Camilla Wedgwood New Guinea Diary Vol IX

Item is a soft cover notebook, faded grey-green. Pages are unlined. Only every second page is used, except for brief notes.  Entries in pen. Note in front cover states page numbering added in 1980. 96 pages are numbered, last entry is on page 95.

This is the ninth volume of Wedgwood's diary. In it she records the daily passings of visitors and the life of the villages. The weather features prominently as does house building and repair, garden planting and tending ailments. During this period Wedgwood writes of struggles with work and concentrates on letter writing, photos and gathering information.  

The diary records such events as children using surf boards; the death of a sick child; the arrival of two doctors (“Dr and Mrs G.”) and their medical inspection of the villages. There is some consternation between villages of an unknown source. Widespread illness in the villages leads to attention on care relationships – who looks after the young, the sick, processions and “sleeping” for the ill; several deaths are reported.

People: Mamboti, Tsalamey, Roromampura, Badi, Tsila, Wandama, Joseph ‘J’ Mewo, Gigira, Tsualili, Tsinamia, Idoge, P. Bohm, Bo’i, Maida, Ararua, Sagido, Ababa, Tsu’ua, Au’ubia, Wandam, Badzaba, Dr G and Mrs G.

Places:  Manam (island), Chokali, Madouri, (Madauri) Waia, Yassa (alt Yasa), Tsogari, Dugulaba, Bieng, Tabele, Awar.