The Planter By Owen Genty-Nott
ISBN 0-473-10229-3, 246pp soft cover, published 2006 by
Geebar Enterprises, PO Box 24220, Manners St, Wellington,
601 NZ, Email: thejackaroo@hotmail.com, NZD35 plus postage,
includes photographs and map.
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Cloudlands
Memoirs - Stories from Contemporary Papua New Guinea by
Laurie Le Fevre
ISBN 1920 785 868, 180pp, Brolga Publishing 2006, soft
cover, illus, contextual map, $29.95 from bookshops or mail
orders (please include $9.00 postage within Aust.) Payment
to Better Bookshop, PO Box 12544, A’Beckett Street,
Melbourne 8006, Vic. Email: betterbookshop@brolgapublishing.com.au.
Cost to PNGAA members is $29.95 (includes postage) from
Laurie Le Fevre, 16 Highland Avenue, Croydon 3136 ldlefevre@optusnet.com.au
This is a book that needed to be written. Most news coming
out of PNG today is bad news - this book provides some
much-needed balance. The author achieves this by using
individual life stories to show how remarkably successful
Papua New Guineans have been in various fields and by giving
readers a thoughtful overview of some of the big issues
facing the country today.
The author worked and travelled in PNG from 1961-71 and has
undertaken various tasks for the PNG Government since then.
In 2001 he was offered a two-year contract with Ok Tedi
Mining Ltd (OTML). Ok Tedi is 600m above sea level in the
remote Star Mountains near the border with West Papua and
not far from the town of Telefomin. Ninety-five percent of
workers at OTML are Papua New Guinean. Tabubil, built to
serve the mine, has become the largest town in the Western
Province with excellent schools and medical facilities. But
change is on the way for the 10,000 strong community, with
mine closure only a few years off. The future of the town is
under discussion. OTML has already provided ongoing funding
for the development of infrastructure in Western Province
for the next 40 years.
While acknowledging the environmental mistake, the book
focuses on the benefits of the mining operation,
particularly the improvements in health and lifestyle, and
education and training. OTML has a vigorous apprenticeship
scheme and sponsors higher education. Many young Papua New
Guineans study and work far from their family’s roots - this
has broadened their horizons and given them a vision for
their own and their country’s future. Old-timers might be
surprised to learn that today a handful of PNG professionals
even hold executive positions in the resources sector in
Australia; also that a female Papua New Guinean scientist
employed by OTML has a PhD from Oxford.
There are chapters headed ‘The West Papua Diaspora’,
‘Tourism’, ‘The Telefol’ (which includes comments by early
explorers and kiaps) and ‘Public Health’ (which includes
consideration of the problem of HIV/AIDS). The author
describes how, 50 years ago, Administration officers held
out little hope of an economic future for the Telefol. Of
the situation today he says that Telefomin is still
isolated, but less so in a world where satellite phones
reach every square metre of the planet; he adds that his
e-mail address list includes as many Telefol as any other
group of people.
The book is written with warmth and sensitivity. It will be
of special interest to those who lived and worked in PNG in
years gone by. It should also give the general reader an
understanding of matters affecting PNG today - essential if
we are to be the good neighbour we would like to be.
Reviewed by Marie Clifton-Bassett
Index
Doctor
in Paradise, Challenges and
Rewards in Medical Service New Guinea 1958-1970 By Mary W
Guntner
ISBN 1 86333 311 8, Crawford House Publishing Australia Pty
Ltd 2006, 412 pp, soft cover, b&w photos, Cost: $34.95
Available from Crawford House Publishing, PO Box 50, Belair,
SA 5052 Phone: 883703555 Fax: 883703655 Email: frontdesk@crawfordhouse.com.au
Hundreds of medical doctors have worked in the Pacific
paradises over the last two centuries. The majority of these
worked in Papua New Guinea but very few have put their
reminisces in writing for posterity. Ken Clezy's epic is
with the publishers while I am one of the many who have
threatened to write memoirs. Mary chose ‘Doctor in Paradise’
unaware that S.M.Lambert had used ‘A Doctor In Paradise’ as
the title for his description of his Pacific hookworm
campaign starting in Port Moresby in May 1920 as part of the
‘globecircling humanitarianism of the Rockefeller
Foundation’.
Mary was born in Victoria in 1930 and as an adolescent
decided to become a Mission doctor in New Guinea. She
accepted an invitation to work as a mission doctor at Yagaum
Lutheran Hospital in 1958 and worked there with Dr Theo
Braun until moving to work between Buangi and Butaweng in
the Huon Peninsula near Finschhafen and leaving in 1961.
Mary tells of the travails and tribulation of medical
practice in New Guinea amplified by the mission environment.
The book is interesting in the detail of day-to-day events
that many of us experienced and most have described in
writing to our families. She covers the role of the general
practitioner as the primary carer serving villages rather
than towns. Clinical problems, communications and personal
problems of european and national staff. Many other aspects
of Papua and New Guinea life are described in detail and are
interesting in themselves. Of special interest is relaxation
at the Butaweng falls and pool, which I enjoyed in 1947.
