90 
There was a wide halo about the moon last night as we lay on quiet 
Graciosa Bay. It was of enormous diameter, perhaps a dozen moon diameters 
across or more, and appeared to be a great circle of clouds. I had not 
seen such a halo before, but rather a smaller halo, without an enormous 
disk of clear, dark star-filled sky within., as' this had , with 'the moon in 
the center. 
Tikopia, British Solomon Islands Protectorate October 20, 1972 
We made Tikopia by 0800 on rather rough sea but in the lee of the 
island we found very calm anchorage right over the reef, with some thirty 
feet of water above the reef off diore, even at low tide. Here to my sur- 
prise, Captain Phinney anchored, and a canoe came out from the sand beach 
to meet us Lawrence, the Dresser was in it. and he led our Boston whaler into 
the reef edge, from where we walked about a hundred feet over the reef, 
and then sand to shore at Botikorokoro village. Richard Lee, Jean 
Guiart, and I landed first, and the literal embraces and fondling reception 
we received was in sharp contrast to what one usually expects in 
Melanesia. In spite of the physically warm greeting, it took a direct 
request Ignored by many to get our supplies carried up the beach to the 
dispensary, where a sturdy European-materials building stands, without 
louvered windows, which Richard pointed out has been years in getting in- 
stalled, since it is now the responsibility of the Tikopians to finish it 
of f . 
The island is very clean, the villages almost spotless, and the people 
are clean and neat. Boys up to the age of puberty are often nude on the 
beach, and even the little girls to up to ages eight or ten often go about 
nude. Thus, there is less dress modesty in the children than in the 
Banks and Torres. However, the children horseplay rougher, they are more 
aggressive with one another than are the Banks and Torres Melanesian child- 
ren, and they tease, quarrel, mock and jeer at one another more than do 
the Melanesian children we have been with. Judy and the party ware quickly 
aware of this and found it disagreeable and surprising. The bold jeering, 
mockery, and shaming of other children and lack of obedience to adults, strikes 
almost that of American in quality and rather different from what one has 
been living with in the Melanesian Islands. This comes as a surprise, when 
it was the Polynesians who were usually thought of as sensitive and gentle, 
and the Melanesians rough, course and aggressive. In the children, it 
is the other way around. Melanesian children tease each other, and 
hold peers in tow with ridicule and shame. However, the jeering and shaming 
of each other for every intimacy with the visitors and attempt to behave indi- 
vidualistically with them, is a more potent force here. Again, Judy, 
Francoise and the others all notice . 
