Sydney Book Launch of Paradiso A Novel July 2022

A great book launch in Sydney. Fifty book lovers turned out on a Thursday night in the middle of a squally Sydney winter to share an hour and a half with Nick Fury and myself at Berkelouw Books in Leichhardt.

Nick and I are old clown mates from way back, so as well as telling some good stories of Italy and travel, and little known aspects of this 19th century Italian-Australian story, we also managed to revisit a few old clown moments. The audience was a little bemused to begin with but warmed up quickly and understood that book launches could be both informative and funny.

Thanks to Co.As.It. and the Sydney Italian Cultural Institute for agreeing to support this event. The result was a mixed audience of descendants, local Italian community members (hi to Joe at Bar Sport who came along with his two daughters) and some general Sydney-siders who were all interested in this remarkable story. In retrospect I must apologize to any native Italian speakers who might have not thought my mock Italian was as funny as I did. It was the best I could do, having lost the language two generations back when speaking English was the only way to fit in.

The novel is now available at the following Sydney Book Stores:

Berkelouw Books. Leichhardt

Abbey's Bookshop,York St Sydney

Gleebooks, Glebe

Gleebooks, Dulwich Hill

Better Read than Dead, Newtown

There is also a spare copy at Anthony Albenese's Electoral Office in Marrickville. I suspect he won't get around to reading it for a couple of terms of Parliament. He seems pretty busy.
 

 Paradiso is now available in Sydney at "Better Read Than Dead" - King St, Newtown AND "Abbey's Bookshop", York St,  City.

A Sydney book launch is planned for July hosted by Co.As.It (Italian Welfare League), Norton Street, Leichhardt. 

SPREAD THE WORD. 

My family links to Norton Street run deep so it will be special.  My grandfather and his brother ran a very successful fruit and vegetable business at the corner of Parramatta Rd and Norton Street between 1905 and 1915. They married two Irish sisters who lived a few blocks away and then things went pear shaped.  It's central to the book I'm currently working on. 

Here's my mate Nick reading Paradiso at Annandale. He's one of my Sydney agents.

 

Paradiso Review by Cass Moriarty

https://cassmoriarty.com/paradiso-steve-capelin/

Paradiso

A beautifully written historical account of the real-life migration of 300 Italian peasants in 1880, Paradiso (AndAlso Books 2021) by Steve Capelin is rich in detail and description, and captures a time of adventure, hope, sacrifice, betrayal, tribulation and resilience. 

Full review:

Paradiso (AndAlso Books 2021) by Steve Capelin is a beautifully written account of a particular historical time and place, exploring the harsh reality of life 150 years ago, the human drive and determination to succeed and flourish and to provide a better life for your family, and a tale of adventure (or misadventure) on the high seas. The novel (inspired by or based on real-life events from the author’s family) features immersive and evocative imagery of setting and place. Capelin describes the light, the sky, the sea, the landscape in a captivating way that allows the reader to be fully immersed in the story.

Set predominately in 1880, this is the true saga of 300 Italian peasants who abandon their lives and connections to join a French expedition which promises wealth, freedom and prosperity in a Pacific colony. Capelin is a descendant of this expedition, and his diligent research has informed the book with significant details that depict what the migrants would have seen, heard, touched, tasted, smelt, experienced and felt. The prose is amplified by meticulous editing by Bianca Milroy. 

The story features Lorenzo Perin who is prepared to risk everything, and his wife Caterina, who is not so optimistic, and is told through the alternating voices of their two children, eight-year-old Dominic and his older sister, Marietta. Dominic yearns for adventure while his sister would like to escape her life of obligation. But when they arrive in New Guinea – a totally foreign land and climate, peopled with natives, animals and plants that are strange to them – it is apparent that the expedition has not been as well planned or well-resourced as the peasants were promised. Supplies dwindle; disease and illness take hold. What begins as a hopeful dream becomes a harsh nightmare of hunger, sickness, dashed expectations and death. 

There is a large cast of characters in this novel, so that I had trouble keeping up with them all; sometimes the names/personalities blended together. But the stable thread of the voices of Dominic and Marietta propel the story forward as the reader discovers, along with the two children, the challenges and difficulties they must confront. Much of the story takes place on one of several sea journeys, and these are depicted with a minutiae of exactly which tools and implements, food and clothing, tasks and work would have predominated. 

The last chapter is set in 1918 in Australia, when Dominic is an adult, and although I could see the author’s theme in connecting the earlier migrant experience with the treatment of Italian migrants during World War I, this felt a little disconnected to me, almost as if this could be a completely other book. Perhaps Capelin will develop this plot line into another book, because it is certainly rich material, but quite separate from the main body of the story. 

The themes of sacrifice, betrayal, love, friendship, familial obligation, religion, resilience, hope, freedom and escape are navigated with authentic relationships within families, within the wider group and between the migrants and the people they meet along the way. This is obviously a story that has been researched and written with an intense devotion and a determination to pay homage to the author’s ancestors and the challenges they faced. 

The most impressive aspect of this book, besides the research, is the writing. Capelin has a real gift for interpreting dialogue, actions and events of the past with authenticity, and his prose is lyrical and detailed. He takes us into the hearts and minds of these weary travellers and gives us a vivid, first-hand account. This fictionalised account of true events will appeal to history buffs, to anyone interested in migration and emigration, to those keen to know more about life in the late 1800’s, and to those who enjoy stories about families and communities who exit one life and embrace another in the hope of a better future. 

