House-Girls Remember: Domestic Workers in Vanuatu

(Continued from front flap)

Pacific Islands studies

Of related interest eleven ni-Vanuatu women fieldworkers and ten others who spoke about their lives as house-girls are included. These reports are structured into eight chapters detailing ni-Vanuatu women’s experiences as domestic workers during the colonial period. Material from contemporary house-girls appears in a chapter based on research conducted in Port Vila. A conclusion assesses the working conditions faced by house-girls, past and present, and suggests how to ensure these women get the respect they desire and deserve. House-Girls Remember is a fascinating approach to the history of colonialism. It will appeal to a wide readership, which will include not only anthropologists, historians, economists concerned with the meaning of work, and scholars engaged in feminist studies, but also Pacific islanders emerging from their colonial past. Margaret Rodman is professor of anthropology at York University, Toronto. Daniela Kraemer received her MA in anthropology from York University and has taught at Pearson College, Victoria, British Columbia. Lissant Bolton is curator for Oceania at the British Museum. Jean Tarisesei is coordinator of the Women’s Culture Project, which she established with Lissant Bolton at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre in the early 1990s.

Unfolding the Moon Enacting Women’s Kastom in Vanuatu Lissant Bolton 2003, 272 pages, illus., maps Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8248-2535-5

“Thoughtful, insightful, honest.” —Pacific Affairs “Engrossing. . . . It is both a story and a social, feminist, text.” —Australian Journal of Anthropology “Beautifully written. . . . The book’s clarity and comprehensive discussion of conventional anthropological concerns (material culture, land, lineage, marriage, grade taking, and rank) as well as contemporary concerns (postcolonial nation building, gender, kastom, politics, Christianity, and development) make it valuable for both specialists and nonspecialists.” —The Contemporary Pacific

Houses Far From Home British Colonial Space in the New Hebrides Margaret Critchlow Rodman 2001, 264 pages, illus. Cloth ISBN: 978-0-8248-2307-8; paper ISBN: 978-0-8248-2394-8

“Both method and practice are effectively unified through an engaging and elegant style of writing that traverses time, space and place in a compelling account of the ‘culture of colonialism.’ . . . An excellent monograph.” —Journal of the Polynesian Society “Delightful and important.” —Pacific Affairs “An unusual and excellent work. . . . A remarkably nuanced picture of a complex bygone colonial world emerges.” —Journal of Pacific Studies

Giving voice to the women who worked as maids—known as “house-girls” in the Pacific islands of Vanuatu—is the goal of this innovative work. It is a unique collaborative project with contributions from twentyone indigenous and four expatriate women. Although women’s history is a popular topic globally, Pacific island women have had few opportunities to conduct research and publish in this field. The book is contextualized within literature on domestic workers and current anthropological theory, but the focus is on the words of the indigenous women themselves. Methodologically, its collaborative approach demonstrates possibilities for redefining post-colonial research. In 1990, Lissant Bolton (from Australia) and Jean Tarisesei (from Vanuatu) developed a program that trained women to be anthropological fieldworkers, encouraging them not only to develop research skills and an interest in women’s cultural practices, but also to explore their own colonial history and contribute to a larger research project. The stories the women tell resonate with the experiences of domestic workers around the world; their histories contribute to theorizing intimacy and traveling culture; and their struggles with adverse working conditions help find solutions, which are outlined at the end of the book. In addition to contributions by the editors, workshop reports by

Jacket Photo: Meredith James, Sydney Australia Jacket Design: Dianna Little

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu, Hawai‘i 96822-1888

www.uhpress.hawaii.edu

(Continued on back flap)

House-Girls Remember

House-GirlsRemember Domestic Workers in Vanuatu

Edited by Margaret Rodman, Daniela Kraemer, Lissant Bolton, and Jean Tarisesei

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

Published with the assistance of a grant from the Faculty of Arts, York University, 2005.

© 2007 University of Hawai‘i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 12 11 10 09 08 07 5 4 3 2 1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data House-girls remember : domestic workers in Vanuatu / edited by Margaret Rodman . . . [et al.]. p. cm. Based on papers presented at a workshop, held in July, 2001, in Vanuatu. The focus was on what house-girls remember of their unique cross-cultural experiences working for expatriate employers during colonial era, prior to 1980. “May 27, 2005.” Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8248-3012-0 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Women domestics —Vanuatu— Biography— Congresses. 2. Vanuatu — Social conditions — 20th century. 3. Vanuatu — History — 20th century. I. Rodman, Margaret, 1947– HD6072.2.V26H86 2007 331.4'816409229595 — dc22 2007004575

University of Hawai‘i Press books are printed on acid-free paper and meet the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources.

Designed by Dianna Little Printed by The Maple -Vail Book Manufacturing Group

In memory of Tanni Frazer

Contents Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Margaret Rodman, Daniela Kraemer, Lissant Bolton, and Jean Tarisesei

Chapter 1 TANNA 27 Numalin Mahana and Mailie Michael

Chapter 2 PANGO, EFATE 37 Lena Kalmat, Eva Kaltapan, and Edna Albert

Chapter 3 NORTH EFATE 46 Leisara Kalotiti, Lesaruru Tamearu, Netty Joseph, Sinlemas Kalo, and Lonnette Tasale

Chapter 4 TONGOA 59 Lewia Charlie and Lepakoa Dick

Chapter 5 AMBRYM 69 Lucy Moses and Rachel

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CONTENTS

Chapter 6 MALAKULA 76 Tanni Frazer, Estelle, and Robin Ken

Chapter 7 AMBAE 90 Jean Tarisesei

Chapter 8 PENTECOST 94 Siaban Denison and Françoise Molwai

Chapter 9 BANKS 100 Kate Ruth and Jocelyn Kibi

Chapter 10 A VIETNAMESE ORPHAN IN A FRENCH HOUSEHOLD 108 Jean Mitchell

Chapter 11 HOUSE-GIRLS IN 2001 121 Daniela Kraemer

CONCLUSION 143 Daniela Kraemer and Margaret Rodman

References 153 Index 157

Acknowledgments T

HE 2001 HISTORY OF HOUSE-GIRLS WORKSHOP could not have taken place without the support of Ralph Regenvanu, Director of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, and the organizational assistance of his staff, especially Henline Mala. The workshop and Daniela Kraemer’s research were made possible with funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and York University. A Rockefeller Foundation team residency in Bellagio, Italy, for Margaret Rodman, Lissant Bolton, and Jean Tarisesei helped transform the workshop results into a manuscript. We are grateful for all of these sources of support, and we wish to express our appreciation to everyone who participated directly and indirectly in this project. This book itself is an acknowledgment of the importance of ni-Vanuatu women’s work as house-girls and of their ability today as researchers.

