All posts by tribalmysticstories, lazylittlefrog.com

Author, Artist, Arts Curator, Climate Activist, Anti - Violence against Women, and Entrepreneur
blogging, Life, Stories, writing

More Mystery Surrounds The Fishy Find

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“The Fishy Find” follow-up story.

Burnt Fishing Boat Liau Yuan Yu 68
Burnt Fishing Boat Liao Yuan Yu 68, believed to have been set on fire after it ran aground just off Manus Islands, Papua New Guinea. Pic: Courtesy ABC.

I posted a story on December 30, about three bodies being found by villagers in a suspected illegal fishing boat off the coast in Manus, Papua New Guinea.

PNG authorities were unable to find the bodies reported in abandoned tuna fishing boat freezer. Here is the follow-up story from ABC PNG correspondent Liam Cochrane.

Liao Yuan Yu 68, the abandoned fishing boat Liao is believed to have been set on fire by the crew after it ran aground.

Three human bodies reportedly left in the freezer of an abandoned fishing vessel in Papua New Guinea may have been removed and replaced with three metre-long tuna, according to a journalist who accompanied police to the site.

Fishing Boat at Poana Island, Manus
Fishing boat aground on Poana Island, Manus. Courtesy. ABC

The fishing vessel was abandoned on a remote island in the far east of PNG’s waters in early December and locals reported seeing three corpses “of Asian appearance” inside a freezer.
But when police and government officials travelled to the site this week, they found three huge tuna on trays in the freezer, which had been damaged by fire.

PNG investigation team on the boat.
PNN investigation team members on the burnt fishing boat. Pic: Courtesy ABC

“The fish that were there looked like [they] had just recently been burned – you could still see blood on the fish,” said Stephanie Elizah, a senior journalist working with the Autonomous Government of Bougainville’s media bureau, who was part of the assessment trip.

“The information doesn’t add up,” she said.
“The young kid that went into the freezer area [initially], he noticed an ankle, it was decayed but it was still in the shape of a foot and was wrapped in black wrapper.
“You’re talking about a community that [has been] eating fish all their lives and they know the difference between a fish and a human body.”
It is unclear if the initial reports of human bodies were incorrect or if the corpses had been removed and replaced with the tuna.
“No one has come up and said whether they burnt the ship or they may have retrieved the corpses and buried [them] somewhere,” Elizah said.

Courtesy: Malum Nalu Blog and ABC News.

 

blogging, Living, Stories, writing

Even Google won’t be around for ever, let alone Facebook

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I have to admit that I love Google. I call Google Abung in Bukawac which means grandfather or grandmother, the wise one that knows so much. The joke in our family is, “ask Abung ” if you don’t know. I cannot say the same for Facebook, but, I found this argument from John Naughton very interesting, especially the comments and responses that were made about the article itself. I’m glad my friend Kirk shared this article with me. We live in an age where we are depending on technology so much so that it is strange to think such thought that, it may not be forever.

The argument from commenters is that, if these two giants don’t exist, something else will take their place. Who is to know. If I don’t have Abung Google, I won’t really mind driving back to the library again. That’s the truth.

If you are interested to read the rest of the story, click on the link at the end of this post.

By John Naughton
Sunday 3 March 2013. The Guardian

Some years ago, when the Google Books project, which aims to digitise all of the world’s printed books, was getting under way, the two co-founders of Google were having a meeting with the librarian of one of the universities that had signed up for the plan. At one point in the conversation, the Google boys noticed that their collaborator had suddenly gone rather quiet. One of them asked him what was the matter. “Well”, he replied, “I’m wondering what happens to all this stuff when Google no longer exists.” Recounting the conversation to me later, he said: “I’ve never seen two young people looking so stunned: the idea that Google might not exist one day had never crossed their minds.”

And yet, of course, the librarian was right. He had to think about the next 400 years. But the number of commercial companies that are more than a century old is vanishingly small. Entrusting the world’s literary heritage to such transient organisations might not be entirely wise.

Compared with my librarian friend, we have the attention span of newts. We are constantly overawed by the size, wealth and dominance of whatever happens to be the current corporate giant. At the moment, the four leading monsters are Apple, Google, Facebook and Amazon. Yet 18 years ago, Apple was weeks away from extinction, Amazon had just launched, Google was still three years away from incorporation and Facebook lay nine years into the future. Read More on link below.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/03/google-facebook-nothing-lasts-for-ever

Life, Living, My Art, Poetry, Stories, writing

The Angels’ Trail – for Robert

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JKLeahy (I wrote this poem yesterday for my cousin Robert) 

