Mumu Pictures

Some pictures of the pig slaughter. The worst was hearing it beaten to death. And the small puppy crying in the background.

Bilasim Skin

The old women, singing wedding/courting songs, putting leaves in our hair, and laughing. The woman in the green wig (nicknamed Australia by her friends, in honor of her 'blond' hair and quirky personality [they informed us that Australians are weird]) stole me away shortly after, taking me to her hut, and stripping me for the bilasim skin ceremony. She later gave me a bilum (a 'purse' of sorts, handmade without tools, and worn by everyone -- men, women, and children), and told me that I was now her daughter.

Driving to the Mumu

Our drive to the village in Goroka, where we had a mumu and a 'bilasim skin' ceremony (which involved traditional headdresses, and very little clothing). We left our van in the city of Goroka, because the 'road' was impassable for most vehicles. But driving in the back of a pick-up truck is so much more fun anyway. =)

The Mumu

A village in Goroka, preparing for a 'mumu' (feast of pig and sweet potato), while we take a moment and rest in the shade.

Reading List [so far this summer]

Summer Reading (thus far):

By Robin McKinley (one of Amberle's favorite authors; a fairytale/fantasy writer):
The Hero and the Crown and The Blue Sword -- prequel/sequel; I can't decide which one I like better, but both are good; the world, in The Blue Sword, is a bit Bedouin; The Hero and the Crown is closer to mythical Britain.
The Outlaws of Sherwood -- too broad in scope, but Cecil[y] and Little John make me smile.
Deerskin -- very good; the magic frustrates me at times (it seems a bit of an easy out), but I like the themes; it's tied up in my memories of PNG, since I was reading it in Lae, and as we were driving over the mountain pass into the highlands.
The Door in the Hedge -- decent short stories, though I'm not a huge short story lover.
Rose Daughter -- quite good; her original Beauty and the Beast (Beauty) I read as a kid, but I don't remember it well; she wrote this one twenty years later.

Susan Fletcher's Flight of the Dragon Kyn -- it's set in Kragland, a type of mythical Scandinavia, so it's the right setting for dragons; but not my favorite.

Mary Stewart's The Gabriel Hounds -- her Merlin books (The Crystal Cave, The Hollow Hills, and The Last Enchantment) are some of my favorite books ever; I've never read anything else by her, so I was shocked to discover she's also a romance-mystery writer; this book was set in Lebanon, and a fun read.

Elie Wiesel's Night -- powerful, anguishing.

Essays Presented to Charles Williams [Preface by C.S. Lewis; On Fairy Stories by J.R.R. Tolkien; A Note on the Divine Comedy by Dorothy L. Sayers] -- marvelous.

Stephenie Meyer's Breaking Dawn -- awful, but I needed to finish the series; makes me wonder if the rest were this bad and I just didn't notice?

Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca -- have wanted to read FOREVER, since so many people love it; I enjoyed it; a Jane Eyre of sorts, with beautiful understatement, and the compelling ache of fairytales lost.

C.S. Lewis's Of This and Other Worlds -- still working on this one, but loving it so far.

Elizabeth Peters (as read by Barbara Rosenblatt, and listened to as we travel in the van):
The Last Camel Died at Noon -- I enjoyed this; young Ramses is definitely something, and his first sight of Nephret . . . [chuckles].
Guardian of the Horizon -- not one of my favorites [Nephret's a non-entity, Ramses decides he's "in love" with a random female, and the book is written out of sequence (but Daoud is awesome)], and this is our second time through; so I'm half listening.

Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth -- not quite finished yet, but, as USA Today states, "stunning"; she's an incredible short story writer; also author of The Namesake (which I read for my modern novel class) and Interpreter of Maladies (her first book, which won her the Pulitzer Prize).

Essays Presented to Charles Williams

". . . nearly always on Thursday evenings in my rooms and on Tuesday mornings in the best of all public-houses for draught cider, whose name it would be madness to reveal."
-C.S. Lewis, preface to Essays Presented to Charles Williams, viii-ix

"He was ready to accept as a revealed doctrine the proposition that existence is good: but added that it would never have occurred to him, unaided, to suspect this. . . It is one of the many paradoxes in Williams that while no man's conversation was less gloomy in tone--it was, indeed, a continual flow of gaiety, enthusiasm, and high spirits--no man at times said darker things. . . . But that was only one side of him. This scepticism and pessimism were the expression of his feelings. High above them, overarching them like a sky, were the things he believed, and they were wholly optimistic. They did not negate his feelings: they mocked them."
-Lewis, preface, xii-xiii

"No event has so corroborated my faith in the next world as Williams did simply by dying. When the idea of death and the idea of Williams thus met in my mind, it was the idea of death that was changed."
-Lewis, preface, xiv

"Creative fantasy . . . may open your hoard and let all the locked things fly away like caged birds. The gems all turn into flowers or flames, and you will be warned that all you had (or knew) was dangerous and potent, not really effectively chained, free and wild; no more yours than they were you."
-J.R.R. Tolkien, "On Fairy-Stories" from Essays Presented to Charles Williams, 75