Leonard Fong Roka
Melanesians are a civilization that had roots into the unknown pre-colonial ages. It had roots that a stranger cannot comprehend overnight; and if he cracks the shell, he cannot believe the nature of the values that a cornerstone of Melanesia with his Eurocentric nurturing.
Author at work: Kieta peoples' tamatama in the making
To this, it is the Melanesian that has to uphold and promote his traditional thinking and values as he adapts into the westernize cultures. It is the Melanesian that has the pestering obligations to enhance his status as a unique Melanesian with a reason of existence.
In the words of Bernard Narakobi (1980:3), he stated solemnly that:
‘It is assumed therefore that Melanesians have had a civilisation with its cultures, values, knowledge and wisdoms which have guided them through the ages. These are their revealed truths. Our history did not begin with contact with the Western explorers. Our civilisation did not start with the coming of the Christian mission: ar.es. Because we have an ancient civilisation, it is important for us to give proper dignity and place to our history. We can only be ourselves if we accept who we are rather than denying our autonomy’.
Melanesians had a culture and tradition that had enabled them to journey from the Asian continent through South East Asian islands into New Guinea. This was an unwritten organizational administering that was powerful in its unique way for it empowered the Melanesian to conquer or colonize the unknown Pacific through time for thousands of years before the self-centred European.
Revisiting this fountain of ancient Melanesian past, Melanesians can hope for a true nationhood in the suppressive and exploitative neo-colonial age; for in here, there is our source of power to design our existence in the modern age.
In page 6, the author argued: ‘We are not one year old, nor are we 200 years old. We are thousands of years old. We might be new to modern institutions, but we are not new to human persons' strengths and weaknesses’. That is, we have a clear history lane to retrace and build our sovereignty; that is, a right to rule over our world the way our apical progenitors did and survived.
Our ancestors’ imprints we carry; thus a brothers social, political and economic might and weakness is what we all face within the boundaries of Melanesia. Thus, a coastal man can interpret the highlander more readily then a westerner can do in his bias or myopic way.
Then in page 8, artist Narakobi exposes the baseless western judgement of Melanesia: ‘The popular view of Melanesia was that it consisted of thousands of hamlets, villages, clans and tribes which were closed to each other, and had no means of contact with each other beyond the hill, the valley, the river and the island, except through warfare. Our people are believed to be pagans who worship idols and live by uncontrolled sexual misconduct, who by nature are quarrelsome, belligerent, aggressive and warlike’.
This was lies, of an imperialistic European. He did not look deep into the core of Melanesian world and the reasons of his existence to the day he bumped into him. He neglected the new person before him as a primitive and barbarian living a culture of no progress. The Melanesian way was the foreseeable fate of humanity.
This was a culture that he had the divine right to eradicate from the surface of the Earth.
Thus, to sort this misperception of Melanesia by foreigners, Bernard Narakobi claims the duty was now the writer’s sacrifice. In page 16 and 17, he said, that: ‘An artist, whether a painter, a sculptor, a poet, a playwright, a musician or a novelist, works to create vision, new hope, new life, unconcerned to please anyone except the sense of beauty, proportion, harmony and life as seen through his or her own human eyes’.
The labouring is now with the artists to recreate the Melanesian world and thought in the modern world for both the foreigner to rethink his judgements and for the westernized Melanesian to reflect to his long pre-colonial past that designed his very existence.
Why is he a Melanesian? How did he come to be in this part of the Pacific? What enabled his forefathers to, was it the European ways or the Melanesian ways?
Source: Extract from Bernard Narokobi's The Melanesian Way
('hapter I. published by the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies (Borokoi ami
the Institute of Pacific Studies (Suva). 1980 (revised 1983).
The PDF source: www.alastairmcintosh.com/general/resources.html
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