People

Longas Solomon is Papua New Guinea’s new consul-general in Sydney. He replaces Dr Alkan Tololo, who is now PNG high commissioner in Canberra.

Mr Solomon, from PNG’s East Sepik province, has a back ground in finance and trade, hav ing worked for the Bank of PNG, and as acting registrar of the country’s Registry of Savings and Loan Societies. He has also worked for the department of foreign affairs and trade as assis tant secretary (trade relations).

He was educated in Queens land and later at the University of PNG, where he obtained a de gree in economics.

Fiji’s Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs Satya Nandan has been selected by the United Nations secretary-general, Javier Perez de Cuellar, for the Number Two executive post in the newly created International Seabed Authority.

As head of Fiji’s delegation to the United Nations Law of the Sea conference, Mr Nandan, a lawyer by training, achieved in ternational recognition for his work in securing acceptance of the concept of a special regime for archipelagic countries like Fiji.

Vanuatu’s representative at the United Nations, Robert Van Lerop, recently visited the coun try for the first time.

A lawyer turned photo-

journalist, Mr Van Lerop became internationally known for his work in reporting on develop ments in the guerrilla zones of Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau during the struggle against Portu guese colonial rule. Some people who knew of this work recom mended him to the Vanuatu Government.

He says his primary responsi bility at the UN is to follow the instructions of the Vanuatu Gov ernment with respect to votes on resolutions, and to attempt to project a correct image of Vanuatu.

The Holland-based pop music group Black Brothers, made up of musicians from Irian Jaya, which to them is West Papua, will settle in Vanuatu.

But first they are to tour Vanuatu and New Caledonia (at the invitation of the Independ ence Front).

Manager of the Black Brothers, Andy Ayamiseba, told a press conference in Port- Vila in March: “Though we are living in Europe we know that the Pacific is where we belong.

After we have set up our studio in Port-Vila, we will do all we can to promote music and help Ni-Vanuatu musicians to attain international recognition. ’ ’

French naval officer Jacques de Roux, a contestant in the single handed round-the-world yacht race whose yacht Skoiern was * wrecked in the South Pacific in February, was rescued by British

fellow-competitor Richard

Broadhead in Perseverance of Medina.

Jacques de Roux told the Papeete daily Les Nouvelles: “Richard Broadhead intended to

take me to the Falklands and leave me there, because it wouldn’t have been proper to take me right on to Rio, especial ly as I had no right to help him with the work on board. But from radio contact with naval

Robert Van Lerop

Barak Sope (left), on behalf of the government of Vanuatu, signs an agreement with Andy Ayamiseba of the Black Brothers. - Tam Tam picture.

Jacques de Roux: Bad luck bet ween Australia and Cape Horn. - Les Nouvelles picture.

headquarters at Papeete we learn ed that the French naval vessel Henry was heading out to collect me so we continued sailing until it arrived.”

The French single-hander said that race organisers would make allowance for the time spent by Broadhead on his rescue, but that he believed that his unselfish action would still work to his disadvantage in the race results.

He expressed his gratitude to amateur radio operators in a number of countries who helped in his rescue, and to the French navy for sending the Henry to take him to Papeete.

He said he’d be sailing single handed around the world again in three years time.

Succeeding Paul Noirot-Cosson as France’s high commissioner in French Polynesia is Alain Ohrel.

On his second day in Tahiti, Mr Ohrel, wearing a suit and tie, met the press in a non airconditioned area of his official Papeete residence.

The press corps, of course, were much more casually dressed.

As the conference ended, Mr Ohrel gave one and all a firm assurance: the next time he meets the press, it will definitely not be in suit and tie . . .

Stephen V. Nygard is in the editor’s chair of Guam Business News, a monthly magazine which made its debut in March.

The new magazine is publish ed by Glimpses of Guam, Inc, which also publishes the quarter

ly Glimpses of Micronesia.

Ernie and Maggie Reid celeb rated their golden wedding an niversary at Port-Vila’s Le La gon Hotel on February 11. They were married on that date in 1933.

More than 250 guests were present to honor the occasion.

Speeches were given by Reece

Discombe and three custom chiefs, all of whom paid tribute to the splendid example set for the community by these two longtime residents of New Hebrides/V anuatu.

Professor Derek Freeman is to donate more than SWSSO,OOO to the University of Samoa for the establishment of the Le Tagaloa Research Fund.

The money will be invested and the interest from it used to finance research projects on Sa moan culture, and also to finance the return to Samoa of overseas archives dealing with the coun try, especially correspondence and the reports on Samoa written by early missionaries. Many of these are in overseas archives.

Professor Freeman said the money would come from anti cipated royalties on his book, Margaret Mead and Samoa The Making and Unmaking of an

Anthropological Myth.

Some of the wittiest comments on the Freeman/Mead imbroglio that have come PlM’s way are those of New York resident Lelei Lelaulu, son of a Samoan chief and president of the recently founded Pacific Islands Associa tion in that city.

Lelei Lelaulu wrote in the Sydney-based newspaper The Weekend Australian of March 12-13: As a Samoan, I have never quite made up my mind whether to be grateful to Dr Margaret Mead, or rue the day she chose to test her anthropolog ical theories in our islands.

My own “coming of age in Samoa’’ seems to have been spent mostly under coconut trees relating the lurid details of my

pubescent gropings to yet

A traditional greeting in Tahiti for Alain Ohrel, France’s newly appointed high commissioner there. - Tahiti Press picture.

