Fifty Years Ago Today - The Earring

Thursday, August 1, 1963

In the Simbai Valley, Madang District, Papua New Guinea

Gau came by our house this morning. She was wearing her necklaces of trade beads.  Her ear was a convenient holder for a frog she had found in the forest.  Where would she have carried it if she had been wearing an earring of possum fur or a safety pin?

<>>><>>><>

Fifty Years Ago Today - Salt

Sunday, July 28, 1963

Local people came by Gunts after working in their gardens, bringing fruits and vegetables to exchange with us for salt.  Many years ago, before salt was commercially available in distant trade stores, the Maring had collected salt from the few salt springs within their territory. Though considerably easier to get from visiting anthropologists, it was still a prized item, used sparingly to season steamed food. 

Two little girls savor the tiny heaps of salt that their mothers have treated them to.

<>>><>>><>

Fifty Years Ago Today - Possum Whiskers

The next day some of the dancers came back by Gunts hamlet on their way home to the other side of the mountain ridge. One of the young men was sporting an extra-wide bark belt over which he had folded a fine loin cloth netted with bark fiber interspersed with light-colored possum fur.  The fact that he was unfamiliar with photography did not hamper his proud self-presentation to us -  the first white-skinned people to live for any length in the area. 

His hair was carefully shaped in the form that marked young men during a period of initiation.  In the Maring language this treatment of the hair was called mamb ngunt'. The place of the mamb ngunt' in Maring society was explored by Roy A. Rappaport in his book Pigs for the Ancestors (1984:202)

We appreciated the quality of the young man's armband (ant'ipa) and his tubular woven belts, all made by local men from wild orchid fibre. These were given as gifts to each other and to the women of their families.  What was a complete surprise to us, and, indeed,  we never saw another example, was the bunches of possum whiskers that he had attached to the ends of a chain of tiny woven circles that hung from the heavy strands of trade beads around his neck.  To get a photograph which included as many of the items of his finery as possible, we asked him to toss the possum whiskers over his shoulder. 

Not only did we never again see possum whiskers used as decoration, we never even saw a live or dead possum that could have grown such wonderful whiskers.

<>>><>>><>

Fifty Years Ago Today - In the Simbai Valley of Papua New Guinea

On July 26, 1963, I woke up in the little thatched house in the hamlet of Gunts where my husband and I had been living for the past five months.  We were learning about local agriculture, social organization and visual communication among the Maring people. Each day brought new experiences. On this particular day we heard cheerful shouting from the nearby trail that linked Gunts with all the other villages and hamlets scattered along the northern slopes of the Bismarck Mountains.  We grabbed our cameras and went out to see what was going on.

A contingent of dancers from across the mountains was proceeding 

ceremoniously along the trail, the men beating drums and singing. 

Local women on the way to their gardens, stopped, turned and responded with encouraging shouts.

Little boys joined in, and then ...

... in a rush to try to keep up with the dancers,
crowded between the women and clambered over a pile of stakes
that had been prepared for the building of a new house and fence.

The dancers had already disappeared into the distance.

<><<<>>><>

Dry season

The agricultural land here is drying out.  This winter's rains and snow were not enough to help raise the water table that is increasingly being lowered by the deep wells used to pump irrigation water up to the fields. Green beans have withered. The tomato crop will be minimal. The local families who have traditionally bottled great quantities of tomatoes to make "sugo" during the winter are already planning to rely on the cans available in the supermarkets.

The wheat, an early crop, was successfully harvested before the long hot days began in earnest.





















The apricot trees have reveled in this year's weather. Never before have I seen them so laden with fruit and the fruit so sweet and juicy.

 













Ah, but it is hard to pick apricots by hand!  Nowadays most people rely on store-bought fruit. If only it were the tradition to eat "apricot sugo" in the winter months.  Mmm.  That would be some pasta!

<<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>>

 

 

 

Beginning

Beginning?

It has taken three years for me to move beyond the title.
Three years of turning ....
of arrivals and departures,

of dawns and sunsets.
of summers and winters,
of equinoxes and solstices.

A few days ago, already a month after the summer solstice of 2012, in the heathery-brackeny-grassy understory of the oak forest, my eye was caught by an unusual splash of color:

Thanks to the bird who brought this delightful new inhabitant into the neighborhood!

The stems now remain, and the leaves.  Next spring I'll be watching for the new sprout and hoping for blossoms in July 2013.

That will be one annual turn.

And the daily turns? Sunrise, noon, sunset, moonrise, moonset.
Each hour slants the light at ever-changing angles through clouds, branches, twigs and windows.

Like the light, my attention plays and rambles.
Yet, like my eye, it is caught by angles and perspectives, by moments in conversations with friends, by items on the internet, by pages of the many books that have found their way to my home down through the years.

And so, to capture or dance with some of these moments, this will be a rambling blog.


Note 1. A rambling song from an early chapter in my life: "The Gypsy Rover"  (O.K., O.K., he was roving, not rambling...) and sung here by Liam Clancy

Note 2. A song about books: "Four Little Sailors" by Bill Staines.


                                   <<<>>><<<>>><<<>>><<<>>>