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Show English-speaking Native Proves Marine Host By Sgt. HAROL DT. BOIAN (Marine Corps Combat Corresp.).. Somewhere In the South Pacific (Delayed).. Hundreds of Marine patrols here have come to know "Charlie," a voluntary sentry of the jungle who many times has led Leathernecks out of the maze of crossed trails and thick underbrush. under-brush. Charlie, a .Melanesian native, is Carlos Tsilivi. He lives in a jungle jun-gle village of 12 bamboo huts and he serves a connecting link between be-tween his tribesmen and the language lan-guage and customs of the West. Although his English is limited, he is easily understood. He learned to speak English from a missionary. mission-ary. This asset has brought him close to Americans. For 12 years he was a student of the missionary mission-ary and for the past five years he has been an assistant to the Padre. Conducts Village School . . . Charlies conducts school and church in his village, teaching arithmetic, geography, and the Bible. Asked why he doesnt' teach English, he grinned, "Don't speak English well myself. Would teach wrong." Charlies writes English after a fashion. He kept names and birth records of the natives in his and neighboring villages until the Japs came. "Japs burned all my papers and books, too," he said. His present pres-ent library an atlas and the Bible were gifts from Marines. Since the Americans arrived he has one birth record, that of his ten months' old son, Renunu. He recalls only the month of his other oth-er two children's births, not the clay. Ho knows he was 36 in February, Feb-ruary, 1945. His wife, Tsiubau is 28; his daughter Tehuana, fo'ur, and his other son, Mavi, is three. Teaching of arithmetic is done with dominoes, and the system is extremely successful. Ask any American who has bartered with tthese natives for souvenirs. Children Ask for Smokes . . . Charlies' people are very friendly. friend-ly. The entire population, including includ-ing the six-year-olds, smoke ciga-rets ciga-rets and chew gum. They put the touch on all visitors for these items. Charlie said the natives "have learned very much" under American Ameri-can influence. They know how to drive jeeps and trucks, military mess gear had been obtained, modern mod-ern pipes and tobacco are smoked and khakis worn. Then Charlie raised his finger for silence and said, "Listen to Nicholas." Nicholas Nicho-las was in a nearby hut, strumming strum-ming a guitar and humming "Home On the Range." But native customs still predominate. predo-minate. They sleep on mats on the ground, cook in coconut milk and America and its armed forces. He flipped open the atlas to a page displaying pictures of General A. Vandegrift, and Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander-in-Chief, Pacific fleet, and grinned happily. "We win the war," he said. herbs provide medicinal remedies. In a clearing outside the village they have gardens of peas, yams and corn. They also eat bananas and wild pigs, lizards and frogs. Sometimes parrots are eaten, but as Charlie explains, "they're too small." War Brings Guns to Island . . . Formerly birds were caught in nets, but since the war guns have been acquired. The natives never seek fish in the ocean as they can not cope with barracuda and the shark. ' Charlie's ambition is to go to America after the war "to see lots of people like Marines." There is only one phase of Amrican civilization civili-zation with which Charlie is not in complete agreement. That is his inability to understand why men must work. "Here women work," he said, "that's good." - Charlie identifies himself with |