Tag Archives: Tribalmysticstories

JK. Leahy Short Stories, Nature and Environment, Snakes and reptiles, wildlife, writing, Writing Stories

The Waiting

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J.K.Leahy Short Story

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

It was a regular non-event weekday until I opened my email. An email with an attachment was about to change my life. It was what I had waited for, for weeks, and yet, I could not believe it. I sat in the faded red leather chair. I had long promised myself to replace this chair when I had some money, but now, the paint had started falling off the skin to give the chair a vintage look. I had decided the aged look suited me.

When I opened the attachment, and began completing the very important document before me, something moved in the ceiling above me. It was broad daylight and the usual sounds from the ceiling would be of possums farting and snoring. Even possums kept baby-making to night time and in the nearby bushland. This loud disturbing pounding ended in sliding, scratching and then loud tumbling that got me off the red leather chair in a fright. Clearly, something big was up there. Or were there two big things? Whatever it was, its weight vibrated the ceiling. I dashed from my red chair into the open lounge. It was a “WTF?!” moment. My heart pounded to that beat in the ceiling. My house is old. She can only bear certain strains on her bones and frames.

The thing or things were now rolling and hitting the ceiling frame and came towards me. The ceiling looked like it would fall on me. I stepped backwards and looked for my phone to ring the snake catcher. By now I had assumptions going on in my head. Was it a spring mating session gone wrong? And were they possums or snakes? Or both? It was about 3pm. The sounds were not in the rhythm of life here in Bellbowrie.

As the “thing” moved again, it now became obvious it was a large snake. The sliding sound was like a tarpaulin dragged on the ground. Then, the screeching sounds of sharp nails tugging on the ceiling, timber and the iron roof.

I rang the snake catcher. No answer. I gave my assumptions in a voice message. “Snake and snake, possum and possum or snake and possum” doing something rigorous enough to break the ceiling. Later as I hung up and listened attentively, I drew the conclusion that it was a large snake attacking a possum. The possums slept in this part of the house during the day. The animal must have had a rude awakening. I felt sad and ill. I was wondered what I could do if the damned thing broke the ceiling. Catch it in a garbage bag? No!

Snakes live here in the bushland surrounds. Many. In spring, they are out hunting. We get both poisonous and non-poisonous snakes. In the past two weeks, I spotted an Eastern Brown and the Australian carpet snake or carpet python. The birds alerted me on both snakes’ locations. It was like an alarm gone off each time and nearer they got to the house. Ten days ago, I saw the 2-metre-long carpet snake outside the kitchen. For a week, it had wandered away from the house in the garden and the birds kept a close watch. On that day, it was outside the kitchen, I called Mark, our friend and local snake catcher to relocate the reptile, but he was on the coast. A few hours later, the snake was on the go. Mark describes this as “motor rolling”. When this happens, the snake moves quickly and disappears. The eastern brown was sun-bathing in a succulent garden and the birds went crazy. I sat there in the mornings to have my coffee. It disappeared when I approached. It was far from the house, so I figured it was somewhere between us and the neighbours. I informed the snake catcher and family.

When the carpet snake disappeared from behind the kitchen, it began a guessing game of where the reptile would show up next. Carpets love to hang around in the house or nearby for the rats and possums. The snake makes its appearance only rarely and quietly for water, birds or the possums. Sometimes they like to sleep in the sun where the pot plants are or in a chair. Once a female carpet curled its tail on our front door knob and it’s body spanned up two metres to the window. I had opened the door to go swimming and met her fat body while trying to push the door open. It was very hot and the snake had come for some water. Later I learnt it was very pregnant. Often a snake hung like a branch to confuse the birds; its neck hooked and head turned up and ready to strike. I’m sure you have read some of my snake stories here. I don’t harm snakes. They are part of our eco system. It is also illegal to kill them here. The relocation from this place is only because, I protect the birds and sometimes the poisonous snakes become too difficult to see when you move about. I do believe many relocated species have come back.

The Australian carpet snake.

A carpet snake/sunbather.

Collection and relocation of a sunbather.

