Good point on the perspective of the different parties.
If Amelia Earhart was not well known to the settlers, they may not have known her importance, much less cared to remember. And
Isaac sent a telegram to Gallagher informing him the bones were from an elderly Polynesian, bones being sheltered 20 years or more. Some settlers may have been told this.
So it is possible that as far as some settlers were concerned, the bones found somewhere else had nothing to do with the plane wreck.
Although the plane was described as being there when they got there, it may have been spotted sometime after and assumed to have been there first based on it being “rusty”, “useless” as Emily describes. They already described as being there “sometime before we got there”, which is already an assumption of some length of time, so the plane wreck may have been discovered after Gallagher died, and the same assumption made.
My best guess for the two different perspectives:
1. Gallagher never knew of the plane wreck because it was discovered after he died but deduced by settlers later to have been there before they got there.
2a. Some settlers never knew the importance of Earhart or that the bones were suspected to be hers and may have been told they were from an elderly Polynesian, dead more than 20 years.
2b. Some settlers, closer to people who knew more made the connection. Emily made the connection per her relation to her father who was both carpenter for the bone box and a fisherman who saw the plane. My guess is her father was told about the bones being an “elderly Polynesian” but not Emily.
From
Emily’s discussion of the plane wreck and bones:
RG: What can you tell us about the bones that were found?
ES:
Some Gilbertese went to fish, they saw in the shallows some pools, at the place where the plane crashed,
some bones, and they knew these were human bones because of the skull bone. They went and reported to Teng Koata, there were bones. So from that
they assumed that these must have been the bones of those who were in the plane when it crashed. These were under the plane, near the plane. This was near the top end of the steel.
RG: Did you see the bones?
ES:
I didn’t see them. We were forbidden, but my father told us.
RG: Were the bones found while you were on the island or did this happen before?
ES: These bones were found when we had already arrived on the island.
These Gilbertese came and found bones and reported to Teng Koata. Then Teng Koata took them to the European. So it was arranged for a box to be made for the bones and the bones were brought. There were not many bones.
RG: Were any other bones ever found on Niku?
ES:
Only these few bones they found. They do a search around that area but they found no other bones. Only these big bones that they found. I do not know how many. My father knew”
I think Emily just mixed up the timing of two events.
The
red notes are from the discovery of the bones. Note how close the red parts fit Gallagher’s reports
The
blue notes are possibly from the event where the plane was discovered