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Introduction MARGARET RODMAN, DANIELA KRAEMER, LISSANT BOLTON, AND JEAN TARISESEI

O

N A BRIGHT JULY DAY IN 2001, the unusual workshop on which this book is based convened in Vanuatu, a chain of eighty-three islands in the Southwest Pacific. The History of House-Girls Workshop was part of a collaborative anthropological research project that brought together Western and indigenous anthropologists, as well as indigenous women who had worked as “house-girls” in the colonial era, prior to 1980. The focus was on what house-girls remember of their unique cross-cultural experiences working for expatriate employers. Anthropological fieldworkers’ reports on their interviews with older women in their home islands provided many of the narratives in the workshop; most fieldworkers also brought with them someone who had worked as a house-girl to recount her personal experience. “House-girl” is the English translation of “haosgel,” the word for female domestic servants in the lingua franca, Bislama. We chose to retain this translation in conducting the workshop and in publications because it is the term that women workers use for themselves. As with “house-girl,” we have translated the Bislama word “masta” to the English “master.” We have, however, chosen to retain the Bislama word “misis,” meaning female expatriate and /or employer, which would translate as “mistress.” The Bislama word does not have the sexual connotations of “mistress” and conveys the status and power differences. We follow anthropologists Adams and Dickey (2000) in refusing to sidestep a local term with all its connotations. “House-girl” and “misis” convey nuances of colonialism lacking in more politically correct words such as “domestic worker.” It calls attention to power inequalities in the status quo that women’s stories explore in this book.1 As the workshop began, walls of louvered windows allowed a light breeze to cross our classroom at a former agricultural college on the outskirts of the capital, Port Vila. The sounds of birdsong, children playing, and roosters crowing mingled with the roar of small planes taking off and landing at the nearby airport. Interis1

Map of Vanuatu.

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land planes brought some of the rural participants to our five-day workshop. The population of Port Vila is only thirty thousand, but it is by far the largest town in the country and intimidating for some of the participants who were visiting it for the first time. They were glad to be meeting on the outskirts of town, where surrounding gardens and the relative absence of people and cars evoked a more familiar rural setting. Just as our meeting site was at the interface between rural and urban lifestyles, so this book is at the border between conventional anthropological research and more collaborative, reflexive ways of knowing and sharing knowledge. Our experience suggests that ethnographic fieldwork can be much more satisfying if it is a collaboration among study participants. In this way, everyone becomes a researcher. This approach is fundamental to many action-oriented methodologies, such as participatory action research, which attempt to connect research with positive change. As well as hoping to apply lessons from the past to contemporary and future working conditions for house-girls (see chapters 11 and 12), our collaborative project retrieves evidence of women’s participation in the colonial engagement and draws attention to that involvement in a way that detaches colonial history from a purely male focus. Despite its collaborative and historical structure, our project follows many anthropological traditions; our focus is sociocultural and our methodological tools are field notes, interviews, and reports. As organizers, and eventually as editors, our intent was to produce a book that (1) shows how unwritten histories of women’s experiences can be documented in Pacific island contexts; (2) demonstrates ways in which indigenous women can write their own histories of gendered experience in colonial contexts; and (3) suggests what collaborative roles indigenous and expatriate anthropologists can play in this process. Much discussion among Pacific anthropologists in the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO) has focused on ways of making research results accessible to the communities that have hosted ethnographic research. This concern has generated the volume Sjoerd Jaarsma edited, Handle with Care (2002), in the ASAO Monograph Series. The ASAO Board mandated that a special session titled “Publishing for Pacific Communities” be held at the 2005 annual meeting. Debates centered on how to make research results available. Returning a dissertation or scholarly book to national libraries is the minimum required by many host countries, including Vanuatu, but few rural islanders have the opportunity to visit such facilities, and only the elite have the skills or interest to read academic publications. Our book offers an example of one way to meet the moral and educational obligations that researchers incur in the course of their fieldwork. Not only do we

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INTRODUCTION

THE QUESTIONS

OL KWESTIN

What year did the house-girl start working? How old was she?

Haosgel i stat wok long wanem yia? Mo i bin kat haumas yia?

Where was she born?

Bon long wea?

Where did she work (include all locations)?

Ples we yu bin wok long hem (o ol ples)?

What is the name of her employer?

Nem blong Masta?

Where did each employer work (e.g., plantation, missionary, government)?

Masta i wok olsem wanem – plantesin, misi, gavman?

What is each employer’s marital status? Did they have children?

Masta i gat misis blong hem? Tufala i gat pikinini?

Where did the house-girl sleep?

Haosgel i slip wea?

Where did you eat?* What did you eat?

Yu kaekae wea? Mo kaekae wanem?

What kind of housework did you do?

Wanem kaen wok yu mekim long haos?

Did you and your employer go to church?

Yu mo Masta / Missis i bin go long jioj?

What language did you speak with the employer?

Yu toktok wanem langwis wetem Masta?

How much money did you earn from your work?

Yu winim haumas mani long wok?

Did you wear special clothes (including a uniform) for work?

Yu bin puttim spesel klos blong work?

If you wore special clothes, was there a special style or special cloth?

Sipos yu bin puttim spesel klos i bin gat spesel stael o spesel kaliko?

Who sewed these clothes?

Hu i bin soemap klos ia?

Were you married when you worked as a house-girl?

Yu yu bin mared taem yu wok olsem haosgel?

Did you have any children?

Yu bin gat pikinini?

Who looked after your children (while you worked)?

Hu i bin lukaotem pikinini blong yu?

Was your employer good?

Masta hemi gud?

Was your employer like a family member to you?

Masta hemi sem mak famili wetem yu?

Are you still in contact with your employer?

Yu stap kontak wetem Masta iet?

Questions for fieldworkers distributed before the workshop. * Translated from Bislama. The Bislama text switches from third-person singular to second-person singular at this point.

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return results to islanders, but we also highlight anthropological research done by Pacific islanders and foreground research collaborations between expatriates and indigenous people. The seminar tables in our workshop were arranged in a rectangle, open in the center. The table on the short side of the rectangle nearest the blackboard was equipped with a microphone for recording each ni-Vanuatu 2 fieldworker and former house-girl who sat there to present their reports. A list of questions on the blackboard, distributed months earlier, had guided the fieldworkers’ research. Questions included: Who did you work for? What kind of work did you do? Where did you sleep? Where and what did you eat? What language(s) did you speak with the employer? How much money did you earn from your work? Eleven participants were anthropological fieldworkers trained in Vanuatu. Another ten were women with experience as house-girls who had come with the fieldworker from their area. Jean Tarisesei was there as the coordinator of the Women’s Culture Project at Vanuatu’s national museum, the Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VCC). Lissant Bolton, who facilitated the workshop, is an Australian anthropologist and curator of the Pacific and Australian collections at the British Museum. Both women had trained the fieldworkers who participated in the workshop. Margaret Rodman initiated and obtained funding for the project as part of a larger study of issues of gender and race in settlers’ spaces. Also present at the workshop was Jean Mitchell, who earned her doctorate at York University based on extensive fieldwork (1996–1999) in Blacksands, a settlement on the edge of Port Vila where many house-girls live. She had returned to Vanuatu in 2001 to conduct research on the history of Vietnamese plantation labor (chapter 10). A York University MA student under Margaret’s supervision, Daniela Kraemer, participated in the workshop just days after arriving in Vanuatu for the first time. Daniela rapidly began learning about Vanuatu life and experienced linguistic immersion in Bislama. She videotaped the workshop and then went on to do her MA thesis research on contemporary house-girls’ working conditions (chapter 11). Jean and Lissant selected experienced fieldworkers for the History of HouseGirls Workshop from among those who attended a regular fieldworkers’ training workshop in November 2000. In particular, they chose fieldworkers who had some experience of being house-girls themselves, or who knew of former house-girls living in their area. Eleven women fieldworkers attended our workshop in July 2001: Numaline Mahana (Tanna) Mailie Michael (Tanna) Lena Kalmat (Pango)

