Him: Almost
p. 62 · Read in the full issue
A Moon Trip!
Hiri is the story of two boys and a girl who stow away on a large canoe during one of the Motu people’s traditional trading voyages to the Gulf of Papua.
Perhaps the last such voyage, known as hiri, took place in 1958 when a lagatoi, a four-hull dug-out, built in accordance with all the tra ditional ritual requirements, sailed from Manumanu with 1,100 day pots.
A year earlier two hakona, double hulled dug-outs, from the same vil lage, two others, four puapua and a chartered scow had taken about 10,000 pots from Manumanu, Boera, Porebada, Rea Rea and Kido to the west.
The stowaways, having broken the taravatu, the traditional law that only ritually-prepared men may go on the voyage, face the anger of what the author calls the puri puri man—village sorcerer—but they re deem themselves by making the crew aware of an enemy tribe’s plot to destroy the expedition. All then ends well.
It is not clear whether this book is meant for Papua New Guinea children or those from other lands.
No one who has read the description of a hiri by Capt Barton, Adminis trator of Papua from 1904 to 1906, in Seligman’s classic The Melanesians of British New Guinea (1910) or later accounts by, say, Prof Murray Groves, or who has spoken with old men among the Motu, will regard this book as anything but a failure to understand the vital part that the hiri played in the socio-economic life of the Motu. This failure turns the book into the kind of foolish tale that an account of moon trips would be if it were assumed that the planet is made of cheese. Even the name of one of the boys, Vaki, is not a Motu but a Kivori one and that of the girl, Kori, is found among the inland Rigo people. Those four-hull canoes are called lagatoi, not, as the author has it, lakatoi, and tama, though mean ing ‘father’ in Motu, is not in use as a first name.
It is all a great pity because child ren’s books based on the old life in Papua New Guinea are badly needed for brown and white children alike, and the publisher deserves plaudits for ‘having a go’. Moreover, Gava Aura’s illustrations are a delight. One hopes that Neil Thompson will, after first doing the necessary research, have another try, and that other writers, whether sons and daughters of Papua New Guinea or foreigners, will write in this genre for the young.
To sum up, this book regrettably earns no better than the comment, in Hiri Motu, of a Papuan to whom I lent it: edana bamona (why?).— Harry Jackman (HIRI. By Neil Thompson. Published by Niugini Press, Port Moresby. No price given.) PACIFIC MAPS.— Two detailed, fold-out maps in full colour of Nor folk Island and Lord Howe Island are the first of a series of the Pacific Islands now being produced by Pacific Maps of Sydney. Others will shortly follow. The map of Lord Howe Island is 21 in. by 29 in. and the Norfolk Island map is 18 in. by 24 in. Both maps show roads and land marks and each is available at S1.25 posted direct from Pacific Publica tions, Box 3408, GPO, Sydney.