Mr. Rasmussen informs me that, on my recommendation, Mr. Jack Tobin has
been persuaded to join the proposed resurvey next month with Dr. Held. I think
the study group is extremely fortunate in securing his services since he worked
closely with these people during his service in the Marshalls as District Anthropologist in the 1950's, and made a special study during this time of the group
at Kili when resettlement was for a time being considered then. The decision
then was that no other islands were available or suitable for resettlement, and
the community has remained on Kili.
The essential problem with Kili is that it
has no lagoon, and during the winter months is usually impossible to service from
the sea; otherwise it has many advantages in agriculture and copra production which
Bikini does not or never did enjoy.
AS you will see from reading some of the enclosed articles, a ticklish
problem in the past has been the relation of the ex-Bikini people to the para-
mount chief Lejolang Kabua.
At present this relation has dwindled to zero.
A
return to Bikini, however, will renew this problem since Lejolang has never relinquished his rights in that atoll. JI mention this only to point out that a
resurvey of Bikini itself, in terms of its potential occupancy again by man, is
but part of the whole problem of resettlement,
Fortunately, Mr. Tobin is very
well informed on this situation, and for this reason also I am happy to see his
inclusion on the University of Washington tean.
At such time as Dr. Held and his party come through Honolulu I would be
available at any time to discuss the matter with them. I will be working this
semester mainly at home, on my research, and can be reached more easily at 34-178
(if no one answers that mumber, try 944-8415, my office mumber and the secretary
will take a message).
It has occurred to me that Dr. Held and his group might find my mamscript
very useful, and although still not published it should be obtainable in photocopy
from University Microfilms at Ann Arbor, or directly from Yale University, where
I submitted the manuscript in its original form as my Ph. D. dissertation in 1955.
I have given permission for it to be copied before, and I assume that permission
is still valid in those places. The changes I am making are relatively slight and
result from new and more information received from the people in my 1957 and 1963
field trips concerning their pre-1950 experience. Their memories by now have dimmed
and become distorted, and I fear that on some topics the only information available
at all will be from my investigation of the
the field.
50 period during those years in
Ly,
“h
andUe
eonard Mason
Professor of Anthropology