Leisara Kalotiti (North Efate) Lesaruru Tamearu (North Efate) Sinlemas Kalo (North Efate)

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INTRODUCTION

Lewia Charlie (Tongoa) Lucy Moses (Ambrym) Tanni Frazer (Malakula)

Siaban Denison (Pentecost) Kate Ruth (Banks)

Where possible, these fieldworkers, in turn, recruited other women who had worked as house-girls and who were available to come to Port Vila for the special workshop. Ten were in attendance: Edna Albert (Pango) Eva Kaltapan (Pango) Netty Joseph (North Efate) Lonnette Tasale (North Efate) Lepakoa Dick (Tongoa)

Rachel (Ambrym) Estelle (Malakula) Robin Ken (Malakula) Françoise Molwai (Pentecost) Jocelyn Kibi (Banks)

The goal of our workshop was to record the recollections of indigenous women who had lived and worked as house-girls during the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides, before Vanuatu gained independence in 1980.3 Joint Anglo-French administration of the islands began with a naval commission in 1887, followed by a convention in 1906; colonialism, in other senses, began much earlier than the condominium. By the mid-1820s, indigenous people interacted frequently with sandalwood traders in the southern part of the group. Presbyterian, Anglican, and Catholic missionaries were established throughout the islands by the mid-1850s, though pockets of resistance to conversion still remain (especially on Tanna; see chapter 1). Missionaries began documenting the languages— there are 113 languages currently spoken in Vanuatu (Tryon 1999, 10)—and other expatriates began trying to understand the diverse forms of kinship and social organization they found within and among the eighty-three islands. Despite such cultural diversity, expatriates tended to see gender differences as paramount, and the status of women in Vanuatu as uniformly low. They tended to locate oppression quite singularly in the relationship between men and women; the male domain was “public,” while the women were seen as occupying domestic or private realms (Bolton 2003, 55). This distinction was crucial for missionaries. They concluded that women led hard lives in Vanuatu because they did heavy physical labor in gardens and forests outside the home. Bolton argues that “for all the rhetoric criticizing the status of women in indigenous practice, it was expatriates who established a formal inequality between all women and all men, on the basis of a public /private distinction they introduced into colonial structures” (56). The goal was to create a female, domestic sphere centered on the house (Jolly 1991; Rodman 1985).

INTRODUCTION

7

Ethnographic research has explored gender relations in particular locations in Vanuatu, notably Ambae (Bolton 2003), Pentecost (Jolly 1994; Walter 1996), Ambrym (Patterson 1976), and Tongoa (Kelly 1999). These studies paint a more complex picture of gender relations, in which the public/domestic distinction crumbles. Marilyn Strathern’s innovative work on personhood in Melanesia (1972) showed that Western notions of society and the individual are inappropriate; in places such as Vanuatu, personhood is a product of social relationships. Society, in this view, shifts from a set of controls on the individual to the sum of networks of relationships. As Bolton puts it (2003, 55), “in each relationship, a person has different responsibilities and obligations and different access to authority or power.” Ni-Vanuatu women and men share aspects of childcare, gardening, giftgiving, animal husbandry, and decision making in sometimes symmetrical and sometimes asymmetrical relationships. A gendered division of labor is clearest in the work that ni-Vanuatu do for expatriates. Ni-Vanuatu woman were the focus of our workshop because they, not men, have constituted virtually all of the paid domestic workforce since World War II. This was not always the case, as Jean Mitchell illustrates in chapter 10. An agreement among the French colonies of New Caledonia and Indochina led to the expansion of French plantations in the New Hebrides thanks to the importation of some six thousand Vietnamese indentured laborers in the 1920s. Although most worked in plantations, some were house servants. When indentures ended in 1945, the Vietnamese started small businesses (for example, taxis and market gardening) that contributed to the urbanization of Port Vila and Luganville. Few continued to work as plantation laborers or house servants. Nearly two thousand were repatriated in 1963, but descendants of the approximately three hundred remaining Vietnamese are politically and economically important in postcolonial Vanuatu. From 1863 onward, ni-Vanuatu men and to a lesser extent women participated in what became known as the labor trade. Young people went abroad to labor from most of the islands in the New Hebrides: “In the year 1882, for example, there were about 14,000 New Hebrideans working abroad out of a population of 100,000 or so. . . . About 7,000 of these were in Queensland, about 3,000 in Fiji, 2,800 in New Caledonia, 1,000 or so in Samoa and Hawai‘i, plus an unknown number working as sailors or boat crews on European ships” (Shineberg 1999, 5). Women made up about 10 percent of the recruits to New Caledonia and 6 or 8 percent of the recruits to Queensland and Fiji. Most worked as domestic servants in Noumea. In rural areas, they also worked as field laborers, and some worked in the New Caledonian mines. The degree of sexual exploitation by male recruits and employers is impossible to document, but from 1875 at least, Melanesian women

8

INTRODUCTION

were recruited to New Caledonia explicitly to serve as sexual partners for male recruits and quite probably for the overwhelmingly male expatriate population (109). Within the Condominium of the New Hebrides, ni-Vanuatu men and women provided the only source of labor on the plantations of Anglophone settlers who, unlike their French counterparts, were legally restricted from importing foreign laborers. In the early days of colonial influence in Vanuatu, indigenous women rarely were allowed by their families to work for expatriates. Further, ni-Vanuatu men were more experienced in dealing with whites and some learned such skills as cooking through time spent on plantations in the islands and in Australia, or through working on ships. Until World War II, house-boys were more common than house-girls, but since then paid domestic employment has been women’s work. Ni-Vanuatu house-boys were a rarity after 1942 when American troops came to Vanuatu and indigenous men were recruited to help with the war effort. Employers of house-girls discussed in our workshop included English or French government officials, missionaries, and settlers (planters, traders, and small businessmen). Most of the employers were considered to be white (mainly Englishor French-speaking), but the women identified some employers in Bislama as Sinwa, which literally means “Chinese” (from the French “chinois” ) but includes Vietnamese and other Southeast Asians. The cost of labor was low enough that virtually every expatriate had the option of hiring a house-girl in the colonial period. Some chose not to, particularly as independence approached, because they felt uncomfortable having a servant, among other reasons. Generally, however, even settlers who were struggling to feed their families during the global depression of the 1930s had house-girls, though they might be paid a pittance. For many expatriate employers, having a domestic worker was unthinkable in their home countries but perfectly ordinary in the islands.4 Missionaries, lower-ranking colonial officers, and settlers were not wealthy nor did they come from the kind of class backgrounds in which servants were common at home. But in the colonial New Hebrides, house-girls were readily available and affordable, though some had little or no training and, as workshop participants described, needed a lot of on-the-job learning. In any case, training girls and women in Western housekeeping practices was part of the colonial civilizing agenda, which we will discuss later. Domestic workers were essential to maintaining even a fairly simple expatriate lifestyle. The climate, the kind of housing employers lived in, and the lifestyle to which they aspired required constant defense—waged with brooms and buckets—against ants, rats, cockroaches, mosquitoes, spider webs, and mud. The exotic needs of employers who wanted their babies in clean diapers, who wore uniforms or vestments that required elaborate ironing, and who liked a hot supper cooked