Launch of Paradiso

 AVID Reader window display. Wonderfully generous people. Launch on tonight, 9 July despite Covid restrictions.

PARADISO PUBLICATION - It's coming

 

 PARADISO 

Its been eight years in the making but I'm excited to inform you that publication of the novel is in the pipeline. The projected date for release is July 2021.

I'll release more information as the process moves forward.

The story: Three hundred Italians sign up for a Frenchman's crazy scheme to establish a utopian colony in the Pacific. The destination, unknown to them, is Papua New Guinea; a remote location on the southern tip of New Ireland which even to this day is almost impossible to visit. It's  a disaster story, a story of hope, a story of survival and ultimately success. The story is told through  the eyes of brother and sister, Domenico and Marietta Perin, my distant cousins, half brother and half sister to my grandfather.

It is the story of my ancestors and their attempt to escape the poverty of Veneto in 1879.

It's a work of imagination based on true events.

A Venetian apology

 

Venetian Republic 19th Century

Trst/Trieste                    Slovenia/Italy

First I must make an apology to the Croatians, Montenegrins, and others living along the Dalmation coast who may have been affected by six hundred years of Venetian dominance.

To set the record straight I will remind you that in a previous post I suggested that the Venetians were more traders than raiders and therefore made less of a negative impact on the communities which they ruled. I have put this to a few locals and while the response has been mixed the general consensus has been that, yes, they were traders but they weren't without fault. neglecting infrastructure beyond what met their own maritime needs, and harvesting every resource available for their profit. In short their legacy was to leave the Dalmation Coast impoverished.

To this I would say, as a loyal descendant of a Venetian family: don't be too harsh; don't be too quick to judge. It was only 600 years after all, and everything occurs in some order. It was clearly next on their "to do" list.

The Venetians were indeed a maritime superpower. They traded the Mediterranean and dominated in terms of  naval and economic power. They brought Catholicism. Croatia is 98% Catholic. Interestingly neighbouring Slovenia, which is closer to the modern Italy and Venice, is today only 60% Roman Catholic. So they built churches. In some cases it seems that was an obsession. In the tiny centre of Perast in Montenagro they built twenty. One for every family? On the other hand they did bring with them a cuisine. Pasta, cured meats, sauces. Croatian traditional food is grilled meat, grilled vegetables and bread. Not much on the menu for the vegetarian I'm afraid.

The rich and powerful were out and about in the area for more than two thousand years. The Romans, the Ottoman Empire, Venetians, Austro-Hungarians. To an Australian that number is mind boggling.

Slovenia was under either Venitian or Austro-Hungarian (400 years) rule for 1000 years of that period. Luckily for them the Austrians valued Trieste as a port and were not much interested in the rest. The Triestians marvel that in all that time the Austrian royal family only visited once. It's not much fun being a minor state. Modern Slovenia has been left with just 43 kilometres of Adriatic coastline after Trieste was returned to Italian control in 1954. The poor Dalmatians, if it wasn't the Venetians or Austrians it was the Romans or the Ottomans making surfs of them.

But the Croatians have had the last laugh. For hundreds of years Italian, or to be more precise Venetian (remember there was no such state as Italy until the 1860s) was the lingua franca of the Dalmatian Coast particularly in Istria. Then along came Napoleon and vanquished the Venetians. Then the Austrians arrived for another 100 years, then WWI and the Italians again, then WWII and the formation of Yugoslavia and finally in 1991 Slavonia and Croatia became independent states. Croatian/Slavonian again became the official (well it had been since time immemorial actually) language, though Istria is officially bi-lingual (Italian and Croatian).

Italian is a strictly phonetic language with every letter sounded by way of pronunciation. So Trieste is pronounced tree-ess-tay (slightly differently in Venetian, which is still spoken in Veneto and Friulia Venezia Giulia - though different dialects in each region). The vowels are important and prounounced individually. So what have the Croatians done? They removed those precious vowels and left only the bare bones.

TRIESTE becomes TRST.

Take that you Venetians. You gave us vowels. We're throwing them back at you. We don't need them. They're a waste of space. Of course I exaggerate. Vowels are common in the Slavic languages its just that sometimes they disappear.

I can't fathom how that works but Andrea, who studied linguistics as part of her speech pathology training, says they sound the open vowel sounds within the consanent blends or something like that. But that's just a fascinating distraction.

In summary, the history of this region is replete with stories of invasion and ethnic rivalries. I'm beginning to get my head around recent events - the Balkan Wars etc but way too complex to summarise here. If you're interested there is a great BBC documentary on youtube titled "The Death of Yugoslavia."

ps

It's raining here in Zagreb as I write this and the temperature has dropped from 30 to 18. How dare it do that on our last day. We board our flight home tomorrow (Friday) evening. Farewell to Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia. It's been a fascinating four weeks.

Adriatic Sea

About to head off to Europe for four weeks.

A week in Montenegro - I know? Where is that? You mean Mongolia? Macadonia? No. Montenagro. It was part of the former Yugoslavia and is bordered by Crotia, Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania and the Adriatic Sea. It's one quarter the size of Tasmania with a population of 600,000 (half the population of Brisbane). 117 beaches along a short coastline of 73km. Mountains, national parks and historic hill top villages.

