Taking care of cultures

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34047, 10 January 1976, Page 9

Taking care of cultures

By

ROGER DUFF

of the Canterbury Museum

During a 10-day visit to the Kingdom of Tonga in December for the first meeting of the U.N.E.5.C.0.sponsored Advisory Committee on Oceanic Cultures, the writer was again conscious of the quiet satisfaction •which accompanies even the briefest stay among a community which retains different values in life from those of our Western world.

It is sustaining to live in a community not dedicated to profit-making but placing high value on family co-operation, and respect and affection for the elderly, with hospitality as a cardinal obligation and courtesy to strangers a must.

Reflecting on the quiet dignity of the transplanted Victorian sabbath, one might be pardoned for suggesting that the Oceanic peoples should now reverse the process and send out missionaries to convert our so-called ’’developed nations.”

These values, shared by I those island groups where I the Oceanic people con- I stitute the ruling major- I ity, are part of a dis- 1 tinctive cultural heritage varying only in detail with various groups, which the Islanders wish to preserve and develop with help from U.N.E.S.C.O. and sympathetic foreign scholars. The technical superiority of the traditional Tongan Fale was conveyed by the pole and thatch reconstruction of the earlier style house (illustrated) in which we met. This was both dignified and so cool that air-con-ditioning was not needed. Determined to take the leading role in the preservation of their own cultures, the Islanders appointed Oceanic scholars to all key offices: chairman, Mr Langi Kavaliku, Minister of Education, Tonga; vice-chairmen; Mrs Tiresa Malietoa, Western Samoa; Mr John Haugie, Papua New Guinea; secretary: Mr

Josevata Kamikamica, Fiji; organiser: Albert Wendt, part-Samoan writer and poet. In a long debate on aims and objects, priority was given to the promotion of the interest of the Oceanic peoples in their cultural heritage as a vehicle for a postive feeling of self identity. In spending the admittedly small annual grant available from U.N.E.5.C.0., priority was given to training the Oceanic peoples to qualify for the better understanding, interpretation and development of their own cultures. This would include “workshop courses” where Islanders could record their rich oral literature, including music, dance and mime, and foster traditional arts and crafts. Here the Tongans maintain a high

standard of textile arts including decorated barkcloth known as ngatu or tapa. Unfortunately, most of the vintage examples of canoes, sculptures, war clubs, ornaments, fishhooks and baskets are no longer to be found in Tonga. A hideous class of bogus god-images, based on “airport art” from Honolulu, is now being foisted on . the unaware tourist by sculptors themselves unaware of the simple dignity of flhe original images of the gods of Tonga. Partly in the hope of encouraging back their old-time masterpieces, the committee assigned second priority to the writer’s proposal of multi-purpose cultural centres, combining elements of museum repository, reference library, and arena for the creative

and performing arts. Here old standards could be maintained as a source of educational inspiration for the present and future generations. The absence of a national museum was painfully conveyed over the fate of the most dramatic exhibit of modern Tonga, the outrigger canoe built in traditional style in 1962 by the castaways on the Minerva Reef, using only a knife, a hammer, a 6-inch nail and the planks of a wrecked Japanese fishing boat. Captain David Fifita scratched the course on a plank and sailed unerringly without compass to a landfall in the Lau group, Fiji. In the absence of a safer house this vessel weathers in the sun. as an adjunct to the barbecue attractions of a tourist beach. It is to be helped that King. Taufa’ahau Tupou IV will press on with plans for the phased establishment of a museum worthy of the Tongan heritage.