WEBVTT

1
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:14.000
16th of September 1975, where was I?

2
00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:29.000
I had just graduated and set in a workshop because I did a BA and I was
one of the newly graduates from UPNG and I was selected to teach

3
00:00:30.000 --> 00:00:36.000
at a national high school, so I remember that. But
on that day, where was I? I was with my family,

4
00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:45.000
because my elder brother had a house on Airvos Avenue,
just above the Sir Hubert Murray Stadium,

5
00:00:45.000 --> 00:00:51.000
where the main event was going to take place.
And we watched it from there, and I recall

6
00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:59.000
those amazing emotional memories of that day.
And I'm really honored to be here on

7
00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:08.000
16th of September here in Australia. So how
did I get here? Well, I was an Australian

8
00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:19.000
citizen, but then it got taken off me in 1975 and
it took from 1975 to June 2002 to get it

9
00:01:19.000 --> 00:01:28.000
back. So now I am an Australian citizen and that's
how I ended up at ANU and became the

10
00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:40.000
first Pacific Collections Librarian for
the Pacific Studies at ANU in 2006.

11
00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:49.000
So how did I come to know about the Elizabeth
Durack Collection at the Menzies Library?

12
00:01:49.000 --> 00:01:57.000
Out of the blue in 2015, we got this letter
of general inquiry from Perpetua

13
00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:05.000
Durak Clancy and Michael, they were
the children of Elizabeth Durak.

14
00:02:05.000 --> 00:02:16.000
And as soon as I saw it, I knew that collection,
because I had that book, Face Value.

15
00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:24.000
And when I looked through all of those images,
I said, we must have this collection.

16
00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:26.000
And this was 2015, 2016.

17
00:02:26.000 --> 00:02:27.000
And this was 2015.

18
00:02:27.000 --> 00:02:35.000
The Australian dollar was really weak against the
U.S., and the university library administrators

19
00:02:35.000 --> 00:02:39.000
put a freeze on spending.

20
00:02:39.000 --> 00:02:46.000
So we were really caught, but I was
desperate to get this collection.

21
00:02:46.000 --> 00:02:51.000
And 2016, and by 2017, I was planning to retire.

22
00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:57.000
And I wanted to really leave something
significant when I left

23
00:02:57.000 --> 00:03:01.000
my professional library career.

24
00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:06.000
And lo and behold, they lifted the freeze.

25
00:03:06.000 --> 00:03:12.000
And we were asked to spend, this is towards
the end of 2016, spend the money.

26
00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:17.000
And this was a big ticket item,
Elizabeth Durak collection.

27
00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:23.000
So obviously, Perpetua and Michael contacted
me again by October 2016.

28
00:03:23.000 --> 00:03:26.000
And I said to them, we are in luck, I think.

29
00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:27.000
We will put in a bid.

30
00:03:27.000 --> 00:03:35.000
And fingers crossed and everyone pray that it will
get approved and we will get this collection.

31
00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:43.000
And this collection was delivered
on 29th of January, 2016.

32
00:03:43.000 --> 00:03:47.000
And I retired at the end of December 2017.

33
00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:57.000
So, yes, my dream of coming to ANU and discovering
this amazing collection because that

34
00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:06.000
book, Face Value, had amazing drawings and
sketches done by Elizabeth Durak in

35
00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:08.000
1968.

36
00:04:08.000 --> 00:04:14.000
And, you know, over 400 sketches were done.

37
00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:19.000
So how did Elizabeth get selected
to go to PNG in 1968?

38
00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:26.000
Well, this was a pivotal time, because this was
when the questions of self-government and

39
00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:30.000
eventual independence were beginning
to be discussed.

40
00:04:30.000 --> 00:04:35.000
In 1968, I was at a boarding
school, up at Sogeri.

41
00:04:35.000 --> 00:04:40.000
And so we weren't really politically minded then.

42
00:04:40.000 --> 00:04:45.000
We were just attending school and going along
and not really worrying about anything.

43
00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:50.000
We were Australians we were going to remain
there forever, like my mother thought.

44
00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:55.000
They were not going to ever leave because
everything was working so well.

45
00:04:55.000 --> 00:05:04.000
But Gough Whitlam came in, and of course he was
under pressure from the UN to decolonize.

46
00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:11.000
And of course, 16th of September,
1975, it all happened.

47
00:05:11.000 --> 00:05:19.000
And so I was one of those graduates that
were then what we call localization.

