PACIFIC ISLANDS UNDER JAPANESE MANDATE 



627 



Photographs by Junius B. Wood 



FISHING IN DEEP WATER IN A WRAPPER AND A LARGE CONICAL HAT MUST HAVE ITS 



COMPLICATIONS 



Since being introduced to this passe garment of civilization, the native women make 

 peculiar use of it. They can scarcely be persuaded to dispense with it when they go fishing. 

 In some of the islands they keep it strictly as a town gown, which they don on the road when 

 they get in sight of the houses of the settlement (see text, page 599). 



Mariners' charts, compiled mostly from 

 data of the American missionary schooner 

 Morning Star or English surveys, are 

 fairly impartial to all nations, but many 

 other names are used by sojourners in 

 the islands. 



Though they show as yet only on 

 official communications, the Japanese 

 have renamed the eleven larger islands in 

 Truk after the seven days of the week 

 and the four seasons, those on the reef 

 after signs in astrology and palmistry, 

 and the small ones inside after flowers. 



The three groups in prehistoric ages 

 may have formed parts of two moun- 

 tain ranges of which the peaks still are 

 above the waves in the Carolines and 

 Marianas, while only the encircling reef 

 of the tireless coral remains in the Mar- 

 shalls. 



The natives of the Marianas differ 

 physically from the natives in the Caro- 



lines and Marshalls. Many show traces 

 of European blood and their language 

 includes expressions from the Tagalog 

 and Spanish of the Philippines, possibly 

 traced to the days when Spain ruled the 

 islands. Many of their homes in Saipan 

 are large and comfortable, in European 

 style, with pianos and other furniture 

 which is not found farther south. 



The Kanakas, as the natives of the 

 Carolines and Marshalls are called, who 

 also are in Saipan, retain their native 

 customs — absence of clothes, chiefs' 

 houses, dances to the full moon, and an 

 entirely lower plane of existence. 



Tribal wars, with victories measured in 

 the number of warriors' heads and women 

 captured, mixed the blood on the islands 

 long before the white men came, and 

 since that time migration has been easy 

 and safe, until racial characteristics are 

 blended and indistinct. 



