sorted Australians Make Mixed-Up New Guineans

[?] Reviews (Cont'd) sorted Australians Make Mixed-Up New Guineans

Although some anthropologists are acknowledged to be t bad blokes, personally, their profession continues to be yarded with suspicion and even ridicule by the residents of ands north and north-east of Australia who have been most igued by them in the last couple of generations.

IRE are several reasons for ils. The mere fact that the nthropologist goes off and native is sufficient to brand is eccentric, anyhow. But what ibably more important in get residents’ collective goat, is .ssumption of superior know on the part of the visiting opologist. trader, missionary, adminis n officer or planter worth his vould agree that 20 years in slands has taught him noth about natives, while three is has been sufficient to give mthropologist all the correct TS. this reason, Mambu, a study w Guinea cargo-cults, by Dr.

L. Burridge, is no more likely come standard equipment in New Guinea households than :ores of other anthropological that have gone before. It is ful if it were ever intended ymen, anyhow; and, at times, the Doctor has a rush of language to the head, it as though it were written for other PhD’s, etheless, Mambu is worth the of reading it, even if the lay has occasionally to seek the mce of a good standard dic-

The Cult

1952 Dr. Burridge spent some is in the Bogia sub-district of ig, New Guinea—partly jst the Hangu people who live miles inland from the coast: artly on Manam Island which ut 10 miles off the coast, was attracted to this area >e it had had two periods of cult activity within a decade, first manifestation was r , Mambu, who had his day 7-38, and the second through over a period 1946-50. Both sts ended up the same way— ol —but Yali and his works, os because the Administra ted to use them in the com ;ause, are known and remem by most present day Terri s. ;o-cult did not, of course, be th Mambu nor end with Yali. a phenomenon that has oc at irregular intervals all over outh West Pacific in the last irs. Similar movements occur icr primitive countries.

Mew Guinea, cargo cult out

r , „ „ , . breaks follow roughly the same sort of pattern. They commence with the emergence of an individual as a local messiah, who, conditional on the observance of his commands,

promises the people “cargo”—that is, manufactured or imported goods such as cotton cloth, rice, canned food, razor blades and anything else the Europeans have in quantities and the natives not at all. The be lief is that these things—highly prized by the native—have been created by his ancestors and sent to him on some sort of heavenly ship (or sometimes a plane) but that the consignments have been cunningly intercepted by the Euro peans and used for their own pur poses.

It is, of course, a confused idea born of a complete lack of under standing of civilised economics, manufacturing processes and

monetary systems—and helpi along by such simple phenomd as the fact that while the natr has to pay his shillings over tl trade-store counter to buy import goods, the Territorian frequent appears to achieve the same thii by simply writing a note. The u sophisticated savage doesn’t kn< about the bills, inevitable as deal rolling in at the end of the montl Cargo cult is not just a meal of getting European goods cheap or by supernatural means. If were as simple as that, the fa that the “cargo” never does tu up would be the end of the lir But the cult, in so far as it partly religious and cultural, 9 something of an end in itself. I

Flowers Make it Easier

The activities of Mambu and Ys did not run parallel but the fa that Mambu had existed, did, a cording to Dr. Burridge, lei naturally to Yali 10 years later. B fore the war, Yali had been a T Tul in a village near Bogia; lat he became a police sergeant ai during the war was in the nati regiment and was decorated. ] In 1946 he started work in t) Bogia district and with the “fi cognizance” of the Administrate he went round the villages enjoii ing natives to obey the AdminisW tion and appointing “clerks ai boss-boys” to assist Luluais ar Tul Tuls.

He instructed the people to bui triumphal arches at the entrano of villages, and fill vases wil flowers “to make the work see: easier”. With Yali went a band] followers or disciples who ii creasingly got out of hand.

The Administration was unhapj about the appointment of boss-bo; and clerks—and no doubt dowi right alarmed about the vases I flowers —and when Yali began collect illegal taxes they had I act.

However, they felt that his ii fluence with the villagers, his ow expressed wish to aid Administn tion and his undoubted abilit made him too good to lose. The sent him to Port Moresby to be “ii structed”.

Part of the instruction consistc of telling him where manufacture goods came from—that they had t be “made with the hands, worke for in sweat and eventually pai for” —and in this his instruct? appears to have been less tha completely successful. According t Burridge, final disillusionment cam when some European told Yali tha white men did not really believe !

Christianity—that it was just i hoax by the missions—but believe in Evolution.

It is unlikely that Yali absorbe much from his instruction in Evo lution, either, only the uncertain® and resentment remained.

He went back to Bogia but in

isingly was influenced by his iples. Truculent defiance racterised the whole district; •e was trouble in the labour s, while mission and Adminis ion influence waned, tie end of Yali was inevitable.

