Customer Reviews

Headhunting in the Solomon Islands: Around the Coral Sea

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Even though this is the journal of Caroline Mytinger, her travels, and one would expect her illustrations... which played a big part in the journey. Her illustrations were not included. They are now considered a rare antropological study of what was in the South Pacific at that time.... no mention, in any of Amazons reviews that the illustrations were not included in this paper back.... a very bold omission.

Two women travel about the Coral Sea painting portraits of natives and visiting plantations there in the late '30's. To us, the names of these then and now peaceful tropical places are loaded with horror and regret: Guadalcanar, Rabaul, Bougainville. Prophetically Mytinger details an incident on a British copra plantation in a world vanished away like smoke: the missus kicks a bush boy for using cocoanut husks on the fire, which burn too brightly. "Can every English clergyman's daughter kick like a kangaroo?" asks Caroline. Later the copra shed burns down mysteriously, ruining the missus. Her husband had died some time before and her thumb was infected. "It was the fact that she did not throw her head on the table and sob like any woman that undid me. I went for a walk down on the beach and did it for her."

This book tells the story of two young American women who set off on an independent "Expotition" to the South Seas in the 1930s. They had the lofty goal of painting "the portrait of a race of primitive negroids living in the Southwest Pacific." Of the two young women, Mytinger was the painter, and her friend Margaret was her faithful companion and assistant. They started off from San Francisco with four hundred dollars in their pockets and a cigarette tin containing supplies for doing charcoal drawings. The idea was to supplement their meager cash and support themselves along the journey by drawing portraits of people they met. Despite the odds, which spared them no end of adventures, from capsizing, to fistfights, to malaria, they survived the journey and made it back home with a story to tell.

The book is somewhat of a period piece, in that the author comes across as living her life through whimsy in a feminine sort of way-but at the same time, she is also a feminist, proud of the fact that she is traveling together with her friend in wild places that many men from back home would deem too dangerous to visit. Mytinger writes from a time before the word "politically correct" was invented, and much of the terminology that she uses to describe the local people that she meets would not be considered acceptable today. However, the manner of her descriptions are not at all out of line with the standards of her time. Modern readers interested in living conditions in the South Seas, especially in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea during the time just before the Second World War will find this a treasure trove of information. Mytinger tells us about life on the plantations, and life in native villages. She tells us who was getting along with whom, the Americans, the British, the Germans, Japanese, and of course, members of all the various local tribes.

During the two years of their Expotition, Mytinger did indeed find many heads to paint. But the conditions of the journey were not conducive to assembling a large collection of portraits. All of her painting supplies were destroyed in the first watery landing on the islands. She was eventually able to get enough paints together from various sources to be able to cob a paint kit together and get some heads on canvas. Unfortunately, most of the collection was lost and never made it back home. Nevertheless, apparently, she had copies of a few of the portraits, which appear reproduced in black-and-white in several places throughout the book.

When I first found this book (1st edition at a yard sale!) I was a college student in my early twenties. I had lived a fairly adventurous life and done things most females haven't done; nevertheless, I was entertained by this easy-to-read, tongue-in-cheek TRUE tale of the two young women living in the 1930's and doing something far outside the norm. Although some of the language is dated, it helps give the story a sense of era, and it makes me think about all the old classic films of that period, when women wore gloves and hats and (gasp) high heels and stockings.

So when I read about these two young ladies traveling with their gloves and hats and stockings, and being invited to dinner and having to dress up (in the tropics!) and sweat and still remain prim and proper, I have nothing but the highest regard for them. Because then, the next day, these same two women are out in the hot sun, lugging their equipemnt and luggage and working out all those detials of travel by themselves, with no guides, no internet, no cell phones, no assistance...and through it all, they still remain so balanced and optimistic and lively.

About 10 years ago I re-read this book and enjoyed it just as much as the first time. Now, at almost age 50, I am buying (Christmas gift) it for my teen daughter, a "girly-girl" herself who has travered the Andes mountains, delved into the Amazon, ridden elephants through Asian jungles, hiked volcanos, and trekked across deserts and glaciers alike with a great deal of earnest enthusiasm and little complaint. It is a book she will truly appreciate.