworm samples, packed by the hundreds, were small half-ounce cylinders about the size of a silver dollar. The gear created a heavy load for many carriers, who were also weighed down by their own food for the entire journey. And let’s not forget the trade tobacco that had to be handed out everywhere as insurance against strikes. We were ready for almost anything; the climb up to Mafulu would be tough.

Getting carriers for these long trips was always a part of Papua’s labor issue. If you asked a Motu boy to pack up and follow you into the jungle, he’d start to shuffle, roll his eyes, and back away. There was puri-puri, bad magic, in those hills. It wasn’t “our style” to go among the Mondo or the Kuni people. They had charms that could kill you. The same fear spread across every district border; we had to switch our carriers as we traveled.

Please provide the text for modernization.

Yule Island, flat and green like a plate of parsley, was separated by a narrow stretch of salt water from the distant view of jagged mountains rising from the wilds of Papua. It was a striking and intimidating beauty over there, peak after peak, their heights made even more impressive by their proximity to the shore. The tallest looked taller than Mt. Everest and even more unreachable.

Three white men were waiting for me on the flat beach of Yule Island. I recognized two of my inspectors, the Orr brothers, Jack and Ron. Their food supply had been ruined by unexpected spills from canoes. They[Pg 39] welcomed me with loud cheers of happiness; they were going to eat again! The third person greeting me was Mr. Connelly, the cheerful, tough District Officer. When I brought up the giant mountains across the stream, he responded casually:—

“They're a bit of a climb. Once you're done with Yule Island, I'll take you up part of the way. Business and pleasure. I need to head beyond Mafulu—going after a group of murderers, you know. Come over to the house, and we'll have some tea or something.”

I had barely stepped into Mr. Connelly's house when I heard a sweet, familiar tune. An American accent! It was Mrs. Connelly introducing herself, saying, “Pleased to meet you.” She was from New Jersey. How she ended up as the wife of a guy who climbs mountains to catch killers was just another mystery of marriage. My own wife, after all, was born in Mexico, educated in California—and was currently waiting for me in a bungalow in Port Moresby.

Connelly knew the ins and outs, as you have to when one person takes on the roles of sheriff, judge advocate, postmaster, tax collector, and justice of the peace in a place where the population is as difficult to track as wild pigs. After a night of playing bridge, he casually mentioned that he’d get me the forty-seven carriers I needed. How? Just leave it to him. “I’m Government, you know”—with a dry smile.

During our week-long stay on Yule Island, the Orr brothers and I stayed in the patrol officer’s house, which had walls and floors made of split bamboo and a ceiling of nipa palm thatch. The shower was created from two Standard Oil cans (called “petrol tins” over there) hung one below the other. Can Number 1 is filled with fresh water, and when you pull a string, a plug comes out and empties it into Can Number 2, which has been drilled with nail holes to create a fountain effect. The first time you use this contraption, you lather up carefully under the spray—and then the water runs out. The next time, you try washing yourself with your own sweat, which isn’t effective. By the third attempt, you just say, “Oh, hell,” and pull the string.

******

The Mission of the Sacred Heart has a business name that I've remembered correctly: Company of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Ltd. Its operations stretched all the way from Yule Island to a point about 130 miles across the channel, reaching into the rugged mountains of Papua, and its practical branding was a testament to its down-to-earth Christianity. The Sacred[Pg 40] Heart was, and still is, one of the best mission organizations in the Pacific and should serve as a model for the many different sects and beliefs—Church of England, Calvinist, Wesleyan, Seventh Day Adventist, London Missionary Society, and even Mormon—that have confused the local people with conflicting paths to salvation.

I came to admire these strangely dedicated Fathers, thirty-one in total, who often swapped their priestly robes for the rugged khaki of frontiersmen. Their fierce beards completely changed their soft, clerical appearance. In small convents scattered along the rough paths leading to Mafulu and beyond, twenty-six nuns were living the same tough lifestyle.

There was almost every European nationality in this French group: French, German, Swiss, Dutch, one Italian, one Spaniard. They were understaffed and extremely overworked; I could see the exhausted look on the faces around the lunch table, like men who weren't going to hold out much longer. They had short lives because they pushed through their endless work without taking illness or the challenges of a tough climate into account. They all died in Papua. With them, I visited two cases of typhoid that they said had come from Port Moresby, despite their attempts to quarantine against the germ. I operated on one Father for a severe case of hydrocele and on others for injuries and infections typical of their hard lives.

They had figured out the food issue that other parts of Papua were struggling with, which was filled with American and Australian canned goods. Here, they had their own vegetable gardens, producing plenty so they could feed their 120 students healthily and at a low cost. There were almost a hundred mixed-race students in this school. The Sacred Heart approach to handling mixed heritage was practical.

The mixed-race child often enters the world without a father willing to show up for the baptism. Bishop Boismenu, a determined priest, took this issue to the Government; his persistence led to a law that requires the registration of every mixed-race child’s white parent. And, wow, what chaos that caused! Major Jones-Smith and Judge Brown-White had to do a lot of explaining when sons or daughters unexpectedly appeared at the Mission of the Sacred Heart. One high-ranking Government official struggled to face his wife and the public; one wealthy American decided he had lingered too long and needed to head back to the States.

The mixed-race issue is growing in Papua. When the Melanesians[Pg 41] were fully cannibalistic, their women were expected to be pure; the husband wielded an ironwood club, and the tribe strictly enforced their moral laws. People caught cheating were tied together with vines and placed on the most active anthill nearby. Alternatively, skilled tormentors would permanently disable the wandering bride by tying a hot stone under one of her knees. Early Nevada was similarly harsh on female infidelity. Just look at Nevada today.

It was a strict mission rule that mixed-race children should only speak English. They were British; the law recognized them. When they became adults, the girls and boys were encouraged to marry each other or join religious orders. They were meant to have a respectable place in society and face no disadvantages.

I take off my old white helmet to the men and women of the Sacred Heart. There was Sister Magdalena, seventy-six years old. I found her kind old face bent over a typewriter that was clicking away. She had been completely blind for two years. “It was tough at first,” she said, “learning the touch system. But it’s like playing a musical instrument. I write poetry when I have the time, and I write letters home. I’m useful too. One of the girls dictates to me, and I handle the accounts for the mission.”

And there was Brother Heinrich, the cheerful undertaker. Pale and a bit sickly, he wore the smile of someone who loves their job and has plenty of work. Tropical fevers never got to him as long as he had coffins to make. Bang, bang went his strong hammer, crafting a neat hardwood job. “Don’t forget a sturdy lid,” I said as I approached him. Brother Heinrich chuckled and replied, “I try not to forget anything. For example, Doctor, you’ll need a lot of brass nails for those shoes if you’re heading up to Mafulu. Won’t you send that pair to me before you go? I’m a cobbler too.”

Mother Ligouri, who ran the tidy little hospital, was another cheerful person, round and rosy despite all the chaos. Her housekeeping was spotless; she kept typhoid patients isolated and was always humorously frustrated by the sanitary conditions, basic latrines, and the flies and mosquitoes that bothered her patients. Brother Heinrich was one of her favorite nuisances. “I have to chase him off,” she said. “Whenever someone is sick, he somehow gets their measurements. I’ve never known him to be without a coffin ready, perfectly sized. That man Heinrich!”

The day before we left for the mountains, I let Brother Heinrich[Pg 42] have my shoes and asked him if he had my measurements on his list. “Oh, I can tell your size just by looking at your shoes,” he said, beaming with professional pride. That night, he showed me a really impressive job of hobnailing.

During the week, I had talked to the mixed-race people, and I enjoyed lecturing in English. I was already looking forward to my surveys in New Guinea Territory, where I was told the locals understood pidgin English. I naively thought that pidgin would be easy to learn. I had no idea.

All I saw of that venture on Yule Island, and of its distant stations among the mountains and valleys of Mafulu, always reminded me of what Herman Melville, who wasn't a fan of missionaries in general, said about the South Sea Catholics a hundred years ago. To him, they were the true missionaries. And they still are the true missionaries, as long as they live in the spirit of self-sacrifice.

******

Ahuia approached me like a skilled cruise director; he was dressed in his formal uniform with the H, and had lilies in his hair. Would the Taubada want to see the native dance tonight? I was curious if it would be any good. Ahuia puffed out his chest and dismissed the ordinary nature of all bush natives. Oh, it’s pretty decent, he confessed, but the girls around here didn’t do many of the things they did in the East. We walked between the elegant trunks of betel-nut palms. With each step, the sound of drums grew louder, that jungle rhythm that can awaken the same primal instincts that reveal their sensuality to the repetitive chant of a camp meeting preacher. A slow beat, tum teetee, tum teetee, tum teetee tum, quickening to a fast tum tee-tum tee-tum tee-tum. Light glimmered off glistening shoulders, bodies moved and swayed like shaggy pillows dyed in every color of the rainbow. Musicians were beating hourglass-shaped drums.

Then, with a sharp intake of breath, I understood what those swaying pillow-like things were. They were headdresses... Headdresses made from bird of paradise feathers, with hundreds of those beautiful plumes cascading and glowing in every voluminous hairstyle. Parrot feathers—blue, vibrant green, and deep red—highlighted the otherworldly colors, while cassowary feathers were arranged into tall crowns resembling shimmering bundles of wheat...

Men and women danced in two close lines, facing each other. Their mouths were stained red from betel nut, and their eyes were glazed over with intoxication. Golden skin shimmered through vibrant stripes of flashy paint on their hips, and golden breasts peeked through showers of bright shells. However, this wasn’t a blatant display. Each man faced his woman, and if he touched her, it was done according to the traditions; their emotions were never publicly displayed. The bright skin and delicate bodies showcased the Polynesian heritage that gives the Motuan a tendency to laugh and indulge with every change of the moon. Melanesian women do the household chores while their men flaunt all the feathers. But the Polynesian wife is no one’s subordinate.

Slim-waisted, straight, barely dressed, more attractive than grotesque in their paint, each man had his girl in front of him. Her arms and ankles were adorned with colorful shells that jingled with every suggestive movement. It was sensuality shown through grace and rhythm. Under the smallest of grass skirts, women’s hips swayed with casual elegance as couples moved in a unique shuffling dance—her hips retreating, his advancing: the struggle of desire, with the male always chasing, the female constantly fleeing, yet enticing him with every charm she could muster.

A voice said, “It’s what Yankees call a Marathon dance. The people of Tsiria are going head-to-head with the people of Pinapuka. It’ll last until they collapse—into each other’s arms, a lot of them.” I looked around to see Ron Orr, my inspector, who had been moving along the coast. “Watch that couple,” he said. A man and girl disappeared under the shadowy palms. “They might come back after a bit. During the Marathons here, it’s common for a guy to take whoever he likes. But only during this set time. If they forget and break the rule, it’s just tough luck. Sometimes a married guy loses his mind and takes his ‘mary’ away for a weekend that turns into a month. Then things get messy for the District Officer.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Well, Connelly’s heading up into the hills tomorrow after a group of murderers,” Ron said. “That’s the kind of trouble.”

There were no priests around to judge the pagan show negatively. Protestant missionaries, whether Wesleyan or from the Church of England, might have interrupted the event, dressed the women in long gowns, and sent them home to reflect on their faith—and hide their sins. The people of Tsiria probably weren’t among the Sacred Heart’s 8,000 converts; and if that was the case, the Catholic Church, with its mix of discipline and tolerance, would wait patiently before bringing them into the fold. The people would still dance, perhaps with some restraint during their wild moments—but they would still dance.

Night continued, and the drums got louder. Everyone was chewing the betel nut that locals can get high on. My good boy Ahuia was chewing it, and his eyes were like fiery coals as he drooled red and stared eagerly at the dancers. I gave him a playful smack on the arm to snap him out of it. We were heading to the mountains tomorrow, and I didn’t want Ahuia to lose himself in the moment.

******

Next afternoon, as a struggling whaleboat carried us across the narrow channel toward the looming mainland, I felt a strange comfort in thinking that Brother Heinrich had secretly sized me up for a coffin, which he’d have to use on someone else of my height and weight. I might as well say it now: I’ve been the undertaker’s disappointment in twenty-one years of wandering around down there. Honestly, I’m afraid I’m not exactly what Hollywood is looking for.

Connelly and I, sitting in our whaleboat, were off on a murder hunt; he was after the human kind of killer, while I was after the assassin-worm that each year took out more locals than cannibal wars could in a generation. The distant mainland faded into a network of Papuan swamps; we continued to navigate up Ethel River, looking for Bioto Creek, a needle in a haystack of towering tropical grass. Bloodthirsty mosquitoes greeted us; we could find the sorry town of Bioto, if we could see it through that buzzing swarm.

Connelly had elaborated on a number of gruesome things that the Fathers had told me. Somewhere along this coast was the Pacific’s only native educational institution, a School of Poisoners, in the remarkably stinky village of Mou. Puri-puri men graduated with honors and knew about arsenic and strychnine to the last dying gasp. They were skilled in “dead-man’s-poison,” which involved a spearhead dipped into a rotting corpse; they delivered toxic applications by stabbing spears through a floor to hit the sleeper on his mat. If the natives built their houses on stilts to keep out evil spirits, the puri-puri men would crawl underneath and stab them from below; if they built on the ground, the first malevolent ghost that came along would walk in and cause havoc. They were stuck between the devil and the deep blue spear.

[Pg 45]

Postgraduates from the Mou school had a specialty that required a lot of study, and they took pride in it. It was the snake-in-bamboo trick, done like this: First, get on good terms with a certain venomous yellow-striped snake and train it to hide inside a hollow bamboo stick; then look for a client who wants someone killed. When the time comes, put your poisonous pet into a heated earthen jar; work it up into a frenzy; throw in scraps of clothing or body parts from the intended victim. The agitated snake confuses these things with the source of its pain, so it’s ready, it has the scent. Put it back in the bamboo and let it loose on the usual route of the person who is about to die. The snake, like the elephant, never forgets, according to Connelly and Father Gerbout. By scent, it can identify its target from a distance on the trail.

As we fought our way through the mosquitoes defending Bioto Creek, the District Officer pointed toward the mountains. The Kuni people were up there—little troublemakers, they’d rather cook a man than fry an egg. The Government keeps them in line a bit, Connelly said, and the priests have managed to civilize a few. But never turn your back on a Kuni.

Bioto, when we discovered it, was a rundown collection of huts. Initially, we didn’t see any living creatures except for mosquitoes, then crocodiles, lounging in the stream or soaking up the sun on the mudbanks. All along the Ethel River, we’d counted them by the half-dozen, too bold and too lazy to move off the sandbanks when we got within thirty feet. Bioto was nearly a ghost town because of the mosquitoes. D’Albertis, an early Italian explorer, was the first white man to spend the night here; after just one night, he told his confessor that he wasn’t scared of going to hell.

At last, a few skinny locals, wearing nothing but a layer of mud, wandered in. Their leader gave a sad speech, but the message was pretty positive. We shouldn’t stress; we’d have our forty-seven carriers in the morning. He said this quite dramatically, as if delivering bad news. The pesky mosquitoes made their way through the netting when we crawled underneath for shelter. Even Ahuia, while cooking our dinner, seemed down and disheartened. He took out his frustration by throwing a can at a baby crocodile under our house.

[Pg 46]

Morning arrived hot and bright; the chief was back with a mixed group of naked people. I saw Connelly pacing back and forth, instructing the interpreter to say rude things to the chief. “Call him a pig’s nipple—no, better play it down a bit—but ask him if he can’t count. I said forty-seven and he’s only brought twenty-three. Where's the rest of them?” There was some mysterious kind of native strike. Connelly ordered his police to search for the absentees. When we got to Kubuna Mission Station, he said he’d hold court and make those damn runaways work for me. And at Kubuna, that’s exactly what he did. The thirteen or so he sentenced may or may not have been the deserters, but they were with me for the rest of that strange month.

We left most of our gear with the corporal's policeman and pushed through reed grass so tall that it arched over our heads. It was stifling between those swishing walls, but we were glad to be rid of Bioto. I’m not sure whether Ahuia or I was happier to leave. The priests of Yule had filled my head with crocodile stories. They said the beasts were bolder at night and had a nasty habit of putting their front paws on the sides of a canoe and snatching the first native who fell into the water. Once, a fifteen-footer, basking in the sun, had challenged Brother George, who was riding a bike. Brother George turned his wheel just in time and for a long while felt the monster’s breath puffing behind him. It was like Saint George and the dragon in modern clothes, except this time the dragon had the saint on the run.

Two hours in the scorching grass, then because we were in Papua, we had to climb 800 feet up a ridge and back down again before we could get to the knoll that was Father Rossier’s mission, surrounded by scattered wooden houses around the chapel’s simple cross. Father Rossier, kind, bearded, and dressed in khaki, showed us a small stream down in the glen that they had dammed to create a swimming pool. Connelly, Ron Orr, and I stripped down, joking that the last one in would be the loser. Then plop! Ron Orr jumped into the clear water—and was back out in record time, swearing quietly. Some idiot had left a log in there. Just look at how it had skinned his wrist. Yeah, his wrist was definitely skinned....

Slowly and lazily, a crocodile lifted itself and looked at us with cold green eyes. We chose to go to dinner a little dirty.

Around the mission table with its bare boards and simple dishes[Pg 47], we were grateful to be among French people; they could have grilled the crocodile from their pool and made it taste like filet mignon. In the kitchen were two Sisters who created Parisian delights using taro and yams and surprisingly good local asparagus. No canned goods here, everything was fresh, including a heart of palm salad enhanced with lime juice. There was some kind of gourmet pork, two types of birds, a rich, robust claret, and black coffee that was way too good to come from a French kitchen. The mission grew its own coffee, and the beans were ground hot from the oven every morning. By the way, chicory doesn’t grow well in Papua.

Sipping my share of Australian wine—and it can be good—I found myself thinking, “The Fathers really know how to live up here,” when I noticed that Father Rossier had diluted his wine down to a weak, pale version of what every Frenchman needs with his meals or else he might as well starve. They drank modestly because wine was expensive. They ate well—it only took effort to grow good crops. Following their money-saving approach, they smoked trade tobacco and had come to appreciate its strong kick. They politely declined our cigarettes.

Father Rossier gathered the people, and to a small audience, I gave a lantern-light lecture that Ahuia interpreted for an interpreter. When I spoke to the priests about their own issues and mentioned the low population, Father Rossier told me that it was slowly increasing. “And that's because we've discouraged cannibalism, infanticide, and abortions.”

I had heard many stories about some magical plant that the local women used to encourage race extinction. I guess I had a cynical smile on my face now. “Oh, but it’s true,” he said seriously. “I’ve seen it happen too many times.” He showed me some dried, curled leaves crushed in his hand. “Fortunately, European women don’t know about this.”

I asked him if he knew the connection between yaws and syphilis. These closely related diseases impact reproductive functions, making abortions more likely. The dry leaves that the witch doctors provide might have some mild effect, but they definitely wouldn't cause an abortion in a normally healthy woman, since modern medicine hasn't identified a non-toxic drug that can. I was developing my theory as I went along, but my later observations confirmed that it was accurate.

Next morning, the carriers Connelly had ordered to serve me[Pg 48] took on their loads while Ahuia was finishing up packing my bags. “Look, Taubada!” He held up my extra pair of shoes. One of the priests had spent the night nailing on new soles.

******

You read about tropical beauty and chuckle at the elaborate ways a writer tries to capture ecstasy on blank white paper. There are no words in our language too wild or exaggerated to explain that treacherous climb to the valley of Popo Popo. Milton would have shied away from it in his blind visions of Paradise, and De Quincey would have given up for lack of words and opium.

The region gets its name from a bird hidden in the jungle that cries, “Popo-popo-popo-popo,” a sound like a bell that creates a thrilling musical effect. Paradise, as we experienced it during those times of huffing and puffing, always brought joy to the mind but pain to the body. Thousands of feet up and thousands down, with barely enough space for a small house on any of the razor-sharp ridges. Down in a Valley of Eden, the “Popo-popo-popo-popo” echoed, welcoming us to the mission's resthouse somewhere in the sky.

Up through the massive lawyer-vine with trunks twisted thick and hard like a walking stick and flexible like a morning-glory; from their stems exotic orchids hung so abundantly that blossoms slapped your face as you pushed through the greenish twilight. Tree ferns were delicate like cobwebs. The trail was like a slippery staircase winding through a tunnel of opalescent gauze. Rain trickled over clothes soaked in sweat. Then a small clearing. An awful shriek—What was that? The air was filled with trailing plumes and angel wings, vibrant colors that you can’t believe, even when you see them. Birds of paradise, dozens and dozens of them, swirling off to the mysterious nests that no hunter-ornithologist has ever discovered.

With every hundred feet we climbed, we seemed to spot a new variety, decorated in white, pink, and gold. Even higher up were the rare blue ones, which they say are worth twenty-five pounds—if a hunter is brave enough to shoot protected wildlife. With every flap of their wings, there was that harsh, jarring “Caw-caw-caw.” My eyes were tired of all these wonders; I could feel the blisters oozing on my heels and the miserable dampness of my shirt. “Oh, just go away!” I scolded. “You’re nothing but a bunch of flashy crows.” We appreciate beauty best from a comfortable chair.

One afternoon, completely exhausted, we collapsed in the resthouse[Pg 49] 2,400 feet in the air. These resthouses are one of the many kindnesses that the priests have set up for their long journeys and for the comfort of travelers. Small bamboo huts are secured with combination locks; the Fathers give you the combination before you start your trip. The houses come with chairs and beds, spaced out to match a strong man's endurance for the day. No Alpine traveler stumbling upon a St. Bernard hospice could have felt more grateful than we did, sitting in real chairs while we treated the blisters on our heels with adhesive plaster. Tea revitalized us, and we gathered around the door.

We were above the clouds. High above them was a wild pattern of zigzag points and ridges. Everything was steep; there wasn’t even a bit of flat ground. Waterfalls poured down through the shiny jade and emerald landscape. People lose their minds in Papua. Why not? During the whole trip, we had pushed past cliffs filled with caves that were packed with orchids and draped in bright red begonias; birds of paradise danced in the slanted sunlight. Now that I'm older, retired, and have time to reflect, I question if I truly experienced it. This was not a place for humans. When I was a little kid, my mom would scare me by singing:—

We didn’t meet the little people until the day we climbed a higher ridge toward Dilava. Dark figures were moving toward us across a dangerous stretch of open ground. “They’re Kunis,” Connelly said. This might have given us a shiver, but these tiny people—the tallest was barely midget-sized—were unarmed and mostly women. They carried loads on their backs, supported by straps across their foreheads; baskets of vegetables, bundles of firewood stacked on top, and on top of that, a baby. The women were naked except for a G-string. They had cute, pretty faces; their bodies were odd distortions: strong thighs, short legs, pigeon-like breasts, sway backs. Their feet were even stranger, with toes that spread out like the claws of gripping birds. The few men with them shared the same unusual features and wore the same G-string.

[Pg 50]

They made gestures toward their heavy loads and indicated that they had come to sell vegetables, not to eat us. I observed them and discovered the reason for their unusual shapes. The Kuni people avoid the winding paths that other tribes use. When they climb a hill, they go straight up and down the other side. The constant strain of walking on hills has misaligned their entire skeletal structure. When I saw them walking across one of the few flat areas in the region, I was struck by their awkward waddling. But put them on a mountainside, and they move quickly like goats. They are fascinating for those studying evolution; it shows how environment affects physical traits. I wonder if their babies are born like that?

During our final day approaching this amazing Kuni country, some of the trails were barely visible as tiny grooves across the mountain tops that were almost vertical cliffs. The soil that did exist on the surface felt slick when wet, and the slightest slip could turn into a slide, leading to a dizzying fall into the thick fog below. The mountains had a knack for suddenly dropping into deep ravines, plunging a thousand feet down to the rushing river.

At last, we spotted the Dilava mission station, resembling a bunch of birdhouses stuck to the cliffs. It sat on a patch of ground that the priests had blasted off the peak. Once we caught our breath after climbing up and our exhausted bearers collapsed beside their loads, we could gaze over multiple mountain ranges, all the way to Mount Yule and Mount St. Mary—perhaps 100 miles away, rising 12,000 feet into the peaceful evening like majestic queens, wearing cloaks of mist that billowed from the deep valleys.

(Note from my diary: “If I stay here a week longer I’ll go crazy and start writing poetry.”)

Father Chabot had just come back from the valley, where they were setting up a sawmill. He pointed down the slopes where small square gardens dotted the landscape like colorful rags. Naked Kuni people, having forgotten the days when they consumed human flesh, worked diligently among their growing vegetables. “It’s good for them to work,” Father Chabot said, echoing the old monkish saying, Laborare est orare.

It was time to call everyone for the lecture, so Father Chabot sent messengers to different high spots around the ravines. They shouted from cliff to cliff—loud, echoing calls: “Come to the mission station! The Doctor is at the mission station!” Nature’s telephone, linked up by the quickest route, took hours to bring the people in; they had to take longer paths because the cliffs were too steep for even Kuni feet to climb.

Father Chabot said something very similar to what Father Rossier had mentioned at the station below. “Before the mission arrived, this area had shrunk to less than two thousand people. The Kunis would have vanished if we hadn't put a stop to cannibalism, infanticide, and abortion.” I started to wonder if the good priests might be deluding themselves. Abortion and infanticide can decrease a population, but cannibalism and constant tribal warfare might actually have some twisted benefits. They keep the tribes separated. Warfare acts like a rough form of quarantine. When there’s peace, strangers come and go, bringing diseases with them. Native populations don’t die off due to their own harmful practices, but because of illnesses introduced from outside.

Lecturing that night, something caught my attention and gave my audience a slightly ridiculous look: several small pigs were following the women like affectionate little lap dogs. When the women sat down, the pigs jumped into their laps. And what in the world was that one doing? I paused my talk to take a closer look—one of the women was cradling her pig and nursing it at her breast. A second woman was doing the same, and a third. This might have required some explanation, but the reason was purely economic. A sow had died during childbirth, leaving behind an orphaned litter.

Taller, darker people who came in for the second lecture—we gave three that night—were just as intriguing to me as the pig-nursing women. The young guys were wearing corsets, tight straps made of bark that shaped them into the perfect hourglass figure. I asked Father Chabot if these were effeminate men, and he chuckled, “The guys in this tribe never do a lick of work—the women are the ones in the fields. Well, if a woman sees a man with a particularly small belly, she says, ‘He doesn’t eat much. He should be easy to support.’ But he takes off his corset the day they get married—and she keeps on working.”

I had to switch carriers again before we headed to Deva Deva. There was no point in arguing; these guys knew there was some serious bad magic over the mountains. I paid them off with three sticks of trade tobacco each. But the thirteen who had run away and were caught again stuck by me faithfully. They had no choice. Before Connelly[Pg 52] moved on, he said, “Keep that bag of salt close. From now on, trade tobacco isn’t worth anything.” Everywhere I went, I saw people rushing for salt. They'd mix it with water, making it rank, and drink it like lemonade. Whenever I handed out a spoonful as payment, there were always kids trying to reach up, hoping I'd spill some. The priests of Yule had warned me not to be too generous with the valuable stuff. I could start a high-price craze. A Kuni, Mondo, or Mafulu man with his own bag of salt could live like a millionaire. They say these mountain folks drink themselves sick with seawater whenever they can. But the Government has banned recruiting them for labor; most of the few who ever made it to the coast died from malaria.

The high-price epidemic had already hit Deva Deva. For a mix of food that included sweet potatoes, yams, taro, pumpkins, bananas, sugar cane, pawpaws, and two chickens, they unreasonably asked for two tablespoons of salt. That wasn’t right. Last year, the price had been one teaspoon, and I was happy to pay it. They were getting spoiled. But if they had known, I would have gladly traded bushels of solid brine for one of the delicious okari nuts that they usually included as a bonus. These things, in the husk, are as big as lemons; crack them open and you have something the size and shape of a cigar, with the flavor of an almond, only twice as good.

All along the rough path, I tried to look into the recent outbreaks of dysentery. The germs were likely spread by flies to a significant degree; also, you could point fingers at the local custom of eating with dirty hands. Although soil pollution was common enough to cause a large hookworm infection, there was also pollution in the streams, since, like many other Melanesians, the mountain people stand in the water to do their business; otherwise, they say, the puri-puri man will collect some of their waste for his black magic.

While handing out tins to the villagers, I came across a shyness that was new to me. They didn’t have any prejudice or taboo against our form of examination, but when Ahuia asked someone what name should be written on his specimen, he would smile nervously, fidget, and shut up like a clam. Ahuia told me grimly, “He’s ashamed to say his name.” Eventually, he would manage to coax the shy one into whispering his name to his neighbor, who passed it on, whispering. In the land of ghosts, frightened people will change their names, often two or three times, to trick the evil spirits of their deceased relatives who come searching in the dark. Fearful villagers have so many aliases that they can’t remember the last one if asked suddenly. I spent a lot of time trying to get the name out of one blushing warrior. Finally, a mission boy shouted, “Oh, Joni!” (meaning Johnnie)—and the man stepped forward.[Pg 53]

I found the Kunis more than willing to listen and follow instructions. They firmly believed in the “snake in the belly” theory, and we were magicians there to help them with their discomfort. They mentioned old women who could take out the snake by sucking it from your ears, nose, or belly button. Did anyone ever see the snakes? No, Taubada, that kind of magic only removed “the ghost of a snake”—and the serpent was so taboo that you would definitely die if you even glanced at it as it slithered out of you.

Jokingly, one of the Sacred Heart priests said that the witches were competing with the Rockefeller Foundation. That sounded funny, but I found out it was true.

******

Ahuia told me that a magician was coming to a house “over there” and had asked for me to watch him cure a woman of her snake. It was like a request for a medical consultation. The house over there was a leaf-thatched hut, eerie with dim lights through the mountain darkness. Among the branches, strange birds croaked like frogs.

Inside the dirt-floored room, illuminated by a hurricane lantern, a naked woman lay on her back. Her belly was swollen; it looked like a gastric issue caused by intestinal parasites. There were other onlookers, men in the ubiquitous G-string, including the local black constable whose help I might need. A heavy silence filled the air, broken only by the woman’s labored breathing.

A small, aged man entered quietly. He wasn’t wearing any makeup or feathers, and he carried himself like a professional, as if he was ready to put on rubber gloves and give a lecture on surgery. A young boy followed him with a clay pot and a basket, placing them next to where the woman was lying. The witch doctor got straight to work, striking a match and tossing it into the pot, his face illuminated by the red flame. He delicately reached into his basket and pulled out some dried leaves, which he sprinkled over the fire. The room filled with a fragrant smoke. He crouched down and began to chant. Even though he was using an incredibly strange language, his voice sounded thick, as if he was speaking with a mouthful of yams. Suddenly, he jumped to his feet, went over to the patient, and pressed his mouth tightly against her navel. A series of sucking noises followed. He lifted his head, and a small brown snake fell out of his mouth. It slithered across her swollen abdomen before making its way to the floor.[Pg 54]

The wizard stood up and gave me a formal bow. “How was that, Doctor?” “Really good, Doctor,” my eyes responded. The local constable asked the woman how she was feeling now, and she said, “Oh, so much better!” Even in the low light, it was clear to see what the sorcerer had accomplished. It’s not difficult to carry a small snake in your mouth if you’re okay with following in Bosco's footsteps.

The next day, I was putting on my own magic show. We had stayed here long enough to give out chenopodium and Epsom salts and to clean the samples for observation. In the crowd, I spotted my rival doctor, and he spent a long time examining the slides. Finally, he walked away with a blank expression. Did he believe that my method was better than his? I doubt it. It takes a lot to change the mind of an old-school doctor.

******

I was shocked to discover that Dilava, Deva Deva, and Mafulu accounted for over 90 percent of infections. This challenged all my previous beliefs, but when I took a moment to reflect, it wasn’t as surprising. One carrier coming in from the outside could easily infect an entire village since these settlements were located on narrow ridges no more than twenty feet wide. In Okaka, for instance, there was hardly any space to move, and no effort was made toward sanitation. Here, when the locals left home, they all had to stick to the same path. They lived like animals, and like animals, they died.

If I were sentimental, I’d think of Father Fastre with a smile and a tear. He was the big priest who led Popolo Mission; he was all muscle, with a huge red beard like a rugged frontiersman. Sometimes a strange look would come into his eyes; because there is immense loneliness for a white man here, one that neither work nor prayer can completely drive away from a mind that mingles with spirits and grows more morbid each year. But Father Fastre had a sense of humor that I hope saved him.

[Pg 55]

When he first talked to me, he leaned his broad shoulders against the guest house porch and shared the story of the sacred G-string. The G-string isn’t just a revealing piece of clothing; in these mountains, it symbolizes a “true man.” With it, he earns respect, recognized as a tribesman in good standing; without it, he’s an outcast—he just isn’t dressed properly. With a kind of straightforwardness reminiscent of the Bible, they say of the G-string wearer, “He is a true man and belongs to the true people.”

Now Father Fastre and a colleague were the first white men to enter this Kuni country, and they were quite a spectacle because they wore their priestly robes, hoping to impress their faith on the locals. At Deva Deva, they were taken to a native house that was as private as a goldfish bowl; as soon as they entered, the short Kunis rushed in, chattering and staring at the strangers in their long skirts. After a moment of whispering, one of them sneaked up behind the priest, who had just leaned over to tie his shoelace. Cunningly, the little savage lifted Father Fastre’s robe, and was suddenly sent across the room by the Frenchman’s big fist. The atmosphere was charged. The onlookers were all armed killers. A heavy silence settled over the room. Then the crowd erupted into a fit of laughter.

“They were trying to find out if I was a guy,” Father Fastre grinned.

One afternoon, he told me to really pay attention to a native who was coming our way. “A few years back, he brought his little boy to our school, and we dressed him up for church in clean European clothes. When his father saw him, he went into a rage. ‘I want to take him home,’ he said, ‘he’s not dressed right.’ When I asked what was wrong with a nice white shirt and trousers, the man gasped, ‘But where’s his G-string?’ and made a huge scene. He wasn’t going to let the neighbors say his son wasn’t one of the True People.”

The Mafulu people divide the world into three groups: Missionaries, Belitans (British), and True People. Up here, crocodiles have been hunted at an altitude of 5,000 feet, and the locals “know their name.” True People have a frustrating habit of dismissing unfamiliar things. They simply say, “We do not know its name.” They have a word for salt, which is ama. They once ate it the way native traders from the coast sold it to them, mixed with sand. When white salt appeared, they “did not know its name”—but their craving for brine overwhelmed them, and they grew to love it. In their gardens, women are not allowed to plant yams because these are “true gardens,” and women are seen as too unclean to either plant or eat the valuable vegetable. They are allowed to plant taro, but yam planting and eating are reserved for True Men. It’s all very confusing and as absurd as some of our civilized customs. [Pg 56]

Ahuia never really fit in with these unfamiliar tribes. Father Fastre’s cheerful Mondos were stacking wood down below Popolo. On our first night there, Ahuia and Quai quietly approached my door. “Taubada,” they said, “we're scared, we want to sleep next to you.” Without saying anything more, they curled up on the floor and fell into a deep, peaceful sleep like the locals.

When I asked Father Fastre about this, he laughed. “My Mondo boys acted the same way last night. They wouldn’t come within a mile of your boys. You know why that is, right? Witchcraft. They ‘don’t know the name’ of strangers, and stay away from them because they’re afraid they’ll cast some kind of evil spell.”

Father Fastre could smile at evil spells, but Papua was getting to him. One night he stood in front of his mission and looked out over a curtain of moonlight. He seemed to be talking to himself. “Ten years ago, I could count ten thousand people along those hills. They’re gone. Sometimes I hear their voices.”

He told me that he often heard voices. I thought the Bishop should send him home for a while.

******

We were a hundred miles inland when I decided that the mountains ahead wouldn't bring any new health issues. We had enough hookworms for ten years. There were plenty of mosquitoes, but no malaria, even though the conditions were perfect for it. However, the Anopheles punctulatus from the coast hadn't moved this far inland. There were no enlarged spleens. The only logical conclusion was that malaria must have been recently introduced to Papua.

How Father Fastre’s big Mondo boys could sing! What a fantastic chorus of rich, deep voices—the only genuine native harmony singing I experienced in the South Pacific. In other tribes and on other islands, they often chant monotonously in unison or borrow sugary chords from mission hymnals and Tin Pan Alley. But here among the Mondos, their ballads and war songs were beautiful, soul-stirring pieces. One of the priests, Father Morin, who was a talented musician and a nobleman in France, tried unsuccessfully to write down these songs; he failed because the Mondo has quarter-notes that the European scale doesn’t recognize. But it’s true harmony—I say this despite what many learned anthropologists have concluded about there being no chords in primitive music. A group of naked Mondos, war dancing and swinging sticks as they used to swing spears, filling the air with their powerful notes, is a sound and a sight that fills the heart with thrilling fear.

They walked with me to their boundary, singing and holding my hands as we moved along. I could have done without the hand-holding because I had heard of a certain respected custom: two men hold the stranger's hands while a third sneaks up behind him with a club. But not these cheerful guys, who left me with a cheer and walked away, still singing.

When I left the melodic Mondos, my walk was brisk and confident. The priests had put a fresh set of hobnails in my shoes.

******

I have snake stories that bring back memories of that mountain trail. The last three feet of an anaconda were visible in the slippery mud; my foot barely missed him by an inch; if I hadn’t stopped abruptly with one leg in the air, he might have taken my life. Once, when I wandered a bit ahead of my carriers—they often thrashed around enough to scare off the gaigais—I felt a buzzing under my foot, and something hit my leg like a tack hammer. It was one of those deadly little striped guys that the puri-puri men train to bite. Luckily, I was wearing heavy leather puttees...

A crocodile waved goodbye to us at dusk as we drifted downriver in a flimsy canoe. We were floating along calmly when a local paddler pushed me flat. A scissor-like snout emerged, just a foot from where I had been sitting. It had been drawn in by my white shirt, which was an extremely tempting lure. Brother Heinrich might have ended up using my coffin after all.

We didn’t take the route through Bioto. I’d prefer to deal with one crocodile than a million mosquitoes. We headed over to the Aropiquina sawmill and grabbed a whaleboat for Yule Island.

******

Among the Yule priests, I found Brother Heinrich smiling through his disappointment. I was pretty worn out when the nice guys settled me into bed. Brother Heinrich had gotten my best heavy shoes and looked sadly at the soles when he talked about taking out the hobnails. In the morning, he returned them. He hadn’t just removed the hobnails. He’d completely resoled them, and done a beautiful job.

All that month of hiking, up to Mafulu and back again, the priests of the Sacred Heart treated me with simple kindnesses. They refused any payment and humbly brushed off my thanks. Even though I’m a hereditary Methodist, I see them as the best missionaries and the best hosts in New Guinea.

A Chapter on Contrasts

In Papua, even the driest statistician could easily fall into the storytelling style of Sinbad the Sailor. During the time of year that people back in Utica call “autumn,” I had traveled through vast areas of rugged mountains and marshy shores, trying my best to keep my statistical mindset in a place where census figures were as elusive as blowing chaff. Meanwhile, my field teams had been working all over the Territory, and the inspectors leading them were often out of touch for months at a time. Besides my research on hookworm, I was also tracking the progress of malaria, which is the deadliest threat in Melanesia.

Field technique might seem repetitive to the reader since it involves conducting the same tests repeatedly and then moving on to continue this process in another tribe or village. But it was never boring for me.

******

Compare the mountains of Mafulu with the charming little village of Gaile, which is only about twenty-five miles from Port Moresby. The people of Gaile lived in a Venetian-style, with their houses on stilts over the water. They were gentle, hardworking, and generous Motuans, with no dark past to speak of. As an invading maritime group, they built over the water to escape their fierce enemies; the water had always been a blessing for them, as it carried away the waste that causes so many worms and germs. I remember Gaile as one of the very few truly relaxing places I've visited in the Pacific. There were no serious diseases to worry about.

Then, since I’m focusing on comparisons, let’s check out Tepusilia, just a few miles away. My whaleboat got stuck there on the way to Gaile; otherwise, I wouldn’t have seen the row of dirty chicken coops that leaned awkwardly over the inlet. I didn’t have much time to investigate their situation, but I noticed the residents were covered in tropical ringworm that had turned their skin into a brownish crêpe. But there[Pg 60] was no hookworm because they relieved themselves in the sea, like the people of Gaile did. A few miles inland, where the folks had no access to the water, ankylostomiasis was very common.

I can’t mention Tepusilia without bringing up the lone policeman there. Since his house was the only clean one, I was happy to sleep in it. He sat in a chair that was barely big enough for Shirley Temple and kept me awake with a nonstop stream of questions. How had the World War ended? (Just so you know, it was 1920.) Sleepily, I told him that Britannia still ruled the waves, and he seemed surprised. He mentioned that he had done his time in Port Moresby jail and had come out well-educated. Then he looked at my chin with a hint of longing and asked if I shaved with a razor. “Yes,” I said, “don’t you?” “No,” he replied, “I shave with a shark’s tooth.” He showed me the shark’s tooth and asked if I could give him a real razor, a nice sharp one. The topic was getting a bit dark, so I sat up and asked him what he had gone to jail for. “Oh,” he sighed, “I was falsely accused of killing a man. Taubada, do you think you can give me a razor?” “No,” I said softly and turned my face to the wall.

******

From pleasant Gaile, I followed the path of the lakatoi for 700 miles across the Gulf of Papua into the land of the Goaribari tribes. The lakatoi was already becoming rare. For generations, the watermen in the Motu district had been constructing these massive vessels, consisting of five to ten long canoes tied together and topped with a platform that could hold living space for about twenty men. Every spring, when the wind blew northwest, Motuan traders would carry a load of pots and jars to the miserable Purari Delta and trade them for logs and sago. They would stay until Christmas, when the hot monsoon would allow them to sail home again. During the trading season, there was a truce between the peaceful Motuans and the man-eating Goaribaris. The annual journeys in these raft-ships were among the most fascinating experiences for a Polynesian traveler.

I’m ready to assist you with modernizing text! Please provide the phrases you would like me to work on.

Unromantically, I crossed the Gulf on a chugging steamer and arrived in the harsh land of awful people. I was there on public health business; Kenny Fooks had been surveying the Delta region for months, and he seemed so lost to me that he could have been swallowed by the thick mud. The Delta is battered by rivers that dump mud upon mud or create shifting sandbanks that wallow and smell like dead sea creatures. As I stepped ashore with Ahuia, long-nosed faces stared at us hungrily. These were the same type of Goaribaris I had seen on the plantations, but dirtier and skinnier. You might picture cannibals as fierce, tiger-like men, but these looked more like jackals.

I was intrigued by something oddly inhuman that wiggled from the behinds of the strange guys. The old men around Port Moresby told me that Goaribaris grew tails as long as monkey tails and let them hang down through holes drilled in their floors. The way to catch a Goaribari was to sneak under the house, tie a knot in his tail, then go up top and grab him whenever you wanted. Unfortunately, this story is just another nature myth. What this Delta savage wears at the back of his breechclout probably inspired the tale. It’s a sort of dangling piece, not unlike a horse’s tail, and with his long hair styled in mud-caked ringlets, it enhances his somewhat demonic appearance.

The usual nude policeman, marked by a cap and an entirely empty cartridge belt, informed Ahuia that the house where we would sleep was in Dopima, where the famous missionary martyr, James Chalmers, was killed in 1901. But our policeman confidently assured us that we shouldn’t be afraid now because the government took care of everything. The house was built up high on stilts to keep out the evil spirits. A sickly-looking local stood at the bottom of the ladder, waiting hopefully. In the background were a group of the most repulsive women I’ve ever seen. Their breasts drooped like empty bags, their greasy black faces twisted into an animal-like expression—a picture of lost femininity.

Kenny asked the cop to go tell the guy that it wasn’t cool to approach white men. I looked at Kenny’s dirty legs and pointed out that he was asking for hookworms. “Asking for them? They accepted the invitation weeks ago, and I’m sick of chenopodium and salts. I had twenty-six of the little pests—Necators, of course. You’ve got to go barefoot in this damn country or you’ll get dragged under, feet-first.”

The common name for these Delta people is Goaribari, but there are actually several related tribes, many of which are somewhat more advanced. They’re named after their main or central village—like the Kaimares, for example. The Kaimares are much better at building, but they don’t benefit from over-water sanitation and live without anything like a latrine. The hookworm problem[Pg 62] was probably less widespread in the past, during the times of unrestrained cannibalism and warfare. Even when I looked at different areas and compared notes with Kenny Fooks, I found some places were infested with worms while others were relatively clean. It seemed to be spreading, I could say. The Goaribaris no longer hunt each other openly, and they do a lot of visiting.

A village has three houses, one of which is 100 to 150 yards long and 30 yards wide. These are “crocodile houses”; the main entrance is a wide mouth, and the back tapers to a long tail. A corridor runs through the entire length; small rooms open on either side in the simpler homes, and each room is enough for an entire family. The largest house serves as a kind of clubhouse where the men live and teach teenage boys the ways of Delta manhood. Inside this building, there’s a smaller door partway down the hallway; next to it, a niche holds an altar painted with the terrifying face of a devil-devil, and in front of it is an offering of human skulls.

I didn't really believe the gruesome stories about women’s dismembered bodies being sold around the sandspits with parts offered to eager buyers. People said a lot about these unfortunate souls. As for cannibalism, the Government had executed so many for it that if they ever did eat “long-pig,” they must have held their feasts in extreme secrecy. Still, I saw the pile of skulls around the devil-devil altar. The interpreter told me they were “skulls of ancestors.” Maybe.... I could picture Missionary Chalmers, whose remains had been very difficult to find, according to one witness.

We were pretty defenseless. The guy in the cap and cartridge belt seemed to have a remarkable hold on the other locals. Along the path of publicity, he was like another P. T. Barnum. After his fireside chats, people would come sneaking in, in droves, gathering around the imported magician who could pull snakes from his belly. We didn’t collect many snakes since our job was to do microscopic examinations and figure out the infection rate. However, I managed to get 107 from a kid named Komo, and Kenny Fooks did even better. Now and then, as I scanned my thin audience, I would spot a guy with clear skin and good muscles; and I’d realize that he had just come back from indentured service on one of the plantations.

Kaimare houses looked more like crocodiles than the Goaribari jumbles. While exploring one of their larger buildings, I stumbled upon a kind of sanctuary, completely sealed off. As I tried to go through the door, my guides, who had been friendly until then, suddenly showed their teeth and tried to block my way. I pushed my way in; maybe my reputation as a magician saved me from getting rough handled. Then I jumped back. The room was full of crocodiles, big ones and little ones, on the floor and crawling up the walls. I blinked and realized what these things really were—woven from some sort of flexible reed, they were skillfully crafted. As I sighed in relief, I recalled some things Cushing, who lived among the Zuni Indians, had written: “Primitive peoples generally conceive of everything made ... as living ... a still sort of life, but as potent and aware nevertheless and as capable of functioning....”

There were more human skulls. I decided to leave.

******

In the Bamu country beyond, I saw the most disgusting people in all of Papua. The Bamus live in mud, and it seems like nature has designed them for their surroundings. They are as skinny and long as dead eels, and it looks like they are split right down to the breastbone so their stork-like legs can lift them out of the muck.

No white man can stay long in this devastated country without feeling a deep sense of depression and hopelessness for the less fortunate parts of humanity. It was a relief for my peace of mind one morning when our canoe glided into a deep estuary and I saw something that stood out like a flower garden in a city dump: a lakatoi from the Gaile region! A large one, with seven canoes, and a group of laughing, gesturing, trading Motu men busily dealing with the Delta people. The shore was bright with pots and jars, and the water was cluttered with logs that the locals had floated down from distant hills, hundreds of miles from Mudland. Such an unusual trade.

There was a festive vibe in the air. Even the Goaribaris twisted their jackal-like faces into smiles. I asked a Motu trader if he wasn’t getting tired of it all and didn’t he want to go home. He laughed and said, "Of course!" Soon the hot December wind would be blowing them homeward to fill their coconut sails and carry them clumsily back to their tidy little Venice. Then the long truce would be over, and the Goaribari would be his usual charming self again.

I was relieved when I finally left the Purari Delta. If my job had summoned me back, I would have gone, but not without secretly wishing for a cleaner, greener place. This is probably the worst spot that God ever created and didn’t quite finish.

******

I had been closely watching the main carrier of malaria, a female mosquito from the Anopheles punctulatus species, along with the various flies and mosquitoes I had been sending to Dr. Francis Root, a biologist at Johns Hopkins. Since quinine was the only known cure for malaria, I was quite insistent on instructing my inspectors to take their daily dose. I knew how delirious and incapacitated a white man could become from an attack in the jungle, and I made it clear to my young inspectors that I would not tolerate any negligence regarding quinine—five grains a day as a preventive measure, and at the first sign of symptoms, they should increase the dosage until the temperature returns to normal. Those were clear written orders.

