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The Department of Native Affairs at Thursday Island. 
Many of them, including Darnley and Murray Islands, 
are native reserves, and the only white people allowed 
to live on them are a school teacher, when available, and 
his family. The local affairs of each island are in the 
iiauds 01 three councillors elected by the natives them- 
selve,.-., and a native police sergeant and constables see 
that the la s ate obeyed. The Chairman of the council 
is t.,e head man of the island. Another important per- 
sonage is rue Branch Manager, in charge of the island’s 
general store and of the wireless transceiver on which 
daily conversations are held with the Department at 
Thursday Island. There are native school teachers and 
a nurse and a male medical orderly. Many of the is- 
land’s men go away on seasonal work, as divers or sea- 
men on the pearling luggers or government launches, as 
carpenters or labourers on Thursday Island, or even as 
cane-cutters to North Queensland. Some have their own 
small boats. 
Outside the store is a social meeting place, as only 
a couple of shoppers are admitted at a time. The 
women and girls wear loose, printed cotton dresses 
(some hare their own sewing machines). The usual 
garb of men and boys is a bright coloured lava-lava 
with a cotton singlet. The captain of Mer's lugger, 
‘Adiana, in which we sailed over to Dauar, wore a scar- 
let singlet and lava-lava. The Chairman, who went 
with us, had a white singlet and pink lava-lava with a 
wide multi-coloured crochet border down its front edge. 
Under the lava-lava they wear a pair of short, white 
pants with bright flowers embroidered on the legs, 
which also have a coloured crochet border. The lava- 
lava, at first sight a cumberstome garment, can be 
quickly girded up to a length suited to the .job in hand. 
The islanders arc* cheerful, courteous people and 
there is a strong bond of affection between members of 
a family. A ten-year-old boy patient was brought back 
on the lugger from Dauar to Her for treatment, and liis 
parents and six brothers and sisters accompanied him. 
The people of Mer are great gardeners and each 
family has its unfenced plot on the fertile soil over 
the hill, often quite a distance from the villages which 
are clustered along the northwest shore of the island. 
They grow bananas, pawpaws, cassava, many varieties of 
yams, pumpkins, sweet potatoes, maize and sugar cane. 
Every coconut palm on the island belongs to someone. A 
happy sight was a family returning home laden from 
