Stamp Designs Use Papuan Myths

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31007, 12 March 1966, Page 12

Stamp Designs Use Papuan Myths

IBy DAVID WHITE in the "Sydney Morning Herald”]

'J’HE STAMPS of Papua-New Guinea are noted for their vivid colours and imaginative patterns and now Papuan myths have been used for the first time as the basis for designs.

The myths range from the story of a man who used to glide down a tightrope from a mountain to the coast to woo village maidens to a legend about a girl from the sea who was married after she had shed a repulsive outer skin of barnacles.

A London Missionary Society worker, Mr H. A, Brown, has used the art motifs—which are, in effect, pictorial mythology—of the Elema people of the Papuan Gulf to create designs for the stamps which will be released in June.

For 25 years Mr Brown has studied the 10 clans of the Elema people who live along the coast of the Papuan Gulf between Cape Possession, 80 miles north-east of Port Moresby, and the mouth of the Purari River, a further 95 miles away. The red and black two-cent Stamp is a symbolic representation of the story of Malala Harai, the Morning Star, who was said to live on Mount Yule. The myth tells of how he used to make nightly visits to the coastal villages by gliding down a paiva, a sort of tightrope, which he would hurt down from the mountains.

He made the visits to make love to girls of his choice but he had to return to his home before dawn. On his last visit, he dallied and a flying fox severed the paiva. He made the best of a bad job by marrying a coastal girl and settling in the village where he was stranded, but he later built a canoe in which he and his family sailed back to his mountain home.

Boarded Canoe

Marai, a key figure in the myth represented on the seven-cent stamp, was a keen fisherman who would sail out to sea every day in his small outrigger canoe. The Sea Folk, unhappy because so many of them were being caught or injured by Mairai’s hooks, decided to send up one of their girls, Eare, to marry him.

They fitted her with a barn-aele-covered outer skin, in the folds of which they put seed plants of various kinds of bananas and yams, not previously known on earth. One day, as Mamai' fished, a great swell arose and Eare boarded this canoe. Scared out of his wits by the new arrival, Marai hastily paddled ashore, ran home and left Eare sitting in the canoe.

In spite of the fact that his mother took pity on the girl and made her an enclosure under the house, Marai would have nothing to do with Eare because she looked so repulsive. However, one day Eare went to a clearing to plant the bananas and yams she had brought with her, and,

feeling hot, peeled off her outer skin and went for a

According to the myth, she was “as lovely as the dawn” without her outer skin. Hiovea, the Black Cockatoo, saw her bathing and flew off to tell Marai. The next time Eare went to the clearing, Marai followed her and hid among the bushes. He was so pleased when he saw her bathing that he burned her temporarily discarded outer skin, led her home and married her.

Unfortunately, their story has an unhappy ending due to the intervention of Taukoru, whose name also appears on the black, yellow and blue stamp. By using superior magic, Taukoru abducted Eare and took her inland. Marai searched for Eare and, when he found her, killed her.

The black, red and green 30 cent stamp tells the tale of Meavea Kovovia who eloped with a girt. More, whom his stepmother, Luinori, did not want him to marry. As the couple crossed the Purari river, Moro fell into the water and was seized and carried off by Lumori who was disguised as a crocodile. Moro was rescued on the coast by a villager who took her to his home where she later gave birth to Meavea’s son, Levao. When Levao grew up he made a canoe and set off to find his father.

Hiovea, the Black Cockatoo, appears in this story, too. He encountered Levao and later

told Meavea who went down the river and joined his son. The story tells of how Meavea later went to live ih a village where, for some reason. he would turn himself from a man into a repulsivelooking small boy at night. Although he performed various feats for the villagers, they were ungrateful so he resolved to avenge them. By a trick he induced the best of the village women and children to join him and destroyed the rest by lightning and thunder which he conjured up by magic. The 60-cent stamp is black.

red and orange and has a design representing the myth surrounding a young man, Toivita Tapaivita. In a complicated tale, Todvita, in the form of a comb, is concealed in their hut by two young girls who are going through a period of initiation. One day, while the girls are out, he resumes the form of a man but is seen by an old woman who is looking after the girls. He changes into a lizard and then into a rat in a vain attempt to elude the old woman who clubs him to death.