Places and people

people of the islands

A blockbuster of a picture book is Jack and Dorothy Fields’ lavishly produced South Pacific, more than 250 pages of art paper in large for mat, full colour, weighing lb. I don’t know of a more ambitious cof fee table volume on the Pacific.

Jack and Dorothy Fields are an American husband-wife photographer and writer team. Jack being known especially through his work with Nat ional Geographic and the American glossies. And his work really is superb —capturing in a variety of moods, and especially those in the outer is lands, the people of New Guinea, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Fiji, Micronesia, Tonga, American Samoa, Tahiti and Hawaii.

Obviously some groups are missing, but in a book that is already so gener ous in its coverage, one can’t com plain— except perhaps at the pictorial omission of Western Samoa, since the “lesser half” of the Samoas is repre sented.

The text is not as evocative as the photographs, but then, that would be difficult. It serves as an adequate introduction to the Island groups and is clearly a combination of solid re search and personal knowledge. (There are some minor errors of fact, ie, explorer Bougainville passed well north of New Caledonia and didn’t sight the islands, and the Rev Shirley Baker was not dismissed over the Tongan money issue—his case was far more involved than that}.

A handsome Christmas gift, this book, published by Kodansha Inter national Ltd, with South Pacific dis tribution by arrangement with A. H. and A. W. Reed Ltd, at an Aust ralian price of $17.95.

A more specialised, less ambitious picture book is James Sinclair’s Faces of New Guinea (Jacaranda Press, $4.95), which is a companion to the Highlanders, and Wigmen of Papua. About 140 colour photographs taken by District Commissioner Sin

clair in his travels depict New Guineans in every aspect—head-hunters, chiefs, students, brides, sorcerers, mourning widows, traders. Sinclair’s portfolio reveals as much about the sensitivity of the photographer as about the diversity of character of the New Guinean.

NEW ZEALAND artist Douglas Badcock sees his South Pacific with palette and brush, and offers us reproductions of 16 colour paintings in oils of Fiji scenes. With them are a number of black and white sketches, done mostly as preliminaries to the oils. A Painter in Fiji is an attractive book, Badcock’s style being bold, his canvases cheerfully alive and colourful. There is no doubt he has captured the essence of Fiji. Some people

will want to frame the reproductions and at a price of $5.99 (Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd) they can afford to do it.

AN interesting historical and geo graphic tourist map of fishing. boating and skin-diving on Koror and the Palau Islands is available from the Palau Tourist Commission, Koror Palau, Western Caroline Islands 96940. The map describes the World War II battles at Angaur and Peleiu as well as little-known characteristics of Palauan traditional life, exotic foods, and native money which is among the rarest in the world. There are many other comments about the surrounding ocean. Several ship wrecks are indicated along with relics of the Japanese Army,