Then, as I traveled down the coast during the last part of my Papuan adventure, I got malaria, despite taking large precautionary doses of quinine that the swamp and jungle conditions made necessary. I felt too miserable to laugh at myself when I arrived at the cozy little settlement on Samarai, the eastern tip of Papua’s tail. I was a sickly mess; everything looked yellow to me. The tidy British town was as pretty as a bride, but I was in no mood to celebrate. One of my inspectors, a new guy who had already proven to be useless, also showed up with malaria. I had to hold myself back from throwing him downstairs. Why? Because he hadn’t taken his quinine and let himself get sick. At the Widow Henderson’s hotel, the town’s only gathering place, I was ready for another fight. A one-armed planter and I sat in the barroom, the only place to talk, discussing a survey in his district when a dough-faced stranger poked his head between us and asked if the planter was afraid of him or something. Instead of brushing him off, I kicked over my chair and snapped back in common Australian: “Open your mouth to say one word and I’m on you, right now!” The stranger left. A couple of days later, the Widow Gofton, who ran the bar, said: “When that man gets tough around here now, I just say to him, ‘Look out, or I’ll call the Doctor.’”

I looked at Samarai with a critical eye, and my bitterness gave me a sort of negative strength during arguments. However, I was able to be diplomatic when I learned that Samarai was running a [Pg 65] City Beautiful campaign and didn’t want its view ruined by a row of over-water toilets. To the health officer, of course, that was ridiculous; Paradise could be lined with those charming little structures, and he would think it was perfect—at least, that’s what the art lovers seemed to suggest when I argued.

Swallowing my anger, I mixed architecture with diplomacy and came up with some charming palm-thatched sanctuaries to sit above the tide, with rustic bridges leading to them and clusters of croton bushes for privacy. I became an engineer and designed plans for deep pits to be dug into the coral and filled with debris so that the materials would be gradually washed out to sea. I left too soon to see if my plan was carried out. It was just another argument between Hygeia and Mrs. Grundy. In these conflicts, Mrs. G. usually comes out on top.

******

The two fights in Samarai were more than balanced out by two lucky encounters. One night, I walked into Bob Whitten’s metal trading store and noticed a figure that seemed completely out of place amid the smelly hurricane lamps and stacks of canned goods. His sharp dinner suit gave him a sophisticated vibe that made me feel uneasy since I'd just come in from the field, looking like a mess of dirt and scratches. He turned to me with a weathered business face and a pair of gray eyes. “Are you Dr. Lambert?” he asked. I replied that I was. “I’m George Fulton,” he said. George Fulton was the head of the influential Lever Brothers company, which bought and sold islands, controlled supplies, and shipping across a vast ocean empire. He started firing off sharp, insightful questions at me, and I forgot all about his formal attire after one exciting revelation.

“Do you know anything about Rennell Island, Doctor?” I had heard a bit about it from a captain who said that nobody ever went ashore because they were afraid of the locals, and that there was nothing worth trading there.

George Fulton said: “It’s just off the blue-black Solomons, but the people aren’t black. Nobody knows what they actually are. They’re primitive like monkeys, but also quite advanced as humans. They sleep in caves, worship an invisible god, and have traditions that might be either Polynesian or Caucasian. Since the arrival of white people in the Pacific, no landing party has made it past the beach on Rennell. They simply won’t let outsiders inside. Why? Maybe they’re trying to protect themselves from foreign diseases, or maybe it’s the same old taboo. For ages, they’ve been nearly untouched. [Pg 66]”

“Missionaries tried this recently, and three of them got hit on the head. I know more about this island than most people. It’s like a lost world, with steep cliffs all around it and one small beach that’s protected by a reef. Last year, we were short on workers and thought we could recruit some of the men. They’re strong, good-looking guys—by the way, the women are really attractive. So, we managed to get a few laborers, bribed them with hatchets and jackknives. They’re obsessed with steel and iron. They carve things using shells.”

I asked what happened to the men he took away; I was worried he’d stop talking and join someone at a bridge table, but he said:

“Around the Solomons, we would drop a few of them off here and there to work on the plantations. Before we could lift the anchor, they would jump into the sea and swim back to the ship. Eventually, we gave up and brought the survivors home. Interesting people? Absolutely! They’re not castaways or newcomers. They’ve been there since the beginning of time. They might be worth a scientist’s attention.”

He stepped back, but I nearly tripped him. “Mr. Fulton, if they are an untouched people, they must be free from imported diseases. I’ve pretty much concluded that the natives are dying from the worms and germs that white people, Asians, and friendly tribes bring in.” He nodded approvingly, and I continued, “It would be extremely valuable for me, and for the world too, if I could study these Rennellese. Hookworm, for example... If they have it at all, it might be a variant we’ve never encountered...”

“Well, Doctor—someday when one of our boats comes your way....”

George Fulton was a total business mogul. I made up my mind not to let him forget his offer, so for six months, I flooded his Australian office with reminder letters. Eventually, my persistence paid off—though the results were a mixed bag.

******

The young inspector I had deemed lazy and suffering from malaria, and subsequently removed from my team, was supposed to survey the Trobriand Islands, a few days' sail to the north. Due to the lack of help, I had no choice but to deal with my headache, grab some quinine, and take on the task myself. However, in the South Pacific, you can't just buy a ticket and jump on a boat. You have to wait around for something to come up. In this situation, that something was the amazing little cutter Bomada, co-owned by a professional butterfly collector and a rugged planter-adventurer named Bob Bunting. The butterfly collector had a German name and looked somewhat Chinese. Bob Bunting was quite a taskmaster when he ran plantations; if local workers collapsed from witch doctor curses, he would revive them with a bullwhip. People like Bob manage to endure in the tropics.

So we were off in the crazy craft, which quickly broke down in a wet, drizzly rain. And that was where I had another nice encounter. Out of the hazy mist appeared a whaleboat, being rowed steadily. A wonderfully American voice shouted, “Hey, can I help you guys?” A young man jumped aboard; almost before he spoke again, I thought, “I just got rid of someone useless, and there’s the guy to take his spot.”

His name, he said, was Byron Beach. Excitedly, he jumped into his whaleboat and returned with a stack of old Saturday Evening Post magazines and Theodore Roosevelt’s book on the “River of Doubt.” American spirit was apparent in him. He had graduated from one of the top New England prep schools, then when the war started, he chose to “travel.” He might have been a conscientious objector, but Byron Beach was no slacker. His boldness and quick thinking in a later adventure showed that.

Bob Bunting, who was well-connected, accused him of being too eager for the Milne Bay traders; they were teaming up against him. Beach had been out gathering copra and had bought so much right under the noses of competitors that local dealers were vowing revenge. An ambitious guy. When the old engine started up again, I said, “Beach, if they make things too difficult for you here, why not join my team?” His youthful face lit up with excitement. “Wow, Doctor, that would be awesome!”

I was worried that would be the last time I’d ever see him.

******

Our breakdown at Dobu gave us a view of the geyser field at Seymour Bay, which is similar to Yellowstone. The biggest geyser is Seo-seo-kuna, which roars like a hundred zoos. Next to one of the boiling pools, I saw a group of locals kneeling in reverence. Ah, this would be something to witness; the primitive heart humbled before some powerful goddess of fire and water.... When I got[Pg 68] closer, I quickly realized what they were doing. They were cooking yams.

Probably they did say a little prayer to their gods—if the missionary wasn’t watching. Informal paganism is common everywhere in the Christianized Pacific. When choosing my local helpers, I often turned down the boys trained by the mission, as they were too often lazy, dishonest, and hypocritical. “Him Mission” meant “He’s a Christian,” and it was a term of disdain.

I don’t underestimate the work of missionaries, especially the best among them; I’ve known many who faced their challenges with a positive attitude on the small amounts given by Foreign Boards. They chose a life that was incredibly tough and poorly compensated, which could have easily led to less admirable traits than the kindness they showed me. But the era of great missioners like Chalmers and Brown, who battled and lost their lives amidst brutal savagery, has come to an end.

The man of God down there, when he sought personal gain, typically invested in his wife’s name and took advantage of special concessions given by the Government for legitimate mission work; or he used funds from generous Christian donation plates at home. Professional traders had every right to complain about unfair competition in the labor market, as business missions often obtained labor for free under a forced “donation” system. Among the missions that were transparent were the Catholics, who were used to relying on support from Europe; but when the war of 1914 broke out, that support was cut off. They faced the reality bravely and contributed their share to support themselves. The results of this effort were returned to the locals, through a thoughtful attempt to improve their situation. However, too often, the missionaries were lost in a dream of heavenly perfection, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, smelling nothing. It was refreshing to meet one with an honest mindset, who could fairly rationalize his ideals....

Our boat Bomada had broken down for good in one of the Trobriands’ beautiful lagoons, which seemed to reflect the color of the pearls lying beneath the surface. I felt like the Bomada had crushed all the noble feelings in my heart. Particularly on that rainy day when we tried to raise the sail and watched the dilapidated vessel—neglected for two years—fall apart in the first gust of wind. Now, I was enjoying afternoon tea in the lovely garden of a kind missionary. The beautifully shaped native girls serving us wore simple clothing, just short fiber skirts. The only embarrassed person there was the missionary’s wife, who kept exclaiming, “Isn’t it disgusting, Doctor!” Her husband, who had come to the ministry from Oxford, had taught these people about hygiene and proper living. He had educated them on many things they needed to navigate the challenges of European civilization. On purely scientific grounds, he opposed the missionary practice (supported by traders) of dressing the women in clothes that caused disease.

I asked this wise messenger of Christ, “How many converts, in our sense of the word, have you made here?” He rubbed his tired forehead and replied, “Doctor, not one in twenty years.” I respected him for that and was sure that he had outdone many so-called “civilizers.” He was human, and he understood humanity.

He was a refreshing change from at least one wealthy Christian who had hosted me in Samarai. He “taught” the locals how to collect nuts, cut copra, and build boats. His impressive house and abundant land showed how much he had gained from his teachings. If he ever tried to civilize the people, it wasn’t obvious. Aside from the lone missionary who genuinely felt hopeless about converting anyone, there didn’t seem to be any effort to teach the locals English.

But there must have been one more exception at some point, because on a small Trobriand island a local boy spoke to me very formally: “Of course, sir, you will experience better weather for the rest of your journey.” Surprised, I asked, “How did you learn to speak like that?” The boy replied, “My missionary taught me. Unfortunately, he passed away in a mental health facility. He had been unstable for quite some time.”

The Trobriands, a paradise of pearls and parrots, were enchanting. The rich soil outshined the rest of Papua, and the lovely lagoons were filled with fish and oysters—plus sharks. I won’t try to outshine a thousand travel writers in describing lagoons, but every time I rode an outrigger over one of those stunning crystal waters, I felt a sense of total peace and escape.

However, when you go for a medical inspection, it's best to leave romance at the door. I wish a group of Jack London fans had followed me through the local hospitals to witness the cases of venereal granuloma, a disease still referred to as “tropical.” I wish they had assisted[Pg 70] me in counting the cases of hospitalized gonorrhea and helped me estimate how widespread that disease is in villages and on plantations. I've heard sentimentalists claim that the islanders are morally similar to the ancient Greeks. Maybe that's true. But when Greek meets Greek, just look at what the doctor sees.

Dr. Bellamy, the District Medical Officer, took me to see the wreck of a sturdy Scotsman, who was once a wealthy pearl trader. When bad luck hit him with tropical ulcers, he had been in one position for so long that his joints fused together, and now he could only move on all fours. An unusual generosity for a Scot had led to his downfall. After marrying a local woman and having several children, he came to see the locals as his own people. When famine struck, he gave away everything to help feed those in need. His white friends warned him about the ingratitude of the locals, but by that time, it was too late. Sick and helpless, he didn’t realize how his wife and kids mocked him as they walked by. He had started chewing betel nuts because they were a cheaper pain relief than gin. Looking into his empty eye sockets filled me with shame for my race.

In the Trobriands, pearls were the stunning source of sickness and wrongdoing. Every shop had pearls for sale, and French buyers from jewelry companies in Paris came every year to negotiate deals. The government shielded local fishermen from the traders’ greed; most of the tales of avarice and betrayal featured white men or mixed-race individuals as the main characters.

There was a story about a British man who married a stunning mixed-race woman and had a collection of pearls he was excited to show off to the Parisians. His petite wife, who was French on her white side, was really into the fashionable short, tight corsets of the time. After her husband realized she had been showing off that corset all over the beach for the enjoyment of many, he did what white men often do under pressure. He killed himself. His wife vanished; so did his pearls. A couple of years later, the authorities found her in Sydney, living quite well. But oh, what an innocent little lady! She had inherited the money, and what were they blaming a poor, sick widow for? A Sherlock Holmes could have figured out how she snuck into the house right after his suicide, stuffed some rich handfuls of pearls inside her corset, and slipped away. The case was dropped; after all, she was the man’s legitimate widow.

I wrapped up this trip with a line or two in my notebook:—

[Pg 71]

To save some money, I gave Skipper Billy Carson of the Ruby enough gas to get me back to Samarai. When we came up from the beach, the Widow Henderson’s barroom piano was blasting out a music hall tune, and an American voice in the doorway said, “Hey, Doctor! Wow, it is the Doctor! I was just telling the guy in there that you’d completely forgotten about me. You are taking me with you, right?”

I picked up Byron Beach’s enthusiasm. I felt great again, determined that when I returned to Port Moresby, I’d continue with the Foundation for another campaign, or even a dozen. It really was great work after all, and I wasn’t going to let the tropics get the best of me.

After a nice dinner, I asked, “How many of us can sing?” Everyone could. We formed a male quartet, with Beach’s pleasant voice carrying the melody against Carson’s somber bass, my rough baritone, and the squeaky tenor of the young man at the piano—he was the one Byron Beach referred to as “the guy in there.” “Guy” is a fitting name for him. Alcohol didn’t affect his fingers on the keys, and he seemed to know the classic tunes, “I’ve been working on the railroad,” “I was see-eee-ing Nelly home,” and “Farewell, my own true love.” We were as happy as four men can be, creating beautiful harmony in the glow of an admiring bar. It got late when the guy at the piano slammed his fist on the keys and muttered, “That’s enough.” We had been singing about any little girl being a nice little girl.

I asked Beach what was wrong with him. He said, “Back from the war, living on booze. He’s actually a pretty nice guy.”

That night, the guy shot himself, but he didn't aim very well. I stayed with him long enough to tell him that alcohol isn't a good replacement for quinine. I later heard he sobered up and married a nice girl. I like to share a story with a happy ending. But Billy Carson, who sang bass for us, had a much darker conclusion. He married a wealthy mixed-race woman, and when he sent their kids to Australia for school, he discovered they were being labeled as “blackfellows.” One morning at the Samarai wharf, someone found a neat bundle of clothes. Billy was always very organized.

[Pg 72]

In our neat Port Moresby bungalow, feeling at ease with my beloved wife, whom I had spent too little time with during my restless months in Papua, I informed my superior, Dr. Sawyer from the Foundation, that I would take on a year-long survey of what some still referred to as German New Guinea. Sawyer replied, “Lambert, you’re definitely a tough guy to take down!”

My goodbye to Ahuia may provide a fitting ending scene. Eloisa, being the perfect housekeeper she is, always packed and unpacked my boxes while he watched. She would give him the keys; when we got back from the field, he would hand them back to her for a check. On this day of saying goodbye, the boy was as proud as a chancellor, delivering the keys. How could anything be missing? Hadn’t he worked for the best doctors in Papua and acted as the Governor’s assistant? And when he set out on his trips with me, hadn’t he blocked out the cries of his friends, who were screaming that he’d never come back alive?

Counting the laundry, Eloisa laughed. Mine was all there, plus a bunch of random shirts, socks, shorts, and tank tops. It wasn't worth it to ask him who he'd borrowed them from. Ahuia had conveniently forgotten.

When he was about to leave with my cash and tobacco bonus, he kept a tough look on his face, but there were tears in his eyes. Melanesians tend to cry pretty easily. Would he be able to serve the taubada again? He would really like to serve the taubada if he returns....

I was a bit harsh, pushing him out of the room. I didn’t want him to see that white guys can also cry. I would miss Ahuia.

******

So ended the Papuan chapter with some hard numbers. I had traveled 2,284 miles on foot and horseback, in cars, canoes, whaleboats, sailing boats, motorboats, and steamers. I covered fourteen miles in the quirky vehicles they call “track cars,” which are iron-wheeled, bone-jarring carts pushed by cannibal labor. Along with my inspectors, we had gone over 8,461 miles. My official report didn’t even include the few miles we swam when our canoes capsized. In villages and plantations, we examined tens of thousands of people. We recorded a total infection rate of 59.2 percent. We disproved an old theory that hookworm is spread from the plantations into the villages; our survey showed that the opposite was true.

The Papuan population was estimated by the government in 1920-21 to be around 300,000. However, based on the discoveries made by a few explorers in the remote mountains, the numbers were likely closer to 500,000. The estimate of 166,721 for New Guinea Territory was absurdly low; a more accurate figure would be about half a million. The vast Dutch part of the island probably had around another million people, but Dutch New Guinea wasn't part of my travel plans.

The tens of thousands we checked and the thousands we treated initially might just be a small drop in a vast ocean of disease. But the detailed guidance on treatment we provided to planters, officials, and missionaries (basically anyone dedicated to revitalizing a struggling population) could have been more crucial than anything else we accomplished. I hope that’s true. Month after month, we had been stressing to the white man the urgent need for pollution-proof sanitation solutions in situations that ranged from muddy swamp soil to solid rock.

WHERE NEW GUINEA IS NEW

Rounding the northern edge of the great island, you'll find the Territory of New Guinea, which was known as German New Guinea until 1914, when Australia took control. To clarify things briefly: the eastern half of the island is governed by Australia and is divided into Papua and the Territory. The western half (about half) is Dutch New Guinea. That was the situation in 1921. Maybe the horrors of World War II will change its geography again.

In May 1921, when I boarded the Melusia, heading for Rabaul, the capital, our decks and cabins were packed with seventy officials from the civil government, arriving to replace a military government that had a bad reputation. The newcomers were led by the Administrator, Brigadier-General Evan Alexander Wisdom, C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O., V.D., who was later honored by his King with additional titles and a knighthood. Despite this long list of titles, General Wisdom had a personality that matched his name well. He was an Australian Scot, a veteran of Gallipoli and the French campaign. I sensed that he was someone who could listen to reason and apply it thoughtfully. He would need all of that, as he was about to tackle a situation that would have baffled King Solomon.

The doctors he brought along for public health work were educated and capable, but inexperienced with tropical diseases. Colonel Honman, the new Chief Medical Officer, was another Aussie-Scot I couldn’t forget easily. A tough exterior but a soft heart, the only thing he knew about tropical medicine was what he had learned while being the personal physician to Prime Minister Billy Hughes. He wasn’t afraid of alcohol or much else. For seven months, I was going to be very close to Honman and come to appreciate him for his contrasting qualities.

Aboard the ship, as soon as I met him, he suggested that I give[Pg 75] them a talk on malaria. I thought that here on the Melusia, it might be useful for the incoming officials. That night, they gathered on the main deck, and I shared my experiences with the disease. I explained how the Anopheles punctulatus, whose female is more dangerous than the male, travels across the Pacific, accompanying people as they move from village to village and island to island. I told them about how I had run my fingers under the lower ribs of thousands of natives and felt the swollen spleen that tells the story. I covered a topic that the medical professionals present were familiar with from their studies—blackwater fever. This rapidly fatal disease gets its name from the dark color of bloody urine, which is caused by the breakdown of hemoglobin, and the bladder condition is referred to as hemoglobinuria.

I had come across very few real cases of blackwater fever, I told them. Even when it does happen, the patient is often dead before anyone realizes what it is. The condition, when it appears, is often caused by a careless use of quinine. People with malaria sometimes ignore the treatment for a couple of months, then take a handful all at once. And here, I seized the opportunity to emphasize my favorite point. I even had the nerve to quote a German: the world-famous Dr. Robert Koch visited New Guinea in 1910 and demonstrated, for the first time in medical history, that epidemic malaria can be reduced by quinine alone. Here, I wanted to make it clear that in fever-prone areas, regular moderate doses of quinine are an absolute must. Alcohol is not a substitute. If you ruin your health by downing a dozen bottles of beer daily or consistently drinking a quart of whisky, don’t complain about “blackwater fever.” A white person in the tropics can stay as healthy as in cooler climates, as long as they exercise and take care of themselves.

Wasn't it Kate Douglas Wiggin who said, "It's tough to be pleasant and educational at the same time"? Still, most of the doctors seemed to enjoy the discussion. I overheard one District Officer for the Admiralty saying, "This quinine stuff is all complete nonsense." Maybe I had crossed his biases. You can't mention quinine without stirring up some harsh criticisms.

******

In contrast to Papua’s dreary capital, I found Rabaul to be a tropical paradise: the streets were lined with flamboyant trees, royal palms, and coconut palms; betel-nut palms stood tall with slender trunks, showcasing their feathery tops just above clusters of fruit that resembled hothouse grapes; Indian laurels towered beautifully over flourishing fig trees. The Germans had drained all this land, gotten rid of the mosquitoes, and planted the groves; they had positioned Government House on a high point overlooking a stretch of water that could have been a Scottish lake.[Pg 76]

Rabaul was a really unstable Garden of Eden, both geologically and politically. Earthquakes popped up and disappeared with unpredictable frequency, and they were so common that every hotel, house, and office had heavy furniture secured to the walls. Otherwise, you might wake up one morning to find a large German wardrobe in your lap. Right in Rabaul’s port, Vulcan Island was particularly troublesome. The Reverend George Brown, the determined missionary, notes its beginnings back in 1878 when it filled the twenty-mile channel with pumice; thousands of cooked fish washed ashore, and large sea turtles had their shells turned to mush. The next major event was in 1937, when Vulcan buried the town under ash; after that, people started talking about moving the capital, but the colonial mindset turns fatalistic. It has to.

One morning in 1921, I saw some lumber that had been stacked on Vulcan scatter into the sea like a box of matches, and I watched the huge sheet-iron D.H. & P.G. store curl up like a dried leaf. After that, Eloisa and I decided that the next time there was a tremor, we would grab little Harriette and head for the hills.... And let’s not forget about two very mischievous “Shaker ladies,” two tall peaks about three miles from town on the mainland, officially named Mother and Daughter. On the night Vulcan was born, there was a volcanic rumble at the mouth of the Bay, and in the morning, Vulcan rose from the sea, jutting 600 feet out of the water and as dangerous as a newborn cobra. Vulcan is now commonly referred to as “The Bastard,” and that’s what he’ll be called until he decides to sink again.

******

Where Papua, with its estimated 500,000 natives, had five official medical professionals, New Guinea Territory, which had a similar population, had eight to ten government doctors to serve its needs. I found the hospital in Rabaul to be especially well-equipped, thanks to a retired German medical staff. The Australians had adopted a German approach. Well-trained orderlies, supervised by medical officers, were deployed to manage the smaller hospitals. These orderlies were referred to as “lik-lik doctors” or “small[Pg 77] doctors”—lik-lik means “little.” They had a strong sense of duty and were impressively skilled. During my visit, the natives were being trained in basic bandaging, treating wounds, and administering medicine; after that, they were given a uniform cap and lavalava and returned to their villages to apply their valuable knowledge. They held the title of “Tultul” and earned a salary of about a pound a year.

The Medical Tultul was a simple start to a significant system that was meant to grow. I had studied the mindset of the more advanced Melanesians and realized that they were far from foolish. I had observed the efforts of my top students in the field—men like Ahuia, for example. What other than racial bias hindered their education in medicine and their ability to practice among their own people, whose language and customs no white doctor would ever truly grasp?

Even back then, I heard about the more progressive Fiji Islands, where they had been providing some basic medical training to Melanesians for a while. Most of the South Pacific responded with a skeptical grin. In Papua, I suggested sending selected locals, guided by non-professionals, to treat yaws and hookworm across such a vast area that the few white doctors available were completely outnumbered. This plan was eventually put into action. In the Territory of New Guinea, I had even better luck; the grumpy old Colonel Honman trusted me enough to allow the experiment to start right away. The young men I selected and trained to use oil of chenopodium turned out to be surprisingly effective, given how little training they had.

Conditions we faced were similar to those in Papua, but the people were much closer to the Stone Age than most of the Papuan natives. Cannibalism was still practiced within forty miles of Rabaul. We had to be careful venturing into the bush, but we never carried firearms—except for Chris Kendrick, who encountered one or two situations where a pistol turned out to be a very useful tool.

New Guinea Territory was actually harder to manage at that time than it had been before the sudden political change in 1914. The coastal natives, who were more sophisticated than their jungle counterparts, were left confused about what had happened to the Germans, who had governed them fairly well, all things considered. The natives had been servants to the padroons and had come to appreciate them. So, who were these new white[Pg 78] men with a new set of laws that they didn’t seem capable of enforcing?

The military administration that started with World War I and lasted for seven years was a huge political mistake, as the smartest people in Australia realized right away; but what could be done about it until Billy Hughes's government back home chose a more realistic approach? The whole situation had the unpleasant feel of any abrupt political change.

Long before 1885, when the Kaiser’s Government officially took control of German New Guinea, its hardworking inhabitants had been cultivating the plantations. This wasn’t like the Sudetenland situation; the Germans were genuinely in charge. They were skilled planters who studied the soil in tropical conditions on this favored side of the large island. Their colonial treasury had a surplus; they expanded their land and became wealthy landowners; they lived in luxury. The Governor’s Palace in Rabaul (which the new military administration took over) was a great example of tropical architecture. They transformed a fever-ridden swamp into a malaria-free Rabaul.

In our time, Germany has committed so many offenses against civilization that noting an offense against Germany might be worthwhile. Its criminal actions had an impact on everyone involved, particularly on many young war veterans whom the Australian Government “rewarded” with free land grants.

I was settled in Rabaul and enjoying the generous privileges that Colonel Honman gave me in the nice German-made hospital when I learned some details about the military occupation, which a hardworking civil administration was now trying to move past. Everyone was talking about a scandal that reminded them of our own postwar days in the South. Seasoned old soldiers were expressing disdain for the “Coconut Anzacs” whom Australia, lacking better men, had sent to take over in 1914. The Coconut Anzacs mostly seemed to be guys who hadn’t gone to the real war for one reason or another—raw amateurs with no sense of discipline whatsoever. Military power led many to commit acts of cruelty and make the dumbest mistakes.

My bold young friend Byron Beach witnessed a shocking event. He volunteered as a medical officer for a punitive mission and was taken along. A group of Coconut Anzacs was sent to punish a native village accused of cannibalism. Led by a heavy-drinking officer, who was himself scared of the vulnerable, fearful cannibals, the troops surrounded a certain inland village to teach the locals a harsh lesson. They might have been quite drunk when they started shooting at everything in sight. Men were shot as they ran, and women and children were gunned down as they hid in trees. Beach saw the leader of the group put a pistol to the head of a girl lying flat on the ground.

And the next day, the commanding officer realized he had made a small mistake. He had attacked the wrong village.

Another expedition set out to check on a German anthropologist who lived alone in the wilderness. He had been there for years and had a method of locking his books and papers in his small house while he went off on research trips. When war broke out, he was so far from his home base that he didn’t get the news. During his absence, some overzealous patriots broke down his door, discovered piles of meticulously written papers, and burned them. They didn’t understand German, and the writing looked suspicious to them. When he returned, the scientist found his life’s work reduced to ashes. They say he lost his mind.

Maybe the new civilian government was too resentful, reflecting on the chaos caused by the military regime. There had been a lot of pointless sabotage. For example, they had destroyed the equipment at the large radio station. They claimed it was because it might be sending messages to Berlin. It never crossed the conquerors' minds that they could have saved these valuable items for their own use.

Now, what should be done with the German planters? Prime Minister Hughes’s Territorial Government was handling that. When I got settled in Rabaul in 1921, the situation was already chaotic, and it wasn’t Governor Wisdom’s fault, as he had to work with a policy that was already in place. The policy was simple: Encourage the hardworking Germans to improve their land with the promise that they could keep it. In 1921, something called an Expropriation Board showed up, called in the worried Germans, and gave them vouchers that allowed them to sell their property back to the Territory at their own valuation. However, when the Germans submitted these vouchers, the Territory’s Treasury Department paid them with orders on the German Government—to be used on Australia’s reparations claim!

Bankrupt Germans were selling their household items for whatever they could get. During my time in New Guinea, it was common to see ships leaving for Australia, loaded with paintings, rugs, and silverware.[Pg 80] The returning ships brought back the same old cargo: hard liquor and new groups of war veterans who would wander into the plantations, get sick, and head home.

Liquor and malaria, malaria and liquor—a dangerous cycle that had public health doctors concerned. These brave soldiers, who never wanted to hear the word “war” again, were following Billy Hughes’s advice: “Just go to New Guinea and find a nice plantation.” They had no idea how to eat, drink, or live in the tropics. There were many stories, both funny and sad. One soldier came back and was unceremoniously dropped on the beach, sent into the wilderness with little more than a case of canned beef, a case of mixed pickles, and six cases of beer. They were clueless about malaria. Experienced men told them, “Feeling shaky in the morning? Just down a shot of whisky or a bottle of beer, and you’ll be back to normal.” Totally inexperienced, they honestly believed that coconuts grew underground like potatoes or on vines like grapes. They went hungry, drank heavily, and allowed the locals to exploit their naivety. They took the widely promoted “fever cure” and eventually stumbled back to the returning ship—if they managed to make it at all.

I looked at the yearly import of alcoholic drinks—beer 102,204 gallons, spirits 7,534 gallons, wines 1,500 gallons, stout 1,056 gallons. This was meant to serve a European population of 1,265. The locals didn't drink, and you have to exclude the women, children, and missionaries.

******

I had barely settled in Rabaul when Colonel Honman started pushing me to take full control of the hospital. It was a flattering offer, but I initially turned it down. My medical team and I needed to make sense of the half million neglected locals we had come to study. But I will always remember the Colonel's morning visits to my house. A true soldier, he never complained, but I could tell he was struggling with "New Guinea fever"—in other words, he needed a boost. My neighbors had a habit of borrowing a bottle of whisky in the morning, returning it by noon, and borrowing it again at night. But Colonel Honman always took his drink right then and there. Without saying a word, I would give him the usual dose: a drinking glass filled one-third with gin and two-thirds with French and Italian vermouth. Straight as an arrow, he’d down it, smacking his lips satisfied over his double row of false teeth, and bellow, “We breed men in Australia!”[Pg 81]

He had a tough exterior, a kind heart, and a mindset that seemed unaffected by anything. We were already feeling for Governor Wisdom because he was taking on a scheme as crude as any created by union leaders in Brooklyn. It was the bird of paradise scheme—which might sound unbelievable, but it was real and had existed ever since the military administration made things worse for New Guinea. During German times, it was common for newcomers to hunt and sell enough birds to cover the cost of a plantation. But the new Territorial Government introduced a law to protect the birds. Like all bans, this attracted bootleggers who, like all bootleggers, were followed by hijackers. It was so easy to catch a bunch of birds and smuggle them across the Dutch border, where there were no hunting laws!—and it was very convenient for a Chinese trader to wait on the Dutch side and pay cash for the haul. Or you could sneak the feathered pelts into the hands of a ship’s steward. Stewards were getting rich; one of them even managed to race thoroughbreds on the track.

District Officers were deeply involved in poaching. One of them returned from the Dutch border with £10,000 in his pocket. He was heading to Sydney when he fell ill on the boat and had to be taken off in Cairns. A sympathetic friend offered to deliver the easy money to the invalid’s family. The “friend” was actually a hijacker, and he had planned a clever escape. The poacher died in the hospital.

District Officers were involved in many things that would have been unimaginable in Tammany Hall's philosophy. One of them brought back “blackbirding,” a form of old-fashioned slavery. He acquired a small island offshore, conducted raids on local people, held his prisoners there, and then sold them in bulk. When the supply of human beings ran low due to high demand, the official used his police powers to arrest more. Several subsequent District Officers participated in this profitable business. The military administration attempted to put a stop to it. There were some records, as the Keop (District Officer) always made the transactions appear very official. However, when the Military Governor requested these records, a helpful filing clerk admitted that they had been lost.

These problems were decreasing when Wisdom got involved, but he still ended up with quite a mess. Colonel Honman's main concern was the shortage of doctors knowledgeable in tropical medicine.[Pg 82] If I didn’t take over the hospital, he said, he’d have to enlist my help. Well, he eventually did.

******

My right and left hands, Bill Tully and Chris Kendrick, were still with me. Without those two, I could never have made it through Melanesia. Bill worked as a lab assistant and used his sharp eyes at the microscope to help out since mine weren’t very good. I also had Kenny Fooks, who was always up for a barefoot adventure in the swamps and had a constitution that kept him healthy even after months of tough conditions. Then there was young Byron Beach, who was an unpredictable source of energy. I had brought on two new inspectors, both very capable, whom I sent out with the other field teams. I took out a unit of my own. Together, we moved north and east over the large curve formed by New Britain and New Ireland; we traveled west under the Equator to Manus and the Admiralty Group; then west again to the small islands of Marou and Ninigo, Matty and Ana.

Chris Kendrick, through thick and thin—usually thin—stayed his quiet, dependable self. After spending long periods in the swamps, streams, and jungles, he’d come back smiling and drop off his neatly written reports, filled with a British talent for understatement. “Had to climb a cliff. Waited between jumps until the waves stopped crashing over it, then jumped again. Tricky business.” “Horse broke its leg on volcanic rock. Had to shoot him. Too bad, great animal.” “Had to use a lawyer vine stick on a Black assistant. First time I ever hit a local. The lik-lik doctor here brought me a boy who he said had beri-beri. Turned out to be a serious hookworm case. In 5 days, I counted 1,237 worms. Gave him another dose a week later. Chenopodium works slowly. Got only 25 on the first dose. The second one gave me 1,122. Score’s going up. Left the assistant in charge of the patient, told him to watch the stools. When I got back, I was annoyed to find that the fool had thrown everything away. Jungle housekeeping. I might have recovered 4,000 worms.” This made me let out a bitter laugh. Things like that have happened to us so often with poorly trained assistants.

When Chris was with me in New Britain, I saw him get seriously bitten—by a parrot, the pet of a Samoan wife of a German planter. Chris was busy making friends when the bird nipped him right on the nose. I took care of it, and Chris’s diary bluntly notes: “You never know what to expect down here.”

[Pg 83]

He quickly wrote down something that a chatty explorer could have expanded into an exciting chapter:—

One day while traveling, Kenny Fooks lost his cool and told a coastwise captain exactly what he thought of him. The captain retaliated by dumping Kenny on a sort of deserted island. He had nothing to do for weeks but count the few hookworms and write a weather report. Most of that diary said: “June 14, weather fine.” “June 21, weather still fine.” “July 1, weather cloudy.” “July 9, raining like crazy and glad for it.” My other inspectors were more engaged, and I had to scold Byron Beach sometimes for his reckless behavior. But he was learning quickly, and his youthful energy made him an excellent worker. My new team members were W. J. McErlane and R. V. Sunners. Fooks and Beach were later sent to the mainland, while McErlane worked in Bougainville, an island far to the east that was formerly part of the Solomons. These men weren't heard from for six months.

******

I had been studying pidgin English for almost a year, but I still wasn’t able to use it in my lectures, which I knew I needed to. Until I got the hang of the language, I had to rely on a good interpreter. So, I picked a very cross-eyed local named Jerope; I chose him because no one else in Rabaul seemed interested in him. Jerope was so cross-eyed that when he poured my coffee, I had to move my cup to follow the spout, or he would have ended up pouring it in my lap. He was a country guy without Ahuia’s sophistication and was fixated on every witch and devil that flew over the Pacific. Before I could take him into the field, he got arrested for stealing a red lantern from a sewer project in Rabaul. When the judge asked him why he wanted a red lantern, he calmly explained that he thought the white people had put them on the streets so that locals could use them to scare off devils. After all, everyone knows that devils won’t attack a person holding a lantern.

Jerope spent some time in jail and used it to better his education. Because[Pg 84] he was smarter than most, the Keop in charge of the jail made him responsible for the bulla-ma-cows (cattle herd), and Jerope was diligent in his duty. The day I came and accused him of milking the cows, his eyes filled with deep sadness as he replied, “No, master, that’s not a female cow, that’s a male cow.”

Jerope wasn't a mission kid; he couldn't stand them because they were such sissies. Once, when we were exploring Ninigo way up in the northeast, we had a well-known English anthropologist with us, the nephew of a famous one. Like the Catholic missionaries, he had a soft voice and a full beard. He was way too delicate. The Australians called him “Birdie” because he wore a feather in his Alpine hat. Birdie dreaded cold baths, so every morning he pranced back and forth across the deck, holding a small bowl of hot water for his bath. One time, when the bowl-carrying Birdie pranced by, Jerope turned and spat into the sea. “Him mission!” he growled.

From a medical perspective, the Ninigo group was intriguing. I counted the number of palpable spleens and found a rate of 54 percent; that's a significant amount of malaria for such a remote area. In fact, this was roughly the same rate I observed among the various natives brought to the hospital in Rabaul. On the other hand, hookworm infection was only 8.4 percent, compared to 74.2 percent for the entire Territory. Why? Because the group consists of narrow atolls, where the beaches served as latrines and the tide helped carry away the infectious material. Malaria and elephantiasis are both diseases spread by mosquitoes (if you consider elephantiasis a disease—it's really just a symptom of filarial infection). On one of the islands, I saw a woman's breasts so swollen that when she sat down, they touched the ground.

Ninigo might be a prime example of a region without any protection against the insects that are currently spreading disease among everyone. Fast travel, open ports, borders wide open... It’s the same old story for us in the Health Service.

Do you remember the alarm from ten years ago—how our most advanced mode of transportation, the airplane, had carried the deadly Anopheles gambiae from Natal in Africa to Brazil? Brazil was too caught up in a revolution to deal with mosquitoes until three or four years later when illness without bullets took down the population in wet areas. Luckily, the infection reached a relatively dry area, which slowed down the mosquitoes. Then Brazil teamed up with the Rockefeller[Pg 85] Foundation for a massive campaign. In 1939, a million dollars was spent there, and this year they expect to double that amount in an effort to stop the outbreak before it spreads, who knows how far....

Dr. Marshall Barber, a leading expert on malaria, says: “There is no doubt that this invasion of gambiae poses a threat to the Americas that could lead to a disaster that makes regular diseases, fires, or even war seem like minor, temporary issues.” I haven't encountered gambiae in my part of the tropics, but I'm using it as an example to make a point. How tropical are “tropical diseases”? Germs and worms spread easily. The flu, which originated in northern regions, has killed thousands in the South Pacific; if overlooked, its germ might wait for a chance to return north. Amoebic dysentery is labeled a “tropical disease”—true, and a few years ago it showed up in Chicago. The clearly tropical filariasis (often seen as elephantiasis) has been found in several cases in an incomplete survey of the Carolinas. Dr. Boyd, who was researching in Florida, claimed our temperate-climate mosquito can transmit a tropical malaria strain. I saw how inguinal (venereal) granuloma traveled from island to island in the Pacific; recently, I wasn't surprised to hear of cases in the United States. Leprosy, which affects Polynesians, was brought to them by someone from the East; Polynesians might spread it around—there's plenty of it in New York today. The white man passed tuberculosis to the black Solomon Islander, who is waiting for a chance to return the favor.

A few million Rockefeller dollars and a few hundred Rockefeller scientists have gone out into the heart of disease to work, study, and hopefully find cures. I mention this for the benefit of self-satisfied homebodies who ask us, “Why do you waste time and money on these people who live in a completely different world than ours?” But do they? Our little planet is moving faster every day. If health professionals keep fumbling their way through swamps, forests, and mountains, it might just save you from a lot of trouble one of these days, Mr. Homebody. Or at the very least, we can raise a warning flag.

******

In the Kaiser’s time, I was told, the German planters went to Ninigo to restock their harems. It was clear that the population had been drastically reduced. I found an island where there were only thirteen left, one girl[Pg 86] and twelve men; and they were all suffering from venereal granuloma. The Hermit Islands had lost their hermit; a friendly planter had taken the last resident, a healthy young man who became a personal servant, too gentle to withstand the invasion.

The Admiralty Group is located north of the mainland, just below the Equator. Manus, a relatively large island, is surrounded by a wealth of small islands. Some villages here were built on stilts over the water, similar to the Venetian style. Interestingly, the women were modest in their domestic roles, yet in Manus, I encountered the only public prostitution I ever saw in the South Pacific. This was an old tradition in the area. While the Germans had discouraged it, it resurfaced during the military administration. The new civil administration suppressed it for a time, but when I visited, the practice was thriving once more.

Manus had a certain Gaile-like charm, especially evident in the houses. Your canoe entered through a covered opening in the front, so low and narrow that once inside you had to crawl on your hands and knees. The reason for this was simple and practical; if you were an enemy, you could easily be hit with a club as you stuck your head into the living room. The houses designated for young girls were interesting, too. With almost Spanish seriousness, the maidens were overseen by local guardians and were carefully kept sequestered until puberty. After sunset, they were allowed to go outside, still under supervision. At first, I thought this was Manus's way of ensuring chastity; then I learned it was just about skin tone. Living indoors made the skin lighter, and in Manus, a pale young bride was considered quite valuable.

A weakness for canoes made me even fonder of this beautiful Admiralty Group. I grabbed every chance to leave my troubles behind in the peacefulness of bright lagoons; the large Manus outriggers were roomy enough to have cozy deckhouses beneath their coconut sails.

Contrast this lagoon-bound holiday with my return trip on the cutter Siar, a solid boat with a skilled captain; Skipper Bell was the best of the Australian kind—tall, handsome, and brave. We had reached the New Hanover Group when a hurricane hit us with such force that it felt like the sea and sky had merged. The fact that we stayed afloat those three crazy days is one of God’s mercies. Our engine quit, we lost all sense of direction, and all we could do was hang on and either pray or swear. When a calm returned, almost as suddenly as the storm, we realized we had drifted over reefs and banks—who knows what else—we had been blown completely around the large island of New Hanover and found ourselves in an inlet between it and New Ireland, which we had passed three days earlier. Everything on the boat was soaked; our cookstove had been put out by the first wave that crashed over us.

I’ve been caught in more tropical storms than I can remember, but this was the worst. With trembling Jerope and as much of my gear as I had managed to recover, I went ashore and flagged down a schooner headed for Rabaul. Bell and his brave little ship deserved a better fate than what eventually happened to them. The battered Siar was towed to Sydney, where she fell victim to a common island trick: the shipworkers plugged the leaks with concrete to save on proper repairs. On the return voyage, she hit another storm and sank like a flatiron—with poor Bell at the helm. He was a good, clean-cut young man who adored his beautiful new wife. Well, he was one of many like that.

******

My American medicine often had to compete with local witchcraft, which wasn't a direct challenge but was always present around me. Now and then, I'd hear rumors about this or that worker who had fallen ill and died in the fields; some puri-puri doctor had "pointed a bone" at him. Belief in magic, both good and bad, had infiltrated some strange corners.

There’s a charming little chain of islands off New Britain that the old-timers called “Queen Emma’s Kingdom.” Emma was a self-made queen, the mixed-race Polynesian daughter of an American consul. She bought land for a few guineas and made a prince consort out of the German nobleman she married. Her descendants were educated in European schools, married well-to-do Europeans, and returned home to enjoy their share of the inherited kingdom. I spoke with one of these descendants, a woman who was familiar with Wagnerian opera and Ibsen plays. When it came to medicine, she was completely devoted to the old family witch doctor. She earnestly shared with me about some herbs that performed the medically impossible. She was offended by my dubious smile when I recalled what Lincoln said about General Grant: “I’d like to know the bottle he gets it from.”

No surprise, then, that cross-eyed Jerope was eager to carry a lantern after it got dark.

[Pg 88]

One evening, we took a break on the rugged crest of a tall mountain in New Britain. It had been a really interesting day; I discovered some puzzling signs of modern sanitation. The tribe here was fierce, savage, and cannibalistic—but surprisingly free of intestinal parasites. Taking some risks, I looked behind the village houses and found latrines that were constructed as if approved by the International Health Board! The pits were dug twenty-five to thirty feet into the ground, and there was wooden support over them. The waste fell so deep underground that hookworm larvae couldn’t reach the surface. The common housefly, which carries dysentery and typhoid, didn’t dare enter that dark pit. Simple screens separated the men’s latrine from the women’s. Kudos to the wise old witch doctor who came up with that.

Byron Beach had been to this mountain before I was, on a punitive mission, armed to discipline man-eaters. They had climbed 7,000 feet and forced their way into tribes that had never seen a white person before. Beach reported that every village he entered had these deep cesspits. They weren't just old decorations, either; the people were actually using them.

I tried to find out who had taught them, but all I got was, “It’s just how things are.” I remembered what the legendary Captain Cook said about the New Zealand Maoris when he first encountered them—that this primitive group was following hygiene practices while housewives in Paris and Madrid were throwing chamber pots into the streets. It got me thinking. Wasn’t the islander, before the whites arrived to disrupt his customs, actually taking care of himself in his daily routines? My visits to the remote Rennell Island, a few years later, confirmed this idea.

But that evening, lounging on the mountain edge, I chatted with Jerope about dream magic and listened to the start of a story that, when it ended, affected me deeply. I looked up and saw that his crossed eyes weren’t funny anymore.

I asked him if evil spirits could "walk through dreams" and curse you while you were awake. Oh, yes, master, they can do that. But devil-devils can really help your dreams, he said. He looked at the sunset and told me, softly as if mentioning a planned subway trip, how tonight in his dream he would visit his mother in the little local heaven. He explained the witch charm that would make this happen. From a great magician, who had been to the Evil One’s home[Pg 89] on the wild Sepik River, Jerope had bought the skin of a huge bat, the enchanted flying fox that could carry you into the land of the dead. "Tonight," he said, "I’ll burn the bat’s hairs and paint the ashes on my eyes. Then I’ll go."

Next morning, I asked him if he had visited his mom. Yeah, he had gone, and he told me all about it, seriously:—

“Master, my fastened head is close under my head, then I rub my eyes in the ashes and shut my eyes, and then I think, and think, and think, then I feel like sleeping....”

Jerope’s head started to spin then—“I’m just like a pigeon.” The flying fox became a fast-flying god. “He catches me just like a kid. I hang on way too tight, then he goes up and up and moves way too fast. He’s quick like nothing.”

“Soon I came to a place where my mom belonged, and I stopped; this place was for people who had passed away.” Heaven was filled with Jerope's deceased relatives. “Master, this place is really nice. Everyone here has great gardens, nice houses, lots of dogs, and lots of pigs. My mom came, and she kissed me.” (Throughout, he referred to his mom as “he,” which is correct in pidgin.) “Now I’m going inside his house. My mom had a nice house too, and the yams were as big as trees. If everyone in Heaven liked eating fish, they’d think that’s all there is, and good fish would need to come in a saucepan. In this place, my mom can’t work. If my mom likes something, she just thinks about it, and whatever she wants, she has to come... This heaven is really nice for my mom!”

I didn't try to deny anything; his tone was so persuasive. He wasn't dreaming; he had been there and saw an old, worn woman enjoying the wonderful rewards that come from wishing.

I SAY IT IN PIDGIN

At last, the time came when my vanity was pushed to the point of hysteria; I had actually learned pidgin English. For native English speakers, pidgin is a simplification, and if you don't speak it with perfect accuracy, they just won’t get what you’re saying. I once thought I could pick it up in a week or two since it sounded a lot like laundry Chinese. But as I studied it, I realized just how strict its rules of idiom and grammar really are. Twice, before I had mastered the language, I tried it out on native audiences and, as the actors say, was laughed off the stage. But I was done with having my lectures mangled by casual interpreters; I knew I had to speak directly to the people in the trade language that was common across much of Melanesia. It took a year of hard work to learn it. Superior locals, kind missionaries, and District Officers were my teachers.

I have to be fair to the reader and point out a few of the simpler quirks in the language, and explain some oddities. Otherwise, the upcoming example of what turned into my standard pidgin hookworm lecture might be hard to follow.

The verb “go,” for example. The future is “I’ll be going soon,” and the past is “I went and finished.” “Finished” is cleverly used to mean done. When a boy is “dead finished,” he’s dead. When you bury a body, you “plant him to rest.” (When a houseboy says he’s “killed,” it just means that his mistress has hit him with a stick.)

“Him” is masculine, feminine, or neutral, usually pronounced “im,” but sometimes “um.” “Im” can be attached to a verb, like in “lookim,” or separated as in “look im” (“look at him”).

“Fellow” or “feller” is another tricky one. “Feller” comes before almost every noun—“One feller house,” and so on. “Me go three feller Sunday” means “I was gone three weeks.”

A guy is usually a “boy,” and a girl is a “mary.” But often, when we talk, a guy is just “a man,” regardless. The personal pronoun is always masculine: “This guy mary he goes.” Repeating a verb makes it more impactful. When you say, “He goes, goes, goes, go, GO,” it suggests a long, tiring journey. Then for emphasis, you add, “long way too much.” “Too much” means “very.” For example: “He’s a good guy too much”—that’s quite a compliment.

“Senake” is “snake” or “worm,” and in hookworm lectures, you refer to hatched larvae as “pickaninny senake.” “Gelass” is “glass,” and refers to a microscope, telescope, or anything else with a lens in it.