L 950 the unlikely charge of rape brought against him, and k; he was sentenced to a term mprisonment. (Rape, according Burridge, was an extraordinary :ge as women went to great ths to attract Yali’s attention , it was rumoured, paid 5/- to 3 intercourse with him.) ambu is an exhaustive study of :o-cult and of the things that >are the climate for it. It is necessary to agree with the lor wholly or even in part to most of it interesting. And it

le Haus Tambaran influence is strong around Maprik, New tea. These photographs show new Native Local Government ncil meeting house at Maprik— t by the natives and financed axes they levy. The lower photo ie new Roman Catholic Church, at Maprik . that was officially ted in early November. Compare e photos with the one of a real s Tambaran on page 78. The >rik Sub-District is the home ot 's e extraordinary structures :h are 30 to 40 feet above ground ie peak, and have the character painted facade. In native life ' are sacred to the men of the \ge.

also has the merit of a couple of fresh angles.

European traders and planters will, for example, be charmed to know that although they are tradi tionally the villains of the piece in the Territory, they are not primarily to blame for cargo-cult. According to Dr. Burridge, the private enter prise group in the Territory has a negligible influence —natives under stand trade and bargaining and so long as the private individual does not try to uplift them or direct them, the natives can cope quite well.

It is the missionary and the Ad ministration officer who, while making no demands in the economic field, demand a “moral surrender, acquiescence to a highly variegated

but unsystematised set of political and religious forms and beliefs”.

This is, in effect, “attempting to buy a man’s soul”.

For much the same sort of reason, the natives look back on the German era as a Golden Age— sometimes to the confusion of more enlightened Europeans who came after. German requirements were clear cut and precise; the natives knew where they stood.

Today, although all Europeans may be divided loosely into Admin istration, missionary or private enterpriser, the divisions don’t stop there but branch off into an alarm ing diversity of creeds, backgrounds, and patterns of social behaviour.

The only thing a native can pre (Over)

about a Territorian today is he will be unpredictable. And 11 adds up to confusion, and sionally to manifestations like D CUlt. iMBU. Published by Methuen & Co.

London. UK price, 42/-.)

Old Man's a

hnan—or Something

ITH SMITH is as famous in Australia as Art Linkletter is in America and for the same m: They both make a living of interviewing children, im iptu, on radio. Which one ed it first I couldn’t say, but i Smith has been at it since ikletter, however, got in first a book ( Kids Say the Darndest gs ). This came out in 1958 and ti’s has just recently hit the et. He’s called it after his ABC m, A Word From Children. b things children say, off the with or without unseen audi can seem vastly more amusing the same thing set out in cold —and both the Linkletter and i books suffered accordingly this defect. Nonetheless, even iu hate kids, and hate even the funny sayings of kids, it’s -1 that you’ll still get at least jiggle out of Smith as we did rears ago out of Linkletter. ■ouple of Smith samples: little girl I met last January ged to a large family. There 12 children in it. She told me Christmas dinner. ‘There was one chook for Christmas r and all of us kids wanted est part. So Dad turned nasty te said, ‘lt’s too bad we haven’t bloody spider, then you could ive a leg!’” h also slips in an exasperated word occasionally. It was a t-and-child session and this ular mother was strictly U, ete with Mutation Mink, im- Dle accent and dignity. Every in the household, according , read like a page out of Emily Then Keith Smith asked her boy, in his nice college blazer: t does mother say to you if lon’t get up on time in the ng?” the little boy said, “Oh, she up the stairs in her dressing and yells, ‘lf you don’t get out t bed soon I’ll tan your bloody i with a flyswat!” me stage of his career, Keith took his Pied Piper show to here the FBC made its audi i available to him. He inter l all sorts of kids there— . Indian, European, Chinese •thers, and asked the usual ms —what Dad did, how many m in the family, where they n Fiji, etc. hiith tells it, this is what hap at the end: J last two children I spoke svere English. They had fair

plaits and nice manners, set off by two pairs of clear, forthright eyes.

What kind of house do you live in 9 ’

I asked.

“ ‘Oh,’ said one, ‘lt’s nothing much . . . it’s like a big barn inside.’ ‘Have many visitors?’

“ ‘Oh yes,’ said the second one, languidly.

“ ‘Who have you had lately?’ ‘Oh, our aunt and uncle, some friends, the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh.’

“‘What? What does your father do for a living?’

“ ‘Oh, he’s a Governor.’

T^? e was ’ too: sir Ronald Garvey,

Kcmg, Kcvo And Mbe.”

Well, that’s one Dad who hasn’t changed his job; he’s still a Gov ernor, but currently of the Isle of Man; and Lavinia and Julia Garvey one still with plaits, and both still with clear eyes, and forthright, go to school in the neighbourhood. (A WORD FROM CHILDREN. Published by Rigby Ltd., 22 James Place. Adelaide.