The Angels’ Trail

In your journey, after the earth

at distant shore, you will berth

The end of Angels’ Trail you will see

Lifeless as dust in the wind, we will be

Vibrant and free as a bird, you will soar

In Godspeed your wings find you sooner

No blood, pain, or will you suffer

Here, bounded in grief from tragedy, earth life quiver

Trapped in naked depth of sorrow, we linger

Cloth, wood, soil and stones enfold remains

In earth, we buried with your shell are our souls

In wind, as a dandelion you will lift higher

Earth’s gravity draws darkness, we see death

Hold back tears, your brothers’ will

Hear their songs, when the wind is still

In dirge and tears, sisters call you fond epithets

Where you, dandelion rests, is where Angels’ Trail begins

Follow beside where the lights glow

for darkness, as deep dark wine bestow

swallows where the shadows go

Seek your mother, for she seeks you

Your brother, aunts, uncles, your sister too

In patience, expect they will be for you

at a place where they had once passed Angels’ Trail

Gaze ahead; leave earth with your memories

Be light on your feet for them you will meet

Drowned in sorrow, our heart bleats

Softness is your voice, abound to share among our kin

Rejoice will be, the angels in triumphant

and kin spirits who had long passed The Angels’ Trail

Robert was a handsome, healthy, living young man in his mid twenties. He was buried today in my village, Wagang. His life was taken tragically last week in a car accident, leaving behind his two young children – aged 14 months and 4 years old, and a young wife. Robert went for a ride with our other cousins. They were all sober and picking up another cousin sister at Nadzab Airport, 40 minutes from Lae City, Papua New Guinea where he met his death in the tragic accident. The details of the accident are not known to me nor my brother who made the call to me. Four others are in  critical condition at Angau General Hospital, Lae. Those of you that follow my blog, Robert was the third son of my Aunty Yellow (Yang Yang) who died last year. She was instrumental in my upbringing and specifically, my traditional fishing and dancing skills. Robert was a little brother.

blogging, Stories, writing

The Diet of Content

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I asked one of my younger readers, aged 17, what I should do to my blog content to make it better for my readers. Should I write about the same thing? Should I allocate days for each topic or category?

She said, “No!, don’t change it. I like the variety and the surprise. I want to open the post and be surprised. I do not want to know what is going to come”.

I took that comment as a compliment and I appreciated the thought that this blog appealed to a wide range of age groups. I hope that more readers can give me feedback so I could improve the content and make this blog better this year.

In line with the discussions over content, I saw this article about blog content and it made me laugh initially, but, I thought this could be useful to apply to what I/we blog about. To fellow bloggers, I hope that this information is useful and it inspires you to add something new to your blogs in this new year. The article was written by Jason Miller.

Content Healthy – Blogging Food Groups

If you know me at all then you know that I am a huge fan of marketing analogies, said Jason Miller.  One of my favorites, and most useful, is the blogging food groups. Originally coined by Hubspot’s Rick Burns back in 2009, I have been applying this strategy for years and I believe that it’s more relevant than ever now that content marketing is such a vital part of the marketing mix.

Many of us forget that the blog is the original social media channel. It’s the social media rug that ties the content marketing room together. As a major fuel source for social, it’s vital to mix up the content on the blog, after all variety is the spice of life. Just as anyone would quickly tire of eating from the same food group day after day, your customers and prospects can grow tired of the same type of content again and again.

The infographic below is inspired by the original blogging food groups post mentioned above but with a slight twist. My hope is that this infographic will inspire you to mix up the content on your blog by including some meaty posts, a side of vegetables, a serving of whole grains, a condiment or two, and everyone once in a while a sweet dessert.

Life, Living, writing

2015: A Year for Peace and Fresh Start

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I decided to get out of my house for 24-hours and I spent New Year’s Eve and New Year’s day with friends I grew up with. It was a wonderful change from typing away at the computer and chasing my chickens out of my garden beds in Bellbowrie. We spent last night celebrating the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. Today, I was taken to Sunnybank Hills by my friend Margaret and her two daughters, Nina and Paula, and we enjoyed a very nice Vietnamese lunch and then, ice-cream.

Thinking about last night’s discussions about life and where we were heading in the future, many of my friends and I will be turning half a Century, so 2015 is an important year for each of us.  We all agreed, we must all strive to make 2015 a better year and a year to complete projects.

I wanted to share contents of an email I received from my friend Dr Kevin Murray when I returned from my 24-hour outing. Dr Kevin Murray is an independent writer and curator, Adjunct Professor at RMIT University and Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Kevin’s email summed up last night’s discussions about projects, and about the desire to have a better year. I liked the message about using the old to make new in Kevin’s story about his textile workshop visit.  

Kevin wrote: according to the Chinese, 2015 is the year of the wood sheep. It’s an auspicious sign associated with harmony and peace. Accordingly, there are very few major sporting or political contests planned for this year.