48
00:05:19.000 --> 00:05:24.000
So we had just graduated from UPNG
with our first fresh degrees.

49
00:05:24.000 --> 00:05:29.000
and no work experience. So I was
sent to high school to teach.

50
00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:42.000
Anyway, to cut the long story short, I then, it was amazing the
way it happened for me, how I ended up to become a librarian.

51
00:05:42.000 --> 00:05:50.000
I was posted to Aiyura National High School is
in Kainantu Eastern Highlands Province.

52
00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:53.000
And this was in 1976.

53
00:05:53.000 --> 00:05:57.000
And I was posted there to teach.

54
00:05:57.000 --> 00:06:02.000
I was the only Papua New Guinean on
the teaching staff of the school.

55
00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:06.000
Everybody was from all over the world.

56
00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:12.000
And the paymaster at the Goroka office didn't
think there would be Papua New Guineans

57
00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:17.000
teaching at this school, so he
never sent on my paycheck.

58
00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:21.000
So I didn't get paid for six months.

59
00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:23.000
So those are the experiences.

60
00:06:23.000 --> 00:06:30.000
of a new independent country because everything
was all kind of up in the air.

61
00:06:30.000 --> 00:06:36.000
There were Papua New Guineans who were selected
to understudy their Australian bosses to take

62
00:06:36.000 --> 00:06:41.000
over from them when their time
came to return to Australia.

63
00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:43.000
So I was one of those.

64
00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:47.000
And then because I didn't get paid, I resigned.

65
00:06:47.000 --> 00:06:51.000
And then I was just kind of unemployed.

66
00:06:51.000 --> 00:06:53.000
And I saw this ad in the Post-Courier.

67
00:06:53.000 --> 00:06:58.000
newspaper of trainee librarians.

68
00:06:58.000 --> 00:07:06.000
And I only applied because it promised a
postgraduate scholarship to the UK.

69
00:07:06.000 --> 00:07:11.000
So I was very lucky I applied
and I got appointed.

70
00:07:11.000 --> 00:07:16.000
And the first thing was they told me that, yes,
I would go on a British Council scholarship

71
00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:19.000
to Aberystwyth to train as a
professional librarian.

72
00:07:19.000 --> 00:07:22.000
So I was one of the first Papua New Guineans.

73
00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:27.000
And Florence Griffin, who you will see
come up later, was one of them.

74
00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:36.000
So from that time, then I then moved to Nouméa, New
Caledonia, as that's the South Pacific Commission.

75
00:07:36.000 --> 00:07:38.000
Then it was called Librarian.

76
00:07:38.000 --> 00:07:40.000
I spent six years there.

77
00:07:40.000 --> 00:07:42.000
And then we came to Canberra.

78
00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:52.000
And of course, at the ANU, this collection, sorry, I regard as
my parting gift because I really wanted this collection.

79
00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:58.000
wanted this collection to be held as
a research collection at the ANU.

80
00:07:58.000 --> 00:08:06.000
And of course, when the approval was given to acquire
this collection, we had to get academics

81
00:08:06.000 --> 00:08:13.000
to support this collection. So I got Professor
Chris Ballard, Dr. Anne Luca.

82
00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:21.000
And they obviously wrote this amazing glowing references
on why this collection should be acquired by

83
00:08:21.000 --> 00:08:28.000
ANU. And so this is how this collection
came about. And for me,

84
00:08:28.000 --> 00:08:35.000
because of that book Face Value, and because
I was New Guinea Collection Librarian,

85
00:08:35.000 --> 00:08:45.000
then I knew some of the images in this. And
Alice Wedega, you will see, is one of my

86
00:08:45.000 --> 00:08:50.000
heroines, I suppose I could say.
I knew her personally

87
00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:59.000
because she was one of this amazing Papuan, when I
say Papuan, there's Papua and New Guinea then,

88
00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:10.000
Papuan women who really just somehow made
it into this male-dominated society.

89
00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:18.000
And as some of you know, there is Australian Biographical
Dictionary entry that Eric Johns has written.

90
00:09:18.000 --> 00:09:31.000
And she obviously became the first woman to join the
Legislative Assembly, the House of Assembly then,

91
00:09:31.000 --> 00:09:36.000
in the 1960s.

92
00:09:36.000 --> 00:09:42.000
But before that, because of her education
and training in Mission School.

93
00:09:42.000 --> 00:09:47.000
So this was, she was LMS, London Mission
Society, and then Kwato Mission.

