ABSTRACT
My personal engagement with translations of textiles began in the context of the gradual decolonisation of Papua New Guinea in the 1960s. This has led me, as a teacher of literature, into an inspection of textual translations of textile history and given rise to some small thoughts on the shifts in cultural meanings that took place as tradition was translated into modernity I leave it to anthropologists and people with a more intimate and contemporary connection to Papua New Guinea to develop these in ways I myself cannot.
