Blending in among Gebusi: Bruce with villagers on Sunday morning following a Catholic Church service, 1998. Increased access to western clothes has become one of the biggest visible signs of change among Gebusi. |
2.18 Clearing trees to make a garden: Yuway chops a tree half-way through. A large tree felled in the center of the clearing will knock it and many other trees over at the same time. Chopping trees with steel axes rather than with ones made of stone has allowed Gebusi to clear larger gardens and construct bigger and more numerous houses. |
7.42 Economic isolation at Nomad. During 1980-82, Nomad officers owned a new yellow truck, which they drove around the station and for several miles up the spur of a single road. By 1998, the road had washed out and the truck had broken down and had not been replaced; the Nomad Station had no motor vehicles. As a monument to their economic isolation, people buried the broken truck upside-down, tail in the air, in the main grounds just outside the government station house. |
7.43 The Gasumi Corners Store, begun and operated with Bruce’s help. The store ran successfully, but such local enterprises often fail over time due to problems of supply, unexpected costs, and disputes over money. |
8.17 Modiay, 1998, showing his prison skills (and his physique) by carrying a large pot of rice he has cooked for a village feast |
9.1 The Nomad market, 1998 |
9.3 A young girl from Gasumi Corners waits long hours in hopes of selling her sweet potatoes and pineapples at the Nomad market |
9.4 A young girl looks over a new garden of sweet potatoes on the outskirts of Gasumi Corners. |
9.5 Large piles of unsold food at the Nomad market. Items left unsold are carried back to Gasumi Corners or given away at the Nomad Station. |
9.6 A pile of food bought for the equivalent of about two dollars U.S. at the Nomad market: sago flour, bamboo shoots, starchy bananas, sweet bananas, peanuts, taro, cassava, sweet potatoes, papayas, squash, and coconuts |
9.7 Nolop, sitting with pride in her house, surrounded by some of her market money, 1998 |
9.20 Schoolboy aspiration #7: A boy draws a picture of himself as a mine worker operating heavy equipment in the future |
11.14 Kiunga – a supply depot, mining town, and "muddy gateway to the modern world." |
11.15 A trade store and car in Kiunga, 1998 |
11.16 A man gazes at trade goods in a large store, Kiunga, 1998 |
11.44 Modern skit at Independence Day of a boy in rags (right) who seeks work in town from an overweight wealthy employer (left). The employer pays the boy a few small coins from his case full of money. In the skit, the youth steals the satchel of money and the employer then shoots his own security guards dead for not preventing the theft. The skit portrays the modern tensions of menial wage labor, envy, and violent response by employers. |
