Hmmm (1)

I am looking for something like this. I want a big sky. Endless sea. Endless clouds. In colour. In a corner coconuts trees and beach.

Google seach by image didn't help me any further.

Best I could find are these two. Both from Island Aitutaki (Cook Islands)

The search for the perfect one-picture-tells-it-all image will continue ...

Sign of the Times?

In 1929 Mahlon Blaine made this drawing in Robert Dean Frisbie's book 'The book of Puka-Puka':

Is there a direct relation between Mahlon Blaine (1894-1969) and Maurits Escher (1898-1972)? Look at Escher's pictures:

1938 Day and Night

1938 Sky and Water I

1938 Sky and Water II

1955 Depth

Coincidence? Or just a sign of the times?

Source pictures from Escher: here

Curtaining Clouds

More on R.D.F.'s book 'The book of Puka-Puka'. Every chapter starts with a song or chant in Pukapukan and English. The chant above is from chapter 'Little Sea'.

A couple of quotes: 

Foreword:

"I hunted long for this sanctuary. Now that I have found it, I have no intention, and certainly no desire, ever to leave it again."

On entering Puka-Puka for the first time:
"I was wondering all this while what the future might have in store for me at Puka-Puka. Would I find there the realization of my dreams of an island solitude? Already I had wandered far and wide over the Pacific, and the conviction grew upon me that the real glamour of the South Seas had been off for a hundred years. Men newly arrived among the islands often refuse to accept the fact that civilization, so called, has long since destroyed their charm."

In a letter to his brother:

"There is something about the tropics, brother, which you do not understand. There is a feeling of rest and comfort and contentment, which after all is one of the greatest things we can wish for, because after all what do we strive for in life if it is not a future chance for rest and comfort and contentment?"

On a trip with his wife and her niece:

"For two weeks we lived there, fishing, eating, swimming, sleeping, playing, loving, with torchlight expeditions at night for coconut crabs and sea birds; with long swims across the bay from one coral head to another where we could rest and eat raw 'paua' clams. Sometimes we did nothing at all, merely lying in the shade on the beach, sensuously enjoying the gifts of God."

Drawings from 'Mahlon Blaine', in this book, on how to catch a female turtle

... and on how to catch a male turtle

P.S. I'm looking for an one-picture-tells-it-all image of Puka-Puka. Sea, beach, coral, coconuts trees and beautiful clouds. I haven't found it yet.

How to Catch a Turtle?

With great pleasure I read last couple of weeks four Puka-Puka books:

Puka-Puka is one of the little Cook Islands. These islands belong to country New Zealand since 1901.

American Robert Dean Frisbie "Ropati" (1896-1948) joined the USA Army in WW I. In 1918 he was discharged as medically unfit. With the resulting 45-dollar-a-month pension from the Army he was able to travel to and through the sunny Pacific. The medics warned him in 1918 that he was unlikely to survive another North American winter. So he was in need for an eternal Summer. Frisbie lived four years - 1924-1928 - on Puka-Puka. In three months he learned  the pukapukan language. As a job he operated a trading store.  With his wife Nga(tokorua) - they met on Puka-Puka - he had five children. 

Robert Dean's book 'The book of Puka-Puka', about his four years on Puka-Puka, was published in 1929. Contents: his South Sea trade store. Easy life. Drinking with friends. Fishing. Making-love. Antropological interesting. The Puka-Puka community back then did not care or strive for much. They worked a little. For the biggest part of the days they slept, made love, fishing, eating, played games, swimming, singing and dancing. Nothing fancy. An easy life! Their metaphor was the coconut. The wood of the tree for fire and building houses. Coconuts for drinking and copra. The leaves of the tree for cooking.

In 1938 Nga died of tuberculosis. Robert Dean was alone with four children. (Son Charles remained on Rarotonga since his birth with a great aunt.) Robert Dean's daughter Florence "Johnny" Frisbie (born 1932) wrote two books about the life of her father and her family: 'Miss Ulysses from Puka-Puka' (1949) and 'The Frisbies of the South Seas' (1959). 

All three Frisbie books were interesting. Life on the Cook Islands after WW I. The easy life and how the money of the Americans changed all that during and after WW II. Filled with tips and tricks of how to survive on a Cook Island.

How to Catch a  female Turtle? You grasp the turtle by the skin and the nape of her neck, and then steer her ashore, riding on her back. Don't do this with a male turtle because your legs come too close to his tail. A male turtle can be caught by holding your right arm under his left front flipper; then, reaching up, you can catch hold of the front edge of his upper shell. Take care for the mouth! Take care for the tail! If not, you will drown.

Sources. Maps are from Lonely Planet travel guide. The five pictures are from The Frisbies of the South Seas.

Couple of Pages

Only a couple of pages left

Fringe

This week I realized that the image that best describes my mindset and reading-habit is: rafelranden. It's an image in Dutch. In English translated best with 'fringe' or 'outskirts'.

My Fringe on people:

• Hermit and nerd Armand Schulthess (1901-1972) who created his 'Library of Knowledge' around him.
• Financially independent noble Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, 18th Duchess of Alba (born 1926).
• South Sea trader and writer Robert Dean Frisbie (1896-1948).
• Voice in the wilderness Ton Lemaire (born 1941) who lives alone in France and who asserts that 'homo sapiens' is collectively trying to commit suicide on planet Earth and that we need a more spiritual orientation to our planet and universe.
• Writer Gavin Maxwell (1914-1969). More
• Father Ho Van Thank and son Ho Van Lang who hid themselves for 40 years in the forest.

My Fringe on history:

• Stone age in contrast to our mechanized world.
• Ancient Egypt in contrast to ancient Greece and Rome.
• Neoplatonism in contrast to mainstream Christianity.

What's my point? It gives my life color and light as I engage myself with people, periods, books and languages that are not mainstream in my country and society. Thereby I appreciate what I have. It makes me realize - time and again - that nothing is given and everything comes from somewhere and has its own, individual story. It makes a normal and mainstream life, my life, better intelligible.