TOKELAU PJXOWOR:Nr. 173 



Aru Islands, Teste Island, Woodlark Island, etc. Tlie authorities 

 on which I have founded this general statement ai'e numerous and 

 include, Modera, Bruijn Kops, Wallace, Mosely, Miklouho-Maclay, 

 Comrie, W. Turner, Chahuers, W^^att Gill, Romilly, Lyne, and 

 others, whose descriptions, though they often did not recognise the 

 true character of the eruption, leave no reasonable doubt on the 

 matter. 



This disease was observed by Mr. Wilfred Powell to be very 

 frequent amongst the natives of New Britain and the Duke of York 

 Islands, where it is called "buckwar."^ Dr. Comrie, R.N., when 

 serving in H.M.S. " Dido," found it to be very frequent amongst 

 the natives of New Ireland.- Through the islands of the Solomon 

 Group it is widely spread, as I have already shown : and from them 

 it has extended to the different groups to the eastward, reaching 

 the Gilbert, Ellice, Tonga and Samoa Groups. 



In the Western Pacific we are able in some instances to trace 

 the eastward extension of this disease during the last half century. 

 Dr. G. Turner in his annual report of the Samoan Medical ^Mission, 

 dated October, 1869, refers to the recent introduction of the Tokelau 

 Ringworm amongst the Samoan Islanders as the introduction of a 

 new disease. It was brought to Samoa from Bowditah or Tokelau 

 Island where it had been also unknown until about ten years before, 

 when it was introduced by a native of the Gilbert Group who had 

 been landed by a whaler. The Gilbert or Kingsmill Islanders, 

 according to the narrative of Commodore Wilkes, believed that the 

 disease came from the south-west, and called it the " south-west 

 o-une," the nearest islands in that direction being: those of the 

 Solomon and Santa Cruz groups, between 800 and 900 miles away. 

 Commodore Wilkes, however, was of opinion that this disease had 

 reached the Kingsmill Group from the Depeyster Islands in the 

 Ellice Group to the south -south -east ; and he refers to the circum- 

 stance that the disease was most prevalent in the southern islands 

 of the Kingsmill Group, being apparently" absent from Makin the 

 northernmost island f but this distribution of the disease may be 

 also urged in support of the more probable view of the natives that 

 it came from the south-west. We are thus able to trace one pro- 

 bable track of this disease from the Solomon Islands, or one of the 



1 "Three years among the Cannibals in I^ew Britain," London, 1SS3, p. 54. 



2 Journal of the Anthropological Institute, aoI. a^. p. 102. 

 3 " Narrative of the U. S. Explor. Expsd." vol. v. p. 105. 



