When Cultures Collide . . .

9-15-12

I live in California, which has a huge connection to Pacific cultures (I grew up in Massachusetts).   In the two decades after WWll, my exposure to “other cultures” was primarily European immigrants who were wading into the Great American Melting Pot.

The boys who joined the Navy after Pearl Harbor by and large found themselves heading off into the Pacific   – a vast, exotic, mysterious place where there were islands inhabited by half-naked tribesmen who traveled by canoe; and there were ancient, sophisticated cultures with bustling cities.   There were headhunters (New Guinea) and there were people who worshiped strange gods. There were pineapples and coconuts and palm trees.   And there was the enemy.   The people and places under the aegis of the Empire of Japan.

The men aboard the Boston must have felt a little off balance sometimes . . .

Some of the lagoons they anchored in were, in fact, inhabited by native peoples. While the lagoons in the Marshall Islands were remote and the native populations were quite small, the islands in and around Australia were a different story.   In November of 1944, the Boston spent a couple of weeks in drydock at Manus Island, a bustling Naval Base filled with Allied ships in the Admiralties.   Thanks to Bernard Oster, ship’s photographer, we catch a couple glimpses of cultures bumping into each other on Manus.   Below is a picture of Captain Herrmann (right) holding a native drum and posing with a couple of locals. (How he got the drum is something we can only guess.   Barter? Presentation? Gift?)