Then a week in Split in Croatia followed by two weeks on the road between Split and Zagreb. following the Dalmation Coast and plunging into the mountains. Possibly a a short side trip to Slovenia and its capital Ljubljana. Last three days in Zagreb.

We'll be with nephew Harry, Andrea's sister Jo and husband Richard for the first two weeks and since Harry loves the water he'll be in his element.

I hope there'll be a few stories and photos to share.

PNG 15 Traditional Medicine - For Bad Backs

While at the Misty Mountain lodge outside Mt. Hagen I had a small crisis. For two days Gabrielle and I had been taking an enforced chillout. The mist of the said mountain was of a pea soup consistency. It was there when we woke, it would clear for twenty minutes, long enough for us to glimpse said mountain, and then would roll back in again like a soft wave breaking over the hillside. It was quite beautiful. Gabrielle and I took a lot of photos which turned out to be mostly whiteouts of the landscape with the occasional peak visible through the envelope of rabbit fur. Gabrielle loved it. She spends a lot of time at her home in the bush west of Brisbane so was used to the quiet and the slowness and was comfortable settling in for a day of reading and writing and photographing fog.

I was a little less settled. I insisted that we go for a hike at the first opportunity when the clouds lifted in the afternoon of our second day and the gods, as they say, were kind to us and the sky stayed clear for a couple of hours. We saw Mt Hagen in all its distant glory at 12,000ft, and the views from the ridges were pretty special.

The next day our host, Pym, had offered to take us for a ride to his village to see his lifestyle up close. 'When's he coming?' I asked more than once as the hours passed. 'Maybe after lunch. Maybe this afternoon,' was the reply as lunch came and went.

I needed to get some clear air and exercise so I set off down the 4WD track to see what I could see. The sound of water rushing down the mountainside after the overnight rain drew me out. The track down was steep and slippery but not half as steep as the same track on the way back.

I had descended for about fifteen minutes and reached a point where the road levelled out and in doing so came upon an idyllic thatched house and garden and the sign at the beginning of the climb which said: "SUE 4 WHEL L H." I couldn't figure out who Sue might be and why someone would make a whole sign for this one person. It was pretty clear that 4WD was essential. Was Sue a newcomber about to arrive for the first time?

Anyway, I backtracked and made my way back up the rocky and uneven climb. When I got to the entrance to our lodge I was pretty stuffed and stood for a moment to catch my breath whereupon a small man emerged from the forest with two giant pieces of timber in tow - one on each shoulder and his axe balanced across the load. We said hello. He thought I was strange and I thought he was mad. He was about to descend the path I had struggled up, laden with two fifteen foot long, thirty kg pieces of timber.He just smiled and wandered off downhill.

Pym did arrive eventually and we boarded his 4WD to make the descent to his village. Gabrielle sat in the front and I hung on for dear life on the hard bench seat in the closed-in trayback. I must have held on too tightly because when I went to step down at Pym's village my back seized up and I collapsed. I was suddenly a cripple. Pym was most concerned. He particularly didn't like the idea of me becoming a cripple on his watch - the fear of litigation has hit even the remotest parts of the world. I lay down did a few stretches, lied to everyone that everything was okay and hobbled along behind the other three pretending to enjoy myself.

At one point Pym seemed to catch my condition and he too decided he needed to lie down while we went ahead. He showed us some interesting artefacts and his home, which was not thatched but sported a galvanised roof, was surrounded by beautiful gardens, a small piggery and two cassowaries in cages being fattened for a feast. Pym continued to ask after my back and then offered to apply a local traditional remedy which he promised me would fix it like magic. Gabrielle, more experienced in these things, assured me that no harm would come to me from what he was suggesting. 'We use something similar in Timor,' she said. How could I refuse? So I said okay.

Pym led me towards some the undergrowth, picked a couple of leaves, told me to pull up my shirt and point to where the most intense pain was and proceeded to slap my lower back with the flat of these leaves. JESUS! My back was on fire. Any pain I felt was no match for this treatment. Gabrielle extended the treatment by saying 'Wait, wait, I need to get another photo. Do it again Pym, I missed it. No, one more time."  All the time I'm saying 'Enough! Enough!. It's working. It's working!.'

It was as if my back had been attacked by fire ants. 'What was that?' I asked Gabrielle grimacing and regretting my decision.'One of the stinging nettle family,' she said.  'It's supposed to work by a combination of shock and maybe a balm which enters the body where the nettles have pricked you.'

I did feel a little better over the next hour or so as the treatment continued its work (and I got to sit in the comfortable front sea of the Toyota). Pym kept checking in on me, challenging me to deny that his treatment had worked. On returning to the lodge I used what I thought was a wise combination of modern and ancient medicine. I took a double dose of Voltarin and went to bed.

The result. I woke feeling relaxed. Was a little tentative getting out of bed. Had a hot shower and dressed cautiously. And by mid-morning I had decided it was safe to again sit on the hard bench seat in the rear of the Toyota on our journey down the mountain back to Hagen.

Modern Ancient Traditional ?? Hmmmm. I'm willing to give them all a try. I haven't had more than a twinge or two since but I'm not sure I'll be harvesting our local stinging nettle for my next emergency back treatment. I would need someone with Pym's knowledge and conviction to do it again.

