CAPTAIN COOK AND DINNER ISLAND

                                                 

So who gave Samarai Island the name “Dinner Island”?

 Was it Captain James Cook? Captain John Moresby? Or Captain Luis Vaez de Torres?

Captain Luis Vaez de Torres might have as he would have been among the first European explorers to sail past that island in the seventeenth century. Captain James Cook would not have had as there are no records available of his venturing anywhere near the islands of New Guinea in his time as explorer. That leaves Captain John Moresby the key figure in the speculations that he probably was the name giver.

A brief quiz was conducted through a Facebook group Alotau, Milne Bay Province with the following poser:

How well do you know your province and your history? Assuming this were a million dollar question, what would your answer be to this:

Who gave Samarai the name Dinner Island?

Was it Captain James Cook in 1779 (a)? Captain John Moresby in 1873 (b)? Or Captain Luis Vaez de Torres in 1606 (c)?

 

Just type a, b or c.

26 people participated in this quiz. 10 said A. 12 said B. 2 said C. 1 said “none of the above” and  1 probability.

Those who chose A were noted to be keen observers, often with a light-hearted sense of humor and most important of all, overwhelming love for their home province. They’d embraced the quiz as a worthy gesture of community service to their province. Said one of the participants in this segment of the quiz: “I love history… It’s better to learn from each other about the history of our province…” These probably depended too much on popular opinion and fable as much as oral history and further assumed that Captain Cook rhymed with Dinner Island.

Those who chose B were noted to be careful observers, somewhat scholarly types who were sure of the answer they gave. Some insisted they were right, courtesy of Google and the encyclopedias.

Those who chose C were noted to be more than keen observers but that their speculations depended on creativity such as when history gives one the opportunity to let the human imagination get carried away. They would make great historical novelists.

So eventually, and speaking officially, that is, the answer anticipated was B. It was Captain John Moresby who was recorded to have named the island “Dinner Island” in 1873.

The rest was left to speculation and the eye of that keen observer who says, “I am rather interested in what is not there.”

 

BOUGAINVILLE'S GREAT EXPECTATIONS

                                                            

A review of the film Mr. Pip

 

The Papua New Guinean soldier wants to know who Mr. Pip is. His men round up the villagers who are then severely interrogated. A little boy, as slow a learner as Mr. Watts is (for that is Mr. Pip’s real name), says he knows where Mr. Pip is. The boy points out a house and a white man is brought forward. The white man soon realizes the dilemma of fiction and discursive information and in the process of differentiating the two for the benefit of the soldier and his men, he, the soldier, shoots him twice on the chest, calling him a liar and a spy. His body is then dragged to the back of a house and hacked to pieces. To the soldier Mr. Pip is never that fictitious character from Charles Dickens’ novel, Great Expectations, but a master-mind controlling the BRA. The soldier’s next task is to find Mr. Charles Dickens himself and similarly execute him.  

 

Or so goes the story of this film, Mr. Pip.

 

When Lloyd Jones set out to publish the novel Mister Pip in 2006, he probably had in mind the Bougainville copper mine as not only the largest mine in the world in 1988 but also a complex multi-billion dollar corporation from which much would be expected, all at the expense of the ordinary Bougainville islander and those that came to live on that island. Schools and other government service agencies on the island were shut down, the people had nowhere to turn to but unto themselves for all possible means of survival as just a few meters next to them was a war raging between the BRA and the Papua New Guinea armed forces. But it was to the people themselves that all bruises and trauma of that war were left, with so many desolate hours of “great expectations” lying ahead of them somewhere in the distance of an unseen future. And the resultant revelation for all of that would be nothing but an abandoned crater, a hole in the ground not worth fighting for.

 

The journalist Sean Dorney looked at Bougainville and offered extensive reports over ABC and other media publications of atrocities on the island and for which he was threatened or deported.

 

But this film, Mr. Pip, needs to be understood not so much as a report on what happened on Bougainville as to its insistence on asking some of the greatest questions of literary merit since time immemorial, especially on the plight of ordinary people in extremely difficult circumstances. Miss Xzannjah Matsi and Hugh Laurie join forces to give not only Bougainville but also the whole of Papua New Guinea the best of performances since Abert Toro’s Tukana and the William Takaku-Pearce Brosnan portrayal of Man Friday. The casting was excellent and the use of organic material in the form of raw village talent deserves commendation. Who can judge between character and real life? Who can boast of who’s who in Hollywood or Bollywood but a remarkable piece of literary rendering of ordinary humanity on film, the big silver screen, like this one? There, and only then, do we hear voices of the masters, like Charles Dickens; like Mr. Watts aka Mr. Pip; and that little Buka girl that snaps out of a reverie, out of the strangeness of a long dream just to learn from the wisdom of the crabs and Mr. Dickens that home is where we all want to be and certainly not a thing to be ashamed of. Mr. Pip, the only white man in that village perishes. The other villagers, including Matilda, barely manage to escape. And when they do, there is much to look back to as reminder. In essence, the civil war was utterly senseless.

 

The film also carries some historical references, through dialogue, character flash backs and certain locations of filming, that trace and reflect upon those famous yet now forgotten black birding voyages of the 18^th and 19^th centuries. The island of Bougainville has once upon a time been a gold mine of black slavery. Not a single 19^th century British novel, be it Dickens or Jane Austen, passes by us without a slight mention of slave trade whether from Africa or anywhere else such as the Pacific islands. Both the author of the novel and the film makers have been careful enough to remain faithful to their historical research data, by sparing us a little of that information. In this film, Mr. Pip, in particular, we are given the opportunity to trace those black birding voyages, when Matilda (the character Xzannjah’s portraying) makes her way from Bougainville to the Solomon Islands, to Australia and finally to Great Britain where she inherits part of a house that belongs to Mr. Pip. Matilda, of course, turns down the offer when she remembers she could not, much as she might have, save Mr. Pip from the PNG soldiers. She inherits rather a copy of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations.