Australian price, 18/9.)

The Tiger Riders

IT’S seldom that authors write facts and fiction with equal skill and it could be that Peter Pmney, Australian adventurer writer with several factual books to his credit, has only just now found his true metier— the novel. His first, Ride the Volcano seems a much neater and more enjoyable piece of prose than the travel books that went before.

Pinney is, or was, an eccentric sort of traveller. He walked or hitched rides, carrying his posses sions in a string bag, and frequently with not even the price of the next meal in his pocket. Dust on My Shoes described such an expedition from Greece to Burma; Who Wan ders Alone a similar sort of journey

in Africa where he develoned a

S£ ked SMS 8

naturally enough, regarded him as a new species of hobo. . ma y have been a reaction to hls early life - Pinney is a grand son of the late Sir Hubert Murray, Lieutenant-Governor of Papua; and a son of an Administrator of Nor *olk Island-both of whom, no doubt ’ would La,ve entertained the same sort of ideas about beach combers as African officials had about Peter. th * Volcano is a story of Central America which is an area here Pin ney has also adventured, but as he thls time chooses fiction f ° r hIS mediUm he iS able to have

baracters engage in a lot of spirited action without their ig more than a fraction ab il.

Costa Ricans have a saying le who rides the volcano must how to die, which means the same thing as saying he rides the tiger cannot dis ;. Kappick found himself in ely this position after he had trading out of Puntarenas bis schooner for some time, isit of Customs officers set off : trail of adventures that in border hopping, visa g, losing a schooner and I a wife. 3 THE VOLCANO. Published by and Robertson. Australian price,

fears Before

A/elfare State

, writing career that has ady stretched over 38 years, rgaret Kennedy must have i little that was not up to ?h standard of her first best- The Constant Nymph. no means a book-a-year —there have been as many ie years between one novel mother —she has produced ling like 15 books since 1922 e latest of them, A Night in iarbour, shows all the sure : technique and ironic humour e have come to expect from theme of this novel is the ; that attended the industrial ion in England and the em nt of child labour at the r the 18th century. In less hands it could have become t, sombre Bronte, instead of sellent piece of story telling is. old hovel at Cold Harbour ie rendezvous of vagrants, ers and others fleeing from iss-gang or the law, and as )ry opens old Parson Pren tended by his ragged teen •mpanion, lies there dying, me was assumed but the title t; the Parson has once held nfortable living of Stretton ley, where he had been Tien one evening he chanced t the cottage where lived children employed by the •otter.

Tom the point where we find rson at Cold Harbour, the

> told in retrospect—broadly,

story of two families, the 3 and the Rector’s. After the sees the wasted children he pottery, he becomes in gly a bore and an embarrass -3 his Bishop and his family, a, voice crying in the wilder le sees the evil but hasn’t lity or the means of setting t. He tackles the symptoms

but not the disease and finally is reduced himself to wandering with the vagrants who thronged the roads of England at that time, his tears and his ministrations being regarded as having miraculous powers by these Walking People.

This is a fine historical novel, rich in characterisation and pre sented without bathos and without a moral—except that it underlines the fact that action begets reaction.

Perhaps then, in this context, the Parson’s tears were miraculous, leading in tiny imperceptible steps down 150 years until the wheel had turned full circle to the Welfare State that England is today.

(A Night In Cold Harbour. Pub

lished by Macmillan & Co. Ltd. Australian price, 20/-.)

Free Food and

Free Love

LIKE avocado pears and escargots, Muriel Spark is an acquired taste and her latest novel carries on the tradition of those that went before. Only more so.

The Bachelors is a potpourri—of zany nonsense that has little rela tion to real life, except, perhaps, real life as it occurs in certain London strata.

London has more eccentrics to the square mile than any other place on earth, so that even the Spark characters become not so much creatures of a satirical ima gination as entirely possible and very likely probable. (Over)

It is calculated by one of tl characters that there are o\ 600,000 bachelors living in t metropolis, and according to tl story, they are perennially on t prowl—mostly for free meals b also for free love.

The male lead in this little ] is Ronald, an epileptic; one of t female stars is Alice, un-wed, pre nant, diabetic and in immine danger of being bumped-off by h lover who doesn’t want to mar her.

The central theme is built rou a spiritualistic circle and the ii pending trial of their medium i swindling a widow out of her lif savings. Against this backgroui retinues of extraordinary chara ters come and go, creating t ridiculous situations and peculi conversations that are part of M: Spark’s stock in trade. (THE BACHELORS. Published Macmillan & Co. Ltd. Australian pri 20/-.)

