Evacuation of Bikini !
Early in 1946 it was decided that Bikini Atoll was the most
Suitable iocation for tne testing of atomic weapons.
people were asked
to leave and,
The Bikini
as mignt have been expected of a
people of their historical conditioning to obedience,
especially
after more than @ quarter of a century of autocratic Japanese
rule, agreed to leave their ancestral home.
of resettlement
in the Marshalls were
very
The possibilities
limited because land
1s scarce (only about 74 square miles) and very little of it ts
available for settlement.
The Marshallese jealously guard their
land rights and will not willingly part with them.
r
Problems of Resettlement
The 166 Bikinians were offered the choice of moving to
either Ujae,
Marshalls.
Lae,
or Rongerik,
all
by the people
who had land rights on the atoll.
to make copra,
to fish,
presumably,
to Bikini,
in
the northwestern
Ujae and Lae were already regularly inhabited,
Rongerik was only exploited
reason,
atolis
and
as well
but
of neighboring Rongelap,
These people visited Rongerik
to gather other foods.
For this
as
the
the fact
that
it was
closest
the Bikini people opted to go to Rongerik rather than
Ujae or Iae.
A village was built on Rongerik by Navy Seabees and a group
of Bikini men,
1
and ail of the Bikini people were moved to that
por a detailed report of Lhe movements of tne Bikini people
from Bikini to Rongerik and to Kili, see Mason, Leonard
The
Bikinians A Transplanted Population, | Human Organization,
Vol.
9,
No.
1,
Spring 1950,
5009012
pp.
5-15.
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