Papua New Guinea

Within the last century, writers from Papua New Guinea have produced a number of impressive autobiographies, writing which deserves to be better known. This tradition developed rapidly, for in early translations the "auto" element of the writing can be somewhat problematic: Ligeremaluoga's narrative's title is translated as "Erstwhile Savage" and readers are told that portions had to be removed to make it "fit for general publication" (Raymond Pennington, Foreword, n.p., in Erstwhile Savage: An Account of the Life of Ligeremaluoga (Osea): An Autobiography (trans. E. Collins, Melbourne: Chesire, 1932)). Ligeremaluoga's description of village customs is carefully distanced, and the detailed descriptions (as the translator triumphantly stresses) are a betrayal rather than a celebration of his culture.

To read Albert Maori Kiki's Kiki: Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime, A New Guinea Autobiography (Melbourne: Chesire, 1968) is to see that a seachange has come over the way in which Papuans can represent themselves – to hear a voice which does not defer to the values of the colonisers. Local journals (Kovave and New Guinea Writing) and the work of Ulli Beier at the University of Papua New Guinea encouraged the production of more autobiographical writing, some of which is collected in Niugini Lives (ed. Ulli Beier, Milton: Jacaranda, 1973) and Black Writing from New Guinea (ed. Ulli Beier, St Lucia: University of Queensland Press, 1973).

Sir Michael Somare, in his autobiography Sana: an Autobiography of Michael Somare (Port Moresby: Ningini Press, 1975), speaks of his concern throughout his career (including when he became Chief Minister) that he should not become detached or distanced from his village culture. The wider textual mark of this concern is a focus on describing traditional ways of life, descriptions which make this far more than a memoir of the public political life of an individual (for a contrary opinion, see Hempenstal). Vivid and impressive, Somare's autobiography is often used as a reference work in Pacific Studies courses, though it is yet to be given full attention by literary critics. Two other vividly written autobiographies from Papua New Guinea have also so far been neglected by literary critics, though they are well-known within ethnographic circles. These are Ongka: A Self-account by a New Guinea Big-man, trans. Andrew Strathern (London: Duckworth, 1979) and Ru: Biography of a Western Highlander, trans. Andrew Strathern (Boroko, PNG: National Research Institute, 1993). Each has recently been republished (along with other material, including an interview with Ongka's daughter and a collection of Kawelka narratives). Ongka's narrative is included in Andrew Strathern's and Pamela Stewart's Collaborations and Conflict: A Leader Through Time (Fort Worth: Harcourt College Publishers, 2000) and Ru's appears in Andrew Strathern's and Pamela Stewart's Stories, Strength and Self-Narration: Western Highlands, Papua New Guinea (Adelaide: Crawford House, 2000). Ongka's narrative shows a clear awareness of the eye of the culturally external reader (so that Ongka notes, after concluding a description of the violence of war, that "We had some peaceful customs too" (p ref)). A similar awareness is present in Ru's narrative, but whereas Ongka interweaves descriptions of his tribe's way of life with his own deeds, Ru's narrative focuses more on his personal actions. Yet Ru's narrative is also markedly relational (arguably more so than Ongka's, although in both cases, individual identity is strongly interwoven with the group), with a persistent interest in the feelings of others (including the feelings of women).

Other notable life writing from Papua New Guinea includes a number of volumes by Sir Paulius Matane (My Childhood in New Guinea (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), To Serve With Love (Mount Waverley, Vic: Dellasta Pacific, 1992), A New Guinean Travels Through Africa (Port Moresby: Department of Education, 1971), and Trekking Through New Worlds (UBS Publishers Distributors, 1995) and Alice Wedega's Listen, My Country (Sydney: Pacific Publications, 1981). Matane's folk-tale inflected Childhood is perhaps the most interesting of these. Lady Carol Kidu's A Remarkable Journey (South Melbourne: Pearson Education Australia, 2002) provides an intimate cross-cultural autobiography, showing how her own cultural identity was reshaped by her marriage to Sir Buri Kidu. Her incomprehension of the racist vilification directed towards their relationship by some white Australians forms an interesting contrast to Stanton's writings (see below). Deborah Carylon's MamaKuma: One Woman, Two Cultures (St Lucia, University of Queensland Press, 2002), a family memoir written by a granddaughter, also shows families from Australia and Papua New Guinea entwining through marriage.