The frequent use of “belong” (or “belonga”) is confusing, and “along” is even worse. Basically, “belong” indicates possession. “Knifie belong me” means “my knife,” and the only way to translate “Dis fellow knifie belong dis fellow mary belong house belong Keop” would be “The knife of the native woman who lives in the Captain’s house”—a pretty awkward way to get the point across. “Along” usually indicates movement or approach: “Ship stop along place.” On some remote islands, God is referred to as “Big Feller Walk along Top.”

“Blut” is blood (German), and is combined with “sabe” (Spanish) in “Do you all get it, do you understand the blood flow?” when you want to know if everyone understands the nature of the bloodstream. “Altogether fellow” means “everybody.”

“Kaikai” means “eat.” Your heart is a “pump,” your lungs are “wind,” and when you show a hookworm picture in your lecture, the “illustration” is a “ficshure.”

Their use of “behind” doesn’t convey much until you learn that it can mean either “afterward” or “pretty soon.” “Behind me show you this guy” means “After I’ve shown you this.”

To those who are unfamiliar, pure pidgin doesn't make any sense at all. German priests have learned it—and innocently used its outdated expressions—without knowing a single word of English.

In sharing a glimpse of my initial public success with the language, I assure you that I've simplified it to the extent that a native speaker familiar with pidgin would struggle to understand it. But if I provided the unedited version, the reader would lose all sense of meaning.

******

When I got back to the local hospital in Rabaul and told Colonel Honman that I was ready to give a lecture in pidgin, he smiled broadly[Pg 92] and said, “Go for it.” Honman was supportive of me in everything now.

A packed audience gathered that night to hear my attempt at a new and terrible language. I wiped cold sweat from my bald spot. Jerope had hung the hookworm chart on a post; it was like nailing your flag to the mast—fight or sink, no turning back. The assistants had passed around our two property bottles, one with pickled hookworms and the other with ascarides. The locals always admired the bottled ascarides the most; they were bigger and looked more threatening. The pause settled my stomach. My natural boldness came back, and I shouted for order.

“You all listen up, boys. I'm here to talk about a big guy who's sick....”

I could feel their attentive silence. They were absorbing every word.

“Overall, the boy had plenty of snakes. He stopped inside the bell. The boy ate the bell, but he came, he ate the blood. The blood belonged to the boy; he ate the snakes.”

“Place belongs to me, he stops way too much. You catch a steamer, you go one Sunday, now you arrive in Sydney. Now you catch a bigger steamer, now you go, go, go three Sundays, now you arrive at my place....”

In my thoughts, I had pictured the journey I made from New York to New Guinea. Now, let me paint a picture with words of John D. Rockefeller, Senior:—

“Master belongs to me; he makes me all kerosene and all benzene. Now he's an old guy. He has way too much money. Money to him is just dirt. Since he's getting old, he's thinking about dying soon. He looks around and thinks, ‘I want to do something for that good guy who buys my kerosene.’ Now the Government is talking to my master. My master says, ‘You go and kill all the snakes that are bothering the kids on the island.’”

(I passed around the bottle of pickled hookworms.)

“Now, you boy, look good next to this bottle here. This little snake is really bad... He’s got a tooth of his own. He eats better than all the boys. But he comes to eat blood...”

(Turning chart to enlarge images of male and female hookworms.)

“You look at this image. Two snakes. You see; [Pg 93] one snake is a male, the other is a female. This female snake is very bad. She stays inside her belly; she eats blood; she lays too many small eggs. Boy, she makes something on the ground. An egg comes out. This egg is very small....”

Open eyes and open mouths looked at me. And now to describe a microscope in simple English:—

“He doesn’t have the same glass as the Captain’s steamer—it’s a different kind. The Captain’s glass makes things look much bigger when they’re too far away; mine makes things look too small when they’re closer. Soon, you’ll see me looking through this glass...”

(Attentive eyes watched the microscope, and I described the dropping of the egg, the birth of the larva, and its fate...)

“Now the boy made something on the ground, and an egg came out. The rain started to fall. The egg, it stayed still. Now the sun cooked it. Then a little larvae broke out of that egg. It walked on the ground, really quick too. You can’t see it—it's really small. Your eyes aren't good enough. Now the boy comes. He puts his foot on the ground. Now the little snake comes inside the boy's foot, really quick. The boy scratches, but he can't catch that little snake. Now it goes along the string of blood. Now it goes, it goes, it goes, it goes, and now it comes up along the pump of blood; now it comes up to the throat; the boy eats it....”

(Pointing to internal organs outlined on the chart.)

“Now he comes along and belongs to you, now he's a big guy a little bit; now he’s getting teeth; now he knows the food that belongs to the boy; he knows the food of the blood. If you’ve got plenty of good food—this guy's food isn’t yours; it belongs to the snake. You eat it, the snake catches it the first time....”

“Since he ate bad food, the boy is now weak; he’s really fragile. He doesn’t want to walk around; he doesn’t want to work; he just wants to sleep all the time. His health is bad, his skin is bad, his legs are like sticks; he’s completely fallen apart because he ate that bad food.... His blood is like water; if things don’t change, he’ll be gone soon; now he’s lying on the ground.

“Now my master has a good medicine. You drink it once, then afterward you take some salt medicine; the snake will be dead, and it will come out. Now, the boy's food is not for the snake. Now quickly, the boy's skin looks good, and he knows how to move around; he’s really strong too…”

When I finally finished, I heard the scared sigh that went through my audience. A heavy weight felt like it lifted off my shoulders. I had said it in simple language, and they understood me!

******

This was the hookworm lecture which, with some improvements, I presented hundreds of times throughout Melanesia, wherever pidgin was spoken; in New Guinea, in the Solomon Islands, in the New Hebrides. Yes, I even took it to New York in 1922 and showcased it to the Rockefeller Foundation. When I was asked to speak to a group of very dignified scientists, Dr. George Vincent encouraged me to repeat my hookworm lecture, as its reputation seemed to precede me. “Give it to them straightforward,” Dr. Heiser suggested when I took the stage. If my performance didn’t contribute anything to science, at least it was a comedy hit. It freaked them out, as the actors say. When I reached the part where I referred to Mr. Rockefeller as “Master belonging to him make him altogether kerosene…. Now he old feller…. Money belong him all the same dirt,” serious scientists who hadn’t smiled in years nearly fell into the aisles.

“ME CUTTIM WIND, ME CUTTIM GUT!”

The success with pidgin really lifted my spirits, and I needed that boost. By the end of the New Guinea campaign (October 1921), I started to realize more and more through daily practice that oil of chenopodium wasn’t enough for the huge task ahead. To be fair, it did get rid of worms—lots of them. The standard way to give chenopodium was to fast the patient the night before and then give a laxative to prepare for the treatment the next morning, which involved 15 minims administered every two hours at 6 AM, 8 AM, and 10 AM This was followed by another laxative at noon, and the patient wasn’t allowed to eat until the laxative had taken effect.

In North Queensland, I discovered that even these drastic measures hadn’t lowered the infection rate because people weren’t taking the medication. So, I declared that no treatment would be considered valid unless inspectors were present to witness the medicine being taken. In the early morning hours, you could identify a treatment unit by the sight and sound of front doors swinging open and kids racing down the street. I decided to cut the dosage in half, followed by a cleanse. A re-check showed somewhat improved results.

Old-timers who led the standard chenopodium campaigns were unsung heroes, and the constant disappointments drove many good people out of public health work. Examining, treating, re-examining, and retreating—repeating this process half a dozen times in any given area—created a method that was so painfully slow that by the time work in one region was finished, the unremoved female worms had laid eggs inside our patients again; eggs that fell with their waste to infect the soil once more, allowing another wave of larvae to crawl back into the human intestine.

When Colonel Honman finally assigned me to the native hospital in Rabaul, I was given a perfect opportunity to experiment and observe. Groups of native patients were selected and[Pg 96] kept behind barbed wire; each received his dose along with a gasoline can for his stools. The stools were cleaned every twenty-four hours for three days, and the worms were counted. After a break, each individual would receive a very large dose to eliminate any remaining worms, allowing us to estimate the effectiveness percentage of the first dose. We tried different combinations of chenopodium: thymol, betanaphthol, and even betel nut (which has some degree of worm-eliminating action). We looked into the relationship between purge and drug to determine the optimal ratio for administration. At best, chenopodium was nauseating and caused many severe side effects like tingling toes, temporary deafness, and vomiting; and there was always the risk of serious poisoning from the potent drug—untrained dispensers might become careless and skip the purge—which could be fatal.

To sum up chenopodium, it was about as popular as the Hammer and Sickle at a Republican rally.

******

Taking charge of the native hospital, even though it was added to my duties in the field, was the job I liked the most out of everything I had—new things popping up every day, and plenty to keep me busy.

I turned to Colonel Honman with growing confidence, as he was my rock during debates with Governor Wisdom. The Governor had a lot on his plate, and I never held his stubborn phases against him. When Wisdom’s moods got in the way of urgent medical tasks, the Colonel was always eager to step in and tackle the issue. He wasn’t afraid to confront the Governor, and in the end, he often came out on top. I can’t forget his loyalty to me any more than I can forget his unique quirks that were distinctly his own.

Here is one of my favorite pictures of the Colonel in action. I was in charge of quarantine while he was away, always on the lookout for any alarms that might come in. One morning, a disturbing message arrived: bubonic plague had broken out in Brisbane, and we had to keep a close eye on ships coming from there. The Colonel was away, touring the area, so when the regular boat from Brisbane docked, I went aboard and discussed it with a worried captain. How was he supposed to unload? It would be a hassle if he had to transfer his cargo onto smaller boats and move it piece by piece to the dock. I understood his concern and was debating whether I should take the risk and let the ship come in before dark when I spotted the Medical Chief's boat coming around. I approached it and found the Colonel in his pajamas. I asked him what we were supposed to do about the ship from Brisbane. He hadn’t put in his false teeth yet, and his mouth looked sunken like a dead crater. “Keep her out in the stream,” he lisped. So I carried the orders back to the Australian captain and went home for breakfast. But I told my wife, “Eloisa, I bet that ship will be at the wharf before noon.” It was; and I knew why. Down in the Australian's hold was a new Ford sedan for the Colonel, and he wasn’t going to risk having it unloaded on a smaller boat far out in the stream.

Colonel Honman had his flaws, but I came to love and admire them, believing that “even his failings leaned to virtue’s side.”

******

We were receiving more and more cases of yaws and were giving intravenous arsenicals. The locals referred to these injections as “needla,” and it quickly became a popular trend among them—a trend that spread throughout the South Pacific. It was better than magic; a local would eagerly let anything be injected under their skin through a needle, no matter what it was. In Rabaul, the local orderlies were always present on injection days, their tongues hanging out in anticipation of any leftover salvarsan solution. I heard them arguing, “Why waste that great stuff on a bunch of ignorant locals who are no use to anyone?” White people had strange tastes.

******

The primitive Melanesians have a deep fear of mutilation—except when they alter their noses for decoration or their foreskins as a tradition. A man who has lost an arm or leg is condemned forever, as he must enter the local heaven armless or legless and become the target of the gods’ ridicule. This belief is a challenge for surgeons in the area. A local with a gangrenous limb will resist surgery fiercely. A slow and painful death from blood poisoning is seen as a better option. Die with both legs intact, and you can walk into Paradise as a true man...

When a white guy has something artificial, like a glass eye, a realistic wooden leg, or a set of dentures, the local folks see him as some kind of magician. One of the oldest stories about this comes from Papua—how the plantation manager took out his glass eye and put it on a stump to stare at his lazy workers while he was[Pg 98] away; it kept the crew on their toes until a clever local figured out the perfect solution—he just put a hat over the magical eye, and they all went back to snoozing.

Toward the end of my time in New Guinea, a situation came up in a native ward that forced me to use this widespread fear of mutilation to my advantage. Influenza had surged on the plantations. The epidemic that struck our soldiers in American training camps had also affected the South Pacific in 1918-1919 and caused significant damage to these vulnerable people. Since then, it had appeared sporadically, but health officers had gained more knowledge about it and were better able to control it than before.

I came back from the field and found the local hospital packed with flu cases; many were dying from pneumonia. The unexpected deaths among what seemed like mild cases confused me until I looked into the cause. Our local attendants hated to lose sleep; as soon as they were snoring, the sick men, burning with fever, would sneak out a side door and go down to cool off in the sea under the stars. Then they would sneak back to bed and die from the shock.

I ended all of that. Local staff had informed them about how I opened up dead men’s bodies. (I had carried out thirty-three autopsies to figure out the average number of whipworms in locals.) My monstrous reputation had spread among a straightforward people who would much rather lose a life than a leg. To them, I was the master of life and death—and the autopsy table.

Therefore, I took advantage of my bad reputation and walked through the ward swinging a large amputation knife, and as I passed by rows of trembling beds I shouted: “If you don’t stop lying in bed, you sons of bitches, if you don’t take your medicine like good people, you'll be done for; I’ll cut out your belly, I’ll take your heart, I’ll cut your windpipe, I’ll take out your guts. But if you’re good people, then you'll be fine; I won’t touch you.”

Dark faces turned green. If they died in a state of disobedience, their bodies would be butchered on the autopsy table; what hope would their mutilated souls have in a heaven where real men walk tall, broad, and confident?... After my threat, they became completely obedient patients, and we hardly had a case of pneumonia when they were dying from it everywhere else in Rabaul.

Twenty men in this ward had been rounded up and jailed for cannibalism. I went to Colonel Honman and described an experiment I[Pg 99] wanted to conduct. We all knew about Dr. Heiser’s amazing success in treating leprosy. Chaulmoogra oil wasn’t new; lepers had been taking it by mouth for thousands of years. When Heiser experimented with it in the Philippines, he didn’t change the remedy—he changed the method. He tried chaulmoogra oil through intramuscular injections, resulting in greatly improved outcomes.

I didn’t expect to see any such surprising effects. What I mainly wanted to find out was whether chenopodium acted directly on hookworms in the intestine, or if it was absorbed into the bloodstream first and then taken in by bloodsucking.

The twenty cannibals were recovering from the flu, and Colonel Honman chose six who were seriously infected with hookworm for experimentation. They had already been sentenced to hang as a warning to their criminal village, so it didn’t matter if these poor guys died in bed or at the end of a rope. My plan was to test intramuscular and intravenous injections of chenopodium.

The results turned out to be harmless for the patients and surprising for the rest of us. In our tests on three of the patients, chenopodium was mixed with camphorated oil and resorcin, following Heiser’s formula for making chaulmoogra oil. These three men received intramuscular injections of this mixture, followed by laxatives, and we monitored their stools for six days. From Case Number 1, we found only four hookworms in five days; from Case Number 2, there were two hookworms and one Ascaris. But Case Number 3 was particularly interesting. We administered an intravenous injection of undiluted chenopodium to him. After six days, we recovered twenty-two whipworms and only three hookworms, even though this patient was also heavily infected with hookworms like the other two. In Case 3, it was clear that injections of pure chenopodium had a much stronger effect on whipworms than on hookworms.

In the three people who received intravenous injections, the results were:

Case 1:—Hookworms: None. Trichuris: 11.
Case 2:—Hookworms: None. Trichuris: 19. Ascaris: 2.
Case 3:—Hookworms: None. Trichuris: 30. Ascaris: 2.

Our experience with all six cases demonstrated that injections of chenopodium have minimal impact intramuscularly on hookworm, and no effect on that parasite when administered intravenously. However, it had a significant effect on trichuris in both cases.

Why was this? Clearly, the answer lies in the behavior of the two[Pg 100] parasites. The hookworm is a superficial feeder, sucking blood from the surface of the intestine. The whipworm has a very long head that it buries half an inch into the intestinal wall; it probably feeds only on lymph, which might have absorbed a higher concentration of the chenopodium. Normally, the whipworm is quite resistant to chenopodium, just like it is to all vermifuges. However, in this case, it showed a high mortality rate when the drug was given through a new method. In contrast, the hookworm, which is impacted by chenopodium administered the regular way, showed a high level of resistance to it with the new method.

I didn't have time to keep doing experiments, which were interesting because they were the first attempt to give anthelmintics through intramuscular or intravenous injections, a new way to treat intestinal parasites. At least on the surface, I resolved a debate that had come up among researchers with more credentials than I have. I showed that the effect of chenopodium is through direct contact with the hookworm in the gut, not by being absorbed into the bloodstream and then taken in by the parasite. The experimental cases clearly demonstrated this fact and also showed that chenopodium given through intramuscular and intravenous injections has a significant effect on whipworm. For whipworm, there is no other effective treatment. I conducted these tests without permission from the Rockefeller Foundation, whose letterhead should say, “We Do Not Experiment with Human Beings.” When 61 Broadway found out what I had been doing, I might have faced consequences, but Dr. Maurice C. Hall, the head of the Bureau of Animal Industry in Washington, stepped in to help me. In a later chapter, I will explain more about Dr. Hall: we owe him for one of the world’s great medical discoveries.

And by the way, my trial cannibals never faced the gallows. After leaving New Guinea, I found out that another flu outbreak had hit the hospital. I was somewhat relieved that the six of them passed away in bed and could head to the Happy Land with all their bones intact.

******

I hated leaving the local hospital, which had taught me so many valuable things to take with me. I had been working alongside the lik-lik doctors and was really pleased with the technical progress they were making.

[Pg 101]

Nobody would have faulted Governor Wisdom if he had lost his mind due to the stress of territorial politics. He stayed composed, did his job effectively, and retired with a title. The white population was more of a challenge than the black; this new government was still in the grab-bag phase, with everyone reaching out for a prize—anything from an island to a fruitcake.

At one of the Governor's receptions, the beautiful house on the hill was decorated for the party. At one end of the grand hall, there was a long table piled high with cakes, sandwiches, and candies. After an enjoyable hour, Eloisa and I were about to say goodbye but were waiting for our car to come in the rain. A minor official’s wife wandered over to the big table and said to Eloisa, “Look at those gorgeous cakes. I’m having a party myself tomorrow.” True to her words, she discreetly slipped an eighteen-inch fruitcake under her raincoat. We were at the door, telling General and Mrs. Wisdom what a lovely party it had been, when the lady with the raincoat joined us. “Oh, Governor, what a wonderful time....” As she reached out her hand, the fruitcake fell out. Splunk! It spilled all over the polished floor at the Governor’s feet. Still holding his hand, she chirped, “I wonder where that came from!” and flitted away to her car.

******

Our little house in Rabaul was a gathering spot for my inspectors coming in from the field. For a week or two before we left, they all gathered around my table. In the kitchen, their crew hung out with Jerope, swapping their tall tales with his. We were a lively, noisy family, preparing to move on or say goodbye. We tallied our mileage for that New Guinea campaign: 9,958 for all of us, traveling by anything that could walk, pull, or float. My total was 3,523, not including steamer trips to and from Australia—and Beach came next with 1,893.

When young Byron Beach joined our farewell house party, he looked like a schoolboy fresh from playing tennis and taking a shower. He didn’t have a scratch on him, even though by all odds he should have been dead. This young adventurer had gone solo 165 miles up the Sepik River, an area so wild and dangerous that only armed groups dared to venture there in 1921, and they returned with terrifying tales. Beach had taken on the journey in a flimsy canoe, paddled by nervous locals—he wasn’t entirely alone, but he was the only white guy. Beach had no business risking his neck without a white companion. If he had waited for me, I would have gone with him.[Pg 102]

Almost his first act when he came to our house was to give Eloisa £400 to keep safe overnight. He smiled casually the next morning when he took the money back and doubled it with a tortoise-shell investment. The guy had heroic qualities, but he never forgot that he was a trader.

I wish I had the space to share the diary he kept on that amazing trip. I had sent him to check out Father Kirschbaum’s mission, which isn’t far from the wide brown mouth of that mysterious river whose upper waters are hidden in the howling darkness of the unexplored. With the good Father praying for him, Beach set out on July 17, packed with tins for hookworm specimens and confidently planning to offer his goods to a jungle full of dangerous people. The guy had the audacity of the devil, and that probably helped him get by.

Some of the villages were surprisingly friendly. In one of them, the men were heavily armed and had terrifying paint on their faces, ready for another attack from an enemy who had burned down half their houses and taken thirty-seven villagers just before lunchtime. Beach handed out cans to these people and explained to them, through a frightened interpreter, how to use them.

When the Sepik people treated Beach well, they let him sleep in a Tambarand House, which is a tribal chamber of horrors, decorated with the skulls of relatives and brave enemies. Artists made the family skulls look almost alive, and the kind tribesmen took them to bed with them.

The locals were let down when they discovered that Beach’s specimen tins didn’t have red paint for sale. Some of them poked holes in the tins and wore them around their necks. He had to reprimand them for this.

There were days of paddling into stranger and stranger areas. Time and again, Beach saw headless bodies floating downstream. They were probably the bodies of relatives; enemy corpses would have been dealt with differently. In another village, armed with spears, Beach dared to prick a boy’s finger for a blood test. When they saw the blood, the warriors began to howl like wolves, but Beach was ready with his charm. He smiled brightly as he presented the tribe with a collection of mirrors and fishhooks. As he wrote in his[Pg 103] diary, “I have to say I was grateful. Things were almost cheerful when I left.”

At Timbunke, twenty-five miles further up, things weren’t so cheerful. On the shore was a welcoming committee of 200 painted warriors, waving spears and shouting at the top of their lungs. “I tried not to rush getting back into the canoe,” he wrote, “but the guys paddled for their lives, with that yelling crowd running along the shore. Maybe they were just hoping for my safe travels. No white man has ever slept there.”

All along, it was like playing poker with death. A fire on the shore could mean that friendly people were helping guide your canoe to safety. Or it could mean that the oven was heating up for a neighborhood roast. Beach visited dozens of these spots, and in most cases, he managed to take back the specimen tins, properly filled. Some of the villagers were timid, living in constant fear of their neighbors; others were so dangerous that Beach never turned his back on them. In one of the calmer villages, he got knocked down—by an earthquake. At the very end of his journey, 165 miles up the Sepik, he achieved his triumph. He managed to persuade a warrior to go through the entire procedure and collected 105 worms.

On his return trip, he went back to some of the places that had felt particularly unfriendly. At Moim, for example, he had relied on his negotiation skills and a generous offering of trinkets, distributing 95 cans. When he came back a few days later, he received them all back in good condition. On August 11, after his canoe was capsized in a storm, he arrived at the mouth of the Sepik and paid his canoe boys. They charged him thirty shillings each, and Beach concluded his diary by noting that managing the Sepik natives was easy if you used some common sense.

Well, the young cub got back to me, smiling and cheerful. It was a crazy trip, but I couldn’t help but envy him the adventure. I think the best part was Beach’s casual attitude in going back to the wild villages and picking up the cans he had left behind.

Now let's talk about the £400 roll he left with Eloisa, just for one night. I found out about that later. After about three weeks of a wild journey, he took the time to catch a bunch of exotic birds that he sold to a trader on his way back home. Sometimes I think maybe poaching was what drove him to take that daring trip.

Byron Beach left my life as dramatically as he had entered it.[Pg 104] One beautiful afternoon, near the Solomon Islands, he sailed off into the sunset on a sleek little schooner that he had borrowed for the adventure. He also took along a pretty local girl. Neither Byron, the boat, nor the girl ever returned to that harbor or anywhere else that I know of. But I believe that wherever he ended up, he landed on his feet.

King Solomon's Gold

New Guinea was my starting point for the Solomon Islands, and “starting point” really captures how my first trip around that vast island chain felt. I had just a few weeks to work with and draw conclusions that would lead to years of campaigning across 700 miles of that untamed archipelago. If you remember George Fulton, the guy in evening wear I met in a smelly trader’s shop, you’ll recall his half-promise to send me to the remote Rennell Island on the Lever Brothers’ yacht. Well, he kept his promise—with some conditions—and I was finally on the Levers’ Koonakarra, heading southeast. I had planned to take the Government’s Bellama, but it was wrecked in a hurricane. Getting transferred to George Fulton’s boat felt like a lucky break. Now I could see Rennell Island....

It was nine years before I saw Rennell, and the main reason was that George Fulton didn’t want me to see it. He had changed his mind since our conversation. Rennell could potentially be a phosphate island, one of those volcanic oddities that large amounts of bird droppings and being submerged in seawater have turned into valuable crystalline fertilizer. Fulton didn’t want Rockefeller’s people poking around his possible treasure. A few years later, he discovered that Rennell’s wealth was just another myth like King Solomon’s gold.

Alvaro Mendaña, who discovered these islands in 1568, went back to Spain and told King Philip that he had found the place where King Solomon got his gold. Philip rewarded the deceitful liar by sending him on a second expedition; but when he returned to the islands of apparent wealth, he found that they had vanished. Just another example of poor navigation during the Renaissance, but Mendaña died searching for the lost Solomons. They were missing for 200 years. Monsieur de Bougainville rediscovered them in 1768.

As for Rennell Island, I felt like I had been robbed of my gold for a long time. It wasn't just curiosity that pulled me toward that mysterious place. If the people were, as George Fulton said, “practically untouched for ages,” I might discover a clue to the origins of the Polynesian race. Many ancient invasions have been tracked through the evidence of hookworm. You see, the public health physician has to be part anthropologist, part politician, and part historian....

But I had to wait until 1930 to see Rennell Island.

The Koonakarra of 1921 was so busy trading, recruiting, and overseeing plantations that I had to gather whatever information I could between stops. I had a chance to make one big conclusion: that people from the large islands to the north, near the busy trade routes, were much more affected by diseases. Illness declined steadily as we moved toward the less visited areas. My quick glance at a population that was estimated to be around 100,000, due to a lack of an accurate census, confirmed my theory: Epidemics are the fruits of island hospitality.

In those days, not much could be done to improve the situation. That cluster of six huge islands, along with the numerous smaller ones, was served by just one Medical Officer and a few missionary doctors who bravely fought against conditions that should have crushed their strong spirits.

Among the unsung heroes—but definitely not a missionary—was my friend J. C. Barley, Oxford M.A., who had willingly dedicated his life to a remote post in Kirakira. In his jungle house, he resembled a character straight out of Kipling, getting dressed for the evening, enjoying his gin and bitters before dinner, and savoring a good cigar afterward. He could have gone anywhere in the colonial service since, as a young Oxford graduate, he had outperformed hundreds in competitive exams. But he was too principled to get involved in politics. His love for ethnology and his deep care for the local people kept him where he was. He had become the people’s advocate and knew more about the Solomons than any official report could ever convey. His inspection and research trips were his only escape from solitude.

I only mention Barley because he was so helpful for my future work and because I have fond memories of his charming personality. Honestly, I wouldn’t even write this short overview if I didn’t want to highlight a few places where I returned in later years and noted the changes brought about by interaction with the outside world.

[Pg 107]

Bill Tully and I mostly worked at night, giving lectures by lantern light. The ship would leave early in the morning. At Star Harbour on San Cristoval, the largest island in the rarely-visited southeast, the locals carried candlenut torches as they made their way down the mountain trail. It looked like something out of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” that winding stream of light. Few traders and no missionaries had visited them, and they had a low rate of infection. A friendly, somewhat primitive black community, they were at risk because of their own kindness. Charley One Arm, the policeman and our fierce black guide, couldn’t understand why we declined the temporary offer of two local daughters. I walked away fearing what might happen when more trading ships arrived.

Santa Ana was so close that one of their canoes, made of dark wood with mother-of-pearl inlays, could get you there in an hour or two. The people from Santa Ana had lighter skin and almost Caucasian features. They wore bones in their noses and shark's teeth around their necks. There was more trading, which meant more hookworm. I treated Trader Kuper's two little mixed-race sons. It was a smart investment, and I’ll explain why later.

Graciosa Bay was so hostile that Mr. Mathews, the Lever Brothers representative who had lived there for fifteen years with an armed guard, warned us not to go ashore. With knives and fishhooks, we tempted a few of the wild locals to come aboard the launch for examination. In those fifteen years, the population had decreased from 3,000 to 500. Somehow, despite their fierceness, they had let deadly malaria and tuberculosis take hold.

Nearby Reef Island had a different, lighter vibe. It was somewhat influenced by missions but mostly pagan, and it had a dangerous reputation. In its harbor, Mohawk Bay, something happened that stuck with me for twelve years. After a lecture by lantern light, I was taking a break in the whaleboat. In the faint moonlight, a naked man came stumbling toward me. I reached for a hatchet, but a calm voice told me it was just Sam, the Christian teacher. I had made a mistake, Sam explained, and ended up in a pagan village. His was the Christian village where I should have given my magic tins. He wanted to know if I would come with him. It was too late for that, so I let him stay waist-deep in the water while I went over the basics of my pidgin English lecture with him. I gave him the tins and asked him to bring them back to me in the morning. He returned at dawn, and I admired[Pg 108] his Christian strength. Poor guy—like the others, he thought our tins were magic boxes that could heal people. I waited twelve years to hear how that story turned out...

At Mohawk Bay, I discovered that a young local was selling his fiancée’s services to our sailors. Brides were pricey there, and he had set up a group to buy her, then rent her out until she had earned back the cost. It was “the trend.” Not as a moralist, but as a doctor, I asked: Who would educate people like this, with rapidly expanding trade routes? Who would teach them self-defense? The missionaries? Maybe. But the doctor needs to be present, or there would be no one left to educate.

“Recruiting,” that legal form of contract labor, might serve as an educator. The High Commission Government was already mandating that plantation workers should receive proper medical care and enough food.

In a secluded bay, I saw recruiters doing their jobs. One guy with a rifle lay flat in the bow of a boat, keeping an eye on every move of another man who was approaching the shore in a whaleboat. The whaleboat reversed all the way, and the negotiator stood up, carefully facing the naked natives waiting on the beach. Throughout the long discussion, the concealed rifle was carefully aimed. These negotiations were not for the faint-hearted. So many lone recruiters had been killed on duty that the government had made it a rule that they must work in pairs.

Considering the significant work we must soon start in the Solomon Islands, I felt encouraged when I discovered that the insightful local saw indentured labor as a blessing, just like it had been in Papua. An island boy said to me, “I wish the Hawk would come soon.” The Hawk was a recruiting ship. I asked him why he wanted it to arrive quickly, and he replied, “There are so many sore legs in the village.” This boy understood what was good for his community, and I hoped there would be many more like him.

Please provide the text you'd like me to modernize.

I always feel a bit sad when I think about Sikiana. Three small atolls are almost connected. The Sikiana Group was the last land discovered in 1791, and since then, very few ships have stopped there. The people living there are pure Polynesian; since our crew was made up of Sikiana men, our arrival felt like a joyful homecoming.[Pg 109] Every single person in the village was lightly buzzed from homemade toddy; the Ellice Islanders, their blood relatives, had shown them how to cut the coconut's central spathe, collect the drippings, and let it ferment. Unfermented, it makes great baby food. In its toddy form, it is intoxicating.

There was some pagan festival happening, which explained the drunken laughter. The women, who never drank, couldn’t speak in broken language. A lot of gesturing, along with help from our Sikiana sailors, who were enjoying the local drink, sent swimmers and canoeists to the nearby islands to spread the word. And the people danced. Not inappropriately, but with the natural grace of untouched bodies. They were completely pagan. No missionary had ever come here. Traders hadn’t corrupted them; the land was too barren to produce anything worth trading.

The girls were beautiful with their long, fine, shiny hair; they hadn't cut it like the girls on the missionary islands. They wore simple lavalavas that went from their waists to their ankles, and a kerchief that they tied around their neck and pulled under one arm. Some of the men also wore their hair long, in the traditional Polynesian style. I became friends with a great young guy named Lautaua, who spoke decent pidgin and told me how “back in his grandfather’s time” (which could mean a thousand years ago; they had a way of keeping track of time by their grandfathers) the Tongafiti had come to Sikiana and killed everyone except the women, and how later migrations from Ongtong Java and the Ellices had ended up there in lost canoes.

I only bring up their drinking because it was pretty unusual in that part of the Pacific. The Sikiana people only made toddy for celebrations and never got carried away with it. Later on, following Mr. Barley's advice—who was always a great friend to them—they stopped making and drinking toddy altogether. In Sikiana, they were lively enough without needing any artificial boosts; they were a friendly, virtuous, lovable community, and maybe their practice of keeping women away from alcohol helped them maintain their dignity. Overall, I’ve found that tribes on less fertile islands are generally healthier and have better character than those nearby who just lounge around and pick bananas. This idea holds true everywhere; those who work for a living are better equipped to handle life's challenges.

Young children held our hands and wrapped our arms around them.[Pg 110] The moon hung high over the lagoon, and our sailors, now sober, strolled gracefully with their girls along the beach. As we sat on the sand, waiting for the audience to arrive, young girls placed garlands around our necks—chains that would tie our memories to Sikiana; these were made of hair, a strand from each girl’s head.

I had given lectures in strange situations before, but never quite like this. The bright moonlight, cheerful faces, and simple people treated everything like it was the funniest joke ever, yet they were so kind-hearted that they followed our instructions as if indulging a dear friend who needed extra help. Everyone smiled, even the serious elder we referred to as Old Number One; he was an unpaid official representative of the Government. Everything was coordinated for us between Old Number One and Lautaua. The next day, when we left, everything was in place.

A simple people, allowed to grow up in their own way. Were they the uncivilized ones, or were we? They weren't completely free from tuberculosis, but they seemed to have developed some immunity. Here was a government without the need for bureaucracy; no conflict, no poverty, no suffering, no taxes, no significant clothing; and no vices more troublesome than a bit of drinking on national holidays.

I left happy Sikiana feeling a bit worried about its future. I saw it again in 1933....

******

I went back through Sydney to get my family. In about a week, I’d be heading toward Suva, which was the cultural hub of the South Pacific—unless you consider the top-notch universities in Australia and New Zealand. Suva was set to be the base for the rest of my professional career.

Thus far, I had been working to prove my main point: depopulation follows the visitor. I believed what I still believe—that the main issue regarding the decline of native populations is the introduction of diseases to which they have no immunity. I had witnessed its effects so many times, right in front of me.

Heading toward Sydney, I reflected on my time in the South Seas, which had lasted less than four years. I was starting to notice that an outdated idea was fading away—the belief that the native people, particularly the Melanesians, were just resources to be exploited until they were no longer useful. Governments that were once ignorant and harsh were beginning to change their ways. The British High Commission, overseeing five island groups, was working towards improvement. The same was true for progressive New Zealand with its mandates and territories spanning across large areas of Polynesia.

I thought about the obstacles to curing sick Oceania. The Rockefeller Foundation, a massive scientific organization designed to provide practical help, needed cooperation that the Pacific administrations back then weren’t offering. There had to be teamwork, or nothing would get done. Medical authority needed to come from a central source. As it was, health officials were political appointees—either lazy and incompetent individuals just going through the motions or dedicated people overwhelmed by excessive work and the whims of local government. When a good health officer retired, their replacement would often reverse whatever progress had been made. It was medical chaos, and I believed that the Foundation's significant involvement in improving the Pacific needed some unified control. Otherwise, the effort would be as pointless as trying to sweep fog off a porch. Suva, the capital of Fiji, was the headquarters for the British High Commission, and the Governor of Fiji was its leader. Suva would be the perfect center for such medical authority.

I thought about the issue of leprosy. Throughout my journey, I had come across this disease, but there was no census to indicate whether it was on the rise. The treatment and prevention of leprosy involve systematic care with the one known cure and isolating those who are infected. In the entire South Pacific, except for Fiji, there were no modern leper colonies. The island governments should work together to set one up.

The lack of doctors had been really disheartening. Very few skilled white men wanted to deal with tropical challenges for low pay. Out of boredom and hopelessness, many of them became frauds and alcoholics—even if they hadn't started out that way. The solution was training local medical professionals.... I’ve discussed that a lot because that idea stuck with me. And now I was heading to Fiji, where there had already been a basic effort to teach medicine to Fijians.

As our ship approached Suva, a bigger concern lingered in my mind. After years of studying, from North Queensland to Papua, from Papua to New Guinea, and from New Guinea to the Solomon Islands, I[Pg 112] realized that oil of chenopodium wasn’t effective enough or quick enough to help the million patients who were seeking a cure. In Rabaul’s hospital, I had administered injections of it, hoping to enhance the drug's effectiveness through a different method. The experiment successfully eliminated whipworms, but did almost nothing for hookworms.

I had to confront these realities. Chenopodium, which we had counted on as a remedy for one of the world's biggest issues, was not meeting our expectations. There didn't seem to be any solution to that, until help arrived from an unexpected source.

“WELCOME TO FIJI!”

I have such a collection of hurricanes that in moments of self-reflection I call myself “The Storm King’s Target.” The wind that tossed us around an island when we were trying to reach Rabaul is one example. Another was on a hot day in Fiji, years later, when our mixed-race skipper showed his smarts: He saw the storm approaching and steered our tiny boat into a safe cove. For three days, we “hunkered down” with District Officer Bob and his wife Elaine, watching as a Fijian village took flight; the large palm-thatched community hall looked like a flying haystack. On the way home, I looked for familiar landmarks. Two rivers on Viti Levu had merged; an East Indian village was completely swept away, and everyone drowned. A Fijian town had disappeared under a shifting mountain.

Once in North Queensland, I saw a galvanized iron roof wrap itself around a telephone pole like you wrap paper around a pencil. I’ve been lucky; I’ve never had a ship sink underneath me—almost. A few ships, though, have been wrecked before I could get on board.

Two places to find comfort in a storm are the Power of Prayer and the Power of Swear. Take your pick. Once, a powerful storm hit a mission station, and the missionary, who didn’t want to go himself, sent dedicated followers to retrieve his boat, and they managed to protect it from the storm's wrath. Neighbors scandalized over the reckless danger, but the missionary smiled, “Oh, no. It wasn’t a risk. I saw the Spirit watching over them when they went down to the water.”

Another hurricane hit our ship as we were heading to Fiji from Sydney, and I relied on the Power of Swear. With every wave that crashed through the dining area of the old 1,100-ton Suva, I pulled out long-forgotten curses. My wife and child made it through; Eloisa comes from strong stock, or she could never have followed me in my unusual journey. This trip was a real eye-opener. The Fijians have a meke song where they sing to the hurricane, “blown from the black mouths of the Ladies of the West.” For three terrible days, the Ladies of the West unleashed everything on us. The captain tied our propeller-shaft in a knot, heading straight into the storm, trying to pull us out of an invisible grip.

I was really busy making sure my eight-year-old Harriette didn’t drown in our stateroom. An Australian woman added a bit of “romance” to the situation. When the storm got rough, she would cling to me while her kids held on to her. “Oh, Doctor, I’m so glad”—she would shout over the noise of the storm—“that you’re on the ship. I feel so much safer.” I pictured myself swimming with Eloisa and Harriette in one hand and the Australian lady (with her family) in the other.

When we limped into Suva harbor, the sea had become calm like glass. Hurricanes have a frustrating way of making things like that happen.

There on our right side was the messy little waterfront; and on our left side was a rocky peak they call The Devil’s Thumb; constant landslides had left a perfect Y shape on its surface, as if Yale sophomores had been working on it all night.

******

Suva, the capital of Fiji, has made significant progress in the last eighteen years. Nowadays, occasional cruise ships dock there, letting tourists get their sea legs back. Men can pick up their favorite brand at Piccadilly shops or London-style bars. The debutantes can play tennis while their mothers browse little jewelry shops and splurge a few dollars on a handful of beautiful silver-gilt pearls that hold no respectable commercial value, or check out the museum and shudder at the collection of savage iron-wood clubs that former cannibals traded for hymnals, or buy a four-dollar guidebook at the Carnegie Library, or take a look at the Government Building, which cost around $1,500,000 and looks a bit too large for Pittsburgh. That structure was built after the '32 gold rush when the colony went a bit crazy like Californians and started things off on a grand scale—for a while. Suva today feels like any small colonial capital. Bearded Sikh policemen in bright red uniforms manage the traffic; along the tidy streets, orderly Fijians stroll, wearing short white sulus and bare legs under English coats, their large, smoothly styled headdresses of curly hair making them look like English guardsmen in their tall bearskin hats. Dignified and broad-shouldered, with small waists, they seem to be heading to some wild war dance. In reality, they are on their way to church or to the local movie theater.

Suva in 1922 had one dirt road that led to Nausori, fifteen miles away. The taxi fare was around $7.50. Your director, to save Rockefeller funds, usually took the small Andi Roronga, which traveled from 9 A.M. to 1 PM with a stop along the mangrove-filled Rewa. She headed back at two. When you took a taxi, you had to cross the river on a quirky pontoon with a submerged cable.

I was no longer under the loose control of Australia. Now it was the British High Commission that owned Fiji’s 250 or so islands, had a hold on the Solomons, a small presence in the independent Kingdom of Tonga, controlled the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, and managed some oddly distant islands like Rotumah, Pitcairn, and Christmas Island. The Governor of Fiji was (and is) the official head of the High Commission. However, the real power comes from London. Colonials typically don’t understand English people. Americans, after what happened around 1776, can relate. The American fits easily into the lifestyles of Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, or South Africans. The born Englishman, with his arrogance and quirks, is a different story. He has ruled his far-off territories surprisingly well, but his colonials respect him more than they love him.

Yet down there I have worked with Englishmen for whom I felt the deepest loyalty and friendship. Chris Kendrick is one of them. Barley is another, and there are many more. Pretty soon I am going to tell you about another, who was my associate for eight years in Fiji.

Colonials in Suva often complained, “Back in London, they don’t know we exist.” But the politicians were aware. Fiji became a place for younger sons and favorites from the Ministry. Young guys, as naive as can be and as bright as a fresh coat of paint, were referred to as “cadets,” and there was always a new cadet ready to take the spot left open by retirement or promotion. The experienced colonial, who understood the land and the people, didn’t stand a chance against the cadet system.

Where the English are respected but not liked, the Americans are liked but not respected. Colonials see us as too pushy, too focused on having modern shower baths in every room, and on making sure everyone’s pants are ironed the same way. They call us terrible colonizers; and these opinions come despite our efforts in Cuba, for example, where we eradicated yellow fever and brought the island[Pg 116] real sanitation.... I remember what an educated Cuban once said to me, “Of course we don’t like you, Doctor. You found us dirty and content; now we are clean and unhappy.”

******

Naturally, the British Empire had to collect tribute from its territories to survive. Throughout Britain’s Pacific empire, the slogan “Buy English” supported the sale of all machinery and materials used in public projects. Yet, it was surprising how popular American products remained, despite the high preferential tariff placed on them. American cars, weighed down by a 45 percent tariff, were in high demand in New Zealand, Australia, and Fiji. Loyal colonists were eager to buy British cars, yet stubborn English manufacturers were sending out low-powered, poorly designed cars built for smooth, flat roads. Our own Henry Ford would have adjusted his product to meet local needs. Not so the British manufacturers, who insisted on “Buy English!”

Sunkist oranges were everywhere, a testament to American trade ingenuity in tough circumstances. New Zealand, with its own tropical resources and access to Australia’s and Jamaica’s supplies, showcased Sunkist oranges in every small village. I still find it hard to believe how these Californians can transport oranges eight or nine thousand miles and still make a profit under challenging conditions. Maybe it’s because their fruit is available year-round, or because its consistent size makes it appealing.

As my work continued in Fiji, I had to advocate strongly for an important drug, the arsenical derivative neosalvarsan, often simply called “salvarsan,” which is Ehrlich’s upgrade of his original salvarsan discovery. It’s essential for treating yaws. During one of my short trips to the United States, I discussed the high cost of neosalvarsan with wholesale drug manufacturers who attended an American Medical Association meeting. I asked if the price could be lowered if we ordered it in bulk. I promised that if they offered us a competitive price, we could use $7500 worth each year. When our purchasing agent made a deal, I’m pretty sure the wholesalers didn’t regret it. We used the supply shortly after the first shipment and requested more. When we stopped buying in small quantities, the cost of neosalvarsan was reduced by four times, and each price was lower than what the Crown Agent in London had set—he being the man chosen by the Mother Country to collect a significant portion of the tax on colonies and dominions. Thanks to the deal our purchasing agent made with American wholesalers, the indigenous people of the South Pacific benefited more than the Foundation’s spending on building programs, health campaigns, and my salary.

This sudden attack on the high cost of drugs created quite a stir in London, which had controlled the purchase of arsenicals until then. The Crown Agent responsible for payments compared our affordable prices to what the colony had been spending. The reaction was typical. Representatives from the Home Government wanted to know, unofficially, if we were in collusion with some major American chemical company. Initially, there was an effort to discredit my drug; then the price of salvarsan plummeted throughout the British Empire.

******

My welcome in official Suva was polite but not emotional. There had been a brief Rockefeller campaign there in 1917-1918, which left the Administration noticeably unenthusiastic. The Governor, Sir Cecil Hunter Rodwell, was a great guy, and I owe a lot to him and to Sir Maynard Hedstrom, a wealthy merchant who had a broader perspective than most people I encountered; Hedstrom supported me in all my efforts.

The Suva Hospital wasn't impressive—it was a creaky old shack that had been cobbled together somehow. The new War Memorial was completed a few months later when the Medical Department took it over; despite being new, it felt temporary and was so small that it quickly became overcrowded until the building program of 1934. The local nurses, for instance, were squeezed into an old wooden building, where they had to chop their own firewood and cook in a very basic way; and these were the girls we had to rely on to improve Fijian living standards.

There were around twenty-two to twenty-four medical officers whose average intelligence and dedication were impressive. I referred to them as “the Old Guard” and regretted that so many retired shortly after; the younger ones who took their places lacked the social, educational, and ethical standards of their predecessors. It also seemed to me that the cadets entering civil administration were of lower quality as well.

[Pg 118]

There were forty Native Medical Practitioners—locals who took a three-year course in basic medicine and surgery. They didn’t have a classroom, charts, or more than one small book on basic medicine and hygiene, and that was written in Fijian. Teaching materials were almost nonexistent. These young men worked with out-patients, acted as male nurses, and assisted the doctors during their rounds. Their lectures were conducted at the hospital by the Chief Medical Officer and the Resident Medical Officer. When these officers spoke Fijian and were engaged, the outcomes were positive; when they weren’t interested, the formal education was very limited.

I studied this system, developed for over thirty years, and wondered if it was the answer to my prayers for something constructive. Some of these boys, although they received very little surgical training, showed great skill; it was almost as if their cannibal ancestry had given them a special talent for understanding human anatomy. One Native Medical Practitioner (N.M.P.) was Sowani, who was assigned to the Gilbert Island Colony and became well-known as a surgeon; I will share more about him at the right time.

There was a system of local obstetrical nursing as well as a training school for European nurses. The local nurses had lectures from a Fijian who had the same educational background as they did. They attended one lecture a week for six months each year for two years, after which the girls were sent with N.M.P.s to assist Fijian mothers during childbirth. Their only other training involved carrying bedpans for European trainees, mopping, and cleaning doorknobs. They did not speak any English.

******

The Chief Medical Officer was sitting at his desk, lost in thought when I made my first call. He was getting ready to retire, and that great Englishman, Dr. Aubrey Montague, who had twenty years of local experience, was set to take over.

The soon-to-retire C.M.O. stood up from his work, extended his hand to me, and said sadly, “So, you’ve made it to Fiji!”

Yes, we’d arrived in Fiji. The Chief Medical Officer maintained a delicate balance of politeness. The Foundation was a nice charitable organization, and it was kind of us to show interest and all, but there was no excitement about chenopodium. I completely agreed with him. We shared our insights—without any real gains. You can’t come up with a miracle cure overnight. There was nothing that could replace what we had, and all we could do was keep moving forward.

[Pg 119]

It was a blessing for me and for Fiji when Dr. Aubrey Montague became the Chief Medical Officer. He was the best of the Anglo-Saxon breed, one of the most positive influences in my life. Level-headed and perceptive, he was genuinely incapable of lying, even to himself. I never saw him do anything dishonest or go back on his word—which is quite an achievement for an official in the tropics. He was one of the three most capable men I’ve known in the Pacific, and he definitely didn’t come in third. A naturally shy man tends to build walls around himself. I truly value the closeness we developed when those walls came down, allowing me to see his well-managed intellect.

His clean lifestyle and ideals were free from intolerance; he judged people with compassion. I've often seen them let him down, yet he would forgive them the next day after he had considered their actions in his thoughtful and practical way. His leadership started a time of significant growth, particularly in preventive medicine. A typical politician would have just thrown money around. Montague was careful, almost stingy. It was impressive back then to see government funds safeguarded by a gentleman’s strong sense of duty to King and Country.

Governors constantly approached him with questions beyond his area; his insightful advice was always invaluable. So, it was a huge shock to me when Montague, after thirty years of serving the Empire, was allowed to retire and pass away without the honors he truly deserved. He had performed his duties quietly and didn't have the selfish traits that seek out titles. The only legacy he left was a void that couldn't be filled.

******

Through those first few months, we agreed on three ambitious plans. Montague wanted a proper medical school for his Fijians, something real instead of a makeshift one. His wish was also my priority, and it occupied my thoughts; however, I wanted this educational project to extend across the entire South Pacific. It was a big idea that might have seemed audacious, but we explored its possibilities from every angle. He clearly recognized the benefit of sending well-educated islanders back to their communities to work among their own people.

We discussed the topic of asylum for lepers at Mokogai,[2] a[Pg 120] nearby island where the old facility had been falling apart for years. I suggested that all the small Pacific communities could pool their resources together and turn Mokogai into a modernized and expanded center where patients could receive care at low cost and with great effectiveness. This would promote collaboration, which is what's most needed across those vast blue waters.