Weaving with newspapers in Batik Redaka

Last year, three Australian designers, an Indian artisan and Kevin visited Batik Redaka, a textile workshop in Pekalongan. Their guide was the master batik artisan, Zahir Widadi. Batik Redaka was established by a Gujarati trader and reflects the fertile mix of Javanese, Dutch, Indian, Arab and Chinese cultures that co-exist on the north coast of central Java.

Top-001

As well as traditional batik processes, the workshop has developed some wonderful new weaves, such as the textile produced by this newspaper loom (pictured above). From this newspaper fabric, they have designed a variety of products such as vests, hats and shirts.

This gleaning of technology is a particularly inventive source of modern craft. Zulu basket-makers make vibrant bowls from telephone wire. They are so successful that, even though it has been made redundant by optic fibre, telephone wire is still produced in South Africa as a craft product. Read more on the Sangam Project.

As my friend Kevin had wished me, I wish you the same. May the peaceful year of 2015 provide you with many opportunities to ‘make new again’ the rich resources at hand. I will be making new, some of my old projects and completing them this year. On the subject of peace and harmony, I wish and pray for Peace for West Papua.

writing

Tribalmystic Blog – 2014 in review

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To my readers, I wish you all a Happy and Prosperous 2015. I hope all your wishes and dreams come true in the new year. Thank you so much for your contributions to my blog. I would like to especially thank those of you that follow and others that consistently visit, like and share your thoughts on each post. That means a lot to me. Thank you WordPress and team for making it easy to blog and also to learn and share. Like other blogs, WordPress has sent me the statistics for this blog activity in 2014 and I would like to share it with my readers. As you read this, the blog will reach 10,000 hits in the next week. Once again, thank you with love from me.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 9,500 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 4 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Life, Living, writing

A Fishy Find

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1107240-3x2-940x627 tuna
PNG Tuna – AFP File photo

Three bodies found in freezer of suspected illegal fishing boat off Papua New Guinea

By PNG correspondent Liam Cochrane (ABC News)

Updated Mon at 5:04pm Mon 29 Dec 2014, 5:04pm

Illegal fishing is a growing problem in the Pacific.

Investigators from Bougainville are still preparing to make their way to a remote PNG island where three bodies were found packed inside an illegal fishing boat’s freezer.

The police assessment team has been delayed again, waiting in Bougainville’s largest town, Buka, for a boat to travel to remote islands about 200 kilometres to the north.

The bodies were found packed among tuna in the freezer after the fishing boat ran aground at Paona Island, a 45-minute boat ride from Fead Island, which is 200 kilometres north of Bougainville.

The gruesome find was made on December 10 but the incident has only just been reported because of the remote location.

Bougainville disaster co-ordinator Frank Lacey, who is heading the investigation team, said the remaining crew members tried to destroy the boat before fleeing.

“Local reports coming from the area are that there are three dead bodies in the ship’s fridge with some fish they have caught,” he said.

“The occupants of the boat, when it ran aground,  tried to burn it.

“They tried to burn the ship. They do this all the time.

“But it did not get ablaze – it’s only the top part of the ship that’s been burnt.”

The three bodies in the freezer are also yet to be identified, but, Mr Lacey said they appeared to be from Asia.

An earlier report suggesting the freezer was still working has now been dismissed.

The freezers are located on the second deck, out of the sun, and investigators hoped the frozen fish would keep the bodies from decomposing too quickly before they are identified.

“We’ve been giving warnings to the locals not to get the fish from the fridge, which they normally do with other ships that run aground,” Frank Lacey said.

Illegal tuna fishing is common in the area and the crew was believed to have fled to a “mothership”, which was acting as a hub for smaller vessels.

One source told the ABC the call sign of the vessel had been tracked to a Chinese owner who had since been contacted.

The PNG National Maritime Safety Authority said the vessel was declared lost at sea in June, 2014.

The last known port of call was in Kiribati, hundreds of kilometres from Paona Island.

When the assessment team has completed its report, it will be handed to the country’s National Maritime Safety Authority, which will lead the recovery of the bodies.

“We’ll leave it to the NMSA to do the rest, because they could get the fish and dead people off and bury them somewhere,” Mr Lacey said.

Life, Living, Stories

Treasured Rubbish: Island Stuff

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My cousin Greg returned to Papua New Guinea with his family after six years in Brisbane. It was a sudden decision and he wanted his family to move back with him to assist with his new business. Greg’s wife and children packed up the house and left yesterday morning on the flight to the capital, Port Moresby. We were all very sad. Greg and his brother Bob’s children and my sons were all about the same age and they enjoyed growing up together as a family. It was the same with us, their parents. We were close.

