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Return to the Islands

This Happy Breed of Men

This Happy Breed of Men

I am sure King George V would have been surprised at the number of poor relations he had among our government staff in the islands. It wasn't that any of us ever, to my knowledge, had presumption enough to claim for himself even the remotest degree of consanguinity with the Sovereign. The idea came from our parishioners. These looked at things from the basic assumption that a great chief would naturally want all the jobs everywhere for his own flesh and blood. If he hadn't that amount of family love in his heart, he couldn't conceivably be a great chief, they said. So, inasmuch as King George was a great chief, particularly well known for the example of family love he set, it followed that every one of us, whatever his rank in the local service, had to be either a blood relation of his or at least one of his in-laws.

The courteous hypothesis about a new officer always allowed him the higher of these degrees, i.e., the blood royal, for a start. But from then on, the correctness of the assumption was strictly under test. If in fact it was incorrect, the page 154truth would surely out, for the breed could not but tell, said the islanders. In other words, kingly was as kingly did; or, even better, kingly was as kingly didn't, because the virtues attributed to royalty seemed always to be expressed as avoidances. Not to be a physical coward; not to boast, not to shout when annoyed; not to be pompous, or unun (addicted to anger), or tiritiri (quick to violence) with anyone, or parsimonious to family, or discourteous to dependents: this ideal list of royal negatives was written down for me by Airam Teeko of Abemama, a chief of the house of that redoubtable Tem Binoka, whom R. L. Stevenson made famous in the late eighties.

It was a modest enough standard to live up to; further-more, I don't think it was ever very straitly applied to any of us. The amazing affection of the islanders for our race wanted every one of us to prove royal if possible. But there had to be now and then a throw-out. The King's blood could not be insulted by retaining really dyed-in-the-wool boasters or shouters, for example, on the panel of his putative kinsmen. So these were relegated in due course to the panel of his in-laws, and he was respectfully commiserated for having had such unfortunate alliances foisted upon him; or, as in very bad cases like Albert's down at Arorae, they were declared to be rang, or baseborn pretenders, and dismissed from memory, never to be named again.