Fern Ridge (Safla Rama) Digest

Late Dr. Regis Stella.PNG writer and scholar His father was killed during the Bougainville Crisis. After the Crisis his mother and sisters fled in-land and settled at a plateau on a rolling hill at Bana in the Nagovis area. They planted coacoa to regain their strengths and lives back. Last Christmas he returned to the village to put up his mother’s headstone. On leaving the village to Port Moresby, the late Regis Tove Stella told his sisters that it was the last time he would return home alive. Instead a few months later his body was flown back to his village to lay next to his mother. For two nights and two days the people from all over the area to mourn his passing. On the week he died I did a book review of his latest book: Unfolding Petals: Readings in Papua New Guinea Literature , which would have been launched a day more if he had remained alive. Dr. Regis Tove Stella was someone I shared part of my life with for the better...

Young Milky Pine ( Alstonia scholaris ) The importance of plant names in the local language is an example of a complex structure of   meaning. Different plants are used for specific purposes in our traditional societies. The same plant known by a common name can have sacred names to different people. Most often these sacred names are linked to myths, rituals, and spiritual powers. Many people know the general names for plants, but different species have a different name or an additional word to indicate colour, wild plants, domesticated plants, or cultivated.  Where plants have medicinal and ritual values they may have sacred names known only to those who claim ownership of the plant and its powers. The tanget ( Cordyline fruticosa ), for example, is generally known in Nagum Boiken language as hawa . This name includes the cultivated ones, which are red in color and appears in long and short round leaves. The green wild ones are...

Dear Reader, This review was done before the unexpected passing of the late Dr. Regis Stella on last Wednesday 18th April, 2012. He was looking forward to this review to mark the launching of the book on Thursday. I remember him at this time of losing one of Papua New Guinea's robust, dynamic, and original writer scholar. May his legacy live on.... Now a new book on reading Papua New Guinean literature is out. It is a collection of critical essays published over the years in various international and local journals. The essays are brought together under one title: Unfolding Petals: Readings in Modern Papua New Guinean Literature (2012). It is compiled and edited by Regis Tove Stella of the Literature and English and Communication Studies program of the University of Papua New Guinea. The book is published by the UPNG Press and Bookshop.   A number of leading authorities in Papua New Guinean literature are represented in this book. The book looks at the beginning of Papua New...

There is no shortage of creative writers in Papua New Guinea. There is, however, a shortage of publishers for all our writers to have their works published. The books that we read and buy for our schools are all published by overseas based publishers and writers. Budding writers are in search of publishers, which are either non-existent or if they exist their interests are confined to institutions, organizations, and narrow business interests. With this kind of scenario some of us decided to become self-publishers—a decision that is both a curse and a blessing, depending on what we are able to do with limited funds drawn from our own pockets. A curse because we come from a land of so much resources that the government is happily earning from it, but turns a blind eye on supporting the literary arts and culture develop to full maturity. It is a curse because the road from writing to publishing is not part of the developmental package of this country. Writing and publishing are s...

 Melanesian writers: Regis Tove Stella (PNG), Nora Vagi Brash (PNG), Sam Alasia (Solomon Islands), USP Fiji campus, 1999.    One of the outstanding playwright and poet to emerge in Papua New Guinea is Nora Vagi Brash. She remains the foremost and the only Papua New Guinean female playwright. Nora was involved with acting in amateur theatre, radio plays, and street theatre in early 1970s. Her exposure to the world of theatre in England inspired her to write her own plays on her return to Papua New Guinea. The National Arts School employed Nora as an assistant lecturer in puppetry, dance, and drama. She then moved on to become one of the two artistic directors with the National Theatre Company. Nora wrote her own scripts for the puppets using tradional stories of Papua New Guinea. The National Theatre Company toured local villages and performed in the streets. They went to the Pacific Arts Festival in Rotorua and Wellington, New Zealand. They also danced in Point Venus ...

 Ahuia in later years at Kilakila   (courtesy of Eric Johns, PNG History Through Stories Vol.2)  The emergence of indigenous literary traditions across Oceania goes far back to the early introduction of European technologies, ideas, writing instruments, literacy, and print media in the 1880s. Reverend W. G. Lawes, who settled with his family in Hanuabada in 1874 translated the four gospels in Motu. The translation of the gospels was completed in 1885. Lawes held the view that to establish the Christian church it was important to develop the abilities of people to read Christian literature. By 1920s a reasonable number of Motu Koitabuans knew enough English to communicate with the missionaries and the administration officials. Many Papuans, however, were uninterested in using English to capture their experiences or to express themselves in writing. The English language was viewed as an uncultured language with the power to corrupt the cultural and social fabric of the Papua...