THE CHINA---MAIL,
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 20, 1956.
Page
A GHOST VILLAGE'S EXPORTS
By
ALAN CARSTAIRS
P
EOPLE who live only 21 few miles from Usun will tell you that it is "ghost" village on which the "death sen- tence" Was pronounced years ago.
When you tell them that Jewellery is exported frum Usun to the United States of America, they arc amazed.
For months Un had nest hau a stranger on: He doorstep there the other
until i called
day.
Usan la in from the
Scotland, not lat
east coast
town al
Montrose, The road twia out of Montrose for four miles and dips down to the meu. No sig
poal, nulling on Ure map, in- dicates the presence of Usan.
"There's nobody there.** WIS told. "Us21 Is deserted. And has been for yours."
White-freed cattle Joze und Joist in the mihály of the big
Thy poke decontaging
Bout at my ca
Tw
tt
**
Roofless
m. 14141
Cummings
Palmerston to Bu
1500 cules
FIS 1.
Us
LIE
rises the gholly apparition buy
The houses numeri tal codes. Tarcy remind aw Den with their scat wit Tand shesh. Bland There is not a living insight. Thu might
Thu's setilt ment
Lipity
600)
whil
i
have
looks likN DEL the old of ys of the American fronder alter visitation by hostile tesikins
ear
23u1
16 the pul your run for a 144.meni ni listen. a terrine noise. Klosi village There is a clanging
You may hear
Underground, the
És and ing.
as of chains.
}
15
r
merely someone dawing Wiler troen the old village pump. It is Ruby Dick- son, who is eighteen.
to
"10 I 201
1.
bored" she said question
echoing my when i luvated her and apoke to hur "What do you think? There used
dances and Now all that has concerts here. Kont
the
Ruby picked up her peil o water. Got to boll it now" and ntered house Number 20.
different from This 15 majority of the others, Number It has sintes on the roof. Slates below the yellow muss.
this of the DLA-
28.
Beneath
8 family have lived for years, Six Families
"The village as fondemned,” says Mrs Dicken. "There is no sanitation.
proper water SYBAI, No pince so put up a stranger. But six tamilles live here. There used to be Thirty. The other folk jeft three or four years ago.
"The authorities have told us we are living here at our own risk. But they haven't found us another house elsewhere.”
Mrs Dickson runs the village shop.
three consists shelvey in " cupboard of her house! It must be
Sydney to Palmersion
2800 miles
CHRISTMAS IS.
TAHITI IS
PALMERSTON IS.
PACIFIC OCEAN
SIR ANTHONY EDEN SHOCK-SUSTAINED FROM EFFECT OF CHAIRS BEING REMOVED FROM
UNDER HIM
BY J. F. DULLES
and tell the Press that he's simply in bed with a feverish chill"
TROUBLE LOOMS IN
AN ISLAND PARADISE
AN EDEN WITH THREE EVES
O
four.
UT near the middle of the deep Pacific tes a tiny island of happiness and
On it live about a hun- dred
und men, women children, all of whom have the same name for the per- fectly good reason that they are all related to one an- other.
They are descendants of
white
und his three Polynesian wives.
0118
man
ibe insander?
only learn Engil h. That is why the dark skinned descendants pow juk old Midlands, wil drawi
effect are
val worries,
Primerton 1 en l When at tulekly enough saw the reason for such fears. The main island is only as high above The water as a rryboat.
aut
Members of the Marsters in in the South Sas talked to me H-bomba. But they pre es entrady a merry people, and to to dance They prefer
in their sing rousing old tunes
Vous dialect.
T... realuring macestor comes The eat in sprit when Palinerston
unch sanders are sailing on Lagoon with expressions such as: "Back pull. "Coom, land," They are coffee-coloured ye bluuddy fuhllas," and, during and the language they all lightening of ship to cross revis speak is brond English Mid- Into lagoons, "the xharks! ყიე wtih
land in a quaintly old- Into the buddy
thee."
fashioned dialect.