Oh and "Sue" of the 4WD signage. Pym was confused himself, even though he had asked one of his staff to paint the sign. Eventually he figured out what it should have said: "USE 4 WHEL L H" (L H = Low High gear? Left Hand? Or the mis-spelling of WHEEL)

And this from my google search (not medical research just old fashioned google).

2. Osteoarthritis and Joint Pain
Arthritis sufferers often experience joint pain, typically in the hands, knees, hips and spine. Nettle works alongside nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to allow patients to decrease their NSAID use. Because prolonged use of NSAIDs can cause a number of serious side effects, this is an ideal pairing.
Studies also show that applying nettle leaf topically at the site of pain decreases joint pain and can treat arthritis. Nettle can also provide relief when taken orally. Another study published in the Journal of Rheumatology shows stinging nettle’s anti-inflammatory power against other autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. (5)

PNG 14 Death in PNG - "Clos to yumi go pinis"

I love tokpisin. It uses English so inventivly to describe things in surprising ways.

I am a very thin man. My new friends, with some encouragement from Gabrielle took to describing me as "bon nuting' - nothing but bones, and referring to our advancing age as 'clos to yumi go pinis" - "soon we'll all die/all be finished."

Gabrielle and I are on our independent pilgrimages, hers to the Hagen of the 1970s and me to the New Ireland  of the 1880s. For each of us the journey feels as if it has some urgency.

We talked about why we  were doing this at this time of our lives. In our 60s. The second half of our 60s in fact!

Maybe, we thought, it was the last chance  we might have to visit such challenging places, such challenging and fascinating (mesmerising) aspects of our histories; maybe we were at the age when we begin to reflect on our lives and what they've meant and maybe history and family had come into a sharper focus; maybe we had realised that time was passing and there are some things that can't be put off; maybe it was a recognition that we were each at a point of transition - that time when you take stock and understand that you are entering a new phase.

We talked about that last one a bit and both had stories of critical moments in our recent lives when we became acutely aware that we were now definitely entering our third age, the final of the three ages of man. In Egyptian mythology the riddle which was posed went: " What animal walks first on four legs, then on two and finally on three legs?" Neither of us uses a walking stick just yet, so perhaps we are not quite ready for this three legged stage. In Shakespearean terms perhaps we are in our fifth of seven stages.

For each of us it had taken an incident or an experience beyond the everyday to provoke the realisation that this time was upon us. For me it had been a trip to Sicily, where in travelling with a younger travel companion I was confronted with the truth  that I would never again be the young man I imagined I still was. For Gabrielle .... well that's not for me to tell.

And where did this conversation come from? Travelling in company with a person you trust but is not your life partner can loosen the tongue and lubricate the ruminations one has about life. It was a safe time for introspection with neither of us inclined to make any assumptions about the other. We were good listeners and the highlands of PNG was far from our standard routines.

We had spent some small amount of time with the wife of our Magic Mountain host, Pym, and after relating to her our separate stories including our ages (though these were easy to fathom from the context of the stories), she made a comment which surprised me. She described us both as being "Clos to yumi go pinis," (close to the end/approaching our last days/death). Though she had included herself (even though she was much younger than either of us) I thought her commentp was a bit close to the bone, a bit presumptuous, blunt. Even misinformed. Or perhaps this stranger in a land and culture largely foreign to our own simply was saying what she saw. Maybe she spoke the truth (of course life expectency in PNG is much lower than in Australia and this may have influenced her perception of us).

Nevertheless it hit a note which Gabrielle and I found difficult to ignore. We both agreed that getting old was inevitable but we were not quite ready to accept "Clos to yumi go pinis." That we were getting older we agreed was true, but not yet ready to die. 'How do you say that in tokpisin?' I asked Gabrielle.

'Longpela taim yet, mipela," I clumsily repeated Gabrielle's phrase. Pym laughed, though not in a way that gave me confidence he really believed it.

We came back to this conversation again and again over that week as we wound down each night. Our experience in Mt Hagen and in New Britain was an adventure neither of us had really expected to be having but we'd done it without incident, without trauma and with energy and the wisdom of years of travel. We both felt excited by our time in PNG and satisfied in having made this choice which had carried an element of risk when we were contemplating the trip. Now we felt emboldened; confident that these adventures were not beyond us and that perhaps the third age had the potential to be every bit as exciting and fresh as the first and second ages when we were learning about life through a constant diet of new experiences.

I came home with a spring in my step and keen to plan the next adventure.

'Long time yet, mipela.'

PNG 6 New Ireland part II - Nouvelle France

Our host - Tribal land owner at Irish Cove + brick

From Irish Cove towards Lambom Island

This is Irish Cove. Other accounts of the land which served as the landing point for the colony have referred to this site as English Cove but our guides were adamant that the French based their settlement here at Irish Cove. English Cove sits a short distance away, by foot or boat, in the same bay but to the south. There is fresh water available at both though they described the English Cove spring as better quality. Irish Cove, where 300 European colonists were to establish their community, now supports just one family who live a subsistence existence having planted out much of the arable land.

We met the family who make it home and visited their house built high on stilts like a Queeenslander. Our guide from Lambon Island asked his permission to show us over his tribal land and he agreed.