Here is Mark doing a quick “collection” of one of the carpet snakes. Mark can be contacted on reptileremoval.com.au

The ceiling noise kept going and drew me back. I shut all the room doors. The afternoon’s excitement got to the stage where the ceiling joint gaped slightly and dirt and dried paint fell out. By now, Mark had called back and he was very sorry he could not help because I told him, the snake was not out where he could see and pick it up. He said to keep a watch and call later in the evening if the snake was out. Mark had caught and relocated one while it constricted a large male possum one night. The snake lashed out and trapped the possum with its body above my children and I, while we were having dinner. The attack shocked us at dinner table. I had argued with my son Nathan as to what was happening in the ceiling until the possum’s cries horrified us. We called Mark. By the time Mark took it out from the ceiling, the possum had died. This one was further into the ceiling. I could not see it from the outside and it was dangerous to intercept a feeding time.

While I kept watch with the broom in my hand, thinking I should finish my document on the computer, I remembered the arrival noise in the ceiling nights before. I realised today’s craziness was the ending of the snake stake out. Even though the snake had fallen onto the roof days before, it did not attack the possums right away. The possums did come on the roof the same way, using the jacaranda trees and when sensing the snake, they ran across the roof like elephants and jumped off onto the trees. It was a movie of sounds.

So, a few nights ago, about midnight, a rustle of jacaranda leaves, a large branch bending, a huge thud was followed by a continuous sliding over my bedroom. The ‘motor rolling’ confirmed the reptile had now made its way into our ceiling, a regular hunting ground and home to a family of possums. The reptiles catch the possums easier this way – trapped in the ceiling. And the possum numbers sadly have dropped since we moved here ten years ago. I tried to chase the snake again.

Smart Hunters. JKLeahy illustration.

With the house broom, I started pounded the ceiling and yelled in my loudest Papua New Guinean woman voice. It was a voice I learnt as a child that was only used when you needed to save yourself. (It was a scary voice. My mother also used this voice as a last call, when she was very angry). I yelled and scraped the ceiling with the back of the broom head. The broom sound mimicked the motor rolling sounds. Suddenly in all the mixed and confusing noises, I heard an eerie sound. It was nothing like the thumping sounds. It sounded familiar and as I repeated the scraping, the sound responded. I could not believe it. The snake was hissing loudly. I was astounded. I used the broom again and the snake got loud, and aggressive. I yelled at the snake to leave the house. But the noise continued. Mark suddenly called. Mark could tell by my voice; I was in distress. I said to him, I would leave for a while and he thought it was a great idea. He said by nightfall, the reptile will disappear. After I hung up, I left the house.

It was quiet when I returned two hours later. It was getting dark. I switched the lights on in all the rooms, thinking the heat could warm the ceiling and alert my ‘hissing encounter’ that I was back. I had also hoped this heat would force it to motor roller away. I picked up the broom and scraped the ceiling once more and was greeted with a soft hissing. It was possible the reptile was guarding its fresh kill. I heard the gentle movements. The waiting.

“Yu win pinis!” I spoke firmly to the ceiling. In Tok Pisin, it meant, you have won already. I put the broom away and continued with my business. I had no time to wait. I completed my document and clicked “send”. I carried on as if it was a regular non-event evening. After I took my shower, I slept with my eyes wide open, hoping to hear the motor rolling – going away from me.

The next day, I woke at 7am and made a cup of tea. The birds were singing. The ceiling was intact. It was calm in the house. Where the previous day’s debris had escaped from the ceiling gap and piled on the timber floor, I reached up with the broom and scraped the ceiling. Nothing happened. I did another scrape with the broom head and there was not a single sound, nor hissing.

If you enjoyed this story, you can search for other snake stories on this blog. Feel free to comment, like and share the post. Thank you.

Writing Stories

Tribal Contemporary Art Portraits – Papua New Guinea

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#Contemporary Art

Pic: Luke Stringer.

While I have been away from this blog I have been painting and creating other projects. I am sharing these short post and images especially for my blogger friends and followers. Thank you for your continued support. It is good to see some of you here already.

One of the the themes that has become part of my contemporary painting style and signature are the tribal Papua New Guinea (PNG) portraits. While these artwork take me a long time to paint and require research and specific layering to stay true to the authentic ‘bilas’ (traditional decoration and representation of the tribes), I really enjoy the process of painting these.

I have been through the cultural process myself while growing up in Wagang Village, Lae, Morobe Province. I grew up with feathers, magic leaves, bones, shells and all the beautiful natural materials you use to create special costumes. I made my own bilas and danced with my people for many years prior to moving to university to study away from home.