Mary returned from 1965 to 1970 and the narrative shows the
metamorphosis of the health services in the Finschhafen area
from three medicos through to one with the nurse
practitioner gradually taking the primary care role along
with the emergence of national nurses and medical assistants
as primary carers. Through the detail of day-to-day events
and crises Mary's role changed to that of an experienced
practitioner looking after area and regional health
problems. She left the intimate caring model taken from the
religious workers and developed the only system that could
bring health to the rapidly increasing population on the
expanding road network with the limited personnel and funds
available.
Of special interest are the recurring visits of Stan Wigley
and his team, which punctuated the daily grind of health
care in the peninsula. Stan made a great contribution to the
health of Papua New Guinea and his story is yet to be
written. The book does not try to cover the many significant
medical events elsewhere in the country. The unnamed
Finschhafen doctor doing a goitre study was Terry McCullagh
and there is no reference to the world impact of his
studies. Margaret Smith at Goroka and Dr.Meding at Buangi
were not the only specialists in Obstetrics and Gynaecology
in Papua New Guinea at that time.
Reviewed by Roy Scragg
Index
Mud Over
Blood, Stories from the 39th
Infantry Battalion 1941-43, Kokoda to Gona, Foreword by the
Governor General, Major General Michael Jeffery, compiled by
Carl Johnson
ISBN 0958106037, , 304pp, size A4, case bound with dust
jacket, approximately 500 photos, published 2006 by Jenkin
Australia Pty Ltd, 26 Halley Street, Blackburn, Victoria,
3130, Ph: 0425 770 230 Fax: 03 8812 2620 Email: jenkinaust@optusnet.com.au
Cost: $112 incl p&p within Australia.
Carl Johnson is not a newcomer to compiling war books so Mud
Over Blood is not only very well presented but it is done in
a manner straight from the heart and as such is a valuable
contribution to a better understanding of the individual
soldier.
Japanese forces quickly occupied the islands and the
mainland of New Guinea in early 1942 and civil
administration in Papua ceased. Able bodied residents
(mainly) joined the Aust New Guinea Administrative Unit.
Christmas 1941 saw the arrival in Pt Moresby of a militia
unit, the 2/39th Batallion. In general terms they were
young, untrained, ill equipped and had little idea of where
they were, where they were going or how they would go
anywhere as there were no roads and virtually no aircraft.
It is their recollections, a collection of short stories,
which form the basis of this book. In January 1943 the enemy
was finished, but after numerous desperate battles, so were
the 39th battalion - so depleted with death, wounding and
sickness that they were disbanded.
Mud Over Blood containing hundreds of photographs of those
involved, is an excellent book and would not only be a great
present for ex-servicemen but should be in all public
libraries and schools. The reason for this are two fold.
First the 39th Battalion with their unstated bonding caused
the enemy enough delay and uncertainty to enable Australia
to get AIF troops back from overseas. Secondly, without
advocating war as a means to an end, the younger generation
of Australia would do well to read and understand that
Australians in Australia could well be a subservient people
today if it was not for those men who were prepared, and
did, lay down their lives for King and country.
My congratulations to Carl Johnson for compiling this book
and my deepest respect to the men of the 39th Battalion for
their wonderful effort.
Reviewed by David Marsh OBE
Index
LOVING LIFE
One Physician's Journey by John Sturt
ISBN 0-476-00016-5 First published 2003 DayStar Publications
Trust, Soft cover, 4 maps, 50 photos, $20 plus postage,
Available from the author: 211b St Andrews Rd Epsom
Auckland, NZ Email: jasturt@xtra.co.nz
Autobiographies by medicos are rare. Berkeley Vaughan, also
a medical missionary, arrived in Kwato in June 1935 and
wrote his in 1974 (Doctor in Papua; Rigby. 1974). Vincent
Zigas appears to be the only government doctor to have
written his story (Laughing Death; Humana. 1990).
John was born into an English missionary family in Peking
(Beijing) in February 1929. His mother died at his birth but
his family remained in China where he was educated at
boarding schools. He was of the family that long ago gave us
Charles Sturt the explorer. Both John and his father showed
the Sturt physiognomy with narrow face and wide long nose.
He describes his early years in China and how after Pearl
Harbor he became a POW as a schoolboy and was interned in
the school. He was evacuated separately in August 1942 by
boat to Durban and in due course caught up with his parents
who had arrived on another boat 5 days earlier.
The family went to New Zealand and after matriculation John
worked his way on a freighter to England to achieve his
objective of studying medicine there. He married in 1953 and
in March 1956 went to Papua New Guinea to ‘fulfil a lifelong
vision’ of working in the developing world. He was a medical
officer at Madang for 2 years and, after obtaining his DTM&H,
went in February 1959 to Anguganak to open a hospital for
the Christian Mission in Many Lands. He tells of the
building of the hospital and the many problems associated
with its establishment and care of the people through to
1969. He was a pioneer of preventative medicine in the
village environment.
