The story of

The Amazing Miss Cheesman

and King Ringapat of Malakula and King George V of Great Britain.
Col Davidson
In February 1984 I noticed the following offer in Paul Dillinghams Mail Bid Sale of Pacific
Primitive Money: New Hebrides, Malekula Island. 20 string small white shell discs with
small coconut discs, polished, very old. Obtained fom King Ringapat of Big Nambas...in
original Gibbs envelope. Ex Tyrell, ex Gibbs.
Having no shellstrings from that area I purchased it, placed it in my collection, and went on
with further collecting.
Recently I was admiring my collection (as I am wont to do) and decided to check further on
the notes as to provenance. The more I checked the more interested I became in the story
behind my shellstring. Quiggins book gave me the extra information that her illustration of a
shellstring from King Ringapat mentions that the person to whom it was given was a Miss
Cheesman.
Miss Cheesman was a truly remarkable woman.
Lucy Evelyn Cheesman was born in 1881
at Boxley in Kent. Her first lessons were
provided by a daily governess and later at a
boarding school where she acquired a solid
grounding in French and German. She
became a governess and teacher but wished
to become a veterinarian. No women were
accepted at the Royal Veterinary College so
she took employment as a canine nurse in a
dogs hospital. With the outbreak of war in
1914, her fluency in French and German
brought her employment in intelligence
work in the Admiralty. At the end of the
war, through personal contacts, she was
offered the job as the first female curator of
the Insect House at London Zoo because it
was work that a woman can do and no
special knowledge is needed. She showed
remarkable flair in this position which soon
extended to giving talks on insect life and going on to publishing and broadcasting. In 1923,
while still at the zoo, she was invited to join an excursion to the Pacific Islands with the St
George Expedition which gave free passage to scientists.
The St George stopped at the Galapagos Islands, the Marquesas (where she nearly died in a
fall), the Tuamotus and Tahiti where Cheesman collected mainly entomological specimens.
The expedition was doomed to failure as it was underfinanced and the mix of scientists and
tourists did not work due to their differing interests. Her brother Percy, having heard rumours
of the financial troubles of the expedition, forwarded her 100 to ensure her independence.
This enabled her to leave the expedition at Tahiti while the expedition sailed home to
bankruptcy. In Tahiti and surrounding islands she continued to collect specimens and, when
she arrived back in England, she had about 500 specimens including a new species of
grasshopper. Her experiences decided her that, for the future, she would travel alone.
She resigned from her job at the Zoo and took an unpaid position at the British Museum
where she supported herself with talks and papers (many of which were published in
Annals and Magazine of Natural History) on entomology with which she hoped to
establish her scientific credentials and qualify for a grant to assist with a further collecting
trip.
In 1928, with a grant of 300, and the remains of a small legacy, Cheesman set off on a solo
collecting expedition to the New Hebrides.
She reached Port Vila at the end of January 1929
but was distinctly unimpressed with the down-at-
heel Capital and almost immediately re-joined the
Burns Philp vessel Makambo going to Malekula.
She intended to build a hut at some coastal
location as a base for her collecting but was
fortunate to be given the use of a house normally
occupied by Rev. Fred Paton of the Presbyterian
Mission at Ounua at South West Bay. For 12
months, assisted by local villagers, she ranged
about the island, with trips also to Santo and to
Vanua Lava, in the Banks group. Whilst on the
island she learned the local pidgin English, became
acquainted with the local people, their customs and
with Tambu the spiritual forces that regulated
much of island life. She also became familiar with
the neutral zones which allowed the people of
hostile villages to reach their gardens and used all this knowledge in her collecting, both of
insects and also artefacts for the British Museum. Later in her life she was known in Dutch
New Guinea as the woman who walks because she didnt use a sedan chair, as was the
custom for white women at the time. On Malekula she was known as a tambu woman.
This name came about through a number of circumstances. Needing a guide for a planned trip
she employed a boy from a local village but the boy was supposed to be mad as he had
murdered another man in a fit of frenzy. At the time Miss Cheesman was unaware of his
character but, by taking him on she began to build up a reputation for being immune from the
bad spirits which haunt the bush. Also her habit of keeping insects and animal specimens in
spirit with them being .presumably still alive, since even after periods of many months they
had not decomposed, culminated in her being given a name meaning that her person was
sacred.
It was here on Malekula, at Inmaru, that she met Ringapat, the widely feared chief of the Big
Nambas people. These were the people who just recently, in 1928, had killed a labour
recruiter at Malua Bay because he had kidnapped two Big Namba youths some 12 years
previously. She became friends with this chief, whose father was a cannibal, and stayed as a
guest of honour in his village for a time where she was lodged in his yam-house (which,
presumably, was also an honour). She gained Ringapats confidence to such an extent that he
brought out one of his most cherished possessions and showed her his frying pan. Now he
explained that he ate all the same as a white man.
Ringapat was a progressive man who treated his many wives much better than was normal
among his people. He was opposed to cannibalism but couldnt stamp out the practice until
certain of his older chiefs were dead as they refused to give up their old ways. Also he had
substituted pork for human flesh at the festivals for initiation of the boys of the tribe.
As a loyal subject to King George V he wanted to send his valued frying pan as a present to
the King but Miss Cheesman suggested that he possibly send another item and he decided on
a valued necklace, made of shell and coconut discs, that he wore himself and a 4.25 metre
long war spear that that had been passed down to him through generations of his family and
which he warned Miss Cheesman that if she cut herself with the spear she would die. With
the presents he
sent a vow to the
king that he
would never eat
mans flesh, white
man or black boy,
that he will never
kill a man either
white man or
black boy and will
be good to all
white men so long
as they are good to
his boys and not
steal them.
From Malekula Cheesman moved to Erromanga where her collecting was quite rewarding
and it was here that she heard, from a chief named Waris, the local explanation for the attack
on Captain Cook when he attempted to land on Erromanga from the Resolution on 4th August
1774. It was before going ashore at Polenia Bay that Cook had despatched two boats to an
islet (Goat Island) lying on a high bluff he later named Traitors Head. Cook had directed his
men there to cut wood but, to the Erromangans, Goat Island was a tambu place where the
spirits were thought to live and the island was never visited. For the white men to have
broken the tambu was enough reason to refuse them water which led to conflict resulting in
the wounding of three islanders and the death of a chief.
She then went to Tanna and from there to Aneityum where she found her health deteriorating
due to continued bouts of malaria. She decided to leave, reaching Sydney via Noumea early
in 1931 and then on to London to have the presents from Ringapat presented to King George.
The King then loaned them to the British Museum and later sent Ringapat a gift of water
tanks in return.
On her collecting trips, which might last a week at a time, she stayed with Europeans she had
met or native villagers, eating what she could find, and when there was no trail to where she
wanted to go, she cleared one. She battled fever, septic sores from leeches, recurring malaria,
being lamed for a week after a surprised bird-eating spider dropped a rock on her ankle and,
at times, she found herself perilously close to starvation. Cheesman collected no salary for
her work, and lived by her writing, lectures, selling some specimens, collecting forays and a
very few grants. By necessity frugal, she would often live for a year in the wild on what other
expeditions spent in week. On my return from any expedition, she said, I would be driven
by two necessities, first, to get money towards the next in order to provide personal wants
for I bore my personal expenses- and secondly, to share with the unprivileged my diverse
records. After reading exerpts of her
life I contacted the British Museum
hoping to be able to obtain photographs
of the spear and the necklace being held
there. An extremely helpful gentleman
from the Curatorial Collections advised
that both the spear and the necklace
were in storage, that no photograph had
ever been taken of the spear but one had
been taken of the necklace however
I couldnt get a copy. Since the items
were not owned by the museum I would
need permission from the owner to obtain copies of photographs. I feel that Queen Elizabeth
has enough on her plate without me bothering her on this matter. However the chap did say
that it is difficult to compare the illustration in Quiggins with their photograph as all that the
photograph shows is a mass of jumbled strands of strung black coconut and white shell discs.
He also attached records that show the spear tip was indeed poisoned with an alkaloid poison
similar to strychnine and that the Keeper of Minerals of the time at the museum used water,
alcohol, ammonia, carbon tetrachloride and dilute hydrochloric acid to remove the poison and
finally soaked the spear in oil to restore the surface. This sounds to me to be a bit of over-kill
but you have to be careful when royalty is involved. It was then able to be presented to the
King.
 Now, back to my shellstring and its provenance:
Paul Dillingham was a reputable and very well known dealer in Primitive Moneys mainly
during the 1970s and 1980s and sold a number of items from the collection of Howard Gibbs.
Howard Gibbs was one of the greatest and best known collectors of Primitive Moneys and it
is reported by the Numismatic Bibliomania Society that By 1930 Gibbs was already actively
collecting cut and counterstamped coins and odd & curious currency
Tyrells Museum, Sydney was a famous shop which was well known for its offerings of
Australian Aborigines and South Sea Islanders, Implements, Weapons and Curios and was
operating from the mid 1920s to the mid 1930s.

