The what’s what

of a Who’s Who

Who’s Who in Oceania 1980-81. Compiled by Robert D. Craig and Russell T. Clem ent. Published by the Institute for Polynesian Studies, Brigham Young University - Hawaii Campus, Laie, Hawaii.

Hard cover 5U512.95, paper back $7.95. No ISBN provided.

Some people obviously don’t know when they’re well off. This includes Robert D. Craig and Russell T. Clement, joint edi tors of Who’s Who in Oceania 1980-81. However, as Pacific Publications were the perpet rators of two other editions of a Who's Who covering the Pacific Islands, we can sympathise with their problems, and this collec tion’s shortcomings, which they freely acknowledge.

Pacific Publications’ two efforts were published as part of the ninth and 10th editions of

Pacific Islands Year Book and were the brainchild of this misguided reviewer, who also didn’t know what she was get ting into. But our efforts, now of over a decade ago, must at least have been of some benefit to Messrs Craig and Clement in that in the early 19605, when we were preparing our first edition, it’s a safe bet that at least 99% of the indigenous inhabitants of the Pacific had never heard of a Who’s Who, and much less had any desire to appear in one.

Filling in long questionnaires (and ours was just as detailed as the Craig/Clement model) was foreign to the nature of people who frequently can’t even bring themselves to answer urgent business letters. In retrospect it is a wonder that we did as well as we did. Some biographies were eventually extracted by wandering PIM journalists

metaphorically sitting on indi genous VIP chests while ex tracting information.

Nor were non-indigenous in habitants a push-over. Apart from the minority who supplied us with enough information to fill small books, and dared us to alter as much as a comma on pain of excommunication, many others took the view that the whole thing was a gross invasion of privacy, and refused to play at all. Whole communities were afflicted in this way Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, for example leading us to be lieve that a public meeting must have been held on the subject, ending in a unaminous decision to turn thumbs down.

It was thought, by us, that after the first pioneering effort, subsequent editions would be easy. Not so. The late 1960 s was a period of great flux in the Pacific. Europeans were moving out by the planeload and those who were not were rarely to be found where they had been at the time o f our earlier edition. A huge proportion of biographies sent out for up-dating came

back marked ‘address un known’, and an equal number of recipients again ignored the whole thing, so that we had no idea whether they were living or dead, still in the same place, or had been posted to Timbuktu.

The result was total chaos. The new Who’s Who took far more time to produce than the first edition, and subsequently the whole idea was put into the too hard category and, finally, de cently buried.

In a preface to the new Craig/Clement Who’s Who, the editors catalogue some of the problems they had, includ ing: ‘.. . lack of response by important individuals, language problems, mailing and address complications and frequent changes of key personnel in some Island administrations . . .

Unfortunately only a small per centage of completed question naires were returned even after three separate mailings.’

It is obvious, therefore, that the inhabitants of the Islands haven’t changed all that much since 1968. But hope springs eternal: the editors say: ‘. . . hopefully a revised and fuller Who’s Who will be published in the next few years.’ We wish them the very best of Yankee luck.

Pacific Publications was far more catholic in its choice of participants in its Who’s Who, holding the view at the time that the general manager of Burns Philp (SS) Ltd, for in stance, was just as important to Fiji as the vice-chancellor of the local university. Messrs Craig and Clement, on the other hand, have generally restricted entries to personalities in the fields of ‘government (i.e. politicians as well as public servants), edu cation, science and religion’.

This is certainly more aca demically acceptable, although it leaves out a lot of interesting people whose contributions to the Pacific have been consider able. As in all Who’s Who, the longest screeds come from aca demics themselves. There are no reluctant dragons there.

The authors say that geo graphically the focus is on Oceania proper, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii and Papua

New Guinea being adequately

covered elsewhere. Why PNG should be so considered it is

hard to understand and, in any event, it appears to be reason ably well represented in the Craig/Clement work. The first two names in the book are Abaijah, Josephine, and Abal, Sir Tei, and most of the other Papua New Guineans in the same line of business appear to be there as well.

As the editors acknowledge, there are mistakes in the text.

For example, Leonard Usher of Suva appears in the ‘L’ section as ‘Lisher’ probably the result of a carelessly printed ‘U’ that can look like ‘LF. There are some duplications, no doubt the result of those three post ings of questionnaires. There are also some mysteries, such as why Harry Maude’s occupation is given as ‘statesman’. (When he retired from the Australian

National University in 1970 he was Professorial Fellow in the Research School of Pacific Studies.) In spite of its shortcomings.

Who’s Who in Oceania 1980-81 is a worthy effort just how worthy those of us who laboured along the same lines in 1963 and 1968 are likely to fully appreciate.

It is doubtful if any Who’s Who could be entirely success ful in attempting to cover such a huge and diverse area as the Pacific and its scattered islands.

But until each small indepen dent nation can produce some thing of its own, the Craig/ Clement effort goes some way towards providing a lot of infor mation that otherwise would be difficult or impossible to obtain.

Judy Tudor.