ABSTRACT
Global culture and society have arrived. Satellite dishes import Indonesian and Australian television channels; rugby league is the male national sport. Teeshirts, jeans, sunglasses and digital watches are prominent in the towns, where university graduates distance themselves from rural folk, and are often perceived as susokmen (shoe and sock wearers), unlike barefooted or thongwearing villagers. An elite choose to shield themselves behind the darkened windscreens of air-conditioned cars, sure targets for the gang raskals (criminals), envious of such isolation and conspicuous consumption. There is juxtaposition of corporate
monoliths and plywood shacks, of affluence and poverty, of modernity and tradition. New lingua francas are crucial, and the principal one, Tok Pisin, accommodates such new constructs as ekwiti (equity) and hansapim (stick-up), different responses to economic change. In one glossary sanguma (sorcery, magic) is neatly juxtaposed with sekonhan klos (Tree 1996). On Bougainville, where the army seeks to overcome secessionist rebels, babies have been named Heli and Soe-the first born to a family forcibly relocated by helicopter (part of Australia’s military aid), and the second born during a State of Emergency. In the capital, a migrant worker, Pepsi Cola Gabi, was jailed for murder in 1991 whilst in remote parts of the highlands, the last stone tools had only just been produced. A year later the Vanimo district court in West Sepik jailed two men for practising sorcery whilst national politicians began moves to establish the country’s first stock-exchange.