94
00:09:47.000 --> 00:10:00.000
So she developed this amazing way of getting this message out
to communities or tribes in our interland communities.

95
00:10:00.000 --> 00:10:08.000
Like there were two amazing tribal communities
who were enemies in our area.

96
00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:16.000
At the time, Alice Wedega was going to be given
the responsibility to come and visit them.

97
00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:21.000
And some of you probably have heard
of F.E. Williams as well.

98
00:10:21.000 --> 00:10:25.000
He spent time in the 30s in this area.

99
00:10:25.000 --> 00:10:31.000
So the tribal names of these groups
are Dorevaidi and Keveri.

100
00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:33.000
And they were really warlike.

101
00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:38.000
And Hubert Murray, who was the governor
of Papua at the time,

102
00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:43.000
to have found it really difficult to convince
these people to give up their ways

103
00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:46.000
of killing each other and come and join the

104
00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:51.000
the ways of the government or
the ways of this new life.

105
00:10:51.000 --> 00:11:01.000
And Alice Wedega somehow managed to get into the
mentality of these warfare tribes and convince

106
00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:04.000
them.

107
00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:11.000
And so as you can see on this image of Alice Wedega,
the way she's wearing her hair, we call

108
00:11:11.000 --> 00:11:15.000
this Papua Ekalesia hairstyle.

109
00:11:15.000 --> 00:11:16.000
So traditionally,

110
00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:19.000
they would have worn their hair Afro style.

111
00:11:19.000 --> 00:11:24.000
But in this, she's wearing it
all folded at the back.

112
00:11:24.000 --> 00:11:30.000
And my mother's generation, this is the way they were
shown how to comb their hair, arrange their hair,

113
00:11:30.000 --> 00:11:40.000
to indicate that they were members of this church group,
or LMS, Kwato Mission, or Kwato Extension Association,

114
00:11:40.000 --> 00:11:44.000
when Alice Wedega was really in the
hinterland of our about area.

115
00:11:44.000 --> 00:11:53.000
And I chose Alice Wedega because, as I said, she would
come to visit these interlearned communities.

116
00:11:53.000 --> 00:12:00.000
And quite often she would end up coming to our village because
our villages were built on stilts over the sea on the coast.

117
00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:07.000
So their boat would come and pick them up and take them
to Milne Bay, the Kwato Mission, where she was based.

118
00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:10.000
So that's how I knew her as a child.

119
00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:13.000
And even then, I just thought she was
just an amazing looking woman.

120
00:12:13.000 --> 00:12:23.000
And to see her, when I opened that book
by Elizabeth Durak, and see her,

121
00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:30.000
it's a wonderful image and brings up
so many amazing images to me.

122
00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:43.000
But the next slide, this is Alice Wedega at the time.
So this is 1915. So in the 50s, Alice Wedega was

123
00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:50.000
around that area. And some of these images
you will see were the ones that were

124
00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:56.000
converted and changed their old ways and became
absolute gentlemen. And so some of these

125
00:12:56.000 --> 00:13:03.000
people would have come through our family home
and we would have entertained them, but

126
00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:11.000
then we didn't know anything about their past.
And with this image comes my own very

127
00:13:11.000 --> 00:13:19.000
personal story of Alice Wedega's book, Listen
My Country. In her book, she writes

128
00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:27.000
about a murder that took place of a Wanigela
man. Wanigela is my paternal tribal

129
00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:36.000
people. And my grandfather was murdered by people
like this, you see. And I've always wondered

130
00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:41.000
when I saw this, when Kari recruited me to work

131
00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:49.000
for the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau three or so
years ago. This is the first collection

132
00:13:49.000 --> 00:13:57.000
she got me to work on. Henry Dexter was an enlishman
and he was one of those who wanted adventure

133
00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:03.000
and all that. So he ended up in Papua New Guinea
and was sent up to Automata Plantation

134
00:14:03.000 --> 00:14:10.000
to start a copper plantation there. And about is not
far from where that plantation was. So it was an

135
00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:18.000
an amazing experience to go in and work on that
day. And Kari said, this is the collection

136
00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:24.000
they will look at and look at if the captions are
correct. So that's what I worked on. And as

137
00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:30.000
soon as I saw this, I recalled Alice Wedega's
book about the murder of my grandfather,

138
00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:37.000
and I always wondered whether one of these men had murdered
my grandfather. So that's the connection.

