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Europeans this bit of land in the Pacific was unknown until 1767, when Midshipman Robert Pitcairn sighted it while sailing with Carteret. Its rockbound coast was of little interest to the early explorers, and it was not until a group of mutineers from the Bounty made it their refuge in 1790 that the island became prominent in Pacific Ocean history. Had the mutineers taken refuge on the island by themselves, Pitcairn would have kindled only a momentary spark of interest. But the nine British sailors who left their fellow mutineers onTahiti carried with them on the Bounty six Tahitian men and eleven Tahitian women. What happened during their self-imposed exile on the island until Captain Mayhew Folger of Boston "discovered" them in 18o8 is a sad and bloody story of no immediate concern here. Of prime significance, however, is the story not only of the biological mixing of two races but of the more interesting and fascinating mixture of two entirely different cultures and of their social and economic adjustment to life on an isolated bit of volcanic rock in a remote part of the Pacific Ocean.The water was too deep for the ship to anchor, and so we drifted quietly. We had been due for some time, and when our ship was sighted by the islanders, Pitcairn's radio sent out the message, "We have waited for you so long; welcome to our island." Soon we could see one of the whaleboats ease down the launching ramp and splash into the water. Once clear of the surf, the big white boat moved steadily toward us, oars lifting and falling in unison. There was no bungling as she came alongside, and no sooner was a > MR. FERDON is interim associate director of the Museum of International Folk Art, a section of the Museum of New Mexico, in Santa Fe.