And we agreed on a new plan for teamwork. The High Commission's control should be more centralized, especially regarding health issues. Quick communication, especially through radio, was connecting the islands. We envisioned a unified medical service that would bring order to the chaos from New Guinea to the Society Islands. Montague and I supported this plan, and before our initial discussions were finished, we decided that he, Montague, would secure the support of the Fiji Government while I would seek financial and moral backing from the governments overseeing the various Pacific groups around us.

These were really deep thoughts. But before he retired, Montague saw two of his dreams, and mine, come true. The third one was partly realized and might be fully achieved in the end. I hope so, for the sake of a million patients.... I know that no one was ever more generously supported than I was, with Montague's friendship on the Government side and Sir Maynard Hedstrom backing me in the Legislative Council. By the way, Hedstrom was always ready to act as my interpreter for my American slang and methods when I had to argue in front of cautious governors.

The feasibility of a contemporary native medical school hit me hard. I had gotten a white person's glimpse into the Melanesian mindset; anthropologists consider them to be the mental equals of Caucasians; Polynesians rank a step higher intellectually, alongside the Japanese; while the Chinese top the list. Factors like environment, geography, and tradition have limited so many races, making it impossible to compare them with our own clever yet self-destructive civilization.

******

I had thought about all this when Malakai, N.M.P., was sent to me, and my mind was made up.

Malakai had become a Native Practitioner through the inconsistent teachings of the old school. More than half self-taught, his curious mind would never leave a topic until he had fully mastered it. I have no doubt he was a cannibal’s[Pg 121] grandson; many of the best ones were. His favorite meal consisted of scientific books, which he consumed voraciously.

He came to me, a slender young man of twenty with the beautiful bronze skin of a Melano-Polynesian mix. A bit of a dude, he wore a silk lavalava that fell to his nice Fijian knees. His English wasn’t great at the time. In 1924, when I went out for my series of group surveys, I showed him around as a model for the proposed Native Medical Practitioner. He became the best microscopist among the thirty-some I trained; his sharp eyes became mine for work I couldn’t do due to poor vision. Plus, he was like a father, mother, son, and valet to me. It didn’t seem right to have him doing small chores. Malakai took care of that; when we were in the field, he always laid out my clean clothes and did laundry among people who were too uneducated for such tasks. At night, he gave me my quinine, and he was always the first one up in the morning. The old-time missionary who called the Fijian “inclined to indolence” should have met Malakai. Once, when we were out in the jungle, my model N.M.P. fired the native cook and took over the cooking duties. Could he cook? Absolutely!

I’m showing you Malakai, but he’s not a unique exception among Fijians. There are thousands like him on his home islands, just waiting for their chance; they’re the most resourceful people I’ve ever known—adaptable, smart, eager, loyal, and reliable in a crisis. Not once has a trusted Fijian let me down or failed to endure hardship and smile in tough times. Treat them with the respect they deserve, trust them as they deserve to be trusted... Well, I’ve seen many of their amazing young men succeed, and I’m watching many more rise up...

On my return visit to Sikiana, I was disturbed by how many people had enlarged spleens. Malakai was the first to mention a widespread malaria infection, but I dismissed it. Where were the anopheline mosquitoes? Malakai left and returned with a smile. “Doctor, I let them bite me. They stand on their heads to feed, and they have spotted wings.” He showed me several captured anopheles and saved me from looking foolish in my report.

I will never forget how he looked when he came back from a later mission to the New Hebrides. He had spent a year and a half as the only purely Condominium medical officer. Then suddenly we got a cable: “Moved out of the condo, Malakai.” It was about race. A newly-appointed official had come from an island where no one was exactly white; so he was very sensitive about race and insisted on replacing the boy from Fiji. We welcomed Malakai back to Suva because we had let him go at a cost to show that native doctors could be effective.[Pg 122]

The image of him stepping off the boat was unforgettable. He had swapped his fancy lavalava for a pair of pants. He simply said he liked them, and no one could get him to reveal the real reason. About a year later, he showed up with a new silk lavalava and was finally ready to talk about the pants. Down in the New Hebrides, he had messed with mosquitoes one too many times; a case of malaria had left his legs so skinny that he felt embarrassed. The pride of a Fijian dandy lies in his muscular calves and slim ankles.

In 1926, when I was traveling from the New Hebrides to Sydney on the Makambo, Captain Tom Brown moved Malakai from second class to the captain's table as a sign of respect. When I returned to the Cook Islands in 1932, the locals only asked me two questions: Where was Malakai and what had I done with my big camera? I felt out of place. For three years, Malakai led our yaws unit in Fiji. No European doctor could have done the job as well for four times the cost. Malakai’s unit was a model of excellence.

A European Medical Officer in the Ellice group became an alcoholic, so I sent Malakai down for six months. After we had to bring him back, the local District Officer nearly challenged me to a duel; he said he was going half-crazy because delegations from nearby islands were flooding in, asking for Malakai’s help.

My young doctor's obsession with silk neckties, silk shirts, silk lavalavas, nice coats, wristwatches, mandolins, and guitars once got him into trouble with a Fijian custom called kere kere. The clans operate like a commune, so if you're part of a clan, anything you own is theirs by right. That's why he came back from his hometown looking like a cat that fell into the ocean. His family had stripped him down to a tattered shirt and a cotton lavalava. Even the highest-born Fijian can receive this thrift-store treatment if he returns to his homeland. It stifles ambition.

That, of course, was part of Malakai's private life. So was his marriage to a good-looking wife who used to join him on his trips. When he started sailing alone, I was worried about trouble; Malakai, by nature, would have been the perfect guardian for a very old[Pg 123] Turk with a huge harem—no outside help would have been needed. Then there was the issue of his savings. Like all Pacific Islanders, he had no concept of a money-based economy. Why save for a rainy day? The sun will shine again; it always does.

Love entered Malakai's life, and money started flying out the window. I had pushed him into saving £119 in a bank account; but then Malakai got hold of the book. He was dealing with issues with his wife. The first Mrs. Malakai couldn't have kids, and a Fijian man who hasn’t fathered a child is looked down upon as less than a real man; being unable to have kids is grounds for divorce. Malakai had started dating a local nurse, and the romance had drained his £119. He spent his entire remaining balance on a party to announce an expected heir—on the dark side. His fiancée was far from unable to have children—but how could he honestly name the unborn Malakai, Junior?

Well, I spoke to Magistrate Burrowes, who kindly held two divorce hearings—and dismissed both because neither Malakai nor his friends, for mysterious Fijian reasons, would testify to the matter. At a third hearing, Burrowes was in a bad mood. Bari and Rafaeli, Malakai’s friends, stayed silent, but Malakai opened up a bit. Frustrated, the magistrate fined him three pounds a month from his N.M.P. salary of nine pounds—probably the first alimony ever paid by a Fijian. On the first of every month, the retired Mrs. Malakai showed up to collect. She drained her ex-husband dry; then she came to me for six months’ payment in advance to take her on a holiday trip. I argued that having three months’ cash in hand is worth a lifetime of installments in the bush. She liked the idea, and finally for fifteen pounds cash right then, she let Malakai go for good. Now she could buy presents, buy clothes, go home, save face. And, naturally, find herself a new husband. Honor was satisfied. Another example of native money psychology.

In 1936, Malakai went to the Gilbert and Ellice Islands as a Senior Medical Practitioner. When he left, it took two Europeans to take over his position. He returned to Fiji in 1939, just a few days before I retired.

******

In his skills and quirks, Malakai was completely Fijian. He solidified my resolve for higher education for people like him. Dr. Montague was up for it. If we could have tackled that challenge in 1922-1923, our excitement might have gained the political support and funding from at least eight major island groups. All we needed was a partnership with the Rockefeller Foundation. I figured that was just a matter of asking.

My guess was off. I wrote a detailed letter to Dr. Victor Heiser and laid out our plan. Just a small school with forty undergraduates to start with. It could be a part of the new hospital in Suva, but it didn’t have to be an expensive set of buildings. Dr. Montague’s plans were affordable and very practical. Governor Sir Eyre Hutson was excited about it. Administrators on far-off islands were asking for it. Now was the time.

I wrote passionately:

The reply came from 61 Broadway. Dr. Heiser, with his usual insight, thought the plan was reasonable and practical. However, the Foundation is so large that it needs to be divided into many divisions, like a Division of Medical Sciences, a Division of Social Sciences, a Division of the Humanities, and so on. The Division of Medical Sciences was completely against us; they were focused on ambitious projects and considered mine to be quite mediocre. Rockefeller money was being poured into the grand establishment in Peking. There was no point in wasting more money on small, insignificant schools in the Pacific. After years of my persistence on the subject, Heiser eventually lost interest and asked me to drop it. Peking and several other places were the major health investments...

Well, where is Beijing today, after the Japanese are done? And Fiji? I'm saving that info for later.

It’s ironic, and a bit odd, that the Rockefeller Foundation sent a big check to Japan for their Public Health School on the same day that the Mikado’s army destroyed a beautiful library that the Foundation had donated to Chungking.

A Doctor by Default

I was like a dog without a collar, medically speaking. Official Fiji had heard about the greedy American who set up on foreign land to make an illegal fortune. In 1922, a law was passed for my benefit stating that no American could practice medicine in Fiji without a “special permit.” The special permit was much less important than a chauffeur’s license, and my official status, if I even had one, was lower than that of the N.M.P. (Native Medical Practitioner). Until 1937, I was only legally allowed to treat hookworm. In the meantime, I had treated and been responsible for the care of hundreds of thousands of cases of hookworm, yaws, malaria, tuberculosis, ringworm, and so on. Now that I think about it, I hadn’t been a legally qualified physician in Papua and New Guinea either. When Dr. McGusty took charge in Suva, he huffed and puffed and said, “All nonsense!”—and got me a respectable license. In 1937, the Empire found out I was in Fiji, and I joined the British Medical Association.

Not that it mattered. Montague and I were together, never missing a beat. He wasn’t the type to seek out compliments, and he always gave me credit when it was deserved.

Fiji experienced racial decline, but with a trend upwards. In brief, the population dropped from 200,000 during the cannibalistic days of 1870 to 105,000 by 1891. The 1905 census revealed a shocking decline to 87,000; every year, epidemics of endemic dysentery and whooping cough had severely reduced their numbers, and then measles hit those without immunity. There was a break in the death rate, and by 1911, there was a slight increase in population that continued until 1917 when there were 91,000 living Fijians. They might have reached the 1891 level in eight years, but the devastating flu outbreak in 1918-1919 set them back again. They recovered from a low of around 82,000, and by the New Year of 1937, the population was at 98,291.

[Pg 126]

Discounting the flu brought by the World War, which puzzled all of medicine, Fiji demonstrates how the steady decrease in the death rate can nearly be tracked by medical advancements. I wish we could feel self-satisfied and claim that the issue is resolved, both in Fiji and Western Polynesia. But there’s another confusing element: the East Indian.

Today in Suva, tourists admire the beauty of the locals, who brighten the streets with their turbans and colorful silken saris. In the early ’80s, they were initially brought in as laborers, and successive shiploads increased their number to 50,000. With natural growth, they reached about 85,000 by the 1936 census. The colonial residents of Fiji initially believed that these immigrants were necessary for industrial development, but the indenturing of Indians stopped in 1916. Since then, more have left than have come in. Those who leave are usually older, while those who return are generally young adults.

For forty-five years, the Indian birth rate was much higher than the Fijian. The more stable Fijian rate has shown an increase. In the early ’90s, there were over 7,000 more native males than females, but that gap gradually closed until 1936, when the excess dropped to 2,087. This indicates a positive trend. However, the Colony’s annual medical and health reports from 1921 to 1936 show that Indian women have a birth rate that exceeds that of Fijian women by 25 percent; soon the Indian population is likely to surpass the native Fijians. The Fijians experience a higher mortality rate than Indians. Fijians lose more people to tuberculosis than Indians do from all causes; Fijians also lose more children under five than Indians do from all causes; and Fijians lose more from causes other than tuberculosis and deaths under five than Indians do from all causes.

Add this up. The mortality rate in Fiji is three times higher than in India, and the fertility rate of Indian women is 25 percent higher than that of Fijian women.

The Indians in Fiji are descendants of countless generations who faced diseases. Fiji, with its better food, wages, housing, and free medical care, was a true blessing for these newcomers. Far from the crowded Punjab, they left behind the restrictions of caste and arrived with a strong desire for land and freedom. The bigger the family, the more land they could cultivate; and there’s no stigma attached to being born out of wedlock.

In 1922, East Indians were on the rise. Today, they are spreading even faster, and Fiji risks becoming an extension of India. The Asian population is nearly equal to the native population. Something needs to be done about it, but what? Is it survival of the fittest? Not completely. It's partly due to the artificial support given to the East Asian population through medical advancements and a greatly improved environment. Some issues have arisen with the end of their old caste system. There’s no longer an invisible barrier between Hindu, Brahman, Chamar, Pariah, and Muslim. The Indian population found new freedom in the tropical islands, and most immigrants were from lower castes. Their ideals were unclear, their women few, the recruitment system led to decline, the institution of marriage weakened, and little girls were sometimes offered for trade. Cult priests from India stirred up fanaticism, and loud little activists like Gandhis kept the tensions high. India's Nationalist Movement created quite a mess with their efforts for social equality. The Indians were given three seats on the Legislative Council, equal to those of elected Fijian chiefs. The Asian members loudly demanded a common franchise, and when that was rejected, they swiftly resigned. Then there was the school issue. It was completely unrealistic for the Government to build the hundred schools that the Indians wanted, especially since they refused to contribute their share to government-supported mission and private schools. As a result, about a sixth of their children went without education.

I’m not taking any sides. I’m just reporting that the Indians are becoming conquerors by gradually taking over an archipelago where the locals deserve their own land and traditions. In Fiji, people from Asia are developing a nice brotherhood that Mother India never really stamped out. Often, when one of them gets stuck in India after a vacation, his friends in Fiji—Hindu, Pariah, and Muslim—will chip in to pool their money and bring him back. At one point in our household in Suva, we had three Indian servants of three different religions: a Hindu cook, a Muslim gardener, and a Christian chambermaid. Back in their hometown, they might have been at each other's throats every morning before breakfast. But here, it was like the song of songs, perfectly in sync. I wish Eloisa had them now...

No, I’m not against the experiment to bring back the East Indian. I just wish they hadn’t tried it in Fiji, where I've grown to love the native people deeply.

[Pg 128]

Now what about the Fijian?

When you count his islands at 250, you include the large Viti Levu, which is about 4,000 square miles, and its thinner, slightly smaller sister Vanua Levu to the northeast; then there’s a mix of decent-sized islands down to tiny specks on the map. If some super dictator decided to merge them, there would be enough to nearly fill New Jersey. They are beautiful, these tiny islands, with rounded bases of iron-brown rock and palms leaning toward the sea; so many fern baskets set around surprising blue inlets—blue and silver in the morning. Then you sail around to larger landmasses, graceful cliffs with threads of waterfalls and big white shells on the shore, like bleached skulls. In summer, which is December there, the temperature rarely goes above ninety-two degrees, and the Fourth of July is right in the heart of spring. I don’t have any real estate to sell in Fiji. I’m just sharing my homesick feelings when I say it has the best winter climate in the world, and it’s the best climate overall for me.

Early explorers referred to it as “Feejee,” but the official name is Fiji—and that's also incorrect. The proper name is Viti. Captain Cook made this mistake when he visited the Tongan Islands and heard the Polynesians pronounce “Viti” in their own way. This area was aptly nicknamed “the Cannibal Islands.” The transition of fierce tribes from cannibalism to prayer meetings is astounding. In 1927, when Martin Egan, a traveler, saw a long line of calm natives heading to church, he commented, “From Cannibalism to Calvinism!” This sums it up, even though the main church is Wesleyan. It's almost unbelievable that these peaceful, law-abiding people have transformed so quickly and progressed so far.

The Fijians were not just cannibals but also extremely cruel. When a chief’s house was being built, captives were made to stand in the postholes “to hold up the house,” and they were buried alive. A chief’s canoe was launched over living bodies, using them as human rollers. When there wasn’t enough enemy meat, hunters would stalk women and children from their own tribe; women and children were seen as delicacies suitable for visiting chiefs. When there were plenty of captives, the chief would send out his livestock in the morning to choose his meal. If one of them sneezed, which was seen as a sign of cowardice, the chief would shout “Mbula!”, meaning, disdainfully, “I give you life.” No respectable man ever ate coward-meat. The sneezer would then reply, “Moli,” which meant, essentially, “Your words are as sweet as orange juice to me.” The word “Mbula” is still commonly used today as a friendly greeting: “How’s your health?” “Mbula vinaka” is similar to saying “My health is good.”

I’m not so sure that their cannibalism didn’t originally stem from a protein shortage. There were no four-legged animals, except maybe for rats. The Fijian fainted at the sight of the first horse, just like the Aztecs did in front of Cortés’ ponies. Old stories tell of a maniacal bloodlust: How the father of King Thakombau cut out a disobedient brother’s tongue, roasted it, and ate it. How Thakombau (Evil of Mbau) did the same thing to the severed arm of a living captive.... Widowhood was dealt with in a horrifyingly practical way: during a husband’s funeral, the widow would rest her head in the lap of a seated woman, who would cover the widow’s mouth with one hand and hold the back of her neck with the other; then a relative, sometimes a son, would wrap a vine around her neck and finish the job.

If a man from the tribe stepped up to claim her, the widow was saved. The term for widow, dawai, is still a derogatory term. Young girls who were engaged to young boys always had the threat of death looming over them. If the boy died, it was customary to strangle the girl and bury her with him. Sometimes she was given a chance to go back to her parents and try to marry again. Often, her parents were so overwhelmed that they sent her back to be executed. Yet the Fijians were, and still are, a culture that cherishes children. I can’t believe that the custom-bound parents who brought their daughter back to die weren’t filled with real sorrow; the respectful term for daughter is “rafter of the house.” A widow who was caring for a child or was pregnant was sent back to her father’s home and lived out her natural life.

The ceremony for a deceased chief would last a long time, happening at intervals. After a hundred days, there was the final feast. Some of the warriors would arrive with one or two fingers missing. They had amputated them as a sign of sorrow.

The first and last King of the Cannibal Islands was named Thakombau, and since most history books spell it “Cakobau,” I need to point out a quirk of Fijian spelling that has frustrated local schoolboys. Johann Sebastian Bach, a descendant of the famous composer and Fiji’s public printer for years, explained to me how this crazy spelling came about, so the island of Mbengga is printed as “Beqa.” In the early days, the person who did the missionaries’ printing ran out of type. In Fijian, every g and d has an n sound in front of it, so to save n’s, they just didn’t use them, assuming the n sound was implied before each g and d. Every Fijian b has an m sound in front of it, so that letter was also dropped. The common th sound ran the printer out of that character, so he substituted c for th since there wasn’t another use for c in Fijian. The frequent ngg was replaced by the handy q. A full explanation of this typographical theory would need pages, but I hope I’ve outlined the principle, which shows some interesting results.

This king, Thakombau (also spelled Cakobau), is a prime example of the local understanding of economics, which was essentially nonexistent. His warriors were happily destroying American trade posts and missions, occasionally stopping to eat the locals. In 1858, President Buchanan sent the Vandalia to demand a $45,000 indemnity. The warships appeared very powerful, and Thakombau was struggling with his revolutions; his only option seemed to be to sell off his empire to settle the debt. He offered the deal to the United States and England, but found no buyers.

In 1874, domestic politics shifted the British perspective. According to popular belief, Thakombau was cornered on Mbau’s Gibraltar-like rock when a British warship was conveniently anchored nearby. A well-equipped landing party scattered the attackers, returned the King to his tapa-lined home, and witnessed him sign a document that mentioned the payment of debts and the full surrender of Fiji, body and soul. The story is pretty close to what happened. Soon after, Britain accepted Fiji. King Thakombau made a significant gesture by giving his war club as a gift to Queen Victoria. She probably never used it, but she felt pleased to hear that the ousted king had traded cannibalism for Christianity. He destroyed most of the pagan temples in his waning kingdom but preserved his own on Mbau—for sentimental reasons.

The humbled Thakombau started traveling and contributed to bringing in foreign diseases. In 1876, he returned from Australia with a case of measles, which he spread all over.

HOW THE ANSWER APPEARED

In Fiji, we went straight for treatment and prevention, launching an active campaign. Chris Kendrick was still with me, my top asset; Malakai was a newly uncovered gem.

On my first tour, I encountered filthy sanitary conditions, or sometimes none at all. Through education, we tried to encourage the locals and those who had come from the East to use regular cesspit latrines; our efforts became more successful after we discovered a new internal remedy that gained us public approval and made the Fijians more health-conscious. From that point on, it was easier for us to implement our initiatives. When Dr. Heiser visited us in 1928, he introduced the bored-hole latrine, which was very popular with the Foundation at that time. It was a twenty-five-foot deep hole dug using an eighteen-inch auger, which provided practical benefits to the East Indians in Fiji; however, for the locals, the deep pit covered with a polished concrete slab—which we were then manufacturing and distributing by the thousands—was by far the better sanitation option.

Dr. Heiser visited again in 1934. In his An American Doctor’s Odyssey, he took the time to detail those two trips. During his last visit, we conducted surveys together and reviewed the results of our bored-hole projects. I have fond memories of our adventures; despite being sixty-three, he kept up with me as we explored Fiji, Tonga, and Samoa. We argued like two plumbers on vacation about Bored Latrine versus Cesspit. I argued that the deep auger-hole worked well for the more delicate Indian, but it was useless in rocky or sandy soil. And for the Fijians, it wouldn't be effective. Why? In a place where locals use palm leaves, breadfruit leaves, stones, coconut husks, and bits of wild grass for toilet needs, a narrow tube in the ground gets clogged faster than it takes to dig it. Then the person just goes back to using the bush, like before. It’s not about science; it’s just practical mechanics mixed with tradition. Our debate at least led to us modifying the bored-hole latrine to have a larger hole, while still keeping the concrete slab, which the barefoot locals admired for its reliable cleanliness.

******

But in 1922, as a newcomer in Fiji and with only the kind of authority I could create for myself, this broken jigsaw puzzle seemed to me like something no human could piece together. I was a health officer on a pretty large scale with nothing more than a dog license to show for it. It was pretty discouraging at first. I felt like a firefighter with a leaky hose, trying to put out a fire at one end of a building while someone else was pouring gasoline on the other. The government health authorities had every reason to be upset about the Foundation’s recent failed attempt to eliminate the widespread parasite. Everywhere I went, I could see how little progress we’d made. Chris Kendrick would return from treatments in remote areas and smile sadly. “It’s a real mess out there.” Like all of us, he was losing faith in chenopodium; and Chris Kendrick's faith could take a lot of hits.

Nevertheless, I was working hard to educate the locals about different parasites and the benefits of treatment. And I was boosting British enthusiasm with every promotional tool I could find. As I blew the Horn of Health, they started to see me as Barnum’s little brother, with a touch of Rockefeller in me somewhere.

One of my less dignified attempts at health advertising was a window display I created for Pop Swann’s drugstore, which was located right on Suva’s main street. Pop was a strong supporter of medical progress. So it didn’t take much convincing to get him on board with setting up an interesting display of intestinal parasites that would benefit both his business and mine. Most of his customers were Fijians and East Indians, so it made perfect sense. “Anything to get things moving along, my boy,” said the enthusiastic Pop. Together, we arranged a captivating setup in the two windows flanking his front door, where everyone passing by could stop and admire: worms of various kinds in the large gallon bottles they call “Winchesters.” Tapeworms of incredible lengths wriggled in alcohol; families of Necator americanus swam comfortably next to a jug full of oriental Ankylostoma; there was a big bottle dedicated to the fat roundworms, nearly a foot long, and to the screw-headed whipworms, as well as other, less famous wrigglers. Pop Swann rubbed his hands together as we stood outside, taking pride in our display in the two windows that framed his front door. “Doc,” chuckled Pop, “that should attract customers, if anything will!”

Then a really busy week, going up and down hills, organizing the campaign and pushing it forward. One day, as I was passing by Pop Swann’s, a semicircle of Indians and Fijians blocked my way, standing at a respectful distance from the big display. Out of the door came Pop, his hair all messed up. “Doc,” he yelled, “for the love of God, get those things out of my windows. The locals are so scared they won’t walk between those worms. You’re ruining my business!”

So I cleared the window and time went on. But it wasn’t going well for me, or in the right direction.

******

One late afternoon in February 1922, I leaned back in my office chair and felt the soreness a middle-aged prizefighter must experience after getting knocked out in the first round. Along with a team of nine local and Indian assistants, and the invaluable Chris Kendrick, I had once again made rounds and witnessed the bleak hopelessness of two races weakened by their own customs and the unkindness of nature. It was just as Paley had pointed out: heavy rainfall flooded their shallow wells and mixed with the filth from their latrines, so both the wells and latrines had the same harmful bacteria. In some areas, hookworm infection rates reached as high as 98 percent. This issue wasn’t just confined to primitive natives; the Hindus and Muslims of ancient cultures were just as clueless about sanitation and were even more heavily infested with worms than their dark brown counterparts.

This dirty stable needs cleaning, but the puzzling part was finding the solution. Our International Health Board was sharing costs with the government for a three-year campaign. The issue of wasting money again came up. Officially, I should have supported chenopodium. In reality, that drug was the first line in my Hymn of Hate. And the frustrating thing was this: despite the urgent need for sanitary improvements, a real cure had to take priority as an educational example. If you eliminate all the hookworms in the human body, none of their eggs will drop to the ground to hatch the larvae that create the blood-sucking worms.... The whole chain of consequences in a tropical setting. Sounds pretty straightforward, right? So does astronomy.

I sat at my desk, facing the reality of the situation and not liking any of it. Evening was approaching, and I should have been home for dinner. I was so tired of myself and my work that I couldn't bring myself to move. Three more years of this, and where would it lead us? Nowhere.

Maybe it was my guardian angel who quietly came up and placed a calm hand over mine. Without realizing what I was doing or why, I moved my hand across the desk and woke up, blinking. I had picked up the Journal of the American Medical Association, a November 1921 issue, and an invisible finger seemed to point to the page for me. And there was the title: “The Use of Carbon Tetrachloride in the Removal of Hookworm ... by Maurice C. Hall.” Hall was the guy who approved my experiment down in Rabaul when I gave those injections to six cannibal prisoners. I respected him, like most of the profession did. As Senior Zoologist of the United States Bureau of Animal Industry, his research had made a significant impact in his field. He didn’t speak unless he knew what he was talking about.

Here was Hall's report in the plain gray of scientific language, showing years of careful observation. His tests had led him to a new drug—carbon tetrachloride. An odd, humble substance to have pulled from the pharmacopoeia! Until now, it had only been useful in dry-cleaning solutions and fire extinguishers. He noticed that patients under chloroform anesthesia often release a variety of intestinal parasites. So, chloroform would be an effective dewormer if it weren't for its toxic properties. Hall conducted hundreds of tests from the list of Hydrocarbons until he got to chloroform's close relative. Chloroform's chemical formula is CHCl₃. Tetrachloride's laboratory name is CCl₄.

Tetrachloride hit the target Hall had been searching for. He initially tested it on dogs, then moved on to swine, horses, and monkeys. He carefully measured the dosage at 3 cc. for every 10 pounds of animal weight; later, he discovered that 0.3 cc. for every kilogram of body weight eliminated the worms in surprisingly large amounts. After treatment, he conducted postmortems on numerous animals and examined internal organs, which showed no pathological changes linked to CCl₄. In animal testing, it had been a definite success.

In animals, yes. But what about humans?

[Pg 135]

The answer came like a thunderclap from Hall’s quietest paragraph. He had tried it on himself. Boldly, he had taken a 3 cc. dose, gone to bed, and woken up the next morning with no negative symptoms. The dangerous drops he had consumed the night before didn’t make him feel nauseous like chenopodium. His animal experiments showed him that it worked quickly, safely, and more effectively. And here’s another plus: tetrachloride tested on animals appeared to have no harmful effects on pregnancy. Chenopodium had always been risky to give to a pregnant woman. It was, at times, one of the unsafe abortifacients—often effective if used close to the poison threshold.

The message about tetrachloride hit me like an answer to prayer. But would the dog remedy end up being a killer for humans? Probably not. Hall had tested it on himself.

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With a hop, skip, and jump, I headed over to the lab used by the Medical Officer of Health. Of course, old Carment, who ran the place, wouldn’t have the drug. Why would he? But there it was! A large brown bottle labeled CCl₄. It had obviously never been opened, and nobody knows how it ended up there. It’s strange how pointless stuff just ends up on lab shelves.

When I walked into Dr. Montague’s office, I had the brown bottle under one arm and the Medical Journal under the other. “Read this and check this out,” I said. He read the article carefully, then turned the bottle in his hand. “Lambert, just try anything,” he sighed. That pretty much summed up how we all felt back then.

We had been trained in the practical school. Try anything if there's evidence to support it. Even the jungle medicine man, despite his black magic, has herbs and simple remedies that a respectable practitioner might use. A thousand years before Harvey showed how blood circulates, Asian healers were using chaulmoogra oil for leprosy—true, their method was incorrect, but they still used it. The Incas of Peru taught us the importance of quinine for malaria; they chewed the bark. Before the Crusades, local barbers were giving mercury to noblemen with syphilis. Up until fifty years ago, the medical profession relied heavily on the home remedies your grandmother forced down your throat; as long as they worked, they saved many a fancy prescription written in abbreviated Latin.

[Pg 136]

The old empiricists had followed that approach. But thinkers of the new era, like Pasteur and Ehrlich, had intentionally aimed to match a drug to a specific condition. That was how Hall operated.

So we were trying to cure hookworm disease with a cleaning fluid. A vet had recommended it. True, he was one of the best vets out there. I can't help but laugh now, remembering how we, as naive young undergraduates at Syracuse Medical, used to look down on vets and dentists as "horse doctors" and "tooth pullers." We didn’t bother to remember that modern anesthesia came from a dentist's brain. And since we didn’t have the gift of foresight, how could we have known what a vet would eventually do with something from a fire extinguisher?

My mind was made up, but my heart wasn’t feeling great when I went to the local ward and picked out four hookworm-infected East Indians. I wasn’t sure how these guys would react, since Mr. Gandhi’s Civil Disobedience had become their nightly ritual. However, they felt pretty sick and were ready, like Montague, to say, “Try anything.” I started them off with a strong dose of salts.

At seven the next morning, my shaky hand gave each of them 3 cc. from the brown bottle. The moment they swallowed it, I felt like a Borgia. It was too late to change anything unless I quickly gave them an emetic. If the tetrachloride reacted badly, I’d be responsible for a man's death, maybe four. Doctors have to toughen up to death; otherwise, they can’t stay in the field. But killing someone through experimentation is a whole different story. If any of these Hindus died, it would weigh heavily on my conscience. Not to mention, I’d lose my job... I could already see my resignation from the International Health Board being requested via cable.

I steadied myself with a thought: If the Fiji campaign failed along the old lines, that wouldn’t be any achievement for me either. Well, I was making a decision based on a long shot.... My stomach turned on me, foolishly mirroring the pain of my victims. Solid food didn’t sound good, so I had a pint of coffee for breakfast, bitter with a new frustration. Why hadn’t I taken tetrachloride myself before I tried it on those Indians?[3]

Dr. Hall had taken a dose of it.

[Pg 137]

I had given my four Indians their dose at seven, and time was passing slowly. The tetrachloride, which is a laxative, should have worked faster. The men were quiet and sluggish. Was this coma? I felt their thin wrists and listened to their shallow chests; their pulse and breathing were normal. How soon would things start to go downhill?

Dr. Hall had taken a dose of it.

Yes, but Hall had been in great health, able to withstand toxic poisoning. These poor guys were like dry leaves. The very thing that made treatment necessary had weakened them to the point of exhaustion... Then I thought: Even if I had taken the stuff myself, it wouldn’t have mattered much; what I was trying to figure out was its actual effect on hookworm...

******

I had wandered back to my office, hoping that some alone time and a cigarette might help me figure out what to do next.... The door swung open and Chris Kendrick stumbled in. His expression was serious as he said, “That tetrachloride—”

“Are they dead?” I asked stiffly.

“Dead!” Chris waved his hands. “They’re all jumping out of bed and just talking about hookworms!”

That's how I got the news. I had been watching them for hours while local medical officers walked by their beds, making long faces that said to my fevered imagination, “See what Lambert’s done now!” The moment I turned my back, CCl₄ started to take effect. For three days, while my patients were, as Chris exaggerated, “barely spouting worms,” it was a constant source of wonder. The atmosphere, which hadn't been too warm, glowed with camaraderie. Doctors gathered around our hookworm count like sports fans around a scoreboard. The native orderlies were just as excited. First day, second day, third.... I had gambled with four lives, and I won. I call this Tetrachloride Experiment Number 2, since Hall took the first dose; and Experiment Number 2 turned out to be a surprising success. Between them, my patients expelled 244 worms after a single dose. The following week, we gave them a test treatment with chenopodium—and only got four Necators. The man I marked as Case 1 expelled none at all. The other three didn’t need any follow-up treatment. In three days, Case 1 had shed ninety-five hookworms, and all were declared cured. One dose of CCl₄, mind you, proved to be 99 percent effective.

******

Mine was the embarrassment of riches. I had worked for the Foundation too long to believe that they would approve of widespread treatments with such a new and untested drug. If I continued with tetrachloride, as I felt I had to, the only option was to move forward and say nothing about it.

Dr. Montague’s excitement matched my own, but I was careful at first. The next group of East Indians I worked with didn’t go as well as the first four. It wasn’t tetrachloride’s fault, but Gandhi’s; his sick followers were so stubborn that they tossed their samples out the window before we could do an accurate worm count. We did manage to gather enough, though, to keep Kendrick and his team of Fijian helpers busy examining the thin washings spread out on tightly stretched gauze.

I look through some of the reports from those experimental days and read:—

[Pg 139]

The time came when I realized that the whole thing was too important to keep to myself, so I wrote a careful letter to the Foundation. The response from 61 Broadway with its code-name “Rockfound” came back so quickly that it practically raced across the Pacific: “No usage allowed. We do not experiment with human life.”

I took the useless message to Dr. Montague and said, “Well, the game’s over. I’m not allowed to mess around with fire extinguishers.”

Montague thought for a while. Tetrachloride was a blessing for Fiji, he said, and he wasn’t planning to give it up. He was suggesting it for all the organizations under his control.

Then I found a way out. I asked, “Do you give me permission, as your subordinate, to keep using it? Would you approve a letter to confirm that?” He said yes, and he did. After that, I didn’t hear any more objections from the Foundation, whose administrators were more than happy, of course, to have the drug tested on a large scale, as long as the Government of Fiji took on the responsibility.

******

Up until the time I gained the confidence to treat a whole large Indian school, the new method had been tested very quietly. Then it became too public to keep it from the press. It was at the Dilkusha Mission that we conducted this first “mass treatment”—the only practical way to provide a cure to so many people. Before that, it involved a tedious door-to-door effort. At Dilkusha, we lined up 400 children, and I was just as nervous as I had been when I dealt with the four adults at the War Memorial. But I left feeling happy, a bit pleased with myself. One dose of tetrachloride had eliminated 99 percent of the infestation. Meanwhile, at Suva Jail, Dr. Kalamkar, an East Indian physician, had achieved a score of 94.5.

All of this was news, and Suva had an editor with a strong sense for what made headlines. His name was Victor Abel, and among other ambitious projects, he ran a paper called the Pacific Age. A bold young guy from a respectable Anglo-Jewish family, he had raised mules in South Africa, messed that up, then went to Fiji to raise pigs, and failed at that too. His powerful father-in-law was Sir Henry Marks, who was quite concerned about the Pacific Age.

Sir Henry had his sights set on a spot on the Executive Council, and you could never predict what the unpredictable Victor would say next to rattle the Government. The town was always buzzing, anticipating some new drama in his personal correspondence column. That column was a totally open forum; under all sorts of creative pseudonyms, residents would let each other have it, right to the face. Then, just to keep things interesting, they would switch their pseudonyms overnight and start going off on the left. When Victor decided to write something up, he’d spice it up. For instance, there was his famous story about the government yacht left in Suva harbor with her seacocks open. It slowly sank while the officers and crew were onshore watching a football game.

In the middle of our expanding campaign, Victor approached me and said he was fairly certain he had hookworm. He did, and tetrachloride worked very effectively. “Listen, Doctor,” he said, “what’s the deal with this miracle drug? Where did it come from? What’s the backstory? Are you seriously going to keep big news like that under wraps in Suva? Tell me about it, let me share it, and I’ll have the whole world paying attention.”

By that time, Fiji was definitely paying attention. Locals were eager for treatment. It wasn't until the gold rush of ’32 that it became a widely discussed topic. I wanted Victor to tell the story; I told him, “You can write it as long as you leave me out of it—and don’t mention the Foundation, either. Just say that Maurice C. Hall’s treatment is being given. If that’s clear, here are the facts.”

Victor kept his promise in a suitably dramatic way, announcing that Maurice C. Hall was treating hookworm with a substance called tetrachloride. The news excited the medical community, and scientists were considering the potential of this new and innovative drug. How would it turn out in Fiji? That was the big question.

When the news reached Washington, supportive biologists gathered in Dr. Maurice C. Hall’s office to congratulate him, and his response was typical of him. “You say I’ve been curing hookworm in Fiji? Heck, I’ve never even been there.”

******

In a month, I had handled more cases than my predecessor did in fourteen months, and without any extra costs. Tetrachloride was so effective that there was no need for multiple doses, unlike chenopodium. By the end of 1922, the Rockefeller Foundation, which had sorted out the Hall-Lambert partnership and graciously overlooked my disobedience, reported 52,000 treatments using tetrachloride.

Of these, 50,000 were given in Fiji under my supervision.

[Pg 141]

The history of public health can't be told by someone looking to sell a quick-fix medicine. We faced some challenges at first, but they were surprisingly few. In every area where the Willis salt flotation method revealed a hookworm infection rate over 60 percent, we gathered the people together and treated them all at once. In places like the filthy Rewa and Navua districts, the infection rate was particularly high. In one location, we treated 1,243 people, and when we returned a month later, we found that 1,111 villagers tested negative—this was about the average outcome as our efforts scaled up.

Primitive people turned our arrival into a celebration; drums beat and everyone reached out for the magical drink. They called it “toddy” and claimed it was great because it made them drunk. It probably did, to some extent. After a child-size serving, little boys would run around like wild animals, wrecking the flower beds in mission compounds, throwing mud, and having an absolute blast. Grown-up “marys” would jump around and dance like Aunt Dinah at an old-school revival; but when their big husbands hit them, they would snap back to reality surprisingly quickly. Most of the displays were just for show; our patients typically went crazy before the drug had enough time to kick in. However, tetrachloride does have a mildly intoxicating effect, especially if it's not given with proper care. But these antics were mainly psychological—reflecting a native desire for a big joy celebration. The British have been very wise in keeping alcohol away from these people.

After the first two years of extensive treatments, we had to report seven deaths. Autopsies conducted by skilled doctors uncovered the causes. All seven were East Indians. One of them, it turned out, hadn’t taken tetrachloride at all; it had been chenopodium. One young man who died had a congenital intestinal malformation, a deformity that would have prevented him from living to adulthood. Another was a woman with an alcohol addiction. The others were children severely infected with Ascaris lumbricoides (roundworm).

When the deaths happened, after forty thousand treatments, I took it really hard. I had bet everything I had on success—my job and my professional reputation. I felt completely alone. Then out of nowhere, who showed up to help? Dr. Basil Wilson, who I had always thought was a strange kind of Englishman and seemed to have a dislike for me, or at least no real feelings at all. Dr. Wilson stepped up in a big way; he examined the bodies and came up with theories about the cause of death that were so solid they are still recognized today. Among his medical peers, he became my advocate. Worry was aging me years in a day until Wilson's support brought back my youth and courage. That funny Englishman; I could have kissed his long, awkward face.[Pg 142]

Since that first setback, tetrachloride has not caused a single death among the thousands of Melanesians, Polynesians, East Indians, and Europeans we treated.

The fatalities were limited to victims of alcoholism and roundworm. That was interesting, particularly in cases of Ascaris. Alcohol was not recommended; a few drinks before or after treatment caused complications. Lingering headaches that many non-drinkers experienced were easy to relieve with an after-dose of salts. But what about the roundworm? Why did its presence in the intestine turn tetrachloride into an active poison? I don’t think that question has been resolved yet. One theory suggests that CCl₄, while it doesn’t kill the Ascaris, irritates it to the point where it secretes lethal toxic juices. According to Dr. Lamson and his team, poisoning from tetrachloride happens in dogs when there’s low blood calcium. This lack of calcium might be connected; I theorize, without being able to prove it, that there’s a relationship between a high number of ascarides and low blood calcium.

******

In the next ten years, I personally observed the treatment of 286,486 Pacific Islanders with carbon tetrachloride and later with tetrachlorethylene.

For the talented Dr. Hall had introduced an enhancement to his discovery, and he asked me to test it out for the first time when I campaigned in the remote New Hebrides in 1925. I used it a lot down there, and my cautiously optimistic report reflected that. Its effectiveness was quicker, and its toxic effects were less severe than his original find. There’s no such thing as 100 percent in medicine, but Hall's new multi-syllable drug was achieving an astonishing average.

What a genius he was, this top zoologist, who was Washington’s best horse doctor! Every pet dog wags its tail (or should) in thanks for his two deworming treatments. The dog’s owner, the human, owes a debt to Hall—all except the fur dealers. The price of silver[Pg 143] fox has dropped dramatically. Do you know why? Dr. Hall sent his tetrachlorides to the fox farms where so many infected female dogs and puppies used to die, making pelts a luxury for the wives of steel magnates. When Hall’s treatments reached Foxville, the breed improved quickly, and its fur went to the lower department stores; now every secretary can afford her silver fox—and on her own salary, too. Just ask your furrier.

Dr. Hall is dead now. I know it sounds cliché to say that such people never truly die. He has inspired millions of men, women, and children who would be in their graves today if it weren’t for what he selflessly gave. He was an immeasurable benefit to humanity. Of course, most of humanity has never heard of him.

Then let’s recap the impact of tetrachloride over seventeen years since the ambitious Victor Abel first introduced it. Dr. Heiser, a public health expert, used to refer to hookworm as the most widespread disease in the world; he claimed that one out of three people globally had it. Then, the numbers for tetrachloride (and tetrachlorethylene) treatments kept rising: 654,896 in 1924; 3,000,000 in 1936. In 1937, I attended a League of Nations conference in Java. A group of us was discussing hookworm treatments. I felt pretty confident about the 500,000 treatments done in the Pacific, so I asked Dr. Chellapa from Ceylon how many they were administering there. He mentioned that the previous year had not been great—they had only provided 1,400,000 treatments due to the malaria outbreak. Usually, he explained, they managed around 2,000,000. I just said, “That’s very impressive,” trying to sound sincere. I didn’t bring up our figures, though. In Ceylon, they are still using the same old Fiji formula and dosage.

One statement might be simpler than these numbers. Every year, the Rockefeller Foundation would publish a bulletin about the number of hookworm treatments. In 1938, hookworm wasn’t even mentioned in the Foundation’s report, except for information on some still-undefined parasite recently discovered in Egypt. The report had no overall heading for ankylostomiasis. The worm that had fueled their global campaigns had disappeared from their awareness.

My use of Hall’s discovery quickly boosted my reputation throughout the Pacific. I don’t take credit for it. I just happened to be the person in the right place at the right time when an amazing opportunity came my way. I would have been foolish not to grab it and run with it. And what a fortunate afternoon that was, early in 1922, when I stumbled upon a little article and found a brown bottle labeled CCl₄. It gave me the push I needed to prepare for my own message, which I knew I had to develop and make clear during the challenging days ahead. [Pg 144]

[Pg 145]

Death and the Devil

The connection between modern medicine and primitive witchcraft became so significant to me during my health campaigning in the South Pacific that I feel the need to mention the islanders’ daily dependence on sorcery and its ties to dark powers. Throughout my work with the more isolated tribes, I wasn't received and respected as a university M.D., but rather as a new kind of witch doctor who arrived with a stronger magic than what they were used to. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. My assistants and I were essentially professional sorcerers, supported by the government; we were that, or we were nothing.

It took a while before I started to get a sense of their perspective, and then I began to use it to my advantage. I had to. I needed them to think I was a mystic with a ritual that could cure the illnesses caused by sorcery. When I gave tuberculin injections to the wild men of Malaita, they believed I was doing something to lift a harmful spell. In the thousands of cases I've treated, whether for a cure or a diagnosis, they left with the same simple belief. Good magic was fighting against bad. At first, I felt anxious about deceiving everyone all the time. Then I resorted to the only practical approach in jungle medicine.

When we look at the native tribe as a whole, we shouldn't dismiss the witch doctor as a joke or a fraud. Let's give the devil-man the respect he deserves and recognize the mistake of the self-satisfied European who thinks he can “bring them good laws” and “teach them morality.” This white man forgets that since the beginning of time, the medicine man has played a role that is both useful and significant to the tribe. Communities without a prison system need to be guided by a force that, for them, connects to the Invisible. In the past, sorcery was the right of the chief, and it was a respected and inherited profession. Even today, the wizard, whether a chief or a regular person, is there to protect the people from epidemics, to heal their sicknesses, to curse their enemies, and to shield his community from the threat of evil spells—“and to support all those subtle influences that create the social bonds that distinguish a community from a mere group of men," as Pitt-Rivers put it.

The sorcerer holds a similar role to that of Christian priests who bless the armies and the crops, providing spiritual guidance to the faithful. When he shares stories of ancient Christian miracles, why should the locals give more weight to his words than to those of their own miracle workers?

******

I’ve noted the brutal killings of the puri-puri men, and their sneakier ways of getting rid of unwanted tribesmen through what appeared to be the power of suggestion; the people of the Pacific almost universally believe in ghosts and demons. Am I going overboard when I say that humanity's earliest religion was a type of spiritualism? Life ends, but the soul remains, and the average believer listens for the words of the deceased.

I had been working in Melanesia for years before I started to realize how much they are influenced by dark forces, by the casting of spells for harm or healing. Back when cannibalism and warfare were rampant, tribal and personal feuds were resolved in much more gruesome ways. Nowadays, it's through enchantment that the clansman seeks revenge.

I wrote to Dr. Walter Bradford Cannon at Harvard’s Physiology Department in response to his question:—

“Your letter raises a really interesting question that people argue about a lot. Dr. A. Montague, Chief Medical Officer of Fiji and a long-time resident of the area for thirty years, didn't believe in ‘voodoo death,’ which is death caused by fear. I personally think he was mistaken, as I know of several cases.”

“Dr. Phillip S. Clarke, in North Queensland, used to practice just north of Cairns where a man came to his hospital and said he was going to die; that he had a spell put on him, and that there was nothing anyone could do about it. Dr. Clarke had known this man for a while. He gave him a full examination, including tests on his stool and urine, and[Pg 149] found everything was normal. The man kept eating and smoking but laid in bed and slowly seemed to get weaker. Clarke was friendly with a more educated man, a foreman, whom he brought to the hospital ward; this man leaned over the patient, then turned to Clarke and said, “Yes, Doctor, close up [soon] he die.” The bewitched man died at eleven the next morning, lying in bed with a cigarette in his mouth. Clarke did an autopsy and found nothing that could explain the death.

“I stayed for ten days at a Seventh Day Adventist mission station, Mona Mona, a few miles above Cairns. On the outskirts, there was a group of non-converts, including Nebo, a well-known witch doctor. The missionary's right-hand man was Rob, a convert. I had been there before and knew Rob. Now the missionary told me that Rob was ill in bed and wanted me to see him. When I found him, he had no temperature, no pain, and no obvious symptoms; yet he was clearly quite unwell. He had told the missionary that Nebo had ‘pointed a bone’ at him, predicting that he would soon die. We brought Nebo in, instilled some fear in him, and—more importantly—told him that his food supply would be cut off if anything happened to Rob. So Nebo leaned down and assured Rob that it was all a misunderstanding, just a joke, and that he had never pointed a bone at him. The relief was almost immediate; that afternoon Rob was back at work.”

“The witch doctor can ‘point a bone’ from far away, and the bone is supposed to pierce the victim’s body. However, it’s essential for the victim to be aware that they have been targeted. Many books have been written on this topic, and I can remember countless examples of this magic, many of which I’ve seen myself.”

“Among native medical students in their senior year, I dedicate one session to the topic of magic, partly due to my personal interest in the reactions I receive and partly to emphasize the absurdity of sorcery. There are accounts of Native Practitioners themselves having died from draunikau, and the medical class is typically made up of about half Fijians and the rest Polynesians, with an occasional Micronesian. The Polynesians of the current generation are unaware of this magic; however, for the Fijians, even those who are educated, draunikau is a terrifying word. When it comes up, the student’s expression becomes a mask; I notice the look of concern and fear.

“The tradition is still alive in the hills and remote areas[Pg 150] where, in Christian Fiji, with a 93 percent literacy rate, there are still well-known witch doctors. The only Fijian I’ve ever met who isn’t afraid of draunikau[4] is a man named Malakai, who has been working for me for thirteen years. He has actually stood up to one of the most powerful witch doctors in Fiji and challenged him to do any harm. Interestingly, the local belief is that magic can't affect white people.”

