Oceania Books

As an English tutor for elementary school students from the Marshall Islands now residing in a rural US community, I hoped that this collection would provide insight into the cultural background of the kids. My plan was to preview it and then pass it around to the the classroom teachers of my students, encouraging them to use it to foster cultural appreciation. I initially requested that our ELL program purchase the book and was told that funds were lacking but that I could try to get the school library to buy it. I didn't feel like wading through the red tape and decided to order a copy myself. I was right - it is a great collection and gives an insight into Marshallese culture that I haven't been able to find anyplace else. But I'm awfully glad that I didn't ask the elementary school library to pay for it, because it could never be placed on the shelf. Most of the stories deal with very adult themes and are not appropriate for use in an elementary school setting. Also, the illustrations represent women with bare breasts, roughly drawn but definitely there and certainly an accurate depiction for these authentic legends. I don't even want to think about the commotion this would cause in a 5th-grade classroom. Still, I personally really enjoyed reading both the biographical backgrounds of the storytellers as well as the legends themselves, and there are several stories that we will be able to use as "read-alouds," or that possibly can be paperclipped in such a way that I can have a student read w/out being distracted by the illustrations. Really a great book for anybody who desires to learn more about the culture of the Marshall Islands!

Compiled and edited by Daniel A. Klin II (Director of Drama Education with the Honolulu Theatre for Youth) , and enhanced with black-and-white illustrations by Nashton T. Nahson, Marshall Islands Legends And Stories is an entertaining and richly presented collection of oral folklore featuring 50 stories recorded from 18 storytellers on 8 Marshall islands and atolls. Magic, mischief, quarrels, heroism, traditional Marshallese customs and culture, and much more fill this most engaging read, which enhanced with profiles of storytellers, a glossary, and a pronunciation guide. Also available in a hardcover edition (1573061417, [$$$]), Marshall Islands Legends And Stories is a valued contribution to Pacific Island Folklore & Mythology reference collections and reading lists.

Dr. Sven Wahlroos' book "Mutiny and Romance in the South Seas" provides a careful review of the Bounty mutiny without taking any sides. His analysis exposes the underlying tensions that ultimately led to the undoing of everyone involved. Reading this book cannot help but be an enriching experience for anyone who has pondered the situations that led to Bligh's epic voyage in an open boat and Christian's sad end on Pitcairn.

I truly enjoyed this book. I loved the way it was laid out in chronological order. It was easy to pick up and read for a few minutes, without getting so engrossed you couldn't leave. (But if you had a lot of time to spend, you could get engrossed then!) Each month is approximately 2 pages, and includes information on different scenarios--The Bounty, Tahiti, Pitcairn, Bligh's launch, England--wherever there is something important happening at the time that is known about, all of it is included. The author's views are presented in a manner which lets you know they are his views only, but are done in a very non-assuming way. This book is pleasant,exciting and very informational--it really draws everything together. Highly recommended!!!...

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What's it like growing up on an Aussie farm? Read Alison Lester's "My Farm" and you will be captivated by her reminiscences.

You will follow young Alison and her two brothers and sister through the highs (many) and lows (a few) of their young rural lives.

There's lots of Aussie bush humour shining through. Painting clay stripes on an old black horse gives you a "Native Australian Zebra" and entering your Kelpie sheep dog in the dog high jump is all part of the fun.

We are not shielded from the harsher realities of life in the bush. We are threatened by bushfires; round-up runaway cows and we even assist mum to deliver a newborn calf.

We enjoy the bounties of nature and go picking wild blackberries and field mushrooms.

There are some esoteric references to which only Aussies might relate, such as children swinging on the rotary clothesline, best known as the iconic Hills Hoist.

Alison's illustrations have a quirky charm. Faces are simply drawn, but the atmospherics of the landscapes and farm scenes are exquisite.

"My Farm" is the most sophisticated of Alison's works and neatly supplements her other works such as "Bouncing and Bumping" for the younger reader and "Imagine" her most successful book.

Some readers may want a glossary of Aussie terms eg chooks = hens, drover = cowboy, mobs = herd, but these all give a delightful flavour to a book which will have great appeal to all young children.

This book attracted me with its beautiful cover, and I expected a well-illustrated, serene pastoral. I was right about the pictures, they're uniformly superb but "My Farm" has a greater narrative and emotional range than its simple title suggests. Between the covers, Lester shows us the fun and the hard work of living on an Australian sheep and cattle farm.

