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by Bernard Narokobi by Lise M Dobrin Yəhələgɨr, Wautogig’s founding father Why Yəhələgɨr had to seek a new home in new lands About Yəhələgɨr's wife's people, on whose lands he settled The places where Yəhələgɨr and his wife made their new home Yəhələgɨr befriends a man from Walanduom and creates lasting ties between their two villages Why Meliawi fled Kwangen How Meliawi and Yəhələgɨr met Meliawi and Yəhələgɨr learn to trust one another The former inhabitants of the lands where Wautogig was founded The clans that make up the village How Wautogig’s tribes are distributed over the land Description of the present-day village site Things that happened during the early colonial period How Anton Narokobi brought the Catholic church to the village The villagers’ earliest forays into schooling outside the village and work in trained occupations Key figures in the first generation of Wautogigem to advance through higher education Further discussion of Wautogig’s many educated, professional, and important men Important women from the earliest generations About women from Narokobi's mother's generation Women of modern times, with special focus on those who married in What the villagers experienced during the Second World War The return home and establishing of a new unified village site How the Wautogigem came to occupy their current village site Reflections on the village churches as both buildings and social institutions How land is owned and passed on Gardening, marketing, and the planting of cash crops Public presentations of wealth to other communities The words, actions, and histories of village song-dance complexes Traditional games and how they were played Expectations about the relations between men and women |
PrefaceToday, the last day of August, 1999, at 3:35 pm at Jackson’s Airport, I, Bernard Narokobi, begin to write again the history of my village. I say “write again” because for the last ten years I have been writing on and off the history of my village. Unfortunately, that book is lost. I did a search for two days in my house at Gerehu and cannot locate what I wrote. Regrettably, I have to start all over again. Much of what I write now is a recollection of what I heard from my father, Anton Narokobi, years ago. My father has been dead for twelve years and I fear my recollection may not be so accurate. Still, it is better to write what I know and allow others who heard, if they heard anything different, to write differently, or correct me. So it is that I write this story, for I fear that if I do not write, no one will. I feel the urge to write because just as a day fades into darkness so do our memories fade from realities into fantasy and eventually silence. Death scatters our memories. |