New Zealand and the Pacific: A WAISer reports.

     Berkeley geographer David Hooson goes around celebrating geography centennials: first one in Oxford, then that of the geography department of Berkeley. His wife, Margater Mackenzie, is usually referred to as an anthropologist. However, anthropologists are now a dime a dozen, so I prefer to call her a human geographer. She is from New Zealand, and she reports from there. It sounds as though David is tagging along, presumably celebrating some centennial. She gladly suffers WAIS memos. She writes:
     I must say that I do learn a great deal, even if I do have to suffer your regular expostulations about anthropologists. I was certainly delighted to see that Ortega y Gasset is in your good books because I think of him as an important ancestral predecessor.
     It has also been most valuable to see the defence of Lewis against Insight magazine's attack.
     I was wondering about your claim of 'feigning happiness' at Corpus Christi in Brazil: do you think there was any chance that people could actually have been happy, able to make the most of a moment with flowers when their larger political context and history are so horrendous? [I agree entirely, RH].
     The Mexican situation does seem dire; there were horrible photographs of the damage in Puebla in the New Zealand newspapers. And most distressing reports that when the Germans arrived in Kosovo with KFOR, the Serbians moving out were saying they'd be back to kill the Kosovars. I have sympathy for the Serbs as well: did we achieve anything that improved on what was nearly agreed upon in Rambouillet in seventy-eight days of bombing except more centuries for the bitterness to smoulder? [The Germans suffered terribly because of Hitler; it is terrible that the Serbs had to suffer similarly because of Milosevich. Now he must go too. RH.]
     Auckland is full of energy raising money for the Kosovar refugees who have arrived, including a symphony concert. In my Oceania anthropology newsgroup, there are reports about preparing the housing that has just been vacated by the athletes at the South Pacific Games for the Kosovar refugees coming to the US! That will warm them up!
     There are also reports of the riots in Honiara, so that many expatriates have been evacuated, but I'm sure that doesn't reach any US news media: it's about trouble in the Solomons between Guadalcanal and Malaita.
     The United States government is not appreciated here just now: very severe tariffs have just been slapped on New Zealand (and Australian) lamb exports, even retrospective ones, in a capitulation to the farm lobby. Ironically, the APEC meeting will be held here in September, and Clinton and Barshevsky are to visit in what is supposed to be a promotion of free trade.
     My comment: As I look west from my den, only a line of hills separates me from the Pacific, but it is the area of the world I have least grasp of; too many islands scattered at random. David and Margaret must feel happy knowing that my den has shelves of boxes of maps, so I dug out one of the Pacific to check on Margaretīs report on the Solomon Islands There they are, just south of the Equator, separated by the Solomon Sea from Papua New Guinea.
     They were discovered in 1568 by the Spanish navigator Alvaro de Mendaņa de Neyra, who called them the Solomon Islands because of their supposed wealth, which was also the reason why the Spaniards kept their discovery secret. He referred not to Solomon's wisdom but to his gold; some alluvial gold was found later on Guadalcanal, but the main mineral wealth is bauxite, for which the Spaniards had no use. It is the source of aluminum, which was not developed until the nineteenth century.
     The capital of the Solomons, Honiara, is on Guadalcanal, the Spanish-Arabic name of a tiny montain village in Andalusia; I found it on a detailed map of that area. I suppose it was the birthplace of Mendaņa de Neyra, or one of his men. Malaita is the next island.
     Margaret is right, the American press has said nothing about the fight between two islands. Solomon could settle it. Tell us more about it, Margaret.
     A footnote: We have a Tonga couple taking care of us. I just knew that the Tonga people I meet here are burly and seem threatening. However, our Tongan couple are kind, gentle people. He is the leader of a Tongan Methodist flock here; she, a Catholic, became a Methodist upon marriage.
     Did you know that the capital of Tonga is Nuku'Alofa? The international date line bends east around Tonga and New Zealand. Tonga would be a good place to go to greet the year 2K. Change planes in Hawaii. Take a map to know where you are.

Ronald Hilton - 06/19/99