Real Life Robinson Crusoes
SARASIJ MAJUMDER
Peter Warner, an Australian seafarer whose already eventful
life was made even more so in 1966 when he and his crew discovered six
shipwrecked boys who had been living on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific
for 15 months. Peter died on April 13, 2021 in Ballina, New South Wales. He was
90.
In June 1965 the boys, all students between 13 and 16 years
old from a boarding school in Nuku’alofa, had stolen a 24-foot long boat and
gone for what was intended as a maritime joy ride. Before setting sail they
brought food that they took from their homes and a few Liters of water that
they were able to collect. That same day they set sail on an adventure.
A few hours into
their trip, though, a fierce wind broke their sail and rudder, setting them
adrift for eight days. Then luckily they reached at an uninhabited island.
The children managed to get water from the coconuts and got to
eat some fish they caught. At first the boys lived off raw fish, coconuts and
birds’ eggs. After about three months, the real luck came when they climbed to
the top of a cliff and found an abandoned settlement, the ruins of a village,
and their fortunes improved — amid the rubble they discovered a machete,
domesticated taro plants and a flock of chickens descended from the ones left
behind by the previous inhabitants. They also managed to start a fire, which they
kept burning for the rest of their stay.
"The children had established a small commune with a
food garden, hollowed-out tree trunks to store rainwater, a gym with weights, a
badminton court, chicken runs and a permanent fire."—Reported Peter, after
witnessing it, later.
The children established rules, worked in pairs and there
were even punishments if anyone disobeyed.
After 1 year and three months specifically, Australian
captain Peter Warner discovered the abandoned children-- “I thought, that’s
strange that a fire should start in the tropics on an uninhabited
island,” he said in a 2020 video interview. “So we decided to
investigate further.”
The story of the 1966 rescue, which made Mr. Warner a
celebrity in Australia, began during a return sail from Nuku’alofa, the capital
of Tonga, where he and his crew had unsuccessfully requested the right to fish
in the country’s waters. Casually casting his binoculars at a nearby island,
‘Ata’, which was thought to be uninhabited, he noticed a burned patch of
ground.
As they approached, they saw a naked teenage boy rushing
into the water toward them; five more quickly followed. Recalling that some
island nations imprisoned convicts on islands like ‘Ata’, he told his crew to
load their rifles.
But when the boy, Tevita Fatai Latu, who also went by the
name Stephen, reached the boat, he told Mr. Warner that he and his friends had
been stranded for more than a year, living off the land and trying to signal
for help from passing ships.
Mr. Warner, still sceptical, radioed Nuku’alofa.
“After 20 minutes,” he said, “a very tearful operator came
on the radio, and then amongst tears he said: ‘It’s true. These boys had been
given up for dead. Funerals have been held. And now you have found them.’”
As they later told Mr. Warner, they finally spotted ‘Ata’,
about 100 miles south of Tongatapu, the main island of Tonga. It had once been
home to about 350 people, but in 1863 a British slave trader kidnapped about
150 of them, and the Tongan king relocated the rest to another island, where
they would be protected.
The children were generally in good health when Warner found
them.
Back in Tonga, Mr. Warner was greeted as a hero. King
Taufa’ahau Tupou IV, who had earlier denied him fishing rights, reversed
himself. But the owner of the stolen boat was not in a celebratory mood, and he
had the boys arrested. He dropped the charges after Mr. Warner offered to
compensate him.
The story captivated Australia; a year later the Australian
Broadcasting Corporation sent Mr. Warner and the boys back to the island to
recreate aspects of their ordeal for a film crew. Other documentaries and
newspaper features followed.
The news media cast the story as a real-life version of “Lord
of the Flies,” William Golding’s 1954 novel about a group of boys stranded
on an island who descend into murderous anarchy. But this was nothing like Mr.
Golding’s book: The six boys flourished in their spontaneous community, suggesting that cooperation, not
conflict, is an integral feature of human nature.
“If millions of kids are required to read ‘Lord of the
Flies,’ maybe they should also be required to learn this story as well,” the
Dutch historian Rutger
Bregman, who wrote about the episode in his book “Humankind: A Hopeful
History” (2020)
References:-
1.0 Book HUMANKIND: A Hopeful Story by Rutger Bregman.
2.0 News Clips—in net.
3.0 Photos-- NET
A fascinating history, many thanks for bringing it for my knowledge. A good director should make a movie out of it.
ReplyDeleteA MOVIE IS THERE.
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