 

This is a good film. Get to see it soon. 

This review posted simultaneously by Soaba's Storyboard.

 

FINAL ISLANDS IN THE SUN 4

                                                                       

This is the revised version of Chapter 4 of Russell Soaba's novel, FINAL ISLANDS IN THE SUN. More on this novel can be read on Soaba's Storyboard.

FINAL ISLANDS IN THE SUN – 4

 

    Earlier at his office in Alotau, Tomwaya had obtained from the passenger for his own business records scant details on what village he was traveling to, how much that would cost, the type of transport appropriate for the trip – except, of course, asking for more information on the client’s employment, location of job, spouse, dependents, next of kin if any, and so on. He simply said fill in this form, sir, and the girls will complete the rest of the details later. He was more concerned with the thought of earning some good money that day. Aside from that, he resolved not to allow any one of his employees handle his brand new and coveted double-cab four-wheel drive in transporting the passenger from Port Moresby, except himself.

     The passenger came in the morning flight surprising those at the Numwaya Nathalie Lodge. Since the whole town would not begin conducting business until 8.00am the shuttle simply left him at the reception desk without any directions of where to go or who to see. But the man seemed to be sure where he wanted to be. Foroga and Mimi were the first to set sight on him, and rushed over thinking of a familiar face only to stop short in their tracks and smile apologetically. Then they had asked, while setting out to prepare breakfast, if he wanted to sign in. There were rooms available, there was also breakfast. The man shook his head.

    When Nathalie and Tomwaya walked over from their abode, they regarded the visitor with the same air of curiosity. Only Nathalie looked the man over a little longer and then being sure he was a total stranger proceeded to the kitchen to begin directing the girls to prepare breakfast. Tomwaya was then left to the duty of asking how he could help the visitor whereupon the man said that he needed transportation to the north coast. And that didn’t sound like a request, Tomwaya thought.

    “Good, I’ll need some forms filled in then… if you don’t mind,” he said instead.

    The man nodded with a slight sniff and followed Tomwaya to his office where a form was given him to look over. Tomwaya then explained the necessity of the forms and left to help with breakfast for the guests of the lodge.

    A while later and as breakfast progressed at the lodge, with chores of the day carefully planned out and each worker assigned a duty, Tomwaya still wondered about the visitor from the city. Some gnat was buzzing around his head, hard to snap at. Finally, he turned to his wife and announced he would be taking the man to the north coast or wherever it was that he wanted to go.

    “There’s five hundred secured,” he said, in a tone that made Nathalie know he was asking for permission to travel that way.

     “I keep my side of the business neat and tidy, my good husband,” she said after a moment of reflection, and her husband heard the crunch of burnt toast in her mouth.

      “Trust me, nothing will go wrong,” he said reassuringly. “He looks like a good customer. Just worry about our guests and the trip to Samarai.”

      Nathalie was not convinced. She had her eyes narrowed at Tomwaya. She had warned him then of whom he chose to transport across the rough terrain from Alotau to the Raba Raba district, including the dreaded Cape Vogel area. Hadn’t he noticed, she went on, they had to let Pomio Queen remain at anchor out at the bay for two hours while the police went through each passenger’s baggage checking for drugs, evidence of arms smuggling, black market liquor and so on. There were rumors going on as well that people from Baniara within Cape Vogel itself were now sporting strange connections with certain religious sects throughout the country, hadn’t he heard? He should be more careful with whom he was dealing. And anyhow, she concluded, you can’t trust these Baniaras. The Deputy Governor of the Milne Bay Province is from Baniara, mind you.

“And you, my dear, are also from Baniara, let us not forget,” said Tomwaya with a smile.

     “I know... and so my concern for your welfare and our business. So listen to me, my good husband. I am serious. You must know your customers well. You must be selective. Think of all those good clients you always have, who pay ready money and without complications – the government ministers, the public servants, the landowners, the academics, the researchers, the lot. Why this one? How can you possibly trust him? ”

 

     “Nathalie, he looks trustworthy enough. I mean, look at him. He looks… well, imposing, a bit pompous to say the least but, believe me, he would be that sort of character not to stand on other people’s toes. When I talked to him briefly I felt that of him. He would be that kind of man. Too old to be travelling, too grey, a little bent, but gold enough, that’s for sure. He could even be loaded with retirement money, you know - if you’re worried about prompt payments and all that. And, well…yes, there’s something oddly peculiar, something intriguingly familiar about this man – a teacher perhaps? An advisor to some important leader in ages past, perhaps? A professor, even, a millionaire pretending to be poor, or a retired colonel, perhaps? ”

      “You are so sure of yourself in your judgment of character, Tomwaya,” said Nathalie, taking another nab at the overdone toast then swallowing hard at her tea to wash the crust down. “You just talked to him briefly and now listen to yourself go. The next thing you’ll be telling me is that this man, this total stranger standing over there, looks like my dead uncle.”

     Tomwaya almost choked sipping his tea.

     “And which uncle might that be?”

     “The poet.”

     “Ah, that one…yes,” said Tomwaya and appeared thoughtful for a moment.

     He had decided not to argue with his wife any more. But she let him take the north coast road with the passenger.

     Now, as Tomwaya looked at his passenger slumbering away beside him in the double cab four-wheel drive, it occurred to him that his wife could have been speaking sense after all. Did he know his client’s name? All he did was ask the city traveler to fill in the required forms “and leave the rest to the girls” without taking the trouble to check what was written there. Now he just did not know who his passenger was, least of all memorize his name if he had to.