Beyond the Coral Sea: Travels in the Old Empires of the South-West Pacific [Paperback]

‘Everything you wanted to know about cannibalism but were afraid to ask is here.’ Daily Telegraph

‘Filled with tales of wonder, sadness and extraordinary behaviour.’ Sunday Times

'If you've room for only one book in your baggage this year, take this one.'

"Lovely description beams through every chapter. Moran travels in great good humour and with relish...its scope will keep you hooked." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"……...filled with tales of wonder, sadness and extraordinary behaviour.....a very wonderful part of the globe." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"Moran gives a solid, sensitive background to the country’s present state." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

".....all the ingredients of a fine travelogue....Everything you wanted to know about cannibalism but were afraid to ask is here." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"This wonderful book is my country. This is Papua New Guinea." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"This is travel writing of the highest quality." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

"[Moran] is a reporter with a painterly eye, a tape-recorder ear and a dry sense of humour that enliven all his encounters....." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

East of Java, west of Tahiti and north of the Cape York peninsula of Australia lie the unknown paradise islands of the Coral, Solomon and Bismarck Seas. They were perhaps the last inhabited place on earth to be explored by Europeans, and even today many remain largely unspoilt, despite the former presence of German, British and even Australian colonial rulers.

Michael Moran, a veteran traveller, begins his journey on the island of Samarai, historic gateway to the old British Protectorate, as the guest of the benign grandson of a cannibal. He explores the former capitals of German New Guinea and headquarters of the disastrous New Guinea Compagnie, its administrators decimated by malaria and murder. He travels along the inaccessible Rai Coast through the Archipelago of Contented Men, following in the footsteps of the great Russian explorer ‘Baron’ Nikolai Miklouho-Maclay.

The historic anthropological work of Bronislaw Malinowski guides him through the seductive labyrinth of the Trobriand ‘Islands of Love’ and the erotic dances of the yam festival. Darkly humorous characters, both historical and contemporary, spring vividly to life as the author steers the reader through the richly fascinating cultures of Melanesia.

‘Beyond the Coral Sea’ is a captivating voyage of unusual brilliance and a memorable evocation of a region which has been little written about during the past century.

East of Java and west of Tahiti a bird of dazzling plumage stalks the Pacific over the Cape York Peninsula of Australia. In her wake, she spills clusters of emeralds on the surface of the deep. These are the unknown paradise islands of the Coral, Solomon and Bismarck Seas lying off the east coast of Papua New Guinea.

Along the way Michael Moran explores the role of superstition, magic rites and the occult in the lives of the islanders, including the trading route of the Kula Ring which unites many tribal island groups in a mystical exchange of symbolically valuable objects, one set travelling clockwise around the ring, the other anti-clockwise. His narrative is interwoven with the stories of eccentric residents past and present – such as the self-styled ‘Queen Emma’ of New Britain, who was born of an American father and a Samoan mother and built up a large empire of copra plantations, as well as trading in the fabled obsidian (black volcanic glass) and entertaining on a lavish scale with imported food and French champagne. Moran describes the historic anthropological work of Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands and also catches up with some of the adventurers, mercenaries, explorers, missionaries and prospectors he has encountered on previous journeys.

The islands were the last inhabited place on earth to be explored by Europeans and even today many remain largely unspoilt, despite the former presence of German, British and even Australian colonial rulers. In addition there has been a recent resurgence of cannibalism in the remoter areas. But rather than a tale of cannibals and blood, this is a journey in the romantic and adventurous spirit of Robert Louis Stevenson and an exploration of encroaching change in remarkably diverse cultures. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The conception of this travel book took place in London one wet and windy morning as I sat on the 73 bus on my daily grind down Oxford Street to work in Victoria. The glittering car showrooms along Park Lane lurched past the misted windows unnoticed, Hyde Park was wintry dull and had long since ceased attempting to peep over the wall into Buckingham Place. I was a zombie staring directly ahead. After years on the treadmill, I was bored rigid with the regularity my London existence despite being a competent musician and professional language teacher with a host of good friends and an active social life. My youthful period living on Norfolk Island among the descendants of the mutiny on he Bounty, a thousand miles off the eastern Australian coast sublimated in my historical novel Point Venus), had created a permanent obsession with the isolation of Pacific islands. Once more I dreamed of escape and adventure, but this time I would act, not luxuriate in impotent nostalgia and reminiscence.

As a boy of 13 at Public School in Australia, I had visited a pal whose father owned a copra plantation on the island of New Britain. At that time the colony was known as the Australian Mandated Territory. It was an impossibly exotic and adventurous holiday which I never ever forgot. Many young Australian men, bored with a 'safe' suburban existence, harboured secret Errol Flynn dreams of venturing into the wilds of Papua New Guinea (he spent his wicked youth there). I decided to travel to the
most remote and unvisited islands I could think of, those of the Bismarck Archipelago and Solomon Sea. Up to 1914 the region was the German New Guinea Empire. This group of islands is north of the mainland of Papua New Guinea, a couple of degrees below the equator. They would be truly exotic, the culture bizarre and fascinating, the challenge to my 'civilised' existence clear. No-one had written about them as a group for almost a hundred years.

