smoked newspaper”

Salute to PNG’s “most smoked newspaper”

The etiquette of smoking in Papua New Guinea seems somewhat more involved than some other parts of the Pacific, at least according to Edward Donpos, of Maso Village, Uvol, near Rabual, East New Britain Province.

Mr Donpos wrote to the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald to congratulate him upon the quality of his produc tion which had lately become, he said, “the most-smoked newspaper in our nation.”

“Village businessmen are now ordering it in 50kg bales for their trade stores and selling it at the rate of five pages for 10 toea (about 13 cents Australian) for customers to roll their own cigarettes.

“Alternatively,” he said, “the pages are each tom into three pieces, and the pieces sold, wrapped around a stick of local tobacco for 40 toea (about 52 cents Aus).”

Newsprint is favored over commercial rice paper leaves as used in Australia and by cow boys in the United States, Mr Donpos explained, because in New Guinea’s humid climate rice paper fails to survive the licking process and instead of sticking down collapses spilling tobacco all over the roller’s shirt front.

The pages of the Sydney Morning Herald, said Mr Don pos, were made of sterner stuff.

However, while some smok ers claimed to favor one news paper over the other on

grounds of flavor, he felt him self that the local tobacco was such strong stuff it tended to overcome the palate of all but the most experienced.

Yet it was possible to dif ferentiate among individual sec tions of a newspaper. The financial sections and race form pages as well as the classified ads were favored over those pages full of large pictures be cause of the effect of heavy layers of news ink upon the even burning of the page, said the writer. New Guinea tobacco sticks are made of whole leaves, rolled and soaked in molasses, and sell well although, again according to Mr Donpos, some more delicate souls are now turning to tinned or pouch tobacco, though still favoring newsprint for the wrapping.

Status of varying kinds also tends to be conveyed by the size of the “roll”. Minimum length is about five inches, although some can go to 18 inches, and all are usually about a quarter of an inch thick.

In Fiji locally-cured tobacco is not often burned in newsprint but a fine light brown paper, apparently obtained from In dian packages and paper bags, is favored by some.

Use of newsprint is however fading in most parts of the Pacific in favor of “tailor mades” which stand up well, even during the worst of the wet season, for the very basic reason that they don’t require licking.