BIG WOK: Storian blong Wol Wo Tu long Vanuatu.

BIG WOK: Storian blong Wol Wo Tu long Vanuatu. Edited by Lamont Linds from and James Gwero. Suva (Fiji) and Christchurch (New Zealand): Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific and University of Canterbury. 1998. xii, 308 pp. (B&W photos). US$18.00, paper. ISBN 1-877175-09-9.

Despite its title, this book has nothing to do with Chinese cooking. The "Big wok" of the title is Bislama (the variety of Melanesian Pidgin spoken in Vanuatu) for the big work that was undertaken by ni-Vanuatu and outsiders during World War II, the time when the country was inundated with man America, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops based mainly on the islands of Efate and Santo and outnumbering the local population. Warships, aeroplanes, submarines, tanks and other weapons (Ol ting blong faet) suddenly appeared and then were left, now tourist attractions.

It was a time of changes that stands out in the memory of the local people who lived through it: Mifala i neva luk samting olsem (We never saw such a thing) (Jimmy Sare, p. 9). A time for the subsistence farming locals to be overwhelmed by the excesses of the American soldiers: Taem Amerika i gat tumas kakae ya, i sakem kakae long solwota (When the Americans had too much food, they threw it into the sea) (Malesu, p. 133); Team yu go ya yu kakae. Yu gat wanem samting ya we yu wantem. (When you go there, you eat. You get whatever you want there.) (Jimmy Sare, p. 136).

It was a time of some change, of an upturning of the social order. As the last chapter in the book tells us, the soldiers displayed a different way of interacting: Sapos yu kolem mi 'Boe, yu kam ya, 'hemia bambae yu gat wan panis ya. Oli talem nomo se, 'E fren, yu kam.' Yes i tabu blong talem 'boe' (Suppose you call out to me, "Boy, come here," you would get punished. They just say, "Hey friend, come here." Yes, it was forbidden to say "boy.") (Aviu Koli, p. 295). And there were more physical legacies of the war, notably the roads and airfields which are still in use today. Sapos wo i no kam long Pasifik, rod i no raon long Efate yet. Efil lu. (If the war hadn't come to the Pacific, there would not be a road around Efate yet. Nor an airfield) (Sakari Arier, p. 296). And of course there were children to the troops visiting this Bali Hai, but Man Amerika ya i go nao, hem i no kam bakegen... Waetman ya, wan bigfala man ya. (This American's gone now, he didn't come back... A whiteman a big man.) (Levy Pollen, p. 199).

The oral accounts represented in this book give us an insight also into the ideologies of Melanesia, for example the post-hoc recollection of prophecies that ships would fly ("Sam man i talemaot wo bae i kam"); or the development of the John Frum cult on the island of Tanna. As Tuk Nauau from Tanna tells it (p. 276), John Frum brought the war to Vanuatu so that the Tannese prisoners would be released from gaol.

Big wok presents stories from over 140 men and women, ranging upwards in size from paragraph-length vignettes and divided into thirty-three chapters, each covering a different topic. The entire book is in Bislama, perhaps the most ambitious secular Bislama publication to date. A similar publication from the Solomons (Bikfala faet: olketa Solomon Aelanda rimembarem Wol Wo Tu -- The Big Death: Solomon Islanders Remember World War II. [Suva, Fiji]: University of the South Pacific, 1988) presents the Solomons Pijin accounts of the war followed by their translations into English. Not so in this case, and anyway, with some three hundred pages of Bislama it would have been a mammoth task to translate it (or to proofread it, and even so a number of typos have made it into print).

This book provides the reader with Melanesian vernacular views on a range of topics; while the main focus is the war, there are insights into many other issues. Vernacular values are expressed both by the language used and by the fact that the speakers/writers are ordinary ni-Vanuatu, not the political leaders but the village people. This is a book that will interest students of creole languages, as well as historians and anthropologists.