139
00:14:37.000 --> 00:14:45.000
And so the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau here are
holding of these prisoners. And Alice Wedega

140
00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:53.000
from the Elizabeth Durak drawing held at the Menzies
Library Pacific Manuscript. So that connection

141
00:14:53.000 --> 00:15:07.000
is amazing. And to go on to the next slide, Veitu
Apana Hau'ofa. Again, I saw this image

142
00:15:07.000 --> 00:15:15.000
and I knew Veitu Hau'ofa. But
she was Miss Apana then.

143
00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:25.000
And then when I knew her, she was teaching at the Hohola
Demonstration School, a suburb of Port Moresby. 

144
00:15:25.000 --> 00:15:37.000
And we knew her then as Miss Apana, and then
now she was Mrs. Hau'ofa. But then,

145
00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:44.000
that school teacher image changed very
quickly because she then became one

146
00:15:44.000 --> 00:15:50.000
of our Papua New Guinea's leading
sports personalities.

147
00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:57.000
And she's still going strong at close at 80.

148
00:15:57.000 --> 00:16:06.000
And recently in 2002, was became one of
the inductees of the sports Hall

149
00:16:06.000 --> 00:16:18.000
of Fame in Papua New Guinea. And so Mrs. Hau'ofa
and I used to come across at the

150
00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:24.000
sports grounds quite a lot because she used to
coach a mens softball team. And my village

151
00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:30.000
people also had a softball team in Port Moresby
and we were great rivals. And we would

152
00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:36.000
often meet and his, her team would
play against us. So through

153
00:16:36.000 --> 00:16:44.000
that connection with playing softball. We knew
her really well then. And because of that

154
00:16:44.000 --> 00:16:53.000
relationship, we, their children called me
uncle. And apparently, her son, Siale

155
00:16:53.000 --> 00:17:00.000
Diro is now the defense attach here at the
PNG High Commission. So that connection

156
00:17:00.000 --> 00:17:06.000
of family knowing her and her son here and
seeing her image in Elizabeth Durak

157
00:17:06.000 --> 00:17:14.000
sketches is just amazing. But she, as I said,
is still strong and contributing

158
00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:23.000
actively to Papua New Guinea sports, mostly
in the codes of netball and basketball

159
00:17:23.000 --> 00:17:31.000
and softball. But above all, a sports administrator.
And I think she's still going strong

160
00:17:31.000 --> 00:17:32.000
in those areas.

161
00:17:36.000 --> 00:17:42.000
So the next images of Veitu Apana,
this was taken in 1962.

162
00:17:42.000 --> 00:17:47.000
And this image from Robert Pulsford Collection.

163
00:17:47.000 --> 00:17:54.000
Now, Robert Pulsford Collection also came about,
because when Kari came and shared coffee

164
00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:00.000
with me that I was to start as Research Officer
at the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, she

165
00:18:00.000 --> 00:18:06.000
said, this Robert Pulsford family contacted
me. And because he was born in the

166
00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:11.000
Pacific and Papua New Guinea collection.
So you must come with me to their home

167
00:18:11.000 --> 00:18:19.000
in Ainslie to check through what they want to give
to the Bureau. But that morning, it was a

168
00:18:19.000 --> 00:18:24.000
Friday I turned up and I said, well up to you,
you are the boss. So I joined Kari and we

169
00:18:24.000 --> 00:18:33.000
drove to this home in Ainslie. And the focus was
to just a collection of pamphlets and books

170
00:18:33.000 --> 00:18:36.000
and things they had at the corner of their

171
00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:42.000
home. And we checked through all those. And
unfortunately, most of them were already

172
00:18:42.000 --> 00:18:50.000
held at the Menzies Library. So we said, sorry,
we can't take these. But then we were

173
00:18:50.000 --> 00:18:57.000
just about to get up and go when the wife said,
are you interested in photographs? And we

174
00:18:57.000 --> 00:19:05.000
both said yes. So they both disappeared into the
study and came out handfuls of these albums.

175
00:19:05.000 --> 00:19:11.000
and as they were placing them on the dining table, one
of the images fell out on the floor right way up.

176
00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:20.000
I looked down and I couldn't believe my eyes. I said,
this is amazing. This is the chief of my village.

177
00:19:21.000 --> 00:19:31.000
And Ian, the son said, I don't believe you, Deveni. I said yes. I
can name every single one of those people in that photograph.