From the narrow beach where the Italians would have landed the land runs inland gradually widening to form a valley about 200 - 300 metres across at its maximum. It appears to have been cleared, perhaps the settlers played their part here, and is quite open, dotted with coconut palms until the land rises steeply and becomes dense jungle.

Blockhouse site perhaps?

A walking path, which we followed, meandered through the palms. The first hundred metres or so didn't look arable - it was stony and bordered on one side by mangroves. Further along we came to an area which had obviously been the site of a cluster of buildings though the only indicators of this were a few scattered bricks (the Marquis had sent thousands of them for the construction of his promised cathedral) and some rock formations roughly in a rectangular form which might have been part of the base of a simple rough building - the Blockhouse perhaps. The site felt dank and damp, with little sun penetrating.

The existing family have built their house another 150 metres further inland on an open sunny site, on land that appears to be more promising. They've planted cocoa, tapioca, chinese yams, bananas, sweet potato and some vegetable crops in the vicinity of their house but, productivity wise, it was nothing like the lush growth we later saw in the hinterland of New Britain or later still in the Central Highlands of mainland New Guinea around Mt Hagen. In the Highlands you can poke a dead stick in the ground and it will grow.

The only moment when I felt at all hopeful when imagining the Italians trying to eke out an existence here was when we next came upon a beautiful fast flowing stream another 100 metres inland. This reminded me of Far North Queensland. It was only small, about 10 - 15 metres wide at it widest and maybe three or four at its narrowest. On the other side the soil seemed to offer more hope. From rough and stony volcanic soil it appeared to be deeper and finer. This was, most likely, the stream that is spoken about in accounts of the site over which a rough crossing was built. Our guides were sure that the settlers had crossed the stream and continued to the end of the valley, maybe 500 metres distant where it rose sharply into the hills. Mt Vernon sat prominently overlooking the site. Our guide said that there were pathways beyond the valley but that the closest next village was far distant in the mountains.

It's likely that there was contact between the locals and the visitors but it would have been these lowland coastal dwellers, the Tolai, rather than those further inland. The Tolai are New Ireland based but centuries ago invaded nearby New Britain and drove the local coastal tribe, the Baining, into the hills. They have a fierce reputation and were active cannibals (exercising it as a form of power over rival tribes) until the 20th century.

Palm Lily

Cairn?

Our guides were keen to show us one final site before we left. It was located a short distance around the bay and accessible by boat. We landed on another narrow sandy beach and stepped ashore to find an narrow open area partly cleared which rose quickly to higher land. The locals pointed out sites that they said were burial places for those who had died here. The evidence was slim but nevertheless believable. There were lines of red Cordyline (Palm Lily) which we were told were traditionally planted to mark gravesites; there were mounds of volcanic stones which resembled cairns which might have marked gravesites. The site was separated from the main colony as befits a cemetery and faced east which one of our party suggested might have been significant to the Catholic community. It certainly felt like a special place and had clearly remained so in the memory of the locals.

Looking to sea from Irish Cove - Lambom island to the left.

As for a protected anchorage, Irish Cove is not a deep bay but is deep water and would have been protected from the prevailing southerly winds by Lambon Island which lies close by and south of the bay.

We had been on land for less than three hours but Mick and I felt satisfied that we'd seen almost everything that was available. The only additional thing I would have liked to do would have been to follow the valley further inland and into the forests as the land began to climb. I was interested in what the Italians might have encountered as they explored the area. I've imagined all that in my book but that will be as close as I get to it. I doubt if there will be a next time.

We would have needed another four hours and we'd agreed to meet John's boat at midday. As it was we were in a different inlet from where we had started and John couldn't find us though we could see him. For a moment we had the rising fear that we might be the next generation to be marooned on the southern tip of New Ireland.

After leaving Port Breton/Port Praslin we trawled our way northward along the coast of New Ireland fishing for travelly and mackeral (successfully). John loves fishing so that was where our interest in our history aligned with John's interest in game fishing. The slow trip north revealed village after village established on the coastline. Small canoes were launched from these as we approached. Where possible John sailed close to the shore and had his crew throw cans of coke and fanta to the kids in the boats. A nice gesture if you can ignore the unhealthy sugar hit we were offering.

As the sun began to head west we headed east towards Kokopo and arrived back about 5pm with two good mackeral and a couple of travelly stowed in the ice box. Great day. Thanks John.

PNG 7 Mask Festival

To quote the Post Courier of Port Moresby: "This years (National) Mask Festival was not as successful as some had expected. It was a poor representation of provincial culture."

Well, we've never been before so we didn't notice the difference though there did seem to be more than a little confusion around the event. As we spoke to people around town there were some who told us it had been cancelled, others who said it was beginning on the Wednesday or the Thursday or perhaps the Friday. There were no notices around town and it all seemed a little strange especially given the fact that we had been picked up from the airport on arrival by Elis who told us she was the festival organizer. She did acknowledge that there had been a rough leadup tho the event and she wasn' sure which groups were coming, the withdrawal of national funding and few sponsors etc.

The big event was to be the enactment of the annual tubuan/dukduk (good spirits/bad spirits) ritual where boatloads of Tolai people arrive on the island from across the waters (the Tolai were originally from New Ireland) to challenge the  west New Britain tribes  for the right to come ashore (there's a chance I have this completely wrong). This traditionally occurs at dawn. But which dawn? Again no one was sure. Strange since hundreds of the locals were to be the actors in this event!