My love for intangible and tangible cultures of my people and the aesthetic beauty for each area in province in PNG continues through these contemporary creative exercises. I hope you like these and please share them if you want to. If you want such portrait done, comment here or email me on jkleahyart@gmail.com for sizes and prices. All work posted here are copyrighted.

Oro Beauty (Fiona Stringer). JKLeahy©

“Simbu Princess” Cleo Kambolz – J.K. Leahy©

Writing Stories

Where Love Is

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Where love once lived

wounds grow sturdy trunks

Roots go deep, flowers soar to the sun

Here, sweet fruit once dropped. Now there’s rot

Clusters the pests and diseases to feast

From the dark, where they are lost,

tales come from a child’s storybook.

The fantasy lands past and present

collide in a new hope of peace

and a place of bliss.

Writing Stories

Two Songs for One Opening

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J.K.Leahy memoir stories ©

“I have a song”, I told my mother over the phone. The regular 30 minute costly international call between PNG and Australia started with muffled voices. And then, depending on who had used her phone, my mother came on when the phone was passed back to her. Sometimes Mother had to find a good spot to get the best reception. And sometimes her voice changed and I knew other ears were listening. Not all will be discussed, some things will come in the future conversation.

“Hello Ma. Are you there?”

Someone is talking in the background and she is telling them to be quiet. I smiled at myself as the picture of her room flashed in my head with the village dogs barking in the background.

“Hello!”

Family discussions and on-going feuds took up the 30 minutes so quickly. As creators of art and music, my mother and I had agreed on many occasions that we would rather sing and ‘stori’ then exchange on family heartaches. Telling stories about happy occasions and things we enjoyed often took up between ten to five minutes of the entire call.

“What song?” my mother responded.

“A song for the church opening”, I replied in Bukawac.

My mother is the village composer and musician. Not me. I am a dancer, creator of crafts and beautiful things and a fisherman.I cal also catch eels but not my mother. And Mother is not a dancer so Tinang, my grandmother and my aunts taught me. My mother did not teach me to compose nor play instruments, but we still sang together. If I wanted music – she played Skeeta Davies and Jim Reeves and Elvis. She also played her flute.

“Which opening – our village one?”

We sang every day in the evenings with my grandmother when she was alive. There was a ten-pact short biblical songs we sang at dusk. They were my favourite. If we sang at home in the village, all my aunts joined in. My mother returned to the phone after telling someone to close her door.

“Do you want to hear my song?” I said.

“Yamandu? (Really?)” she said.

“Yamandu!” I repeated. That means “true”. I wanted so badly for her to focus and listen my song.

In Wagang Village, all families were asked to contribute to the new village church opening. This was last Christmas. Monetary contribution was at the forefront of this event. In the past when I was growing up, each family whether they were crafts people, hunters or fisherman would be invited to contribute what they had, made and grew. Not anymore. Money was first.

“I may not have enough to give to the church so I wanted to gift a song,” I said. That sentence went to a silent respond. I wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. I suspected it wasn’t what she anticipated. Perhaps there was more to the silence that I wasn’t aware of.

I let the silent pass. In the background I heard my sister scolding my nephew. I didn’t want to ask my mother why my sister was doing that.

I had composed this song one afternoon at my studio. It just happened. And tonight was the first my mother heard of it. She probably expected me to just send some money. She waited for me to explain.

“I will sing it for you Ma,” I said in Bukawac. “I had composed this song for the opening and you and your sisters can sing it on our behalf”.

“Okay” she said.

The church project was instigated by the provincial government in Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea. The villagers had been waiting for a church for over three decades. The first church was built by the people themselves – each family contributed the materials showing their craftsmanship through handwoven walls, brackets of pulled and dried rattan, carved seats, and hand sewn sago palm leaves. It was a church none of us growing up with it would ever forget because of its aesthetic beauty and the fabric of a cohesive and supporting community sewn together. In time the church building deteriorated. The maintenance did not happen. The relationships in leadership, the respect between the elders and the younger generation became difficult to maintain and the cohesiveness slowly came apart. Termites slowly and quietly menaced their way into what was left of the handcrafted building. It was sad.

“Ma! Are you there?” I asked her.

“Mnem!” (Sing!) she said. I gathered my thoughts. I was only singing to my mother, but it suddenly felt like I was about to face a grand stand with thousands of people.

