A word for the tourist
p. 56 · Read in the full issue
(To the woman selling handicrafts outside Burns Philp’s doors: Samoa 1974) You have to walk slowly now: these are treasures not to be missed— stop, maybe, and inspect, feel the polished shell, the turtleshell bracelet and the ring, . unique.
The oyster sadness dusted clean countless times a day just for your eye, for you alone they labour, for your dead riches.
See the handbag! Such beautiful designs!
And those fingers weaving like spiders, those arms sagging and frail can do wonders still— watch the fingers alone—oh how dexterous!
Unpolished dedication! See the stringing of pearly shells. How lovely!
But you don’t understand how they’re stringing their life beads outside these doors, daylight madness, and at night bundled-up like corpses, the concrete mattress gathers the cold and pumps it home.
But don’t consider, inspect and make a bargain.
And you have to look a little above the collar bone at the fleshy neck, blue veins, the wide jaw.
Remark! The high cheek bones, the strong forehead, black hair locked or loose and somehow stained at the edges, those narrow-lidded brows and the brown texture more like driftwood.
You look disappointed, surprised? Surely you must have seen this face somewhere before, perhaps in a museum: the Polynesian goddess, a Gauguin’s brown virgin, the Viking queen going drab, all here now at your service, so be cheerful, this is her in flesh and bone, in rags and cheap stones.
Now you wonder why there isn’t a better place, a house, a counter, a few stools, something else, better.
Well knock wood, dear tourist, raise hell!
And if you have heart, ask around because in all these years, I have never heard the question raised; in all these years, I’ve heard the desire to breathe rich being smothered in the dust outside these doors, these famous Burns Philp’s coffin doors.
But don’t speak, dear tourist.
I didn’t say a word.
Another striking example of PNG's traditional art Jangfop, a Yuat River (Western Highlands) ancesto[?] figure by Manabma Fuliba of Andafuga village.