Michael Moran - Beyond the Coral Sea - Travels in the Old Empires of the South-West Pacific

‘Well, it’s a short story that’s taken a long time to complete. I bought a tabuya 1 or wave-splitter from Kiriwina in an artefact shop many years ago. It’s been in my music room in London for ages, and I’ve always wanted to visit where it was made.’

‘I can tell you that the tabuya has been watching you. The design symbolises bulibwali or the eye of the sea eagle [osprey]. You had to come. His eye never sleeps, you know. In an instant he decided on you as his particular fish. That’s why you came. It’s very simple.’

‘Do you really believe this?’

‘Of course. You’re a person who possesses concentration. You plan and attend to detail. Am I right?’

‘Actually, yes. I drive people mad with it.’

‘There you are!’ John reached for more coconut prawns in an ebullient mood. He continued his arcane explanations with some seaweed poised between chopsticks in midair. I wanted to hear an account of the famous kula trading ring from the chief of a clan. I was anxious to know if the classical descriptions were still accurate.

‘Tell me something about kula , John.’

‘Well, first you must understand the mystery of Monikiniki or the Five Disciplines of Excellence.’

‘Sounds a bit complicated.’

‘Never! It’s simple! The disciplines are symbolised in the five compartments of a Trobriand mollusc shell. Each compartment represents one of the senses and is represented by a bird, plant or even a grasshopper. The eye is represented by the bulibwali or the sea eagle.’

We had moved into the realm of myth and magic for which these islands are famous, rather daunting for a European unused to the sharing of mystical experience.

‘But what is kula exactly?’ I was impatient as usual.

‘That’s not easy to answer, but basically it’s an activity of giving and receiving between people that results in them growing spiritually.’

‘But doesn’t it involve trading valuable soulava or necklaces in a clockwise direction around certain islands and mwali or arm shells in a counter-clockwise direction?’

‘Of course, but they’re only the outward manifestation of the activity, in fact the consummation of it. The objects accumulate power as they pass from hand to hand over time. Some might even kill you. But it’s the quality of this experience that’s important.’

I began to be drawn irresistibly into the rich mythological world of the Trobriand Islands, so unlike the sterility of my own empirical society where success seemed the sole criterion. I began to look forward to my trip with keen anticipation. A couple of lines of a poetic song concerning the kula came to mind.

Scented petals and coconut oil anoint our bodies We’re ready to sail with the south-east wind

John fell silent and took some more chilli crab. The mood had become serious yet our state of mind was happy and free.

‘I’ve never been to the yam festival in the Trobes. Never managed to get there. God knows why.’ Sam trailed off and adjusted his hat to a more comfortable position. He reached for some more coral trout.

‘God’s saving you, Sam, from a long period of self-abuse,’ John observed. Everyone laughed heartily. The yam festival is famous for its ecstatic expression of sexual freedom in celebration of the harvest and the end of ten months hard gardening.

Myth and magic give life meaning in the islands. We discussed the weighty word kastom. It is an essential Pidgin concept that derives from the English word ‘custom’ but with a more complex Melanesian meaning and multifarious connotations. It is normally used in reference to traditional culture that has come under threat from aggressive European development. But kastom cannot be simply translated. There are many contradictions within this multilayered concept. The idea has led to a strong cultural revival as regional identities become increasingly diluted. People are always talking about the loss of it. Closeness to nature and the traditional sense of belonging to a community are being replaced by the desire for individual consumption. European technology dominates modern life in the cities, yet a profound need remains for the unseen worlds of magic and religion. A further complication is the extreme cultural diversity of the country. Many distinct cultures have been wilfully cobbled together into the artificial political entity known as Papua New Guinea. Cultural differences are ignored, or worse, attempts are made to diffuse them.

‘More chilli crab?’ Sam spun the lazy susan.

‘Do you know there is a ruined temple on the top of Egum Atoll?’ John said, secretively.

‘Yes, and flat stones with magical properties on Woodlark Island,’ his wife whispered.

It was getting late. We emerged from the restaurant into the glare of security searchlights. The massive gates swung open and we drove out of the compound. Uncle Sam began to sing the praises of Port Moresby as we drove back into town. Mansions surrounded by high fences topped with glistening razor wire, signs painted with cartoon-like dogs and guards posturing with guns, spun through the headlights. Dark hills sprinkled with twinkling lights reared on either side of the highway.

‘Nothing is as beautiful as this in the world!’ Sam suddenly exclaimed with great feeling.

I spent a restless night poring over maps, anxious to leave the place. Papua New Guinea can be broadly divided into the mountainous interior, the coastal regions, great rivers and the island provinces. My decision to explore the islands had come from their extreme isolation, their reputation for beauty, tranquillity and the preservation of their ancient cultures. Near Moresby, the start of the Kokoda trail had been closed by tribal fighting. There were reports of a white, female bushwalker who had been raped even though she was with a local guide. This constant threat of violence in the capital had begun to depress me. I was tired of being holed up for safety in a luxury hotel with paranoid expatriate businessmen planning the disintegration of a culture for profit. My jumping-off point for the islands would be Alotau, the capital of Milne Bay Province at the eastern extremity of the mainland. From there I could leap aboard a banana boat 1 to Samarai, the traditional gate to the old empires.

1 ‘Somebody shot at me. Everything around here’s pretty bad. It’s completely buggered up!’

2 ‘Port Moresby’s a good place.’

3 Public Motor Vehicle – these minibuses are considered to be dangerous for visitors, but in my experience they were a source of all my best conversations and friendships with local people.

1 ‘Good morning, boys. How’re you?’

2 ‘Fine thanks, Sir.’

1 ‘We can’t afford university.’

1 ‘Thanks very much for talking to us, Sir.’

1 Sir Michael Somare was born in 1936 in Rabaul, East New Britain. He led the Pangu Pati (Party), the largest and most influential political party in the move towards independence in 1975. He became the first Prime Minister of independent Papua New Guinea from 1975–80 and again from 1982–5. His membership of the Pangu Pati ended in 1997 and he formed the National Alliance Party which won a comfortable majority in the violent 2002 elections. After seventeen years, Sir Michael Somare, ‘the father of the nation’, was elected Prime Minister for a remarkable third term.

1 Mefloquine or Lariam (the trade name) is the most powerful of the anti-malarial prophylactics. Unlike other drugs, it protects against the fatal strain of cerebral malaria. It can have disturbing psychological side-effects.

1 A tabuya is the prowboard of a Trobriand canoe.

1 The term ‘banana boat’ has nothing to do with bananas or their transport. It refers to the shape of the innumerable fibreglass dinghies fitted with forty-horsepower outboard motors that ply the islands and coast of PNG like noisy water insects. They have taken the place of the elegant sailing canoes of the past, which have almost completely disappeared. They sometimes carry suicidal numbers of passengers, often travel enormous distances across open ocean, and never take a single life jacket. Many simply disappear, the occupants lost to drowning or sharks.