New study on Lovongai

By TUKUL WALLA KAIKU
On Monday 1st August, I had a surprised pleasant visit. There is a knock on my office door and in steps Dr. Matthew Leavesly, an archaeologist who teaches archaeology with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Papua New Guinea. He tells me that, he has brought someone to see me and in comes another European looking gentleman. After telling me that the gentleman and I will talk in my language he left.
Well, long story short, the gentleman who came to see me was and is Mark Collins. He had been to Metevoe village on the south coast of Lovongai, New Hanover Island in the New Ireland province and was heading back to Paris where he stays and is doing his doctorate studies.
And so we spoke in my mother tongue, the Tungak language of the Lovongai’s of New Hanover Island, New Ireland. I heard about you, I say, and I heard about you too, he tells me, and we laugh…The dialect we used was the Rangkate variant spoken between Tioputuk and Meterankang. I informed Mark that Meteove is the home of my grandmother (my mother’s mother) who had been adopted by a hornbill (vengevenge) clan grandfather of Meteran village.
Naturally, I was excited that Mark had been home and did his fieldwork at my home island. He tells me about how he went there and his study area and hands me a copy of his Master’s dissertation. In 2019 Mark Collins came to the Oceania region in search of a study area to conduct studies for his Masters in Anthropology. He had no idea where to go, but, he knew of an American anthropologist by the name of Paige West who introduced her to John Aini. Mark went to see John Aini and found Laimenlik Beling and they went to Metevoe village. Somewhere along the way, Mark finds many people, and in particular Patrick Kaiku who had co-authored with me an article for Dorothy Billings my mentor anthropologist who had done work on the Johnson cult of New Hanover Island in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. Patrick and I had written a paper titled ‘Indigenous Knowledge for Sustainable Development; four examples from Lovongai, New Hanover Island’. One of the traditional knowledge practices we discussed was fish farming.
Laimenlik and others built Mark a house at the Metevoe village bay area known as Ring-samung. He settled there and his Master’s study thesis became ‘Vala, preliminary ethnography marine interspecies relations on Lavongai Island’ (Bismarck Archipelago, Papua New Guinea).
Mark had chosen as his study field an area of knowledge of the Tungaks that no-one had done extensive anthropological study on as far as we of Lovongai are concerned. I had tried in fact to undertake some documentation work on the fishes of Lovongai, but have not been able to do so. I found that Mark had actually done that.
After fieldwork, Mark had gone back at the end of 2019 and written his Social and cultural anthropology Master’s dissertation which he presented in June of 2020 under the supervision of Anne Di Piazza of the Aix-Marseille University Centre for research and documentation in Oceania. The dissertation is 215 pages long and Mark has deposited a copy with the National Research Institute as a condition he made with the NRI. He has also provide the author with an e-copy.
In parting on the afternoon of Monday 1st August, Mark asked if he would call me ‘manai’ which is our Tugak word for ‘aunty’ or ‘nana/ri-nah’ (my mother). I said, ‘ri-nah’ was more appropriate. Mark texted to say thank you for time and discussion we had. I have texted back to inform him that I had started reading his dissertation and would comment. He was looking forward to the comments.
On first reading of Mark’s dissertation, one’s initial impressions are that, Mark spent three months only from, 29th August to 27th November, 2019, at Metevoe and Tioputuk villages on the south side of Lovongai, New Hanover Island but it can already be seen that much data and information was captured during his somewhat short stay. Mark is also an external researcher and one is likely to come across errors in spelling of local words and names of places and things, let alone mis-interpretations of notions and ideas.
For the benefit of future Lovongais, Mark is looking forward and will take comments and corrections, as and where we think there are certain notions, words and ideas which will need to be corrected in relation to the Lovongai notion of inter-relationships with the sea, ocean and marine animals.
Overall, the marine and reef features and settings around Lovongai, New Hanover Island are many and varied, and there is no doubt, the terms and words used in Mark’s dissertation will differ from those of the Rangpoko and Pokmatas dialects and even from the other Rangkate variants of the south and south east areas of the island. Even so, it is with much gratitude that we embrace the study and will forever owe Mark the latest cultural and ethnography study undertaken in particular of the inter-relationships with the sea, ocean and marine animals as observed in and around the Metevoe and Tioputuk area on the south coast of the Island.
It is with much gratitude and thanks to Mark and relatives of Metevoe and Tioputuk that our very own knowledge which was once undocumented, has now been documented and packaged as a body of knowledge for our benefit.

• The author is lecturer in Information and Communication Sciences with the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Papua New Guinea.