Evening star., 1946-02-24
Natives 10 Be 0usted
By Atom Bomb Test
Pick New Island Home
By Don Whitehead

Associated Press Foreign Correspondent
KWAJALEIN, Feb. %. Even
though Operation Crossroads
the test Of the atomic bomb against
seapower-involves a multitude of
logistical and operational problems,
the joint Army-Navy task force is
taking equal care in the relocation
of Bikini Atoll's 167 dispossesed ma
tives.
Tribal chiefs selected their new
home MISUNDERSTANDING Rong-
erik Island, now uninhabited, by a
vote of nine to three. The IL chiefs
or aleps. agreed without protest to
leave Bikini and Enyu Islands so
that the tests could be made this
spring as planned.
Navigators "by feel" of hundreds
OF miles of open sea, they knew
Rongerik and other islands of the
area. AS they explain it, they navi-
gate neither by sun nor stars, but
by "the feel' of the waves against
their TINY canoes. Trade winds may
vary slightly, but the surface waves
never do, they say-and subsurface
waves bounce back" from distant
atolls so that their pulsation may
be felt-much like radar waves
as much as 200 miles away.
Method Works.
That's their only explanation
and whatever the method, it works.
With Americas help, the dis
possessed Bikini families will re-
build their homes, government
building, churches, storehouses and
meeting places on Rongerik.
They're even counting their trees,
SO they'll be sure of getting an
equal number from Uncle Sam on
their new homesites.
The migration will begin March
l. said Comdr. Harold N. Grieve
OF Los Angeles, an architect in civil
life and now chief of staff to Com
modore Ben Wyatt of Williams
burg, KY. Comdr. Grieve is plan
ming the new village of Rongerik.
"As matter of fact" he remark
ed, "Rongerik is a better island than
either Bikini or Enyu Gin Bikini
AtolD. 1t has more coconut, pam
danaS and breadfruit trees, and is
richer, from the natives point of
view."
Census of Trees.
To make sure that no one will be
shorted on food-bearing trees in his
new home, natives are tackling an
unusual type of census. Each is
slashing the trunk of every one of
his trees on Bikini with a machete,
and sticking a palm leaf into the
cut. Then the palm leaves are COL
lected and counted-to get the num-
ber of trees.
IT'S simpler for them," Comdr.
Grieve explained. And there's no
danger of their slipping in extra
palm leaves to run up the total. The
natives are absolutely honest and
can be trusted without question"
Concrete will be shipped to Rom
yerik to build cisterns for rainwater:
here are no wells in these low atolls
Tents with wooden floors and
frames will house the new village
temporarily until thatch-roofed
dwellings, can be erected.
Churhes Are Protestant,
Their churches are Protestant
despite the fact the Marshalls were
discovered by Spanish Catholics.
Conversions to the Congregationalist
faith were made by New England
Missionaries who came to the islands
about 1850.
The Marshallese are both gentle
and intelligent; their penal code, for
instance, has no penalty for murder
because they have no murders. And
they have no illiteracy," Comdr
Grieve observed. Each child is
;aught to read and write Marshallese
"a Polynesian language with some
200 basic words. Native teachers
now are teaching the children Eng
lish, too"
The Bikini folk will move en- masse
% Rongerik, despite the fact 81
of the IL tribal chiefs preferred
other homesites. The thee said they
would accept the majoritys decision
md stay with their old friends and
1eighbors.