Micronesians,

A tribute to Micronesians,

Island, Islands: A Special Good.

By Bernadette V. Wehrly. Cal derwood-McCandless Pub lishing, Newport Beach, Cali fornia, 1986. U 5512.95.

This is an overly lyrical elegy, a labour of love, to a Pacific that may never have existed. Dr Bernadette Wehrly spent a few important years of her life train ing teachers in Truk State, in the heart of the Federated States of Micronesia, and this privately published volume is her tribute to the people of Micronesia through a compila tion of contemporary Microne sian literature.

Some 44 Trukese contribute a host of drawings, traditional tales and legends, poetry and short essays, most from the tiny Mortlock Islands. Albert Wehrly provides photographs of the arts and crafts of Micronesia, unfortunately unidentified in origin, redolent of an era that is slowly dying, and Bernadette Wehrly adds her own marginal illustrations.

The brief traditional legends tell of the origins of settlement, struggles with giant fish and sharks, ghosts and giants and ancient and contemporary war

fare (the population decline in Japanese-occupied Dublon).

As in all small Pacific islands there is a constant pre-occupa tion with the might of the sea and the precariousness of life in these particularly tiny and iso lated islands. None of the stories arc more than a page long.

Three Micronesians contri bute short essays on aspects of contemporary life: the visit of the field ship (a multi-purpose market, administrative centre and main point of physical contact for the outer islands), Sunday mass in Truk’s cathed ral and the Truk market In each of these essays there is a harmony and peace about family and island life and a focus on economic production, themes that are all too conspi cuous by their absence in the real world of rivalous, bureaucratic Truk.

The centrepieces in every way are the varied writings of the Mortlockese poet, Petrus Martin, from a eulogy to the coconut tree to a series of poems reflecting on the varied meanings of island life.

It is a pleasant volume, a rare anthology of contemporary Micronesian writing and one that may well find a valuable place in the schools that Ber nadette Wehrly sought to serve. -John Connell