The statement that my shellstring came from King Ringapat followed the item from
Tyrells Museum to Gibbs to Dillingham.
Miss Cheesman was in Sydney for a short period in 1931.
Miss Cheesman regularly sold specimens to supplement her meagre income.
It must have come from Miss Cheesman as this is the only explanation that fits.
So, apparently, my item was a shellstring given to Miss Cheesman by King Ringapat.
My shellstring is only about twenty inches long which is much too short to be a
necklace of an important man and it is improbable that he would give her a minor
gift.

Since the gift to King George appears as amass of jumbled strands it can be presumed that
it consists of numerous strings making up a necklace. In any case, with such a mass, a small
length could easily separate.
The question that arises is whether my item is part of the original gift to King George V or
was it a separate gift to Miss Cheesman. Since it is only a short length I feel that the obvious
explanation is that it was originally part of the Kings gift that had separated from the main
batch. As a loose, short length of beads with a good story, I feel that she sold it, and possibly
other items, to Tyrells for money to help with her expenses. Then Tyrells onsold it to Gibbs
probably soon after and, if this is the case, it is part of the gift to the King. If so, I will
return it when requested to do so by the Queen.

My explanation seems, to me, to be reasonable and the most likely of the possibilities BUT
the only way to prove my hypothesis is to compare it with the necklace in storage at the
British Museum. This is not likely to happen, so Im afraid that my story ends here.

However the story of Miss Cheesman has only just begun and can easily be found by
googling on the Internet. A little of her story can be seen here:
http://semutnotes.blogspot.com.au/2007/08/about-evelyn-l-cheesman.html or
http://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p260041/pdf/ch102.pdf

Bibliography:
A H Quiggin A Survey of Primitive Money 1949
http://press-
files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/p260041/html/ch10.xhtml?referer=460&page=14
http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/th/read/CHEESEMAN-UK/2009-05/1242661939
https://pubdocs.huroncounty.ca/WebLink/DocView.aspx?dbid=3&id=76157&page=7&cr=1
&cc=1
https://www.myheritage.com/research/record-10450-26226876/sydney-morning-herald-
nsw#fullscreen
http://www.coinbooks.org/esylum_v13n22a18.html
https://www.antipodean.com/details.php?record=17414