Native Life in the Loyalty Islands and Southern Nigeria

Abstract

(i) MRS. HADFIELD'S book on the Loyalty Islands is the outcome of a long residence in this group, in connection with the work of the London Missionary Society. The greater part of the time was spent on Lifu Island, but eight years were spent on the smaller island of Uvea. The account which she gives of the natives is unpretentious and straightforward, written in an easy and attractive style and with a vein of humour. She reveals her sympathy with the natives, with whom she became on excellent terms, and much of the information acquired regarding their habits, customs, and ideas was the reward of having gained the confidence of the islanders. Although but some sixty miles separate the Loyalty group from New Caledonia, the natives of the former, with their cheery disposition and laughter-loving habit, differ markedly from the dour, sullen natives of the latter. The tradition that Uvea was peopled partly by immigrants from the Polynesian Wallis Island (also called Uvea), lying about 1000 miles away, is borne out by the fact that Uvea boasts of two languages, the original “laian” and a distinct and apparently intrusive language spoken in the north and south of the island. This Polynesian intrusion explains, perhaps, the temperamental difference which is noticed between the Loyalty Islanders and the more strictly Melanesian New Caledonians, and also accounts for certain customs and appliances which exhibit Polynesian affinities.