GILBERT ISLANDS: Manners Maketh Man

From days immemorial the tawny Gil-bertese have chanted their folk sagas. Last week New York Timesman Robert Trumbull recorded one that “chanters yet unborn will sing”—the story of the U.S. 165th Infantry and the bathing girls of Makin Atoll:

To a U.S. colonel came Makin’s fat, benevolent King Nakaiea, bearing a complaint. An interpreter translated.

Did the Colonel know that Makin’s young women bathed, naked, in a certain lake? Yes, said the Colonel, he knew. Did the Colonel know that U.S. soldiers gathered around the lake and embarrassed the girls by comment and laughter? The Colonel pondered, then proposed: “I know what is in the King’s mind. I shall have a high fence built around the lake and covered with salvaged tentirg so that the young ladies’ privacy may be preserved.”

At that there was a gallop of royal words. The interpreter spoke: “The King says that the Colonel misunderstands. The King says that to look is good but to laugh is bad. He only wants the soldiers to stop laughing.”

Out went an order to all Americans on Makin. Now the bathing hour is marked by the patrolling of stern M.P.s, the gazing of frozen-faced G.I.s, the splashing of brown beauties.

Women in the Gilberts have never been wholly converted to the mission-style dress from neck to knee. By signs, a New York sergeant conveyed to a Makin girl that he wanted a grass skirt for a souvenir. Quickly she whipped hers off, politely offered it. The red-faced soldier hastily gave the gift-giver a large bandana handkerchief. Graciously she accepted, deftly wrapped it around her head.