The Solomons Through The Eyes

Of Bellona's Talkative Animals

Having been awarded, by Frederick IX, King of the Danes, in 1952, the Galathea Medal for services in the cause of science, it has been a great pleasure for me to renew my acquaintance with some of those efficient and most human Danes who worked in many scientific fields in the Pacific over many years, by reviewing Volume IV of the Lang uage and Culture of Rennell and Bellona Islands. This volume by Rolf Kuschel is called Animal Stories from Bellona Island (Mungiki).

The great humanity of these Danish workers was, perhaps, their greatest asset, and this humanity is revealed in the way Kuschel handles the material in this volume. It is much more than a collection of ani mal stories: it is a revelation of the inhabitants of Bellona and Rennell as people as human as those who have recorded the zoology, geology, history and other aspects of those islands.

There are nine chapters before we come to the actual animal stories, all

dealing with aspects of the Danish expeditions and scientific investigations on these islands. In the chapter called The Narrators, Kuschel says of one of them: “Tony Teikangongo, Ngikobaka lineage, aged only 24, was the youngest of the story-tellers. Despite his rather weighty contribution of five stories he harbours no real veneration for the old oral tradition.” How often throughout the Pacific have we heard this sad story; this generation trying to live in two worlds, recounting spurious ‘ancient’ tales, while singing equally spurious ‘folk’ songs to a guitar? However, Tony was outnumbered by genuine story-tellers »ho were brought up in the true oral tradition Kuschel tells us. Training in oral ability took place informally, anywhere and at any time. However, it was not uncommon for children and young people to congregate round he older people in the evening and isten to their stories. This could hardly be avoided due to the limited f‘ ze f°V h .l , settleme , nt ’ a " d du , e . lo the fact that parents and children preferred to stay closely together for the ever-present fear of possible attacks on the settlement Given as reasons for writing this volume Kuschel tells us, “One of my intentions here, m publishing animal stories from Bellona, a tiny - j . v, • -rU r, i Polynesian raised atoll in the Solomon Islands, is to illuminate some

of the problems presented by the study of alien cultures, problems which tend to disappear or become marginal in the study of more corn prehensive and complex institutions and phenomena such as a society’s religion, social and economic struc ture: a people’s visual perceptions or dreams.

“A second purpose is to help to fill a gap in our records of Polynesian oral traditions, for in most collec tions animal stories are rare. It is a i so my hope that work may help the Bellonese of the next genera tions to maintain and learn to write their own language ...”

The illustrations by Sengeika T uke of Be , lona are delightful. So are most of , he stories Iet b us finish with the shortest one in the co , lec .

Uon; xhe Blind Mollus k. 1. The b|jnd mollusk was sleeping and saw (i a dream) a mollus £ coming into , h shal|ow wat (saying); 2 . “The thi , am so abo y ut % that bott ® m wi „ be ' aten r Which of us has the right of it? w who sit in the evenings and view , he imaginings of the B television writ the Be |l o nese who sit and , isten to the musical orations f th Bellonese elders? te

Peter Livingston

\ ol £ k E . LL 2 N k A ISLAND (MUNGIKI) by Rolf Kuschel. Pub- Mshed by National Museum, Copenhagen, Denmark, Danish kroner 130.45).