Category Archives: Pacific

by | 21 April 2004 · 7:46 pm

Nauru: Once Rich in Phosphates, Now Broke

The island nation of Nauru, which once had the highest per capita income in the “developing” world, is now broke. The New Zealand News reports:

Australia has declined to bail out the island nation of Nauru, which is facing almost certain bankruptcy this month.

As receivers moved in on Nauru’s key international property assets, President Rene Harris is understood to have approached Canberra for a short-term rescue package….

The tiny island republic is facing both a constitutional and financial crisis, following a deadlock in its Parliament when the Speaker resigned in protest at the Government’s failure to pass a budget.

A spokesman for the Harris Government said they were still trying to find a refinancer for a A$236 million loan with America’s General Electric Capital.

The loan used the last of Nauru’s once $1 billion-plus property portfolio as security.

Nationmaster.com profiles Nauru’s economy.

Revenues of this tiny island have come from exports of phosphates, but reserves are expected to be exhausted within a few years. Phosphate production has declined since 1989, as demand has fallen in traditional markets and as the marginal cost of extracting the remaining phosphate increases, making it less internationally competitive. While phosphates have given Nauruans one of the highest per capita incomes in the Third World, few other resources exist with most necessities being imported, including fresh water from Australia. The rehabilitation of mined land and the replacement of income from phosphates are serious long-term problems. In anticipation of the exhaustion of Nauru’s phosphate deposits, substantial amounts of phosphate income have been invested in trust funds to help cushion the transition and provide for Nauru’s economic future. The government has been borrowing heavily from the trusts to finance fiscal deficits. To cut costs the government has called for a freeze on wages, a reduction of over-staffed public service departments, privatization of numerous government agencies, and closure of some overseas consulates. In recent years Nauru has encouraged the registration of offshore banks and corporations. Tens of billions of dollars have been channeled through their accounts. Few comprehensive statistics on the Nauru economy exist, with estimates of Nauru’s GDP varying widely.

But Air Nauru says it will keep flying.

UPDATE: Head Heeb has more.

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Filed under economics, Micronesia

by | 17 April 2004 · 1:28 pm

19th-Century IT Improvements and Noncorporate Whaling

Alaska-based econoblogger Ben Muse posted a couple of interesting historical observations recently, one on the 19th-century IT revolution and another on why whaling ventures didn’t adopt corporate structures.

The first post summarizes data from the book, The New Financial Order: Risk in the 21st Century, by Robert Shiller.

  • The cost of paper for record storage drops as a paper making machine is invented in 1800, and the use of wood pulp for making paper is introduced in 1865.

  • The cost of data transmission drops when standardized envelopes are introduced in 1849, and as “street addresses proliferated in the late nineteenth century …”

  • The cost of making copies drops with the invention of the letter press in 1780 (“Letters … were placed before the ink was fully dry between the tissue-paper pages of a blank book, and the book closed and placed in a letter press, which pressed the pages tightly together. The special ink used to write the letter left a mark on the blank page, thereby generating a copy, which, although backward on the tissue paper, could be read normally from the other side.”), of carbon paper in 1806, and photographic document copying in 1900.

  • “The invention of the typewriter in 1868 was significant not only for the increased speed of data entry but also for the increased reliability of typewritten records …”

  • Industry for producing forms emerges in the 19th Century; carbon forms available by the 1880s.

  • Document sizes become standardized.

  • In the 1880s and 1890s development of mechanical calculators “sped the operation of the addition of numbers by about six …”

  • Filing systems improved (Dewey Decimal system introduced in 1876).

And then, there is the vertical file: “The vertical file with the associated cardboard file folders appeared at the 1893 world’s fair, the Columbian Exposition in Chicago, where it won a gold medal …”

The second post summarizes data from a working paper by Eric Hilts, “Incentives in Corporations: Evidence from the American Whaling Industry,” NBER w10403, March 2004.

U.S. whaling began in the 17th Century as small groups of colonists set out from shore after targets of opportunity. Gradually the business shifted to whaling ships with crews of 30 taking world wide trips lasting years at a time. Despite the 19th Century IT revolution, management of an enterprise like this would pose big challenges.

In the typical whaling enterprise a small group owned shares in the vessel. These persons delegated most management decisions to agents, who themselves had significant shares in the operations. [The agents and owners also tended to know each other very well, both personally and professionally.] …

In the 1830s some whaling firms incorporated in an apparent effort to become more attractive to large numbers of small investors. But look at what happened to management’s incentives. To a great extent oversight responsibility shifted from the investors to a board of directors. These, in turn, delegated management responsibility to an agent….