Ndrau-ni-kau is the Fijian term for “magic-of-leaves.” You might say it’s the basis of the ancient religion. No Melanesian believes they could get sick or die from natural causes like dysentery or influenza—it's always the enemy who has hired a sorcerer to bring them down. Even a diagnosis from the District Medical Officer won’t change their mind. The curse is on them, so the cursed will die unless a more powerful witch doctor is brought in to lift the spell. The Melanesian belief in ghosts is terrifying. When someone dies and is buried, their soul loses its kind nature; your sweet and gentle mother, father, or grandfather transforms into a tevoro, a malicious spirit scheming against their own. And the tevoro plays a key role in the long ritual that brings a curse upon your home.

The professional creation of a draunikau is as complex a process as that used by the demonologists of medieval Europe. Similar to the more primitive magic of the puri-puri men, the practitioner collects a piece of clothing, hair, or feces from the victim. These items, combined with leaves, are enclosed in a bamboo joint—or, in more contemporary times, in a bottle. The mage practicing this craft is simply hired by the individual who harbors hatred to inflict harm on the person they despise.

Although the approved methods can be roughly classified as the Seven Ways of Cursing, a common practice for the performer is to take their bottle of draunikau to a chosen graveyard where the tevoro lies buried. The curse called tava vatu is said to be the hardest to counter. Among the graves grows a special plant called uthi whose leaves the magician roasts on hot stones, declaring that this is the draunikau by which So-and-so must die; from the smoking leaves, the voice of the victim cries out. Then the draunikau is buried, and the victim will die in about four days unless the curse is lifted by a rival expert, who sprinkles his own special brew on the hot stones and says, “This is the sorosorovi by which the man shall live.”[Pg 151] The sorosorovi, wrapped in leaves, is taken to the sick man’s house and displayed so prominently that the tevoro will mistake it for the draunikau and float into it. Now he’s trapped, and the benevolent witch doctor throws the package into water. The devil is thwarted and becomes so angry that he will enter the body of the witch doctor who first summoned him, and this man will die in four days.

Kena balavu is a slow torment; every time you heat the draunikau, the target of the hatred gets sick; when it cools down, they feel better. The illness of the patient depends on the items put in the bottle. If it's a hair from their head, they'll have headaches; if it's parings from their toenails, they'll have foot problems, and so on. A competing healer can break the spell by locating the bamboo where the cursed item is buried; they will heat the bamboo and rinse it in saltwater, then treat the patient with magical leaves. The healer who comes to help is known as the “antagonist.” Before the antagonist digs up the draunikau, they must pour kava over the spot where it’s buried for four nights. If the patient dies, then the witch doctor who placed the curse must save themselves by sneaking to the victim’s body and stabbing it with a sharp object, or, after the person is buried, they must pierce the grave with a spear. Otherwise, the magician will die in four nights. If friends wrap a breadfruit in mummy-apple leaves and place it under the corpse's arm, the evil wizard will die from heart disease.

Kena leka is another hot-stone draunikau, moving quickly because the death ritual is performed under moonlight. The tevoro rises from the grave to a large tree by a lake or river. Sova yanggona is one of the most well-known curses. On the grave of one of the victim’s ancestors, a libation of kava is poured, along with prayers for death. Tei nia, the coconut curse, is said to have no hostility. The practitioner waters sacred ground with kava, then plants a coconut. When it sprouts, he transplants it—and his man is dead.

Ndrimi is an import from the Solomon Islands. Dip your finger in the magic of the leaves and touch the person you dislike. The stronger ndrimi practitioners can cause illness just by pointing a finger. This ability gives Solomon Islanders a certain status in Fiji. If a black guy from Bougainville wants to attract a local girl, he just says ndrimi—and he gets her.

The classic forms have often blended together, and both Christianity and waterfront trading have brought some humor into the mix. There are several specialists who combine whisky and the Bible in their attempts to heal or harm.[Pg 152] Strong liquor is off-limits for the locals, so a full bottle adds an interesting twist to necromancy. One of our local medical practitioners observed the work of a modern witch doctor, called in to combat a draunikau. He recommended a tablespoon of whisky and a verse from the New Testament, then started drinking his own medicine. As our local medical practitioner reported, “He seemed quite drunk.”

This modern technique, along with the terrifying sova yanggona, was related to a recent cause célèbre, which I'm getting to. The magicians used the lantern-and-mirror technique. They went at night to an ancestral cemetery where one person held a lantern, another held a mirror, and the third poured kava while reciting the death-prayer. Satisfied with his drink, the tevoro awakened.... Look in the mirror and see his cruel face! Look, he’s shaking the grave dust off his body! Now ask him to follow you!

******

What I've learned has come to me after a lot of curious digging. It took me almost twenty years to uncover any of this. It's not common knowledge among white people. The missionaries should have been aware, but too many of them never look to see what's happening behind their backs. Superior natives, especially Fijians, have provided the most valuable information. Benuve Vakatawa, N.M.P., who worked closely with his people, became quite an authority. Once, I asked him how the natives reconciled the two religions, the old gods and the new God. Didn't they call on Jehovah and Jesus to protect them from the evil old Fijian deities? He shook his head. I asked, “What is the true religion in Fiji, Christianity or Magic?” He answered without hesitation, “Magic.” Christianity was just a disguise, put up in front of European eyes to hide the worship of demons and satanic miracles. The people didn’t want Europeans meddling with their ancient demonology, he said, but Christianity had its place—it was “society,” as Europeans know it in their dances, theaters, and ouija-board parties. It had an entertainment value.

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I have shared how local medical students responded to my lectures on magic. However, Vakatawa believed that the traditional religion was losing influence; that both the N.M.P.s and the local pastors were moving away from it. The pastors, for example, had started to keep some iodine and a few basic home remedies at home and were going to the N.M.P. for medical care. Yet, many of these native Christian teachers still turned to the witch doctor first and only sought out scientifically trained practitioners when the old ways didn’t seem to help. However, the Native Medical Practitioner, with better education and improved methods, is becoming more recognized, and modern medicine is gradually starting to play a role in Fijian lives.[Pg 153]

What Pitt-Rivers said in defense of the witch doctors is definitely still relevant today. The old tribal practice of killing strangers because they had “salt water in their eyes” likely goes back to sorcerers who observed that epidemics followed visitors. Let’s give credit to the primitive medicine man. He had his own set of remedies, many of which were effective—likely including herbs, massage, and hydrotherapy. He understood fractures and how to treat them; even now, it's uncommon to see deformities after a fracture, yet in native life, there are many cracked and broken bones.

The witch doctor still upholds the old moral code. Vakatawa has witnessed a witch woman tell a sick girl that the gods had cursed her for her promiscuity. The girl was weak from dysentery and admitted that she had been with more than twenty guys. The witch said, “Tell everything or you will die.” But sadly, the poor child passed away with her final sin unconfessed. This was a documented failure of magic in a district where Vakatawa had a lot on his plate; people were seeing both the witch doctor and the medical doctor at the same time. If the patient got better, the magician was praised; if they died, the physician was blamed.

******

Who is the god of gods that the Fijian secretly prays to for harm to his enemies? Maybe it’s Dengei, the strongest of their evil deities—though who can really say, with so many of them? Several of them take the form of great sharks, causing trouble and bringing bad news. Then there are the two siren goddesses, Yalewamatagi, who seduce handsome young men into sin, only to leave them dead in the wilderness. Daucina, an overly sexualized man-god, terrifies young girls who are out at night. Death often follows his violent encounters.

During the gold rush on Viti Levu in 1932, many locals were scared to go into the mines. Everyone knew that Tui Mateinagata, the Snake-bodied One who hides in gold, was lurking in a cave at Tavua, and that his seven heads of gold and silver would[Pg 154] destroy anyone who trespassed. The witch doctors whispered that the veins would soon run dry because Tui Mateinagata knows how to hide his treasure. There’s also the old crab-goddess, whose bite is poisonous; but the magicians preferred to turn to Dengei, the lord of origins and evil. He, too, is a great serpent and often visits the caves of Nakauvandra in the north. His magic created and populated Fiji. The god admired two eggs in the nest of the kitu bird and decided to hatch them himself; the result was a boy and a girl, whom he separated for five years by a giant tree trunk. One day they peeked around the tree and said, “Great Dengei has hatched us so we can populate the land.” Complimented, Dengei produced food, flowers for decoration, and fire for cooking. The first humans would have been immortal, but they disobeyed their god and were punished with sickness and death.

Another origin story is not so flattering to the Fijian who, according to the tale, was born before everyone else. But he acted wickedly and his skin darkened, so he received very little clothing. The people of Tonga—who are Polynesians, by the way—were not so naughty with Dengei, who distributed clothes to them that kept their skin much lighter. The white man was the biggest beneficiary. He was born last, acted like a perfect gentleman, and Dengei rewarded him with so much to wear that his complexion became the ideal.

The Polynesians of Tonga say that the gods had a meeting and decided to create humans. They shaped three figures out of clay. The first one that came out didn’t seem to be baked long enough; he was an unpleasantly pale color and looked half-raw. The second was a Tongan, a beautiful olive-brown, and the gods were so impressed with him that they forgot about the third figure until a voice from the oven shouted, “I’m burning!” Sure enough, the poor guy was almost completely burnt black; so they sent him west, and he became a Fijian.

******

The lack of consequences for sorcerers doesn't bother the white man, or so the locals say; however, old Thakombau, secretly furious about being disrespected, could have potentially been the one to alter England’s royal succession.

In the early '80s, H.M.S. Bacchante brought two royal midshipmen to Fiji. They were the Duke of Clarence, the heir to the throne, and his younger brother Prince George, who later became King George V.[Pg 155] Ex-King Thakombau was the closest thing to a monarch that Fiji could offer, and he was now a Christian. He hosted the visitors at a big kava ceremony where a long line of meke singers sat cross-legged and clapped their hands to the chanted greeting, “Mbula, mbula mai!” Dancers pretended to be animals, birds, and fish, while comedians made fun of dogs fighting over a bone. Groups of men twisted and turned across the green, mimicking the snake-god Dengei, or moved gracefully in the beautiful surf dance. There was also the presentation of the tambua. To the Fijians, this sacred whale’s tooth is the ultimate treasure; it’s like gold, it’s magic. If a tribesman offers you a tambua, you can refuse the gift; but if you accept it, you must grant any request the giver makes—even if it’s to kill your best friend or give up your favorite wife. There’s a long history of crime and punishment tied to the giving of the tambua.

This was a royal ceremony. Maybe in the back of Thakombau’s cunning mind, he pictured another meke that he had often presided over in his days of power. The Dance of the Cannibals.... Groups of warriors were belting out the notes to the pounding of heavy drums.... Human meat was about to be cooked.... High-pitched voices in a wild tenor would shout, “Puaka balavu!”... The bodies were ready for the oven.... Then, “Sa rawa tu!”—“It is prepared.”

The English royal visitors had gathered under the flower pavilion, and the makers of yanggona were busy at work. They were preparing kava using the traditional method—chewing the root and spitting the juice into a large bowl. The drink was ready. The cupbearer knelt to receive a serving in a polished coconut shell, stood up, and presented the cup to the more important guest. He offered it, kneeling before Britain’s heir apparent. However, Clarence, who had seen native saliva mix into the bowl, was not amused, or so the story goes. He pushed the cup aside and made a grimace. A heavy silence followed. The cupbearer then knelt before young George, whose tact was suitable for the moment. He took the shell and downed his portion with enthusiasm, then reached down and slid the cup across the mat—the highest form of praise. There was loud applause and shouts of “Mbula vinaka!”

The moment arrived for King Thakombau to give his speech. With generous enthusiasm, he spoke about the greatness of England and the benefits that Victoria had brought to his people. Then suddenly, he turned to the Duke of Clarence and said, “You’ve been too scared to drink the yanggona of Fiji. A real man feels no fear. Since you lack courage, you will never become King of Veretania.” Then pointing to George, he continued, “You are a brave young man, unafraid of our customs. You will be the King, and a great one.”

The Duke of Clarence died without taking the throne. George became King of England. However, people say that the native draunikau doesn’t affect a white man, which raises doubts about the whole story. Historically, the chief has always had the power to bewitch. Thakombau, whether he was on the throne or not, was a king; and there’s some reason to think he exercised his ancient right.

******

A recent case of witchcraft occurred among the elite and involved two of Thakombau’s grandsons, Ratu Pope (pronounced Pope-ee) and Ratu Sukuna.

Ratu Sukuna graduated from Oxford with a law degree. With Caucasian features and handsome by any standard, Sukuna offered his services to the Empire in 1914; since his Empire refused to accept natives, he joined the Foreign Legion, earned his sergeant rank and a medal, and came home with a well-deserved wound stripe. He was one of the few well-educated Fijians. It's true that Ratu Devi, his brother, later studied medicine in New Zealand. Devi often found it frustrating that his great charm with women in the wards made them cling to him. Now back in Fiji, he is an unusually successful District Medical Officer.

Ratu Sukuna holds key government positions in Fiji, where he finds himself in the unusual situation of trying to represent two races at once. In England and France, he adapted to foreign languages and customs. Deep down, beneath the surface of foreign culture, he remains quite Melanesian and avoids the ancestral graveyard after dark; the educated part of him laughs off the idea of ghosts, but he openly admits that when he walks past the family plot during a dark moon, he feels an uneasy sensation tugging at his shoulders.

His cousin, Ratu Pope, was a well-known figure in Fiji and was always close with Sukuna, whom he admired greatly. Naturally a sportsman, he was an excellent cricketer in his youth. He was educated at the Methodist College in Sydney but spoke with the accent of an English gentleman. His athletic build looked impressive in the short white sulu, which showed off his strong bare legs and feet; from the waist up, he dressed in the British style, wearing a sports coat in the morning and a dinner jacket or tails for special occasions—similar to how a noble Highlander wears his kilt with all the traditional details.[Pg 157]

He had the charm and wit we associate with exiled kings. When the Duke of Windsor visited Fiji as Prince of Wales, he was delighted by Pope. Pope was, by courtesy, sent into exile for many years to Mbau, the beautiful island his wise ancestors had chosen for their capital; gentle winds cool it and keep the mosquitoes away; above the royal bure looms a great rock, the little Gibraltar where Grandfather Thakombau was said to have been trapped before he handed his territory over to England. Governor Sir Eyre Hutson decided to exile Pope because he had rather innocently defaulted. As chief of his province, he had been Assistant District Commissioner, thus a tax collector. It was his open-handed Melanesian generosity that got him into trouble: When you have money, spend it on your people and friends. Generosity is godlike; stinginess is for the worms. Let me tell it in Pope’s own way:—

“I had no trouble at all collecting the ridiculous taxes. Tax collection is a royal privilege. So the government sent me a little iron safe to put the money in, you know. Well, months went by, and one day a guy from the government showed up in a boat—kind of a snooty character, I thought. We had a drink and a cigar, and he said, ‘Ratu, the tide’s turning, and I have to get going. I’ve come to take back that tax money.’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, old friend, but I can’t access it right now.’ He looked a bit annoyed and said, ‘But didn’t we send you an iron safe to keep it in?’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I replied, ‘it’s over there in the corner. If you take a look, you’ll see that the door’s wide open.’”

Royal prerogative had spread the money around in various ways—but always for the benefit of the people of Mbau. Ratu Pope had installed showers in all the village houses and built a reservoir to provide fresh water. The reservoir stayed empty while an upset Government detained Pope on his ancestral island—until he settled the bill. “It’s only a few hundred pounds,” he said, laughing at himself, “and since all I have is tied up in some pretty lousy coconuts, I suppose I’ll be really old before I’m free again.” However, a compassionate Government let him come to Suva to watch the cricket matches—he would have been desperate without that. They also permitted him to meet the tourist boats, which were the best possible promotion for the Fiji Islands.

When the late Martin Egan and his traveling partner Wallace Irwin[Pg 158] were guests at Mbau in 1927, they returned with stories that highlighted Pope’s quick wit. One night, they sat under the breadfruit trees by lantern light, enjoying the long Coronas that Pope loved. He said, “It’s a bit dull being stuck here. I long for travel. I really enjoy National Geographic Magazine.” He asked for some copies, flipped to a back page. “I think I like your clever ads. Look at this one,” he said, pointing out the New York Life Insurance Company’s stock ad featuring a modest skyscraper. “Goodness, it looks like it goes up twenty-five or thirty stories!” Martin Egan told him that Al Smith and his friends were building a skyscraper that would be around a hundred stories tall. Pope replied, “But doesn’t going that high in an elevator give you high blood pressure?” Egan remarked that everyone in New York had high blood pressure, so what was the difference?

Ratu Pope looked at him seriously. “That guy Frederick O’Brien who wrote the White Shadows nonsense came to see me last year. When he left, I couldn’t help but wonder if all Americans were such damn liars.”

He showed his guests Thakombau’s cannibal temple, the one he kept for sentimental reasons. The rough structure, situated on tall stone terraces, is way out of proportion compared to the low village houses. Pope took genuine pride in his grandfather’s actions, similar to how Grant’s descendants might feel about the surrender at Appomattox. He pointed to a hole in the ground right in front of the temple and said, “The stone of sacrifice used to be here. It was made like a very wide gravestone, with a dip at the top for the—well—victim’s head. I donated it to our local church to be used as a baptismal font. Would you like to hear about the ceremony for a cannibal execution? Grandfather sat on the second tier while the people formed a semicircle below. Around the stone, the priests drew lots to decide whether the poor guy would be buried or—well—eaten. Unfortunately, it was usually the latter. It was purely economic, you see. So, four strong executioners came along carrying the victim tied to a plank. They held him in the right position, and when Grandfather gave the command, they would strike the guy’s head sharply against the stone. They were so skilled that I doubt the poor guy even felt it.”

That was Ratu Pope, the playboy king who spoke modern King’s English, enjoyed American magazines, was great at cricket, introduced European ideas to a cannibal capital, and then....

[Pg 159]

Late in 1936, he was admitted to the hospital in Suva, seriously ill with diabetes and liver cirrhosis. He should have trusted the British doctors; he knew them all and respected their work. As he grew weaker, he called for his wife, Andi Torika, and whispered, “I have been cursed. They have put a draunikau on me.” His wife nodded. But who was practicing the black magic? Pope murmured, “My cousin Sukuna.”

The accusation, through the local grapevine, quickly reached Ratu Sukuna, who was appalled. Why on earth would he want to place a draunikau on good old Pope? What ridiculous nonsense! They had been friends since they were little kids. Sukuna went straight to Ratu Pope’s bedside. A talented speaker with a knack for language, he sat beside the dying man and engaged with him gently. Finally, Pope nodded and asked for forgiveness. No, Sukuna couldn’t have caused the evil spell. But someone had paid a witch doctor for this draunikau. Yes, Sukuna agreed, and sadly walked away from the man who had been cursed—by someone.

A little while later, Sukuna was on his schooner, sailing from Viti Levu to Lakeba. Suddenly, he shouted, “Turn back!” Because in the water, gliding alongside his course, he spotted the family totem shark. That could only mean one thing—someone close to him had died. When he got back to Suva, his cousin Ratu Pope was dead.

There was a battle of magic and counter-magic, with ghosts against ghosts, across Thakombau’s old empire. The people involved were too significant to be overlooked. All of this happened not long ago, just around three years back. It started with Ratu Pope’s dying whisper into the ear of his devoted wife, Andi Torika. She was part of the same matangali as Ratu Wailala, a powerful sub-chief in Taveuni. The widow sent Wailala a gift of ten tambuas, a risky offering, because in the eyes of the gods, the recipient must grant a favor. Ratu Lala, Lord of Taveuni, was on Andi’s bad side; he was in the line of royal succession; if he survived, his son could possibly occupy Pope’s shadow-throne.

This was politics, in a conflict between two branches of an old ruling family. Seventy-five years ago, it would have meant war. Today, it was draunikau. Ratu Wailala took Andi’s tambuas, which had come with a request to put a draunikau on Ratu Lala, who was accused of causing Pope’s death through magic. Wailala was also jealous of Lala’s title and went about the curse in classic style. He presented a tambua to another chief, with[Pg 160] the request that a draunikau be arranged for Lala. This chief took the tambua to Mosese, a very skilled witch doctor.

That was in mid-April, 1938. In the dark of night, Mosese and Kalepi, his assistant, along with a local chief, quietly made their way to the grave of Ratu Lala’s grandfather, bringing with them the right leaves and kava root for the Sova Yanggona (the Pouring Kava) ritual. They crouched at the foot of the mound, where the deceased’s legs would be pointing. Mosese, sitting between his two companions, lifted the bowl to his lap and then raised it to his head six times. The kava was prepared according to the ceremony. Now it was ready. The participants clapped three times; Kalepi filled a drinking bowl and offered it to the dead chief, asking that Ratu Lala's life be taken away. Six times, the libation was poured on the head of the grave to quench the thirst of a tevoro.

The gossip was a woman who had set out before dawn to catch prawns. She got lost, shivered near the cemetery, and then froze in fear. There were voices by Nagolea's grave, and she could smell the uthi, the graveyard flower. She squinted and saw three hunched figures making draunikau. For days, she was too terrified to speak about it.

Then, on April 15, 1938, Ratu Lala went to Suva and felt dizzy as he walked. He knew the cause and called for the powerful sorcerer Ngio from Ngau, whom he hired to fight the evil magic. Ngio informed him that his illness originated from Taveuni, and that was where the draunikau could be found. That night, Ratu Lala had a terrifying dream. A chief who had been dead for twelve years appeared and poked him with his walking stick, asking, “Who is this man sleeping in my house?” Lala returned to his home in Taveuni, and when another fit of sickness struck him, he overheard rumors about the three men who had made draunikau. He summoned the sorcerers, dismissed their claims of innocence, and had them beaten with ropes. They were taken to the hospital, still denying their involvement in black magic. Wailala also pretended to be innocent, but a constable included him with the others.

Ratu Lala’s witch doctor, the talented sorcerer from Ngau, gathered his colleagues, hoping their combined magic could counter the terrible Sova Yanggona. One night, Lala dreamed he saw the gods in a meeting; a short man knelt at Lala’s doorway, holding up a tambua and asking for death. A voice cried out, “Ratu Wailala’s tambua cannot be returned with mercy on Lala’s life!”

[Pg 161]

It was on September 17, to be exact, when I was with Dr. Strode, checking out the hospital in Suva. We found Ratu Lala in bed with an abscess on his neck, and his spirits were completely broken. He had told everyone that he thought he would die from a draunikau.

On Wednesday, September 21, Dr. Strode and I attended a luncheon at Government House. And what did we see? Sitting calmly next to Mr. Monckton, the Secretary of Native Affairs, was Ratu Lala. Just four days earlier, he had nearly given up the ghost, and now he was in great spirits, sharing entertaining stories with the Governor and eating heartily. His explanation was simple. Oh, that witch doctor, Ngio from Ngau, had a grudge that was too strong for black magic to handle. He worked from the Bible, and that was powerful stuff; he would randomly open the Good Book and interpret the past, present, and future; but he would always return to the Gospel according to Saint Matthew, and from that, he could counter any ghost or devil that ever slipped over Fiji.

Ngio the gospel-wizard arrived in Suva later and bragged about his holy magic to everyone.

******

Exhibitions of fire walking, performed by a priestly group from the island of Mbengga, are too well known now to warrant much discussion. Before these performances became popular attractions for cruise ships and visiting royalty, I witnessed them dozens of times in their homeland. Many scientific papers have been written to explain the phenomenon of bare Fijian feet that remain unburned after touching hot stones. As a doctor, I have examined the fire walkers’ condition before and after the event, and I always leave feeling like I've witnessed a miracle. The old Mbengga myth that says Ra Duna the Eel taught the hero Koma how to perform the feat seems as good an explanation as any I've heard.

Among the dark islanders, magic things are generally serious, although there's an old myth about the neli people, a race of elves with long golden hair. They dance in the moonlight, and if one of their golden hairs brushes against a curious mortal, that person forgets how to get home. It’s said that local boys and girls who stayed out late often blamed it on the neli. But belief in these little folk is fading.

The act of cursing is a serious everyday matter. In less advanced groups than those in Fiji, the witch doctor can commit outright murder. I have mentioned the Poisoner’s College at Mou. Then there's the well-known case of Captain Bell, a government tax collector, who went out to the Solomons on his unpopular mission and got speared by natives while trying to carry out a practical draunikau.

Inspector Bill Tully was in the remote New Hebrides. One morning, his breakfast was set up on a porch; below, a crowd of locals had gathered for a lecture. Tully sat down to eat when a witch doctor, fully painted, approached and waved a bamboo wand, claiming to possess the magic that could kill. “Go ahead,” Tully challenged, so the witch doctor tapped his wand on a plate. A small amount of powder sifted out. Disdainfully, the young inspector blew it away and told his assistant to bring bacon and eggs.

Bill finished his breakfast in full view of a very watchful audience. So far, so good. But he had barely swallowed the last bite when he felt a cramp in his stomach; cold sweat broke out, and he realized he had turned a pale green. He must have looked pretty sick, because the onlooking locals screamed and ran into the woods. It took Bill a few minutes to regain his composure. Then he remembered. He had taken a pretty large dose of calomel, and that stuff had started to work shortly after the wizard tapped his plate.

Polynesian magic might not be as dark as what you find throughout Melanesia, but it’s always lurking, hidden behind Christianity or even advanced education. In the Cook Islands, a father cursed his beautiful daughter. He had elephantiasis, and she had mocked him for his “big leg.” “Fine,” he said, “may your especially lovely legs, which have already caused so much trouble, swell up and become as big as mine.” Sure enough, her legs swelled up, and she became disfigured. It’s true she had been sleeping in her father’s house for years, and the filarial mosquito doesn’t discriminate.

The Māori people of New Zealand are advanced Polynesians. While I was conducting a survey there, Dr. Ellison, who is half Māori, shared with me a case he had personally witnessed. He pointed out that Polynesians are mostly spiritualists, and the average Māori knows far more about spiritualism than any European medium will ever learn. Within the Tohunga cult, there is the ability to cause death through a secret wish; in the Melanesian draunikau, the victim remains unaffected until they realize the curse is upon them. However, the Tohungas never show their hand.[Pg 163]

Dr. Ellison told me that a Mr. Haberley, half-Maori and someone I know, was interested in the Wellington Museum and looking for fine Maori carvings. His search led him to the area where Rua the Prophet was active. Haberley discovered many neglected and decaying artifacts, but Rua challenged him to touch them. Still, the collector took them to the museum. It wasn't long before Haberley fell seriously ill and turned to the customs of his mother's people. He was from the Taranaki Maoris, so it made sense when he brought in another Tohunga necromancer from Taranaki. From Mr. Haberley's smoothly educated mouth came the command, "Save me if you can, and if you can't, take care of Rua." The Tohunga quickly put a curse on Rua the Prophet, who died while I was surveying New Zealand. Haberley also passed away.

GILBERT AND SULLIVAN, 1924

My involvement in the use of carbon tetrachloride marked a significant step forward for me, and I spent two intense years in Fiji, advocating for both treatment and prevention. However, what truly captured my heart and mind was the vision for a better medical school for the local people. Through challenges and setbacks, I passionately promoted my cause and clung to the idea like a determined terrier. I saw this plan as the only hope for the island communities.

In February 1924, when I went out for a quick look at the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, the idea was still at the top of my mind. That was the first time I brought Malakai along, just to show him around.

The G and E Group, as it's commonly known, gets mocked by young cadets at the Fiji Club bar, nicknamed “Gilbert and Sullivan.” It has a certain humorous charm. Dr. Walter E. Traprock, America's heartthrob among nature fakers, picked these spots on the sea for his Cruise of the Kawa, where the national bird of the Filbert Islands was said to lay square eggs and cackle “Ouch!” Robert Louis Stevenson took a much more serious tone, depicting scenes of violence and beauty along the winding atolls.

Samoans, who used to consider anyone living beyond their islands as ghosts and slaves, called their islands “The World’s Navel.” They were slightly mistaken, though, because their Samoa is too far southeast to actually be the center of the earth. The Gilbert and Ellice islands are aligned like faint tattoo marks right in the middle of the Earth’s belly. Together, they stretch across 1,000 miles of ocean, with the islands so sparsely scattered that the easternmost one is about 600 miles from the westernmost. A European government has merged these two groups of islands, but geographically, they are roughly 100 miles apart. The Gilbertese people are of Micronesian descent, while the Ellice inhabitants are typically Polynesian and have a physique, language, and social structure that are completely different from the Gilbertese.

[Pg 165]

The Gilberts, once a gathering spot for different races, have now become a hub for anthropologists. Initially, these scholars agree, the native people were a small, black, flat-nosed group known as the “Spider Folk” because their gods took the form of spiders—as well as turtles. The Spider Folk were believed to be powerful magicians, which made others wary of them. Then the invaders arrived, tall and light brown-skinned, who fought fiercely against the Spider Folk but were still afraid of their magic. Songs have survived that celebrate the conquerors’ skills as sailors; in these songs, they are praised as the Children of the Sea, Fierce Fish of the West.

******

The mystery of Polynesian and other Pacific migrations is a puzzle that may never be solved. The Gilberts formed a bottleneck through which many waves of migration must have come from the ancestral home, Hawaiki—names that eventually inspired modern Hawaii and Savaii. Some pressure or social upheaval on the continent must have driven them off the southeast tip of Asia, launching them in waves of migration—no turning back, a fierce, starving group in search of land and a home in the Pacific. Another group likely crossed the Bering Sea and traveled south along the coast; Mexican legends spoke of their arrival from the north. They probably made it as far as South America. Our Native American ancestry must be a blend resulting from these invasions. They must have reached the continent across the Pacific, or some must have returned from the west coast of the Americas, bringing the sweet potato to the Pacific. During this time, we can feel the horror that swept over the peaceful Pacific islands as they awoke to see strange fleets of enormous canoes arriving with their hordes of death-driven warriors.

In the barren Gilberts, the invaders found little of interest—except for women. They stayed for about a generation, then took over the Ellices, seized Rotumah, and fought their way into Savaii and Upolu in Samoa.

Tradition and genealogy tell the story clearly. About twenty-four to twenty-eight generations ago, a returning invasion swept back from Samoa, moving northward. It overwhelmed the Ellices but was pushed back by the Gilbertese; however, the small island of Nui in the Ellices still holds onto many of the Gilbertese language and customs.

[Pg 166]

In total area, the Gilberts measure just over 170 square miles. They hardly seem worth fighting for, these bare coral rocks with a bit of soil where coconut palms can barely survive. The people mostly rely on fish and coconut products; they also have the tough, unsatisfying fruit of the pandanus and babai. The latter is a type of taro that other groups only eat during a famine. Still, it takes a huge effort for the Gilbertese to cultivate even these poor crops. With a population over 28,000 crammed onto such little land, they're always just a jump away from starvation. Rainfall is scarce, and on the islands closest to the Equator, droughts can last two or three years; sometimes even the coconut palms die, and the people are left to suck the few drops of moisture from fish eyes. Even after large churches have been built, with a functioning drainage system from the roofs, many have died of thirst because they were too afraid to drink the water from holy places.

Yet what did I find in the Gilberts? Very healthy specimens, robust copper-colored guys with hair ranging from straight to curly; broad-shouldered, but not particularly tall. They looked like men who cultivate what they eat and work hard for it. Their overall health contrasted sharply with that of the naturally good-looking, pale-skinned Polynesians in the Ellices to the southeast. For them, food came more easily from a richer soil. And should I mention it again? There were fewer missions in the Gilberts, while the Ellice Islanders were all nominally Christian—as evidenced once more by the greasy Mother Hubbards, layer upon layer, smearing oil and germs into their beautiful bodies. Dirt and laziness seemed to have followed the Cross into charming lagoons that once inspired Stevenson’s prose poems.

******

We were on the High Commission yacht Pioneer, where Printer Johann Sebastian Bach’s son, Bill, shared a luxury cabin with me; we had our own bathroom, but when the portholes leaked one way, the toilet leaked another. I envied Malakai, who slept on deck. It was part of Malakai's morning routine to come downstairs and make sure young Bach got his bath. Bill was at that age when all boys resist soap, and it was amusing to see a cannibal's scientific grandson enforcing hygiene on a great composer’s descendant; Bill's high-pitched, “Ow, ow!” against Malakai’s deep voice, “You aren’t done until you wash the other ear!”

[Pg 167]

That took us to Rotumah, an island that, for some mysterious reason, is seen as part of Fiji, even though it's closer to the Ellice group. Since public health involves sociology, politics, geography, history, and anthropology, along with worms and germs, I'll use Rotumah to show what abundant Nature can do for a community.

The Rotumans were some of the laziest people in the world, and their island was one of the richest. Crops grew while you were asleep; so the locals would just sleep or go to a party. This was coconut wealth, abundant and squandered. In the volcanic mountains, it took a bit of effort to reach the palm trees, so they were never harvested. Nuts ripened, fell, rotted, or fed the island’s expensive pigs. If you asked an owner about his wealth in coconuts, he’d assume he had plenty.

They were a wonderfully diverse group. Their ancestors had welcomed ships that came by to “refresh” their crews. In the unwritten history of Oceania, the Tongafiti conquerors used Rotumah as one of the stepping stones that enabled them to spread the Polynesian culture across the South Pacific. When I arrived in Rotumah, there was little indication of that fierce and noble heritage.

To get things done, they hired Fijian workers for eight or ten shillings a day. If a Rotuman fell into debt, he just sent his workers out to gather a few more nuts—or at least that's what they were doing when I arrived. About 900 acres of land produced 2,000 tons of copra each year. A little more efficiency could have increased the output to 6,000 tons. But why bother with efficiency?

Did you want to buy a pig? Well, it would cost you about fourteen pounds. What a price for a pig! Yes, sir, but keep in mind that he’s been fed with very expensive copra and has already eaten twice his worth. But why not fatten him up on something else? That would be a lot of hassle, sir, and our pigs are used to copra. There’s plenty of copra. Plus, sir, we might not be able to sell you a pig anyway. We’re hosting another feast tomorrow, and what’s a feast without a pig?

In the Rotuman's Melano-Poly-Malay-European ancestry, there was a hint of Black heritage, and it was quite prominent. During the blackbirding era, an African American, likely a slave himself, was washed ashore and ended up becoming their king. He appeared to be a benevolent ruler and didn’t meet the tragic end of the other Emperor Jones. They say he taught the people how to work, but he’s been gone for a long time.

When I arrived, everyone was Christian; maybe that was because it was so easy to find a church. The Catholic church had a £600 belfry and a stunning mosaic altar. Things like that were just symbols of prosperity, and when the Rotumans didn't know what else to do with their extra money, they built another impressive concrete monument. There were monuments everywhere, for memorials, honors, and celebrations. It reminded me of our wealth display during the Coolidge Administration. Rotuman pig feasts were expensive markers in everyone's life. It cost £100 to celebrate a baby's birth, £200 for a man's death, and £800 for a proper marriage.

And on the doctor’s side of this generous view, I found Rotumah heavily affected by hookworm, yaws, tuberculosis, and leprosy. Over 90 percent of the residents were suffering from scabies. It was a sticky, hot island infested with flies and mosquitoes, with barely any breeze to relieve the dull, oppressive climate... A stone wall along the coastal road kept the pigs in and blocked any breeze that might come through. But that didn’t matter much in Rotumah, where the people seemed too lethargic to take a deep breath.

Most of the older men, by the way, had elephantiasis.

******

Because elephantiasis was something I had to confront as I went along, it might be fitting to explain what I've mentioned before: that it is not a disease, but a symptom of a disease. The actual disease is filariasis, caused by the filarial worm, a long, threadlike creature that lives in the lymphatic glands. The eggs enter the lymphatic and blood streams and hatch into microfilariae. A low-powered microscope will reveal them in a drop of blood, but their sex can't be differentiated. They take on sexual form in the body of the mosquito that has fed on infected blood, and the mosquito injects them into the veins of the next victim.

Now definitely male and female, they make their way into the lymph nodes, where they grow and multiply in the millions. The female lays her fertile eggs, which complete the cycle by turning into microfilariae. Because a lot of microfilariae are destroyed in the mosquito’s body and there's significant waste of the parasites during reinfection of a human, the disease takes time to develop. Mosquitoes may bite millions of times before enough male and female worms build up to cause symptoms. It usually takes years of living in a community with mosquito infections before these ideal conditions occur.

[Pg 169]

With the right number of parasites, filarial fever appears, causing inflammation and abscesses in the lymphatic and subcutaneous tissues. The inflammation goes down, but some of the swelling lingers in the lower parts of the body, like the arms, legs, breasts, vulva, and scrotum. These swellings can be caused by dead filaria worms, which block the glands responsible for draining those areas. As a result, the dead worms can disrupt the flow of lymph, leading to an overgrowth of skin and subcutaneous tissue that gradually grows to a massive size. The skin becomes rough like an elephant’s hide, and the enlarged limbs contribute to an elephant-like appearance.

Filarial fever seems to have little impact on lifespan, but it causes a fatigue that leads to significant loss of productivity. And when it develops into an elephantoid condition, it hinders any kind of activity.

An interesting phenomenon is linked to these tiny organisms. The activity of the microfilariae that the mosquito introduces into the bloodstream is similar, in one way, to the habits of the mosquito that carried them. In other words, if the mosquito bites at night, the microfilariae are only active at night. During the day, they seem to stay inactive, hiding deep in the body. However, if they were introduced by a day-biting mosquito, their behavior is the opposite—they are active during the day. In the Pacific, the disease is transmitted by the Culex fatigans and members of the Aedes family. The Pacific version of the Aedes group feeds during the day, while the Culex fatigans is a night feeder. As a result, affected island communities deal with an infection that operates around the clock.

In the Ellice Islands, many older men were affected by elephantiasis of the scrotum, leading them to request surgery to restore harmony at home; it was considered “normal” for older men to marry younger women. At Funafuti, Dr. Mac Finney informed me about one swollen patient, who had traveled a long way and claimed to be ninety years old. (They calculate their ages from the arrival of the missionary.) The patient looked a bit outdated, but Mac Finney performed a thorough operation and hoped he would recover.

On the way back, Mac Finney saw the old man coming back on the boat to Funafuti. The old guy admitted that he was heading to jail. Why? Well, when he got off the boat to go home, he felt so full of energy that he had attacked the first woman he saw.

The twin groups, Gilberts and Ellices, presented a unique challenge in the spread of this disease. The dark-skinned Gilbertese, located a hundred miles northwest of the light-skinned Ellice Islanders, seemed to have been free of filariasis until modern times, while the Ellices had been infected for a long time. The writer observed this disease slowly moving northward in the Gilbert group. Long-standing primitive conditions and that narrow stretch of water had kept the Gilberts isolated. Then barriers were removed, and filariasis reached the Gilberts. The British administration tried several times to re-establish quarantine, but circumstances made it challenging, and they likely realized it was a bit too late; the damage had already been done. Only recently has the transmission of infection been understood. In several groups, British medical authorities have made determined efforts to combat the outbreak. Their task has been complicated by the fact that the main carrier is the “wild mosquito,” which inhabits and reproduces in the bush. The domestic mosquito is easier to control.

******

In those ten weeks of inspection, we traveled 6,500 miles, crossed the Equator six times, and visited all four hemispheres of the globe. In both groups, the islands are so low-lying that a few miles away, they become invisible; first, you see a canopy of palm trees, then the edge of white sand, followed by the beauty of lagoons—some no bigger than your hand and others stretching a quarter of a mile, their soft pastel colors blending with the feathery reef that separates them from the deep blue of the Pacific. I love lagoons.

Other white men have loved them too. At Funafuti, for instance, one of the boys who helped us get ashore had a hint of red in his hair and said his name was O’Brien. The town leader and the local magistrate were also O’Briens. O’Briens gathered from every direction until I thought I might hear a trace of the accent. But the original O’Brien, who must have been quite a guy, had long since passed away, leaving behind good deeds. During the terrible blackbirding days, he had quickly deserted his ship and got involved with an island girl. He saved the people by advising them to stick with him, as his ship had come to take them into slavery. Blessings on his red head. To keep his Irish memory alive, fifty-four O’Briens thrived in Funafuti, out of 250 residents.

Except for Funafuti, all the Ellice Islands had closed lagoons. To get ashore, you had to navigate the surf in native canoes, which usually meant getting splashed and always left you with a wet backside. I've never seen so many churches in such a small area, as the Ellices are heavily Christianized, evidenced by the layers of long dresses worn by the women. On the small island of Vaitupu, I counted three expensive concrete churches, and I learned that the Samoan teacher from the London Missionary Society wasn't happy with the sound in the first two, so he had a third one built to fit his voice. In one year, the Ellice Islands sent $6,000 to foreign missions! And $60,000 had been spent on the religious needs of their 3,000 residents. The churches were objects of deep reverence. They believed it would be sacrilegious to drink rainwater collected from church roofs, and something terrible would happen if they did, like their livers swelling up and bursting, for instance.

Up in the Gilberts, they were just a few years past a time when one island fiercely fought against another. As it stood, about half of them had been somewhat converted to Christianity. The Sunday parade to church was a sight to see. The local women wore short fiber skirts and nothing else, except for small English hats perched on their bushy hair. After all, didn’t St. Paul clearly state that no bareheaded woman should enter the House of God?

At Tabatauea in the Gilberts, I performed an autopsy on a deceased king. Since the king had been dead for a thousand years, I wasn't shocked that the findings were impressive.

I was taken to a palm-thatched shrine where the bones of Korave, the heroic ancestor of the island’s chiefs, were honored; legend says he was enormous and strong when he led the people of Beru during the invasion. Before I could enter, District Commissioner Anderson had to secure the approval of Korave’s entire family. We arrived in a canoe, trudged through mud, and finally reached the assembly hall, the muniapa, as very damp onlookers.

The entire village had gathered. The Gilbertese talked loudly, and the conversation around us felt like a football game until Mr. Anderson quieted everyone down to explain how significant this event was. I sat there, looking as grand as a large, heavy man can after being soaked in seawater and taking a sweaty walk. Then came the big question. The distinguished visitor wanted to see great Korave’s bones. Right away, the people of Tabatauea went into a noisy discussion. Suddenly, the group broke apart. A headman stepped forward and said yes, we could see the bones.

[Pg 172]

Hung from the ridgepole was a large basket adorned with white shells. Two men carefully washed their hands and lowered the great chief’s remains. After one look at the bones, which they had laid out on a mat, I felt a strong urge to examine them myself. But could I? There was a chaotic noise, with every member of the Korave family shouting at one another. Then the headman said “all right,” multiple times.

There was a really nice skull, showing that someone had a generous brain with plenty of space above the eyebrows. At first, I found two thigh bones and two tibias, just like any hero would. When I got to the two fibulas, the smaller leg bones, I noticed they were smaller than their counterparts and was thoughtless enough to ask if their ancestor had a limp. Indignant denials followed. I was even more surprised when I picked up another fibula and tibia—wow, the guy must have been three-legged! There were also three radii and extra pelvic bones. It seemed like the late king had three of everything compared to the common man's two. There was a bunch of small ribs that could have fit a lot of people, but if they had been put on Korave's skeleton, it would have created a whole new problem in anatomy.

I gently questioned Tabatauea’s belief by asking if they were sure these bones all came from the same person. They were completely certain. Hadn’t the relics been carefully handed down through the generations? This simple faith might also shed light on some of the holy relics revered in our Christian churches.

Anderson’s flowery introduction had earned a lot of respect for my opinion, it seemed, because they asked what I could share about their legendary ancestor. They had already let me sit, even if just for a moment, on the enchanted stone where Korave used to sit; it was said to have a magical quality of coolness. Sure enough, it was quite cool. So I had to tell them about their ancestor. The safe approach was to stick to generalizations. I told them that he was a very big man, much bigger than one of his very large descendants in the audience. Honestly, I praised the size of great Korave’s head; no ordinary person could have had a skull like that. But my praise of the bones in toto really made an impact. Not only was Korave incredible in many ways, I said, but he had more bones than any man I had ever seen. After Anderson translated this, he told me that they[Pg 173] were very thankful for the information, which would be cherished among their legends of the hero.

******

On Kuria, it was my job to talk with one of Robert Louis Stevenson’s least appreciated characters, District Commissioner Murdock, who had come from the days of piracy. Stevenson really disliked Murdock; somewhere in his stories about Apamama and King Timbinoka, the novelist referred to Murdock as “a rat-faced Scotchman with a secretive nature” and “Timbinoka’s cook.” The conflict originated from Murdock's refusal to share the many adventures he had experienced. He had plenty of reasons to stay quiet because, while Stevenson was looking for thrilling tales, Murdock was acting as a business manager for the savage king who took over Kuria and terrorized the nearby islands. Murdock also acted as a go-between for the fearsome Timbinoka and the notorious Bully Hayes, an extraordinary pirate and slave trader.

All the pirate I saw in Murdock was his big, white mustache; the mouth below it stayed shut, and he only grunted, until I won him over with a shiny new fishing lure. Then he opened up and talked about himself.

As a sickly nineteen-year-old, he arrived there on a sailing ship and captured Timbinoka’s heart by cooking him a hearty meal, earning a job right away. He moved from frying fish to navigating tricky negotiations, mainly with Bully Hayes and his slave trading operations with Timbinoka. Hayes, who likely came from San Francisco, would wipe out entire islands and take the locals away to suffer in the fields and mines of Australia, Fiji, and South America. As a side hustle, he would swoop in on pearl fisheries, collecting both pearls and young women. Out at sea, he would repaint his ship with a new set of colors to trick pursuing navy ships. He often baited his trap with beautiful girls; the women of Aitutaki were especially alluring, so he’d load them up and keep them visible as he lingered by different islands. Then the native men, poor souls, would swim out to be captured and chained.

On one occasion, Murdock was sent as the King’s agent to an island where Bully Hayes had taken a shipload of Timbinoka’s warriors to punish some of His Majesty’s rebellious subjects. When Bully captured people, he had the right to buy them from Timbinoka.[Pg 174] The king thrived on this business and was a classic tyrant. Once, he sent Murdock with 300 slaves for coffee plantations in Mexico and Guatemala.

The King’s harem was huge, and any uninvited guys were quickly killed. A skilled marksman, Timbinoka stayed sharp by shooting at disobedient wives who were usually trying to escape. He owned everything in his territory, chased competitors out of his shops, and banned missionaries. He could be welcoming, but when he said, “Get out!” his visitor knew it was time to leave. He bought alcohol, boats, and gadgets in bulk. His main obsession was sewing machines; he had an impressive collection in various states of disrepair, and a trader with music boxes got a royal reception. European clothes fascinated him, and he eagerly anticipated the latest styles arriving by boat. So, he sent two locals to Auckland to learn tailoring. Unfortunately for Timbinoka’s pride! He got so incredibly large so quickly that even the widest coats and pants tore on him. He spent his later years in a fancy Mother Hubbard. Murdock showed me a picture of him wearing one; he was so big he couldn’t walk and was being carried by eight men.

Once, he sent Murdock to check out a wreck on Apamama. The crew was in a bad situation; the locals had given them food and shelter, but they had run out of alcohol. So, Murdock got a large demijohn and filled it with rum from one of the King’s barrels. He reported this to Timbinoka, who asked, “Where did you get this rum?” Murdock pointed out the barrel, and the King said, “Hmm, hmm, hmm. There was a guy from Sydney who liked it like a head among the Kanaka. So, he preserved it with this rum.”

In short, Timbinoka had chopped off some enemy heads, which a trader bought, pickled, and sent to a scientist in Australia. After this deal, the clever trader sold the rum back to Timbinoka. The king found out about it, so he didn't use the liquor. But the shipwrecked sailors got their share, and His Majesty was greatly amused when he told them what they had been drinking and watched them get sick. He asked Murdock to buy their ship for five pounds. Timbinoka gathered the entire kingdom with everything that could float. Through sheer strength and clumsiness, they raised the ship, which was repaired and became the Royal Navy. With a royal gesture, Timbinoka sent the crew back to Australia at his own expense.

Before he died, the King got his helpful cook a job as District Officer,[Pg 175] a position he held successfully for the rest of his life. Once, he told me that he discovered a village heavily affected by leprosy, so he burned it down and relocated the residents to new housing. From those specific people, he claimed he never heard of leprosy again. It sounds a bit suspect, since to this day, no researcher has figured out how the leprosy germ spreads.

******

One of Timbinoka’s royal descendants was at Kuria when we were there. A big guy, he had once been handsome, but he was getting fat and his baldness rivaled mine. His morals were the talk of the town, even among the Gilbertese, who are surprisingly sophisticated for such a primitive culture. Maybe their vices had come from Tahiti, or from an especially bad group of beachcombers. Perhaps the discouragement of the harem system had demoralized them. In any case, the Royal Descendant was no match for a nice girl.

