Atchin Twenty Years Ago

Folk in contra-distinction to what they term the Bush Folk of the Malekulan mainland. The islands are remarkably uniform, both in size and situation, each covering an area of about half a square mile, and being separated from the mainland by a channel about half a mile wide. Each island supports a population of from four hundred to five hundred varying in physique and in intelligence as much as any average English community, from individuals with comparatively light copper-coloured skin and a degree of intelligence equal at least to that of an intelligent white man, to those of much darker pigmentation and minds approximating more closely to the white man's idea of what he is pleased to call a savage. Since there is no room for cultivation, the inhabitants of each island own a strip of land on that part of the Malekulan mainland immediately opposite to it, on which they till their gardens. In addition to the communally owned long-distance canoes, in which they sail long distances on trading expeditions, each man possesses a coastal canoe, and the fleet of small canoes sailing or paddling over to the mainland every morning during the agricultural season and returning at night laden with food is one of the most pleasing sights that can be seen in Malekula. Though forming an ethnic unit, these islands have no central government, nor are there any chiefs such as exist among the Big Nambas of the North Malekulan Plateau. Each of these minute communities (the population of Atchin at the time of my visit numbered 40I) has its own language, as distinct from that of its neighbours as any two cognate European languages, and is

Geography · Indigenous Studies and Ecology · Island Studies and Pacific Affairs · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies

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