The corporate structure never became very important in the whaling business. The whaling industry survived into the later 19th Century, but “Of the whaling corporations that were chartered in the 1830s and early 1840s, none survived past the 1840s.” [Hilts, p. 12] …

Hilts thinks the reason is the different incentives faced by agents under the alternative forms of organization. He sought confirmation in a data set on 874 whaling voyages from 1830 to 1849; the data set covered almost 20% of the voyages during that time. For each voyage he calculated a productivity index. Hilts thinks the reason is the different incentives faced by agents under the alternative forms of organization. He sought confirmation in a data set on 874 whaling voyages from 1830 to 1849; the data set covered almost 20% of the voyages during that time. For each voyage he calculated a productivity index. Statistical analysis of the relation between the index and voyage characteristics found that, both statistically, and practically, corporate voyages were less productive that non-corporate voyages. (As a practical matter, organization as a corporation had a greater adverse impact on productivity than the death of the captain on the voyage. [Hilts, p. 23])

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Filed under economics, industry, Pacific

by | 15 April 2004 · 9:03 pm

Aftermath of Typhoon Sudal in Yap, Micronesia

[This email letter was relayed out from Yap, Micronesia, in the wake of Typhoon Sudal, with the author’s permission to reproduce it freely. I’ve done so verbatim, omitting only one paragraph. My own experience of a hurricane on Yap in 1974 is utterly inconsequential by comparison.]

Dear Friends,

Seok Ha and myself are both shaken, but whole and healthy (minus a nasty head cold that doesn’t want to give up) doing much better than OK given the circumstances, but it is with immense sadness I convey these tidings from our tiny little tropical islands to y’all.

Typhoon Sudal may have broken Yap’s back, but not its people’s spirits.

Nobody ever expected the eye of a super typhoon to hit Yap head on. This was not supposed to happen, traditionally, the Yap sorcerers and magicians have had the powers to divert typhoons. And following the old “badness comes in waves” adage (no pun intended), the peak of typhoon intensity naturally happened to coincide with high tide. Add to that an extreme ocean water surge pushed by Sudal, and these here islands found themselves, as the saying goes, in deeper than usual waters.

We were told, and some of us could learn on the Internet typhoon warning pages, that the “outskirts of Sudal” was, maybe, going to affect Yap. Nobody was mentally, or physically, prepared for the assault that hit us shortly after midnight. Typhoon Mitag, that two years ago I thought was mighty scary, was nothing in comparison. Sudal was not classified as a super typhoon (and I don’t know if it was ever officially “upgraded”), but the opinion of everyone here–even people with first hand experience of serious US hurricane damage–is clear: this was, by far, the worst anyone has ever even heard of. Some of the old Yapese people I talked with remembers a strong typhoon that hit in the late forties, but with nowhere near the destructive energy that Sudal packed. But the spirit of the Yapese turns out to be incredibly strong, and resilient. Come to think of it, that may be a mental requirement, in order to live permanently out here.

I know of no actual measurements taken during this intense ordeal, but Sudal was announced as being of typhoon strength, with 120 knots (60+ meter per second) sustained winds, and up to 180 knots (90+ meter per second) gusts. There may be a tendency to overestimate these things when you’re in the middle of it all, but judging from the extreme damage that was delivered to Yap on these Easter holidays, and by how it was absolutely impossible to venture outside during the peak hours (the “eye” stayed over Yap, incessantly delivering one blow after the other, for a good six hours), my guess is that by the time Sudal hit Yap proper full force (about 02:00), it had grown well into super typhoon territory. As if the matter of classification really matters.

Power and water went early, leaving all the islands in virtual darkness, and with no drinking water. Thanks to no less than heroic efforts by Tim and Tim (water and power, respectively) and their crews, we got power back already early this morning, and we’re promised to have our water back by tomorrow. That is only here in Colonia, though (priority one due to the needs of the Yap State Hospital), the complete grid will probably take some time to get back online.

My personal assessment is that 60 percent of all local businesses, 70 percent of all homes, and 80 percent of all schools, are utterly devastated, completely written off. Gone. Can’t even use the rubble left behind as building material, as the pieces are too small. As kindling, yes. Rumung island is reported to be especially hard hit, with zero man-made structures remaining.

The COM [College of Micronesia] campus, as its neighboring Yap High School campus, looks as if a bomb exploded above the area (especially with that old Japanese concrete tower, with all its US battleship and artillery shelling scars from WWII, residing in the middle of it all). Only the admin and the computer lab buildings are still standing. But my guess is that it will be a considerable while before any Yapese students will have any interest in taking night-time computer courses. Rumor has it that the school board has decided to terminate the 2004 school year early.

The airport terminal buildings has sustained some cosmetic damage, but it looks as if there are no structural problems, except for the fire truck shelter (gone) and the PMA hanger (the hanger doors are bulging outwards, from excessive pressure from within). And unfortunately, all the trees and koyengs [shelters] lining the AP parking lot, together with the “Welcome to Yap” sign, succumbed to the awesome powers of Sudal. It looks like a war zone, the aftermath of another bomb attack.

The Save Way store, along with most of Madrich, and all shoreline Baleabaat houses, gone. Videographer Mark Thorpe, who now rents a concrete house across the road from where Save Way used to be, is fine, but his house got a thorough enema administered by seven meter (20+ feet) waves that kept pummeling the shoreline. He considers himself lucky to have lost only a few belongings, while his next door neighbors were being completely wiped out, and with zero means to rebuild. The outer island Madrich residents, already in abysmal conditions in their shantytown, were emergency evacuated to a few schools, and as if to kick them while they were already downed flat, Sudal then proceeded to blow away the roofs of the schoolhouses. When it rains, it pours, indeed.