He was part of a story that reached me in the way island stories often do. Years later, I met a Frenchman, Mr. X, who was looking for a job, and I couldn't understand why someone with his education and intelligence was unemployed. He seemed so desperately anxious that I used some connections to help him land a job managing a trading station. He didn’t hold onto it for very long. And here's why:—

He had been a priest, serving faithfully on these islands. Marie was a stunning mixed-race girl in his school. With his Bishop’s approval, he supported her desire to become a nun; she preferred this path over marrying the Royal Descendant, who was her family’s choice. If Father X was in love with her, it was a feeling he strictly denied, even though he continued her education while she was a novice. The European nuns in the convent made her life particularly difficult; they resented the idea of a mixed-race person being part of full sisterhood. She spent years working as a servant, scrubbing floors. Meanwhile, her family constantly pressured her to leave the convent and marry the aristocrat.

One night, she went to see Father X, who had been her only earthly friend. Their tears and his attempts to comfort her were overwhelming for both of them. The Devil he had fought for so long emerged. A few weeks later, Father X approached his Bishop, a wise and savvy church leader. “Don’t take it so seriously,” the Bishop said, “these things happen. Let me transfer you to Australia until it calms down.” “No,” Father X insisted, “she’s going to have my baby, and my child must[Pg 176] be legitimate.” The Bishop brushed it off; he dismissed Father X’s priestly robe as well.

Father X, now a regular guy, stepped into the world. The first thing he did was marry Marie, and when their baby was born, he tried his hardest to raise and educate the child. That might have been easier in a place where smart white men are few, but Mr. X hit a brick wall. He was a defrocked priest, married to a mixed-race woman under unusual circumstances. He bounced from one temporary job to another, losing them, and doing his best to provide for his family.

Then things got better for him. With his wife and child, he traveled to Australia. A skilled farmer, he came up with a solution for a common tree disease and made a profit. He was now saving enough money to support his family; after that, he planned to return to France to rejoin his order.

******

An ambassador without a portfolio, a doctor without a license, I looked into the leper situation in the Gilberts and Ellices. The two groups had their small share of the disease, but when I spoke to some authorities and asked for support in the model colony we were planning for Mokogai, the response was not very encouraging. Years later, a kind of compromise was started on Tarawa in the Gilberts, but it turned out to be such a dismal failure that we eventually got our way and had the patients moved to Mokogai.

On this first G and E survey, I was out advocating for modernized local practitioners. Government schools in both groups were effective, although too much European training can be excessive; the capacity of the local mind is limited by the shadow of the coconut tree. Gilbertese intelligence was impressive. When I visited schools like the one in Bairiki and saw eager faces focused on learning, and when I noticed their continuous progress, I realized that these young people were potential N.M.P.s. They were the type who could learn medicine and return to their home islands to practice and teach. Malakai was with me everywhere, serving as a role model for them.

At Funafuti, one of our old school N.M.P.s, a huge guy from Tonga named Josaia came aboard the ship. I had known him as a pharmacist’s assistant in Auckland before he became a doctor, and we were catching up when Josaia paused and glared at a well-built native who had shuffled past me. Josaia said, “You just insulted the Doctor. You walked across his shadow.” Then Josaia picked the guy up, threw him over his head, and out an open door. Josaia was a bit of a force of nature, and he was temporarily out of work. He was a great surgeon. If he operated too often for tubercular glands in the neck, it was due to his inadequate training. Back then, many practitioners mistook yaws for tuberculosis and treated them the same way. Josaia had been in the G and E group for about six years, working his tail off for six pounds a month.

******

In the heavily missionized Ellices, there was a lot of religious confusion, though I can't confirm the current story about the lady from the London Missionary Society. She kept her girls closely watched on a small island with a lagoon. When several of them began to show signs of pregnancy, she asked who was at fault. “The Holy Ghost,” they answered. They thought immaculate conception was fine and didn’t talk about the boys who crossed the lagoon at night.

On the less missionized Gilberts, religious affairs once took a more violent turn. An island had been experiencing the usual conflict between Catholics and the London Missionary Society—the latter dominated, led by local teachers. A native preacher stirred up a religious frenzy that swept through the community. Self-proclaimed “Apostles and Angels of God” took charge, led by a local “Virgin Mary.” The Angels rounded up all the Catholics they could find and killed several. They had imprisoned the native Catholic magistrate and were marching toward him with a cross, planning to use it had it not been for the bravery of one villager who went by canoe to get the District Officer and white missionaries. The rescue, involving a few Europeans confronting a mob of angry locals, required careful negotiation. A later investigation, which led to the island paying a fine, uncovered scandal among the Angels. John the Baptist had been involved with the Virgin Mary.

Where the religious issue stumped the righteous, the medical questions baffled the doctor. Ocean Island, one of the world's major phosphate treasures, was the base for the Gilbert and Ellice groups. A British company was mining the resource. Arthur Grimble, a Cambridge M.A., was the acting District Commissioner and an ethnologist who had made valuable discoveries.

[Pg 178]

From the doctor’s perspective, too many Chinese had been brought to Ocean Island, even though the Government’s excellent hospital was doing more than its fair share. The problem was that Gilbertese and Ellice Islanders were working alongside the newcomers; they caught the diseases that were imported and took them back home. Throughout the two groups, I noticed signs of infections that these outsiders were bringing to a beautiful people. Pathologically, the spread of disease was starting to become apparent. Yaws, which seemed to have come with civilization, was making significant inroads. Tuberculosis was affecting attractive young men, who didn’t have the same immunity as Europeans. Filariasis was a frustrating puzzle, as it seemed impossible to control the mosquitoes that spread it. Fortunately, intestinal parasites were rare; the people lived close to the beaches, and the tides served as Nature’s effective sewage system.

******

In my notebook, I wrote down “interesting items”:—

I also took notes on the white inhabitants, feeling a bit sad. Many of them had been away from the outside world for so long and were so eager to see new faces that they joined the Pioneer at any excuse, making the boat look like a picnic outing. The resident doctor was with us. A young cadet named Jones kept sending messengers, saying he needed to be seen immediately because he had a serious accident. Out of compassion, we went to his island, 200 miles off our route—and found that he had nothing worse than a splinter in his leg and a slightly sprained back. What he really wanted was an invitation for himself and his wife to join the fun, and I certainly felt for them. But the ship was already packed to the brim.

The island group's treasurer traveled to check the finances of each island. He was a friendly guy, definitely had his own personality. I wasn't really surprised when he casually told me he was a grandson of the notorious Bully Hayes. I had my phonograph with me and wowed him by playing the latest hits from New York. Sure, he had a Victrola, he said, but the songs it played were so outdated that even his kids were sick of them. When he got off the boat, I gave him a record of “Mr. Gallagher and Mr. Shean,” and he was really grateful.... About the time our ship was heading back to Fiji, I heard about his death. For some grim reason related to the tropics, he had taken his own life.

His story had an eerie ending. When I got to my office in Suva, I found a letter from him, dated a few weeks earlier, thanking me for the record. It had brought so much joy to the kids.

******

I had to accept that the white colonists in the Gilbert Islands needed a doctor more than the locals did. The monotony of life there must eventually take a toll on the health of every European. The food was a real challenge for anyone used to civilized diets; it was nothing but coconuts, fish, and that stringy, tasteless root, the babai; and for variety, just whatever canned goods the trader had available. If I had to choose between bad options, I’d prefer to live in the Ellice Islands over the Gilberts—and I’d rather be in Rotuma than in the Ellice Islands. Those are the three places in the Pacific that I like the least.

A SMALL KINGDOM AND A POWERFUL QUEEN

The Chief Medical Officer of the Tongan Islands was on leave. Dr. Minty, his capable assistant and the only other medical officer on Tongatabu, called me in to help with an emergency operation on Her Majesty, Salote Tubou, the queen of the last surviving native kingdom in the South Pacific. This took place in Nukualofa, the capital.

Dr. Minty didn’t have an anesthetist, so he asked me to help him out; it was a job I didn’t look forward to, since the responsibility would be pretty heavy, and surgeries in the hot tropics are always a bit of a risk. The Queen lay on a bed in one of the royal chambers. Her beautiful eyes turned toward me, and her friendly lips said she was glad I had come. Her partner, Prince Tungi, leaned his large Tongan frame over her, comforting her and boosting her courage. This was my first personal medical service to reigning royalty, an adventure among giants, because the Queen of Tonga was two-and-a-half inches over six feet and weighed over 300 pounds. She came from a family of giants; her father had been even bigger, and her great-grandfather George Tubou the First stood over six feet five inches and was built in proportion. She wasn’t fat, either. The width of her shoulders showed incredible physical strength. She was a woman of heroic size, a true mother of Polynesian kings.

Everything was set. I said, “Your Majesty, breathe normally and deeply. If you feel the anesthetic kicking in too quickly, just raise your hand and I’ll give you some air; but not too often.” I started the process, and she raised her hand. I gave her some air and started again. She raised her hand once more and continued to do so until I said as politely as possible, “Remember, Your Majesty, there’s no special way to take anesthetic.” After that, she was as still as a mouse, the perfect patient. The way her amazing chest expanded while breathing in the vapor was like the movement of a giant accordion; her chest seemed to lift a whole foot.

[Pg 182]

Getting her in her bed was no job for someone weak. Prince Tungi was ready to carry her in his arms; he could definitely handle it, but I wanted to keep an eye on her breathing and said, “Don’t be selfish, Tungi, slide down and let me help.” My arms barely reached under her shoulders, and I was relieved when we got her settled safely. She was one of the most beautiful, largest women I’ve ever seen.

Minty’s quick and efficient work should have been nobody’s concern; however, a medical procedure involving royalty is always a big deal, and the kingdom was buzzing. This was especially true in Europe since Tonga was prosperous enough to hire a lot of foreigners for government positions. The next morning, Bob Denny, the colorful Scottish postmaster, gave me the first interrogation. “Doctor, didn’t the Queen have surgery? What was it for?” I replied, “I only administered the anesthetic.” He couldn’t grasp my indifference and yelled, “BUT WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HER?” I answered, “That’s the Queen’s and Dr. Minty’s business.” I knew that if he asked Minty, he would be swiftly cut off.

In the South Pacific, where everyone's business is your own, Aesculapian secrecy was never really grasped. When Postmaster Denny discovered that I wouldn’t discuss the royal operation, he kindly forgave me by giving me some pamphlets meant for a lady who was away. “They might be interesting,” he said, “but you should return them in a week. She’s expected back then, and she gets cranky about her mail.”

For my part in the talked-about operation, I was rewarded in traditional Tongan style. The house we lived in was filled with gifts of gratitude: rolls of fine tapa, large pieces of roast pork, and lots of hand-picked Tongan fruit.

These gifts had become familiar to me; in May of the previous year, I accepted an invitation to conduct a hookworm survey in the Kingdom of Tonga. I spent the first three months there for the survey. My family and Malakai joined me. We effectively showed the Foundation film “Unhooking the Hookworm” in the local movie theater to large crowds that gathered, obedient to the Queen’s command. In the more remote areas, we relied on the hookworm charts. The response in specimens was excellent. This was what the Tongans enjoyed—they were already interested in health, and here was something new for free. Our examinations revealed little of note regarding hookworm disease. The infection rate was low, and the number of worms per person was also low. I believed this was due to the Tongans still following the old Polynesian taboos regarding waste disposal; we also found that most houses in community groups had some type of latrines, although these were inadequate. However, their water supplies were terrible. There are almost no running streams, and the drinking water was mainly sourced from shallow wells, which were highly contaminated due to sharing by pigs, chickens, horses, and humans.

The pig question came up immediately. The Chief Medical Officer wanted me to say that pigs transmit hookworm to humans, but that didn’t align with my beliefs. After I refused to agree with him, the C.M.O. and I stopped being friends. He was Scottish. Scots typically have some of the best medical minds. Once they believe a theory is correct, nothing can change their minds. You rarely meet one who will invest all their natural stubbornness in a questionable hypothesis.

Well, I can be pretty stubborn too, and I had my reasons when it comes to pigs. One of the issues with the local diet is the lack of meat, fresh or otherwise. Europeans coming into the local culture immediately want to put pigs in pens. I knew an Irish doctor who wouldn’t rest until he enforced such a rule. He was from a place where, according to legend, “they keep the pig in the living room”; but for the locals, that kind of closeness isn’t appropriate. From what I've seen, when pigs are kept in pens, the supply of meat quickly diminishes. Why? Because one person doesn't want to feed someone else’s pig; when they’re kept in a shared space, they gradually get killed off with no replacements. When pigs are allowed to roam freely in the villages, they find most of their own food. That’s the local way. As much as I've studied this, I don't know of any Pacific island disease that pigs carry. If I had agreed with contrary statements just to please a few outsiders, I wouldn’t have been true to my own beliefs.

Tongans are remarkably strong and disease-resistant, as we will see, and I believe this is largely due to a plentiful supply of pork, along with their other foods.

Tongan hospitality and delicious food almost caused a disaster for a visiting Fijian football team. I watched the first match of that series, which was unfortunate for me because I'm Fijian through and through. When the team arrived in Tonga, they were seen as the stronger team, and when I spoke with Savanada, one of the players, he was full of confidence. But on the field, Fiji played as if they were weighed down. Later, a disappointed Savanada explained why. During their thirty-six-hour boat trip to Tonga, the Fijians had barely eaten. As soon as they arrived, they were greeted with a feast. Poor, hungry Fijians! There were more roast pigs than they had ever seen before, piled high with yams, tasty breadfruit, along with chickens and fish to fill in the gaps.

When they stepped onto the field, they reminded me a bit of Mark Twain’s Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, cleverly held back. The savvy Tongans, by the way, played on empty stomachs. Across the South Pacific, this clever tactic is referred to as “Tongafiti.”

Tonga won the second game as well, with me cheering my heart out for the glory of Fiji. This time, Savanada justified it with a dignity befitting his noble status: “Queen Salote was here, and it wouldn’t have been polite for us, as her guests, to win.” However, Fiji won the last game convincingly, and each time the Tongan team faced off against Fiji, the kingdom’s athletic pride took a hit.

******

Speaking of “Tongafiti,” from what I can gather, the word combines Tonga and Viti (Fiji), and it’s likely that the ancient conquerors of the Pacific brought Fijian warriors with them during the time when they were the Huns and Vandals of their era.

Sikiana had been taken over by the "Tongafiti" people; there was proof that they had fought their way through the nearby Polynesian islands to the west, conquering as they went. At the tip of the Solomons, the people of tiny Rennell Island had defeated these warriors by tricking them onto the sharp coral, which tore up their bare feet. One end of Rotumah is still inhabited by a chief who is a descendant of Tongan invaders, as is one end of Mangaia in the Cooks. For two or three centuries, the Tongans enslaved the Samoans; finally, Malietoa drove them out, and they vowed never to return except in peace. Afterwards, Tonga forgot the skills of war, but in the seventeenth century, it became trendy for their chiefs to travel to Fiji and ally with one of their warring provinces. These trips were like a Grand Tour, part of their education. They were always welcomed because they were fearless when charging a fortified position, something that Fijians always dreaded. Chief Ma’afu, arriving in Fiji, would have toppled Thakombau had the British not stepped in.

Contact with Melanesia has given Tongans a somewhat browner skin tone compared to the golden skin of pure Polynesians; areas in dark Fiji where Tongan warriors and mission teachers were common can still be identified by lighter skin tones and other Tongan characteristics. Tongans have a sturdiness and resilience that surpasses that of all other Polynesians. In many ways, they are the most advanced natives of the Pacific.

Captain Cook discovered them in 1770, though navigators in the seventeenth century had already spotted them. Because they welcomed him warmly, Cook dubbed them “the Friendly Islands.” He had no idea that he would have been killed and his boats taken if the chiefs hadn't argued among themselves. A few years later, the Port au Prince was not so fortunate. A young boy named Mariner was the only survivor; the chief, Finau Ulukalala, happened to take a liking to him. Mariner lived there for four years, and after he escaped, a Dr. Martin recorded his fascinating story, which reads like a dime novel.

The missionary followed the white trader, and Tonga became a battleground for religious groups. The last chapter of that bitter conflict was written as late as 1924. It started as a clash between Methodists and Catholics; eventually, it turned into a battle among Methodists—specifically, Wesleyans against Wesleyans. Taufahau, a powerful chief from the Kanakupolu family who was destined to be king, first recognized the looming changes and aligned himself with the Wesleyans. By then, the Tongans had abandoned their old religion, which involved the worship of Polynesian deities. Taufahau may have surrendered to a greater influence than he understood. He might have genuinely embraced Christianity, although that’s hard to believe. One thing is certain: he took the chance to unite the group into a political force. A great warrior, a skilled strategist, a remarkable leader, he was crowned in 1826 and lived until 1894. During his reign, all of Tonga converted to Christianity, mostly Wesleyan.

In his later years, during the 1970s and 1980s, scandals erupted in the Church. A lot of money was collected in religious donations, and after the missionaries filled their own pockets, the leftover funds were sent out of the country. Keep in mind, Tonga was just coming out of the Stone Age—yet it was funding foreign missions! Eventually, Taufahau, now King George the First, decided to establish his own state Church, the Free Church of Tonga. There were brutal persecutions of Wesleyans who refused to recant; many were killed, and thousands were expelled from Tonga. George the First had a renegade Wesleyan missionary named Baker as his advisor, who then became Prime Minister. Although Prime Minister Baker implemented some beneficial laws, his leadership deteriorated over the years. It seemed that as much was wasted under his rule as under the previous missionaries, leading to a point where the British High Commission had to step in and establish a protectorate over Tonga. The Free Church continued its unpredictable course during the reign of George the Second of Tonga, who died in 1918, and into the reign of Queen Salote. In 1924, she joined the Wesleyan Church, and the Free Church stopped being Tonga’s official religion. The Free Church left a poor financial legacy and showed little respect for honest business practices. For many years, religion in Tonga was largely intertwined with politics. Whenever a monarch changed their faith, there was often a corresponding change in opposition to the Crown.

The Tubous are the only survivors of many native dynasties that the first white men encountered in the Pacific. The Tongan kingdom has endured the greedy actions of Western powers, and the people have maintained their identity through every political crisis.

The Tubous have a history longer than any other ruling dynasty today. Their kings originally came from Eastern Samoa, likely from Ta’u, which appears to have been the birthplace of great Polynesian kings. The Tui Tonga served as both the spiritual and political leader of the state, with Aho’-itu being the first Tui Tonga. A later Tui Tonga grew tired of the dual responsibilities and handed over political matters to his brother Tui Haatakalaua, who eventually transferred his power to another brother, Tui Kanakupolu. When King George the First ascended to the throne, he eliminated the title of Tui Tonga. Joeli, the last person to claim that ancient title, passed away after my first visit to the kingdom.

This seems like a pretty questionable way to overlook over a thousand years of history. When I first saw Tonga, its two major historical lineages came together in marriage. The Haatakalaua and Kanakupolu families united in Tungi and Salote. The royal wedding took place in 1918. With three sons, the dynastic succession seemed secure.

In 1924, the ruling couple were better educated than most of their subjects. Salote studied in Auckland, while Tungi attended a prestigious school in Sydney. Ata, one of the prominent nobles, also went to school in Sydney. Aside from that, only a few mixed-race children had experienced foreign educational advantages. Overall, the people only knew a handful of English words.

The Tongans were strong nationalists with a deep fear of being taken over by a major power. They were even wary of England, even though they seemed to be secure in that regard. The British protectorate over the kingdom was (and still is) very minimal. Great Britain was appointing Chief Justices and Auditors for them, and naturally, the Tongans paid the salaries. The British Consul and Agent served as an advisor to the Queen, and it was their responsibility to approve any financial spending. With these limitations, Tonga is now a free constitutional monarchy, complete with a parliament and the Queen’s privy council.

The main issue has always been the British Consul’s ability to veto spending. If he was well-trained in the British civil service, the plan functioned smoothly. However, the job only takes up about an hour of the Consul’s day, and too many of them have taken advantage of the free time to engage in petty politics and exert control that exceeds their official power.

The financial veto is a powerful tool, but controlling expenses has saved Tonga. It's hard for Western cultures to grasp the Polynesian’s total lack of financial awareness—or the Melanesian’s, for that matter. From a young age, Europeans learn the skills of earning and spending money. That’s not the case for Pacific Islanders. While they may be intellectually superior in many ways, it is nearly impossible to get them to understand that coins aren’t something you can just pick off trees and toss around for fun. It’s all enjoyable while the party is going, but only through hard knocks will the locals learn about managing money. Often, their education happens in jail, where they can reflect on the drawbacks of Western systems compared to their traditional communal way of life.

Wild extravagances of the Church and State pushed Great Britain to establish a protectorate to keep Tonga from falling into other hands. The British Consul, holding the keys to the treasury, had to bridge the significant gap in Tongan financial understanding. Today, I know of no other nation as financially stable as Tonga—no debt, whether internal or external, and a surplus of £150,000, about twenty-five dollars per person. For the United States, that would amount to well over three billion, with no debts whatsoever. Not too shabby for Tonga, a place that first saw iron around 250 years ago. Plus, the kingdom’s wealth is well shared. Every Tongan male at eighteen receives eight-and-a-half acres of fertile land and a town lot to build his home on.

The white man travels through these islands and notices many things that might seem funny from his biased perspective. But shouldn’t we reflect on our own flaws in the context of New Deals and Planned Economies? While Western civilization is consuming its excess and starting to undermine itself, I wonder if some Tongan thinkers could guide us out of our mess of bureaucratic taxes and show us what the Abundant Life truly means.

In 1924, Queen Salote was in her early twenties, but her experience in government had made her wise beyond her years. She quickly recognized the help that our Foundation could offer her small nation of 25,000 people. We were working tirelessly to provide Tonga with a decent water supply, and I was wearing out my patience trying to persuade the Scottish Chief Medical Officer of the obvious necessity. Though I have a deep admiration for the Scots—and haven’t I watched them thrive in positions that would have broken a less resilient group?—this Medical Officer was a stubborn thorn that drove me up the wall. I’m a pretty easygoing person, as the Irish would say. Somehow, I've managed to get along with all sorts of people.

But not with this one. The few thin hairs left on my head stood up at the sight of him. He bothered those hairs more than the Tongan flies that swarmed around breakfast at Bill Smith’s boarding house; it was there that I learned to cover my bald spot with a knotted handkerchief. No handkerchief could protect me from the Scot’s annoying stubbornness. I had to work with him, of course, or I wouldn’t have been able to work at all. He was a very skilled surgeon, particularly talented in eye surgery—a rare skill in the South Pacific. As a health officer, he had done some excellent work, especially with yaws. But I got off on the wrong foot when I disagreed with him about pig hookworm. His main flaw—if it can be called a flaw—was his strong belief that he was the ultimate authority on everything.

One of his assistants, a smart young guy who put up with things for as long as he could, then took a high position in Australia. He helped me as much as he could, and it was beneficial. But the Scot had a real dislike for anything Lambert. We were trying to set up model latrines all over[Pg 189] the Tongan Islands, and we had to choose a design that he would approve of. Nothing I suggested seemed good enough, and it was impossible to figure out what he actually wanted. If I hadn’t eventually resorted to a “Tongafiti” tactic, I’m sure nothing would have gotten done. Finally, in total frustration, I went to him with one of the plans he had turned down and said smoothly, “Well, Doctor, I’ve finally come around to your original idea, and I’m on board with this plan.” Without a word, he accepted it. I had figured out a strategy.

Probably Tonga was lucky to have such a good leader. The kingdom had welcomed some frauds, both religious and medical.

A well-known trader was saying goodbye to friends at the boat, commenting, “I’m glad you’re leaving while you still have a good impression of the women,” when a sharply dressed stranger accompanied by a lady approached and stated, “No man is good enough for a good woman.” This gallant champion’s name isn’t important, except that it appeared on the Tongan medical register along with the impressive list of initials “M.D., Phy. D.O., M.S.R.U.I., S.A. and Harvard University D.O.” The S.A. might have had some significance, but his bizarre assortment of degrees remained as mysterious as the reason the Tongan Government appointed him to a high medical position. Later, he confessed to me that he learned all his medicine as a hospital wardsman.

He was the only doctor available when Queen Salote gave birth to the Crown Prince. His graceful bedside manner, combined with his official status, had put him above any criticism. The delivery took place, as per tradition, in the royal suite; following old customs, the high-ranking nobles waited in an antechamber to hear the announcement of the birth. Every now and then, the highly titled physician would briefly step in to check on his patient and then step out to smoke a cigarette and adjust his cuffs. Finally, a skilled mixed-race nurse, who had been there the whole time, peeked her head out and announced that the baby was coming. The titled physician rushed to the bedside just a minute late; the baby had already been born. He approached the nurse and quietly whispered, “So what should I do next?” It was his first case of assisting in childbirth.

Well, the nurse must have taken care of it, because when I was in Tonga, the Crown Prince was a charming little boy. The medical curiosity was not overlooked; he served the kingdom for quite a while. When Fatafehi, the father of the late king, finally passed away from his family's hereditary disease (old age), our hero found himself in a bit of a predicament. He heard about a royal funeral where the body was left waiting for the family to arrive for so long that the pallbearers had an unpleasant job carrying away the casket. It was decided to embalm Fatafehi's remains—which left the poor guy puzzled again. In the end, he settled on filling the lead coffin with formaldehyde solution. On the way to the grave, the pallbearers wondered why it was too heavy to carry. They had to drill holes in the side to let out the solution before they could lower the coffin into the grave.

At last, the good doctor was confronted by a flu outbreak. He couldn’t handle it, so he headed to Fiji for “medical supplies” and never returned. I didn't know much about him when he approached me in Suva and impressed me with his charming demeanor. I wanted a skilled doctor to cover for me while I was home on leave, and his smooth talk almost convinced me to hire him. “All I want,” he said, “is a chance to treat the locals. Just for room and board. I love the locals.” When I asked the Tongan Consul about him, the response didn’t fully satisfy me, so I changed my mind.

He went the route of all show: a low-level sanitary inspector in Fiji; then a position as a small doctor on a little ship; followed by a return to Tonga to live a laid-back life beachcombing with a local wife. He could at least say he had helped bring a royal heir into the world, even though he didn’t really know what to do next.

If the Saga of Tropical Medicine had a comic section, some of the Tongan M.D.s who actually graduated from top universities would absolutely deserve a spot in it. One particularly skilled physician was obsessed with practical jokes. In his office, he kept a movable skeleton that he used to scare locals by pulling its strings. At night, he would cover his bony sidekick in phosphorus and take him for a drive in his buggy; the eerie glow caused chaos in the town. When old Bridges was the Collector of Customs, the fun-loving doctor submitted a “drug order” that included a bunch of household items. To avoid paying duty, he gave the furniture fancy Latin names like Carpetorum brusselorum and Hattus rackus. This tricked the local inspector, who didn’t understand Latin, but Collector Bridges put a stop to the nonsense.

They told me about another doctor who really wanted to become C.M.O. Over in Haapai, he had a falling out with Chief Israeli, who was a big deal in Tonga and closely related to the King. A minor skin issue brought Israeli to this doctor, who took the opportunity to say, “Man, you’ve got leprosy!” He kept poor Israeli locked up for six months outside the village and started negotiating with the Tongan Government. He claimed he wanted a promotion to Chief Medical Officer, and if they gave him that, he would declare Israeli cured. The doctor got what he wanted and announced that his treatment had saved the patient from a leper’s tragic fate.

******

When I started the hookworm treatments, the royal family was the first to take the medicine, setting a good example for Tonga. That was a sensitive task for me. The household consisted of forty people in total, as Tongan hospitality filled the palace with relatives and close relatives. Maintaining the household must have been quite a strain, even though Salote had a decent income and Prince Tungi had a good salary as Premier; both owned land. But they were wealthy relatives to two large families, and feudal tradition required their generosity.

Feudal tradition met modern medicine when it was time to dose the Queen. The tetrachloride had to be mixed in a special mug because tradition said that no ordinary person should eat or drink from any dish or cup used by royalty. However, the Queen and Consort took their medicine gracefully and allowed themselves to be photographed while doing so. An anxious crowd waited outside the palace, and there was a collective sigh of relief when it was announced that the treatment had taken its usual effect.

As a special favor, I was given "back-door access" at the palace, and it was an honor I really appreciated. On quiet mornings, I would find Salote dressed in comfortable, casual clothes, a nice change from the British-made silks and satins she wore for official events. Our conversations brought me closer to her sharp mind and her strong desire to learn what was best for her people. Taufaahau, the heir apparent, and his two brothers would be running around the place. Sometimes I'd see them riding the giant turtle that hasn't left the palace grounds since Captain Cook brought him from the Galapagos in 1773 as a gift for the King of Tonga. I always had chocolate bars or some other sweet treat for the kids to snack on when they chose to sit on my lap. That was sixteen years ago. The turtle is still alive, and the Crown Prince has graduated with honors from Sydney University. He’s heading to Oxford to study law and anthropology. Salote and Tungi have every reason to be proud of[Pg 192] this tall, remarkable young man. Wow, how time has flown....

Many times I discussed my plans with Salote, especially my belief that there should be a modern Central Medical School in Fiji. She was a supportive listener. She viewed the people as her own children and felt sad about the ways they had been taken advantage of by outsiders. Once, I asked her if politics and religion were basically the same in Tonga, and she replied, “Doctor, I think you’re spot on.”

A devoted Christian, she had a deep admiration for Queen Victoria. Once a year, dressed for the occasion, she would open Parliament and sit in the red chair of state, with her beloved Tungi by her side. She insisted that the assembled parliamentarians wear ceremonial black, and in the days leading up to the big event, there was a mad rush for European clothing. Once, a little boy darted into a trader’s store and asked for a pair of silk stockings. He was a page for the Queen and needed to be in full regalia.

Ancient suits were rented or borrowed for the occasion; dress suits, dinner jackets, old cutaways, and outdated Prince Alberts, anything as long as it was black. Once, I lent my winter dress clothes to an appealing noble and watched him join the long, sweaty line of lawmakers filing into the sweltering ceremony. And as soon as it was over, state ministers sneaked away across the fields, suffocating coats over their arms, tight shoes in their hands. They were rushing home to their comfortable and practical lavalavas.

Major-General Sir George Richardson, the Governor of Western Samoa, shared a story about his presentation at court when the Queen was still new to the throne. Richardson, a grumpy Brit who had navigated the politics at the Court of St. James’s, might have embellished the story. He recounted that in the presence of young Salote, he approached the throne, performed the proper bow, and stepped back the required distance. Then, breaking the silence, the Queen clapped her hands and said, “Johnnie, bring the gentleman a whisky-soda!” She hadn’t fully grasped all the European formalities yet, but her sense of hospitality knew that a Brit typically doesn’t turn down a drink.

Salote, backed by the pride of an ancient dynasty and facing the challenges of a modern world, was the bridge between the old and the new.

Strangers, arriving in Nukualofa, have looked at the ancient stone relics there, have marveled at their massive size, and have[Pg 193] heard snippets of their legends. They have seen the great Haamonga (Burden on the Shoulders), a trilithon with side pieces that are fifteen feet tall; one stone is twelve feet wide and four feet eight inches thick, while the other is nine feet seven inches wide and three feet eight inches thick. These are above-ground measurements, as they are set very deep. They stand ten feet apart and have grooves at the top to hold a crosspiece that is fifteen feet long, five feet wide, and twenty-one inches thick. These detailed measurements describe a massive structure, and no one knows where the stones came from. Tradition says they were brought from Wallis Island in ancient Tongan canoes.

The large squared arch is the entrance to the old sacred marai (family ceremonial ground) where the Tui Tonga worshipped until the rise of political power led them to another marai, just a few miles away. On the old marai, where the Burden on the Shoulders stands, there is another important relic that speaks to the lost religious history of Polynesia. This is called the Leaning Stone, and it is a slab-like pillar that is nine feet tall, five feet wide, and two feet thick.

The Tongans, you should keep in mind, were quickly moving away from their traditional religion when the white man arrived. They understood that the trilithon and the leaning pillar had sacred significance, but their meaning was unclear. It wasn’t until I visited the Cook Islands, where I saw similar artifacts and listened to the young chiefs recite their poetic myths, that I understood what Tonga’s stone relics represented in the old pagan beliefs.

Almost everywhere in Polynesia, the symbols were the same. The arch represented Hina, the goddess of fertility, and the leaning pillar symbolized Tangaloa, her husband, the god of life's origin. After I discovered similar pillars and arches on the Cook Islands, I concluded that Tonga's ancient worship must have been phallicism. I presented my theory to Prince Tungi, who consulted with the keepers of the old tradition; they all agreed that this was likely the explanation. Tungi informed me that there were caves on Tongatabu called Hina because of their arch-like shape, and that on Vavau, there was a very realistic cleft stone also named Hina.

When I talk about the Cook Islands, I’ll go into a bit more detail about the Hina (or Ina) and Tangaloa myth, because the people of the Cook Islands still remember it.

Tonga’s third wonder is the Royal Tombs, the Langi. There are five Langi, usually shaped like pyramids, and covered with three to five layers of stone. They are about two hundred feet on each side; their outer stones, some of which are twenty feet long, are well squared and fitted. Each was built for a Tui Tonga.

During one of our back-porch meetings, Queen Salote told me that she had recently allowed one of her relatives to be buried there because he was part of the Tui Tonga lineage. The Queen was also from that ancient family, so she was the only witness, apart from the Haatufunga, the esteemed buriers of the royal dead. The chamber where the body was to be placed was deep in the center of the Langi. It was covered with a massive slab that had been there for four hundred years and was lifted with great effort. They discovered a vault that was about twelve feet long, four feet wide, and three feet deep, constructed with skillfully fitted stonework.

I apologize to Her Majesty if I quote her incorrectly, but this is what I recall her saying: “I saw the body being lowered into the dark vault. When it was first opened, we discovered the skeletons of three men. One was lying face down and must have belonged to a very powerful man. The other two were more slender, and their bones indicated that they died sitting up.”

The seated skeletons were likely those of the Haatafunga, whose job was to prepare the bodies and wrap them in fine mats. Back in the day, they were allowed to take the expensive wrappings for themselves as part of their position—if they could work quickly enough. They were given only the time it took to position the slab over the tomb and lower it. The pair squatting on either side of the noble skeleton had been a minute too slow and had been sealed in.

Later, Tonga became more humane, and the funeral workers weren't allowed to touch the mats; they were given a safe exit before the lid closed. Certain valuable items, similar to the funerary spoils, were set aside as their reward. The Queen told me that Joeli, a direct descendant of the Tui Tonga, had opened a tomb not long ago and found a beautifully carved ivory pillow. She had wanted to present it to the scientific community, but Joeli had buried it again.

******

The Tongan people, who have always lived under a communist system influenced by an aristocracy, still demonstrated an example of socialized medicine in their daily lives. Medical care was provided for free. While often not treated at all, this was partly due to the widespread scattering of small islands,[Pg 195] and partly due to the lack of staff in the medical department. Traveling around the small, forgotten islands, I was struck by the dirt, flies, and the lack of basic hygiene, which contributed to the spread of yaws, dysentery, and typhoid. The overall weakening caused by these diseases made the population particularly vulnerable to the influenza epidemic of 1918, which wiped out eight percent of the people. What they needed most was proper sanitation, reliable water supplies, and education about these essentials. Many deaths went without medical attention, making it hard to estimate the mortality rates for typhoid, for example.

The issue of infant mortality—deaths of children under five—became less critical each year. I’ve learned that when you improve one area of public health, it often positively impacts others. Our hookworm campaigns in Fiji, for instance, contributed to the drop in infant mortality; it decreased from 200 per 1,000 to below 100, and in one impressive year, it hit as low as 89.

The Tongans were a resilient people with a strong will to survive and a desire to learn—if you could navigate their old biases and the new quirks introduced by various missionary groups. Missionary Mormons and Seventh Day Adventists had complicated the situation. The Adventists had gained popularity when locals realized that this faith gave them two days off work each week. However, they were less enthusiastic about their beliefs when their preachers banned smoking and pork. The Mormons were also against tobacco. Visitors at the mission stations of either group had to keep cigarettes and tobacco securely locked away from the hands of eager converts.

I sometimes wondered if civilization had really helped these people at all, aside from freeing them from the nobles’ abuses. The old system where nobody was rich or poor on a self-sufficient island that fought off outsiders—would that be the straightforward answer today? Over a hundred years ago, Mariner thought so when he asked good Dr. Martin to include in his book: “Captain Cook brought the intermittent fever, the crooked backs, and the scrofula.” (Probably tuberculosis.)

But when you run your thumb over Mariner’s Tonga Islands, you can't help but think that the old remedies were sometimes extremely harsh, even though the tribal doctors identified tetanus long before bacteria were discovered. Mariner says:—

Mariner reported that patients recovering from illness “washed themselves too soon, which led to spasms, and death followed.” Observers told him that “wounds in the limbs ... can cause tetanus.... They never let women be near men with these wounds, for fear that even the suggestion of sexual attraction could trigger this serious condition....” One man went “eight months without being washed, shaved, or having his hair or nails cut....”

Now for the traditional treatment of tetanus, a skill they picked up from Fiji, where aggressive behaviors made gita quite common.

Several times, Mariner witnessed this brutal procedure; he mentioned that the jaws snapped shut violently for a few seconds, but there was no lockjaw. He estimated the recovery rate to be about forty percent. They also bled people for absurd reasons, like abdominal wounds; however, they had a theory (similar to some of our modern scientists) that inserting a reed into the urethra had a revitalizing effect on the weakened. The King of Tonga, during Mariner's time, underwent this procedure, “and two or three days later he felt much lighter and full of energy.”

The procedure known as boca involved castration for cases of enlarged testicles[Pg 197] (likely due to elephantiasis). Tourniquets were expertly crafted from local cloth, and the tools used were sharp pieces of split bamboo. Dr. Martin wrote:—

Sounds pretty gruesome, doesn’t it? But those local healers, using tapa and banana-leaf wraps, cutting with split bamboo, showed a skill and understanding of surgery that had been developed through generations of experience. This wasn’t just some kind of voodoo. It was practical surgery, done by people who just needed a bit of modern science to enhance their great work.

******

In contrast to what I previously mentioned about the local lack of financial awareness, I observed that Tongans were becoming savvy traders on a small scale. The Tongafiti game definitely influenced their transactions, and many European traders ended up going bankrupt because the locals were too clever for them. The older Tongans had no understanding of spending, and there are tales of indigenous people playing pitch games with shipwrecked trade dollars. That’s not the case anymore.

Salote and Tungi were studying finance systematically and patiently to understand modern economics. Along the beaches, their peers were sometimes honing their skills in a very practical manner.

Trader Algy Slocombe shared with me the only times he ever managed to strike a deal with a local. Living next door, a Tongan family had a couple of their trees hanging over his fence, messing up his tennis game. He approached the native wife, who discussed it with her husband, resulting in a lengthy negotiation. The husband acknowledged that he appreciated the water he received from the Slocombe well, giving Algy something to work with. Algy said to the native’s wife, “If you cut down those trees, I’ll let you keep all the coconuts that fall into your yard from the palms on my side.” The Tongans say, “Fa moli moli” to express “Many thanks,” and there was a distant look in the woman’s eyes when she said it. For years, she had been collecting those same coconuts without any issues. But a deal is a deal.

A local from Vavau came to Algy’s office wanting to deposit[Pg 198] some tobacco in exchange for a one-pound loan. He claimed to be the mayor of his town, had a good plantation, and worked with Lever Brothers. Algy wanted a day to think over this big transaction; out of curiosity, he contacted Vavau and discovered that this man had never had credit there. The customer came back—without the tobacco, of course—and insisted he needed the money immediately, as the boat was about to leave for Vavau. Algy simply smiled, “Fa moli moli,” and his applicant left without showing any signs of anger. His attempt to build himself up had been just as intricate as that of a New York con artist. But that was fine. He’d find a way to come up with something before the boat departed.

Neither in Fiji nor Tonga did the locals have last names; although some of the more educated individuals were starting to adopt European styles. I met a Tongan named Joni Motocawiah. If you say it quickly, it sounds like “Johnnie Motor Car Wire”—which is exactly what it means. On the day Joni was born, his mother saw her first car, and a roll of barbed wire washed up on their beach. There was also a baby named Atalosa, which sounded lovely. Before the baby arrived, her mother had smelled something they told her was rose perfume; “Atalosa” was how she pronounced it.

Remodeling the English language wasn’t just a Tongan thing. Eloisa and I stayed for a while at Bill Smith’s boarding house, where the food was great and there were plenty of flies. Bill Smith was the ultimate Mr. Malaprop. Once, when he caught me in a detailed medical discussion, he talked about “a man’s tentacles and pinnace.” He knew more about cooking than actual language, and he explained how to bake ham covered in mud so that it “brought out the intersticine juices.”

A Tongan’s own language worked in his favor if he didn’t like you. Wealthy aristocrats, starting to realize the value of money and alcohol, had mastered a trick of bestowing high titles on visiting Europeans, making them “family members.” If the European was pretentious enough to play along, he would happily lend money and whiskey to the noble title-giver. Once the money and whiskey ran out, the titles disappeared too, and the once-honored person was quickly kicked out of the family. This old army tactic was a bit of Tongafiti that was practiced in both Samoa and Tonga. The generous Polynesian was starting to learn that nothing comes for free in this harsh world. Chief Ulukalala, a self-proclaimed heir to the throne, held titles that sounded very impressive. He bestowed one on an official and another on a resident doctor’s wife. Between the two esteemed individuals, there was a rivalry over who should take precedence in native ceremonies. Her title was To’e Umu, which means “Scraps from the Oven,” while his was Kuli Haapai, which translates to “Dog of Haapai.”

The remnants of early missionary laws made it really easy to get arrested. It was banned to do any kind of work on Sunday, even in your own yard. When I was there, Dr. Ruhen, a medical officer, got arrested for breaking the Sabbath by picking a bunch of bananas in his own garden. Even though he argued that he was just gathering food, he was fined. Playing games on Sunday was not allowed. Algy Slocombe got into trouble for his tennis court with the strict folks. We had some great Sunday games there, and Algy felt safe because his court was hidden by a hedge. But eventually, some nosy person caught him, and all his players were taken before a local magistrate and fined. Thankfully, that happened after I went home.

All crimes lead to jail, or that's how it’s supposed to be. Going to jail in Tonga felt like quite a cheerful social event. Back in the days of the old King George Tubou, one of the royal relatives was locked up. Every afternoon, the King’s carriage would arrive, take the prisoner for a drive and for tea at the Palace, then bring him back at six o’clock, the closing time.

A friend told me that when he first saw the Vavau jail, there was a sign over the door that said, “All prisoners not in by six o’clock will be locked out for the night.” When I was there, the jailers complained a lot because there were no prisoners, and they had to do all the work. Tongan prisoners were quite the wanderers. In one village, there had been several burglaries of grocery stores, and the police were stumped for days. Eventually, they found the stolen goods hidden under the jail, where the inmates could dig in whenever they wanted for a midnight snack. It was pretty surprising that such nice boarding houses were losing tenants.

******

That was Tonga as I experienced it over many years. Like all Pacific cultures, it was a land full of stark contrasts. At sunset, an old witch would stand on the cliffs “calling the sharks.” She would toss scraps into the water, then raise a strange, powerful chant, and the sharks would pop their noses through the waves. Meanwhile, in the palace at[Pg 200] Nukualofa, an educated, sophisticated woman sat with her partner, strategizing on how to adapt to the new world’s demands placed on her kingdom. Thanks to their effective leadership and the wisdom of the British Protectorate, Tonga continued to thrive significantly, both in health and in understanding.

I never let Salote and Tungi forget that the local medical talent was right there in the kingdom, just waiting to be nurtured. Every time I visited her islands, I reminded the Queen that some of her best young men could go to Fiji for top-notch medical education if we had the funds to support such an initiative. There was always that big If. Salote's common sense and sense of patriotism led her to agree with me. Her big-hearted wish extended beyond her own domain; she understood that the native peoples of Oceania couldn't be helped until they learned to help themselves. But when I discussed this issue with her, I realized that little Tonga wasn't wealthy enough to implement a program that would cover the entire Pacific.

******

One day in 1926, I was feeling really down when I went to see Queen Salote with my problems. I told her about a letter I had just gotten from Heiser; he had decided that I needed to give up on the idea of going to School completely. It wasn’t his fault; he had done everything he could. But the situation was hopeless.

Queen Salote listened attentively to what I was saying. In her thoughtful pause, I realized she was on Heiser’s side. I had spent four years battling for an unfeasible ideal.

Then suddenly she lifted her kind eyes and asked, “Doctor, is it such a huge amount that we can’t handle our part?”

It wasn’t a wasteful Tongan speaking. It was the voice of a woman who had carefully considered the issue and had come to understand the path to her kingdom’s recovery. She knew that there was a solid treasury balance. She had been with us from the beginning. Her influence had helped reduce Tongan infant mortality until it became the lowest in the Pacific; she had encouraged mothers to seek out doctors or government clinics for baby food supplies; this had given medical officers a chance to check on the health of young children. Salote had advocated for a fight against tuberculosis and ensured that every household in her realm had sanitary facilities, even if they were still basic. The medical professionals she supported with moral backing were treating yaws with arsenicals. No one knew the health situation in Tonga better than Salote.

And couldn’t Tonga contribute its part to our School, so that the Pacific would finally have skilled native medical services? Before she spoke, my School was on its last breath. Now it was alive once more.

I went to Samoa and shared her offer with the old Governor, Major-General Sir George Richardson. “Well,” he grunted, “if Tonga is willing to do that, we’ll join in too.”

The battle wasn’t finished yet, but the wall had been broken through.

******

When I left Tonga for the last time, Crown Prince Taufaahau was on the ship with us. He had come home to celebrate his twenty-first birthday and was given the prestigious title of Tubou Toa. He was a remarkable young man, someone I would have been proud to call my son. Two young anthropology professors from the University of Chicago were with us and were captivated by his conversation, always matching theirs intellectually. Like his ancestors, he was massive and stayed fit by working out with fifty-six-pound dumbbells. He laughed, reminiscing about the chocolate bars I used to give him. I was telling him about a chief from a lost Pacific island who invited me to return and be his guest for life; the Crown Prince became lost in thought, just like his mother did when she was contemplating something personal. Then he said, “Doctor, I invite you to make your home with me in Tonga. But of course,” he added, “that will be after I’ve taken my place in Tongan society.”

I can't think of a happier place for my retirement.

THE LAND OF THE TALKING MEN

I only stretch the truth a bit when I say that Western Samoa’s political issues started with a minor medical problem and ended with a major one. The end of the Mau Rebellion definitely showcased the impact of hatred on public health.

The malanga of 1924 was in full swing, and I was part of it. Historically, the malanga has been a royal event, an annual showcase, much like in England when a grateful public came out to welcome Henry VIII in polished armor and freshly cleaned plumes. In Samoa’s bountiful year of 1924, the malanga was still a remarkable spectacle. His Britannic Majesty’s representative, the Governor of New Zealand’s ten-year-old Mandate, had organized a full military display and was enjoying the feasts or listening to the bands and musical speakers all around Savaii.

Since the beginning of time in Samoa, the Tulafale (the orator or “talking man”) has held the role of leader. No funeral, wedding, or political debate in the Fono (meeting place) has been official without a showdown of orators, first from one side and then the other, delivering speeches filled with elaborate words or veiled threats dressed as niceties. During the years of the Mandate, the Talking Men still played a significant role, and that weathered, strong-headed British soldier, Major-General Sir George S. Richardson, made many stops during his two-week march to check on the well-being of a people he governed with great kindness.

Under this malanga’s flashy display, I witnessed a small but significant event. It dropped another seed that, in a few years, would grow into the rebellious flower of an uprising that was already taking root. In my report to the Foundation, I described this official tour as “unique in my experience and remarkable for its results in gaining the trust of the locals and their cooperation in efforts for their own benefit. In the group were the Governor, the Commissioner for Native Affairs, the Resident Commissioner of Savaii, the Chief Medical[Pg 203] Officer, the Collector of Customs and Taxes, the Governor’s A.D.C., Dr. Buxton, and myself.” Fau’mui’na, a high chief, led thirty Boy Scouts called “Fetu o Samoa,” or the Star of Samoa; there were local police, carriers, and attendants. The Fetu marched in front, beating a drum, followed by the flagbearer, then the Governor with his entourage, and finally the endless line of followers. It was a parade that captured the imagination of a people who were drawn to grandeur and ceremony.

In the village reception house, there would be the usual kava ceremony, the food presentation, and the long hour dedicated to exchanging pleasantries. Then the Tulafale, the professional speakers, would unleash their eloquence for the benefit of the Governor: “In our ignorance and humility, we turn to you for the light of your wisdom, just as the flower turns to the sun. We are the children, and you are the father on whom we rely for guidance. We know that you love us, and we return that love....” When you hear this repeated day after day, you start to believe the Orator. The simple Samoan child of nature—and be careful, or he’ll take the shirt off your back. Notice how his clever diplomacy nearly had the United States, Germany, and Britain at each other’s throats in 1900. When Germany got her share of the colony, the Samoan’s collusion concerned her to the point where she only tried to control them with punitive raids....

But in the Governor’s malanga of 1924, the Orators were really going for it. They would check every gift-basket, call out the donor’s name with compliments if the taro was large and the fish was well-cooked. If the contribution seemed cheap, they would be very straightforward about it, to everyone's amusement.

Public health was always a priority during this enlightening journey of inspection. The boyish Fetu, dressed only in a lavalava and a cap featuring a star emblem, would organize exhibition games to teach the villagers simple sports that would keep them away from movie theaters and distractions in Apia. The Administration wisely showcased the nearly bare bodies of the young Fetu to highlight the health benefits of light clothing in the tropics. The Administration was consistently logical and compassionate.