My mother is known in our family and the community for her music. She was the composer of original songs and songs she translated from different languages into ours – Bukawac and Yabem. Her music contributes to the Lutheran church for openings, ‘sam katong’, large church gatherings of multiple congregations, and many village events. She was a trained muscian. Germans during the colonial era taught her flute, guitar, harmonica and singing at Bula Girls School, not only did she get trained by Germans to nurse, but also to sing and play numerous instruments. The flute was and still is her favourite.

“It’s called “Conversation with God,” I gave her the title. “It’s between God and I,” I said.

“Mnem!,” mnem ma au wangu”, she said. “Sing! Sing it so I can hear it”, she said and although she softly spoke, I detected the excitement in her voice.

“Ae ngoc geng masi, ae ngoc ming masi, ae gameng gebe yagung yawing aom.” (I have nothing, no words, but I came to sit with you).

I sang the first verse and chorus and then stopped and there wasn’t a single sound from the phone. I wrote the song in Yabem. This was the ‘church language’ like many church hymns – they were in Yabem. I learnt this language by listening to my mother, her parents and two brothers speak it to each other. My grandfather was a teacher and most of his teachings were in Yabem. My late Uncle Kwaslim mostly communicated in Yabem – it was his favourite language.

“Mama! Mama!” I called into the phone.

“I’m here”, she said.

“Did you like the song?”

She was very quiet. Then she said, “It’s beautiful! I don’t know what else to say”.

Three months later my mother tells me that she also composed a song for the opening and she sings it over the phone to me. It was very beautiful – but that is another story.

*****************************

(If you like my stories, please share them). I thank you all for being here. If you’re new to my blog – welcome! For all my friends who have been with me for a while, I appreciate you and I want to sincerely thank you for your patience. I have been away for a long while and working on other projects. I will share the news here soon.

Writing Stories

Hello Friends

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Thank you for being so kind and patient with me on my Tribalmystic Stories blog. It has been a life changing year for all of us.

I wish you all a safe and Merry Christmas and a better, hopefully more normal (and what’s normal these days?) year in 2021. Even if we keep asking ourselves this question, I’m very hopeful and I hope you are too.

My sincere condolences to those that have lost loved ones during this horrible period with COVID19. May peace, blessings and love touch your hearts. What is looming will continue to affect us all and we go into the uncertainty once more as we head into the new year. Writing is a beautiful way to soothe the mind and feed the soul. I love the places I visit when I’m creating and writing stories.

I pray there will be more loving, kind and understanding between each of us. We are all in this together. To my old blogging friends and subscribers, yes, I’m back to the blog and I will be making art and teaching art right here on WordPress so we can reconnect if you are still around. I welcome any new subscribers and thank you in advance. I’ve written enough to get a book out of the memoir stories, but there is more writing yet… (and that is another story). I look forward to your spirited comments and discussions on my future posts between now and going into 2021. I feel it will be a powerful year. Let’s commit to what makes us happy and treasure every moment of now.

This is a brief post to express my sincere gratitude and appreciation for your continued support. This image will be the banner for my new creative learning blog and website. I’m close to launching and will run the blog simultaneously with my Tribalmystic Stories blog. Wish me luck!

Writing Stories

Artist Joycelin Leahy Launches Art Website

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I have launched my art website: http://www.joycelinleahy.com

We all have passion and dreams, and I’m so proud to be able to share one of mine with you – through my art. Thank you for being part of my network in this beautiful world. My current batch of work is concentrated in Papua New Guinea, where I’m from. I can produce work on any subjects. The website is also a sample of websites my team can build and this service is available.

To be an e-commerce website was not smooth sailing as I had initially thought. Life as an artist itself is not easy, just like our lives as writers, and doing something you love doesn’t often put your meals on your table nor pay your mortgage. But we cannot give in, as creators, it is important to live our purpose and share what we are gifted with and enjoy through sharing the joy it brings to others.

There is one person this site would not have been possible without his help, and that person is Fateh Singh from Mind Tech Solutions. Thank you for your constant patience with a very fiery passionate and often impatient artist.

Please visit http://www.joycelinleahy.com and if you have any feedback – let me know on, joycelinleahy@gmail.com. You can also comment right here on this blog post.

If you can, I’d appreciate all my blog followers, contacts, friends and family members sharing this link http://www.joycelinleahy.com with your own network so I can get my art across the world.