INTRODUCTION

9

on a stove and served to the family on dishes at a table all created plenty of work for house-girls. A few house-girls worked for ni-Vanuatu women who lived with white men, and one in our workshop worked for a white woman married to a ni-Vanuatu man, but all had Western lifestyles. Today, many house-girls work for ni-Vanuatu couples (see chapter 11), but before independence this was rare. The workshop recorded one such experience from the early days of the independence movement in 1970 (see chapter 3). In ni-Vanuatu families today and in the past, a young girl is often in charge of laundry and child care—the kind of work a paid house-girl would do—as part of her family obligations rather than as a wage-earning job. As more ni-Vanuatu husbands and wives in urban areas work outside the home and more of their relatives come to town from rural areas in search of scarce jobs, paying a family member to be a full-time house-girl is becoming more common. While being paid compensates a house-girl for her work, it also changes familial relationships by commodifying them; the power dynamics between relatives change, for better and worse, when they become employers and employees. House-girls’ tasks routinely include sweeping, cleaning, doing laundry, taking care of children, and cooking. The first few days of our workshop focused on the responsibilities of house-girls and on new technologies, such as ironing, washing floors, and cooking strange cuisines. By midweek, the women were comfortable enough to discuss the sexual behavior of white men with ni-Vanuatu women, some of whom were house-girls. Many house-girls working for single or married men rejected their employers’ sexual advances; others took on additional roles as lover, wife, concubine, and /or mother of their employer’s children. As a housegirl’s status changed, she might employ a house-girl of her own. Lucy Moses, a fieldworker from Ambrym, tells a dramatic story in chapter 5 about the confrontation between a ni-Vanuatu woman and a white woman both married to the same man. Stories such as hers not only make intriguing reading in this book, but they shed light on how employers and house-girls mutually construct differences of culture, race, and gender as well.

Theoretical contribution One theoretical contribution of this History of House-Girls project is to find new entry points into understanding colonialism. Narratives of domestic workers reveal colonial processes through the particulars of lived experience. By paying attention to the gendered and racialized content of house-girls’ stories about past experiences and places, we can see the interplay between colonial and indigenous constructions of gender, space, work, and race. Anne Stoler’s work has been foundational

10

INTRODUCTION

in this area. She points out that “who could be intimate with whom—and in what way—[was] a primary concern in colonial policy” (2002, 2). She regards colonial domesticity as a highly contested site. Her work focuses on colonial policy and archival material, with some interviews of ex-colonial house servants (Stoler 2002; Stoler and Strassler 2000). The workshop that resulted in this book goes further, publishing the findings of indigenous fieldworkers and the stories told by former house-girls themselves in an exploration of meanings of domestic space. Anne McClintock has argued that “imperialism cannot be understood without a theory of domestic space” (1995, 17). Contestations over domesticity and domestic work were brought to the forefront of workshop conversations that included twenty-one indigenous and four expatriate women with diverse backgrounds and experiences. Discussions about the sexual practices of white male employers explored colonial practices that have been the subject of academic as well as popular books.5 How and why could white men be intimate with their house-girls and other ni-Vanuatu women while their wives turned a blind eye or were simply oblivious? The women who contributed to our workshop explored the reactions of ni-Vanuatu, both men and women, to such sexuality and discussed links between white men’s inappropriate sexual behavior and kastom, or traditional knowledge and practice. In our History of House-Girls Workshop, we focused on the particulars of human experience as social constructions, as well as on the diversity and common themes that such an approach generates.6 In this book, we have let all the women’s stories stand on their own, although they have been edited for readability. With articulate reflexivity, ni-Vanuatu women recounted their experiences, thoughts, beliefs, and attitudes, either directly or through the reportage of an anthropological fieldworker. Their experiences were highly diverse. Workshop participants varied in age from their mid-thirties to very old. They came from diverse locations in Vanuatu and worked for many kinds of employers. Their level of education, religious affiliation, and political opinions were also varied. They were encouraged to verbalize their differences in attitudes, opinions, and experiences; this book reflects that range. Our workshop addressed what James Clifford (1997) would call “traveling culture”; it produced traveling stories. These are stories in which travel is an important theme. Stories about domestic work would not necessarily implicate travel if the project were done in another cultural setting, but the scattered population, numerous islands in Vanuatu, and isolation of settlers’ spaces from local settlements often meant that house-girls had to travel to work. Some had to paddle daily from off-shore islands; others left home for months or years at a time to work in Port Vila. A few accompanied employers on holidays to Britain, France,

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Australia, or New Caledonia. These are also traveling stories in the sense that the stories themselves travel. For example, the fieldworker’s report from Pentecost Island (chapter 8) describes the experiences of a house-girl who had worked for the Whitford family in the Banks Islands in the 1930s. The house-girl was implicated in settlers’ recollections in Sydney, Australia, about the death of a child; some interesting overlaps, differences, and gaps in this story are explored elsewhere (Rodman 2004). These accounts and many others in the book are about connections between people’s lives, stories that constitute and cross-cultural boundaries of gender and race. In traveling, the stories connected multiple voices, bodies, identities, and spaces. Often, several women at the workshop could add to a story from their own experience of an employer or a place. Stories traveled around the room as women added new information, asked questions, and raised concerns.

Literature on paid domestic work Until the late 1980s, paid household work was “very much under-researched” (Moore 1988, 86). Since then, extensive academic attention has turned toward housework and the politics of paid domestic labor. Historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and journalists have all written about paid domestic work, as have paid domestic workers themselves. The focus has been on migration and globalization; Filipina maids have received particular attention in this context. The South Pacific, which is neither a major supplier nor receiver of such workers, has received little attention, although the employment of house-girls there has made possible an otherwise unattainable standard of living for expatriates and middle-class islanders. While some academics have suggested that paid domestic work is a vanishing occupation or one that is becoming obsolete, many researchers’ in-depth interviews with paid domestic workers suggest that this is not so.7 In fact, the number of people working in the paid domestic service industry appears to be growing (Hansen 1989, 5), and Third World women are migrating in ever-increasing numbers to work as maids and nannies in affluent countries (Ehrenreich and Hochschild 2002, 3). While global capitalism has changed the face of paid domestic work, in some ways this work exists today much as it did centuries ago. As the accounts in this book suggest, the attitudes and assumptions embedded in this type of work, the work itself, and the relationships between worker and employer remain largely unchanged in many countries around the world (Romero 1992, 25). Power is key to these relationships. Many studies of domestic workers have considered the importance of gender, race, and class not only in oppressing workers but also in mak-