In 1970, John came to Port Moresby to establish the
University Student Health Service retiring in 1976 to New
Zealand. He tells how he used his experiences and Christian
background in the wider Port Moresby community and how in NZ
he established Christian Care Centres providing counselling
and care for the aging community. John Sturt is an
unassuming person of great substance with a story to
intrigue both doctors and anyone who has known him, and
interest others who have not.
Reviewed by Roy Scragg
HURRELL’S
WAY by A. Lloyd Hurrell, edited by
James Sinclair
ISBN 1 86333 316 9, PB, 463 pages, Index, $32.95 plus p&p.
Available from Crawford House Publishing, PO Box 50, Belair,
SA 5052 Phone: 883703555 Fax: 883703655
Email: frontdesk@crawfordhouse.com.au.
Lloyd Hurrell writes vividly of his experiences in war and
in peace. This is an account of his early adventures,
firstly to New Guinea in 1939 as a cadet patrol officer in
the Rabaul, Salamaua and Morobe areas, followed by his
service in World War II with 2/31 Bn (Syria, Kokoda, Lae),
then his subsequent return to New Guinea in 1945 and his
years of ‘big bush’ patrolling, notably his opening up of
the Menyamya station in the uncontrolled Kukukuku country,
aided by the Lutheran Mission, in 1950. Profusely
illustrated with photographs and maps, scenes from the
earliest days of Australia’s administration of New Guinea,
and with an extensive index, this is a book that will be
important to a wide range of readers.
Comment by Publisher
Index
A Potted History of Madang,
Traditional Culture and Change on the North Coast of Papua
New Guinea by Mary R Mennis
ISBN: 0-9750346-4-2, 345 pp. Published 2006 by Lalong
Enterprises, 11 Jethro St, Aspley, QLD, 4034, Australia.
Phone: +61 7 3263 6327; Fax: +61 7 32635121 Email: lalong@iinet.net.au,
Cost $75, (Postage AU$10/within Australia and AU$20/economy
airmail overseas is additional). For multiple copies, please
enquire for postage. Purchase of 2 or more copies will
attract a discount of 10%. Payment by cheque in Australian
Dollars (subject to clearance). Orders may be placed by
email, and bank account details for electronic transfer of
funds will be provided on request.
This is an ethnographical study of the Bel people living in
the Madang area and changes over time brought about by
external influences. The first eight chapters are, in the
main, directed to the early oral history and the recording
of myths and legends which are fascinating. Interwoven in
this study is the significance of the traditional making and
trading of pottery.
The author also draws on the contributions of early
observers of the people, for example, Maclay, Finsch,
Dempwolff, Biró and later, Hannemann, Mager and Aufinger.
The effects of the Missions, German, Australian, Japanese
and later, Independence influences underpin, but do not
dominate, the essential thrust of this book.
The author was in a unique position and indeed privileged
over a number of years to gain the trust of the people she
wanted to research and get to know. The empathy and respect
she gave and received is clearly evident throughout.
There is an interesting chapter discussing cargo cults in
general and their origins linked to early myths and legends
particularly on the Rai Coast. A suggestion is made in the
final chapter that a proposed nickel mine development may
see a return of the cargo cult mentality, if wealth without
effort is a consequence.
The book contains maps showing the locations of the
villages. A time-line encapsulates major periods in history
and the main players. There is also an extensive
bibliography as well as exceptional photos and drawings
throughout. The Bel people in particular will be able to
refer to this book as a detailed resource and to remember
and learn about their stories and practices now dimmed in
memory. The building and sailing of the trading canoes, the
‘lalong’ and the ‘palangut’ are a specific example of those
cultural practices.
It was especially interesting to read the life experiences
of one of the leaders, Maia-Awak, and how he coped with the
changes during the 20th century. The included photos of Maia
provide powerful images. As a reviewer, it was an unexpected
surprise that his life story somewhat paralleled that of a
family member and indeed their paths crossed at different
times.
There are some minor inconsistencies in spelling of
terminology and names that may be confusing to some, but
these do not detract from the essential thrust of the book.
However, apart from being a valuable resource for the Bel
people, this is a remarkable book packed with information
and human interest. Anyone who would like a good read, or
people with knowledge of Madang or an interest in history
will find it exceptional. The book truly reflects its title,
A Potted History of Madang.
Reviewed by Pat Johnson
Publisher's comment (in September
2006 Una Voce):
This book is the culmination
of many years research into the traditions and history
particularly of the Bel people of the Madang region of Papua
New Guinea. It studies their myths and oral traditions
dating back 12 generations to when they were forced to leave
their home island which was destroyed by some natural force.
Also described are the extensive trading networks, both on
land and on sea, the large sea-going canoes used and the
earthenware pots which were their main item of trade. The
changes that occurred during the time of German Colony, the
Australian Administration, Independence and beyond are also
discussed. The effect of World War 2 on both the people and
the European population is described from first hand
accounts. This book, while it is written in a semi-academic
format with copious references, will also appeal to the
general reader who is interested in the history of PNG.
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