178
00:19:33.000 --> 00:19:35.000
And then they said, oh, we got the

179
00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:41.000
rest of the album and they brought it out. And
we flipped through. The next page was my

180
00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:47.000
brother, who was a medical student, taught by Robert
Pulsford at the Papuan Medical College,

181
00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:54.000
UPNG, and we turned more pages. And there's
a whole group of my village people,

182
00:19:54.000 --> 00:20:02.000
over 40 images taken in 1972. And through
those albums is this amazing woman,

183
00:20:02.000 --> 00:20:07.000
then, Veitu Apana, now Mrs. Veitu Diro.

184
00:20:08.000 --> 00:20:11.000
And again, you will see her hairstyle there.

185
00:20:12.000 --> 00:20:17.000
But in the 68 drawing that Elizabeth
did, it was Afro style.

186
00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:20.000
And that was at the time anyway.

187
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:24.000
Remember, this was the late 60s, 70s.

188
00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:27.000
Yeah, Afro, black is beautiful.

189
00:20:27.000 --> 00:20:29.000
And platform shoes, flared jeans.

190
00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:31.000
That was the period.

191
00:20:32.000 --> 00:20:39.000
when I knew her at the Hohola Demonstration School,
and in 1968, that six years later,

192
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:46.000
Elizabeth Durak was up in PNG. So how did Elizabeth
Durak get up there? It was the Department

193
00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:56.000
of External Territories, and it was Mr. Barnes, who
was the Minister for External Territories.

194
00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:02.000
As far as I could understand,
it was this reception that

195
00:21:02.000 --> 00:21:13.000
They were talking, and then Mr. Barnes said, oh, we want somebody to go up
to find out how the PNG women are doing at this time of development.

196
00:21:14.000 --> 00:21:16.000
And Elizabeth Durak put her hand up.

197
00:21:16.000 --> 00:21:23.000
And of course, she was the right person because the
family, pastoral family from Western Australia

198
00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:26.000
and knew a lot about indigenous people.

199
00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:28.000
And you know her work.

200
00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:31.000
One of the controversy was the Barap.

201
00:21:32.000 --> 00:21:40.000
Yeah, that she was painting under the pseudonym.

202
00:21:40.000 --> 00:21:46.000
Anyway, it got revealed, but it's a wonderful
revelation as far as I'm concerned.

203
00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:53.000
But so when I looked at the book Face Value and
seen through the eyes in Papua New Guinea,

204
00:21:53.000 --> 00:22:01.000
the another volume that she compiled on a visit to Papua
New Guinea and traveled all over Papua New Guinea

205
00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:09.000
from Port Moresby to Lae, Wau, Bulolo, Goroka,
Kainantu , up to the highlands, the Sepik

206
00:22:09.000 --> 00:22:16.000
went on to the islands, Rabaul, Manus, everywhere,
within that short period of time.

207
00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:25.000
How did this amazing woman got these women
to sit down and draw their face value?

208
00:22:25.000 --> 00:22:31.000
I like that title because some of these images
at the time still Karid their traditional

209
00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:36.000
traditional tribal tattoos and you will see
when you access this collection through

210
00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:42.000
the Menzies library at the library website
you will see some of them have tribal

211
00:22:42.000 --> 00:22:47.000
markings and that what she means she says
I look into these faces and I can see

212
00:22:47.000 --> 00:22:53.000
their family connections, their stories
that trace them back to time

213
00:22:53.000 --> 00:23:00.000
immemorial and I mean to me that's just amazing to
some people looking at these images when you

214
00:23:00.000 --> 00:23:05.000
access them online you think they're just
images but to a Papua New Guinean

215
00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:11.000
and looking at them like making the connection
with Alice Wedega and Veitu Apana

216
00:23:12.000 --> 00:23:16.000
those connections so because I knew them
personally and the connections they

217
00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:23.000
bring through my the murder of my grandfather
and Veitu now a revered sportswoman

218
00:23:23.000 --> 00:23:30.000
in our country it is amazing. And so the
next image is Florence Griffin.

219
00:23:30.000 --> 00:23:45.000
She's my dear friend. I knew her when
I was an undergraduate student.

220
00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:53.000
She was an undergraduate student. She was the
assistant New Guinea Collection librarian.

221
00:23:53.000 --> 00:24:00.000
And because we got on really well, I often visited
her. And we did know that in 1979 we would all

222
00:24:00.000 --> 00:24:08.000
both be given British Council scholarships
to go to Aberystworth and train to be

223
00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:14.000
first Papua New Guinea and professionally
qualified librarians. So Florence

224
00:24:14.000 --> 00:24:23.000
Griffin, she comes from Daru, Western Australia,
TI connection, very strong, and

225
00:24:23.000 --> 00:24:30.000
comes from a family of missionaries.
And so some of you feel

226
00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:38.000
if you do Mr. Google, Florence Inabi,
I-N-A-B-I, married name Griffin.