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INTRODUCTION

ing them feel that they must accept work that is often difficult and degrading.8 The women’s accounts in our book contribute to understanding this response to oppression, but they also explore alternative responses: refusal to categorize domestic work as degrading, insistence on respect, and resistance in varying forms to unsatisfactory work and work relationships. We seek here to situate house-girls, like the Filipina maids in Hong Kong whom Nicole Constable studied, “within the field of power, not as equal players but as participants” showing how they and their employers “wield certain forms of power even as they are dominated by others” (1997, 11). Although notions about domesticity and housework have traditionally varied from society to society, colonialism and European expansionism spread Western patriarchal ideas about domesticity and domestic work. Comaroff and Comaroff argue that “colonialism and especially colonial evangelism played a vital part in the formation of modern domesticity . . . overseas” (1992, 39–40). They suggest that strong links existed between British colonial agendas of salvation and domesticity at home and abroad, such that ideas about domesticity were tried out in the colonies, then brought home to be applied to the local poor.9 The social construction of sanitation, and the importance of cleanliness as a step toward godliness, has received considerable attention in Melanesia (Jolly 1991; Thomas 1994). The implementation of these civilizing agendas created house-girls, as ni-Vanuatu women (and initially, men) were trained in Western regimens of laundry, ironing, and housecleaning. Settlers employed mostly male islanders as plantation laborers, but trained women and girls as domestics. Missionaries played leading roles, educating female islanders in domestic routines that not only prescribed tasks but also dictated how they should be performed, creating what Foucault calls “docile bodies” in the process.10 While domestic skills such as washing and cooking were crucial measures of “civilization,” Westerners have tended to regard paid domestic work as a uniformly low-status occupation. Cleaning up after others, which is the basis of paid domestic service, is stigmatized as degrading and demeaning. Romero generalizes (1992, 17): “Most household chores are experienced as drudgery. There is little enthusiasm or competition to wash and iron clothes, scrub bathrooms, or vacuum and dust the living room.” Rollins (1985, 24) takes this point even further by stating that housework is manual labor; manual labor is universally denigrated and thus domestic service has, by extension, also become denigrated. Ni-Vanuatu women hold a different view, one that values domestic work itself while taking issue with many of the conditions under which house-girls labor. In this sense, they resist their employers’ definitions of the work that house-girls do as meaningless drudgery. These are not challenges to a global system that sub-

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jugates them, but little, “immediate struggles” in which subjects (house-girls in this case) resist power in their daily lives, changing the operation of power in small ways, from within its operation (Foucault 1978). This is what Judith Butler (1997) would call a turn that subjects take against the conditions that create them. Rhacel Salazar Parreñas (2001, 30) builds on these concepts to advocate for a “subject level of analysis” that focuses on the effects of larger social processes on subjects, in her case Filipina maids, who experience and yet resist subordinate conditions of migration. The ni-Vanuatu women’s contributions in this book contribute ethnographically to such an approach. Women in the workshop and in Daniela Kraemer’s subsequent MA research in Vanuatu viewed domestic work as important because it keeps people and their houses clean and in order, key values of docility and yet also of resistance that they internalize as both customary and modern. As Madelaine, a house-girl working in Port Vila in 2001, explained to Daniela, “Paid domestic work is important work because, what if I don’t clean the house? The house will be dirty and a mess, and it’s no good for people to live in a dirty, messy house.” While some ni-Vanuatu women may well feel that housework is drudgery, the overwhelming consensus seems to be that the work is meaningful and important. Many of the house-girls reported that they liked their jobs, enjoyed looking after children, and that cleaning was easy for them. Thus, women in Vanuatu challenge the idea that domestic work is demeaning. A theme that emerges in this book is that housework itself is not what house-girls find problematic; rather, their working conditions are what cause them dissatisfaction and stress. Many of the contributors also attributed the importance of paid domestic work to the fact that they rely on the wages earned from it for their own survival and the survival of their families. Since most ni-Vanuatu women have limited education and have few jobs available to them, many can only find work as housegirls. It may be that because being a house-girl is one of the few occupations open to many ni-Vanuatu women, they generally regard it as important work. The issues at play within the paid domestic service industry are part of a wide social story, one that speaks to race, class, and gender constructions and inequalities. Glenn (1992) and Romero (1997) both advocate the exploration of paid domestic service in terms of racial politics; avoiding racial dynamics, they claim, significantly limits our understanding of paid domestic service. As Glenn observes, “The racial division of reproductive labor has been a missing piece of the picture. . . . This piece . . . is key to the distinct exploitation of women of color and is a source of both hierarchy and interdependence among white women and women of color” (3). Our project on house-girls engages with race and racial politics. Following Romero and Glenn, the History of House-Girls Workshop produced a

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INTRODUCTION

discourse within which issues of race, gender, and by implication class are seen as intertwined and equal players in the power dynamics of paid domestic service.

Collaborative research Many convergent factors led to our involvement in collaborative fieldwork in 2001. Our personal histories are, of course, also political. Our research practices are shaped by and have helped to shape Vanuatu’s changing research climate, which now prioritizes collaboration. This section concludes by noting how changes in Canadian funding and in anthropological theory also support collaborative research. Jean Tarisesei comes from Ambae Island, where in 1970 she and Margaret Rodman first met. In 1978, Margaret returned to Ambae to do doctoral research on customary land tenure, and in 1982, two years after Vanuatu achieved its independence, she did a project on consumption practices there. In the 1970s and early 1980s, Vanuatu attracted many researchers, including anthropologists, as kastom (indigenous knowledge and practice connected to the past and to place) was emerging from colonial oppression to become a postcolonial theme that encouraged national unity. Then in 1985, the Vanuatu government imposed a moratorium on outsiders conducting anthropological field research within the country. One reason for the moratorium was that “senior members of the new Vanuatu government had been (justly or not) annoyed by the behavior of certain researchers” (Bolton 1999a, 4). In more positive terms, the training of indigenous fieldworkers became a priority in the newly independent country, and a few expatriate researchers (including Bolton) were entrusted with this training process during the moratorium. The moratorium created a space in which the indigenous fieldworker program could grow and thrive. It also created a climate that eventually fostered collaboration between ni-Vanuatu and expatriate researchers. Lissant Bolton (1999a) has recorded the history of the fieldworker programs for men and women. All participants are volunteers; they receive no salary, but their expenses are paid when they attend annual fieldworker workshops in Port Vila. Initially, all of the fieldworkers were male.11 However, “under pressure from a number of influential ni-Vanuatu women . . . and with the approval of the men fieldworkers, moves were made in 1989 to set up a Women Fieldworker Network” (4). Bolton’s doctoral research on Ambae women’s redefinition of pandanus textiles as part of women’s identity was one of the only expatriate projects allowed under the moratorium.12 It was permitted as part of her work with Jean Tarisesei to start the Women’s Culture Project in 1989 and then the Women Fieldworker