"My Farm" skirts the boundaries between the picture book and the chapter book by using three pictures per page, acoompanied by Lester's tightly constructed, informative narrative. Lester is also capable of poetic images that match the soft visuals. This autobiographical book follows the seasonal chores and mischief on a mid-20th centure seaside Australian farm. Lester invokes another time and place through Australian terms (explained at the back of the book), and her pictures of the farm and its surroundings. While farm life (big family gatherings, humorous encounters with siblings, home grown games, horseback riding, community faires) are pleasingly light, Lester doesn't settle into an easy sentimentality. Baby and older animals don;t always make it, and sheep may be slaughtered for food. The latter is depicted by a soft version of something you might see in a butcher shop, nothing gory, but you know what you're seeing.)

A recurring subplot involves Lester's desire for a bigger, faster pony. It's no surprise when she finally gets on, but young kids not used to this formula may enjoy the suspense. Disappointed one summer Christmas (Lester reminds us later that the seasons are "reversed" in Australia), young Alison gets her dream horse one Christmas later, waiting for her under an apple tree just ready for plucking. With gorgeous pictures and funny, informative, and sometimes touching vignettes, this is a heart-warming piece of Australiana.

From this book I learned more about the territory, the Pacific region, the United States, and Faleomavaega. This man has worked toward a positive direction for American Samoa with regards to the Pacific and U.S. Much of the content of this book can still be applied today in the territory. For Samoans in the U.S. we all have ties back to Amerika Samoa in one way or another. This book covers a few of the issues that effect Samoa, compromising traditional cultural values and the influence of the modern world.

Few Americans know that the United States still owns a relic from the Age of Colonialism below the Equator, and that this "possession" is not faring so well after 101 years of benign neglect. Congressman Faleomavaega is a gifted writer. Few people could cram quite so much information into 142 pages and still have the result highly readable. But it's not a happy story when for 51 years the proud people of American Samoa had their Governor appointed by the US Navy, and then for another 26 years their Governor was always a personal friend of the Secretary of the Interior. Yet the author is basically an optimistic person, and he continually cites the many accomplishments of Asian and Pacific Island Americans, and the success of local initiatives in agricultural development, commercial policy, and educational achievement.

I was really surprised that a Member of Congress could endorse the pagan and gruesome Ritual of the Tatau. The current medical literature suggests that severe physical punishments during initiation rites can be life threatening. And then after such a persuasive plea for Americans to take Pacific policy seriously, the Congressman asks for only half a loaf. After 101 years of being required to be Americans, the people of American Samoa deserve Commonwealth or Statehood status. If their price for joining the Union is permanent protection of the Samoan tradition of communal property ownership, it is doubtful that very many Americans would object.

You will want to go to New Zealand after you have visited the South Island through Mary Bull in her book New Zealand Tales and Tours: South Island Adventures. She draws the reader into the landscape through descriptions of land, sea, people and weather as well as history and stories of the region.The pictures are lovely and enticing to make the trip - a Mt. Cook Lily from the mystical area of their highest mountain to a successful fisherman showing the NZ fish "rig".

Bull invites the reader to become "family" as she quotes poems or includes personal photos from her own travels around the South Island. Small animal pictures bring the material alive. I want to put on my hiking shoes, sun hat, warm sweater and find some sheep to walk the back roads.

This book is well written by a local resident who loves her corner of the world and dares to share secrets of these warm and welcoming people; so as a traveler, you will want to return many times.

If you are planning a trip to New Zealand's South Island, you will want to take this book with you. I really like it.

I actually bought this for friends who plan to visit New Zealand soon, but found myself reading it cover to cover, loving the author's personal approach and regretting that we had not visited the South Island when we visited the North Island a few years ago. The author and her husband have spent half of each of their last 24 years living on the South Island and she recommends 4 road trips lasting one month for travelers who want to thoroughly familiarize themselves with the country's dramatic landscapes and unique history, culture, plants, and animals. The trips start and end in the city of Christchurch, but most of the travel is through fascinating small towns. The author provides helpful details about the lifestyle, accommodations, and unique activities of each community and tips about driving and changeable weather conditions. She also includes Maori myths, local legends, personal experiences, a glossary of New Zealand terms and information about topography, sheep farms, farm stays, fishing, winter and summer sports, and wineries, as well as original sketches of the flora and fauna, numerous photos, and listings of web sites. As a retired library director I would highly recommend this travel book.