The man
who started the Island
was I flew to the atoll a few Palmerston
saga
took Birminghem and It is Palmer- born in weeks ago. ston Island, the "kingdom" part in the Klondyke gold rush. In the 1850's he turned up in the William of the clan of
Zealand, New Tay of stards,
Marsters, whose descen- board a whaler. dants in various parts of the Pacific total about 500.
A
NOW
his own
Mc ulo laid down simple system of law. Members of the three families were taught
their fidera Cpect there was no serious crime,
come restless and decide voluntary
to see the outsid world.
There was the
epic voyage, for instance,
of James Marsters and
his
sweet-
theart Topeu, who me; oub
island-bullt
and
in
1
-101:
There was no disease-prob- ably due to the complšie ab- sence of flies and mosquitoes on
that Palmerston, and the fact the island was well out of the trade routes.
cutter to moji from rhyn.
Six laland. sra WEDD
Pen-
with them
• Over-populated
his island
Oensionally schooners
Canic
ther
at the stan
but these became fright.
oned
and
dived over- and board swam zshore, to take aboard she, beche-de- leaving James mer and cured fish which had a and Topou with high market value in Rarotongo. four gallons of
and water Mars' ers ordered
of coconuts, and planted.
a
shipload coconuts.
these wers When they began to
ጊዜ For
60
night.s
bear It WDB not long be- James lashed the fore some of the young tiller
Laler he worked for a South bloods" Seu trader whose headquarters brew, were in Tahu.
He was an English sailor. He settled there nearly century since with his three Island
in with became, vahines and truth, the father of his people.
It is still a patriarchal unique in the kingdom world, far off the route of the uniest white travellers, orderly, shop in all Scotland-perhaps healthy, strictly ruled ac-
in the world.
"5:1
and
cigaretics,
cording to the edicts of its lemonade, virile founder.
explains, over the 'shop' after
potato crisps," she
"I took
the last owner left."
Mr Dickson is another asral
to this once prosperous Ashing
po.. He works
a
living
stones in
American
Decklaces.
cha farm for
and collects attractive
itis
time.
Брате
Usan women wear
• They prefer to sing
On the Eden-like South
Says Mr Dickson: "My agates Sea atoll there are
There they are
go to Glasgow. polished and sent to America In exchange for some
of their stones."
On his doorstop he lays out necklaces. earrings, brooches,
tioping and
cufflinks made ho has chiselled
from atonce from Usan rocke.
Laid. Out
concocted A
and went polent to sleep with
Topou in his arms.
arrived After they
at Hull Group Island, in the Phoenix
was 700 miles away, James oentenced to six months hard labour for scaling the boat, and another herself got Topou flame.
The old man was a Methodist. He was sent from Perthyn The only challenge to his relg: from A roving young to Palmerston Island cam:
to Marsters who returned to the a nalivo labour crew
atoll a convinced Baptist
Methodism won out. Hymns like "Onward, Christian Soldlers" are still the clan's favourite work songs.
By JACK PERCIVAL
collect beshe-de-mer. When the
schooner put them ashore
promise departed with a return in a few months.
12
Intermarriage among the clan has apparently had no serious effects.
The
virile
firat
• Refuge on a mound
man
Today throughout the Pacife you can meet members of the dozen men are
and Marsters clan on 0 mentally aleri, the wonen Pacific islands. They are all
can athletic-they pr ity, and
proud that they are descended three and swing a copra bag over their from ong
the shoulders and walk off with it women, and the rest of as if it was no weight at all. communities are proud of them,
The old
man
son, too. to William Matsiors II, became
icgal The clan holda full the second patriarch and died
Its homeland. in 1948 aged 84.
The present ownership of But the schooner did not re- boss is Nod Marsters,
gave the a lean. The Briish Crown hardly turn for six years. When it did,
leathery
patriarch a lease of the atoll in islander. He rules with cheerful firm- 1888. any diseases, seldom any he was told that his employer crimes, no politics and no was dead, so he took a llen over
When this lease expired in questioned.
tho "Pacific Islands taxos--in fact there is no the Palmerston atoll in lieu of ass and his orders are seldom
William the First did not 1954
reported that the need for money.
The atoll was uninhabited. merely populass his island. He Monhtly" community's
turies and there was
a good 41.. peaceful life now lies a cloud catchment area for fresh water.
