A Study of the Tolai in New Britain

Tolai are about 40,000 Melanesiani natives residing in the Gazelle Peninsula of New Britain in the vicinity of Rabaul. When one of us (L.T.C.) was medical superintendent of the Nonga Base Hospital at Rabaul, a study of some 285 Tolai was undertaken. As far as we are aware this is the first survey of the blood groups, heights and weights of the Tolai, although some Tolai were probably among the unclassified subjects listed by Heydon and Murphy (1923) and by Dunn, Kooptzoff, Price and Walsh (1956). Some representative Bainings who lived in a village in the interior of the Gazelle Peninsula were tested by Semple, Simmons, Graydon, Randmae and Jamieson (1956) but they are physically and culturally distinct from the Tolai. The blood groups of four adjacent linguistic groups in the central region of New Britain (Kahuna Marmisi, Kisiluvi Mamusi, Central Nakanai and West Nakanai) have been investigated by Simmons, Gajdusek and Larkin (i960). A group of 103 subjects from West Nakanai were also tested by Simmons, Graydon, Semple and Swindler (1956). The Tolai people were not co-operative in permitting examination or blood collection in the villages or in family groups. The subjects of the survey were therefore obtained from several sources. The first 121 blood samples were collected at the hospital from patients and staff and included some women in the last month of pregnancy. The weights of the pregnant women and the haemoglobin values of the patients have not been included in the analyses. The remaining 164 samples were obtained from children and adolescents attending three schools. Some were boarders with supervized diets and regular routines ; others were pupils who lived in their own villages and attended school daily.