Pacific Books
p. 97 · Read in the full issue
A Quick Look
At Some New
I 1866, when Mark Twain was a 30-year-old reporter on the iramento Union of California, he nt four months in Hawaii writing leries of 25 breezy letters for his vspaper. }ne of the letters was an epic vs story about the adventures of crew of the clipper ship Hornet, 0 abandoned ship when she caught near the Equator, and who ched Hawaii 43 days later after ,000-mile voyage in an open boat, tfark Twain’s letters from Hawaii -e often reprinted separately dur his lifetime. But it was not until 17 that they were collected in book m and published in a limited tion in San Francisco, There have n several other limited and icnsive editions since then. 4ow there is a reasonably cheap tion, edited with an introduction Professor A. Grove Day, Pro per of English at the University Hawaii.
Mark Twain’S Letters From
WAIL Chatto and Windus. $4.60. • copy from Hicks Smith & Sons, ney.) • Pacific Compendium, a handy >-page compilation containing ;istical and general information on Pacific Islands associated with South Pacific Commission, has ;n published by the South Pacific ice in Suva at 50c a copy. The Drmation was compiled by Mr.
R. Cowell, who was formerly in irge of the South Pacific Office, gives basic information on the ation of each territory, its climate, itical structure, public finance, a, population, capital, status, ation, money and banking, trade, estment, transport, communica is, and labour. An invaluable le at the end of the book gives distances in statute miles between the main centres in the Pacific, e book is printed offset from escript. • Why are male initiation rites ctised in some parts of Melanesia 1 not in others? Whv are there le variations in the rites both in m and content? These two ;stions form the basis of a new )-page book by Dr. M. R. Allen, turer in Anthropology at the iversity of Sydnev. called Male
Cults and Secret Initiations in Melanesia. Published by Melbourne University Press at S 6, the book examines initiation rites in a wide range of societies in Papua-New Guinea, the Solomons and the Northern New Hebrides; reviews earlier theories about them; and demonstrates that all such rites reflect, varyingly, the importance of the division between the sexes in social life. • “A History of the Development of the Bulolo Region, New Guinea”, by A. M. Healy is the latest (No. 15) m the series of New Guinea Research Bulletins published by the New Guinea Research Unit of the Australian National University, Canberra.
Mr. Healy’s work begins with a brief history of gold mining in New Guinea before “Sharkeye” Park’s discovery of payable alluvial gold at Koranga Creek in 1922, It then
traces the story of gold production in the Edie Creek-Bulolo region down to the early 1960’s by which time it was petering out.
Two of the last chapters in the bulletin concern the development of a plywood industry in the region by Commonwealth New Guinea Timbers and the Leron beef project, The bulletin, which costs Si, is printed offset from typescript. It has an ample bibliography, but no index to its 145 pages of useful informa tion. 9 Olaf R u hen’s autobiographical Tangaroa's Godchild, first published in 1962> is now available in paperback from Horwitz Australian Library ($1.25). Ruhen is a New Zealander, although he has lived in Sydney for many years, and this is the story of his early days in New Zealand, when he grew up to be master of his own fishing schooner. It’s among Ruhen’s best works.