Marsters liked the place, The inhabitants
When ho got back there in suffering from an acute at- 1002 he was accompanied by his tack of nerves. They fear Polynesian trife and her sister. that the hydrogen bomb Later they were joined by a which the British are pre- woman from Penrhyn Island,
He shared out his affections, paring to explode next year
Wakes.
But on the horizon of the The lagoon was full of fish and and his progny over-populated Cook Islands Act was amended
and quiet
mushroom-shaped.
are
to trant the atoll to the inhabi- which tants except 10 acres must be kept aside for adminis irative purposen.
William Marsters the First- the Patriarch who started it all!
TO
A rescue schooner fcolt some of the survivors to Rarotonga.
Another hurricane struck the island in 1928. The sea claimed the patriarch's house built from selvige, and the church was driven inland hun- dreds of yards.
The whole population got to work end trundled the church back on coconut trunks to its hallowed.original site.
In 1934 a tidal wave washed coconut frces, houses and copra shes into the sea but drowned only two of the tough little clan,
сап
Old ways and
a now fear
war,
PaciAc the During Palmersica coward the Ameri: "invasion." The. potest established American bajo wan on Penrhyn Island, where a Ionut-plane strip and a flying- boat base were built.
To this day the edict of Willem Marsters I is still oboyd --all the children are taught old English by their mothers. Few of them speak Polynesirit well.
They have one paramount fear the might of the sea.
That is why they watch the movement of British troops and sppplies 10, Christmas Island.
The Palmerston Islanders, like
• Obeyed orders
la But. Palmerston
very to migrate
small-a series of six motus (pieces of land) shaped like "Unfortunately," he observed
Today, In
a reef about 25 addition to the pancakes on to me, "they don't fetch much, You can buy necklace far ten
hundred Living there, about. 400 miles in circumference, hearing the name and ap The molus are, just out of shillings or so."
There
In a costat lock-out nearby. There, Station Officer ut Christmas Island 800 and three families came into pearance of the clan are living reach of the sea, which creams 8:0 having obaved orders You con circle it in a dying. Frederick Day of Her Majesty miles to the northeast, will being. When his children were in other parts of the South over the reef into the lagoon,
strong enough, they were put to migrate when the numbers.
best in 10 minutes. Field its
The main motu le less than a church were bullt,
of coconuts, flah, For himself Marators built a birds
tid Mountain
In a hurricane: the salvage
from three wrecked migrants appointed their leader of a mound of Carth 20 H-bombs, 1 alpe, Massive oak beard were and set up their code of law Moralers clors rush for the refuse
this year I met my Jong || At- fastened together with
De tomily
In- nak
and were seeking transport in my kinds mber re-, back" to theft"omiƐvelas
some of the They put up hard ore willing to pay theirfares:
eta beyond desolate Usin, as he will engulf their idyllic little
120
Coast Guard surveys the arc of not up a' tidal wave which to work, and · a vllage and a palmers'on rtles square "mikonin "ereni (On": it ́inths people of many other, atolls,
has been surveying it for who world.. hus acemed"
Actually, ho his..only
there four years.)
L
*T
etern
The same fears, I found, are
held by tho inhabliszta of many; fine, house' from ^«jtimum) and, la cach PURKKANA wwhat the fohrbitante call "There | fooling: horveus bouti
Does he like it there? Mr Day, other low-lying atolls in that
Scotaman, stretch of the Pacific. buter m
from De-(Eves in mountains Somoy
nota
vonshire, and ha
new
dour not waste † (Cere is remo, alirm. The Pars copper, rvalaj, gindahipa bolta viwho had "become home 100%
words "No" he replies, and
or {Haftrit Wantern
add that i hele beginning sa cently petitioned the United
Notions to interyers; agairies: ina
think he famo la noi Frederick etme Island H-bomb pre
Day but Robinsodarytiems,) APR
The clan'
saved most
The Amerkan nuclear bombs worried them, lem., Bikini, is 1,500 kilèn Hway to the north-
But, the Briksh H-bomb base Ja:700 miler olower, ka the north-
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