Fore Narratives Through Time

Abstract

Fore stories about bush spirits provide versions of historical experience not offered in everyday conversation. The main actor begins his adventures as a forestdwelling, capricious agemate who intrudes into village space where his activities are less benign. Moving closer to colonial settlements and now described as a wild man, he robs a tradestore, steals from a government office, and is exiled to Australia. With Papua New Guinea Independence, he reemerges as a unifying figure for the Eastern Highlands, appearing on the provincial flag, in public monuments, and in the productions of a new national theatre. At the same time, this beloved trickster of yesteryear continues to live in the South Fore, though in hiding. His public place is now occupied by a tiny garden thief who consumes cash crops and no longer speaks. The changing shape and behaviour of these beings, surrogate selves, address broad processes of political and economic transformation, as well as the contradictions of precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial times.

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