For the past two days, I had gone to cheer up my cousin sister-in-law Ufi, Greg’s wife while she packed. Yesterday we shared food, cups of tea and lots of stories as she started cleaning. I helped her with some tenancy documents and returned home late.  The next day, after the family had left for the airport, I returned to the house they had rented about 3pm, to tidy up, remove rubbish and pick up some hand-woven mats and coconut brooms from PNG that Ufi had left for me. These were treasured items and knowing how valuable they were, my sister-in-law left her old ones for me.

On arrival, I saw a truck parked and loaded up to the brim. Two men, one Pacific Islander and the other, a Caucasian, I was not sure where he was from, were loading furniture and everything they could get. Then they tried to tie it down with ropes.  Greg’s wife had told me she sold some furniture to a Samoan. She had said, the buyer was coming to pick up the three pieces of furniture, but, these two men loaded everything.

The Islander (Samoan) asked who I was and if I had come to pick up things I bought. I told him I was family and I had come to clean and pick up my Pandanus mats and coconut brooms.

“I can’t find them, they were suppose to be here in the corner”, I said looking at him.

After some hesitation, the man said, he had loaded the brooms and mats. I wanted to laugh but I kept a straight face. I knew these were old and used. The mats were ripped. I looked at him and smiled.

He went to the truck and unpacked the load. He found and gave me back the brooms and the two mats. He asked, embarrassed,  if he could keep the mattresses and the other household items and I told him, he could keep them. He explained to his friend, he had to return the “island stuff”.

I thanked them and explained that the brooms and mats were from PNG and I could not let him have them because they were hard to get into Brisbane, Australia. The man knew the quarantine process for importing such items would have been horrid. He understood. I felt sorry for him because as an islander himself, I knew he would have been so excited to find these treasured island ‘rubbish’ before I had arrived on the scene and ruined it for him.

 

Art, Life, Living, Stories, Women, writing

Pidil: A Small but Powerful Instrument

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Published on Sep 17, 2014 by komnairima

I love interesting sounds, particularly  unusual musical instruments from Papua New Guinea. Here is the Pidil, a rare instrument belonging to the Gunantuna of The Blanche Bay Area of New Britain. I have read that this instrument is played by men during ritual ceremonies to attract young women into the bush. We can guess what that means. 

I do not have any more information on the object except for the sound of it which is on the YouTube link below. The brown, almost finely polished seed, (it’s naturally like that), is common in PNG in coastal areas. In my province we remove the inside and hollow the seed before we use it as a decoration on string bags (bilum). We also  string a bunch of the seeds together to make it another musical instrument, that sounds like a shaker. The women and men carry the bunch and shake them to create the sounds that accompany the kundu drums, singing and dancing.

Rabaul is the famous centre of New Britain. It is known for the Japanese occupation during the world  war and also for its volcanoes. Since January 1942 the Japanese had held Rabaul on Blanche Bay, the flooded crater of an extinct volcano which gives deep water almost to the shore. The regional area and the province itself is rich in culture and heritage. The Pidil in New Britain has a longer story behind it. I dare not ask, I am a woman, but, someone from this area may offer us some follow-up story for this blog in the future. For now, click on the link to listen to its sound.

Art, Painting, Stories

Museum of Digital Fine Arts

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MODFA

at-the-modfa

I recently met (virtually) Solomon Walker, Canadian Artist and owner of the Museum of Digital Fine Arts(MoDFA). A virtual museum was something I had been thinking about and was excited to find MoDFA and how well Solomon has set it up.  An Australian curator friend, Jenny Fraser has had several; digital curatorial projects for Pacific Arts and I thought it would be a great idea for some of the projects I was involved in. A digital museum provides an opportunity for those of us that are limited by location, time and money to go and see some wonderful art. For  curators, a digital space requires less funding and all the  hassles that come with running a real exhibition. One can argue that nothing beats the real thing, but if you cannot travel to Paris or New York to see something beautiful and amazing work, digital space is the place to go in this day and age.

“I was really looking for a place to show my own artwork, and that’s how I thought of establishing the virtual museum”, Walker said.

Established in 2008, Walker through the museum, quickly filled a void in establishing a collective space for online art world, showcasing some of the very best work rendered in the new Digital Medium. The MoDFA provides essential exhibition opportunities for both emerging and established artists and photographers on an international scale. Artists who create stunning works of art primarily with modern electronic tools that includes computers, tablets, scanners and digital cameras can show their work in this space. Though existing virtually online, the MoDFA provides a unique public exhibition space and forum for introducing and displaying brilliant contemporary Art and Photographic images from some of today’s most creative individuals across the globe.The MoDFA is dedicated to Digital medium creativity. To show or to curate or volunteer for the museum, visit link below and speak with Solomon Walker.

http://museumofdigitalfinearts.wordpress.com/at-the-modfa/