The festival has been a five day event in previous years (it began in 1994 - the year of the volcano eruption) but has languished recently. Other province capitals (Kavieng, Madang) have begun to stage their own dance/mask festivals rather than come to this one. In the days when it was a genuine national festival they all came - the mudmen of ....... Highlanders. It was a genuine cultural celebration for and by the tribes axross PNG. This one has degenerated into a display for the tourists who fail to turn up in numbers sufficient to underwrite the costs. Maybe 200 in total over two days.  It a vicious cycle. Even the locals didn't show up.

Having said that, as I said we didn't know the difference, but sensed there was a lack of enthusiasm for the event. The photos tell the story. The dawn event was pretty interesting apart from the insensitivity of some tourists who wanted to walk into the middle of the ritual to get a beter photo. That behaviour continued over the two days and resulted in some Europeans intervening to restrain the overenthusiastic. The real highlight was was the Fire Dance at a local village on the first evening. Two hours of chanting and singing in a field with only a fire burning in the centre as lighting. It was trance like. The masked dancers, all male (the whole mask festival was male), wore giant masks which we were told were based on the native bee. The dancers moved around in an erratic, non choreographed way dancing with tiny steps and occasionaly charging towards the fire to sideswipe the blazing pire or kick a shower of embers into the sky. There was the same uncertainty about the fire event (no surprise - it had become the norm) as about the festival. It was on, it was off, it was transferred to a different village; no one was going.

Gideon, our historian friend, was our guide. He spent an hour in Kokopo talking before deciding it was on; then another thirty minutes at the village on our arrival confirming it was proceeding. Apparently there had been some protocol difficulties There was conflict between two villages who both thought they should be hosting it (there was a profit to be made). Someone had mischievously been putting the word around that it was cancelled. It turned out to be a great night. A full house. Unfortunately, very little light so few good photos.

The worst part of the final day was the tourists and their cameras. The best part was the finale when the tubuan returned to close the festival with a high energy dance full of great singing and dance which had a strange mesmerising power. Great.

By the time the chairperson of the festival committee made the closing speech and the hand over of ceremonial spear to thenext host community (again done in challenge mode) had occurred  we were virtually the only people left watching. A fitting , if somewhat low key ending. 

PNG 5 - New Ireland part 1

7am. Boarded John Lau's boat, "Stephanie" bound for the southern tip of New Ireland, home of the French/Italian colony of 1880 - 1882. Took my kwell tablet and held on tight.

John likes speed and he has a fishing boat that behaves like a missile. 150 metres from shore he gunned the 1500hp twin engines and we were almost tossed out the back (stern - boat terms now that we're heading into St George's Channel).

Port Breton, our destination (not called that now - or ever by the locals), lay two hours away. New Ireland was just a hazy undulating line on the horizon. I almost succumbed to  the lumpy, thumping ride but the kwells did the job and we were greeted by a pod of thirty spinner dolphin performing a welcome dance for us as we approached Lombon, the community of two thousand who live on the island at the entrance to the bay.

First impressions: tiny inlet; hardly worthy of the title "port"; dense jungle tumbling from steep slopes to the shoreline; no sign of arable land or a likely site for 300 settlers. What were they thinking? We seemed to be surrounded by a range of preferable options on East New Britain and north of this point on New Ireland. Even on Lambom Island which we now approached. John sounded our horn as we glided past the settlement, trying to attract someone who might be able to assist us; someone to act as our guides for the day. Immediately two canoes appeared from the sandy beach and approached us.

John invited three men on board and after an explanation of our needs, their spokesman, Digel, offered to accompany us. He proceeded to guide us to nearby English Cove (the south arm of a twin cove inlet) where he negotiated a powered "banana boat" and crew for us. Minutes later we stepped ashore at Irish Cove, the main site of the colony.

We were joined  by the traditional owner of Irish Cove and a retired teacher from English Cove who confounded all presumptions about traditional village life by sharing with us his knowledge of national politics, history and the local environment. Remember we were in a remote location accessible only by boat and four hours (by banana boat) from the nearest shop or service.

What did we find? A collection of 19th century bricks intended for the promised church; a foreshore skirted by a rough retaining wall (the Italians were dry stone wall masons) ; a fresh water spring which had been given a stone treatment to create a shallow resevoir;  a clearing containing a scattering of bricks in a format suggesting a couple of buildings had occupied the space; a large cast iron cylinder - probably part of a grinding mill for grain and the odd ceramic shard, a remnant of a water container or similar.

For the next two hours we were given a tour of the site. TBC

PNG 4 - Rabaul Museum

At Rabaul we met Mundon Bray, a Canadian who described himself as of mixed race - part eskimo (Inuit) he insisted. He was introduced to us as the man who ran the Rabaul Museum set in the building which had formerly been the Rabaul Club, now a shabby hulk housing an eclectic collection of war and historical memorabilia.  He and a few eccentric old stagers are working to keep it running and in reasonable condition. It gets no funding so it struggles but at least someone loves it, which is more than you can say about the Kokopo Museum which is open on request but appears to have been abandoned immediately after WWII. It's just a collection of rusting pieces of war machinery and smaller objects with illegible descriptions (or none) and a room largely devoted to Queen Emma.

