About the author

Weekender

JANNETTA DOUGLAS arrived in the Territory of PNG (TPNG) in 1963 and was as head teacher of the primary t’ school in Kerema in Gulf.
“I flew out there in a war time Catalina that landed on Kerema Bay. It was there that I first heard of the ancient voyages of the Hiri lagatoi trading canoes that traded shell ornaments from the Kula Ring of Milne Bay to Port Moresby, to Kerema with connections in Daru to Torres Straight Islanders and Indonesian sandalwood traders,” Douglas recalled.
In October 1963 she was rushed over to Madang as relief head teacher of the Madang Girls High school. (Now co-ed known as Tusbab Secondary School).
In January 1964 she became head teacher of the Gum Demonstration Primary School and learned how the ancestors of many of children at the school had escaped to Yabob Island near Madang when their own island out near Long Island sank into the sea after a volcanic eruption.
They had no land on which to grow crops so according to legend, a woman called Honpain whom they believed came down from a star, helped them and taught the Yabob women how to make clay pots that their menfolk could barter them along the coast of Madang as far as the Sepik in the west and Morobe in the east and supply them with everything they needed.
In 1965 Janetta became a lecturer at the Madang Teachers College and began encouraging a group of Yabob women to revive their traditional methods of making clay pots.
“We invited overseas tourists to come to village to watch them make and fire the pots and they began earning a lot of money from their sale. The women initiated me into collecting the clay and the men held a singsing and announced that I had been given the name Honpain because I had reminded them all of the importance of remembering all aspects of their culture.
“Yeyeg was the name of my dear friend who died this year. She was one of women who started the revival of pot making in 1965 along with Padod and Lalog and has since taught many other women in Yabob how to make pottery.”
In 1967 Douglas was given the job of project officer for tourism with the Department of Trade and industry and charged with visiting all areas of TPNG to find out what other cultural practices and places of historical importance could be developed as tourist attractions.
In 1969 after she returned from studying tourism at the East West Centre in Hawaii, she and Lady Rachel Cleland caused the cultural centre in Konedobu to be built for the first South Pacific Games.
She married Denis in 1970 and joined the board of Aerial Tours (later renamed Douglas Airways) as property manager, a job she still holds.
In 1971 Janetta was the first chairman of the Hiri Festival.
“I was on the board of the festival until around 2015 during which time NCDC had taken over the responsibility for running the festival to ensure the survival of the Motu-Koita culture.
“After my husband died in the year 2000, I became heavily involved with the Port Moresby Rotary Club helping disabled people and serving on the board of Rotarians Against Malaria raise enough money to buy everyone in PNG an insecticide-treated mosquito net to sleep under at night.”
Douglas was awarded an MBE in 2014 for her work in cultural activities.