You Name It; We’Ll
p. 78 · Read in the full issue
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I can remember the time when it was quite polite to call New Guine> natives (lt is a Polynesian word, anyhow, and merely mean “Man”.) If you wanted to be nasty, there were several other terms you couV use. If you were very refined, you could say “native”.
WHEN I first went to Fiji, in 1945, I was very refined and called the particular brand of Melanesians they have there, “natives”. The then Director of Agriculture put me right, “We never call them ‘natives’, he said, “we always refer to them as ‘Fijians’.”
That was the first time I heard that it was rude to say native.
But back in P-NG it was still polite, although the term was later super seded by “Papuan” (which was easy); and “New Guinean” (which was not).
Time marched on, while Administra tion Emily Posts sat up nights beating their brains out thinking of even politer terms, and finally came up with the current model—lndigene. (“A native animal or plant”—Web ster’s Dictionary .) While all these metamorphosis had been taking place, the “European”— indicating a white skin—remained just that. But in the Territory in the past year it has become strictly Non-U to refer to one’s skin colour at all, so the experts went into solemn conclave once more and produced the beauti ful, sonorous term “Expatriate”. (“An exile”— Webster’s Dictionary.)
These days, when official handouii are written, when members get up i the Legislative Council to speak, tha refer with terminological Exactitude I “expatriates” and “indigenes”. (Ti Chinese and Malays, of course, gay up being “Asiatics”, to beconji “Asians”, sometime during the lat war.) But even these terms seem to me be but a passing phrase, more suitE to the 1960 theme song of set: determination, than to the 196 urge to have a muli-racial society )
bust. I
Sooner or later the P-NG Emil Posts of the Top Level Etiquette aif going to have to coin another terfi that will embrace all P-NG Terr torians, so that future visiting B Wigs will be able to address tl. assembled populace as “Ladies ar.
Gentlemen, Conglomerates of tW Territory ...”
After walking the tightrope I polite names in Port Moresby forj* while, it is always relaxing to com back to Australia where people say “’Ow you doin’, mate”; or “A right, lady, just pass down to the ety of the bus, will yer?”