what is Papua New Guinean literature?
I guess it is a question no one can answer fully at the present stage of research. Papua New Guinea represents a tremendous richness of languages and thus, most probably, also a hardly imaginable variety oral forms of expression. On the other hand, the written patrimony is scarce, yet equally rich in surprises. One of them may be the figure of Ulli Beier (1922-2011), a German writer, editor and so to speak, writing facilitator, who became famous for his Nigerian contributions, such as the creation of the magazine "Black Orpheus" in 1957. Nonetheless, in 1966, he left Nigeria due to civil war, and moved with his wife to Papua New Guinea, where he contributed to the development of local university in Port Moresby (opened in 1964) and created a new literary journal: "Kovave". His role in the birth of New Guinean literature consisted, among other, in persuading Albert Maori Kiki to record his autobiography, which he transcribed and published. This 1968 book, Ten Thousand Years in a Lifetime, is often considered as the pioneering work of the emergent literature. Two years later appeared the book regarded as the first New Guinean novel, The Crocodile, by Vincent Eri. In 1980, autobiography and the fictional genre seem to merge together in My mother calls me Yaltep by Ignatius Kilage, also a picturesque figure as a New Guinean chevalier of the British Order of Saint Michael and Saint George. In his book, he gives voice to the Kuman language and background in Simbu, a province in the Highland Region of Papua New Guinea.
From the 1970s on, New Guinean literature has made rapid progress, often in the atmosphere of tribal antagonisms contrasting with newly discovered national spirit. No wonder the voices that started to emerge are often seen under the aspect of political and decolonial writing; such is the case of Kumalau Tavali, John Kasaipwalova, and others. A new epoch, marked by new literary aims and targets, started after the independence, when the vein of criticising the colonial rule naturally drained. The writers of this new vogue are such as Russell Soaba, John Kadiba or Jack Lahui.
From the 1970s on, New Guinean literature has made rapid progress, often in the atmosphere of tribal antagonisms contrasting with newly discovered national spirit. No wonder the voices that started to emerge are often seen under the aspect of political and decolonial writing; such is the case of Kumalau Tavali, John Kasaipwalova, and others. A new epoch, marked by new literary aims and targets, started after the independence, when the vein of criticising the colonial rule naturally drained. The writers of this new vogue are such as Russell Soaba, John Kadiba or Jack Lahui.
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the return of the dead
One of the most famous post-modern cinematographic narrations about Papua New Guinea is Cannibal Tours, a sort of semi-documental film made in 1988 by Dennis O'Rourke, a dissident ethnographer (he abandoned the formal studies in the discipline precisely to go to Papua New Guinea, but as an artist rather than an explorer or a researcher, or whatever the current politically correct denomination might be). Consequently, the aim of Cannibal Tours was certainly not to provide another piece of typical ethnographical documentation about the tribal life. To the contrary, O'Rourke was among the first ones to see critically the encounter, and more than encounter, the friction, the tension between the tribal life and post-modern tourism, a form of white presence that followed the characteristically modern phenomena such as exploration, colonial exploitation... and ethnography.
The post-colonial time is shown here as a time in which a new travel is undertaken to revive the colonial past and memory. The well-known tourism of the macabre is underway. Just like those who travelled to see the concentration camps after the ww2, these people come to see the place where heads used to be cut. Yes, it was here, on that stone. A photo. Ja, ein Erinnerung. A new touristic shot is contrasted with an old, black-and-white photography. Those new Germans are the ones who return on the footsteps of the first explorers who navigated up the Sepik River, little more than a generation ago (this is why the natives say: The dead have returned, with a distinct sense of the metaphor; they are well beyond taking their own myths literally). Global news coming on the screeching radio provide the acoustic background for a slow-pace, counter-current paddling. As if it were an encounter of time and the timeless, or what once used to be seen as timeless.
There are the tourists and the natives asked to speak. The tourists say silly things. The natives give much deeper, much more thought-provoking insight in this particular intercultural situation, and the world in general. Incidentally, the futility of travel seems to be an important lesson; those tourists have been everywhere; but what kind of wisdom or knowledge or sensibility do they bring?
There is an absolute disproportion between the rich foreigners and the destitute natives, at the moment already out of their happy, self-sufficient world of healthy and natural nutrition (if it ever existed). Calories are discussed, since it is an encounter of the fat and the slim. An economy based on money is already well established. The natives, spoiled of all their sacred artefacts by the missionaries, produce tourist art, statuettes that may compose well on a European mantelpiece, and penis sheaths bought by dozens by those of the foreigners who do not even have a mantelpiece at home. And they only ask to be paid the small prices they demand without any more fuss. Just to feel a little bit less like idiots, facing those other idiots.
A carnival, well accompanied with Mozart's music, is the only conclusion. A macabre one, since the patterns painted on the faces of the tourists for this final masquerade are those traditionally used to paint the skulls of the dead.
Kraków, 7.08.2021.
The post-colonial time is shown here as a time in which a new travel is undertaken to revive the colonial past and memory. The well-known tourism of the macabre is underway. Just like those who travelled to see the concentration camps after the ww2, these people come to see the place where heads used to be cut. Yes, it was here, on that stone. A photo. Ja, ein Erinnerung. A new touristic shot is contrasted with an old, black-and-white photography. Those new Germans are the ones who return on the footsteps of the first explorers who navigated up the Sepik River, little more than a generation ago (this is why the natives say: The dead have returned, with a distinct sense of the metaphor; they are well beyond taking their own myths literally). Global news coming on the screeching radio provide the acoustic background for a slow-pace, counter-current paddling. As if it were an encounter of time and the timeless, or what once used to be seen as timeless.
There are the tourists and the natives asked to speak. The tourists say silly things. The natives give much deeper, much more thought-provoking insight in this particular intercultural situation, and the world in general. Incidentally, the futility of travel seems to be an important lesson; those tourists have been everywhere; but what kind of wisdom or knowledge or sensibility do they bring?
There is an absolute disproportion between the rich foreigners and the destitute natives, at the moment already out of their happy, self-sufficient world of healthy and natural nutrition (if it ever existed). Calories are discussed, since it is an encounter of the fat and the slim. An economy based on money is already well established. The natives, spoiled of all their sacred artefacts by the missionaries, produce tourist art, statuettes that may compose well on a European mantelpiece, and penis sheaths bought by dozens by those of the foreigners who do not even have a mantelpiece at home. And they only ask to be paid the small prices they demand without any more fuss. Just to feel a little bit less like idiots, facing those other idiots.
A carnival, well accompanied with Mozart's music, is the only conclusion. A macabre one, since the patterns painted on the faces of the tourists for this final masquerade are those traditionally used to paint the skulls of the dead.
Kraków, 7.08.2021.