This massive, oversize, extremely weighty and well-made (Made In Italy) book is a very broad survey of so-called Oceanic Art. This genre may be defined geographically as that area surrounding and surrounded by the Southern Pacific Ocean stretching from Irian Jaya (Indonesian Half of New Guinea), the Northern and Eastern coast of Australia stretching down to New Zealand, as far East as the Easter Islands and up North and West to the Sandwich Islands, and all of the vast number of islands that dot the surface of the ocean in between.
This is then, obviously, a huge undertaking and explains the sheer mass of this publication (along with the fact that the book's text is printed in the French, German and English languages). It also makes it inevitable that some very worthy objects will be left out or overlooked. I'll get to that but first would like to praise the author for having the foresight to place objects in the context of their cultural use, discuss the native flora and fauna (there is even a section dedicated to the ubiquitous betel nut) that go into the artwork (literally and figuratively), describe and explain the religious or secular significance of certain objects and speculate upon probable ancient migration patterns which peopled the region. There is much information here that I am certain you will be exposed to for the first time, and there is a surfeit of excellent photographic reproductions of objects and the people who created them. Because of the large scope of this survey it is likely that you will need to come back to it time and again as you make your way through the various island 'nations'. You may also wonder if, for the same reason, this book has missed anything. I think it has. For instance, I was a little disappointed to see no so-called 'Story Board' carvings from the Palau Islands. These are, as the name implies, carved pictorial representations of local legends, typically done in a single frame on a hand-carved board as long as four feet, and one foot high. There is probably a good reason for this omission, but it causes me to wonder if there are not more categories, knife sheaths, for instance, that were also left out. Still, one must trust the editorial judgment of the author if for no other reason than the overall quality of the book's content is so high that concern over possible ommissions somewhat recede into the background. At present, this book is available right here on Amazon for a ridiculously low price below the issue price. I strongly encourage anyone who collects art books to purchase this, as well as anyone who studies or is interested in the islands, people and cultures of the South Pacific, and anyone who collects books with an eye toward re-selling them for a profit as I predict that this book is one that goes into the 'rare' book category within a year or two.

Want to refresh your eyes amongst the visual boredom of thecity landscape? Feel like having a non-occidental approach tofigurative arts and religion? Then read this book and find the amazing collection of photographs along with a concise and effective study on representative arts in Oceania by Anthony J.P. Meyer. This edition could well be recommended as an obligatory visual encyclopedia for anyone who has read studies on art, magic and religion like that of Mircea Eliade on shamanism or J.G. Frazer's Golden Bough. As a visual artist I consider that this carefully selected collection of images is a golden mine until the present day for all creative person, like it was for cubist and surrealists long decades ago. Find a brilliant example of art and tradition that has given European painting and sculpture a new vitality and a wider perspective on Man. Sit back and enjoy a lavish design and a trustworthy source of info on Oceanic art for the demanding reader.

Old New Zealand put legs under two opinions I've gained in the last ten years or so: 1) many pre-Christian societies were incredibly savage and no Westerner would want to live among them w/o the incentives of Christian missionary work or mistreating them by enslavement or unfair trading practices; 2) most moderns have idealized the "noble savage" by ignoring the "nasty, brutish, and short" aspects of their lives.

I reached conclusion #1 by reading of the savagery, cannibalism, or both in pre-Christian Rome and Greece, Ireland, Germany, Vikings, Fiji, Tasmania, Mexico (Aztec), Peru (Inca), and America (our word "cannibal" comes from the word for the Carib Indians). Try reading the Mohawk treatment of Isaac Jogues or the Auca treatment of Jim Eliot for a peek at the "noble savage."

Maning's experience and sympathetic writing of the "good old times" of the Maori culture stretches the mind to wonder just how anybody could live they way they did, and how any modern could possibly kvetch at Christian missionaries "for not respecting native customs."

How many murders of innocent children is the "right number" that the missionaries should have approved? How much foot-binding in China is good? How many widows should be burned in India with "Suttee?" How many people are the right number to have their hearts cut out while still alive to make sure the sun will rise in Mexico? (Does the Modern really believe that number is above zero? What if HE is the one?) Is Cortez really to be despised for putting an end to the ritual murder (and consumption) of thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of innocent people each year?

If Maning put legs under my respect for Christians who brought the concepts of mercy and justice to benighted people, the review by Jacques Coulardeau put a centipede's legs under my belief that moderns---in their general rejection of Christianity, especially Catholicism---have let their animus blind themselves to a simple reading of history.

Of course I've heard the claim that more people have been killed in the name of religion than all other causes. And, if one will agree that Communism is a religion (answering man's deepest questions), albeit a godless religion, than I must agree. The Communists certainly killed more people in the 20th Century than all the "religious wars" of the prior 1.9 millennia.