Stephen V. Nygard

another anthropologist or

sociologist.

It was mostly wishful fantasy, of course. But they were always noted in careful detail, later to be tabulated and analysed in unread able form in some learned

academic journal.

But when I went to university myself, my view of the Mar garet Mead industry perked up.

At cocktail parties I was always being pounced upon by earnest young women eager to explore Dr Mead’s theories that we were just a bunch of easy-going noble savages making love on a south seas beach as the Pacific Ocean lapped over our happy brown feet.

Being patronised I could just

about take since there were compensations in the shape of these delightful young ladies so anxious to indulge in immediate field research . . .

In Samoa, virginity and chasti ty are highly valued. As Profes sor Freeman says, he knows of no other society in the world where the status of virginity is so important. He noted that it was

practically sacred.

But this is a dead give-away which he appears not to have picked up.

The value of a commodity is usually determined by its scarci ty. Although we were not sup posed to, and all hell broke loose if we were found out, Samoan boy did meet Samoan girl under the stars. But certainly not in the open, casual way Mead chronicl ed .. .

As one myth is debunked, I am concerned that another is about to begin. I met Professor Freeman several times at parties in Samoa. He’s a very deter mined man. He has been trying for decades to get his research published fighting off the hos tility of colleagues who resent the merest hint of criticism against the goddess of

anthropology.

He finally succeeded in prov ing his thesis when he was given access to the colonial archives.

There he found figures which suggest the incidence of rape is among the highest in the world.

If Dr Mead was right, and sex was available to anyone whose rocks were burdening them, how could there be rape?

What Professor Freeman does not realise is that in our islands, rape is not the serious criminal offence which the term implies in the West.

On my island, there were many, many occasions when a boy caught enjoying consensual sex would take the chivalrous way out and admit to rape. Usu ally it was punished by our vil lage chiefs with the culprit being ordered to work for the girl’s family in the fields or fishing their boats for a set period of time. Honor was satisfied all round, and the shamefaced pair usually ended up getting married.

I have never once known vio lent, forced rape. In this, Dr Mead was correct.

But now, from the records taken by the colonial adminis trators who used the word rape as a convenient criminological catch-all, another anthropologic al edifice is to be painstakingly pieced together.

Are we Samoans now to be known as a race of sex-starved rapists? I much prefer my pre vious reputation as a free-loving orgiast, and so have some advice for Professor Freeman and the rest of the sociology trade.

I now live on an island, torn apart by tribal tensions and sexu al neuroses and wide-open for trendy academic research, which might do wonders for the tourist trade. It’s called Manhattan.

Pundit Vivekanand Sharma, a former minister for youth and sport in the Fiji Government, has obtained a doctorate in the Hindi language, the first Fiji citizen to do so.

Mr Sharma obtained his docto rate from the Sardar Patel Un iversity, Gujerat, India.

He is the present editor and managing director of the Suva based Hindi weekly, Prashant Samachar.

Travelling doctor-nursing sister couple Stephen and Elisabeth Weinstein were in Sydney re cently after a three-year stint in Hawaii.

They were on their way to Solomon Islands, planning a week in Honiara before taking off for more remote places.

They will spend a few days in Bellona before heading out to Rennell. They will fly to Rennell and again to Tingoa. There they will take a tractor along the Japanese-built mining road (created as part of an abortive bauxite mining project). Then it will be a journey by canoe around the Rennell coast . . .

They will then scale the makatea cliffs and live in the village of Hutuna on the edge of the lake, said to be the largest in the South Pacific.

Licensed to practise in Sol omon Islands, Stephen will be responsible aided by Elisabeth for the medical care of the villagers.

They expected to spend about two and a half months on Rennell.

Then it will be back to Hon olulu where Stephen plans another two years of training as a specialist pathologist.

Hamuera Orupe McLeod usually known as Joe McLeod is a 24-year-old Maori from the Tuhoe people of New Zea land. He is a great-great grandson of the Maori prophet Rua Kenana (see Books, p 45) and he works as an assistant to the chef at the Port Moresby Travelodge in Papua New Guinea. He is becoming widely known through the Pacific and as far west as Japan for his skill in carving delicate sculptures from chocolate, margarine, ice and snow.

He recently visited Japan as a

nominee of the New Zealand Master Chefs Association, and demonstrated his skills in snow sculpture in company with other experts from many parts of the world.

Joe McLeod draws extensively on traditional Maori designs for many of his sculpting projects.

The designs include the intricate patterns of Maori canoe prows, canoe stern posts and artefacts.

He has won a number of awards. His interest in the art began during his catering train ing, where basic skills in sculpt ing food products is a standard part of the course.

Dr Isi Kevau of the Port Mores by General Hospital has been made a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physi cians, the first Papua New Gui nean doctor to gain such a

fellowship.

PNG Health Minister Martin ToVadek said in a tribute to Dr Kevau, 32, of Pari village near Port Moresby, that he had al ready achieved a number of dis tinctions. These included being the first to graduate in medicine from the University of PNG (in 1973), and gaining a master of medicine’s degree (in 1982).

Dr Kevau is senior medical officer (physician) at the Port Moresby General Hospital.

Joe McLeod shows some of his designs to New Zealand dip lomat Rod Miller.