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Three Seabees (including two black Americans) barter with local traders for fruit, betel nut, walking sticks, and grass skirts

Many Islanders quickly became aware of the trade potential of their traditional arts.

Tongans sail out to the USS Enterprise to sell or trade beads, shells, grass skirts, and mats to the sailors.

Islanders and sailors from the USS Nicholas exchange grass skirts for cigarettes. [See "more images" below for complete caption]

Marines Bargaining with Natives [See "more images" below for complete caption]

Jungle Trading Post: Cpl. Robert A. Weeks a former interior decorator the painter who now uses his talent to camouflage Leathneck [sic] mechanized equipment. [See "more images" below for complete caption]

Islanders also found new markets for human skulls that were, in many areas, part of traditional religious practices. [See "more images" below for complete caption]

Dressed in native beads they received from the natives of (Mok Island) the crew traded cigarettes, razor blades, and odd bits of cloth for native handicraft and fruit. [See "more images" below for complete caption]

Lt. Geo A. Rollinsk, supply officer of 193 Inf. dickers with three natives with canes, grass skirts, et cetera, to sell.

Florida Island. . . .Native boys barter bananas for American tobacco with Marines at a Southwest Pacific Island

The Payoff: Marine Gunner Powell carefully counts out the money for the line of native women. [See "more images" below for complete caption]

Captain Moy of the Australian Army is shown here employing the natives of Bougainville to work for the Marines. [See "more images" below for complete caption]

This Melanesian construction worker, as much at home as a monkey on te framework of a warehouse for Marine Corps supplies at a South Pacific base, is proudest of his cap and his cross. [See "more images" below for complete caption]

This pix [sic] shows how native labor helped the Marines in building ford's [sic] over streams such as shown here. [See "more images" below for complete caption]

Natives washing a Navy jeep at Port Moresby, 1943

Natives of a South Pacific island join a navy labor battalion as workers and guides. [See "more images" below for complete caption]

Apprentice: This little Melanesian boy helps his elders build a warehouse for U.S. Marines at a SoPac base.