A Yankee doctor in paradise

by S. M. Lambert

A friend told me that when he first saw the Vavau jail there was a sign over the door “All prisoners not in by six o’clock will be locked out for the night.” When I was there the jailers complained bitterly because there were no prisoners, and they had to do all the work. Tongan prisoners were great gadabouts. In one village there had been several burglaries of provision stores, and the police were baffled for days. At last they located the loot, hidden under the jail where the inmates could delve in, when they pleased, for a midnight snack. It seemed rather remarkable that such good boarding houses were losing boarders.

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That was Tonga as I saw it, going in and out for many years. Like all Pacific groups, it was a land of marked contrasts. At sunset an old witch woman would stand on the cliffs “calling the sharks.” She would throw scraps into the water, then raise a high, queer chant and the beasts would poke their noses through the surf. And in the palace at Nukualofa an educated, civilized woman sat with her consort, planning to meet the conditions which a new world had imposed on her kingdom. Because their rule was good, and the British Protectorate a wise one, Tonga continued to improve greatly, both in health and in understanding.

I never let Salote and Tungi forget that the native medical talent was right there in the kingdom, waiting to be developed. Every time I visited her islands I told the Queen how the pick of her young men could go to Fiji for a first-class medical education, if we had the money to back such an enterprise. There was always that big If. Salote’s common sense and patriotism told her that I was right. Her generous wish was not limited to her own realm; she saw how the native races of Oceania could not be helped until they learned to help themselves. But when I talked this problem over with her I realized that little Tonga was not rich enough to effect a program that would cover the whole wide Pacific.

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One day in 1926 I was very discouraged when I came to Queen Salote with my troubles. I told her of a letter I had just received from Heiser; he had decided that I must abandon the School idea altogether. It was no fault of his, he had done what he could. But the case was hopeless.

Queen Salote listened carefully to what I had to say. In her thoughtful hesitation I saw that she was agreeing with Heiser. I had put up a four-year fight for an impractical ideal.

Then suddenly she raised her kind eyes and asked, “Doctor, is it such a tremendous amount that we can’t bear our share?”

It wasn’t a spendthrift Tongan speaking. It was the voice of a woman who had considered the question carefully, and had come to see the road to a sick kingdom’s recovery. She knew that there was a competent treasury balance. She had been with us from the first. Her influence had helped reduce Tongan infant mortality until it had become the lowest in the Pacific; she had encouraged mothers to come to doctors or government dispensers for supplies of baby food; this had given medical officers a chance to check up on the condition of young children. Salote had encouraged war on tuberculosis, and had seen that every house in her realm should have sanitary arrangements, even if they were still crude. The medical men she backed with moral support were cleaning up yaws with arsenicals. No one more than Salote knew the health situation in Tonga.

And couldn’t Tonga bear its share in our School, so that the Pacific would at least have competent native medical service? Before she had spoken, my School had been taking its last gasp. Now it was alive again.