You will find mostly limited edition prints and my fashion collection on the website. Original paintings and commission work including portraits are available, please contact me for prices.

New watercolour artwork above – “Muruk” a large cassowary (ground bird) and below two framed watercolour originals from my Solo Art Exhibition at the Royal Papua Yacht Club, Port Moresby, in November 2017, Papua New Guinea.

 

Women, Writing Stories

Living My Mother’s Dream – Beauty Within (PNG) Art Exhibition

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Beauty Within PNG Art Exhibition

“Anticipation” – watercolour JKLeahy Art©

On November 14th, 2017, in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea (PNG), I will show 50 pieces of my watercolours, mixed media and art studies, making this show the first fine art solo exhibition for any Papua New Guinea female artist.

On this final project for the year 2017, I will live my mother, Freda Kauc’s dream. Her dream was that I become an artist full-time. She said I had worked enough (over twenty years as a volunteer) in the capacity of an arts curator for other PNG and Pacific artists. My mother also said, I had the right to practice and show my own art. She also said the general work-place environment for any work was becoming harsh and toxic and she couldn’t see me there for long.  I hate to admit it, but she was right.

“Ting ting” – (“Thinking”) – Mixed media on paper. JKLeahy Art©

My mother had believed art making was my true calling and persisted for over 20 years. Art is part of my life, beginning with my early years with my mother, her extended family, and the people from Wagang Village. I had taken part in several different art practices, including, but not restricted to contemporary and cultural performance arts, music, photography, writing, installation art, crafts and now painting. It was never as a “job”, or something I could make money from. Art making for me until now was purely for joy. One cousin asked once, “why are you wasting your time (on art)?’ How could I have answered that in one sentence, so I said, “you wouldn’t understand cous.”

I remember what I wanted to be when I grew up and that was to be a dancer. I danced with my people in our cultural performances and later with other groups from PNG and into the PNG National Theatre company. But, I ended up being a journalist and then a curator. I was scheming on the edges of art making, but I continued to pencil sketch and show my mother. This annoyed her. When I was pregnant with my first son, in 1994, I needed to get out of corporate and relax so I took acrylic lessons every Saturday and really loved it, but drawing was my number one love. We moved to Australia in 2004, and my mother visited in 2006. I started a drawing class, but one student said, “you should teach” so I dropped out and took watercolour class with our community education. I showed my mother the washes. I painted a PNG portrait in watercolour my mother and I named “Agnes” because she reminded us of an Agnes. I sold this picture in an exhibition. My mother told me to make more to sell, but I wouldn’t. I was not confident.

Mama came back to Brisbane in 2008, 2010 and 2011 where she made me put some work in other exhibitions. I sold them. Once one of my work ended in an auction and I got more money for it then I thought.

“I told you so,” my mother said. I argued it wasn’t enough to pay of the mortgage.

In 2016, she came to Brisbane again for a visit and I extended her visa to 12 months. I told her I needed to finish my memoir, and she said I needed to paint. She had a good amount of time on her hands to make me make art while we told stories and i sent away job applications.

January 2017,  after losing my last pathetic job in administration with an Aged Care organisation, I began my mother’s dream and my new journey with fear and hesitation. I’m still looking for work. I am unemployed and the art takes my mind away to good places. The art making also made the fear go away eventually. The unknown combined with fear of failure gnaws at me but I continue to paint. My mother sat up late into the mornings, knitting her bags while I was painting and washing studies of various subjects as we spoke about the memoir. I posted a few of those washes here, on this blog.

Mama Graun. Watercolour. JKLeahy Art©

The longer, I could not get employment, the more my mother relished at the opportunity for me to practice my art. By February 2017, I landed an art commission work with a large business. I had donated one of my painting image to a petroleum conference and later a cousin showed the work to her bosses.  When I was engaged, the client asked me to paint a watercolour four times larger than what I usually painted. And just like my mother would have said, when I told the client, “I have never made art that big”, my client replied: “Why not?”

The same client went on to say: “You were meant for this work (painting)”.

I suddenly realised, I was stopping myself; both the client and my mother were right. I had built a skill for twenty years or more, and not used it to its full potential. I believed ‘work” was in an office.

