Our daily newspaper has a feature each day of 100 years ago from their archives. I gather this is an old-fashioned style of thing, but the Otago Daily Times is the only New Zealand-owned morning daily left and its circulation is steady, so it can afford to do what it likes, regardless of fashion.

Yesterday’s had a feature on Pitcairn Island in 1912, related by a passenger on the Frankmere which had called. The population was 150, including 67 children under 16. There was a school and a church and the same man was teacher, preacher and medical adviser. Their food was sweet potatoes, a little corn, a few yams, pumpkins and tropical fruits. [Surely they ate fish?]

Governance was by honorary officials of the Internal Committee – the chief magistrate-in-council, two assessors, the chairman and the Government secretary. They were all voted on by anyone over 18 and no canvassing was allowed. Results of the election were known in half an hour. Their duties were to look after the roads, water supply, branding of animals, poultry and goats, and public trading with any ships that called. Law cases with a penalty under £5 are tried by the magistrate but over that two assessors help. Fines can’t be paid because of the lack of money, but people work on the roads. “As the chief magistrate does not keep too close an eye on the offender, the latter simply loafs about the road until fis fine has been exhausted by the influx of time.” A religious ceremony begins and ends the day.

This information was just gained by someone en route somewhere else, so is likely to be rather truncated. And in light of sexual abuse cases in the last decade or so, not as idyllic as it might seem. 150 is less than the size of our local school which goes from Year 1 - 13, and while that allows a family atmosphere and warmth, it also is a little claustrophobic for people confined by their place and for anyone wanting to extend or change their personalities/lifestyle/attitudes, etc.

The population had shrunk to 67 in 2007. Hardly viable really.

http://library.puc.edu/pitcairn/pitcairn/population.shtml (I am a bit surprised the census data should be so freely available.)

Strangely reminiscent of the decline and eventual evacuation of Mingulay and Hirta (St Kilda) in its tale of falling numbers.

I thought of them too. Not by name, which I had forgotten, though I should be able to remember Mingulay from the lovely song. I did find their story, wherever we read about it (some castle?) very romantic and sad. It's very hard going with tiny populations, even the Chatham Islands off the coast of NZ find it difficult with a population of 600. People (especially teenagers) leave for the bigger opportunities in NZ proper and only go back for holidays. There's really only farming (and that struggles) and fishing.

Caro wrote:

a feature on Pitcairn Island in 1912, related by a passenger on the Frankmere which had called.  The population was 150, including 67 children under 16.  There was a school and a church and the same man was teacher, preacher and medical adviser.  Their food was sweet potatoes, a little corn, a few yams, pumpkins and tropical fruits.  [Surely they ate fish?]

A significant proportion of Pitcairn Islanders are Seventh Day Adventist by confession. 111 years ago it would have been almost the unanimous religion on the island. The islanders had been converted to Seventh Day Adventism in the 19th Century by missionary John Tay. A Scotsman who went to sea as a teenager, he volunteered for the U.S. navy during the American Civil War and afterwards settled in California where he joined the Seventh Day Adventist church. He then became a missionary for the church, travelling to Pitcairn Island in the 1880s and again in the 1890s. So successful was he that he even later led a mission of Pitcairn Islanders to Fiji.

One of the features of Seventh Day Adventism is vegetarianism. Officially, Seventh Day Adventists adhere to a kosher diet and indeed the ‘seventh day’ for Adventists is the Jewish Sabbath - i.e. Saturday. Blanket vegetarianism, however, is an obvious way to ensure that dietary strictures are not infringed. This would also have made sense to the islanders, because in the 19th Century a main problem of theirs was not so much underpopulation but overpopulation. So acute was overcrowding that 200 islanders had had to leave in the 1850s to settle on the much larger Norfolk Island 3,900 miles away near Australia. Removing pork from the menu (a staple across the South Pacific) would have been quite a cultural wrench but it would have freed up a lot of land for the growing of yams and taro etc. Giving up chicken would also have been difficult but in the early years of conversion it was. Unlike the pigs, however, which were all destroyed, the chickens were kept for their eggs. Goats too survived the cull for their milk. And as absurd as it may seem for a small sub-tropical island, the eschewing of fish also took place at that time. Both chicken and fish have long since returned to the kitchens, but as recently as the 1980s they were still considered foods only to be eaten on high days and holidays.