Seven-to-ten meter waves pounded the Chamorro Bay Bridge for hours (miraculously, it is still standing, with its concrete pillars all knocked to one side or another, and the steel guardrails severely twisted!), and the ocean surges continued past the bridge to seriously damage all houses and businesses lining the Chamorro Bay.

Ace’s Mart, demolished, as was the little yellow church up on the hill, and the kindergarten (pre-school?). Professor Caldwell’s house (where Carl used to rent) next door was left untouched, as was the Baha’i house–it seems to me as if that particular area received some protection from the Nimar hill.

Pathway’s Hotel got lucky, with only thatch damage (on first assessment, anyway), but in need of lots and lots of minor repair work on all eight units, this with their economy already severely strained by recent events.

Many boats were thrown way up on dry land, most smashed useless.

And trees down, everywhere. In many places in massive piles.

Most Yap coconut trees are now asymmetrical, with all fronds facing the head-on direction of Sudal being brutally ripped off. On Guam, not even super typhoon Paka was able to break healthy coconut trunks: here on Yap, there are now many many coconut trees snapped off like so many matches, silent evidence of how much communal power these tiny air molecules are capable of carrying. Many of the steel reinforced concrete power poles are leaning, but only very few got snapped. Incredibly strong wind gusts!

The Angel’s Mart (Chinese store) and the bakery next to the ESA hotel got flushed clean from the bay-side, with *all* merchandise and product spread all over the road and neighboring landscape. I do not know the status of ESA hotel itself, but I hope it is in as good shape as it looks (minus its bayside koyengs [shelters], of course).

Trader’s Ridge Resort looks comparatively good, but I have no details, as I have not yet ventured past the accumulated debris up the Nimar hills.

The courthouse corner was ripped wide open, and law texts from their library are now littering most of downtown Colonia.

The YCA hardware store/warehouse was demolished beyond repair, battered by both waves and high winds. In contrast, the new WAAB Hardware building, obviously well built, stands relatively undamaged.

The Manta Ray Bay hotel got its newly completed seaside (re-)constructions completely washed away (just as was done by typhoon Mitag, two years ago), and here too, enormous waves were crashing through the hotel and exiting on the parking lot. The proud sailing ship S/V Mnuw is now resting at a 45 degree list, half-way up on dry land, with no conceivable way to get it back into the water. So now the Manta Ray Bay hotel has no bar, and no restaurant, and no glass in most room windows. Bill, traveling, was stuck on Guam until yesterday, when he came back on one of the extraordinary Continental flights. Some of their dive boats were taken to the mangroves before Sudal hit, but since nobody was really prepared for what was coming, some of the fleet was left at the dock, as usual. Together with every trace of the dock, and the beautiful new terrace that replaced the old bar washed away by Mitag, they are now gone. Actually, parts of one of the boats (I think it is the remains of “Betelnut”) can be seen sitting on top of the now totally wrecked (sunk in shallow waters) M/V Cecilia–another ugly wreck now permanently lining the Colonia harbor. Sigh.

The Family Chain Bakery is completely leveled. So now Yap has no local commercial source of bread. It is my hope that some Palau bakery will offer increased shipments.

PBC is damaged, but under control. Also, Hiroshi-san (who was also stranded on Guam until yesterday) is one of the very very few that had any form of insurance.

A forty foot container (!) came tumbling through the air (literally, no less!) and came to rest across the road in front of O’Keefe’s, blocking through traffic. And speaking of O’Keefe’s: all Don Evans’ ventures has escaped with only minor damage, as did his house. Don is counting his blessings.

Just past Dugoor village, heading towards Rumuu village, large chunks of the road pavement has been ripped loose and blown clear off the road, and much of the topsoil on the exposed northern shores has been blown off. Yap is bleeding from multiple open and ugly wounds.

Down south, most villages has been flattened, in the true sense of the word. Because I was known to own a digital camera, I was commissioned by the Police Chief to be on the southern damage assessment team, to take early pictures of the mayhem, to try to convince FEMA that this is indeed a disaster area, in great and imminent need of lots of help from the outside. It was a mentally very difficult task, to go from village to village in Chief Cham’s (Gregory) truck, to stare all this heartbreak and helplessness straight in its face, all those crushed dreams. Unfortunately, my camera got some typhoon damage, so the result did not come out the best. But better than nothing, I guess/hope.

The Nimgil (“Nathan’s”) store is demolished, with fifty percent of their betel nut plantation down on the ground, and their pig farm now without a roof (the concrete walls are still standing, and the porkers are scared shitless, but fine). Jim and Debi’s place looks OK, somewhat sheltered by the dense surrounding vegetation, but we never took a close look–it looked too good for a check-out stop. Down in Anoth, the beach has yet again doubled in size, their beautiful newly built peebai [meeting house] is still standing, but now with a distinct slant. The loop road is impassable, and it will take a major effort to hack through the massive multiple walls of intertwined broken coco, betel, and nipa palm trunks, mixed with assorted crushed building debris. Regina Thun’s house lost parts of its roof, but the (long since closed) store escaped with almost no damage.