Other biographies of Papua New Guineans can blur the boundaries between biography and autobiography, as in Audrey McCollum's Two Women, Two Worlds: Friendship Swept by Winds of Change (Etna, N.H.: Hillwinds Press, 1999) and in Virginia Drew Watson's remarkable Anyan's Story: A New Guinea Woman in Two Worlds (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997). Although Watson drew on field notes rather than transcribing an autobiographical narrative, and she stresses that Anyan's Story is a new creation and a biography, the work is written in autobiographical style, employing the first person. It is a valuable reminder of the wealth of unpublished autobiographical material which is collected in anthropologists' field notes. More familiar biographical techniques appear in Elin Johnston's Bishop George: A Man of Two Worlds (Port Lonsdale, Vic: Robjon, 2003) and Amirah Inglis's Karo: The Life and Fate of a Papuan (Canberra: Australian University Press, 1982).

There has been so much writing by European sojourners in Papua New Guinea that it is impossible to list more than a fraction of it here (see also entry on European traveller/explorer writing) . Prominent categories include diaries and memoirs by early settlers and traders (Mouton), accounts by early anthropologists and colonial administrators (Miklukho-Maklaĭ, Monckton, McCarthy), by soldiers who fought in World War II (Stanton), memoirs of childhood and youth (Phillips), memoirs by missionaries and church leaders (Hand), and by community workers such as teachers and doctors (Berkeley). For some instances of these and bibliographic details, see Further reading. Among these narratives, journal-style memoirs and diaries such as Mouton's and Stanton's often seem more vivid than those narratives which appear to have been more consciously crafted with an eye to publication, such as Monckton's (which was so popular that three editions were published in England, with yet another edition being published for the American market), McCarthy's or Phillips'. Mouton's matter of fact, unemotional style combines with an ability to select telling details, and Stanton's blunt entries (which are often polemically racist and sexist) make him both compelling and confronting as a narrator. In addition to full-length diaries and memoirs, there are a number of collections of autobiographical writing on Papua New Guinea, of which Tales of Papua New Guinea, ed Stuart Inder (Roseville, N.S.W.: Retired Officers Association of Papua New Guinea, 2001) might stand as an example. Yet another category is provided by biographies of Europeans who spent part of their lives in the country, such as Michael Young's Malinowski: Odyssey of an Anthropologist, 1884-1920 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004).

Further reading

Berkeley, Vaughan. Doctor in Papua, Adelaide: Rigby, 1974.

Hand, David. Modawa: Papua New Guinea and Me 1946-2002, Port Moresby: Salpress, 2002.

Hempenstal, Peter, 'Sniffing the Person: Writing Lives in Pacific History.' In Lal, Brij V. and Peter Hempenstal, eds. Pacific Lives, Pacific Places: Bursting Boundaries in Pacific History, Canberra: Journal of Pacific History, 2001, 34-47.

LiPuma, Edward. Encompassing Others: The Magic of Modernity in Melanesia, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000.

McCarthy, John Keith. Patrol into Yesterday: My New Guinea Years, Melbourne: Chesire, 1967.

Miklukho-Maklaĭ, Nikolaĭ Nikolaevich. New Guinea Diaries 1871-1883, trans. C.L. Sentinella, Madang, PNG: Kristen Press, 1975.

Monckton, C.A.W. Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate, third ed., London: John Lane, 1921.

Mouton, Jean Baptiste Octave. The New Guinea Memoirs of Jean Baptiste Octave Mouton, ed. P. Biskup, Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1974.

Phillips, Anna. As the Catalina Flies: A Hungarian Girl Growing up in Bougainville, Springwood, N.S.W.: Butterfly Books, 1993.

Stanton, Eddie. The War Diaries of Eddie Allan Stanton: Papua 1942-45 New Guinea 1945-46, ed. Hank Nelson, St Leonards, N.S.W.: Allen and Unwin, 1996.

Strathern, Andrew and Pamela J. Stewart, eds, Identity Work: Constructing Pacific Lives, Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press, 2000.