96 
I am surprised at the number of marriages that are Anutan to Anutan, 
with hardly any outside marriages admitted. Several women and a few men 
have come from Tikopia, but other than Tikopia, I have no "foreign" blood. 
Rick points out that visits of English, Japanese, American and Russian 
ships may well have left half-caste children behind, but this is not 
acknowledged. There are a number of children whose mother only is known 
and whose father is simply stated as unknown. 
Last night, after I finished typing, we were invited to take part in a 
final feast for the first eating of fish by Kaspar Rauniu son of R. Fenuakimoana • 
The family had given the feast last week in honor of the boy's eating of his 
first fish. Now, the recipients of the feast were returning the feast, with 
a night time distribution of food, including taro in ground balls, cooked 
with coconut milk poured over it (called tepoke ) . This was eaten with 
fine fish, cooked as they always do here in Anuta, with the scales left on. 
It was too much to eat after our enormous ceremonial welcoming feast of the 
late afternoon, but it was fine to attend. Richard, Rick and I attended, 
while John and Richard Lee slept. 
It rained most of the evening, so I could not sleep out. I slept at 
one end of our schoolhouse, very comfortably. The children all retire to 
their appropriate family houses not long after dark, and few walk the beach- 
es or trails on such windy, rainy nights. 
I have not had a chance to explore the island far and wide yet, with 
all the problems of our formal reception yesterday and our restricted move- 
ments until that was done. The Chief is a young man of 38 to 40, who is 
very jovial, and he eiyoys poking me in the belly, and playing tricks on me, 
such as pointing to distract my gaze and then poking me. I reciprocate. 
He and Basil are full brothers, Basil some six to nine years younger. 
Basil has been off to Guadalcanal for three years of mission schooling, 
which has made him somewhat of a catechist here on the island. 
The Melanesian Mission recently changed from the Mota language which 
it has used for almost a century as the lingua franca, to English in the 
church services. The large church beside which we live is used for such 
services. However, some old people and the chief do not follow English and 
haVe built a second church for Mota language services. Thus there are two 
churches on the island. 
The Chief has offered to house two of u£>and yesterday I did not accept. 
Tonight, however, we shall accept, since we are so crowded in our small 
house. 
I found the kneeling and prayer rather long and intolerable, but the 
dreadful dirge-like chants which form tie singing and group song responses 
were so out of pitch and so grotesque as to astonish me. It is a wlerd and 
very un-European music, and one has the uncomfortable feeling that it may not 
be much influenced by the old traditions, but may simply be the result of In- 
sufficient tuition and leadership in singing European hymns. If this be the 
case, it was a strange dirge-like one of the most unnelodious and mournful walls 
