Antoni Judit: „Ablakok Pápua Új-Guineára" (Távoli világok emberközelben II. Gödöllői Városi Múzeum, 2008)

The culture of south-western coast region in times past: comparison with the material of Lajos Biró Lajos Biró worked near Aitape (Berlinhafen) - primarily in the small islands nearby - from July 1896 to the beginning of October that year. In addition to natural history material, he collected 542 items and prepared a great number of photographs. The Hungarian and German language publication on the material he sent home appeared in 1899 as the first volume of the series entitled Ethnographic Collections of the Hungarian National Museu

m. The publication was jointly prepared by the ethnographers János Jankó, Vilibáld Semayer and Zsigmond Bátky on the basis of notes prepared by Bíró, who was still abroad. After his return, Bíró did not write separate „scholarly" papers on the peoples he had got to know. His publications are however educational works, and belong to the best of the genre. Those seeking information about Papuan or Melanesian peoples living in or around Berlinhafen must refer to these works, and to Biró's own descriptive notes. Bíró himself wrote about his working method that „I had no time till now to write systematic travelogs and I have none right now either, because I prefer collecting. On the other hand, I am sending casual observations on a few things and certain others that will be useful partly in better understanding the ethnologic and natural history material I had sending." He soon realised that when collecting the objects of the peoples living in the region, he had to use the greatest possible caution, especially in the field of language. As he wrote from the island of Seleo: „At this moment as I am sitting on the airy verandah of our house, I can raise my head without turning it and see five different language areas. On our island and Ali Island, which lies to my right, one language is spoken. Tamara Island facing me has another language. There are two larger languages out in the mainland, but the most revealing is that little Angiel Island: it is barely 400-500 metres from our island, the whole island is hardly bigger than 14-15 acres, it may have not more than 80-100 dwellers - nevertheless it has its own separate individual language." Unlike his contemporaries, Bíró paid special attention to finding out not only the name of the object as it was called at the place and at the neighbouring peoples, but also the „history" of the object. He recorded the raw material used in making the object, the method of preparation and of use, the place of preparation and of use (which is not always identical) and a hundred other small details. By this method he worked out a collecting technique which is exemplary even today. Neither this degree of thoroughness nor the attitude of accepting the local natives as equal parties were typical of Europeans there at the time. Bíró himself found this surprising, but remarked that „Perhaps I also would have arrived there with similar prejudices, and have returned with these prejudices intact, had I not heeded the words of my old master Ottó Herman, who advised me upon my departure to »Always remember that those wild Papua are also human beings, their characteristic features are also human, and what others call savage and strange might very well be adaptation to the local conditions. We can only know people truly after studying their environment and living conditions «". He always adhered to this advice, and its influence can be felt in all his notes, articles and work. As Emese mentions in her thesis, in the 1960s and 70s a passionate special interest in oral tradition and early contact history arose among scholars of Papua New Guinea. One of the products of this work was the publication in 1979 (by the national museum and art gallery of Papua New Guinea) of an English translation of Richard Parkinson's 1900 work on the ethnology of the Berlinhafen region. Parkinson, a German scholar, first visited this area in 1893, returning in 1898 and again in 1899. According to all the evidence, Biró and Parkinson did not know about each other - and if they did, they did not make mention of the fact. In the first lines of his article, for example, Parkinson stated that no new details or information had been published on the ethnography of the region since Otto Finsch's journey but Biró's book appeared a year before Parkinson's, with, moreover, a German translation. In the specification of the Berlinhafen material, the Hungarian contributors mention a previously written article of Parkinson's propos of a tool used to pierce shells for use in making bracelets. They hasten to remark that the description in the article is much shorter than Biró's documentation, and that Parkinson's drawing is roughly drafted. This statement is true in the case of nearly every object, and points up the difference between the two scholars. The translation of Parkinson's article was done in order 136