At the Destiny Resort, even the ruins from typhoon Mitag’s visit two years ago have now been washed away, and Carol and Colin’s “new” house on Maap has taken major wind gust hits. As destinies for visiting lawyers go: Peter (Public Defender) and Theresa Steltzer’s house at the Queen Bee will be out of the rental circuit until massive roof repairs has been done, plus associated water damage dittos has been undertaken. And trying to find a decent place to stay here on Yap will not be easy, for the foreseeable future.

On the west side, our “home village” (Kadai) has been badly damaged. We were unable to take the road down to Sunset Park, too much debris. Berna and Thomas Gorong, just finishing off a renovation of their hilltop house, had to abandon house for the relative safety of brother Theo’s concrete house, but as it turned out their house had sustained very little damage. Wayaan’s “vacation house” (the fruit bat hunting lodge Fillmed built for Guam governor Guiterrez) next door, however, is now spread across a sizeable area. Dave Vasalla’s house, a stone’s throw away, was undamaged, protected by the recess in which it was constructed. Tony Ganngiyang’s blue concrete house also gave evidence to the wisdom of building solidly–not a scratch! Otherwise, all houses visible from the loop road (Colonia – Delipebinaw – Fanif – Colonia) were either completely or partly demolished. Churches, schools, Kingtex, Public Transportation, the whole lot got hammered, but badly.

No big tree has been left standing. All mango and breadfruit trees of any size, that I know of, are gone, many taro patches have been ruined by salt water, practically all banana and papaya trees are gone, it is just so incredibly sad. It will be quite some time before local food supplies are back to normal. This may become another big problem, because so many people here are still depending only on local food, having no money to purchase imported “manufactured” food.

Remember how we always used to say, with some pride, “There are no homeless here on Yap, and nobody is starving.” Over night, a majority of the Yapese has become homeless, and we can only hope that the food situation will be solved, somehow.

In Gachpar, no house along the shores has survived, in most cases with no trace left behind. Of “our” little beach house, until Good Friday occupied by Michelle and Luke, only the concrete pillars upon which it rested remains. They too (Mich and Luke, that is), way too late realizing the urgency of the situation, got completely wiped out, materially.

James Lukan has just completed a flimsy-looking structure (two-by-fours and corrugated tin sheets) to house my pool table, across the road from the Gagil Elementary School (as most other schools were severely hit, this one got away almost scot free, “only” some roofs gone). For some weird reason, the “pool koyeng” was still intact! The small store, ten feet away, plus the supposedly typhoon-proof “waiting for the bus” shelter the same distance away in the other direction, was completely demolished.

Except for the house where the Munn’s used to live (still standing, good solid house: at one point it was standing in water up to the second floor) and the newly-constructed-but-not-yet-moved-into Kensuf main residence (still stands, but with serious roof damage, and with a truckload of cement sacks, for protection brought into the house, now being fused into a single clump of useless concrete, and most of the unlaid tiles crushed and scattered around the surrounding terrain), Kensuf’s whole property was leveled. There is no trace of the house “Little Richard” Overy (our ex-archivist) used to live in. It is all way beyond heartbreaking.

Saint Joseph’s church is demolished. Again miraculously, the Padre’s house, on its dinky stilts, was unscathed (strong message, or fluke?).

Wanyan, same. All houses along the shoreline are gone. Stone money banks, standing for centuries, were broken into by huge waves, breaking and spreading the rai coins and shattered pieces thereof all over the place. The road to Sea Breeze Beach is as yet, and without a major clean-up effort, impassable. I don’t know about Bechyal Culture Center, but judging from its location and what happened to all other structures on the northern shores of Maap, I fear the worst.

The Sports Complex was badly hit, and I’ve already heard rumors about Black Micro being sued for sub-standard construction. Here, too, the “roller” doors were pushed out by pressure from within (just like the hanger doors at the AP). Together with some of the now knocked out schools, the YSC was designated to function as an official “emergency shelter” in case the typhoon happened to hit. People who had taken refuge there were scrambling for their lives as parts of the roof eventually caved in. You know you have a crisis on your hands, when the disaster shelters are getting knocked out by the elements.

Al Ganang, proprietor of the sadly no longer existing Village View Hotel, is happy to be alive. The surge took him completely by surprise. Again, all the buildings along his beautiful beach are gone: the store, the bar, the dive shop, all of the two-unit hotel bungalows. All gone. Insurance? You’re kidding, right?

Wanead village, a little further north, was almost completely obliterated. Johnny Chugan told us that the entire village population is now shacked up in a single relatively undamaged building. The Wanead village path is now their new shoreline, facing a huge new beach. Chugan had just completed renovations and spiff-ups of their beach-side home, financed by an BofFSM loan. The house is no more (and the beautiful house he built for Cathy and PJ was blown away with it), but the bank loan remains. It is so very difficult to not burst out crying.