Following John Tay's visit to Pitcairn Island, the Seventh-day Adventist church in the United States built a mission ship, named the Pitcairn, which in the 1890s made several voyages to bring missionaries to the Society Islands, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji. As on Pitcairn Island these missions often made converts amongst families of European descent but they were less successful amongst the Polynesians themselves. As you say the Adventists' refusal to eat pork, fish or shellfish were large cultural obstacles to conversions: the missionaries could not join in with communal feasts nor dine with local chiefs and this greatly restricted their opportunities to evangelize. The Adventists prohibition of tobacco, alcohol, narcotics and most stimulants (were tea and coffee acceptable?) they also extended to include the mildly-stimulant drink kava (the ground root of a type of pepper plant mixed with water) which in much of Polynesia had ceremonial and traditional religious connotations, such that to refuse a cup of kava was taken as a grave insult the giver.

The traditional agricultural staples of Polynesia - taro, yams, green bananas and breadfruit - are all predominantly starchy and carbohydrate-rich but poor in protein; the lacking protein having been primarily supplied by fish and shellfish, plus occasional chicken and pork. Common vegetable sources of protein - beans, legumes and grains - were not traditionally a large part of the Polynesian diet and so I wonder if, by advocating an avoidance of meat and seafood, the Adventist missionaries were not inadvertantly promoting a diet liable to lead to widespread malnutrition rather than the hoped-for bodily and spiritual well-being. In the United States, ardent Adventists like the Kellogg brothers could readily encourage the eating of baked beans and corn flakes to make up for a lack of animal-based nutrients, but I doubt that such American-produced foods were realistic options for most Pacific islanders.

Meles meles wrote:

green bananas and breadfruit - are all predominantly starchy and carbohydrate-rich but poor in protein.

If green bananas are the same as cooking bananas a.k.a plantains, then you’ve revived a memory Meles. Over 30 years ago I briefly worked on the Cook Island ship Ngamaru. It was a supply vessel working out of Auckland and servicing the Cook Islands and the island of Niue which (like the Cook Islands) is an associated state of New Zealand. Unlike the Cook Islands (which even then had a relatively sophisticated tourist sector) Niue was pretty much the opposite. They hadn’t really got the hang of the whole tourist-dollar thing and visitors there were as likely to be feted than anything else. In Alofi (the chief settlement) I, along with a handful of other visitors, was invited to the Premier’s house for a reception. The reception would include drinks and a barbecue. On arrival at the Premier’s residence, we discovered that the guest of honour was the Australian Foreign Minister who was on a goodwill tour of various South Pacific states accompanied by his wife. This probably explained why we had been invited – i.e. to make up the numbers/interest etc.

The spread was a sumptuous Polynesian feast with yams, taro, fruit, grilled chicken and roast pork all on offer. And then there was baked fish, with the ugly-looking but delicious Orange Roughy taking pride of place and presented in banana leaves. On the actual barbecue were also offered burgers and sausages. I forwent those preferring the more authentic local fare. Sensing my interest, the barbecue master asked me if I’d care to try some barbecued plantain. Having just enjoyed a slice of barbecued pineapple, I said yes, why not. I had never eaten plantain before, and it just looked like an oversized banana. The plantain was duly placed on the barbecue and after a few minutes it was served onto my plate. Opening up the blackened skin, I was pleased to see that the flesh had remained yellowy-white. Taking a healthy forkful of it I popped into my mouth. It was only then that I realised that, rather than the soft, sweetness of cooked banana which I had anticipated, my gorge was suddenly assaulted by a dry, coarse substance which was drier and coarser than even the oldest baked potato which you could imagine. I literally gagged on it. Fortunately, the gardens of the Premier’s house were only partially illuminated, and I was able to retreat into the darkness to deposit the rest of the plantain into the undergrowth. Shortly afterwards the barbecue master asked me how I had found the plantain. “Not quite to my liking.” I said. “I didn’t think so.” He replied. “It’s an acquired taste.” He added, with a knowing wink.