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Network in 1991–1992. These projects focused on redefining and prioritizing indigenous knowledge and practice, or kastom. In 1994, Lissant and Jean held the first women fieldworker workshop with ten women from around the country. Since then, women fieldworker workshops have become an annual event in Port Vila. As one workshop ends, the topic is set for the next workshop so that the women have twelve months in which to do their research. Workshop topics have included kinship terminologies, respect, basketry, marriage rituals, seasonal calendars, and gardening. Beyond recording kastom, the workshops serve to train the fieldworkers in research skills and to discuss with them what aspects of their culture they want to keep alive. The workshops also develop the women’s oral presentation skills, encouraging them to be confident in public speaking and thus, implicitly training them to be leaders in their own communities. The moratorium was lifted in 1995 as a consequence of political and personnel changes at the national level and within the VCC. The new director, Ralph Regenvanu, could see that the mandate of the Cultural Centre — to preserve, protect, and develop kastom —was becoming more urgent as the last people who could remember pre-Christian times passed away. The inclusion of foreigners would increase the number of researchers available to achieve this mandate. The fieldworker training programs had shown that expatriates could “conduct cultural research in a manner that involved, respected and acknowledged their informants and was of benefit to the [local] people and communities.” The end of the moratorium was marked by the introduction of a national cultural research policy whose objective was that of “ensuring collaboration between foreign researchers and niVanuatu to their mutual benefit” (Regenvanu 1999, 98). It was in this climate of a renewed opening for research within the parameters of the cultural research policy that Margaret Rodman met Lissant Bolton in Port Vila in July 1995. Lissant was there for a Pacific region museum curators’ workshop. Margaret was there to begin a project on the history of British colonial space,13 which included working with a ni-Vanuatu counterpart on the Vanuatu Cultural and Historical Sites Survey and contributing to a historic sites register in the course of her research on colonial buildings. Although collaborative work is required by the cultural research policy, it has taken many forms and remains highly negotiable. Margaret found it a productive, enjoyable way to work in 1995 and wanted to work collaboratively on a larger scale for her new project in 2001. There were many reasons a collaborative workshop seemed like a good idea. Collaboration between expatriate and indigenous fieldworkers shifts the power dynamics of the research relationship toward greater

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INTRODUCTION

equality, though it does not do away with them. While “native” anthropologists have fluid positions in their society and do not have all the answers (Narayan 1993), ni-Vanuatu interviewers are more likely than expatriates to get candid information about indigenous women’s relations with expatriate employers. Logistically, more researchers could talk to more women. The women fieldworkers have access to widely scattered rural areas throughout the group so they could reach a large number of women who once worked as house-girls and interview them in their native languages. Although Bislama is very widely used, many older rural women feel more comfortable speaking their local language. Women fieldworkers working in local languages with women they share a linguistic and cultural background with can present less mediated—or at least differently mediated—indigenous views of colonialism. Our approach to this research and the key role in it that the house-girls workshop played reflected not only a convergence of our research interests but also the changing research climate in Vanuatu. There were also changes in the funding climate in Canada. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) began to encourage projects incorporating multiple researchers. SSHRC funding covered the cost of the fieldworkers and former house-girls’ transportation, accommodations, and per diem. These institutional changes fit well with changes in anthropological theory and method. The extent to which “facts” are accepted as socially constructed, the debunking of the myth of the lone—often male—anthropologist, and an increasing interest in innovative, participatory methods all encourage a shift toward reflexivity and collaboration.

Similarities and differences The house-girls workshop was a special event held in addition to the annual fieldworker training and was structured like the other sessions: (1) the topic was announced to the participants at the end of the previous year’s workshop; (2) research questions were distributed; and (3) fieldworkers were asked to interview women in their home areas and report their findings at the workshop. Like all the workshops, the entire proceedings were tape-recorded and copies of the cassette tapes were deposited in the Sound Archive of the VCC. The house-girls workshop was also different from the other sessions. First, because funding was limited, only ten women fieldworkers were selected to participate. We sought a broad geographical coverage of the country, so Jean Tarisesei and Lissant Bolton picked women from as far north as the Banks Islands and as far south as Tanna. Second, we encouraged each fieldworker to bring at least one for-

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mer house-girl with her to the workshop. Third, annual workshops are held at the VCC but, as suggested above, the former agricultural college was less intimidating to some former house-girls. The dorms at the college made it possible for us to have a co-residential experience that encouraged informal conversations. And fourth, the entire workshop was video- as well as audiotaped. The video footage has been extremely useful—far more so than the audio recordings—in preparing this book. Being able to see the speakers’ gestures and to visually identify who is asking a question, for example, greatly enhanced our transcriptions of the workshop proceedings. Our workshop was the first to focus on colonial history rather than kastom; in fact, our workshop allowed participants to problematize the relations between the two. Annual workshops are oriented toward recording traditional knowledge and training new fieldworkers—our workshop did neither. In addressing research questions related to Margaret Rodman’s larger project on colonial history, the women found themselves enjoying their participation in research that went beyond the usual limits of their inquiry. Many anthropologists might identify with the way Numaline Mahana, a fieldworker from Tanna, expressed the pleasures and demands of field research in her comment at the beginning of chapter 1: “What interests me so much about fieldworker research is that the more research you do, the more you find that the work is without end. It goes on and on.” Research ethics are another example of how the house-girls workshop differed from the other sessions. Though not directly addressed in the training, ethics received a lot of attention in planning and conducting our workshop. In part, this reflects the research climate in Canadian academia; how could SSHRC be sure that the fieldworkers, who would be working independently in their home islands, were actually obtaining informed consent for the material they gave us? When the ten fieldworkers were selected and given the list of research questions, they were briefed on the importance of obtaining such consent from their interviewees. (Written consent was not an option; in rural Vanuatu, signing any piece of paper is viewed with suspicion.) As workshop organizers, we addressed issues of research ethics repeatedly, both on and off the video- and audiotapes. We explained that if there was anything said during the workshop that someone later wished to have excluded or somehow modified, she had only to let us know. Finally, our workshop differed from annual fieldworker workshops in its commitment to publish the edited proceedings as a book. This was not part of the initial funding application to SSHRC, but it emerged as a priority by the time the workshop closed. The participants were enthusiastic about having their reports appear in print. We valued the opportunity to give voice to women who had con-

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INTRODUCTION

ducted anthropological fieldwork and /or volunteered to share their work experience as house-girls. Lamont Lindstrom and James Gwero had produced a number of radio programs and published in Bislama their collaborative work with multiple ni-Vanuatu contributors (1998).14 But no other workshops had been published, although some had been publicized on radio and in video. Lissant Bolton has written about the much greater importance of voice and performance — audiotape, radio, and video — relative to print technologies in Vanuatu (1999b). The house-girls workshop received some publicity on the radio; however, we agreed that print— the traditional medium for dissemination of anthropological research in the Western world —was an important vehicle to share the results of the niVanuatu women fieldworkers’ work. Print is also crucial if ni-Vanuatu are to have input into the educational system. We hope that this book will be suitable for classroom use, especially in secondary and postsecondary institutions in the Pacific islands. We decided to publish primarily in English rather than Bislama partly to reach this audience; we included Bislama boxes of text for ni-Vanuatu readers and others interested in the language. We also chose English because Bislama is harder for educated ni-Vanuatu as well as expatriates to read. It is an oral language. Moreover, English is one of the two primary languages of instruction.15

Daily organization of the workshop In terms of the day-to-day organization, our workshop followed conventions that reflected colonial ways of organizing time and space, which were familiar to the women fieldworkers. Opening and closing ceremonies complete with ecumenical hymn singing, dignitaries giving speeches, and copious refreshments for all framed the five days, as they do at the annual workshops. Fieldworkers took turns leading prayers at the beginning and end of each daily session. Morning and afternoon tea breaks punctuated each day’s work. Presenters gave their reports seated at the head table. Then Lissant Bolton opened the floor for questions. The fieldworkers were trained to ask questions, and it never failed that six or seven of them would do so after any presentation. This does not mean that everyone listened attentively to the reports; on some hot, humid afternoons the videotape recorded a few women dozing. But the question period seemed to engage everyone. Questions ranged from the factual (How much was your pay?) to the technical (How did you wash clothes?) to more emotional and open-ended topics (How did you feel when your employer yelled at you?). After the initial shyness of the first few days passed, the questions fueled passionate discussions. These included, in various combinations, such topics as:

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money, working conditions, white men, Vietnamese people, ni-Vanuatu men, white women (and differences between French and English women), children (ni-Vanuatu and the children of employers), respect, humiliation, the church, sex, violence, the causes of World War II, and whether being a house-girl was better or worse work in the colonial period than it is now. An exchange in chapter 4 highlights how collaboration generated knowledge in the workshop. This traveling story connects a white settler’s sexual offenses and his failure to respect kastom with regard to killing pigs. White men’s desires for ni-Vanuatu women and for holding customary ceremonies obviously are linked in terms of “performance” and power. But the workshop participants agreed not only that such men are incompetent when it comes to correctly performing a ceremony, but also that their sexual behavior shows how they lack the moral character to be respectful of local customs, including ceremonial ones. Thus the assessment of this man shifted in the workshop from being accepted—“living like a Tongoan man”—to being hated by ni-Vanuatu. His behavior was considered to be so appalling that a fieldworker from Malakula wondered whether he is “the child of a man” (i.e., he never learned to be fully human). He was perhaps a “child of the road,” placeless, unable to fit into any culture, morally without roots. At the very least, it was as if he came from some uncivilized country, the fieldworker suggested, exhibiting behavior against which colonialism was powerless, combining natural and more lethal weapons (coconuts, knives, and guns). This particular discussion ended with the fieldworker from Ambrym bringing it full circle: when this white man travels to her island, he lives with ni-Vanuatu families just as he had on Tongoa in the beginning of the story, but he leaves unwanted babies and failed kastom ceremonies in his wake. As Stoler (2002) suggests, the women’s stories crossed, recrossed, and problematized the boundaries concerning who could be intimate with whom and in what ways. The two wives in Lucy’s story (chapter 5) remain in complementary distribution in the settler’s space, at least until the eventual confrontation; but the ni-Vanuatu wife always knew about the French one, as was often said to be the case.16 Similarly, the ni-Vanuatu house-girls knew far more about their employers’ lives than the employers knew about their servants. Many employers never entered the house-girls’ quarters and had no idea what life was like in a village. In contrast, as the collaborative workshop revealed, house-girls were familiar with their employers’ dirty laundry in many ways. The house-girls generally lacked the power to define the boundaries of that intimacy but they could to varying degrees manipulate its terms, for example, by withdrawing their labor. The collaborative workshop gave all of us an opportunity to explore such intimate yet power-laden colonial relationships in their particulars. It provided an opportunity for indig-

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INTRODUCTION

enous and expatriate women to consider gendered, racialized issues in colonial history collectively, an opportunity that, while unique, can be extended through this methodology to other postcolonial contexts.

Themes Some of the themes that run throughout this book include:

Work Fieldworkers and former house-girls talked about “work” as a colonial concept, in effect a new way of ordering space and time. The idea of working hours, starting at 7:30 a.m., breaking at midday then resuming until late afternoon was strongly associated with the world of expatriates’ churches, schools, and workplaces, and was a major adjustment for women accustomed to more flexible rhythms of village life. Washing clothes was a dominant topic in the workshop reports. Boiling, bluing, starching, and ironing were tasks described in detail. The clothes themselves were often different from what the house-girls wore at home; the fabrics, styles, and ways of washing and ironing them were of interest to the workshop participants. Food and cooking also received a lot of attention. In particular, they stood out as markers of cultural difference. The fact that one former house-girl had a collection of saucepans in her bamboo house was taken as a sign that she had worked for white families. We noted the short periods for which women worked as house-girls. For many, working as a house-girl was a transitional occupation between school or childhood and marriage. Working for a few months or less was not uncommon. As was the case on plantations in Vanuatu (although less so when transported to Queensland), withdrawal of labor was always an option that ni-Vanuatu exercised. Shineberg (1967) has observed that even as long ago as the nineteenth-century sandalwood trade, ni-Vanuatu refused to work under conditions that were not to their liking. Some women, as fieldworker Tanni Frazer put it, refused to consider working as house-girls because they would not be any man’s slave. Many others left employment when the misis shouted at them, or the pay was too low, or the equipment they had to use was too baffling, or because they wanted to do something else. In the pre-independence world where subsistence agriculture remained an ever present option—something less available to current urban ni-Vanuatu— working for wages was not a necessity, and house-girls could generally go back to their village and garden.

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Money Every workshop report mentioned money. If the presenter didn’t say how much a house-girl was paid, it would be one of the first questions asked. Much discussion ensued about the relative purchasing power of money. While two pounds in the 1950s did not sound like much, and the currency has changed twice since then— from Australian pounds to dollars and again from dollars or French Pacific francs to vatu at independence—the women agreed that two pounds once bought a lot of goods. Occasionally, a woman said the money she was paid was irrelevant. For others, the lack of money in their household prevented them from continuing their education and led them to seek employment as house-girls. The “bad old days” before independence when wages were low and colonial employers could be arrogant and even racist were sometimes seen as the “good old days” because money went so much further and employers provided payment in kind (e.g., housing, food, and transport).

Communication Some employers were fluent in Bislama and a few whites, like Olive Breusch and Oscar Newman who were born on Tongoa, were native speakers of a local language; others, notably missionaries on Malakula according to fieldworker Tanni Frazer, waited until they had learned the local language to hire house-girls. But many employers knew little Bislama when they first hired house-girls and, especially in recollections from before World War II, the house-girls themselves sometimes had limited knowledge of the language. Workshop reports included some very funny stories about miscommunication, joking behavior that played with language, and some skillful imitations of English, French, and Chinese employers’ speech and body language. Vanuatu’s linguistic diversity as well as its geography (many islands have rugged volcanic terrain) has made communication throughout the group problematic. While this posed, and still poses, difficulties for administrators and the economy, communication gaps could work to the advantage of women who wanted to escape from an intolerable, local situation. Chapter 8, for example, notes that a woman taken away from Ambae in a settler’s ship in the early 1900s would have been difficult for her husband to trace. Moreover, white men could seem intimidating to islanders and local men might be unwilling to ask about a missing woman, even if they knew Bislama. The woman in question was unhappily married to a chief with ten wives and seemed to prefer life on the Whitford’s islet of Pakea in the Banks Islands. As the fieldworker reported, women were glad to know that when they ran away they were unlikely to be found.

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Perceptions of women Received wisdom in Vanuatu suggests that men were the ones who traveled and women did not move much outside their own areas. Movement to a husband’s village at marriage might be the only move a woman made. Yet the workshop showed how those who worked as house-girls moved a lot, even in the colonial period. Some paddled from one island to another to go to work, as Robin Ken did when she was still a child (chapter 6). Others moved to Santo or Vila towns. Some left their home island to follow a relocating employer (chapter 7). Much of the house-girls’ movement was not simply from one physical location to another but into white spaces that were out of bounds for other ni-Vanuatu. Even as late as fifteen years after independence, Margaret Rodman saw a white woman chase a ni-Vanuatu gardener out of the vestibule of a Vila house shouting (in Bislama), “Out, out, you are not allowed in the house!” In their employers’ homes, house-girls had a chance to acquire their own perceptions of women, especially of the women for whom they worked. They developed notions of domesticity, of how women from other cultures (notably French, English /Australian, Chinese / Vietnamese) prepared food, cleaned house, washed clothes, sewed, and cared for infants and children. These activities provided much to talk about in the workshop, as participants explored the practices of everyday life in colonial times, some of which continue to influence the way island women live their lives today.