The Kula Place (just before Wanead village) is ravaged badly, all its koyengs blown to tiny little pieces, and substantial parts of the lovely old shady three has been blown down. Not entirely gone, thank heavens, and I do so hope that what remains of this grand ole tree will be able to survive its almost complete defoliation.

That is another thing, and it looks so weird and unreal: almost all leaves has been ripped of all trees. And I’m sad to say that, if anything, I am understating the damage done: the beautiful rolling green hills of Yap were, within a few hours, transformed to ugly brown hills, reminding me of late autumn in Sweden: no green leaves, no green anything, just bare branches, and the brown forest floor clearly visible–all across all the Yap islands. Very depressing. I don’t know much about resilience of trees and stuff, and I can only hope that this kind of damage is reversible, that somehow the plants can find the strength and resources needed to survive until a new generation of photosynthesizing green leaves has been produced.

Closer to home, here in Gaanelay village in Colonia: The Yap Agriculture facilities are demolished. Black Micro is a mess. As is some of Gilmar’s enterprises (his new pool room, gone), but it looks as if his store and video rental/Laundromat may be salvageable. Do you remember “Yap Wellness Center” just before Gilmar’s store? Well, forget it. The Talguw area was lucky, we could only see some roof damaged there. Behind our YCA townhouses, Libyen’s brand new two-storey house has been blown off its foundation, coming to rest at 40 degrees off the normal, beyond repair. All that can be done is to try to wreck it gently, in order to get to re-use all the expensive building material. Libyen, stoic, said “I’m too old to get upset by this, but the situation for Yap is really bad.” Gurwan was completely wiped out, the concrete sides of her house are still standing, but there is no roof, and nothing is left inside the house (Gurwan said, “It hasn’t been this clean since it was built”–making fun of the unbearable situation). The schoolhouse (temporary home for some 120 Madrich “refugees”) has lost most of its roof, and is generally beyond repair.

A few seconds of my life I believe has gotten permanently etched onto my retinas: at about 0600, as I was looking out our bedroom window, the huge breadfruit tree growing between our house and Libyen’s was finally brought down, and it fell directly towards our house (this tree has been worrying me ever since we moved in, with its potential for wreaking havoc on our house in case it ever fell down in an uncontrolled way). However, and as I watched it, a gust grabbed the huge trunk, raised it back up and then swung it clear in another direction, and nothing came down on our roof. Guardian angel? Maybe, but more likely our luck that the wind direction was away from our house. But it was a remarkable display of typhoon power, I remember it flashing through my head that “this is some kind of special effects trick,” to see a falling huge tree like that change direction in mid-fall. Amazing. And yes, we too are counting our blessings.

Countless cars, representing years of working hours for the average Yapese, has been rendered useless by flying debris and falling/flying tree trunks. “Flying guillotines” (corrugated tin sheets, the omnipresent roofing island material) also have done their share of slicing damage–that big water tank that got sliced clear through could, but for the grace of God, have been my belly, as I was forced out in the middle of the night to reinforce the window boarding material that was coming loose. Those wavy sheets of sharp steel were flying everywhere! It was scary as hell, lemmetellya!…

The Yap FM radio and TV station was knocked out early, as its aerial tower lost its supports early on.

The good news is that, unbelievably, nobody got hurt! And there has been no looting reported (I sincerely hope it stays that way). James Lukan said that one person is missing from Gachpar, but he also said that person may be just wandering around somewhere (the individual is of somewhat diminished mental capacities, and Lukan said, “If it turns out he’s been hiding in order to get attention, I’m gonna beat him up!”). I hope he will be found, and that he will be spared the beating.

The situation is bad. I’ll try again: It is very, very bad. Maybe as many as 5,000 Yapese have lost their homes. A Guam PDN article … mentions that 1,500 people on Yap are in “homeless shelters” (roofless schoolhouses), but says nothing about the fact that the majority of typhoon-struck Yapese much prefer to stay in whatever way they can in their demolished ex-homes, in their villages, with their clansmen.

And all the Yapese I meet say, “we’ll rebuild. Life goes on” and they laugh, and they prepare another betel nut chew.

In all, quite an unforgettable experience. And I sincerely hope that none of you will ever have to go through something even remotely resembling being a mote in the eye of a super typhoon–It is scary.

May your Gods protect, care for, and bless y’all!

Henry and Kim Seok Ha

MicroTech Consulting

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Filed under Micronesia

by | 14 April 2004 · 10:14 pm

Morobe Field Diary, December 1976: Going-away Party

Yesterday, the Sunday before Christmas, we finally had my village party. We had it early to make way for another one next Sunday. By my reckoning it was a good one. The [M.V.] Sago took off for Kuwi early in the morning to get the pig [people tend not to slaughter and eat pigs they’ve raised themselves] while we got the church service out of the way. About the time the service ended the Sago pulled in. The pig was alive, tied to a pole and large by NG [= New Guinea] standards and well fatted. People gathered under the men’s house at this end of the village while the women went to work on the starch and a few men on the pig who died a rather torturous death due to inefficient killers. One girl cried and I would have shed a tear if I weren’t at the moment being very detached & scientific (wonderful how science allows you to get beyond your scruples).