I began working out ways to paint my client’s order and even had to contact Arches in France to get watercolour paper cut large enough to paint on; regular store sizing was too small. Arches referred me to a supplier Parkers, in Sydney. And my son cut a board large enough of the paper. This didn’t fit the dining table, but I could stick it under the trees and paint during the day. It was good to paint in nature and the drying was quick between washes.

Six large paintings were done to my own disbelief and off it went to Singapore. The client loved it. From then on, I could not hear the end of my mother’s reminders, and her “I told you so’s”.

And soon after the Singapore job, I was invited to show my work at Redlands Performance Arts in the Wantok Melanesia Showcase and now the solo exhibition in PNG.

Thank you to this amazing woman, Freda Kauc for making her dream my reality. I’m loving it so much. Thank you Mama. The details of my solo exhibition is on the poster. Part of my sales will be donated to two children’s charity organisation in PNG. I will launch my limited edition art prints on a separate website in December. I would like to sincerely thank my sponsors for the First Female PNG Solo Art Exhibition: Royal Papua Yacht Club, Moore Printing, Frameshop, Whittaker, Kalem, Air Niugini, Rocky Roe Photographics, Daisy Taylor, and all friends and family members that have assisted me.

(Ps – I will be away from the blog for two weeks from next week).

Media coverage so far:

Loop-PNG

LinkedIn

 

 

 

Art, Women

Kalem in Pacific Fashion Festival – Brisbane City

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The Pacific Fashion Festival was held last Saturday at Cloudland, Brisbane City and we made our debut with the Kalem – Warrior Woman clothing and accessories.

With mum and daughter models Marcelle and Erie Bucher.

Here are some pictures I would like to share. I hope you like them. The arrangement and preparations took me nearly three years and went across a few countries with sampling, but when it all came together, the show was for 30 minutes and we were on stage for maybe 3-5 minutes. It was worth it. I was fortunate one designer could not make the show and I showed extra garments on stage.

Two models showing Kalem dresses with ephemeral jewellery of Jacaranda seed cases (below) and shells and above, poinciana and scrap fabric bound with raffia I made 12 hours before the show.

If you are interested in our clothing and accessories range, contact joycelinleahy@gmail.com

Art, People, Writing Stories

The Art of a Doctor: Powesiu Lawes

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A self-taught artist, this man showed artistic skills as a child by simply drawing fishermen on the sandy beaches in his remote Papua New Guinea village.  Years later, he ventured into higher education and became a medical doctor, yet never leaving behind his love of drawing.

Dr Powesiu Lawes on the beach at his beloved Loniu Village, Manus, Papua New Guinea.

Born in 1957 in Loniu Village, on Los Negros Island, in Manus Province, Powesiu Lawes’ art began as drawings in the sand. He recalls that he always enjoyed capturing images of fishermen catching fish on the reef at dawn and later at dusk.

A gifted school student, he quickly accelerated from Primary to Secondary School in Manus Province, during the Australian colonial administration. From his home province, Manus, he was selected into the elite Sogeri Senior High School outside Port Moresby (now PNG Capital) in the early 1970s. He was recognised at each school he attended as a talented artist, actor, sportsman and gifted student whose abilities would enable him to do anything he wanted in the soon-to-be newly independent Papua New Guinea. PNG gained its Independence in September 16, 1975.

At that time, Powesiu was expected to train to become one of PNG’s first airline pilots, but he rejected this path and began medical school. While studying medicine,  he produced a collection of work published in his first book of art – Wati Kui: “I always wanted to help people, so medical school was a natural choice and my art and the first book – Wati Kui – was one way to pay my way through my medical training”.

After graduating from medical school, Powesiu Lawes spent some years as the senior medical officer in the PNG Navy. Then he began his private medical practice in Port Moresby. He maintained his art rugby union coaching and stayed closely connected to his beloved Loniu Village, by regularly trips home.

In 2009,  he retired from medical practice and returned to Loniu Village where he was elected the Councillor of Loniu, Los Negros’ largest village. The village has its own distinct language and cultural practices and is also known for producing  PNG’s educated elite such  as PNG’s Supreme Court judges, academics, diplomats, doctors, scientists and lawyers. Powesiu Lawes’ art is one central strategy in keeping Loniu’s cultural practices alive, along with his aim of establishing a Loniu Culture House in the village to teach Loniu’s youth their unique practices.

“Without a good grounding in the tradition of their birth” he said,  “many of them will lose their way once they leave the village for the bright lights and temptations of Lae, Port Moresby and beyond. I never did, because of the very grounding I had”.