I spent nine months in detailed planning, reading voraciously in the British Library, counting my pennies and preparing a careful proposal for a publisher. Boredom fled. The book was commissioned - one of life's miracles as Papua New Guinea is so entirely misunderstood and carries with it a bloody history of savagery and cannibalism. It seems to lack 'bestseller appeal'. I ignored all the warnings and discovered that the modern country, particularly the island provinces, my destination, could not be further from this unfortunate conception. Travel writers, for reasons that completely mystify me, seldom choose the diverse and achingly sensual atmosphere of the tropical Pacific islands as their subject.

I took voluntary redundancy from the Swiss Educational Foundation I worked for in leafy Eccleston Square in London. The severance package partially financed this admittedly expensive expedition, the publisher's advance covered the rest. The result of that incredible journey is this book, written in Sydney and London. Altogether, It took me almost four years. I feel absolutely rejuvenated and have hardly boarded a 73 bus since returning to London from those enchanted islands. If you feel life has forced you into an inescapable rut, just take courage and follow your dreaming heart - the satisfaction is priceless. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

East of Java and west of Tahiti a bird of dazzling plumage stalks the Pacific over the Cape York Peninsula of Australia. In her wake, she spills clusters of emeralds on the surface of the deep. These are the unknown paradise islands of the Coral, Solomon and Bismarck Seas lying off the east coast of Papua New Guinea.

Along the way Michael Moran explores the role of superstition, magic rites and the occult in the lives of the islanders, including the trading route of the Kula Ring which unites many tribal island groups in a mystical exchange of symbolically valuable objects, one set travelling clockwise around the ring, the other anti-clockwise. His narrative is interwoven with the stories of eccentric residents past and present – such as the self-styled ‘Queen Emma’ of New Britain, who was born of an American father and a Samoan mother and built up a large empire of copra plantations, as well as trading in the fabled obsidian (black volcanic glass) and entertaining on a lavish scale with imported food and French champagne. Moran describes the historic anthropological work of Malinowski in the Trobriand Islands and also catches up with some of the adventurers, mercenaries, explorers, missionaries and prospectors he has encountered on previous journeys.

The islands were the last inhabited place on earth to be explored by Europeans and even today many remain largely unspoilt, despite the former presence of German, British and even Australian colonial rulers. In addition there has been a recent resurgence of cannibalism in the remoter areas. But rather than a tale of cannibals and blood, this is a journey in the romantic and adventurous spirit of Robert Louis Stevenson and an exploration of encroaching change in remarkably diverse cultures.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Michael Moran was born and educated in Australia and has led a varied and colourful life. He spent his twenties wandering the islands of Polynesia and Melanesia and lived on Norfolk Island for several years, during which time he set up a radio station. He has recently published a novel, Point Venus, in Australia, and now lives and works in London.

Prologue

‘If you dress well, they won’t eat you!’ Wallace said.
He shuffled the cards with the stump of his right arm, beginning another interminable game of patience. The light was failing, the atmosphere oppressively hot and humid as the cards flapped on the bare table. Local boys glanced in darkly as they passed the flyblown screens covering the louvered windows. They were interested in the visitor and craned for a better view. A wretched poster of Bill Clinton greeting King Harald V of Norway hung at a crazy angle from the flaking wall.
‘We thought you were Gods’

His rippling, grey hair caught the sun and he smiled, teeth showing the past ravages of chewing betel-nut. Wallace Andrew was a distinguished personage with a heart of gold. This virtue had brought him many misfortunes in life. He began to hum the hymn ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’.
‘Such a lovely tune, don’t you think? Young people today have abandoned proper hymns.’

The ceiling fan was motionless, the air thick and still. A pretty village woman with a frustrated air and ancient profile began to hurriedly set the table for dinner, laying out cutlery, bananas, pineapple and some lurid green cordial in a glass jug. She covered it with mesh. Malarial mosquitoes had already begun to ride the last shafts of sunlight in the dusk.
‘Napoleon will be here at seven. They will come directly from the chamber and then go out again.’ she said in excellent English, clearly for my benefit. They generally spoke the Suau language in the islands around Milne Bay in Eastern Papua New Guinea.
‘Fine men. Like my grandfather, a fine man.’ Wallace noted sadly, another fast game of patience in progress in the gloom. He adopted a consistently high moral tone in all his conversations and talked often of selfless Christians.
‘Charles Abel, one of the first English missionaries, always wore a bow tie, white shoes, starched shirt and trousers. He was never kai kai’d 1 because they respected him. His wife came from England too. She delivered a village baby after they landed and her white dress was soon covered in blood. They didn’t eat her. She helped them.’
Wallace was, after all, the grandson of a cannibal and an expert on matters of cannibal etiquette. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.