153 
follow it. There was sufficient shouting and clapping for the heroes — usually 
at the time of a fatal blow or stab or show to indicate that the people 
were interested in the film, and everyone sat through it all outside the 
grass before the school. 
Pingelap Atoll, Caroline Islands November 24, 1972 
I quietly and uninterruptedly did physical examinations cautiously and 
thoroughly today by myself. Mbaginta'o took heights and weights as I finish- 
ed with the students in the grade eight of the primary school, and we did 
the entire class of 32 before noon hour. In the afternoon I did only 
another seven physical examinations of the seventh graders. 
Don, Ivan and I are again staying on shore tonight, having eaten supper 
on the Alpha Helix . The day went quickly because I was busy, but at noon- 
hour and after 2 p.m. I took time off to walk across the atoll to the sea 
side and to again walk around the immense depressed taro patch which forms 
the center of the island, separating the villages which are arranged linearly 
along the lagoon shore from the sea side of the island. 
We have over 400 feet of cinema taken on Pingelap now, and that is a 
moderate start. There has been little time devoted to the cinema record, 
but if I keep at it for the three or four remaining days it should be of 
considerable value. In view of Newton Morton’s vast genetic and human 
population study which includes demography and genealogies, I am not trying 
to do anything in these lines. 
There are 206 students in the Pingelap Elementary School with grades 
1 through 8, two class 6, and a total of ten teachers, including one sub- 
stitute teacher. The whole school is conducted in English, and all teachers 
are Pingelapese. The 8th graders are all 14, with a very few 13 and 15 
year olds, and the 7th graders are all 13, with a few 12 and 14 year olds. 
All the children apparently know their birthdays. I wonder whether it is a 
valid birthday, or one arrived at later, by guess, even to the year, as is 
so often the case in Micronesia? 
There is a Boy Scout Program on the island, and almost the entire 8th 
grade and 7th grades are off camping some quarter of a mile from Sakarakap 
on the island which represents the extent one can go and ’’camp out” away 
from home on Pingelap, unless one crosses to one of the two other islands. 
This takes from us the group of 11 through 14 year olds who have surrounded 
us since our arrival, and a group of whom slept here at the Dispensary 
with us last night. It is already a strange island, being almost devoid 
of older teenagers beyond 14 — i.e. all of High School age, who are off at 
PICS in Ponape. Those who are here have probably never made it to high 
school level or have dropped out for one reason or another. Now, with the 
"junior high school" age group out "Scouting", the island is deserted down 
to the really elementary school age group. 
t 
