equivalent of Charles being Carolus, hence Caroline. The other name for Ulithi, and one frequently found on maps, is MacKenzie, the name of an early British explorer. Ulithi is a native name, and its etymology is known today but to a few octogenerians who recall the legend surrounding it. Ulithi as a word dates back to an early native practice of the dead. Literally it means, "Put your head toward the setting sun." Bury the dead with heads pointing westward.
When Jimmy Durante took part in WVTY's dedicatory program from Hollywood, he asked: "Ulitti! What kind of a name is dat? U-litti! Yeah, now I remember. Dat's da home of Umbriago, da great U-litti genius!" Perhaps the great Schnozzola could have out-double-talked himself if he had known some of Ulithi's other names—Mogmog, Mogumogu, Mokomok, Ouluthy, Uluti, and Urushi.
In the 19th century, the rise of the whaling industry ranging from Ulithi to the Bonin islands, brought the natives into an unhappy contact with white men. The seamen brought in guns and whisky, and bartered for food, water, and mother-of-pearl. But the worst of the white man's presents was disease—venereal and small pox, mumps, measels, and whooping cough, which were mild to Europeans but catastrophic for the natives because they had no resistance to them. Almost two-thirds of the native population of the Carolines died during the nineteenth century from imported disease.
In the latter part of the nineteenth century, first Germany and then England contested Spain's claim to the Carolines. The matter was referred to the Pope, who ruled in favor of Spain, but who stipulated that the islands should
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