[The young, unmarried men’s cohort — my cohort — took charge of the slaughter and whacked the pig between the eyes several times to stun it before trying to put a pig spear thru its heart, but they had enough trouble finding the heart that an older, more experienced pig hunter stepped in to put the pig out of its misery more efficiently. Its squeals had set the village dogs wild, and the initial butchering had to be done on the platform of a canoe floating far enough offshore to keep the dogs away.]

The plan was to serve the beer with the food to avoid excessive drunkenness but when we had set a preliminary two cartons before the hot, thirsty and impatient crowd of men — already starting drum-beating — somehow the momentum started and they got two more, and then two more, before the food came. They were pretty gone for the most part and up singsinging, which they resumed after eating during the mid- to late-afternoon. Within the context of Nu. society we showed rather excessive appreciation (any at all) for the women who prepared the food by distributing a carton of beer among them as well. And a couple of packs of cigarettes. And many shouts of “yowe!” (‘well done, bravo, etc.’).

After dinner I joined the singsing which went on until dark. Around 7 pm or so we broke for some more food & a wash (my third well-needed one of the day) and to let the guitar-players get their gear together. Then the “play-guitar singsing” began. Again it was my duty to dance and, after a slow start, I danced and danced. At first it was all males though I called for the young women to join in. They were too shy till one town girl started, rather bravely shy at first. Then she came up and danced with me (knowing our strange custom), then her friend asked me. They were both high school girls (grades 7-10) who I didn’t know but when I had asked their names I turned the tables & asked them and several other young women to dance — danced American style the rest of the evening.

I don’t know what time it was when we broke up. Most of the village was asleep by then (or trying to get to sleep). Today I have the pleasant melancholy feeling of having met a nice girl at a party and am getting some paperwork done while waiting to count back 11 hours from high tide to figure out when I went to sleep last nite.

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Filed under Papua New Guinea

by | 14 April 2004 · 10:13 pm

Morobe Field Diary, December 1976: Intervillage Conflict

I’ve had good cause to be ashamed of my village mates lately. While I was in Lae, three who attended a school party in Kuwi chased a bunch of Paiawas looking for a fight with them. They didn’t catch any unfortunately. There was little provocation except for the general bad feeling be/ Paiawa & Siboma.

Then the pastor (of Paiewa, Kuwi and Siboma) brought word back from his trip there that the Paiawa were angry and were considering coming over for a brawl at Christmas time (when reinforcements from town will be in both villages). He advised the Sibomas not to go off into the bush separately but to stick together in doing things. For several days following that there has been constant talk of war. It really pissed me off and disappointed me. I’m not particularly worried that anyone would strike me, nor even that the Nus. wouldn’t be able to withstand an attack (they outnumber the Paiewas, esp. in young men). But I do have some vulnerable papers and stuff that I’m pretty concerned about preserving anyway.

So today, Dec. 14, the kiap [‘patrol officer’] came and told the Nus. (and presumably the Paiewas as well) that if any further trouble came up he would bring 10 police, a large boat, hold summary court and cart the guilty ones off to 6 mos in jail (which people are not fond of being in). Peace may result if Numbamis and Paiewas hold a peace meeting before the kiap in Morobe and straighten themselves out.

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by | 9 April 2004 · 1:20 pm

Morobe Field Diary, December 1976: Texts on Tape

Texts on tape have been eluding me and getting me worried as hell. I felt something would turn up but I wasn’t sure how and how good it would be. Well, last nite I hit a gold mine. During the day the kansol put out a story of war [WW II] coming to the area that was 1st class — well organized, clear and slow with good constructions I’ve wanted and a sprinkling of new vocabulary. And I forgot to press the record button. I was ready to bash in my head but the kansol said, “well, good, now you’ve heard it so you’ll understand it better next time: I’ve practiced telling it and you’ve practiced hearing it. Let’s go chop some poles for a smoking platform and come back and try again this evening.”

Physical labor was, along with less worry about tapes, exactly what I needed to dispel a case of hemorrhoids that was plaguing me. That done, we came back, rested up and that evening after dark I hauled out the tape recorder and the kansol told his story again — not as good as during the day but covering very much the same material and almost exactly the same length. Before his wife put her account of the preparation of food by women, another fellow came by who is chock full of stories and has a clear slow way of speaking besides. He lives in Paiewa but is visiting thank God. He told a good personal experience war story with Japanese pidgin [“A, banana sabis, ye?” = (‘banana free, okay?’) uttered by a starving Japanese straggler], conversation and dangerous experiences. He also told a somewhat shorter story about a woman who didn’t want to get married, supposedly true from before contact times. His war story is about 35-40 min. (This guy’s brother is a truck driver on the Mt. Hagen to Lae [Highlands Highway] run and is such a talker that his cab mates don’t get any sleep on the 12 or so hour ride.) Finally the kansol’s wife put her piece on tape clearly & concisely. I’ve got about 70-80 minutes of unbroken talking on the several cassettes I went thru last nite. I want to transcribe as much as I can here so I can get unstuck as I go along.

