When I first tried to conceptualise a framework to accommodate Kikang’s life story, several questions were foremost in my mind: Where should I begin my account? Which of Kikang’s episodes should go first? And how would that shape the rest of the story’s structure?
I have already pointed out that Kikang wanted his life story to be told chronologically. We agreed that I would re-arrange his testimonies in chronological order. Several entries in the first journal show that, long before our encounter, Kikang had himself attempted to work out an accurate timeline for his life and career:
STORY BOOK SIBOG YEAR 1946
COMMUNICATION FROM MR. J. KIKANG. HE CAME TO THE VILLAGE OF SIBOG. HE BECAME LULUAI IN 1947 AND HE RESIGNED IN 1964 HE LAID DOWN HIS WORK AS LULUAI. AND IN 1970 HE BECAME COUNCILLOR.
‘Sibog Year 1946’—this entry exhibits the typical features of a retrospective. Kikang has his life story commence in the post-war era. In 1946 after a long absence he had finally returned to his village of birth. But this note apparently did not satisfy him. Immediately below it, Kikang wrote a new version. There he was at pains to extend the timeline, and dated the beginning of his story from the time of his departure from home.
STORY OF J. KIKANG WHEN HE LEFT HIS VILLAGE AND IN 1917 WENT TO THE WHITES. HE WORKED WITH THE WHITES AND HE CAME BACK TO SIBOG IN 1946. IN 1947 HE BECAME LULUAI.HE WAS RESPONSIBLE FOR THE VILLAGE AND IN 1964 HE CEASED HIS WORK. IN 1970 HE BECAME COUNCILLOR, COUNCILLOR OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT FOR SIBOG IN 1970.
THE PARENTS OF KIKANG SAY HE WAS BORN IN THE YEAR
At this point the entry breaks off. His exact date of birth was something that clearly weighed with Kikang. In some sense, to be a full person required the year of birth. One of the pre-printed headings in Sibog’s village register was ‘Estimated or known year of birth’. Under this heading, an Australian administrative officer had placed after Kikang’s name his (estimated) year of birth: 1917. Yet, in the above entry, Kikang dates his departure for work with the whites to that year. As related to me, this act of leaving home marked the beginning of his life story:
I was no more than a child when I left my village and set off. In what year that was I can no longer say. Apart from the mission and a few government officers, by the time of my departure not very many whites had ever been to see us. My mother had died and father was now looking after us. A friend of my father’s had come up from the coast. Accompanying him was a firm that was hiring workers. They were looking for a couple of young men to work in some plantations. I took a liking to this man. After all, he was a friend of my father’s. I took a good look at him and liked what I saw. Why? He was wearing pants—and the loincloths, you know what I mean? I took a look at them, and then I wanted one for myself. That’s why I went away. Father said: ‘No way! You’re not going.’ I said: ‘But I want to go!’ And so the man took me with him, together with a friend of mine. They paid for us. They gave my father an axe and a knife. That was the price. At the time I was still quite young. I didn’t even have a real bark loin-covering. So I went to the coast. That was where the firm was located. Here they gave me a loincloth. I was very glad when I could put it on.
Kikang then narrated how he had arrived with other recruited workers in Madang, the nearest colonial centre. There he met a doctor from England whose job was to examine the new arrivals. Kikang was, the doctor decided, far too young for plantation labour. That was why the Englishman finally took the boy home with him. There Kikang fell in with the indigenous housekeeper, who ran the European-style household, and she became his foster mother.
This episode about the young Kikang leaving his village shows how I take my bearings from Kikang’s autobiographical testimonies. His written notes supply me with important indications as to how best to construct Kikang’s life story. Hence his life story does not commence with his birth or early childhood. Instead, he chooses to begin it with his departure from home—a phase of transition. In his narrative, he actively brings about this transition against his father’s will. In so doing, he positions himself in an interstice, evoking a liminal zone between his home region and the world of the whites. Kikang sees himself as mediating between different worlds—and this image of the mediator will run through his whole life story.
Turning over a few more pages in Kikang’s first journal, we arrive at a third entry that further attempts to order his life temporally.[15] Again Kikang chooses to begin with his departure for the colonial settlements of the whites. But then the entry takes new turns. One novelty is that he now numbers (in the left-hand margin) the different phases of his journey through life. Another is that the text is broken into two blocks. In the first, Kikang describes his secular career. The second (and new) block is devoted to Kikang’s spiritual experiences and messages.
Rai Coast No 1 MOT AREA SIBOG
No 1 John Kikang left his village in 1917, he went to the white station. And in 1919 he began school at Kavieng. He was the first person from Sibog to go to school. And in 1946 he went back to his village. Sibog was given a Luluai in 1946 and he became Luluai in the YEAR 1947.
No 2 John Kikang became Luluai in 1947. And in 1964 he stopped
No 3 In July 10/7/70 he became councillor.
No 6 On 10/11/77 John Kikang went and was given a message by Christ.
No 1 ON THE DAY OF JUDGEMENT A GREAT FIRE WILL COME DOWN AND ALL PLACES ON EARTH WILL BURN ALONG WITH THE ONES WHO ARE BURDENED WITH GREAT SINS.
No 2 TO KILL PEOPLE and TO STEAL MONEY and GREAT OFFENCES, TO DISOBEY THE WORD OF GOD.
No 3 and he taught a new prayer with a song from Sibog itself he named ATAT.
No 4 And all songs from Sibog itself and also the praying, you shall not only address to the Almighty.
No 5 if you want something, you must let Him know and HOLY MARY too. You want something.
No 6 You must turn to me, so I can send you something. I died on the CROSS.
No 7 Through my blood I have taken all sins on myself. And J. Kikang asked about the Day of Judgement and he
No 8 said, when ALL YOUR TEETH have fallen out, then he will come; take this message DOWN to your people.
No 9 You shall not be afraid of dying. It is a good thing. The body knows many pains. The SOUL knows no pain, everyone is well, without disease and wounds. Then he STUNG each of the eyes of J. Kikang. And he sent him back to EARTH. On SATURDAY IN THE NIGHT. Day 10. Nov. 1977.
Kikang wrote this
Here we see Kikang tightening his story’s chronology by means of enumeration. This entry indicates, in my view, that Kikang associated a modern life story with linking together in linear sequence the various stations of his life.
Of special note is that the spiritual part of the entry is given a greater share of space than the secular. This weighting reflects a significant shift in Kikang’s own life. After returning home in 1946 he became active above all in the economic and political sector, a role he continued to play up to the 1970s. At the end of the 1970s, however, he began increasingly to identify with the office and functions of a Christian missionary/priest. With his usual application, he took to studying Christian discourses and practices, the End of Days, death and dying, time and space in the Beyond. Kikang’s second journal, the ‘Holy Book 1983’ is not the only evidence for this; in the second half of our interviews he spoke at length on Christian projects as well as on messages and visions. He was now intently anticipating the life that follows death. The closing sequence of the entry above demonstrates this new preoccupation, though the statement that Christ sent Kikang back to earth with a message on death and the Beyond shows how even in this late phase of his life, Kikang continued to present himself as a mediator. Whereas in the early postwar decades he mediated with colonial officers and mission representatives to promote modernisation in his home region, in later years, he increasingly mediated between the worlds of the living and the dead.