Chapter 2 



History of the People of Enewetak Atoll 



ROBERT C. KISTE 



Director, Pacific Islands Studi/ Program 

 Uniuersify of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822 



INTRODUCTION 



The names of Enewetak and Bikini Atolls are linked in 

 history, and they are well-known around the world because 

 of their use as nuclear test sites by the United States. 

 Indeed, once the atolls became available as research sites, 

 a vast amount of research resulted; this volume is just one 

 of the results. Most of the research has been in the biologi- 

 cal and physical sciences, and the sheer volume of it has 

 tended to obscure a very important fact — Enewetak and 

 Bikini could be used for nuclear and other research pur- 

 poses only after their indigenous human populations had 

 been moved elsewhere. Much less is known about the 

 people than about the flora, fauna, and physical properties 

 of their atoll homelands. This chapter focuses upon the 

 people of Enewetak. It examines their history, the struc- 

 ture of their culture and society, the ways they have coped 

 with the colonial powers that governed the islands, and 

 their response to their resettlement on Ujilang Atoll. Some 

 mention is necessarily made of the Bikini community 

 because the histories of the two peoples are intertwined. 



Data about the Enewetakese are mainly derived from 

 the research of four anthropxjlogists, all of whom worked 

 with the p>cople after their relocation. Jack A. Tobin was 

 the first. He served as Marshall Islands District Anthropolo- 

 gist between 1950 and 1957. He resided with the 

 Enewetakese on several occasions, and portions of this 

 work resulted in his doctoral dissertation (Tobin, 1968). In 

 1964, Leonard Mason and I spent several months on 

 Ujilang, and during the academic year 1972-73, I was 

 involved in a legal suit (to be discussed later) which 

 involved the Enewetakese and the U. S. Dejjartment of 

 Defense (Kiste, 1976). More recently, a younger anthrof)ol- 

 ogist, Laurence Carucci, spent 1977 and 1978 with the 

 Enewetakese, and he too produced a doctoral dissertation 

 (Carucci, 1980). 



THE ANCIENT PAST 



The research findings of prehistorians and linguists indi- 

 cate that the Marshalls and other islands of Micronesia 

 were settled by peoples who migrated from the general 

 area of island southeast Asia into the insular Pacific many 

 centuries ago (Bellwood, 1979). Indeed this particular 

 migration probably began about 5000 years ago. Reflect- 

 ing the ancient migration patterns out of island southeast 

 Asia, the Marshallese language belongs to the large Aus- 

 tronesian (also known as the Malayo-Polynesian) language 

 family which is spread from Madagascar, through 

 southeast Asia and across Micronesia, Polynesia, and many 

 regions of Melanesia. Exactly when the early migrants 

 arrived in the Marshalls is not known. The earliest archaeo- 

 logical date currently available for the Marshalls is from a 

 site at Majuro Atoll which was occupied at the time of 

 Christ. In all probability, future archaeological research will 

 push the date for the settlement of the Marshalls further 

 back in time. 



No archaeological research has ever been conducted at 

 Enewetak Atoll, however, and it seems safe to assume that 

 remains of the past once deposited in its soil were 

 obliterated with the preparations for and by the nuclear 

 test program. The Enewetakese, however, have their own 

 version of the distant past. According to their oreil litera- 

 ture, they had always lived on Enewetak. In their own 

 words: "We were there from the beginning." At the same 

 time, their legends also recount how at least some of their 

 ancestors purportedly came from Bikini, Ujac, Wotto, and 

 other atolls also located in the northern Marsheills (Tobin, 

 1968). 



Regardless of the time of the settlement of Enewetak, 

 two things are certain. Enewetak Atoll is isolated, and 

 once the ancestors of the current population were in place, 

 they had relatively little contact with other communities. 

 As a consequence, the language and culture of the 

 Enewetak people became differentiated from those of 

 other Marshallese, and the people did not identify them- 

 selves with the others. Indeed, they thought of themselves 

 as a people who were separate and unique, "the people of 

 Enewetak Atoll" as opposed to the islanders in the rest of 

 the Marshallese archipelago. 



17 