Mundon was sitting hunched over a bowl of noodles at his desk/table as I approached him. He stood and greeted me enthusiastically shaking my hand and mentioning his Inuit heritage. He looks late 60s maybe early 70s and is wearing boxer shorts and thongs and nothing else, his chest and stomach white and soft. It's a little off-putting in a museum manager but it quickly seems normal and I can see he is in pretty good shape for his age. He has an soft accent modified perhaps by 40 years in the tropics surrounded by Australians and international missionaries and tok pisin speakers. His head is like a bowling ball with stubble.

'Do you believe in God?'  he asks me within the first few minutes of our conversation. 'I was brought up Catholic' I tell him and he corrects me - 'Roman CathoIic,' he says. I don't argue. 'And you?' I ask. It's a game I'm amused to play. 'Church of England', he says. 'Anglican,' I reply. 'No Church of England,' he corrects me. I ask the difference half knowing the answer will be part of a new riddle and we segue into conversations about Rabaul and the war and why PNG would have been better off being retained bt the Germans after WWI rather than being handed to the Australians. 'Australia has been lazy' he says. 'Germans get things done,' he says. I'm tempted to defend my Australian compatriots but hold my tongue.

We get back to religion. I promise him I'll ask the Anglican Bishop ('Church of England,' he corrects me) in Brisbane to consider funding the restoration of the Rabaul Anglican Church.

'What do you believe in?' he asks me before I leave. 'Me, the universe,' I reply.
'Maybe as you get older you'll find the need to believe in a god of some kind,' he says, suddenly looking as though there's something in him that needs this escape route from life. It feels like he's trapped here in this dying town. It once had a population of 40 000 and is now 4000. At some point he knows he'll be going and it will be 3999.

PNG 3 - Queen Emma

Kokopo has seen its characters. 

    It was the mainland base of the 19th century American Samoan trader Emma Coe and her copra empire (she had begun her PNG empire on nearby Duke of York island). She became known as Queen Emma and her sprawling Kokopo mansion and gardens are now the site of the Gazelle International Hotel. Only the concrete front steps of her residence Gunantabu, survive.
    Australian writer Geoffrey Dutton has written "Queen Emma of the South Seas", an entertaining account of her exploits. She was beautiful, wealthy, ruthless and independent. She had lovers and a series of husbands and when she finally sold her business holdings in the early 20th century (perhaps sensing the approaching calamatous world war and being intimately connected to German Nue Guinea), she retired to Melbourne and later Europe (where she died), a millionaire. 

The main restaurant at the Gazelle International in named after her.

PNG 2 - RABAUL

It's the 8th of July. Day one of our trip to PNG. Weirdly that is the exact date 136 years ago on which the Italians boarded the steam barquentine, the "India", in Barcelona to begin their adventure.
    Kokopo, our base on New Britain is a dusty, run down coastal town a 25 minute drive from the  old capital Rabaul. Rabaul sits on an impressive harbour (Simpson's Harbour) with the quietly rumbling Mt Tavurvur close by. All that changed in 1994 when the volcano chose to remind the world of its latent power. Rabaul was wiped out, its houses and its array of impressive colonial buildings, links to its  past. Collaped sunder the weight of volcanic ash.

    Kokopo was the beneficiary of its demise. Overnight it became the new centre of business and government for east New Britain.
    Kokopo, largely lacks charm. As well as having lost its beautiful old colonial buildings through neglect or misfortune or redevelopment, it lacks a harbour and a genuine centre. Rabaul, though generally regarded as a ghost of its previous self by those in Kokopo, retains an impressive main street, a wide boulevard lined with frangapani trees. Its harbour has allowed it to survive as the import/export centre of east New Britain. It's a designed town;  designed by the Germans in the late 19th century as the capital of German New Guinea. Kokopo by contrast has grown around an access road which skirts a foreshore with no shelter. One long street with no plan. Since 1994 there has been money spent upgrading it to the standard of a provincial capital, with a new market, roundabouts and government offices but its never going to be a silk purse, always destined to be the sow's ear.

PNG 1 -

On Friday I head off to PNG for two weeks with brother Mick and friend Gabrielle Samson.

The first week will be in New Britain exploring the remnant history of the Nouvelle France colony and my Italian heritage. We
ll travel by boat to the southern tip of New Ireland to spend a day in the same jungle that Lorenzo and the Italians struggled to survive for three months in 1880.
The second week Gabrielle and I head to the Highlands, Mt Hagen, to explore her history. She lived there for a time in the 70s where her daughter was born. Were a little nervous but excited by the prospect of seeing the central highlands up close.. For Gabrielle it will be familiar but much changed. Hagen has gone from a village with one street to a town of 40 thousand. For me it will be an adventure into the unknown. A country so close and yet so little visited by us, Australians obsessed with Europe and central Asia.

Language in historical novels - Paradiso, Paradìxo, Paradise

Language in historical novels.

What possessed me to include Italian language dialogue in my novel? Authenticity? A fascination with language? Embedding the story in a culture other than my own? 

All true and manageable until I realised that the characters would not have spoken Italian but Venetian in 1879/80. More to the point they would have spoken a regional dialect of Venetian. How was I to respond to that challenge?

