Blog update- Palmerston
CuriousOyster
Steve & Trish Brown
Sat 7 Aug 2010 09:10
|
As I have said in an earlier update the people on
Palmerston Atholl are descended from one Englishman, William Marsters, his
Polynesian wife and her two cousins......He had 27 children by these three
"wives" and divided the Atholl and the main Motu into three distinct family
groups. He forbade them to marry within there own family group but allowed
marriage across family lines...this is still the rule today...This makes for an
intersting geneology and social structure and a visit to Palmerston leaves the
visitor with a strong sense that happy families it is not! If you want to know
more about life on Palmerston then Google it as I'm sitting on the fence! here
are some images from our time there.
  The headstones in the cemeteries on Palmerston were
well kept and expensive for such a small and relatively poor
island.
The families adopt each of the cruising boats and
do not like their adopted boat to fraternise with other families. We managed to
convince them to let us hold a cruisers pot luck lunch and invite their
own family. There is a rigid social structure and the men would not eat
with the cruisers until we had finished, only after they had eaten could the
children eat and only after the kids could the women eat.
  Palmerston is part of the Cook Islands and receives
some aid from New Zealand but is poor by any standards. Family tensions are
eased when it comes to pooling important resources and they shared a centralized
workshop, fuel, generators, etc.
 |