Camilla Wedgwood New Guinea Diary Vol VI

Item is a hard cover notebook, faded reddish. Pages are lined. Only every second page is used, except for brief notes. Entries in pencil. Note in front cover states page numbering added in 1980. 235 pages are numbered.

This is the sixth volume of Wedgwood’s personal diary. The daily round of herself and the village are recorded in detail. Food, visits, the beach, canoes, visitors, photography, ‘information gathering’ and writing, tending to ailments are noted daily. Special daily note is made of the weather. Wedgwood has now lived in Chokali for many months and seems to know everyone by name, often employing initials as short hand.

Events of special note include: house building and repairs, especially thatching; further developments in village relations – a marriage, a death by cursing and another of illness, and associated rituals; village relationships and dealing with rumours; weather (humidity) affecting mood and productivity; banana planting and shell fish gathering; Wedgwood’s dog Jack (or Jock); tending to infants and children at play; night fishing; a flu outbreak; pigs (alive and slaughtered) as gifts; a local injured by coconut. There is also the visit of a government official (?) Mr Read for several days.

People: Mamboti, Gigira, Sagido, Bazaba, Tsila, Wandama, Gigera, Omori, Morua, Joseph ‘J’ Mewo, Tsila, Au’ubia, Bazaba, Onai, Tsinama, P. Bohm, Iotinoy, Maida, Maidaguala, Mr Read, Bazaba.

Places: Manam (island); Chokali, Waia, Yassa, Dugulaba (alt Dugulava), Tsokali, Bieng, Tabele, Uluguma, Bodua, Bagia.