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down their cheeks. The most moving of all was poor Christopher, who had been so 
jealous of my relationships with Ezekiel, Noel and Ataban, although he had a 
most privileged position with me. He stood alone against a tree somber from the 
onset, without a smile on his face, and as the leave-taking walls got underway, 
tears began to fill his eyes, and for over a half hour he stood there, tears 
streaming down his face, puffy-eyed, in as miserable a countenance of grief as I 
have ever seen. Here was the sincerest traditional departure crying I could 
earn, and the whole ceremony rose in my mind to one of more true emotion than I 
had first attributed to it. After a quarter hour of wailing, the women all 
rubbed noses with me. They had managed to provoke an Intensive flow of nasal 
mucous during their paroxysmal crying, and thus it was a sloppy slobbering mess 
one had to kiss. Then all the other men gathered close about me and since with 
their wailing everyone had produced copious flows of nasal mucous, I was tempted 
to rush for further specimen vials for collection of discharge from yet another 
orifice. 
Tikopia, British Solomon Islands Proctectorate October 30, 1972 
I write on while sitting on the porch of the dispensary in a cool breeze, 
not yet bothered by the mosquitoes which plagued me so much last night when I 
slept in the sands with Mathew Taromaorl and Harry-Jim Tafao Okini, who 
yesterday remained my closest companions. We were bitten severely all during 
the early night until I arose and sprayed us voluminously with insect repellant. 
Late last night I roamed over to Safoa, where the men and women of several 
villages were practicing their dancing for the all-islands dancing celebration 
on November first — which we shall miss. On our arrival, they were lounging in 
the sand, many asleep, having already finished their practice. They were 
embarrassed by my presence, and I withdrew shortly. Don and I were later 
invited to Chief Cedrlk Tangata Teava's home by him and his older son, Edward, 
who speaks English fairly well, for a late supper of Talapia fish, from the 
fresh water lake here on Tikopia, and a pudding made of ground banana. We spent 
an hour visiting their home. The younger son of the Chief, Philip Muaki Tafua, 
twelve years of age, and Andrew Matakifena Tafua, eleven years, hang about with 
us constantly. Philip is an odd, light-complexioned rather strange boy with 
almost half-cast features, obviously clever, and with a certain audacity and 
impudence. 
Don and I remained on shore all day, while noone else landed. Everyone was 
kept busy on the ship at laboratory work and attending to the X-rays of the 
almost one hundred Tikoplans whom I had sent aboard in groups of ten, after 
seeing that they had been bled, saliva collected, and their hands properly 
numbered. Thus, the X-ray work went smoothly, but it was fatiguing for Ferber 
who is doing it all. Last night, he developed the forty-two Anutan chest films 
and they seemed to have come out well. Thus, we are managing to get some 
interesting base-line data, and we are also enriching our experience of island 
pathology. 
