Island Rivers: Fresh Water and Place in Oceania

264 Pages·2018·8.927 MB·English

by  Anu Press, John Richard Wagner, Jerry K Jacka

ISLAND RIVERS
Fresh Water and Place in Oceania

ISLAND RIVERS
Fresh Water and Place in Oceania
EDITED BY JOHN R. WAGNER
AND JERRY K. JACKA
ASIA-PACIFIC ENVIRONMENT MONOGRAPH 13
Published by ANU Press
The Australian National University
Acton ACT 2601, Australia
Email: [email protected]
Available to download for free at press.anu.edu.au
A catalogue record for this book is available from the National Library of Australia
ISBN (print): 9781760462161
ISBN (online): 9781760462178
WorldCat (print): 1040273014
WorldCat (online): 1040272968
DOI: 10.22459/IR.06.2018
This title is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-
NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).
The full licence terms are available at
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode
Cover design and layout by ANU Press. Cover photograph by Eric K. Silverman.
This edition © 2018 ANU Press
Contents
Tables ...............................................................vii
Figures .............................................................ix
Contributors ........................................................ xiii
1. Introduction: River as Ethnographic Subject ...................... 1
JOHN R. WAGNER, JERRY K. JACKA, EDVARD HVIDING,
ALEXANDER MAWYER AND MARAMA MURU-LANNING
2. The River, the Water and the Crocodile in Marovo Lagoon ........27
EDVARD HVIDING
3. A Source of Power, Disquiet and Biblical Purport:
The Jordan River in Santo, Vanuatu .............................59
CARLOS MONDRAGÓN
4. Unflowing Pasts, Lost Springs and Watery Mysteries
in Eastern Polynesia ...........................................83
ALEXANDER MAWYER
5. Riverine Disposal of Mining Wastes in Porgera:
Capitalist Resource Development and Metabolic Rifts
in Papua New Guinea .........................................109
JERRY K. JACKA
6. ‘At Every Bend a Chief, At Every Bend a Chief, Waikato
of One Hundred Chiefs’: Mapping the Socio-Political Life
of the Waikato River ..........................................137
MARAMA MURU-LANNING
7. Waters of Destruction: Mythical Creatures, Boiling Pots
and Tourist Encounters at Wailuku River in Hilo, Hawai‘i .........165
EILIN HOLTAN TORGERSEN
8. The Sepik River, Papua New Guinea: Nourishing Tradition
and Modern Catastrophe ......................................187
ERIC K. SILVERMAN
9. Rivers of Memory and Forgetting ..............................223
JOHN R. WAGNER

Tables
Table 3.1 Some prominent kin groups of North Santo .................70
Table 4.1 Primary lexical forms of water in Eastern Polynesia ..........95
Table 4.2 Lexical inventory of fresh water in Mangareva ...............96
vii

Figures
Figure 1.1 Map of the Pacific Ocean, showing locations by chapter ....15
Figure 2.1 New Georgia and associated islands and lagoons ..........28
Figure 2.2 Marovo Lagoon, showing rivers and place names ...........31
Figure 2.3 Cross-section diagram of the Marovo puava ................33
Figure 2.4 Satellite image of the Kolo River area in the western
central part of Marovo Lagoon ..................................37
Figure 2.5 Navigating the lower middle reaches of the
Piongo Lavata River ...........................................41
Figure 2.6 Largely undisturbed river forest in the upper middle
reaches of the Piongo Lavata River .............................42
Figure 2.7 Wetland pond field variety of Colocasia taro in feral state ....43
Figure 2.8 In the upper reaches of the Piongo Lavata River ............44
Figure 3.1 North Santo and the Jordan ...............................62
Figure 3.2 The Santo waterscape, as viewed from the south ...........63
Figure 3.3 The shore of Big Bay, facing the western, mountainous
interior of Santo, as viewed from Matantas ......................65
Figure 3.4 Water taro near the village of Hokwa
(Cumberland Peninsula). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .67
Figure 4.1 Map of the Gambier Islands in French Polynesia ............89
Figure 5.1 The Porgera Valley ......................................110
Figure 5.2 The Porgera gold mine ..................................112
Figure 5.3 Pes Bope at the Tokoyela ipa ne ..........................117
ix
Island Rivers
Figure 5.4 Bathing in the Wateya River ..............................122
Figure 5.5 PJV monitoring stations ..................................128
Figure 5.6 The Porgera River flowing down the ‘glacier’
of waste rock ................................................130
Figure 6.1 A socio-political map of the Waikato River and catchment ..138
Figure 6.2 Children playing next to the Waikato River ................139
Figure 6.3 Geothermal activity on the Waikato River ..................142
Figure 6.4 The place or ‘point’ where the Waipa River
and the Waikato River meet ...................................146
Figure 6.5 Sign at Rangiriri marking the British militia’s invasion
of Waikato iwi territory in 1860 ................................150
Figure 6.6 Kapa Haka on the Waikato River at Tūrangawaewae
Marae .......................................................153
Figure 6.7 Rangatahi Waka on the Waikato River, captained
by Karihana Wirihana .........................................154
Figure 6.8 Waka Ama, a racing canoe co-sponsored by Mighty River
Power and Waikato-Tainui .....................................157
Figure 7.1 The Wailuku River .......................................171
Figure 7.2 Waianuenue/Rainbow Falls ..............................173
Figure 7.3 Local boy dives into a ‘boiling pot’ in Wailuku River .........175
Figure 7.4 People gather at Wailuku River after Hurricane Iselle .......176
Figure 8.1 Where village land was, is now only river ..................189
Figure 8.2 Woman and child fishing .................................192
Figure 8.3 House ornamented with wave patterns ...................193
Figure 8.4 Women selling baskets with ‘PS’ and ‘Sepik’ ...............195
Figure 8.5 Crocodile clock sold by a man from Tambunum
to a tradestore in Wewak ......................................196
Figure 8.6 Decorated jeans: ‘PS trust me’ ...........................197
Figure 8.7 Paddling to school .......................................199
Figure 8.8 Women cleaning fish ....................................203
Figure 8.9 Aqwi floating islands .....................................209
Figure 8.10 Man paddling in the morning mist .......................211
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