By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Marion Kelly, retired professor of ethnic studies at the University of Hawai'i, can't decide why one of her relatives on remote Fanning Island doesn't seem to like her.

They are both descendants of William Greig, who operated a coconut plantation on Fanning about 150 years ago and married a woman from the Cook Islands. His six sons and five daughters added to the global population boom.

The old man on Fanning refused to look at the camera when Kelly snapped his picture. He thrust a book about Greig genealogy at her in a resentful way.

"Maybe you were a threat to his reputation as keeper of the knowledge," I said. "Say he's the patriarch of the family on Fanning. Along comes this hotshot lady from Hawai'i with a lot of new information. So he got upset."

Kelly suspects that her relative's lack of aloha stems from something else. After watching a PBS show about black people in the United States returning to their roots in Africa, I can see why. One African American described her contact with relatives she met in African as a love-hate relationship.

"We're family but they resent our affluence," the African American said.

Kelly arrived at Fanning on board the luxury cruise ship Norwegian Star with three other Greig descendants from the United States and Canada who were returning to their roots. She said passengers pay $6,000 for a stateroom on a two-week cruise, "but you have to buy your own wine."

Meanwhile, some of the residents of Fanning Island live under shelters made of tin and scrap lumber, she said. The bare-frame schoolhouse looks like a dilapidated barracks.

The Greig family she met on Fanning lives in a nice house. There is one store with merchandise from a supply ship that arrives once a month — except if it needs repair. Then the people on Fanning do without. There is no doctor.

I told Kelly that Fanning sounds like remote islands I've visited — like Satawal, the home of Mau Piailug — but that doesn't mean the people are poor. They have fish, taro, coconuts, breadfruit and a lot of pride in their island.

Kelly said the difference is culture. Fanning was explored by ancient Polynesians but uninhabited when the coconut plantation started up. Greig brought in 100 Manahikians. Later, laborers came from the Gilbert Islands, now called Kiribati. There is no hereditary chief on the island, no traditional government.

The arrival of the Norwegian Star provides an opportunity for everybody to profit. Each family sets up a table under the shade trees to sell its handicrafts.

She said the contrast between the luxury of the cruise liner and the poverty of the islands is startling. But not everybody resents the wealthy visitors. A woman named May took the bag of thrift-shop clothes that Kelly lugged on shore and promised to distribute them.

"What they need most is medical attention," Kelly said.