The day before, in my desperation I recorded some old men who got together to put something on tape after putting me off several times. They got together, bullshat about what they were going to say and decided they would do it better later. I got some revenge by surreptitiously recording them but it’s going to be hard to transcribe. That nite I was carrying my recorder to ask a man to tell me about canoe-building (another promise). I started talking with some kids around a fire and secretly pressed the record button. It too will be hard to transcribe but has good mixed language conversation (30 min.). [The two surreptitious tapes remain untranscribed.] So, I’m breathing much easier and my asshole itching less.

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by | 9 April 2004 · 12:16 pm

Morobe Field Diary, December 1976: Swimming in Fish Names

Things are getting pretty busy for me now. Finishing up the lexicon and trying to get some of the half-dozen or more texts people haven’t gotten around to giving me. Only two weeks to work’s end and I’m paranoid that I’ve left out something important grammatically that the texts won’t solve for me. Grammatical elicitation the way we did in Field Methods class is nearly impossible with informants as unschooled as most of mine. I don’t like it or trust it anyway. I prefer texts but people are very reluctant to give me stuff off the top of their heads, especially if it’s cultural info — they want someone authoritative to accompany them in the telling or else they practice first and wear out their interest in that so they are not keen on repeating it again for the tape.

Lately I’ve worn out my patience with eliciting fish names from two huge tomes — one quite authoritative ([Munro’s 1967] Fishes of New Guinea) but with inadequate (i.e. only B&W) pictures; the other (Guide to Fishes, an Aussie book) has good pictures (in color and [of] live [fish]) but is not well-arranged and not exhaustive and shows little of the relative size so a snapper can be called an anchovy. Combine that with some hard to distinguish subgroupings of fish (esp. among goatfish, trevallies and sea bass) and imperfect but confident knowledge of most everyone and the result is an incredibly frustrating job trying to match Nu. to genera & species. I am interested in folk classification and its relation to academic classification and was prepared for some difference but mostly the correlation between the two is pretty good (after I’ve filtered out misnamings which I can often tell are wrong because they cross genus or family lines). In some families there are names for the majority of individual species — some grouped together, usually on the basis of markings when shape is the same: mottled, banded, striped; and often on the basis of habitat.

The big men [usually elders] are supposed to be the authorities (on everything: even ladies underwear if it was anything elaborate probably) but they often can’t see the page clearly. Everyone is convinced that others don’t know what they’re talking about and that a consensus (20 people going thru 20 fishnames for 3 hours is impossible) will solve everything. I’m well past the point of diminishing returns but some still come volunteer to straighten it all out for me (and give yet another name to some picture beside which I’ve scribbled 3 names already). For most now I have statistics like 4 for, 2 against (or 2 for 1 name, 1 each for the others) so I’ve told them I don’t want anything more about fish to upset me. One the whole the world of Nu. fish naming is as unsettled as the world of zoological taxonomy when it comes to species. Genera & families work out OK. I figure (or hope) my effort is worthwhile: it not only boosts my dictionary considerably but is an are that is worth comparing carefully with other Austronesian names & classificatory systems since they are most all sea people.

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by | 4 April 2004 · 12:23 pm

Morobe Field Diary, November 1976: Demographics

The population figures of nearby villages I obtained from the kiap in Morobe [Patrol Post] follow:

Village   Total     Adults      Children    Adults outside province

Buso      108       24m 27f     23m 27f      3m 1f

Kui       333       81m 81f     88m 69f      8m 2f

Sipoma    294       84m 69f     69m 58f     12m 2f

Paiewa    276       69m 72f     70m 61f      4m 0f

Maiama    483

[The predominant local language of Kui & Buso is Kela.

Sipoma is the only village that speaks Numbami.

Both Kela and Numbami are Austronesian languages.

The predominant languages of Paiewa and Maiama are non-Austronesian (Papuan),

members Binanderean family.]

This confirms my impression that the eligible young men of this village far outnumber the young women.

More statistics: Two Sepiks are married into the village. They work at the timber co. and so are in the village mostly on weekends. Their children are too young to talk yet but will probably speak Nu. The fathers mostly don’t speak Nu. but understand some. One Wain man recently married in — also works for the timber co. — no children yet. Two Kui women married in — both speak Nu. and kids of both do also but I’m less sure about one family. One Kui woman doesn’t speak Nu.; neither do her kids though they may understand it fairly well. One Morobe woman speaks Nu., her kids speak Pidgin [Tok Pisin] and their father speaks T.P. to them most of the time too. Also one Markham woman speaks Nu. as do her kids I believe; her husband is Nu. & away a good bit.

Next year one young Nu. is off to do 5th & 6th form at the new national H.S. at Aiyura (where SIL headquarters is), one if off to Sogeri H.S. near Mosbi [Port Moresby], 2 off to Kerevat in Rabaul (brother to 5th form; sister to 6th). One girl and 2 boys will go to Junior High in town. Some people working away from the village:

1 agricultural inspector (Jack S.)

