2008

1. Bruce and Father Aloi at the Montford Catholic Mission, Kiunga (with Mother Theresa looking on in the background)

2. Halowa with his wife and four children

3. Uwok, the co-founder of the Yibihilu longhouse as a young married man in the late 1970s, on the walking path from Gebusi Corners to the Nomad Station

4. Casual stroll along the Gasumi Corners path at dusk; the village “councillor,” Abi, is on the right

5. Men from different villages ham it up for the camera in front of the Nomad government sign at the main station house after attending the Tuesday market. In earlier years, the station house would be a hotbed of official activity, with people lined up waiting to talk with officials or talking quietly. Now, however, with the station largely closed, young men can hang out and use the porch of the government house as a place to loiter and amuse themselves.

6. A derelict government house, closed, with broken windows, at Nomad Station

7. Male joking continues: Men horse around while taking a break from their work in the primary forest hollowing out a large tree to make a canoe. Mosomiay (lying down) feigns to take a rest in the hollowed tree trunk while Keda and Harfay joke that they will disturb his ‘private parts’ — while Sayu in the rear pretends to hold him down.

8. Near Yibihilu up the Kum River, Keda (L) and Sayu (R) hold up as food trophies parts of the bird that was caught in the forest and roasted for our lunch.

9. The forest reclaims our old village site: Sayu stands in the clearing of the previous village of Yibihilu, where we lived with 54 other Gebusi in 1980-82. The clearing is now taken over by tall grass, ferns, and bush vegetation, with forest trees encroaching. Sayu is standing about 30 feet from where out own house stood in 1980-82, though no signs remain of it or of the other houses in the former village.

10. A young girl of Gasumi Corners

11. String band singing in the Gasumi Catholic Church; Sayu is in he middle; women are grouped on the other side of the Church

12. Yamdaw (Luke) as the lay pastor, giving a sermon in the local Gasumi Catholic Church

13. Sayu, holding my book, Exchanging the Past, open to the photos of he himself as a 5-year old in 1981 (L) and as a young bachelor in 1998 (R).

14. Dancer from a visiting village performing a curing dance in traditional costume by Gasumi Corners

15. Didiga, looking at the first edition of The Gebusi, which he just finished reading part of. (This photo was itself the cover of the 2nd edition of The Gebusi

16. String band players in the longhouse at Gasumi Corners

17. Woman and child, Gasumi Corners

18. Magi (Gami) with two of her children (a third is off-screen)

19. Halowa smoking a tobacoo pipe in the main longhose, with two of his children looking on.

20. My dear friend Yuway, a year before his death

21. Young children of Gasumi Corners — a burgeoning new generation

22. Men and boys carrying some of my supplies to Gasumi Corners from the Nomad airstrip, stopping along the way by the Catholic Church

23. Looking out the plane at villagers on the airstrip. Since 2008, planes no longer fly to Nomad.

2013

24. Villagers from Gasumi Corners carrying Bruce’s supplies over a log bridge between the Honinabi airstrip, in Samo country, en route to the Gebusi and Gasumi Corners

25. Samo house in a clearing ringed by coconut trees, en route from the Honinabi airstrip to Gasumi Corners.

26. My good friend Gwabi welcomes us wielding an ax, and caked with mud (impersonating a corpse): Traditional display of ritual antagonism (by the Catholic Church sign!) in Gasumi Corners

27. Halowa, welcoming us in slightly neo-traditional costume

28. Keda gives communion to the Catholic nurse Sister at the Gasumi Church

29. Dohayn, energetic and feisty woman we have known since she was a young maiden in Yibihilu

30. Hawi, my firest interpreter with Gebusin in 1980, and now the last survivor of the six young men initiated in 1981

31. Huwa, brother of Sayu, making a traditional adze from a single piece of wood, with which women pound and process sago

32. Kuma, son of the deceased woman Bosap (from The Gebusi ch. 8) holding his son.

33. Casual male talk in the big house at night by candlelight

34. Garden leaves fresh with dew in Gasumi Corners

35. Carrying capacity contines: A woman of Gasumi Corners carries with two heavy net bags as well as her son on her back.

34. Kilasui weaving a headband of colored beads.

35. The close door to the Nomad Station; its office is closed indefinitely

36. Equality in Education poster at the Nomad Community School

37. Sign that I’d like to post on my office door at Emory (!) — from the Nomad Community School.

38. Tree against sky along the Kum River, as viewed from a canoe

39. Abi (L) Fakay (M) and Halowa (R) in casual evening talk

40. Canoe people: Crossing the Kun River in a large freshly carved canoe

41. View of the Sio River from Bubiay’s forest garden house

42. Navigating upstream along the large Sio River

43. A boy from Yehebi welcomes us into the longhose

44. A woman from Yehebi welcomes us. Note she is unconcerned to be greeting us bare-breasted; this is no longer as shameful as it was in 1998, when the influence of Nomad Station was greater.