Back to Coulardeau. He writes, "With the musket everything changed. It was necessary, for it being used in best conditions, for the Maoris to move their forts and villages to the lowlands. This made them live in swamps, in very unhealthy territories. Their wars were changed, some of their customs were also changed and their habitat was changed. This last element caused the propagation of serious diseases among the population, causing its reduction over a few decades. This book is thus a perfect testimony about the changes colonialization brought to those populations, those people who some like to describe as primitive."

Well, yes and no. What Coulardeau left out is that Maning described the need to move from the forts on the hills to the swamps near their crops was their survival need to get muskets, and they way they could get trade goods was from their farms (e.g., growing flax). What Coulardeau leaves out is the sad reason they needed muskets to defend themselves is that in this "primitive" (nay, let's call it SAVAGE) society. That sad reason is that they believed "might made right."

Simply put, pre-Christian Maoris considered quite OK, even admirable, for any man or group to murder and pillage any other man or group if strong enough to pull it off.

Viking raiders had the same opinion when they "went shopping" in England. In their society, it was morally right to swoop in, kill and plunder those who had eked out a living on the land. Imagine the Hatfields and McCoys running total amuck with revenge, murder, and even eating each other. Would any Modern admire THAT as a wee cultural pecadillo?

Today's Maori do not live in constant dread of an individual or marauding gang appearing at any time holding the belief that they have every right to "harvest" the possessions and even the flesh of their neighbors.

We Americans so respect the caribou that migrate twice each season for their economic benefit that we built parts of the Alaskan pipeline underground to preserve their travel patterns.

Cannot we extend to the English a similar respect vis a vis Australia or New Zealand? French, Spanish, Dutch, Irish, Scots, English, Italians, Germans, Russians, Norse, Greeks, Pakistanis, Sihks, Gujratis, and Mexicans who move to the USA? Or Americans themselves, such as Daniel Boone, who moved "out west" to have a little more room, or Mormons who moved for a more peaceful clime than Nauvoo, Ill.?

I think we should respect them when they did it peacefully. When they acted like Hitler looking for "lebensraum" or Maoris looking for plunder, we must chasten them. Why? Because they are not being "good Christians." The best Christians, e.g. Jogues and Elliot, were utterly peaceful. Cortez and many others fell short, yes, of the CHRISTIAN ideal. The Maoris, however, had no such ideals.

In modern times, nobody ever say Stalin was a "bad atheist." You might call him a "bad man," but when you do you're smuggling in from Christianity your very definition of good and bad.

Modernists! Admit your source for your belief in right and wrong: It emerged from Christianity not pond slime.

F.E. Maning was one of those Englismen who arrived in New Zealand before its being integrated in the British Empire. He became a Pakeha Maori, the personal « property » of a Maori chief, trading with his tribe in many articles particularly muskets and gunpowder. The book is interesting because it describes the Maori civlization before its being completely destroyed by colonialization. But it is of great interest in its showing the direct influence of European culture, particularly of the musket, on the fate of the Maoris from the very start of the European presence. Before, this warlike people was living in forts positioned on hilltops and on cliffs, that is to say in dry and healthy places. Only their agriculture was concerned by the low lands that were cultivated. This location of the forts and villages was perfectly well adapted to the use of the spear to defend them. With the musket everything changed. It was necessary, for it being used in best conditions, for the Maoris to move their forts and villages to the lowlands. This made them live in swamps, in very unhealthy territories. Their wars were changed, some of their customs were also changed and their habitat was changed. This last element caused the propagation of serious diseases among the population, causing its reduction over a few decades. This book is thus a perfect testimony about the changes colonialization brought to those populations, those people who some like to describe as primitive.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU

At last the Pacific islands are beginning to take their rightful place in the annals of world history. It is this book that takes a major step to establish that historical perspective.

The Pacific islands are dispersed across one-third of the Earth's surface. All the major island groups have been inhabited for the last two thousand years, some for more than six thousand years, yet a detailed prehistory of the region has been lacking until now. This book, written by a noted Pacific anthropologist and archaeologist who has studied the area for more than thirty years, takes a tour of the diverse islands of the Pacific, beginning in the west in Melanesia, then across the many small islands of Micronesia. The tour concludes in the sprawling area covered by the islands of Polynesia, which extend from New Zealand to Hawai'i and eastward as far as Easter Island. Along the way, the author conveys the personal drama that he experienced in uncovering artifacts that reach back into a deep time. At one place he unearthed a small piece of carved white bone. When he turned it over, he saw the two eyes and the subtle nose of a stylized human face. On another island, while enjoying a beach picnic with his host family, spearing octopus and gathering mollusks, the author took a walk along the beach and discovered, a short distance from where they were camped, a distinct rock layer filled with pottery fragments. Those fragments would prove to be a record of people who had lived on the island more than two thousand years earlier. This book is both a personal narrative of modern-day exploration of the Pacific and an account of the rich prehistory of the region.

