A Yankee doctor in paradise

by S. M. Lambert

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

******

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