Three ways
1. I discovered an Italian/Venetian/English dictionary on-line which I used to do a rough version.
2. I asked Claire Kennedy and the Brisbane Dante Alighieri Society for assistance.
3. I sent a call for help to Marina Battistuzzi in Orsago (my great g'mothers village) in Veneto, Italy (I first met Marina in 1988 - a remarkable tale of three meetings over 28 years). Marina informed me that Orsago and the surrounding villages speak a Trevigiano dialect (Treviso is the capital of this province) rather than a Venice based dialect. She offered to help.Today I received back six pages of translation and notes from her (I had sent her a cut and past version of all the Venetian passages in the novel - more than she expected I suspect). 

There are some subtle differences: papa is Italian pupa is Trevigiano; thank-you is gràsie not grazie; Paradiso is Paradìxo etc Some words have clear roots common to English 'commode' is 'còmoda' for example and some words are spelt quite differently. Imbecile is 'inbezhilàt' in Trevigiano and 'imbecille' in Italian etc etc.I also discovered that the Italians and Venetians have a fabulous range of insults in their languages.

It has been a rewarding but tedious word by word process.

Xmas Missive

Capelin Lynch 2015                                                      34 Doris Street Hill End 

Greetings.

   We say it every year but 2015 has been another beauty.

   There was travel, weddings, house purchases, more travel, family reunions, job changes, writing projects AND PATCH TURNED 100.

   Patch came to us as a stray from the RSPCA in 1994, the year we moved into this house. He was part of helping the kids adjust to a new home. As with most cats he’s very zen, living a simple life catching the occasional bird and bringing it to us as a trophy. He caught a noisy minor recently to celebrate his 100^th. Otherwise you’ll find him sleeping in the sun, wandering the local streets looking for treats and watching the possums and brush turkeys walk past him to eat his bowl of dried food. He’s never been an affectionate cat often sitting just beyond reach, his back to us as if to say “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere but don’t think you own me.” Talk about good value. He’s only been to the vet four or five times in twenty one years and, when he’s looking poorly, a worm tablet, administered about every five years, seemed to have magical properties. These days he’s slowed down but keeps his regular rituals. At times he stands and stares at the wall wondering where he is or what to do next, at others he demands to be fed when he’s got a full bowl sitting in front of him and when in doubt finds the coolest (or warmest) spot in the yard and goes back to sleep. I hope I grow old as gently as he has. We’re thinking of throwing him a party to celebrate.

   Other news.

   Nick got married in April to Dimitee Henderson. It was a great event – the service in a cute chapel in bushland followed by a grand reception at “Shangri La” at Wynnum where I remember dancing at formals when I was a teenager. This brought to ten the number of weddings we’ve attended over the past three years. We only had four this year – Liz Capelin and Tim Lang, what a great day, Harriet Bebendorf and Jason Langford and Loani Prior and Julian Pepperell. Nick and Dimitee have just bought a house at Alexandra Hills which settles on Xmas Eve. It’s bigger than any house Andrea and I have ever lived in - two bathrooms - luxury!

   Jess and Warren had a big year. Having got smashed by the rogue hail storm last November they are still waiting on the final repairs to their apartment over twelve months later. They treated themselves to a trip to NZ in the middle of the year where Jess jumped out of a plane and lived to tell the tale.

Brother Mick and I headed off to Northern Italy in June to attend a “Perin” family reunion. Perin is our original Italian surname which became Capelin in Australia – it’s a long but interesting) story. We joined 400 people in the foothills of the Dolomites, San Vandemiano, and met a bunch of Perin cousins, Australians we had never met before and learnt how to pronounce our name in Venetian which the locals still speak. We also door-knocked the local villages and uncovered some links to my Great –grandmother and her first husband. He died on the voyage to Australia – you can read all about it in my forthcoming book. We also lucked on an eighty year old cousin (second third or fourth?) of my Great grandfather. She is the first direct link we have discovered to living relatives in Italy and demands a follow up trip to explore further. Mick and I had a ball over our two weeks culminating in a few days in Venice during the Venice Bienniale. He then headed home and I headed for Sicily for two weeks – that’s a story for another time.

   Andrea has lost and found employment in the latter part of the year and we celebrated by traveling to Laos and Cambodia for a three week holiday. We fell in love with Laos, Luang Prabang in particular, and had one of the funniest days of our lives in Siem Reap, Cambodia, where a young guide spent seven hours walking us around the Ankor Wat temples while regaling us with stories of love and life and ghosts and a one minute version of the Hindu epic, the Ramayana.

   I’ve reached the end of draft two of my novel, Paradiso. It feels like a real book with an introduction and acknowledgements etc etc – all the real stuff real writers include. I have had a couple of people read it and the feedback has been positive. There’s another year to go and a rewrite to plug the holes and cut out the rubbish but it is nearly ready for a publisher to snap up. I wish! That’s the next challenge.

   We’re mostly well and enjoying ourselves. Andrea wants to continue working – her new job is again in the “post adoption” area and she loves her work. I want to continue playing golf badly and writing and don’t miss paid work at all.

   With 2016 beckoning we wish you a peaceful Xmas break and everything you hope for in the next year.                

Love

Andrea and Steve                                                                                                                                                                PS For some photos and stories of our year you can visit my blog at: www.mymissinglife.blogspot.com    e: capelin@optusnet.com.au  
Ph. 07 38445985 Mob. 0423733108 (Steve); 0402819364 (Andrea)