id="ulink_1b87c866-07f8-59ad-af2a-8e6c3eaa37b1">1This historical word had a Hawaiian origin meaning ‘man’. A ‘bush kanaka’ was a Pacific Islander employed as an indentured labourer in Australia on the sugar plantations in Queensland. It came into more general colonial usage throughout Papua and New Guinea for any labourer. Initially a neutral word, it evolved into a rough form of colonial abuse, much resented by native labourers. It was also used in the islands as a term of what might be called ‘affectionate abuse’, so beloved of the Australian male when addressing each other or local ‘mates’, viz., ‘Come and have a beer you bloody kanaka!’
1Literally ‘one talk’ in Pidgin. People who share the same language, loyalties and cultural heritage. They perform shared activities and support each other as they come from the ‘same place’, village or province. The preferential nature of so-called wantokism is a source of much dissatisfaction in modern PNG and the explanation for numerous misplaced criminal accusations of nepotism in both the private and public sectors.
4. Death is Lighter than a Feather
Across the sea,
Corpses in the water,
Across the mountains,
Corpses heaped up in the field,
I shall die only for the Emperor,
I shall never look back.
Japanese Second World War Poem
No roads link Alotau, the provincial capital of Milne Bay Province, with Port Moresby. Boats are infrequent and no longer run to schedule. Fortunately, this has insulated the province from raskol activity which blights life in the Highlands. The relative isolation of Alotau meant that flying from Port Moresby was the only feasible alternative.
The ‘Islander’ light aircraft climbed laboriously out of barren Jacksons airport over the forbidding green of the Owen Stanley Ranges. A gothic landscape unfolded below, the precipitous ranges and valleys resembling the spires and flying buttresses of monumental medieval cathedrals draped in cloaks of thick, tropical vegetation. The gloom and mystery brought to mind the inconceivable hardships endured by nineteenth-century explorers who attempted to probe the interior of New Guinea from Port Moresby. Precipitous paths needed to be cut through thick jungle slowing progress to a mile a day. Sir William MacGregor, first Lieutenant-Governor and intrepid explorer, wrote in his diary of the ‘deathlike stillness’ that prevailed in the dripping fog that swirled about the moss-covered trees as he climbed Mount Victoria. Gurney airport, which services Alotau, occupies the same position it did in 1942. Charles Gurney was one of the colourful band of aviators who opened up New Guinea in the 1930s and was a squadron leader in the RAAF (Royal Australian Air Force). Below the spinning hub of the propeller, endless plantations of oil-palm unrolled sporadically through breaks in the low cloud.
The terminal was the usual fibro affair with slowly circulating ceiling fans. My luggage was quickly unloaded and packed into a truck. The road into town was severely potholed, with river fords constructed of shattered blocks of concrete. Torrents rushed across them into Milne Bay, threatening to sweep us away. It was hot and uncomfortably humid. Luxuriant vegetation swathed in mist fell like velvet curtains from the ranges lowering into the Coral Sea. The province showed little sign of development.
This formidably rich cultural area is known by Europeans as the Massim. The inhabitants speak Austronesian languages, unlike the majority of Papua New Guineans, who speak one or other of the 300 Papuan languages. Much of the Milne Bay Province consists of islands and the finely-carved artefacts reflect this marine environment. Spectacular ornamented canoes, weapons of ebony and black palm, red spondylus shell necklaces and armshells of tangled beauty, clay pots of abstract shape, and noble war shields are the legacy of the past. Gifted master carvers worked along this coast in the nineteenth century, but the production of such masterpieces has tragically declined in modern times. The culture of the north supports large village communities, whereas in the south, clusters of tiny hamlets nestle along the shore. Their belief in sorcery and magic is strong. Compulsive sweeping keeps the villages free of any personal waste that a sorcerer might fix upon and use in casting an evil spell.
Massim communities are composed of clans ruled by symbolic totems representing an animal, bird, fish or plant. Children take the totem of their mother and it is forbidden for members of the same totem to marry or have sexual relations. In the past the punishment for illicit sex was death. In the almost complete absence of tourism, apart from hermetic groups of divers, the people subsist through fishing and agriculture. Crocodiles and turtles, pigs and megapodes (a small, dark-feathered scrub fowl), bananas and coconuts are being insidiously supplanted by modern supermarket foods, particularly cheap tinned meat like Spam that has scarcely altered since it sustained troops in the Second World War.
The Massim was one of the first areas of New Guinea evangelised by British missionaries in the late nineteenth century. The local people’s profound belief in the power of magic posed the greatest challenge to Christian conversion. The villagers continue to believe that supernatural spirits inhabit trees, streams, rocky places and swamps. Belief in Jesus has not removed the fear of sorcerers who kill by projecting fatal diseases and cannibalistic flying witches that become airborne after dark, snapping bones and tearing entrails. More seductively, erotic magic weaves love spells with flowers plucked in secret groves. More optimistically, a happy life after death is guaranteed by a magic that promises three states of Paradise and an afterlife where Hell is sensibly absent.
Alotau developed from the original Second World War American military base, but the capital was transferred officially from Samarai Island only in 1968. This islet, lying off the easternmost point of the mainland, had become inconvenient as it was only accessible by sea and overcrowded with residents. Alotau has the reputation of being the safest town in Papua New Guinea, a reputation jealously guarded by the inhabitants.
I had arrived in the sultriness of mid-afternoon. Hundreds of listless people were sitting under the rain trees in the shade cast by the awnings of prefabricated supermarkets. They were almost motionless in the oven-like conditions and appeared to be in shock, as if a terrorist bomb had recently exploded. Clumps of resentful youths were chewing buai,1 smiling women in colourful cottons suffered tugging children, a covered market baked in the heat. Banana boats skittered across the glittering harbour and rusting Taiwanese trawlers disintegrated at their moorings.
A path crossed a stream, and I climbed some steep stairs through an avenue of trees past the tables of female sellers of buai. This green globular betel nut, which is the seed of the Areca palm, is laid out in carefully measured rows and beside each nut lies a small betel-pepper stick, the fruit of the pepper vine. The husk of the Areca seed is removed and the tip of the green pepper spike dipped in lime, now usually contained in an old plastic film container. The mixture is then enthusiastically chewed. In the past the powder was taken from an attractive gourd or the shell of the young coconut, often decorated with intricate burnt-in designs and fitted with a woven or wooden stopper. A beautifully carved ebony spatula with a pig or human carved on the handle would be used to remove the lime. Some spatulas were made from the bones of relatives. The family would then be able to suck the bone when taking lime as an intimate reminder of the departed. Lime powder is no longer made from crushed coral by women in secret locations. Spatulas are seldom used.
Gallons of saliva are generated from the chemical reaction and the resulting
