"Primitive Pitcairn" (1936 Documentary)

Ezreal Britannic Majesty's ship the bounty she sailed the seas 150 years near the island of Tahiti her crew mutiny and set the captain adrift in an open boat and so was born that fling saga of the sea mutiny on the bow famed in history in literature and on the silver screen at a cinema now the penalty for mutiny is death so the mutineers some wood lovely native Tahitian wives set out to find an unknown I hoping they might never see a strange white face again eventually they found petcare a bald lifeless rock lost in the vast ocean wastes let's sail today in the wake of the moment our modern steamship in desperate battle with that same churning Pacific the little bounty fought so valiantly until we rediscover the rock found refuge to which fled the renegade crew selected by the mutineer leader Fletcher Christian because if known at all hit Cannes actual position was almost legendary he chose wise even today Pitcairn is far from the ocean lanes used by travelers stark and jagged it has no harbor where to ship my editor nothing but a cruel armor of murderous reefs which protects it now from the encroachments of civilization as if protected Fletcher Christian and his mutineers from the scope as it has kept intact to this day the isolation and the primitive simplicity of some 200 sold for unfit can today live only the descendants from marriage and intermarriage of those desperate English sailors and their brown skinned wives perhaps therefore we can find in pet care in a modern utopia the land where in truth the only law is the law made by the people entirely for the people this then would be utopias only town Adams town a flimsy group with improvised houses filled of driftwood and the wreckage of ships no real estate taxes here no personal property taxes and no income taxes because no one on Pitcairn has any income at all this remnant of the bounties rudder proves that she was indeed built of stout English oak and good hand wrought iron a priceless relic only recently discovered from its grave beneath the sea for a century and a half but strangely enough without the slightest help from modern science a pet care and baby objects to its path just as babies do in Boston London or Kankakee the United amalgamated consolidated pet care laundry just imagine your favorite shirt coming home from this modern machine building roads on Pitcairn is a very simple matter everybody goes to work everybody pays his road tax with his strong right arm they are both builders to the finest surf boats afloat are built on pet care for essentially the Islanders have been studying and experimenting often at the risk of their lives in order to build boats that can conquer the merciless surf strangely enough these boats are built 500 feet above the sea and carry down the mountain the first taste their native element all the battles of England are not one on the cricket fields of Eton for there are cricket bats even on Pitcairn the primitive handsaw each family has one but fit Cairns native wood is almost useless for construction purposes because of its soft and spongy fiber like many and other primitive people the Pitcairn Island is long ago discovered for themselves the secret of hillside farm these are man-made terraces improvised in an effort to coax just a little more fertile response from the unwilling soil not many things grow on Pitcairn one of the crops is sugar cane which is lugged to a community mill try hitching yourself up with a horse sometime it's supposed to be very good for your waistline this is the only horse on the Iowa probably the only horse in all the world which belongs equally to 200 people so with one horsepower and 20 foot power the succulent cane juice is squeezed out to be allotted share and share alike among the residents the taro plant is one of 50 Aaron's most important food items a busy industry is the preparation of the Roofus that Carens babies are practically reared on taro root and coconut milk see that toh haired youngster on the left I wonder what Tony headed English sailor man of the bounty bequeath those blond locks and here's little viola Kristian direct descendant of the mutineer leader and a worthy example of Pitcairn's younger son so the indispensible seasoning of all food comes from the sea itself and gasoline cans bartered from passing ships saltwater is carried up to the boil with long and arduous labor they extract the powdery product that you shake so lightly from your silver container even on Pitcairn there is also hunger of the soul violins can be made strings can be twisted from gut to string her bow this girl used her own hair from the violin comes a plaintive lament brought from Tahiti by her ancestor the listening child broods moodily the tragedy in her eyes bread of that day a hundred and fifty years ago when white men and brown women left their Tahitian paradise for this desolate rock primitive arts have not changed and Annie McCoy direct descendant of semen Lakota one of the new veneers is weaving a basket from the leaves of the pandanus Park her gnarled old fingers do his death to job as they did sixty years these fancifully painted coconuts are not for home consumption they're destined to travel to land so different that the coconut Pater herself will not believe you if you tell her about them and these boys have not made these little sailboats to be their own playthings what is the answer to all this industry once more Pitcairn is going to have contact with the outer world a steamer has been cited and Pitcairn is going to go shopping the children can't go along but just as excited as your children at Christmas time they climb coconut trees to stare wide-eyed down on the crew trails from Adamstown 500 feet above the sea comes everyone each bringing what he or she has been able to manufacture out of nothing perhaps a year's work of a whole community has gone into these plaintive bundles of homemade work out come the Pitcairn boats for no ship would dare launched its boats in an effort to land them even in this Bay where years ago the fugitive Fletcher Christian burned and sank the bounty it's hard work going shopping on Pitcairn for shopping reaches its rarest form when you have to risk your neck to sell your basket and only the Pitkin Islanders those who live here and know the treacherous breakers their chance their fury a friendly will first row and the passengers gaze down in wonder is the folks to fire to sea itself the pitiful souvenirs of Pitcairn are brought to market for mark sometimes a curious passenger wants to visit the island so he or in this instance she must be lowered to the boat while the children stare on the study some of the very young ones have never spoken to a stranger bargain day is over sales and trades are made and the people of fifth gear and beat their way back against the tearing relentless sea and when the visitor first comes close to the island with its precipitous walls and its crashing surf he realizes how well let your Christian chose his tragic hiding place even in the calmest weather a heavy surf rips through the narrow passageway between rocks and a bounty Bay the only place in all the island where the landing may be negotiated and what did the Pitcairn errs by with the fruits of their labors first and most important some loner nothing is more precious on Pitcairn the lumber good work up a lumber with which to bolster up the sagging homes in the ancient church the Islanders gather at the community center where everything from the ship is pulled into one community interest in each of the fifty two families receives its new share these tin pails contain flour and tonight there will be feasting on Pitcairn and if Johnny is a very good boy he'll be allowed to have a piece of real white bread for dessert the visitor to Pitcairn may see something older and perhaps even more significant than the children of that famous mutiny which wrote Pitcairn's name on history's record Fletcher Christian told his young Tahitian wife that the island was unknown and uncharted and his first investigations prompted him to believe it had never been inhabited and then one day the beautiful Polynesian girl led him high into the rugged mountains and there showed him the record of the people who had lived there hundreds of years before perhaps as far back as the Stone Age an unknown people who had occupied Pitcairn and then disappeared into the thin air leaving only these weird and primitive hieroglyphics as a record of their stay well the great day is over the visitors have gone back to the ship that cans gallon boats are hauled up and put away until fate shall make them useful again and if it cairn is happy thrilled with its few pounds of flour its sticks of lumber its packets of needles and thread it settles down to wait the next ship this year next year and all of fit cans 200 simple souls are unaware that the greatest luxuries of which they could possibly dream can be bought by you and you and you in the nearest five and ten cents utopia i won

Channel: Michael Salcedo

Views: 40,829

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Id: jIOxzeYkrvo

Length: 9min 11sec (551 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 19 2014