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Foreword It is a great pleasure to offer a few introductory words to Professor William Miles’ Bridging Mental Boundaries in a Postcolonial Microcosm . The University of Hawai‘i Press is to be congratulated for being in the forefront of recent academic publications regarding this most fascinating archipelago, following on Lamont Lindstrom’s Cargo Cult (1993) and Joël Bonnemaison’s The Tree and the Canoe (1994). In spite of almost being wiped off the face of the earth—from an estimated precontact population of 600,000 down to as little as 40,000 in the late 1920s—the people of Vanuatu have bounced back with vigor and do not bear a grudge against the outside world. They are a very special people, and the country is the way the world should be: a myriad of interconnecting indigenous languages and cultures with intense respect for the material, physical, and spiritual world. The history of European contact nearly destroyed Vanuatu culture and, as Miles makes clear, newer, outside in¶uences may yet try to do so. Yet, one has faith in the deep, philosophical wisdom of the Vanuatu people to choose what is really best for them and to reject those modern in¶uences that they deem harmful for future generations. I ¤rst met Bill Miles, his wife Loïza, and their children at the Second National Arts Festival of Vanuatu on Santo in June 1991, and we have kept in regular contact ever since. His pleasant personality, his¶uency in English, French, and Bislama, and also the fact that he is American enabled him to pursue his studies throughout Vanuatu in 1991 and 1992 without facing the kinds of problems that a British or French researcher pursuing the same sort of “touchy topics” might have faced. This book is not an anthropological study per se but is extremely relevant to those anthropologists, ethnologists, and historians interested in Vanuatu, to ni-Vanuatu themselves, and to those in the wider world interested in pre- and postcolonial history. It is also a “must” for those concerned with the reaction and interaction of two of the world’s major international languages, English and French. xi It may indeed be another generation before the so-called Anglophone /Francophone dispute in Vanuatu dies down. Time, ni-Vanuatu intelligence, and adaptability should eventually calm the periodically turbulent seas—if the outside world lets ni-Vanuatu alone to sort out their differences. In the meantime, holdover suspicions do cloud current politics . During 1996 and 1997, for instance, some ni-Vanuatu students were complaining virulently about disorganization and lack of opportunity in the Francophone side of the nation’s educational system. Some ni-Vanuatu believe that internal divisions within the French embassy were almost purposely creating the problems, so as to send an indirect warning to Kanaks in New Caledonia—where a referendum on the French territory’s political status has been scheduled for 1998—about the inadvisability of independence. Those of us who were in the country during the struggle for independence and recall the incoherence, antagonism , and factionalization both within and between the colonial and missionary camps can easily relate to these kinds of fears. Since 1973 I have spent approximately seventeen years pursuing cultural and anthropological work in Vanuatu and I have found, of course, that Bislama was and is the most useful language in the country —neither French nor English are of much use in the more isolated, traditional areas of this stunning country. Bislama is a dynamic, developing language with magical, beautiful, and poetic qualities that can better convey the “real” Vanuatu than European languages, although it is not, of course, as deep and profound as the indigenous languages. Much of the value of Bridging Mental Boundaries in a Postcolonial Microcosm is that it conveys certain insights that formerly only one thoroughly familiar with Vanuatu’s national language could obtain. I once had a dream in Vanuatu (after a good kava session) in which important traditional and modern political ni-Vanuatu leaders invited English, Australian, New Zealand, and French diplomats and missionary representatives to a kastom reconciliation ceremony. In the ¤rst section of the ceremony the ni-Vanuatu leaders imposed a symbolic kastom ¤ne upon the expatriate Anglophone and Francophone representatives for bringing their linguistic and cultural dissensions into the country. In the second part of the ceremony the ni-Vanuatu leaders presented these expatriates with ritual gifts that symbolized thanks to the early missionaries for introducing peace. In addition, the Vanuatu leaders offered gifts...

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