227
00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:41.000
It will see what she said.

228
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:50.000
So in 1966, she was one of six women
who were enrolled at UPNG.

229
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:56.000
And if you read those names of the men who were
enrolled at the time, Rabbie Namaliu, former

230
00:24:56.000 --> 00:25:03.000
Prime Minister, Charles Lepani, who was the High
Commissioner here, and Leo Hannett, all

231
00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:08.000
those people played amazing roles,
and she was one of them.

232
00:25:08.000 --> 00:25:16.000
Anyway, so out of those six who enrolled in 1966,
Florence and one other woman completed

233
00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:25.000
their degrees. And so when the chance came for
us to meet up and go to, Aberystworth in

234
00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:32.000
in 1979, I said to her, you know, I mean, I didn't
know that you were famous in Elizabeth

235
00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:41.000
Durak's book. You are there. And then we looked at
the picture, and I said, yes, it was 68. That's

236
00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:47.000
right. It was Afro. And she said, yes, that's
how I attracted my husband, Bill Griffin.

237
00:25:47.000 --> 00:25:55.000
It was really funny. Anyway, so
we were both very lucky.

238
00:25:55.000 --> 00:26:02.000
We became close friends and the last correspondence
I had with her was in October 2010.

239
00:26:02.000 --> 00:26:14.000
She left UPNG Library because of problems with the
library's been supported because she struggled

240
00:26:14.000 --> 00:26:20.000
to get the acquisitions budget to be passed to
buy more books and subscribe to journals

241
00:26:20.000 --> 00:26:24.000
and things like that she got frustrated
and left and ended up,

242
00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:30.000
her last days were spent at the National
Library of Papua New Guinea in Port

243
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:36.000
Morseby as reference or Reader Services Librarian.
That's where we, my family and I met her

244
00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:46.000
at the counter at the National Library of Australia.
And to Florence Griffin, she was an amazing

245
00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:55.000
woman in that she said when she was asked
by a journalist in 19, was it 67,

246
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:57.000
I think she was second year then.

247
00:26:57.000 --> 00:27:00.000
And so are you going to go back to your home?

248
00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:05.000
She said, no, I will never go
back to my home in Daru

249
00:27:05.000 --> 00:27:13.000
because a lot of people in my village think me leaving
my mum and not staying in home to help her

250
00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:19.000
coming to have this university education
was not the right in their eyes,

251
00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:21.000
very traditional views and attitudes.

252
00:27:21.000 --> 00:27:24.000
So she came from that background,

253
00:27:24.000 --> 00:27:31.000
you know, she was one of those who said, well,
I'm going to go and become a graduate

254
00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:38.000
and become a librarian. And then she became
the first university librarian at UPNG,

255
00:27:38.000 --> 00:27:43.000
Michael Somare Library, now it's called, and I
became the first university librarian at the

256
00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:51.000
Papua New Guinea University of Technology in
Lae. And Kari and I were there recently,

257
00:27:51.000 --> 00:27:54.000
look at another national

258
00:27:54.000 --> 00:28:01.000
significant collection of traditional architectural
styles at the architecture

259
00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:12.000
department in Lae. And so with those connections
with Dame Alice Wedega, Veitu

260
00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:24.000
Apana and Florence Griffin and my personal
connections and friendships with them,

261
00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:30.000
I suppose I've been very lucky to have
made it to Canberra and to find my

262
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:38.000
people in the albums of the Pulsford in a
home in Ainslie I mean really this is

263
00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:42.000
really true I often wondered when I came
here I wonder if there would be

264
00:28:42.000 --> 00:28:48.000
anything from my home that will be held by one
of these Australians who spent time in

265
00:28:48.000 --> 00:28:54.000
Papua New Guinea and amazing how the
connection was made when Kari

266
00:28:54.000 --> 00:28:58.000
recruited me to become research officer
at the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau.

267
00:28:58.000 --> 00:29:08.000
Yeah, so I'm happy and it's just been an amazing experience
to discover Elizabeth Durak of 400's

268
00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:16.000
images of this amazing PNG women and of course
Robert Pulsford collection and the Henry

269
00:29:16.000 --> 00:29:19.000
Dexter collection from the Bureau. Thank you.