At one of the settlements, the speeches and ceremonies took an unusually long time. Like everywhere else we visited, the doctors had gathered the people for quick check-ups on ulcers, skin issues, eye problems, enlarged spleens, or any other signs of illness. Our time was[Pg 204] more than up, and we needed to move on. What happened next was definitely not Dr. Ritchie's fault, a Medical Officer whose patient and insightful efforts to help a struggling population had surely earned him a place in Heaven, twice over. It was a matter of tact, impacting that fascinating and delicate aspect of the Samoan temperament.

We had been there long enough for the locals to report any illnesses in the area. Now, we were rushing to get on the boat. What happened next was typical of Samoan procrastination. A few locals came running up shouting, “There’s a woman who’s been in labor for five days! She’s half in, half out!” (They were probably referring to a “hand presentation.”) Everyone on Savaii knew we were there, but it just occurred to them to call a doctor. Dr. Ritchie, who was on the move, didn’t have any medical tools with him, and experience told him that the woman was basically doomed. Checking on her would mean taking a long detour, and Governor Richardson was eager for the pompous malanga to proceed. So it did.

Even then, I realized how serious that diplomatic mistake was. This was a chance for the Administration, eager to impress, to make a meaningful gesture. Obviously, there was no hope for the woman, but it would have made a huge impact of kindness if the party had turned their boat around and spent a day with the dying mother. It would have had the dramatic effect they were looking for.

But the mistake was made among a people who were holding onto many grievances, most of which were not real. When the disastrous Mau Rebellion kicked off in 1927, that incident came back to mind. Years later, after things had calmed down, one of the Mau leaders, Fau’mui’na—who had since been given a decent government position—told me that the lack of attention towards women contributed significantly to the uprising. That, along with the shooting of Tamasese, who had been exiled as a troublemaker and a royal pretender...

******

No war-captured country ever had a better government than the islands enjoyed after New Zealand's troops took control in 1914, a group that the League of Nations later renamed from German Samoa to the mandate of Western Samoa. This was a refreshing contrast to Australia’s early rule in New Guinea. Even before the uniformed Anzacs had left Samoa, there was a well-organized scientific effort to examine social and health conditions. New Zealand, known for its high cultural standards, had long studied the impressive Maori population, which it had governed well. At home, a million and a half New Zealanders lived alongside 70,000 Maoris, whose numbers had grown and rights had been upheld under a caring rule. Yes, Western Samoa was fortunate to have a new government that never showed any selfish financial motive behind its actions. But then the Mau Rebellion happened, and its “cruel oppressions” have been sensationalized by newspaper propagandists, leading the average reader to wonder: How did the administrators suddenly turn into tyrants? Well, they didn’t.

In 1923, Dr. T. Russell Ritchie became the Chief Medical Officer, and his four years in that role were just as significant for scientific advancements as anything Gorgas achieved in improving conditions in Cuba and Panama. In civil administration, there are mistakes to be found everywhere on this side of Heaven. However, even the errors were driven by a passionate desire to demonstrate New Zealand's selflessness. Education and public health were central to a program so comprehensive that it should not be overlooked.

It was an unmatched example of preventive medicine in the tropics. By 1926, a death rate of over thirty per thousand was reduced to twenty in four Samoan districts. Yaws was nearly eradicated, and infant welfare initiatives had lowered the average mortality rate for children under five to the lowest in the Pacific—before Tonga figured out that issue. Soil sanitation became the standard rather than the exception; in 1921, New Zealand sent a team to Australia to study the Foundation’s hookworm campaigns there, which Ritchie adapted for Western Samoa with amazing results. He was introducing clean piped water; on islands like Savaii, which is very rainy but so porous from lava that it has no streams, he overcame Polynesia’s superstition and used church roofs as watersheds for storage tanks. New Zealand’s successful medical efforts were becoming a model for other island groups. There couldn’t have been a better example. Germany’s last census in 1911 showed a population of 33,476. In 1917, after three years of control, New Zealanders counted 37,196. In 1918, the pandemic influenza, a plague that puzzled global medicine, devastated the natives. But the Mandate’s care brought them back so consistently that in 1933—despite the destructive impacts of the Mau Rebellion—our yaws campaign workers counted 48,300. This last estimate, I believe, was about 1,500 short of the actual number. The chaotic conditions after years of uprising made counting extremely challenging. In 1936, the census revealed a population of 55,000.

From 1921 to 1931, during the years marked by the Mau's devastating actions, New Zealand contributed between £12,500 and £14,000 each year to Samoa solely for medical purposes. This was not a loan; it was a gift, like a birthday present. When you include New Zealand's contributions to public works—such as the native piped water supplies—the total amounts to around £250,000 dedicated to Western Samoa, with no expectation of any return, just the moral satisfaction of witnessing a revival of the local population.

Then what was wrong with Samoa that she wanted to rebel?

******

Samoa has been marketed as a romantic paradise so many times, both by major and minor players, that it seems pointless to try to relive the dreamy moonlight, the beautiful valleys, and the picturesque waterfalls filled with golden girls with flowing black hair. During my many professional visits, I witnessed their unromantic side, but I always respected a people who refused to be lured or forced into work that seemed unnecessary to them. Don’t underestimate the Samoan as just a carefree slacker. On the barren island of Savaii, I’ve seen them carrying farm goods on their backs for miles; it was the traditional way, and they were working their own land. If Samoan pride seems like simple country vanity to you, remember the Polynesian mind is one of humanity’s best. And keep in mind that in both Samoas, Western and American, there are possibly as many people as you would find on one of New York’s longer streets. The old days are over; the days of brave canoe voyages across uncharted waters. Among their ancestors were determined explorers, yearning for more territories to conquer. The worlds they discovered were so small, so scattered…

They've settled into a small-town vibe. For hours, they sit around the kava circle, chatting away. "We may be outnumbered," they say, "but we're still Samoans." The New Faith is fine and all, but we still need to follow our ancient ceremonies, our rules of politeness, our carefully defined social hierarchies, and all the complexities of our political system. Listen to that old chief over there. He can trace his lineage back thirty generations or more. He's an aristocrat, and his memory is sharp, they say. We all have long memories.

This isn't just nonsense. The Samoan is a natural gentleman. Even though[Pg 207] he hasn't been exposed to books throughout history, he's reading now. He's a nationalist, and his logical mind has figured out that his nationalism will get international backing. Deep down, he believes he’s smarter than a European, and he wants a Samoa led by Samoans. He looks over at the Kingdom of Tonga and asks, “If they can govern themselves, why can't we? Tongans don’t work for Europeans. They hire them.”

All those ideas are great, but they're impractical and a bit silly. They contributed a lot to the disastrous Mau.

The Samoan mindset is still divided. When Dutch explorers first arrived in Apia, they discovered a community that lacked the unity that bound Tonga together. Each of Samoa's three main islands had its own complex aristocracy and tribal politics. It was like Japan without a leader. You would think that the descendants of warrior voyagers would have developed the kind of leadership that brings a country together. Maybe the Samoans were too inherently civilized to desire a dictator and a wave of violence. It was up to Europeans to pull them from the Stone Age into the modern era—all within a century and a half. By 1900, they had become skilled rifle users, as evidenced by the small slaughter of Marines that led to the division of the two Samoas between Germany and the United States.

Cloying praise has contributed to spoiling the native Samoan people. Robert Louis Stevenson was the worst offender. It was too easy to idealize their sweet and gentle women, their polite patriarchal chiefs, and the waterfalls that flowed like fountains day and night. Before Hollywood moved to the South Seas and flattered them with the camera, Stevenson charmingly described how he lived among Greeks in Eden’s Vale. Samoan pride grew massive under this kind of pampering, and the many speakers around the kava ring repeatedly told them that they were at the center of the world. It was never loud boasting. As I mentioned, the Samoans are a genteel people.

******

The health issue in Western Samoa wasn't just about gathering people, treating them, and sending them back home. In American Samoa, our Navy attempted an efficiency approach, but that didn’t work well with a culture that values ceremony just like Japan did during the Shogunate. A sick Samoan, if he holds a position of authority, pays for his surgery many times over before he's back home and fully recovered.

The Samoan social system could stretch across a hundred[Pg 208] library shelves. To put it simply, its core is the Matai, or leader. This title is given to the head of the Ainga, or family, and is passed down like a treasured heirloom. The title Tufunga is prestigious, carrying the highest dignity, and the honors associated with it have always been acknowledged.

To the practical modern doctor, the old ceremonies are just something that can’t be fixed and must be tolerated. Take the ceremonial journey they call a malanga—if a Samoan visits relatives and brings the whole village along, it turns into a malanga, and the visitors are likely to consume all of the host’s food down to the last taro, while he secretly worries and publicly begs his guests to stay longer. But this generosity has a true Christmas spirit—you give something and expect something in return. Soon enough, the host will have his own malanga—then it will be his turn to feast, and yours to cover the costs.

Treating a sick Samoan is a challenge for the doctor and it’s not always easy for the patient either. N.M.P. Ielu Kuresa, a distinguished graduate of our School, wrote an article for our medical journal, the Native Medical Practitioner, in which he described the complicated process involved in what should be a simple surgical operation. Here’s his summary:—

"Getting surgery by a doctor isn't just about the bill. You have to follow customs and etiquette. First of all, the surgery will take place at the patient’s home. Once he decides he needs the operation, he will inform his immediate family of his plans. At this point, a daughter or son, perhaps living far away, will need to be called to join a family meeting to discuss whether to honor the patient’s wishes or to explore other traditional medicine or treatments. Every Matai, in such situations, needs to make amends with his relatives; otherwise, it could bring bad luck and a higher chance of dying. Samoans are very careful when choosing their doctors and will travel long distances to find a good surgeon, even if another doctor is available nearby."

All the relevant Matais are informed about the upcoming event. Then the Orators come into play. They gather at the sick person's house, where they engage in a competition of eloquence, wishing the patient “all the best and God’s constant support....” So the Orators need to receive their pork, and the supporters must feast—“... food in a quantity that suits the title of the sick person ... a whole roasted pig, or even[Pg 209] two, bread or biscuits, and of course lots of taro ... the first part of the operating expenses.” Any other affected member of the Ainga, whether a spouse or child, receives the same ceremony, adjusted to the social significance of the person suffering.

“The first expense can range from £1 to £5, just to be safe.” If the Matai is short on cash, he has to borrow pigs from his in-laws. “Sometimes, just to follow Samoan customs, if no pigs are available from the son-in-law, daughter-in-law, or sister, the Ainga may have to give up a share of the family land or some other type of property.”

This dismissal wraps up the first scene. A boat is likely needed to transport the patient to the hospital. The crew is offering their services for free—But hold on. The expedition is called ole si’ingama’i, “party-carrying-the-sick.” The boating trip turns into a heavily loaded fleet. And let’s not forget the Tulafale, the everywhere-present Orators, bringing along their wives, children, and in-laws.

Etiquette requires that there be a stop or two along the way. Etiquette also requires that prominent families host a fantastic barbecue. Samoan hospitality, measured by family traditions, ensures that guests are taken care of until they feel better—or else. Visitors understand that they have the long-established right to ask for food, and that their hosts will eventually be their guests, leading to another big picnic. Visitors also bring gifts, typically fine mats and tapa cloths. These gifts are part of the existing gentleman's code.

The patient arrives at the hospital—let's say, alive. "Parties carrying the sick" aren't allowed in the wards, so they're set up at a base camp in a nearby village, as guests of the Ainga there. The visitors bring more pigs and mats, which cost from one pound up, depending on their historic value. These costs, Ielu writes, "will no doubt seem absurd to the European mind.... It may all be part of life, according to the Samoan way of living, yet a pig is a pig and a fine mat is a fine mat."

Then the surgery happens. The local pastor and an Orator have been by the patient’s side. The parson and the Tulafale have said their prayers and given their speeches. Back at the camp, everyone is busy cooking. This event calls for ... “something special to commemorate the occasion. The presentation will be done publicly, and the food will be announced loudly wherever it’s being served. The announcement is usually made[Pg 210] once the patient has been brought back to the ward after the surgery.”

The sick man, if he got better, would face an entertainment bill like nothing Lucullus ever encountered. If he died, the funeral would be just as extravagant, and his family would have to cover the costs.

Ielu talks about performing surgery on I’inga, an aristocrat. Ielu was an excellent surgeon, and the patient’s swollen scrotum was such a straightforward case that he allowed him to walk a short distance to the hospital. That should have saved money. He didn't need boats or a base camp or a lively entourage. However, this proud I’inga was required by tradition to provide a large meal every day of his illness; each day, 100 loaves of bread with sugar and butter and two whole roasted pigs ended up in his bill. His title of Matai was prestigious, so he had to pay in fine mats for the daily sua (pig) presentations. The whole affair cost him five pounds for the bread, and pigs were worth about seven pounds each. The entire operation set him back forty-four pounds and thirteen shillings.

Surgical and hospital fees totaled four pounds.

******

One night in 1924, I was having dinner at Vailima with Governor Richardson, who lived in the charming house that Robert Louis Stevenson once occupied. Above it rose the steep hill that has Stevenson's tomb at the top. So many tourist women have trekked up the muddy, slippery path to see this shrine that I feel embarrassed to bring it up.

Governor Sir George had climbed to a high position purely through his abilities. War had moved him up from being a drill sergeant to general command. A true Englishman at heart, he quickly earned New Zealand's respect with his Mandate administration. You had to give him credit. He had the classic middle-class Englishman's biases against Americans; a run-in with our United States Navy in American Samoa didn’t help matters. Don't assume he was a strict ruler when it came to managing the locals. He genuinely wanted to be a caring figure for his people. However, he came across as a bit too pleased with himself. Sensitive Samoa politely resented his attitude, saying, “Look at what we’re doing for you. Come to us if you need anything.” I yearned to tell him that he was doing too much for the Samoan people, overwhelming them with modern ideas quicker than they could handle. But you didn't share your thoughts with Governor Richardson; he shared his thoughts with you.

At that meeting, like many others, we talked about the need for a modern native medical school in Fiji, and as usual, Richardson supported the idea. The high costs of governing a country with 3,000 chiefs and a population of 40,000 were the only thing that held him back until Queen Salote’s generous offer in 1926, when he committed Samoa to participate in a plan he had always strongly believed in. During that long discussion in 1924, I didn’t bring up the woman on Savaii who died during childbirth. But if there had been a qualified Native Medical Practitioner there that day, the story of Richardson’s administration might have had a happier ending. I think he had every reason to feel proud of the medical situation, as the Mandate was already training native nurses in the model hospitals, utilizing one of our old-school Native Medical Practitioners, and had implemented socialized medicine to the extent that every Samoan paid a head tax of about five dollars a year for all medical treatments.

******

Years of running that model colony gave Governor Richardson a certain level of arrogance, and arrogance is always risky when dealing with native issues. Early in 1927, he traveled to the New Hebrides on a Royal Commission with Governor Sir Eyre Hutson of Fiji. Richardson was riding high, feeling confident in every way. When the group returned to Fiji, I wanted to reciprocate his Samoan hospitality, but Richardson only had one thing on his mind: to head back to Government House and tell Sir Eyre how to manage Fiji. Hutson was one of the slickest products of the colonial system, and he had learned enough about dealing with native populations to make Fiji a model for all those studying island administration. Still, Richardson went to Government House and told Hutson; and Hutson smiled warmly, smoothly agreeing that he should look into Samoa and pick up a few pointers on how to oversee Fiji.

When Richardson finished talking to Hutson and got back to Apia, the Mau Rebellion hit him hard.

******

As a doctor, I can’t diagnose Samoa’s problems without digging into the reasons behind them. The situation of mixed-race individuals in Polynesia is at the heart of the issue. In dark-skinned Melanesia, having any white ancestry is often seen as a drawback, but for the peach-tan Maoris, Cook Islanders, and Samoans, it is a source of pride. While Europeans may shun mixed-race people, Polynesians often overlook their insular pride in favor of forming relationships with Europeans; any child with a hint of Northern blood is viewed as almost a racial ideal. The Samoan holds the child of a mixed heritage in high regard—unless the native mother has been abandoned by her partner. There’s a story about a notable British scientist who tried living like a local, picked a Samoan woman, and dressed in a lavalava with a hibiscus flower in his ear. When called back to London to explain his actions, he left the woman where he found her—and their baby. It wasn’t shameful for her to do laundry; many needy aristocrats do that. Nor did she feel embarrassed about not having a marriage license. She felt downcast because Johnson (as I’ll call him) had abandoned her before the baby was born. Johnson ended up in Chicago, where he passed away; meanwhile, his beach-widow carefully protects her beautiful son, worried that some of his father’s relatives might come along and claim him.

I heard two mixed-race boys arguing. One shouted, “Jonisoni!” and the other yelled, “Anisoni!” They weren't calling each other illegitimate; instead, they were accusing each other of their mothers being abandoned by Johnson and Anderson.

When Germany controlled Samoa, any man whose father was registered as a European could register himself as a European. Some of these individuals were less than one thirty-second white, and many couldn’t speak a word of English. When New Zealand took over, it had to accept the Made-in-Germany rule. The mental and moral value of these mixed-blood individuals depended, of course, on the quality of their parents. The results vary, but the more I travel, the more I see the amazing outcomes when two exceptional people from different races have children together. Soon, I will talk about a few New Zealanders who are legally classified as Maoris.

The tension leading up to the Mau explosion was fueled by a particularly dangerous form of jealousy — the jealousy stemming from mixed-race resentment towards European social status. I believe this jealousy was reciprocal, as the European wife became increasingly cautious of the beautiful mixed-race girl with her soft, long eyelashes and smooth skin. This girl was receiving an education, and her parents were frustrated because she couldn't enter the social circles that her intelligence, behavior, and beauty rightfully deserved.

Insurgency was led by O. F. Nelson, a mixed-race individual who was both a business genius and a skilled political leader. The network of [Pg 213] Nelson trading stores had earned him about $1,500,000, an unimaginable fortune to accumulate from Samoa. Like Nelson, the dissatisfied mixed-race individuals had educated their daughters in colleges and high schools, but had not secured any status for them in European society. The full-blooded Samoans looked up to Nelson, someone from their own background who was so influential that the Government had to seek his assistance. When he drove around in his impressive car, he displayed a coat of arms as large and flashy as the Governor’s, and his aide-de-camp was in uniform. The native majority fell under his influence.

Mau means “Stand Fast,” and the stand was against both real and imagined injustices. Tension arose when Western Samoan traders complained because American Samoa was outbidding them in the copra market. The dispute turned into a chaotic mess, with Richardson trying to fix it. Mixed-race individuals were demanding to be recognized as Europeans, even though this change would jeopardize their rights. Then Prohibition, that relentless troublemaker, reared its head. Due to an error, the Customs House received more than its fair share of liquor in one shipment, leading the League of Nations, which managed the Mandate's alcohol supply, to decree that Western Samoa's Europeans could only have liquor for medical purposes. Until that point, alcohol had been wisely prohibited for the natives. Under Prohibition, angry Europeans taught Samoans to brew a terrible drink called “bush beer,” and they started taking a share of it. All this contributed to increased drunkenness among the natives and added to the unrest.

The Orators were gathering together. At every Fono, the Talking Men chanted, “Samoa for the Samoans” and smoothly asked the aristocrats, “How can nobles and chiefs work under this common man, Richardson?” The mess, which I find particularly interesting from a medical standpoint, once again referred to the Governor’s Malanga, which I described at the beginning of this chapter; it involved two officials who were later accused of corrupting Samoan youths. A schoolteacher who gave us a tour of Savaii was also part of it. The scandal led to two suicides, which prompted the Talking Men to question why the Europeans sent such individuals to teach them about morals.

On top of these complaints, along with dozens of smaller ones, came the Mau. At first, it was passive resistance, but then in 1928, things turned violent. Tamasese, a rightful exiled contender for Samoa’s shadow-throne, returned to Apia with a loud protest. Richardson, exhausted and sick, had stepped down in favor of Colonel Allen, a New Zealander with a cool blue eye and plenty of courage. When the crowd smashed Officer Abram’s head with a rock, Allen's police opened fire on them, as they were instructed to do in the event of violence.[Pg 214]

That was all the bloodshed; but it might have been better for the Samoans if the rebellion had been put down by force. It dragged on for years, quietly. Nelson was exiled to New Zealand, where he managed his revolt remotely. After the dispute was resolved, over the decaying remnants of Samoa, Nelson made a grand return. But there was no decisive battle; only a public outcry to make him a leader in the native parliament and to let him join the European Legislative Council. The new administration denied him this mixed-race privilege, saying, “You can’t wear pants and a lavalava at the same time.”

******

As you examine tiny life through the lens and observe the microcosm completing its cycle, you can look at Western Samoa and see the lingering effects of war in this misguided world. The doctor rushes in afterward and tries to mend both the innocent and the guilty. After the Mau movement faded, Samoa faced a terrible consequence. The Samoans hadn't reclaimed Samoa; all they received was a return of the native diseases that a diligent Mandate had fought so hard and successfully to eliminate. Dedicated individuals had worked for many years to achieve what five years of rebellion had reversed.

It was five years after the Mau started before cooperation between the government and the Rockefeller Foundation could begin salvage operations. When I returned to Samoa to take care of the Foundation’s part in cleaning up the Mau mess, I shook my head at the sad changes. The beautiful Samoan children—and nothing could be more beautiful—were now pitiful little things, their skin in rough condition, their faces affected by yaws. The once-vibrant skin had faded to gray; intestinal parasites were feeding off their blood and lymph. The Mau had turned against its own people instead of its enemy. Argument had won over reason, and the Polynesian had abandoned his high intelligence and become just an Intellectual.

Samoa for the Samoans! Disregard every command from the white outsiders with their meddling doctors, obsessing over cleanliness, purifying the water, and reporting illnesses. Brush off their rude tips about fixing fly-proof toilets. Forget about vital statistics. Tear them up. Focus only on Samoa for the Samoans. [Pg 215]

The latrines decayed or were destroyed by the angry. Water supplies became contaminated. Clean in his habits from the old days, the Samoan disregarded the ancient taboo and playfully contributed to soil pollution. Fields and villages reeked with a stench that challenged the Administration while it harmed the Samoans. It was difficult to get near some of the settlements because of the overpowering smell of decay. Samoa had definitely harmed itself in a misguided attempt to retaliate.

It was impossible to gather accurate statistics during that crazy time. The death toll was estimated just by looking. We rolled up our sleeves to help as much as we could. Sadly, the destruction turned out to be less severe than the influenza epidemic in 1918. Yaws was the main issue, almost everyone young was affected. A massive campaign was set up, and our team administered 89,000 injections, including follow-up treatments. Experience has shown that this disease is tough and can come back in serious forms even after the visible symptoms have disappeared. However, in our widespread treatments, our primary goal was to treat the open sores that spread the infection.

In 1933, when New Zealand conducted its yaws census of Samoa, the numbers indicated that the population was on the rise again. I believe this progress will continue, unless some Liberator decides to hand these islands over to Germany, Russia, or Italy. Then there will definitely be chaos in warm waters.

******

American Samoa, Uncle Sam’s portion from the three-way agreement of 1900, wasn’t on my radar until my Pacific adventures were winding down, although I made short visits there every year after 1926. The reason for my delay is straightforward; I was waiting for Uncle Sam’s invitation. Having worked for so long on the other side of the line and feeling the American indifference toward an American enterprise, I’m afraid I developed a bit of a bias against the management of our charming little territory, centered in Pago Pago.

In many ways, I was happily surprised when I finally took a quick look around—even though I was irritated by how unfair our hometown folks are in comparing the two Samoas. So many lovely lady tourists from Boston and Keokuk have sailed into Pago Pago’s clear waters, which lie as smooth as a lake inside the leafy oval of a dead volcano. There’s the old Flag again and our brave sailors in white. Wow, this is the scandalous land of Miss Sadie Thompson! We’ve all seen that beautiful, naughty play called “Rain”—but the scenery doesn’t do Pago Pago justice at all.... It’s all so peaceful and well-organized, isn’t it? Quite different from Western Samoa over there, where they’ve really messed things up. Look at the handsome Commandant, who seems to run Pago Pago with a velvet glove. Let’s call him “Uncle Samoa”!

This is a kind of self-promotion fueled by national pride. People on quick trips can't see—how could they?—that the U.S. has experimented on a race, or at least a part of a race that's similar to those on the western islands. The tourists haven't had time to realize that the New Zealand government, facing significant challenges with a population about four times larger than what the U.S. oversees, is a shining example of governance for the people who need to be governed. Despite the Mau Rebellion, New Zealand is fostering a better racial spirit. The people in Samoa are better educated, more prepared to deal with modern conditions. They speak better English and are much better mannered.

Uncle Samoa is pretty much a genuine hero on deck. His main goal in his share of the islands is to keep a naval base running, which honestly makes a lot of sense. He follows the rules and does his best. It’s not really his fault if some outdated regulation limits his service to eighteen months and has him stuck with sea duty, paperwork, or just wasting time. Orders are orders, and tomorrow he’ll salute the next person who comes along to hang their hat on the official rack. It’s the same everywhere. The Governor just starts to get the hang of his role, and then he’s gone; the Chief Medical Officer just starts to put his ideas about native diseases into action—then it's goodbye. In schools, teachers are constantly changing, which leads to a general lack of quality in teaching. This temporary nature works out okay for the enlisted guys; they pick a short-term partner, raise a few kids, and when it’s time to head back to the States, they hand their family over to some new arrival. Pago Pago is filled with hopeful college widows, gazing at the sea with dreamy Samoan eyes, wondering what the next ship will bring.

A lot of our “administered” locals, I found, were recruited into the Marines with the same pay as American soldiers. The outcomes were often unfortunate. Clearly, it was another step toward erasing the Samoan’s national identity.[Pg 217]

This all falls on the negative side of things—to mix metaphors—the positive side showed a lot for American credit. In 1918, our Navy effectively contained influenza when it was nearly wiping out Western Samoa. However, I should point out that only one ship came to our Samoa that year, while the New Zealanders had the task of managing ships from all over the world. Still, our efforts were thorough and quickly stopped the outbreak.

It was impressive to see how well the Navy’s medics managed, despite challenges. The newcomer would take over their predecessor's unfinished tasks, handle them in their own way, and pass the work on to the next person. Out of the twelve thousand people he was supposed to oversee, he found that all twelve thousand were spoiled by pampering on one side and unpredictable discipline on the other. We had been pushing the American way, giving them large doses of democracy overnight, forgetting that democracy to the aristocratic Samoan is like raw whiskey to a newborn baby. From the chiefs down to the simplest workers, a “Hello, buddy” attitude was far too common. No one could instruct the locals on anything. False prosperity had arrived with the Navy’s huge spending, and for a people who once considered a handful of pennies a fortune, this easy money was demoralizing. The local officials and the native houseworkers demanded higher pay and shorter hours. The “gimme” mentality was an everywhere annoyance.

Four Chief Medical Officers had worked together well. The first of the four wisely created a policy that he passed on to the next, and it had great results. The apathy of the people continued to be a challenge. It was the Navy's responsibility to set up a proper latrine system, and no local would offer any help. They expected everything to be done for them—and it was.

I admired the field and hospital work of the chief pharmacists’ assistants and the petty officers under them. Most of them were college graduates, specialists in dentistry, entomology, pathology, bacteriology, X-ray, and all the other essentials. Watching what they did made you puff out your chest and say, “That’s a Navy job. No American parents could ask for better training for their kids.”

[Pg 218]

One supervisor of these medical teams had a pretty harsh method of delivering care. If locals didn’t show up for treatment, they were dragged out and given stern orders to get better. If someone resisted being taken out, strong police officers came and removed them by force. This approach helped to stop a widespread yaws infection, which was a positive outcome. However, it also weakened the Samoans’ trust in America’s benevolent governance, which was a negative consequence.

There was a structured group of trained Samoan nurses; the standard pay was fifteen dollars a month, with a dollar raise for each year of service. It was decent pay, but many tended to get married and leave. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing, as it brought fresh talent into the field, and those who retired formed an alumnae group and became health advocates in their communities. Their training was top-notch and covered essential topics like baby feeding and nutrition.

An intense eye infection known as “Samoan eye” was common in both groups. Some still believe it’s a type of trachoma. When you say “Fa’a Samoa” down there, you’re referring to “Samoan style,” and that method of treating eyes isn’t very effective. When locals go blind, which happens to a lot of them, it’s usually because of their traditional healing practices. They use a Fa’a Samoa treatment that involves scrubbing the eyes with coconut fiber soaked in salt water. After going through this process, the entire eyeball is often ruined. It was encouraging to see how the chief pharmacists’ assistants, who were District Officers, were tackling the issue. Every newborn baby received their drop of argyrol, and school children had their daily treatments. Adults were more challenging; they tended to stray and try Fa’a Samoa, then return completely blind.

Fa’a Samoa for deafness was another medical hassle. It involved putting small shells into the affected ear and often ended up damaging the eardrum. Commander Paul Crosby, who was the Senior Medical Officer at the time, deserves a lot of credit for his oversight of eye and ear cases and for the overall improvement in local health.

******

The Mau was shorter in American Samoa than on the other side, but it was brought to the Naval Administration before it reached New Zealand’s mandate. Part of our Mau was a sad story, quickly covered up for the sake of the Service. Trouble started among the mixed-race community and traders. Then it became known that some of the Naval staff were involved in the conspiracy. Fanatics even kept Governor Terhune confined to his home. I knew Terhune back when I practiced in Mexico and remembered him as an honest officer and a straight shooter. But a Board of Inquiry came down to Pago and would have held Terhune accountable for something or other if he had been alive. Following his death, he was cleared of all blame. The guilty officer was punished, and I hope that this delayed justice restored the reputation of poor Terhune, who chose to die like an officer and a gentleman.

But it was an interesting ending for the leader of what one colonial journalist called “A Kindly Despotism,” noting about the Governor in power, “With shocking disregard for American constitutional principles, he holds executive, legislative, and judicial authority all in one.” The journalist also praised our Naval Administration and recognized the challenges it faced. I understand that too. It’s a harsh reality to be responsible for the work of a colonial empire.

Along Miss Sadie Thompson’s haunted beach, I felt comforted by a row of sturdy modern restrooms. Tourists might have been put off by this, but to me, it was much more appealing than if the beach had been abandoned to pure romance and pollution, which have decimated so many communities.

I was happy to jot down in my notes:—

And to continue:

These two Samoas, because the population was so small, were like useful labs for studying racial breeding, its decline, and its rise. They provided great opportunities for new insights about one crucial disease—filariasis and the resulting elephantiasis—that I proposed a special study to the International Health Board, as the weakness caused by filarial fever was impacting labor efficiency throughout the Pacific. Commander Phelps, an incredibly skilled physician, discovered that in Samoa, the daytime microfilariae were no different from those at night. Dr. Buxton from the London School of Tropical Medicine believed the Aedes variagatus was the main culprit. No effective cure has been found, but Commander Phelps tested intramuscular injections of chenopodium, achieving promising results. These were very similar to what I administered to the six cannibals in New Guinea, which had a significant effect on whipworms.

The roundworm issue was a significant concern in Samoa, and it always had been. An early observer, nearly a hundred years ago, noted that the locals were infested with “lumbrici.” During my time, the Governor himself vomited one up, much to the sailors' amusement. Strangely, hookworm was rare; the moisture, heat, and polluted soil attracted the parasite, but it didn’t seem to thrive. Despite Pago Pago’s nice setup of waterside latrines, constructing them was a challenge across the islands. Wooden ones would often be blown down by strong winds. Concrete was relatively pricey. Lieutenant Commander P. J. Halloran came up with the best idea yet for tropical latrines, and even though some called them “Halloran’s Privies” in jest, many were built and turned out to be quite satisfactory. Each unit cost $400 and could accommodate ten people, five on each side. Produced in bulk—since they were mostly concrete—they would cost about $250 per unit, constructed over a concrete trough with an automatic flushing system. I don't have the space to elaborate, but this plan should be a great help to tropical public health administrators.

The Navy was tackling the job in its own way and was often very thorough. In the hospitals, they even conducted blood tests to figure out Samoa’s racial background. Blood tests showed that Hawaiians belong to Group A, which is the world’s largest racial group, the Caucasian or Caucasoid. However, some of the Pacific black populations also show a high amount of “A.” The indigenous people typically fall into Group O, similar to the American Indian. Yet, blood donors at the hospital in Pago Pago showed such a strong presence of Group O that, at least from this perspective, it suggests that the Polynesians are of mixed ancestry.

Mixed in blood or mixed in ideals, I still believe in the Polynesian's ability to survive against a civilization that has been imposed on them. To our credit, the native population of American Samoa has roughly doubled since we took control. In 1900, it was 5,679, and in less than forty years, it had increased to 11,638. America’s approach is bringing health back to our Polynesians. In doing so, I hope we haven't taken away their way of life, which was a very good way indeed.

Although not heavily fortified, American Samoa, centered in Pago Pago, is a crucial connection in the steel network we are creating across the Pacific. And what if an aggressor were to desire it? Well, it's one of the major fueling stations, and oil is the lifeblood of war these days.

Pig nobility

The Adventist pastor who had only two converts guided me into a dark, twisted jungle. With every step, I had to remind myself that this wasn't Samoa with its friendly government and polite locals. We were in one of the darkest areas of the New Hebrides, and just across the stream was wild Malekula, where the Big Nambas had combined alcohol and firearms with their ancient tradition of cannibalism. “This way, please,” whispered the Pastor, as if we were at a prayer meeting. Ahead of us, a light from multiple torches moved ceremoniously around a large square.

Now and then, a rifle shot rang out. Musicians whistled on reed Pan flutes; oom, oom echoed from the massive wooden drums. Above the scene loomed carved figures, monstrous human shapes and swooping bird forms. It was a wild choral spectacle, all focused on the main performers. Then I shifted my gaze—and saw it. A painted man stood on a high stone platform, gesturing and counting. Below him, another painted man swung a mallet. Victims were pulled up, screaming, only to be silenced by a blow to the head. There was a chanted hymn of praise. The donor, who had offered the sacrifice, occupied an esteemed spot away from the others. The mallet struck again. Another body was dragged away...

They were slaughtering pigs.

******

This is a glimpse of the New Hebrides as I saw them in 1925. In other groups, we had already started healing campaigns as far-reaching as our numbers allowed. My plans for an advanced school to train Native Practitioners hadn't materialized yet, and there I stood alone on one of Oceania’s hotspots for disease. Well, not alone, because I had Malakai with me.

I had arrived full of curiosity, hoping to investigate some of the reasons for racial decline in the New Hebrides, that unfortunate double chain[Pg 223] of islands where the population had been shrinking for over a hundred years. Caught between smooth-talking Samoa on one side and well-behaved Fiji on the other, these thirty wild islands remained the unruly stepchildren of a flawed government known as the Condominium (ironically nicknamed “Pandemonium”), a kind of Siamese-twin setup created between England and France in 1907. There was a French official in one Government House, and a British one in the other. The only times I ever saw the Condominium come together were on the King’s Birthday and July Fourteenth.

The heroic pig-killing event was a pretty public gathering of one of the local secret societies that have governed the New Hebrides for ages. In my research on population decline, I was glad to witness it. Was it a reason for racial decline? Quite the opposite. For countless generations, it had been the heartbeat of tribal life. European interference was undermining these mystical traditions and leaving the locals with no alternative. Let me remind you once more that races disappear for three main reasons: disease brought from outside, the decline of customs, and a loss of the will to live. Of these, imported disease is by far the biggest killer, but together, these three factors lead to truly heartbreaking outcomes.

It was on the small island of Atchin, off the wild Malekula, that I witnessed the pig ceremony. My survey was halfway done, and I had already seen enough disarray to grasp what occurs when the ruling white man is too uncaring or ill-equipped to carry his responsibilities. In Vila, the tiny capital where M. D’Arbousier, a cultured mixed-race gentleman, governed for the French, and Mr. Smith-Rewse, a kind British man, did his best to hold things together, I had seen a comical display of authority. The French side of the twin seemed to be selling the natives their worst enemies, alcohol and firearms. It wasn’t legal, but who cares about the law? The natives enjoyed drinking and shooting, so why not cater to that? The British pretended to disapprove of this. How much their disapproval actually meant is illustrated here:—

We were playing tennis behind the tidy British Residency when a police officer was suddenly called away from the game. He strolled off and discovered the problem: a loud argument about a police patrol that, for some unknown reason, he had stationed in front of a store. Trader Le Meskime was in a panic; the show of weapons was scaring away locals who had come to buy toddy. A large group of them, along with Tonkinese, were gathered outside, too afraid to come closer. Incredible! What an outrage to keep an honest Frenchman from making his honest profits! So, the helpful British police officer moved his guard, and the dark-skinned customers filed in to spend a week's wages on a Saturday night binge, as usual.

The sale of alcohol and ammunition to a Stone Age community made the French quite popular, you can bet. French ships carrying opium for the Tonkinese, and a bit for the locals, were popular too. If you asked a frustrated official if there were any laws in the New Hebrides, he’d groan, “Tons of them.” He might even show you a "Joint Resolution" passed in May 1922 for the Island of Tanna that begins with, “The Joint Order of January 2nd is repealed.” It was a nice piece of paper that seemed to address everything related to land claims. The only issue was that the French and British settlers together had filed more property claims than there was land in the New Hebrides. Back in the day, any pioneer who came through would trade a trinket with a native chief for “all the land from here to there and as far back as I can see.” The native, who probably didn’t have any real claim to the land, would happily sign his name on a piece of paper, call in a friend as a witness—and another dubious land deal would be more or less on record.

The Joint Court was meant to resolve disputes arising from weak claims. However, since the Court kept delaying its meetings year after year, witnesses who challenged a claim were often dead by the time the meetings finally took place. The judicial body couldn't operate unless all members were present, and there always seemed to be some on leave. Frustrated individuals claimed that the Court actually preferred it this way—the fewer witnesses, the less hassle.

The French had a way of driving the locals off land that had a “legal” claim on it. The confused natives had no clue what was happening. But the clever Frenchmen understood. They always targeted native farms where the trees were producing and collected the nuts until their own newly planted fields started to bear fruit.

Black men on Malekula, Santo, and Malo were doing as little as possible to assist the unwelcome white man, even though their murderers rushed to the missions to get conveniently converted, and missionaries often provided shelter for those escaping the harsh realities of “recruiting” for contract labor. French planters were deceiving men into service, keeping them trapped indefinitely[Pg 225] in cycles of alcohol and debt. Only about 13,000 out of a potential 50,000 inhabitants were under any form of government control. There were eight government agents trying to maintain some order with a small group of unreliable native police. In a perfect climate, blessed with fertile land flowing with milk and honey, there were only four British plantations. The French had pushed the others out.

The public health physician needs to examine a community from every perspective, and the views from New Hebrides were unique. It would take a lot of anthropological data, complete with charts, to capture the complex family structure of these islands. In short: The northern, more Polynesian part of this double archipelago followed a matrilineal system (inheritance through the mother), while the people in the southern part, who had African ancestry, practiced a patrilineal system (inheritance from the father’s side). Among the bearded locals of Malekula, the wives were treated like property, while their husbands kept rifles and bottles of alcohol nearby. Women were not allowed in the men’s sacred area. A true man prepared his own meals and would never let a woman’s hands touch his food.

Women had their worth, though. On one island off Malekula, I saw native boats being launched every morning; the women were rowing across to tend to the “gardens” (truck farms) on the other side. Their husbands sat at the front and back, armed with rifles; they weren’t taking any chances on their hard workers getting shot by rival Nambas hiding in the bushes.

******

In an indirect way, I have Mr. Smith-Rewse, the British Resident Commissioner, to thank for Pastor Parker’s hospitality and for the effort that devoted Adventist made to show me the pig-killing ritual. With the Commissioner’s group, I had left Vila on an inspection tour of Malekula and Santo because the health conditions on these famously savage islands required my attention.

Except for two excellent doctors at the Presbyterian hospitals, who were always overworked and struggling with a shortage of medicine, I found that white men in the New Hebrides were largely unaware of the causes, treatments, and prevention of tropical diseases. In Papua, plantations were places where sick men came to get well; in the New Hebrides, plantations served as breeding grounds for infections that the workers took back to the[Pg 226] villages. The local people had become so weakened that the French were bringing in Tonkinese workers. These unfamiliar newcomers were introducing new diseases to a land that still hadn’t developed immunity to the illnesses brought in by Europeans a century ago.

As for hookworm, the Necator americanus, I found the situation quite bleak. I was told that if I tried to get samples on Malekula, the Big Nambas would either take a shot at me or flee screaming into the jungle. Even the ones who had been converted by the missionaries were worried that I was collecting bits of poop for witch doctoring. One guy I tried to persuade otherwise shook his bushy head stubbornly. “No, master. This would ruin me completely.” However, with help from a few responsible white residents, I managed to gather enough worm counts to suspect that the overall infection in the New Hebrides was over 94 percent. That meant that in our future treatment campaign, we would have to treat the entire population.

On the way to Malekula, the government yacht Euphrosyne stopped at the small island of Atchin. The mission bell was ringing cheerfully, but when the service ended, only four gloomy locals came out of the church. Pastor Parker brought us to his home and served us a hearty meal—completely vegetarian. After dinner, we smoked pipes and cigarettes around the table, and neither he nor his wife said a word. The Commissioner’s misdeeds were to be kept quiet. Anyway, we’d be heading to Malekula in a day or two.

But when the Euphrosyne was about to leave, Smith-Rewse said to our host, “Parson Parker, I expect you to make sure Dr. Lambert doesn’t go into the Big Nambas country.” There was a bush war happening over there, and the Commissioner’s word was final.

The Big Nambas and the Little Nambas are two fierce groups among the many tribes in the New Hebrides. They go about naked, except for a wrap of dried banana leaves around their private parts. This wrap, called the nambas, is large for the Big Nambas and small for the Little Nambas. Both groups were pretty wild back then. Mr. Smith-Rewse told me about his most recent trip to Malekula and the murderer he brought back. The man couldn’t understand why he was arrested, even though he had just buried his infant daughter alive. All the way back to Vila he kept saying, “Master, I don’t want to go to jail. It would be better if you made me part of the police.” That[Pg 227] happened during peacetime, the Commissioner noted. In wartime, Malekula needed a major general more than it needed a doctor.

Later on, I saw a lot of Malekula.

So I was left alone with Pastor Parker. I went out onto the porch, lit my pipe, and heard his gentle voice say, “Doctor, I’m afraid you’ll have to stop smoking in the house or on the porch. I need to enforce the rules of our faith.” As a chronic smoker, I reached a compromise. I’d move to the lawn and let the Pastor talk to me from the porch, if he didn’t mind shouting. This was fine, except when it rained. I had a lot of free time on my hands. Atchin was too small to draw many conclusions, except that the people were pretty heavily affected.

Mostly in shouting, Pastor Parker shared his many troubles. He talked about how his predecessor had gone to another church and all his converts had fallen away once he stopped paying them a salary. He had relied on the patronage system, and his costly conversions had emptied the mission's funds. Pastor Parker had never had enough money to reach a broader audience. In several years of purely spiritual efforts, he had only made two converts, a couple of simple folks who were living in sin with non-Christian wives. The wives always came with them to church.

Trouble was waiting for Pastor Parker when he took over. The week they moved in, the place was raided by Big Nambas, who had lots of guns and did a lot of shooting. The barricaded Parkers could have ended up in a really bad situation if not for a rescuing group of Presbyterians. To Parker’s Adventist mind, Presbyterians were servants of Satan, but they saved him anyway and recommended that he move out. The Pastor told them that he had come there to preach the True Gospel, and by Jehovah, he was staying.

He was brave in his own way. Once, in a desperate bid for converts, he went alone into Big Namba territory and invited them to shoot him. It was a kind of holy suicide attempt, full of the allure of martyrdom. The natives laughed and sent him home. They either admired his courage or thought he was “off his rocker.”

He told me he thought there was a lot of cannibalism on Atchin. Given the meatless Adventist diet offered as an alternative to human consumption, I could see why they felt that way. Feeling bloated from three heavy meals a day, I stared uncomfortably at my host. I asked him if the pig-killing ceremony he had shown me represented cannibalism. He vaguely agreed. Later discussions with ethnologists confirmed my suspicion. In the Pre-Pig Era, when cannibalism was the norm rather than the exception, people were led to the sacrificial stone, and with each blow of the mallet, they were counted as credits for the lucky donor. The pig is a relatively new addition to the Pacific, but the ritual ceremonies are ancient. It’s remarkable how the pig became the centerpiece of New Hebridean life. It became a measure of wealth, social status, and tribal power. When I visited, even though its worship was fading with other traditions, pigs were still being bred in unusual forms for sacrifice. Wives were still valued as pig keepers, and chiefs were honored for the number and variety of their pigs. Murders were more commonly committed over pigs than over women.[Pg 228]

It was like something out of Gulliver’s Travels. Until government mismanagement and misguided religion weakened the tribes, the secret society controlled these islands with an almost super-Masonic power. There were many lodges, each marked by a specific symbol and special rules. When a boy came of age, he underwent a tough initiation, which often involved circumcision or, more commonly, incisions. The medicine men among the incisionists would still perform procedures on the young initiate by standing him in water up to his waist, pushing a blunt stick under the skin to stretch it, and using a split bamboo feather edge to cut the foreskin lengthwise from end to end. The wound was treated with herbs, which were likely astringent and antiseptic. The boys, treated as a group, were kept in isolation for long days of fasting. I never heard of one who died.

The ceremony I first witnessed was to celebrate the return of a boy from the sacred island of Aoba, where he had undergone the tough final tests that would allow him to enter the lowest rank of the secret order. He might spend years, possibly a lifetime, gathering enough pigs to advance a level in native Masonry. Now, he stood out with a woven fiber strip, worn like an apron. Initiated boys danced in front of him. Yams were piled up like firewood around the area where torches blazed. Musicians pounded ten-foot wooden drums, shaped like thick cigars. The tops of the drums were painted with identical faces—the face of Tamaz, the Unseen God of All.

The ambitious local bought his way into a high position in the hierarchy and into chieftainship by contributing pig freaks, especially raised for sacrifice. It was near Bushman’s Bay, Malekula, where I first saw one of these oddities—a boar with artificially curled tusks. These tusks had grown toward the upper jaw, then curled backward toward the lower jaw, where they started growing upward again to form a spiral. He was fourteen years old; if he lived to be twenty-one, he would be valued beyond money—the pig with the three-curled tusks. The curl is created by removing what corresponds to our eye teeth. With these removed, the teeth below can move freely and start to twist backward at the end of their growth. Sometimes the curved ivory grows into the lip and tissue of the jaw, sometimes into the jaw itself. The animal must endure constant pain. By the time he’s ready for the altar, he’s pretty tough meat, yet the man who can offer such a sacrifice to the noble dead is well on his way to mastering his lodge.[Pg 229]

The person who donates several boars with curled tusks is immediately praised. These gifts are significant to the great Tamaz because when a high-status native dies, their soul ascends to a higher heaven. The commoner, often referred to as “man rubbish,” ends up with a much less appealing afterlife. Spiritual merit is gained during the grand ritual, but there’s also a smaller ceremony called “killing small,” which is more practical. In this one, the donor simply taps his pigs on the back to indicate that they will be sacrificed when the time comes. The goal is to keep a surplus of pork, which might otherwise all be consumed at one big feast.

The Big Pig Ceremony lasts for weeks filled with beautifully timed dancing, warriors singing the tribe's story, important figures showing off in elaborate masks while many wild boars die for glory.

Sometimes a businessman has become a chief by excelling in pig farming. One I knew achieved high status by showcasing his collection of oddities. He took his position seriously and roamed around in almost nothing, wearing just a nambas and a pair of curled tusks around his neck. A friend who had known him before invited him onto his yacht and was so taken aback by the chief's trendy nudity that he wouldn’t let him stay for dinner unless he put on a bath towel.

All throughout the New Hebrides, there’s a closely protected group of sows that consistently produce a certain number of pseudo-hermaphrodites in every litter. Breeders have a specific name for them. I didn’t believe it until I saw several supposed bisexuals[Pg 230] being gently cared for. They definitely had both male and female traits, but in every case, one sex was more prominent than the other. They couldn't reproduce, of course; however, I was told they were affectionate. There was a common belief that only the matrilinear groups raised these ragwe for high sacrifices, while the patrilinear groups avoided them, seeing them as devil-devils.

The communistic New Hebridean builds a fence around his vegetable garden to keep out the wandering pigs. With no knowledge of crop rotation, he moves his garden every year. Neighbors come over to help him break new ground, and he returns the favor. He tends to his plot when the neurav blooms and harvests his yams when the cicadas are singing. This is where the pig comes into play, quite literally. Tribal law allows the yam-grower to shoot any pesky trespassing hog. However, if the intruder happens to be a tusked boar, it’s a different story. Shoot him, and you'll be fined in pigs of equivalent value; otherwise, the owner will be after you. This is how many really ugly pig wars start.

The poor commoner can’t afford polygamy; women are hard to come by. Multiple marriage is a luxury for the rich, and for unexpected reasons. I asked a wealthy chief on Aoba how many wives he had. Oh, about six, he estimated, but one of them might have died “of a heartbreak.” He had around a hundred pigs to manage, and they were multiplying so quickly that he’d need at least two more wives.

