1914 to 1945
Thoughts about Ifiri Sapan by Peter Black

Tobi and World War II

Two papers by Peter Black discuss the Tobians' conversion to Roman Catholicism during the 1930s.  The Domestication of Catholicism on Tobi (Pacific Studies, Vol. 17, No. 1, March 1994, pp. 1-28.  And The Apotheosis of Father Marino:  Foundations of Tobian Catholicism (in Culture and Christianity:  the Dialectics of Transformation, George R. Saunders, ed.   Westport, CT:  Greenwood Press, 1988, pp. 47-72).   (A version of this paper was previously published as The Teachings of Father Marino:  Christianity on Tobi Atoll  (In Mission, Church, and Sect In Oceania, James A. Boutilier, Daniel T. Hughes, and Sharon W. Tiffany, eds.  Ann Arbor:  The University of Michigan Press, 1978.   Pp. 307-354.))  The Domestication paper is a fuller account because it contains material in addition to the oral history on which the first paper is based.  The priest who converted most Tobians was Father Elias and not Father Marino. 

More about Farther Marino and Father Elias: In 2000 a U.S. Army team from the Central Idenitification Laboratory in Hawaii searched for ten days for the burial place of American airmen, Jesuit missionaries, and a family who were murdered in Ngatpang State in September 1944 by the Japanese military police. See article in Tia Belau, October 21-27, 2000, pp. 1, 11.

An account about Tobi taken from A Cruise Through Tobi and Sonsorol by Shigeru Motoda.  Kagaku Nanyo, Vol. 2, No. 2, 1939.  Pp. 44-62.  In Japanese, translator unknown.   With Illustrations and water colors.

Paul Jacoulet, an artist working in the 1920s, created the Tokobueï Sculptor. [Le Sculpteur de Tokobueï, Mere du Sud . . .]
Does anyone have any idea who this man is?


An 1945 excerpt on the Southwest Islands from the United Kingdom's Geographical Handbook Series: Naval Intelligence Division. 1945 Pacific Islands. Vol. IV. Western Pacific (New Guinea and Islands Northward). B.R. 519 C. Geographical Handbook Series. U.K.

Hasebe, Kotondo. 1928 The Tattooing of the Western Micronesians. Jinruigaku Zaashi (Journal of the Anthropological Society of Tokyo) 43(3):120-152. Good illustrations of Tobi and other (including Fais) tattoos. Connects Tobi tattoos to religious beliefs. In Japanese.

    FOTI Home
Updated: October 14, 2007