Out in the Cold, Cold

Snow (I 960)

JOHN GILBERT as an autt specialises in off-beat situatio but there ends any similar between any one of his three novi with the other two. A couple] years ago in Zigzag he successful combined the quite normal fir! person experiences of a Na v Officer in the Mediterranean wi a piece of straight Nigel Balch in which phychiatrists of vario dimensions abounded. The hero.J the latter stages of the Balch episodes, had the distressing fixati that his food, once eaten, car back up his nose.

The heroine of the latest Gilbt story couldn’t be more different. S: has no fixations at all —unlessji to carry on with what conn naturally, no matter what.

The novel is called, somewhat I appropriately, After the Star although where the After comey it is hard to see as Selina Jeye life seems to be one long ston right up to the last page.

In another age it might have ba called Why Girls Go Wrong; b although Gilbert has borrowed tl well-worn Victorian plot (unmarrii mother, thrown to the wolves j wicked step-mother, ends up on tl street —or in this case, in a fur ar plush-lined nest in a mews betwee Curzon Street and Piccadilly) connection with the 19th centu] ends there.

Selina’s fiance was inconsidera enough to drown himself (and I father) before he could makeja honest woman of her, which I Selina in a fix: She had no mone no job and a sour step-mother.

On the asset side, however, $ had her looks, fascinated a certai

of man, and while not pro ous for choice, had no basic ion to putting sex to work it seemed the logical way out. tior Gilbert treats Selina’s •Ss with matter of fact indulg md satirical humour and, un

;he novel-writing Victorians,

Union ruled that all “bad” nust come to a sticky end, he elina, on the last page, have she wants.

ER THE STORM. Published by >avies Ltd. Australian price, 20/-.)

p*.

Dncliy.

My Friend Monica: Addicts

who have already re a d Jane Duncan’s My Friends the Miss Boyds and My Friend Muriel are probably prepared for Monica.

Others may need a little prepara tion for this distinctly “British type” humour, especially when it is carried over three novels, with more threatened.

The first person singular who tells about her friend Monica is

Former Fijian Leper Paints Attractive Pictures

Semisi Mayo Is a Fijian from the village of Bau, in the large province of [?]ilevu, Fiji. In his early 40's now, he has been a victim of leprosy and, as result, spent 14 years as a patient of the Makogai Leprosarium. Modern treat [?]ent resulted in Semisi being discharged five years ago, but the disease has [?]ft him with extreme crippling of both arms and hands.

Despite this handicap, he is now producing finger paintings, as well as [?]me brush and pencil work. The technique of finger painting was taught [?]m by one of the Sisters of St. Elizabeth's Home near Suva, but he has since [?]olved a style of his own.

He commences with a wet sheet of glossy-surfaced paper in the centre of [?]ich his assistant places a lump of poster paint of the desired colour. Using [?]e ball of the right hand braced with the left, he works the paint with a [?]ary movement until it is evenly distributed on the paper. In most of his [?]intings, this is a blue tone to provide sea and sky, the details of which are [?]ovided by lining off, using the hairs of the right forearm to provide texture, [?]condary and tertiary colours are added by using the ball of the hand as [?]fore, although some detail is brought out by using the longer hairs of the ht forearm.

His paintings are eagerly sought by local art enthusiasts and visitors to [?] Colony. He is shown here adding green paint to the top of coconut palms [?]ich have been produced by three decisive strokes of the little finger of the [?] hand, steadied by the right.

Photo: Rob Wright

et Sandison, and Monica turns to be something less a friend more a husband-pincher. lica was a beautiful and talented head and she burst on Scot l and a just-recently-married 3t “like a bombshell.” iblished by Macmillan & Co. Ltd. •alian price, 20/-.) ATERNITY NURSE: Although book (by Anne Treger, her nd on nursing) is for general ing it might do equally as well a text book on what to do till doctor comes. After a short se of it you’d probably not need at all. Anne Treger learned to er babies in the Coloured dis of Cape Town and although environment might differ, the lanics of the game are about same. e Cape Coloured breed like its and the conditions under h they live are as much a re ion to the layman as is the : and detailed running com ary on “baby catching”, e incidents described in this took place about 20 years ago the situation hasn’t changed ly in this area of Cape Town. )lished by Peter Davies. Australian 20/-.)

E Angel In The Coffin,

lichael Ellis, is the story of goes on on a migrant ship sen Europe and New Zealand m through the eyes of a over aiding bachelor with a large sentimental streak. The story hded between ship board ad res and flash-backs to an Eng ountry vicarage and the bald >achelor’s half-hearted search .wife, with money if possible, is a New Zealander and this

; second novel; unfortunately

iculiar wordy prose doesn’t do mg for what is supposed to be msical, humorous story except me reader the idea that his nter had a mouthful of plums it was doing the job. 20/ C ? by Peter Davies. Australian