Pigs were multiplying, and humans were dwindling. That was the case on nearly all the islands I visited. In many areas, the number of boys born far surpassed the number of girls—a warning sign indicating a decline in population.

******

Finally, we were working in the forests of Malekula, which Mr. Smith-Rewse thought was too dangerous for a white doctor to handle. Shaggy black men, each wearing a perpetual scowl and a beard that could rival a Scottish terrier’s, lurked and stared or marched toward us with their muskets in hand. Trying to get an accurate hookworm survey was like trying to take buttons from a live rattlesnake. When it came to yaws, I found the men more accommodating, as they admired the needle, which New Hebridean pidgin called “stick medicine.” However, it was a bit unsettling to “needle” a man who was sitting with a loaded rifle across his knees, ready to fend off a surprise attack from the Little Nambas or to confront a Foundation doctor whose technique was lacking.[Pg 231]

A few years earlier, the Nambas, both Big and Little, had attacked white planters, killing and eating them. Then, an Anglo-French naval force landed on a punitive mission. They ventured about fifteen miles inland, burned some houses—and never encountered a local. As night fell, the Commander realized people were hiding in the bush; there was sporadic gunfire and a few injuries. The landing party retreated in the early morning, with locals picking them off as they scrambled back to their ship for safety. Their retreat was chaotic, with wounded soldiers and abandoned weapons. The forest echoed with mocking laughter, “Why don’t you come and get us?” The hidden natives had tied guns to the trees so that the muzzles pointed down the trail. They had attached long strings to the triggers and sheltered behind rocks, pulling from a safe distance—an old Malekula trick. There was plenty of meat for the ovens that night; and when the bad news made its way back to Vila, the bi-national Government decided there would be no more reprisals. Natives must be approached with tact. That was about the only policy the Condominium ever established, and we certainly adhered to it in our later efforts to clean up the mess. Based on my findings from 1925, I sent Inspector Tully down there, along with some of our best N.M.P.s. What they achieved despite native resistance was quite impressive, and they received solid government support. Tully reported that one missionary group was not pleased with his arrival in their area, as they had been charging a decent price for yaws injections, while we were providing them for free. The missionaries' frustration was understandable, since we were sourcing the drug at a much lower price; and once we shared our source and helped them benefit from the exchange, the issue was resolved. When the missionaries charged for treatments, the locals were more than willing to pay. The “needle” was always extremely popular among them.

Before I left Suva for the 1925 survey, Dr. Maurice C. Hall asked me to try his latest discovery, tetrachlorethylene, on hookworm patients. I was the first to use it. Malakai and I picked a number of patients at the Residency in Vila, treated them, counted the worms,[Pg 232] then treated them again to see the percentage of effectiveness. The results were excellent, and there were very few physical reactions to the drug.

Later, a shipping strike in Sydney left us stuck at Bushman’s Bay, Malekula, where I was able to conduct a field test to see how well tetrachlorethylene would work if administered by non-professionals. At the Matevan Plantation, I examined 102 laborers and found 97 were infected with the Necator. We were working all over the island, so we needed to head into the interior, but before leaving Matevan, I gave Fleming, the planter, a supply of the new drug along with dosage instructions. Malakai and I returned two weeks later; I gathered my 97 patients again and was thrilled to find that only 16 of them were even lightly infected with the worm. Considering that the work hadn’t been done by medical professionals, the results were very encouraging.

On this Matevan plantation, I found that filariasis was so widespread that a group of 69 field workers had lost a total of 34 days in the past month. No wonder the French were bringing in Indo-Chinese laborers. But it was a bad compromise.... The locals seemed to enjoy it when we took blood samples and let them look through the microscope at the swimming microfilariae. “Snakes in the blood!” they exclaimed with admiration. Back in the bush villages, when we were conducting hookworm tests, the old “snake in the belly” argument always worked. What worked even better was the growing belief that our medicine was some kind of alcohol. The results were often unsettling. With thirty Big Nambas crowding around, waving guns and shouting praises to Tamaz, it was up to your director to stay calm and remember what the Government had said: Use tact.

Hookworm talks in the villages, when we managed to gather an audience, were always surprising. One day we expected a decent number of locals, but no one showed up. Then a shy local wandered in and explained that they couldn’t come today “because an old man had to hang himself.” We set out with police and missionaries, but the party was over by the time we got there. The old man had had all his pigs slaughtered and treated the neighbors to a big feast. In the midst of the festivities, he went into the house, put a noose around his neck, and threw the end out of a window. His friends kindly pulled the string and then continued with the free food, insisting that he was a nice, generous guy, but too old to be much help.

In the backcountry, the elderly and weak were often buried alive. A[Pg 233] Catholic priest shared with me how he began his congregation. He unearthed an old couple who had just been buried, revived them, baptized them, and gained two amazing converts.

On Santo, I saw a man who had been arrested for burying his father in a deep hole. This patricide was just as confused as the Malekula guy who had buried his newborn child.

******

As a bit of entertainment amidst the chaos, we had Dr. P. T. Buxton from the London School of Tropical Medicine with us. A well-respected scholar, Buxton often irritated us with his clearly self-serving opinions. I first encountered him in Samoa, where he was supporting New Zealand's significant medical efforts, and then London sent him along with us to the New Hebrides. Before our boat reached the shore, he quickly won over his fellow passengers by commenting, “Aren’t colonials such strange people!” At a tea party in Vila, his hostess asked, “Which of the Colonies are you from, Doctor?” Buxton raised his eyebrows and replied, “I only come from England!”

Malakai, who had been busy like a bird dog, was cautiously polite to this very knowledgeable entomologist, and I couldn't help but wonder what dark revenge was brewing in the Melanesian heart. Malakai held a grudge against Buxton; up in Samoa, the Londoner had teased him about having hookworm. To prove the accusation wrong, Malakai had checked his sample using our standard field method and found no issues. “Why don’t you try my Clayton Lane technique?” Buxton challenged—this method was great for hospital tests but too complicated for fieldwork. Malakai was up for the challenge. He tried Buxton’s method on himself—and ended up with one small hookworm. So Dr. Buxton had bragged to the world about having the upper hand over a poor N.M.P.

Malakai waited patiently. The malaria situation wasn’t critical because May to November is the “dry season” in the New Hebrides—meaning it doesn’t rain much and there are fewer mosquitoes. We were on Malekula, and Dr. Buxton had just come back from a month-long trip, searching the islands for anopheles. In all that time, he had only found two worn-out specimens. Where were the mosquitoes? Malakai glanced at the disappointing little display and didn’t react at all.

Then one morning at Bushman’s Bay, my favorite N.M.P. showed up with a lot of Anopheles mosquitoes in his collection case. Buxton asked where he got them. Oh, Malakai explained, he had just cut a hole in his mosquito net and used himself as bait. After having their fill of blood, they settled down inside the net, so in the morning, Malakai collected them. With a nice gesture, he handed the scientist eighty-seven specimens to take back to London. I wonder if this made our visitor have a bit more respect for the N.M.P.

This clever insult was way too subtle for a place where murder was the usual way to express irritation. If I wanted to get rid of someone specific, I could just lure them to the New Hebrides, shove them off a boat, and forget about it. If someone ever questioned me—which they probably wouldn’t—I’d just say they disappeared due to “blackwater fever,” a convenient excuse for missing people. Or if I were a local, I’d shoot first and then run to a mission to get converted. Being seen as righteous was always pretty safe for the guy who pulled the trigger. (At one mission service, the Nambas hid in the woods, well-stocked with ammunition for a couple of escaped fugitives, while the congregation inside sang enthusiastically: “Anywhere with Jesus I may safely go.”)

Another, if less common, escape for the guilty was to “recruit” for contract labor. Women also offered themselves to recruiters, but for different reasons; they were usually fleeing from “old men” husbands or embarrassing family issues. I saw one tall Black girl approach a house and ask the planter’s wife to take her on permanently. She was a runaway, somewhat wild, wearing nothing but a G-string and a small mat on her head; she used the mat as a pillow. Down her back, hanging from her forehead, she carried a calico bag, and there were a few coins in a leaf-purse at her neck. The bag held all her worldly possessions housed in sections of bamboo (bahbu). She showed us her treasures: a piece of taro and a hatchet. She was all set to start her own home.

At the British Residency in Vila, there was a great servant I called “Bush-Fellow Santo,” just to see him smile. A few years earlier, a chief had ordered him to shoot a rival chief, and obedient Santo had poked a rifle through the bushes, just a foot from the head of the guy marked for death. Poor Santo pulled the trigger, but the gun didn’t fire. The irritated chief picked up the dropped gun, and Santo ran for the shore under a hail of bullets. Luckily, the Government’s yacht was in the river. He was pulled aboard, promising to be loyal to the white man forever. And he kept his promise.

[Pg 235]

The general practitioner, who sees one patient at a time, needs to understand the patient's habits, surroundings, and mental state. The health worker in developing countries faces these challenges on a much larger scale. They have to consider group behavior and look at records to assess the rate of progress or decline in the community. They should know some history about their many patients to develop a practical understanding of the risks or advantages of outside interactions. They need to act as a diplomat and establish as much communication as possible with the current government.... Then, they must utilize the best tools and knowledge available to them.

In the chaotic Condominium, where there was no accurate count of residents, we had to compare our research against an estimated population of about 55,000. The actual number, as we calculated, was less than 45,000 and steadily declining. Signs of depopulation were evident in the many abandoned villages and the discontinuation of numerous tribal ceremonies because there were so few elders left who knew enough of the traditions to carry out the rituals. Long ago, these master practitioners had been lost to epidemics. Older planters would point to places where they had witnessed entire tribes nearly wiped out over the past thirty years.

Yaws was second only to hookworm and malaria. In beautiful Tanna, at the far southern end of the group, it was a painful sight to see the poor guys limping to the fields, as if they were walking on hot coals. They were suffering from "crab yaws," which made their feet split in strange ways. Others, further advanced in the disease, were assigned sitting jobs, cutting copra near their homes. Little attention—except in the hospital here—was paid to the condition or its treatment, but any information I provided was received with gratitude. In more developed areas of the island, a few injections of arsenicals were being administered with the typical impressive results. In some parts of Tanna, I found the locals so eager for a cure that they were paying for the cost of salvarsan, and they were so earnestly requesting it that the supply was running low. When our team came back on later visits to provide mass treatments, the people were so thankful for the improvement in their health that they took up a collection and tried to give Tully thirty pounds.

Everywhere we went, we were busy with different cases. We found a strange dozen of lepers and figured that the disease was spreading through the unprotected shores; there was no effort to isolate the patients, although two at the Presbyterians’ Tanna hospital were being[Pg 236] successfully treated with chaulmoogra injections. Odd cases came to our attention. There was a sick warrior who had tried to cure his yaws by smoking them over a fire. There were patients being treated for tuberculosis when they actually had tertiary yaws, or treated for malaria when they were suffering from filariasis. Missionaries complained of widespread syphilis—but it was yaws again. Here, we became emergency dentists and looked at pyorrhea, a result of anemia. There were Christian teachers puzzled about why so many children died, especially girls, in a place where more women were needed. We attempted to teach them the basics of infant feeding; the Presbyterians were doing their best to provide milk. On Tanna, I found that good Dr. Nicholson had been raising goats and teaching the babies to nurse directly from the nannies, going straight from the producer to the consumer. It was a smart idea since there was no effective way to store milk away from filth-carrying flies. The nannies had begun to see the kids as their own. Once, just for fun, I picked up a tiny baby and growled at it. There was a worried “Baah!” and the mothering goat came at me, tail up and horns down. No outsider was allowed to mess with her kids.

Where there was a shortage of medicine, there were always plenty of witch doctors. These practitioners didn’t have the respect of the ancient tribal seers, who certainly had a protective influence over their people. Now they had turned into bothersome rain-makers, wind-makers, and sun-makers, generally referred to as "poisoners." If rain, wind, or sun didn't show up as expected, the Nambas had a habit of shooting these specialists and hiring new ones.

I went with the Commissioner to round up a couple of wizards at Malua Bay, Malekula. They had been causing trouble, setting families against each other; then shooting started. Mr. Smith-Rewse, who was personally handling the arrest, said he would have let it go if the Adventists hadn’t caused such a commotion. We went up to a plateau where the missionaries were starting a village, and there was Pastor Parker, offering his help. Locals stood around in a wide circle, but they had left their rifles in the bushes. They weren’t allowed to carry guns to public meetings.

If they wanted to, they could have shot us down like chickens for Sunday dinner, since no one knew how many were hiding behind cover. We were completely unarmed, apart from four policemen in [Pg 237] dungaree uniforms—up against an entire island of untamed savages who openly bragged about cannibalism. It was surprising to see their scared faces as they approached and shook hands with the missionaries; they were too shy to talk to the government officials. Then, suddenly, a tall, thin old man appeared, his beard and eyes strangely similar, both wildly wandering. He was the first of the accused wizards. I had expected someone arrogant, threatening us with the powers of sea and sky. Instead, he approached, a picture of sheer terror. The next one who came soon after dragged his feet at every step like a schoolboy about to get punished.

They had walked into a trap. The Resident Commissioner announced that he was there to talk about some abuses by the "recruiters" who bring in contract labor. The locals crowded around, hanging on Smith-Rewse's every word—then suddenly he directed his questions at the two witch doctors, who seemed to have lost their ability to be invisible. Four policemen grabbed them, and as they were pulled to the boat, the air was filled with cries for mercy. I felt only pity for them.

For three days, on our way to the Vila jail, the older man seemed like a sad, seasick old fellow. He gave me a nicely curved pig's tusk as a sign of friendship and naively admitted that he had planned to get rid of the converts at the new Adventist mission. He became more and more disheartened, and as we got closer to Vila, he asked in shaky pidgin, “How soon will you eat us?” I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. The poor guy thought our expedition was a cannibal raid.

The Vila authorities sentenced him to a prison term long enough to straighten out his imagination. When I saw him in the prison yard, he was very submissive. He even let me treat him for hookworm. That was a bit of a victory for modern medicine.

The witch-doctor incident didn’t end with the arrest. Nine days later, an Adventist convert named Harry, who was working in his garden, was shot from hiding. He had been the spokesperson for Mr. Smith-Rewse during the capture of the magicians, and friends of the sorcerers accused him of informing on them. After the shooting, he lay for a long time on the beach while riflemen in the bushes dared the rescuing Adventists to come ashore. Then one missionary recognized someone he knew and arranged a truce. I don’t know if Harry survived. He had gone to[Pg 238] the village of the magicians to reassure the women that the wizards were only under arrest and would return. The villagers decided that he was there to seduce their wives—or at least, that was the story they told.

I present these scenes as examples of a country where a Foundation doctor was attempting to understand the medical landscape. When I returned for follow-up visits, we encountered all kinds of situations, both good and bad—mostly bad—and frequently ventured alone among the most primitive communities. None of us was killed, but there was still a possibility of violence against a white person if a fanatic emerged with a mission against the oppressor. This had happened before.

For example, there was the prophet Ronivira. One early yam season, he woke up to find that his navel was sticking out. While most people would just think it was because he ate too much yam, Ronivira got up and announced that ghosts in his belly had given him the power to raise the dead; it would cost one pound to bring a male relative back to life, ten shillings for a female, and five bob for a child. He didn't actually revive anyone, but he certainly made a big impression. His platform was the Bible, and his agenda was anti-white. He built warehouses to receive supplies from a sympathetic United States—because the New Hebridean believes that all Americans are black men.

Finally, the Resident Commissioner took him aboard the government yacht. In the middle of a heated questioning, a storm broke out with a clap of thunder; and thunder was so rare in that area that the Commissioner, as I heard, lost his nerve and let Ronivira go. After a while, skeptical onlookers started asking the prophet why he wasn’t raising any dead. When his wife died, he stood over her body and performed all the rituals in his repertoire, but Mrs. Ronivira didn’t respond. To boost his dwindling reputation, he claimed that white magicians were working against him. Therefore, all white people and their supporters must die. A tall mast was set up on the beach for hanging all native skeptics; and when a white flag fluttered from the yardarm, it meant a European had to die before sundown.

They killed at least one white person, ate part of the body, and threw the rest to the dogs. Eventually, the Resident Commissioner arrested Ronivira for real; however, the yacht transporting him to Vila encountered a storm that nearly wrecked it. Even though his trial was dragged out by witnesses who were too scared to testify, the authorities ultimately executed the Great Resurrector.[Pg 239] Otherwise, the Condominium’s weak control over the natives might have fallen apart.

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Any white man's tales of cannibal parties should be approached with caution. The primitive is a shy creature, and he knows that cannibalism is frowned upon. So, he acts carefully. Long-time residents of the New Hebrides often say, “Oh, yes, it’s happening.” But I've never met anyone who has actually witnessed it.

When Bill Tully was leading our yaws campaign in a remote area of Malekula, guards showed up at his house one day and wouldn’t let him go outside. Through the cracks, he could see the glow of fire, hear drumming, and fierce cries. Bill knew, as if he had witnessed it, that they were cooking long pig. The patients who came to see him the next day were particularly quiet and subdued.

One afternoon, on Atchin, Malakai returned from an inspection around the island and mentioned that work had been delayed because of a ceremony. The messenger from a chief on Malekula had arrived with a gift for a chief on Atchin. It had been carefully rolled in pandanus leaves. Perhaps the chief was less reserved than he would have been in front of a European, as he permitted Malakai to watch while he opened the package. It contained a human hand.

What Malakai observed was part of an old tradition of courtesy. When a chief makes a kill, he sends a piece of the body, like a hand or foot, to a chief related to him by family or friendship. Within a certain time frame, the recipient is expected to return the gesture in kind. There's a delicate code: If the meat of a common native is sent to A, then A should send flesh of a similar social status to B in due time. If the cut is from a chief, then chief-quality meat is expected in return. In the past, when white men were easy targets, the exchange often included white man’s flesh. But nowadays, hunting Europeans is risky, so the meat of a “clothed man” replaces this delicacy. A “clothed man” refers to any native who has been educated to wear European clothing.

This harmful cycle, I was told, had gotten on the nerves of some leaders, who had come to prefer peace and pork. But when the pandanus-wrapped package arrived, they knew what was expected of them.

Man-eating is definitely not a common activity in the New Hebrides, but in 1923 even white men weren't entirely safe. Ewan Corlette, a[Pg 240] planter on Bushman’s Bay, Malekula, sent his indigenous wife to the nearby island of Santo to visit the home of his friend, Klapcott, who owned a trading store and had a local family. Later, the place was found in complete disarray, covered in blood. Klapcott had always kept a rifle nearby, but evidence showed that when he turned to grab some goods, one of his native customers attacked him with a hatchet. Evidence also indicated how the women and children had tried to escape before the attackers finished them off.

Traders avoided sharing stories about cannibals because it "made the place look bad." They were similar to the San Franciscans who saved face by referring to their earthquake as a fire. The locals along the beach tended to mock stories of white men taking photos of cannibal celebrations, even though I've heard some of those pictures have been shown to the public.

The Black people, if they ever discuss man-eating, will tell you it has a religious meaning. The more cheerful, slightly Polynesian people to the north and east are more straightforward. One of their chiefs, who had probably downed a quart of bad French wine, simply said, “I really like long pig.” He just enjoyed what he enjoyed. His people had a history of cruelty. In the bad old days, their trained stranglers would go on long hunts, sneak onto sleeping islands, and quietly strangle the sleepers with a looped vine. They were said to have kept their captives in pens to fatten them up. Island communities with higher mental abilities than their neighbors have often been the most brutal cannibals and tormentors. Look at Fiji, look at the New Zealand Maoris. Cruelty seems to be the offspring of youthful imagination. The primitive man hits his enemy with a club; he can’t think of anything smarter. His more talented neighbor becomes skilled in the art of inflicting pain. Yet, more advanced societies like the Samoans and Cook Islanders are not known for being man-eaters, while the flat-headed Goaribaris are still at it. Despite this contradiction, I’ve found some of my best-educated native friends among the descendants of cannibals.

Meanwhile, anthropologists are debating the topic: Do men eat other men to satisfy a primal hunger, or does cannibalism have a religious significance? Scholars who connect the sacramental bread and wine of the Christian Church with the ancient practice of consuming a sacrificial hero will appreciate the comment from one large black convert. It was Communion Sunday, and when the wine cup was passed to him, he drained it and [Pg 241] shouted enthusiastically, “Fill it up another time, Master. I like this fellow Jesus too much!”

******

Maybe I've sometimes underestimated the missionary's contributions. A letter I found in a recent Pacific Island Monthly corrected my perspective. It quoted a respected authority from the mid-eighteenth century who reminded readers that missions had significantly diminished “the power of an idolatrous priesthood—a system of unmatched corruption ... infanticide ... brutal wars where the conquerors showed no mercy to women or children. ... For a traveler to ignore these facts is downright ungrateful; if he were to find himself shipwrecked on some unknown shore, he would surely pray that the lessons of the missionary had reached that far.”

The letter-writer reminds us that the author of these words was not a missionary, nor was he considered a good Christian. Many labeled him an atheist or freethinker. He was Charles Darwin.

I’ve criticized some missionaries just like I’ve criticized some people in my own profession. But I’ve often found myself late at night in small, lonely mission houses, welcomed by their best efforts; I’ve relied heavily on the missionary’s help in my medical work, and I’ve frequently noticed their eagerness to understand the nature and treatment of the diseases affecting the tribes, so I don’t want to come across as unjust.

I’m talking about the best. And I won’t take back a single word I’ve said about the others. Even among the best, there was often jealousy and gossip. Competing missionaries frequently resorted to “sheep stealing.” Once on Ambrym, I heard Smith-Rewse ask a missionary why he hadn’t been to Vila in a while. “I can’t get away,” he replied. “Every time I leave, those Seventh Day Adventists take one of my villages.”

Missionaries come in all types—good, average, not-so-great, and even bad, just like the rest of us. I don’t buy into their claims of converting large numbers of people; however, they often provide valuable contributions as educators, humanitarians, and civilizers. Not too long ago in the Pacific, they were solely responsible for education. I particularly commend the Presbyterians in the New Hebrides as humanitarians—without their help over the past century, the last native there would have vanished. I’ve also witnessed the quiet work of the Melanesian Mission in the Solomon Islands, where the workers are High Church but serve tirelessly with evangelical fervor. I believe the Melanesian Mission is providing better medical care than any of the other religious groups in the area. And, excluding the devoted Fathers of the Sacred Heart in Papua, I would rank the Presbyterians of the New Hebrides as the most effective religious civilizers.

In the Melanesian Mission, there were educated men and women dedicating their lives entirely to the Cause, which paid them £40 a year. They often lacked equipment, but their hospitals were better than expected. They were brave individuals, mostly celibate. I can nearly forgive Bishop Baddeley for contributing to the failure of a significant humanitarian plan by stating, in effect, “I will accept no boundaries to the Kingdom of Christ.” Baddeley had served as a colonel in World War I, and he protected his boundaries with a soldier’s sense of duty.

******

Let me introduce Reverend Frederick J. Paton as a prime example of a Presbyterian missionary. A frail-looking 58-year-old man, missing a leg and with a twisted arm, he took me in his creaky little motorboat over to Onua on Malekula. As soon as he opened his gate, I caught a whiff of roses and verbena. The fertile soil of the New Hebrides had produced a garden that could thrive in Kent or Massachusetts. However, his lovely little garden sharply contrasted with the mess inside his house. The clutter was too much to list, but I can say he dined at one end of a long table in his spacious living room, while the rest of the table was piled with books, binoculars, leftover food, discarded watches, a typewriter, and some clothes—in fact, almost everything Mr. Paton had placed there and forgotten. He usually cooked for himself, but in our honor, he brought in a couple of local teachers who made an awful mess in a very dirty kitchen. He had a bathtub, which Malakai insisted on scrubbing three times with disinfectants before he would let me use it. I’m not sure where Mr. Paton bathed, but he always appeared tidy and clean, even if a bit shabby.

When I spoke with him, I understood why he was the most effective missionary in the New Hebrides. His father before him was the renowned missionary-bishop, and his son Frederick dedicated his life to distributing the John D. Paton Fund. Mr. Paton was too occupied with good works to pay attention to his surroundings. His doors were always open to wandering locals, who came in day and night; they would just curl up on the floor and sleep. As long as there were supplies, Paton never let them leave hungry. This Australian Scot had inherited some money; however, he never had two pennies to rub together.

I believe he aimed to die broke; however, when he needed funds for his work, he could be cunning. He would pack up and head to Sydney, where a Mission Board could never quite turn down his request.

Medical experience has taught me that a pure spirit often resides in a damaged body. When he was a baby, a careless nurse injured one of his arms; he lost a leg when a motorboat hit a hidden rock during an emergency call. His ability to connect with the locals was envied, even by his fellow believers. His converts were closer to being true Christians than most I've seen... I don't know why I refer to him in the past tense, because as I write, he is very much alive, seventy-three and doing well. We’ve been in touch for years, and I’m grateful for how he supported my cause for the Central Medical School. His daily work has shown him its necessity.

I can’t forget the way Mr. Paton played a prank on me one night when I was giving a lecture to the locals in a church at the charming village of Pangkumu. In a clever move, he had set up the contribution box to collect hookworm samples. The community was pretty badly infected, so I struggled with my pidgin English to explain the terrible reproduction rate of the female Necator. Imagine the hundreds of snake-like eggs she could lay in just twenty-four hours... “Watch out!” Paton whispered. Right in front of me, a woman with frightened eyes was holding a baby. In her panic, she dropped it. I had to pause the lecture to check on the child, and when I discovered that no bones were broken, Paton chuckled softly, “It doesn’t pay to be too sensational.”

Paton understood his people and was familiar enough with the Condominium to have an incompetent district agent replaced from time to time. Whenever my Native Medical Practitioners faced European bias, Paton always stood up for them. A French doctor objected to our N.M.P. Peni visiting the villages during a whooping cough outbreak—and whooping cough can be lethal down there. The Frenchman wanted the sick to come to his hospital and wait outside in leaking shacks until he was ready to treat them. Paton advised Peni to head straight to the villages and help the patients avoid the trauma of being moved, and he followed that advice. When Mesalume was around—the poor boy who died on duty—Paton frequently took out his[Pg 244] motorboat at early hours to rush him to emergency calls. The Government had no boat to send.

During my first visit to Onua, I treated 300 hookworm cases, and nearly half of them were women; an impressive record in a place where women were especially protected by the feces tabu. Whenever I encountered a community open to medical advice, there was always a strong mission in charge. Paton’s was top-notch.

The New Hebrides needed a ton of Patons. And Patons don’t come in bulk.

******

I finally had the small satisfaction of seeing that the population was slowly increasing—but it was too slow to sustain itself. Men still outnumbered women; there weren't enough women to continue the population. In some areas where public health was starting to improve, I noticed the sex ratio was moving toward a more balanced state. That was a positive sign, though it was quite weak. Its potential was overshadowed by more serious threats of racial extinction. You can’t get clean water from a stream that’s polluted at the source. The New Hebrides, with no enforced quarantines, no coordinated efforts to investigate the causes of epidemics, no program to revive the best and healthiest native customs, no educational system, and seemingly no genuine desire to separate the natives from alcohol and firearms, were headed for racial extinction. The impoverished people from the Orient would take over all the jobs of the sick islanders and would fall victim to the same diseases. That’s a grim outlook—but it illustrates what could happen to any community, whether tropical or temperate, where public health and education aren’t supported by a strong central authority.

When I was working on the plantations around Male, I stayed with M. Peletier, who owned a vast estate, 800 acres filled with coffee, cacao, cotton, and copra. M. Peletier also had a large number of children from his wives and concubines. He had arrived there as a stranded French sailor, and in middle age, his goal was to retire and live in Los Angeles. The hygiene of his laborers was relatively well managed—which was a relief, as I had just witnessed unimaginable filth on nearby plantations.

Well, on Saturday night I went to bed early in one of M. Peletier’s clean rooms, and I had just fallen asleep when the peace was broken by loud, drunken voices from the locals. The next morning, the locals who had promised to come for a lecture didn’t show up. They were still sleeping it off.

In the afternoon, I drove with the Peletiers to M. Margot's house, where he had the usual store at the back. We were having a glass of wine on the front porch when a crowd of locals showed up and started making their way to the store. They were unsteady, and it was clear they had come for more alcohol. The Margots shot me an awkward glance. How annoying! With a Foundation doctor watching, knowing they were selling booze to the locals! M. Margot sprang into action and put on a powerful show. Fuming with indignation, he confronted the crowd and asked what they meant by coming on a Sunday, of all days, to buy kerosene and tobacco? Then, turning to me, he explained gently, “They’re just kids. If they happen to want kerosene and tobacco, they ignore my rules. Such kids!”

Meanwhile, the kids were shouting some island French word that sounded like “Poison” or maybe “Boisson,” but obviously referred to alcohol. Their college cheer, “Me want Boisson,” was emphasized by one loud voice in the chaos: “Suppose you don’t pay me my five pounds wages and grog—me want Boisson!” And the Margots were loudly complaining that they had never heard of such a thing. Neighbors should be ashamed to give alcohol to those poor boys.

We left in the middle of the awkward scene; left Margot to unlock a side door and start serving the customers. I let out a loud, obnoxious laugh. How furious the Margots must have been at Peletier for bringing me there on Sunday! Peletier drove away in a bad mood and tried to keep arguing about how locals wanted kerosene and tobacco. When I asked him if I looked like an idiot, he changed his tone. He said you had to sell alcohol if you wanted to keep anyone on your plantation. Even the British did it discreetly.

M. Margot’s side-door business was tame compared to what I saw on another island. It was Saturday night again. Naked figures were dancing around a fire. In the middle of the group was a chubby Frenchman, bare except for a grass skirt. He was leading them all, twisting and howling. The ground was littered with empty bottles. I asked the guy with me if this guy had “gone native.” “Oh, no,” he said, “he's the owner of a large plantation. But he likes to dance with the locals. It keeps them happy.”

While exploring the islands, we would sometimes encounter scenes of well-being that lifted our hopes for the future. Even now, I touch my waistcoat, recalling the warm hospitality at F. J. Fleming’s plantation in Bushman’s Bay. He was a New Zealander who had thrived against all odds. His land was lush with abundance. Prized cattle grazed in his fields, and his yards were filled with fancy ducks, turkeys, chickens, and guinea fowl. One local boy had a single task—supplying Matevan Plantation with fish. Dinner at Mr. Fleming’s table is something I often think about during tough cross-island hikes. It was here that I conducted the tetrachlorethylene experiments, for despite the plantation’s success, there was a lot of disease.

Mr. Fleming lived in the Land of Canaan and knew all the ins and outs. He kept his farm tidy with purebred Herefords that multiplied so quickly there was a surplus beyond what he needed for his household and his staff. Once a week, he had a young bullock slaughtered, and he knew how to keep the meat tender and fresh. The only supplies he had to buy were tea, sugar, wine, and flour. Matevan baked its bread in its own ovens and wasn't affected by labor shortages because the good food was well-known among the locals. This venture thrived on the treacherous Malekula, a bright example of what the New Hebrides could offer to the right person.

While Mr. Fleming enjoyed a life of luxury, discouraged planters over the hill were struggling to survive on canned beef.

******

This survey didn’t end on a very positive note. The New Hebrides group showed a picture of a culture being destroyed by European invasion. Fiji and Samoa had also been invaded, but their conquerors had tried to make things right. Aside from a few efforts to discourage cannibalism, what had the pale-faced intruders done to help this culture whose labor they desperately needed?... I had done my best and offered all the advice I could.

We were planning to return to the New Hebrides someday, armed with all the medicine and knowledge we had. I mentioned this to Mr. Paton just before I left, and he was very pleased. I couldn’t predict any outcomes, but now that I reflect on our following years of work there, I realize that in many areas, we improved health. However, it hasn't improved quickly enough to save a dying population. And if it dies, what happens next? Well, the Axis Powers could always bring in slaves to disrupt Oceania’s racial and economic balance again. I hate to think of that as a solution. But the Condominium Government, as I saw it, was setting itself up for its own downfall.

I didn’t focus on sad things when I said goodbye to Mr. Paton and told him that we were coming back to help and not to question. Before we shook hands, he smiled and said, “Mr. Rockefeller has given us so much through the work you’re doing for my people that I want to give him something in return.” He brought out a package, and when he opened it, I saw a roll of tapa cloth, very old and unique with a faded, velvety texture. The markings were so faint and delicate that he had to trace them out. He said, “This came from Efate in the east, where there’s quite a mix of Polynesian cultures. The missionaries who first arrived there over a hundred years ago found the natives worshiping this cloth. Nobody knows where it came from, but there’s a myth that it was brought in a foreign canoe.” Mr. Paton rolled up the tapa and handed it to me along with a letter for John D. Rockefeller. “Just to thank him,” he said. “I don’t think there’s another tapa like it in the world.”

******

On my way to a month’s vacation in the States, I stopped in Sydney, Fiji, and Tonga, bringing the old tapa back along the route it must have taken centuries ago. In Tonga, I unwrapped it and showed it to Queen Salote. She examined it closely, as did the wise elders. They all agreed it must have come from Futuna, one of the French Polynesian islands just north and west of Tonga; they told me it was a type made nowhere else. “It must be very old,” Salote said, “because it wasn’t pounded with a stone like they do nowadays. It was scraped with a shell, which gives it that velvet texture. And the stenciling is finer than the modern style.” She pointed out the elegant feather design, which was almost indistinguishable. “They never made feather designs in Tonga. Tapa is still scraped in Samoa,” she said, “but this one is a double tapa, and they don’t make that kind.” The elders highlighted the thin reddish color that still tinted the surface and said it was lengo, which is turmeric, a sacred plant juice worn only by chiefs. Futuna was on the old trade route where traders brought in turmeric for the bodies and garments of royals. “The feather design is royal too,” the elders said. “This tapa was worn by a king. So a king must have visited Efate.”

I continued on my journey, holding something that was like a lost[Pg 248] crown jewel, proof that the Tongafiti conquerors had once stepped on the New Hebrides. When I got to New York, I sent that tapa along with Mr. Paton’s letter to Mr. Rockefeller, who replied with a note saying he was placing the relic in a museum. I really hope he did. I hope it wasn’t just stored away in the family attic where a housekeeper might eventually throw it out with other unrecognized family items. If that were to happen, the Rockefeller estate would lose a one-of-a-kind treasure.

NZ'S LITTLE SISTER

Before I take you to the Cook Islands, where my fight against disease brought me in late 1925, I need to quickly touch on New Zealand, Polynesia's compassionate and insightful big sister. The connection between her native Maoris and those she was responsible for in the Cooks is so strong that it’s hard not to mention them together. I've visited the Dominion several times, both to learn and to teach, and I’ve written hundreds of pages of reports, always feeling admiration for the Government’s efforts to uplift a remarkable race that, without a benevolent conqueror, might have vanished from existence.

I admit that their education and health program has had its fair share of misjudgments, and that their pioneering efforts were similar to most Pacific conquests, primarily focused on taking away a native people's inherent right to their land and way of life. Perhaps New Zealand’s mild climate influenced the mindset of the Anglo-Saxon when he finally took on the responsibility of governing the largest population of Polynesians in any region of Oceania. This could have led to positive change. However, I lean more towards the idea that it was mainly due to the indigenous Maori's natural talent for governance.

Consider the fierce fighting Māori of two centuries ago. They numbered around 200,000 to 300,000 people. By 1896, when the government began to take notice, the Māori population had dropped to 40,000. Then came a resurgence, driven by education and public health initiatives, so that today the Polynesians on the mainland have exceeded the 85,000 mark and are steadily growing. In 1937, the Dominion spent well over £1,000,000 on education, building projects, sanitation improvements, and pensions for the Māori. Public schools were made accessible to their children. Industrial training nurtured the Māori's natural skills with tools. Perhaps too much was being done for the native; it's only human for a pampered people to do as little as possible to lift the spoon.[Pg 250]

On the Pacific, New Zealand is unique: her one-and-a-half million Europeans outnumber her natives by a huge margin. This might seem easy for the government, but officials have had to deal with a range of issues every step of the way: long-standing grudges against the Pakeha (white man), a tendency to rely on welfare, a carefree attitude toward modern hygiene—a hundred and one conflicting currents. I've seen the subsidized Maori farmer on the East Coast, dressed in British clothes, looking just like any sun-kissed European and proud of modern farming equipment. I've seen the model houses that the authorities built in the backyards of native schools to inspire the Maori homemaker. I've watched British ladies working hard to teach back native arts that the natives had forgotten. I've seen lazy boys playing pool during work hours and cheekily asking, “Why work when the Pakeha pays?” And all this time, in the primitive village he ruled with an iron fist, Rua the Prophet lay dying from a rival witch’s curse; when he passed away, his followers sat for days, expecting him to rise again.

In 1926, New Zealand was governing its own Maoris, their relatives on the Cook Islands and beautiful Niue, and had control of Western Samoa. She was ruling 152,000 Polynesians. I believe it would be better for the Polynesians if she governed all of them.

The British New Zealander isn't particularly accepting of different races, nor has he always been an idealist. What’s surprising is that the Maori's comeback from despair to vitality largely happened thanks to the talents of some Maoris, at least from one generation, who took advantage of the opportunity and improved it so significantly that their passion revived the spirit of a defeated people.

Let me name a few from that generation. Some had a slight trace of British ancestry, but their minds and hearts were Maori. There was “Jimmie Taihoa,” later knighted as Sir James Carrol, a lawyer whose sharp logic outsmarted Parliament so much that the Pakeha’s unfair land laws were weakened by reductio ad absurdum. Sir Apirana Ngata, probably the greatest of these Maoris, actively set out to learn European ways to protect his people from the Pakeha. With a cabinet position, he served for years as Minister for the Maoris. When his passion became too intense, the Prime Minister dismissed him. But he was soon invited back because, as an outsider, he was even more effective. His land laws remain today, a strong defense for the Maoris against land-grabbers. He is still alive and fighting. Highly influenced by European culture, his greatest wish is for his people to return to their tribal customs.

Dr. E. P. Ellison, a Maori, was the last Director of Maori Hygiene and served with distinction as the Chief Medical Officer in the Cook Islands. Dr. Peter Buck (Te Rangiheroa) started in the same role and later became one of the world’s leading ethnologists. He was a visiting professor at Yale for two years, and in Honolulu, he became the director of the famous Bishop Museum. I’ve heard he’s coming back to New Haven.

These outstanding Maoris graduated from Te Aute College, and the new generation hasn’t produced leaders like them. It could be the result of a changed educational system for indigenous people. It might also be because exceptional individuals are born, not created.

Sir Maui Pomare passed away a few years ago. We became close friends from the moment I met him and Lady Pomare, who was also a Maori aristocrat. He held three ministerial positions simultaneously; if it weren't for his racial background, he would have been Prime Minister. A graduate of an American medical school, he started his career as a Maori Medical Officer. Young Dr. Pomare once managed a three-month typhoid epidemic entirely on his own. As the Director of Maori Hygiene, he treated an entire population across various areas. His advocacy for modern sanitation and racial self-respect left a lasting impact. Often, Pomare’s ideas clashed with Ngata’s, as his main goal was to bridge the gap between the two races.

Memories of an ancestral thoroughbred always brought joy to Sir Maui. Just around the time when the Ministry of Health for New Zealand and the Ministry of the Cook Islands were merged under his leadership, there was an anniversary service in one of Wellington’s oldest churches. The preacher spoke eloquently about the Christian canonization of a certain old-time savage, Pomare’s great-granduncle, who had donated the land where the church was built and provided funds for its endowment. The sermon praised the good deeds of the converted barbarian so much that the word spread to Pomare, who invited the clergyman to his office to share the true story.

Great-granduncle, a cannibal and head hunter, had led the first Maori War and kept the British at bay for so long that the embarrassed Crown Governor put a bounty of five hundred pounds on the rebel’s head. The [Pg 252] Maori King called in a few chiefs, who might have been somewhat pro-British, and made this counter-proposal: “I appreciate the offer of five hundred pounds for my head. Five hundred pounds is a lot of money, so if any of you want my head, why don’t you come and take it.” The chiefs had no response. “Well,” said the King, “I think I know the worth of heads. How about I put a price on the Governor’s head as a friendly exchange? My offer is sixpence.”

Sir Maui told the clergyman that his ancestor had given the old church an endowment after he put aside his well-worn spear and became a Christian. The donation was connected to horse racing. The British had built their racetrack in Wellington, and the trend had spread among the wealthier chiefs. The retired King, old and frail, had imported a thoroughbred and entered it for the big race of the year. The elderly Maori lay on his deathbed, too ill to go near the track, so he sent runners back and forth from the course to his bedside. When a messenger announced that the horse had won, the old man sat up, shouted, “A victor to the last!” and then died. His success on the track boosted a church endowment, and a winning horse had crowned his victories over the white man.

With enthusiasm, Sir Maui shared how the old man made a deal. He sold what is now Wellington to Sir Francis Bell's great-uncle. The transaction is documented, and the payment was about this: two barrels of niggerhead tobacco; three dozen red flannel nightcaps; a dozen pipes; a dozen umbrellas; two flintlock pistols; various muskets with powder; half a gross of jew's harps.

When I asked Pomare if thinking about his ancestor selling the site of a major modern city for some worthless stuff bothered him, he said, “It was just a small part of the land Great-granduncle owned. And he got what he wanted. Can’t you picture the old man walking away, wearing his red nightcap, holding his umbrella, playing his jew’s harp, and laughing about how he outsmarted the white man in that deal? Everything is relative in this world, and when it came to money sense—well, he was a Polynesian.”

******

It was at Pomare’s request that I visited the Cook Islands toward the end of 1925 and into the early months of 1926. He specifically asked me, as a director for the Foundation, to investigate the hookworm situation there and to also include in my survey the overall state of[Pg 253] native diseases. He hadn’t been in office long enough to organize the public health efforts as thoroughly as he wanted, and there was the usual shortage of qualified doctors. Sir Maui had a special fondness for the Cook Islanders, as he was closely related to them. He often suggested that I look into the pre-Christian religion in the Cooks and the remnants it left behind.

Medically speaking, the Cooks were a big improvement compared to the New Hebrides. While conditions weren't perfect, I didn't encounter any serious issues. Public health was better than the Pacific average, but there were some warnings, and I had to raise the red flag. The population started to decline in the eighties but has been slowly increasing again since 1900, when New Zealand took over. Before that, the group had been completely neglected, except for the usual exploiters. Twenty-five years is too short a time to create major changes in any community. The Maoris on these small, beautiful islands now number over 10,000. The group is located about twenty degrees south of the Equator, right next to Tahiti—perhaps too close for comfort in terms of health.

Rarotonga, often painted by romantic writers, has been misrepresented by flights of fancy. It’s the main island in the small Cook Islands and consists of several small towns, one of which is home to Government Headquarters. To the locals, it had the same allure as Paris does for someone from Peoria. Movie theaters, public entertainment, and private indulgences attracted with a magnetic pull, and this mix was likely risky for the pleasure-seeking Māori. Gonorrhea, brought in from generous Tahiti, was on the rise. While that was the case in Rarotonga, the less populated and more traditional islands were not as affected. Polynesians love to gossip, and when an infected local returned from a big night out, the entire village knew about it and kept their distance.

Dr. Ellison was working like crazy in an understaffed department, but what could he do except keep going and make the best of it? I had Malakai with me, my Exhibit Number One. Immediately, he became a popular figure, a hit both socially and scientifically. When Ellison saw his work and understood what a local physician could achieve, and I mentioned that our Central Medical School, once it got started, could produce hundreds like Malakai, Ellison was totally supportive of the School; he’d do anything to make it happen.

My hopes were high back then. Dr. Montague had just sent a letter saying that all the High Commission groups, five in total, [Pg 254] and all the groups run by New Zealand were ready to sign. And there was Sir Maui Pomare, clear-minded and confident that the native people were open to receiving the best education.

My hope was to be struck by an act of Pomare himself. He had taken a slap in the face, something no respectable Maori would tolerate. I’ll get into that later.

******

In Rarotonga, it was great to see the young people—boys in white pants and girls in simple dresses—pouring their hearts into the dances of 1925. European clothes and lifestyles looked like their future, and the Government had promoted innocent dances, steering them away from the temptations of bush-beer and make-out parties on the beach. This music and youthful joy stood in stark contrast to the struggles of the unfortunate New Hebridean, stripped of his tribal ceremonies and left with nothing to fill that gap.

In less conventional places, girls were still dancing the hura, which was more graceful than the Hawaiian hula, but they were twisting around for the attention of visiting sailors. Gonorrhea, already on the rise in 1925-1926, couldn't be entirely blamed on that old scapegoat, Tahiti. The Hollywood movie had shaped the common idea of European behavior. Imitate the clothing, imitate the morals. The local girl had developed a desire for silk stockings and high heels, things that had to be bought with Pakeha money, no matter how she managed to get it.

Disease-carrying Tahitian boys were showing up with a bribe that few Rarotongan girls could resist—bottles of French perfume. Because of this, the girls left their local boyfriends and husbands, flocked to the fragrant strangers, and later regretted it. The bright lights of Rarotonga were attracting so many from nearby islands that overcrowding risked a higher spread of tuberculosis. Polynesian hospitality welcomed the germs, as relatives came pouring in to be crammed like sardines in the coral houses. They ate so much that many hosts ended up undernourished between gatherings.

Speaking of forced sophistication, a young local nurse in one of the top hospitals approached me timidly and asked for an examination. I brought in some assistants, had her lie down on the table, and ignored her protests about the sensitive procedure. When I finished, I asked her why she had made such a fuss; she should be used to doctors. “Oh, but[Pg 255] Doctor,” she said, “I thought you were going to examine my chest!” She had expected me to use a stethoscope. It was the same throughout the Cook Islands. If you put a stethoscope on a local person's chest, they believed it had magical powers to cure whatever was wrong. What was affecting the little nurse was pregnancy.

Here’s another example of the naive sophisticate. I was with a local merchant, admiring the beautiful sunset, when a pretty local girl stopped her bike. She looked sharp and slim in a white dress, white shoes, and a bright red scarf around her neck. What she said sounded like something she learned by heart: “I’m looking for the doctor to come to my mother, who is very ill.” I asked my friend if her mother was sick, and he said, “That’s something she learned at school and is trying out on us.”

She smiled politely, and my friend asked her where her boyfriend was. She said, “Love? That's not good. Some boys talk about love, and I say, ‘Go away, I'm too strong. I won’t go down to the beach.’” She told us her name was Ngapuku, and she was sixteen and carefree. “I’m a Girl Guide,” she declared. With every breath, she kept talking about “love,” which didn’t interest her because she was a proper Girl Guide. Where and how she guided the stranger came out in the next sentence. Last week, when a New Zealand gunboat came in, she met a sailor who talked about “love” and was indignantly put off. However, since Jack on shore wanted to be guided, she took him around to the other type of girl and charged a fee of twenty-five shillings—five for the girl friend and twenty for herself.

The Cook Islands didn't have a mixed-race issue because there were no mixed-race people in a social sense. Everyone was part of the local community, and a light-skinned baby was seen as a joyous addition. There was absolutely no stigma attached to illegitimacy. Married locals were keen to adopt such children. One British trader I knew had a native wife and four daughters; well before a newcomer was born, a group came to their home and asked for the chance to adopt the baby. The soon-to-be mother eventually promised it to a childless couple if it turned out to be a girl. But if it was a boy, she planned to keep him. She had no sons.

I heard about a local guy who had a fight with his wife and left her. But when he found out she was living with a white man, he came back and begged to be taken back. He wanted to be the father of her expected child. The Maori here seemed to be shifting toward another race, and I hoped it would be for his benefit. Kids with European ancestry usually got ahead more quickly, not because they were smarter or had more character, but because their lighter skin seemed to give off an air of superiority. Parents preferred them, and teachers, even if they tried to be fair, often unconsciously pushed them to the front of the class. I’m not sure that the full-blooded Cook Islanders weren’t the best type I encountered in the Pacific. Although the women tended to be lazy and overweight, the men were lean and muscular, hard workers, and naturally industrious. All day long, they worked in their gardens or carried crops for miles to load onto the steamers offshore. At home, they did the cooking for their lazy wives, who, like most Polynesian wives, were indulged by their husbands.

As a curious doctor, I observed the good health of the men; affected by foreign diseases and inadequately supported by a still-developing medical system, they appeared to be strengthening their bodies against various ailments that struck them. The main work-related illness among them was hernia, caused by lifting heavy loads.

On my second visit there, in 1932, I wrote to the Secretary of the Cook Islands, encouraging him to take advantage of the increased number of Native Medical Practitioners we could now provide. I pointed out a paradox: the sophisticated people of Rarotonga had less faith in European doctors than I typically found in the more primitive outer islands. Everywhere, there was a surprising belief in witch-doctor remedies, especially considering these places had been in contact with Europe for over a hundred years. During my first visit, I relied on Malakai more than once to persuade and coax sick natives away from their old superstitions. He could relate to them as equals, which was something no European could ever achieve. I missed him on my second trip.

Some of the impressions I'm sharing relate to my later time on these islands, but they mainly reflect how I experienced the Cooks in 1925-1926.