Vanishing and Returning Heroes: Ambiguity and Persistent Hope in an Unea Island Legend

Abstract

Abstract: Throughout Melanesia, there are stories of creative heroes who leave their people. The tale of Mataluangi is told in Unea, an island in West New Britain, Papua New Guinea. The legend of the snake hero is related to its ethnographic context and the story is analyzed to show its conformity to a type of origin myth, vuvumu, that is prevalent in Unea. It is suggested that the structure of this well-known legend and other vuvumu stories influence contemporary politics in Unea as well as how Islanders perceive their history and possible future.Throughout Melanesia, there are stories of creative heroes who leave their people. Peter Lawrence (1964, 1988) traced the development of such stories in Northeastern New Guinea and investigated the political implications of the persistent belief that their heroes will return. This article follows Lawrence in exploring the story of a hero who left and who, like Manup and Kilibob in Lawrence's (1964) account, became the focus of millenarian beliefs. The hero is Mataluangi and his former home is the island of Unea, the most densely populated of the Vitu Islands, a group located northwest of the Willaumez Peninsula in Northwest New Guinea. The article briefly describes the island and local ideas about the cosmos so that the story can be placed in a wider epistemological context. Then it discusses a type of legend, vuvumu, and analyzes the story of Mataluangi, a representative of this narrative type. I suggest that through their local connotations, structural patterns and symbolic significance, legends act as templates on which the Islanders construct versions of their past and future.The Island and Its PeopleUnea is a rugged island approximately six miles in diameter. Three mountains, Kumbu, Tamongone and Kumburi, rise from within an encircling crater wall. The steep upper slopes of Kumbu and Tamongone are covered with primary forest, but the population has risen rapidly in the past 30 years and gardens and coconut plantations now cover Kumburi and encroach on the upper slopes of the other mountains. At lower elevations, the soil is fertile but there are also cliffs, precipitous slopes and lava flows that cannot be cultivated. Stones and boulders protrude from the undergrowth, stand beside paths and adorn settlements.The principal garden crop is the yam, but bananas are important and in the past taro was grown. Before the extensive planting of coconuts and cocoa led to a seasonal dependency on imported rice, plentiful tree crops supplied food for the lean period preceding the yam harvest and provided dietary variety. Unea Islanders are nostalgic about the fruit trees, not only because they provided food but because they distinguished Unea from the mainland which, they claim, is covered with useless trees. Despite the size of the island, there was once a division between seaboard people who specialized in fishing and inland people who hunted wild pig. There was both formal and informal exchange of these specialties. Now the distinction between fishermen and hunters is blurred, because most people catch fish occasionally and there are no more wild pigs.Before contact, Unea was divided into four or more regions, each consisting of several seaboard and inland parishes linked by intermarriage. Parishes were divided into hamlets occupied predominantly by patrilateral extended families. This settlement pattern changed when the Australian administration insisted that large villages be built, but families are now returning to old settlement sites. Women usually move to their husband's residence on marriage but descent is cognatic, so children do not lose their rights in maternal land. The majority of men are locally affiliated with their father's groups, but some use their mother's land and most give labour to both parental groups.Unea lineages are between six and sixteen generations deep. An individual claims membership in several, tracing relationships through all four grandparents. …