1 malaria service mosquitologist (Tom S.)

1 development bank clerk (Kaukisa S.)

1 N.S.W. bank teller (off to Mosbi for training)

1 teacher at Kaiapit

1 NCO in PNG Army (Igam Barracks)

1 in forestry service (Bing Siga, in Aust. for training)

1 radio repairman in Lae

1 cattleman (half Nu., half Sepik)

1 machine repairman in Wau (half Nu., Peter)

1 policeman at Rabaul (Marawaku’s son)

1 assistant kiap at Boana (__ Siga)

1 store clerk in Mosbi (__ Siga)

1 secretary at UniTech (Aga __)

1 medic at Morobe (Dei)

1 in fisheries (Lukas)

1 in transport co. (Panett)

1 teacher at Kui

In addition, Daniel/Siga said that everyone older in the village except his mother has gone to Yabem School (max. 4 years). Evidently they went thru in age cohorts: Abu Bamo’s, then Giyasa’s, then Yali’s, then Siga’s. The war disrupted people like Lukas, who claims he’s had only about 1 year of school but has a well-respected business head.

NOTE: Blogger doesn’t turn off the <pre> tag very predictably. It wouldn’t wrap the paragraph after </pre>, so I had to force linefeeds. I initially tried the <table> tag, but blogger added way too much white space above it.

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by | 2 April 2004 · 9:42 pm

Morobe Field Diary, November 1976: Trip to Morobe Patrol Post

The kansol’s daughter-in-law is going to have a baby so the kansol’s wife left us to go attend to her in town. She took her daughter & granddaughter with her so there was no one left to look after the kansol, his son & me, at least not the way she did. She was worried about our meals and arranged with the kansol’s sister, who lives next door, to feed us. It turns out however that several families have gotten in on the act so the first week after the kansol’s wife left we were getting 3-4 dishes of food (often accompanied by separate meat & vegetable dishes) per meal. One meal we sat down to food provided by 5 different women (5 plates of starch & two meat & vegetable dishes). On top of that several young men caught a load of fish so we were eating fresh fish (including a sizeable lobster) as well.

At the end of the week the kansol & I went to Morobe patrol post for his monthly council meeting (& so I could see the sights). There the ocean is teeming with fish & we ate fresh fish (& lobster again), greens & onions and fresh smoked pig I bought at the market and fresh (tough Oceanic) chicken that our hosts killed and served the day before we left. There are small daily markets there that cater to the gov’t workers who must buy their food with cash so my cash was able to keep us in betel nut which we are all very short of in the village.

Our hosts were a Numbami couple. The husband works as a (para)medic. His wife is sister (elder, Aga [1st daughter]) of the kansol’s wife (Damiya [3rd daughter]) and there is a special word, goda, to describe the relationship of the medic (dokta boi) and the kansol, who are married to sisters (asuna for females).

Morobe patrol post used to be quite a place with a high radio tower and a notorious jail. The Germans were established there. It is a beautiful spot with a wide protected harbor & good breezes and, like other spots that appeal to European eyes, has lousy garden land. Jungle makes good garden land when cleared. Open land has hard soil and less water.

The kiap (gov’t official) received me about as cordially as I received him when he came to Siboma (neutrally) and I spent most of my time with my wantoks. I also got in a good bit of English conversation with the medical officer-in-charge who I told about Hawaii & who told me, among other things, an interesting war story about New Ireland, where was stationed before. I also got a heavy does of American newscaster English on election day. I listened in about 2 hour spurts from 7 am, when the southern states were lining up behind Carter, to about 6 pm, when Carter made his acceptance speech–much more easily endured times than you folks [in the U.S.] had to endure. It all seemed so unreal & faraway that I listened with a good deal of detachment–I wasn’t excited that Carter won though I preferred him to Ford.

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by | 29 March 2004 · 5:27 pm

Morobe Field Diary, October 1976: Two Canoe Experiences

I paddled the kaunsil out to the [M.V.] Sago when we were loading ready to leave Kela and some people waiting for me to cross their path said, in reference to me, masta kanaka, i.e. a ‘native’ whiteman with all the paradox in Tok Pisin that it has in English–maybe more. That is the story I’ll leave behind when I go, I suppose. A story about oneself is the means to immortality here–along with children–not publication. My singsinging at the church assembly gave another chapter of the story to many people there. Maybe it’s the kind of story this country needs more of.

Today I decided to paddle out and dump some junk left over from a coconut tree that was cluttering up the beach in front of my house and attracting dog piss. First I loaded the heavy stuff, climbed in overloading one end and swamped the bugger. Then I redistributed along the length and climbed in again to discover the outrigger was overloaded and submerged so I could only go in circles. Shit, plenty room for pitfalls in these uncomplicated-looking canoes. Then I paddled my weaving, meandering way out past the reef. The uneven drag of an outrigger canoe still gets me. I can get where I want to go but not without a good deal of worry and no grace at all.

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