The book draws generously from the detailed archaeological work conducted by the author and by others in the Pacific region--most of it done since the Second World War--as well as from studies of language and biology that answer such fundamental questions as where did the Pacific islanders come from and when and how did they settle the thousands of islands at least two millenia before any Europeans entered the Pacific? To most people, the Pacific islands are no more than a place of idyllic scenery and the people of the Pacific are the willing subjects of fanciful tales. Now, through the enlightening text of this book and the many striking photographs that it contains, the Pacific islands take on a fuller meaning. And the many cultures of the Pacific take their proper place in the remarkable story of the development of civilization.

The pacific islands and people who inhabit them have long been viewed as seperate, isolated and somehow different from the rest of the world's civilizations. Patrick Kirch takes this view into contest in this revolutionizing book on the pre-history of Oceania.

He collects a myraid of information about life in the islands before European contact and strives to present it, not as isolated bits of evidence, but as pieces of a cohesive whole. These pieces can be fit together to give a greater understanding of the culture of Pacific Islanders and help place them as an intricate portion of humanities story, not as a group of people untouched and unrelated to the rest of the world.

Kirch shows that the culture and past of the people who came to inhabite the islands of the pacific are unique. But, he also contends that Pacific Islanders do have an important place in the story of humanities past as well as our future. By writing On the Road of the Winds, Kirch has helped make sure that this story gets told.

I bought this book to learn more about the primal religious practices of the Aboriginal people. I got more than I bargained for. What I found was a comprehensive study of "The Original Australians," from their migration to the continent 40,000-50,000 years ago, to the present.

Flood's work is thorough, analytical, well-researched and unbiased. She obviously loves the indigenous people of whom she writes, yet she does not patronize them or romanticize their history or their plight.

Neither does she condemn the English, who first colonized "New Holland," or the Australian government, who enacted laws that forever changed the course of Aboriginal life.

Flood proves to be both a scholar, who honestly reports the facts, and a compassionate human, who cares deeply for the objects of her research.

I recommend this book highly. Where other books on Aboriginals tend to be anecdotal in nature, Flood's book is meaty, yet digestible; objective, yet heartfelt. It'll stimulate your mind and touch your heart.

Ms Flood has set herself the challenge of avoiding the political diktat of our times and trying to give an honest and thorough account of what aboriginal culture and life was like at the time of first contact with whites and following. my own interest is to look at a 50,000 year old culture - the oldest on earth - as the human roots of us all, and learn more about the basics of being human. it should come as no surprise to any sensible and honest person, that the picture is one of violence, mistreatment of all who are physically weaker, especially women. there is also a harsh lesson on the fruits of supernatural belief insisting on no change, no innovation, no learning, no progress. isolation and stasis bear terrible fruits.

"The Oxford Companion to Australian History," revised edition, is edited by Graeme Davison, John Hirst, and Stuart Macintyre. More than 700 pages long, the book is full of alphabetically organized articles. The book's preface notes that the articles range in length from 100 to 2000 words.

The "Companion" is truly vast in scope. Subjects covered include Aboriginal topics (art, history, languages, etc.); people (opera singer Harold Blair, Olympic athlete Betty Cuthbert, suffragist Alice Henry, etc.); cities (Adelaide, Hobart, etc.); newspapers (the "Argus" of Melbourne, the "Canberra Times," etc.); religious bodies and movements (the Uniting Church, etc.); important events (the Cape Grim massacre, the Castle Hill Rising, etc.); political parties; various ethnic groups in Australia, and more.

I particularly appreciated the entries on Australian colloquial terms like "Pommy" and "reffo." There are also many articles that address certain big topics in Australian context: agriculture, censorship, feminism, the film industry, literature, social justice, etc. And interspersed throughout are entries on many other interesting topics: the Bunyip (a mythic animal), convict history, "Waltzing Matilda" (a song), Internet resources, pubs, Vegemite (a food), etc.

Also included: maps, a useful subject index, and a 9-page directory of the book's many contributors. Many bibliographic references are incorporated into the individual entries, making this a good starting place for more in-depth reading on particular topics. The "Companion" is an achievement as big and colorful as Australia itself. While this book is certainly a logical choice for the reference section of any good library, it's also a good book for any individual with an interest in or love for Australia.

This book provides introductions to a wide variety of topics in Australian history. It has been edited by three of the most eminent Australian academic historians and many of the entries have been written by experts in their respective fields. The entries themselves deal with events, people, noted historians and current issues in Australian historiography.