Forgetful and memorious landscapes

Rivers of Memory and Forgetting

“…But the rivers will continue to carry water nonetheless from Batatalã to the sea, will continue to arrange and rearrange the sediments at their mouths, forgetting each old arrangement as a new one emerges. Without losing sight of the mnemonic significance of rivers, as emphasised by Harrison (2004), I would like to conclude by also noting their mimetic significance. As Krause (2010), Edgeworth (2011Edgeworth ( , 2014, Féaux de la Croix (2011) and Strang (2014) propose, and as noted in the introduction to this volume, the flow of water provides a useful metaphor for both the passage of time and the fluidity of cultural forms as they respond over time to social and ecological actions and reactions.…”

“…More fundamentally, framing my account of Kamu Yali around the rivers also allows me to analyse and interpret historical and contemporary patterns of change as the consequence of selective processes of memory and forgetting. As Harrison (2004) points out in his account of the Manambu village of Avatip, located on the Sepik River in PNG, river features can act as mnemonic devices, playing important roles in the way individual and collective memories are organised and retained. In Kamu Yali, each river is strongly associated with a particular kinship group in the village and is the site of historical events that have shaped the history of the community in distinct ways.…”

Introduction: River as Ethnographic Subject

“…The notable exception is anthropological work done along the mighty Sepik River (e.g. Gewertz 1983;Harrison 2004), which is itself constitutive of large-scale regional systems of exchange. and another.…”

“…Baviskar 1995;Ettenger 1998;Colombi 2005; Féaux de la Croix 2011; also Muru-Lanning, this volume). Also worth noting, because of its relevance to contributions in this volume by Silverman and Wagner, is a paper by Harrison (2004), which focuses on the ways in which the Manambu people of Papua New Guinea use changes in the course of the Sepik River as a mnemonic device for both remembering and forgetting significant forms of collective experience.…”

Oceanic Historicities

“…It is a well-worn truism to observe that vernacular histories in the Pacific are intensely grounded in landscapes, and that the names for the land and sea are closely entwined with those of people in such a way that the two summon forth memories of each other: people are remembered through places, and places through the people that emerged from, lived in, or passed through them (Guo 2003;Hanlon 2004;Harrison 2004;Küchler 1993;Telban 1998). Epeli Hau'ofa's famous dictum-"We cannot read our histories without knowing how to read our landscapes (and seascapes)" (2008, 73)-is thus a given for Pacific communities.…”