About art, he said he has tried many different mediums – using brushes,  spray painting for murals, and coloured inks; but the result that black ink on white paper gives, is the medium that gives him the greatest satisfaction. He has completed a second book – Wati Kui 2 – and its drawings are currently shown in Redlands Performing Art Centre in Cleveland (Brisbane, Australia). It is part of the Melanesian Wantok Showcase. Here are some of  Dr Lawes’ artwork and their stories

The ‘Loniu Files’: Some customs and traditions of the Loniu people. Pen and Ink drawing by Dr Powesiu Lawes, Papua New Guinea artist

 

The ‘Loniu Files’: Some customs and traditions of the Loniu people

Loniu, like many other societies, has a well-developed set of cultural practices and traits that have provided reference points for Loniu’s cultural, social and spiritual development over hundreds of years. These have contributed to refined sets of knowledge and skills that have sustained and maintained Loniu society. The Loniu Files is a set of shared and understood ideas, idiosyncrasies, beliefs, values, knowledge and language. The substance of these has stood time’s test and cannot be disproven nor proven.

Aspects of Loniu’s culture are respect (u-uie), being sorry (kolumwamwa) and having shame (pulemachi), to whom, for what, and why; clans, their names, their number and the existence and origins of sub clans, along with each clan’s and sub clans’s origin stories and particular practices (reke pwen); in the various fishing methods, by which clans they are owned them, for what fish and whether for private or public consumption; the layout and size of a clan house (haus boi); utterances made by whom, when, where and for what purpose; who can make public speeches, where he sits or stands and why; land and sea uses and how and why, in the case of land or other property, it is given away; stages of custom and traditional practice during or after a death, when a woman is ready to marry, and gets married; and in the case of two or more wives, the use and distribution of land and other property; who is considered a leader and why; who gives advice to and stays with a young girl in her first menstruation, the advice given and why; who speaks in a haus boi during a customary event, gathering or happening, and why; circumcision of young males, the curses (pen) shouted at them by patrilineal relatives (lau-a-niataman, family of father) and why.

These are but a few of Loniu’s cultural traits with many more needing documentation. Efforts are being made to document the Loniu culture and to preserve its language. It is our identity that, because of modern influences and intermarriage, has deteriorated. Because of ignorance of the power of new ideas, practices and attitudes, not recognising these causes early enough, we have failed.

“Traditional Wealth in Transaction”. Pen and Ink drawing by Dr Powesiu Lawes, Papua New Guinea artist

 

Wealth is always used in very important transactions in Loniu society. Clay pots, wooden bowls, grass skirts, arm bands or waist bands, shell money, dog’s teeth and sometimes cowry shells.

They can be used to reciprocate for a large supply of food given to a husband’s people as bride price or as death payments to a deceased father’s people; again as in reciprocation for previous work done or land used and money or other customary events and obligations, such as in a circumcision ceremony.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Art, Culture and Heritage, Indigenous, Photography, Writing Stories

The Tranquility of New Ireland – Watercolour Story

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The Tranquillity of New Ireland

In April 1990, several months after I was crowned Miss PNG (1989), the PNG Red Cross sent me on a national tour across Papua New Guinea. The tour was to promote the work of Red Cross in charity, disaster relief, blood transfusion services and youth growth and development programmes. This trip enabled me to learn new things, see new places and make many friends. It was a discovery of the magnitude of the work of Red Cross had done in the country and how many people dependent on these services. I was happy to be part of it all and be an ambassador for Red Cross. Unfortunately this privilege no longer exists in the quest due to lack of funding and the changes to the beauty pageant.

During my Red Cross travels, I also saw some of the most beautiful parts of PNG. Pictured is a small coastal village we passed during my tour of Kavieng, New Ireland Province. I took this picture of the house on the waterfront. A few days ago, I was delightfully surprised to find the picture (above) while going through some photos from 27 and 28 years ago. It brought back many memories of the wonderful time I had experienced.

Immediately, I had to paint this little house. The colours I chose reflect the glorious feeling I had during that time, while experiencing love and friendships; the tranquillity and wonders of my beloved PNG. I was very lucky to see a lot of the country during my reign.

I hope you like the images. Feel free to comment and share the tranquillity and beauty of this beautiful PNG Province.