Relationships Perhaps not surprisingly given the topic of the workshop, relationships with expatriates were central to participants’ reports. Male employers worked, that much seemed clear, but what female employers did was often mysterious to the former house-girls. In other research, Margaret Rodman recorded many stories from white women about the hard work they did on plantations, but the stories that came out in the workshop often concerned female employers who had the time to be very critical of their house-girls and who seemed less kind than male employers. Why this is so bears reflection. Possibly male employers had less to do with housegirls and being more remote, as Robin Ken’s story in chapter 6 suggests, made them seem more soft-hearted? Male employers, too, were always possible sexual partners, even if that possibility was only theoretical, and this may have colored house-girls’ assessments of them as at once more frightening and more attractive than their wives. Even ni-Vanuatu women came off worse than men as employers. Ni-Vanuatu women who were settlers’ mistresses, as stories from Ambrym and Malakula suggest, seem to have asked more work of house-girls (e.g., vegetable gardening)

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than expatriate employers, even though some of the mistresses in question started out as house-girls themselves. In one story, a ni-Vanuatu man is reported as being angry that his wife has (forced) sex with the master, but there is little he can do about it (chapter 8). Few ni-Vanuatu men appear in these stories to defend their women or to get angry at them, though in contemporary life jealousy is a major spark for domestic violence. While some ni-Vanuatu women married or lived in long-term relationships with their employers, others found themselves on their own and pregnant. Much of the talk about sex with employers was expressed in the workshop as talk about babies, such as the many illegitimate children whom various expatriate men (including black American soldiers) were alleged to have fathered in the islands. Several reports spoke of deep affection for the children in the house-girls’ care. Leisara Kalotiti (chapter 3) recounted a former house-girl saying, “I was fourteen years old and I looked after [the Chinese employer’s] children like they were my children. I was happy to look after them. I bathed them in the afternoon. I changed them. And they too, they liked me.” Many reported that grown children kept in touch with the house-girls who had helped to raise them, sent them letters and presents, and looked them up when they visited Vanuatu. A few house-girls had visited former employers’ children overseas. Much of the discourse about relationships in the workshop was presented in terms of black and white. The “white” women expressed discomfort with this way of speaking. They saw it as a (neo)colonial, racialized discourse and took particular exception to differentiating “White Jean” Mitchell from “Black Jean” Tarisesei. The ni-Vanuatu women seemed quite accustomed to and comfortable with these racial oppositions as shorthand for relations of historical domination and subordination, though they acknowledged the “white” women’s discomfort, a topic we return to in the concluding chapter.

Organization of the book The workshop generated twenty-three hours of audio and video recordings. When the workshop was over, Evelyn, a ni-Vanuatu assistant at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, transcribed the audiotapes, word-processed, and spellchecked the transcripts in Bislama. Lissant, Margaret, and Jean edited the transcripts and translated them into English. In 2002, we were awarded a Rockefeller Foundation Team Residency that allowed us to meet at the Study Centre in Bellagio, Italy, for two weeks to coordinate our drafts and check them against the videotapes. Daniela Kraemer then completed much of the remaining work on the transcription, prepared her chapter, and coauthored this introduction and the conclusion. Much of the editing

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was a process of condensation. While the chapters retain the feel of “raw data,” they are the small, polished gems that seemed to us as editors to gleam most brightly among all the stories we heard in the workshop. We considered a number of ways of organizing the chapters in this book. Views from childhood link several authors’ accounts (e.g., Jean Tarisesei, Numaline Mahana, Lena Kalmat). Another way of organizing the chapters would be according to where house-girls worked, whether in town (e.g., Edna Albert, Jocelyn Kibi), on plantations (e.g., Lucy Moses and some of the Malakula stories), in a mining community (Lonnette Tasale), or for missionaries (e.g., other Malakula stories, Lewia Charlie, Françoise Molwai). Similarly, the stories varied according to the nationality or ethnicity of the employer, ranging from working for French or English white men in most presentations, to ni-Vanuatu employers in Leisara Kalotiti’s narrative, to mixed race couples in some of the Malakula and Ambrym stories, and to Chinese and Vietnamese employers in other contributions. In the end, we felt it was best not to break up the combinations of fieldworkers and house-girls from each area and to include Jean Tarisesei’s comments on her childhood experiences with house-girls on Ambae. Consequently, the chapters from the workshop begin with Numaline reporting on Tanna in the south of Vanuatu and move northward to Efate, Tongoa, Ambrym, Malakula, Ambae, Pentecost, and finally to the Banks Islands. Each of these chapters tells a number of traveling stories that mention a variety of locations. For example, Siaban Denison’s story from Pentecost, as she says, “connects all of our islands.” Each fieldworker, thus, is the author of a portion of a chapter, as is each former house-girl who presented at the workshop. In addition, other former housegirls tell their stories through the fieldworkers’ reports. Fieldworkers generally presented their reports in the third person; we have edited these reports into the first person to improve readability and to make these absent house-girls more present in the book. Chapter 10 presents an elderly French woman’s recollections of the Vietnamese girl who grew up in her home and worked as a house-girl. Chapter 11 introduces responses from numerous house-girls who participated in Daniela Kraemer’s follow-up study after the workshop on contemporary working conditions. These are organized by such themes as work, relationships, and morality. The final chapter draws conclusions from both the historical and contemporary materials. A few disclaimers. We have tried to verify spellings of names where possible, but as the workshop was an exercise in oral history, the spellings we transcribed may be incorrect. Each contributor to the volume is identified by the name she chose to use as we think she spelled it. All use a Christian name and most, but not

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all, also use a kastom name or the surname of their husband or father. Thus, some contributors are listed by only one name (e.g., Estelle). In editing these stories for publication, we have not been able to assess their accuracy or obtain the viewpoint of the employers. Sometimes, as in Evelyn’s story in chapter 8, we knew that her employers and other settlers had different narratives that contradicted her version of some of the events in her life (Rodman 2004). Some readers may disagree with opinions and descriptions of events that appear in this book. We do not claim that the stories published here are true, only that they are what fieldworkers and house-girls reported as truth, or as their personal opinions. We have not attempted to find a single truth; rather, we have let multiple truths surface in the telling. NOTES 1 The continued use of the term “house-girl” in Vanuatu suggests what Fanon would call the language of the colonized mind. Rollins (1985) discusses Fanon regarding domestic workers. 2 Melanesian citizens of Vanuatu are called ni-Vanuatu. 3 For historical context regarding the Anglo-French Condominium of the New Hebrides, see MacClancy (1981) and Bresnihan and Woodward (2002). 4 See Anderson (2002, 105) for an example of how Filipina maids support otherwise unattainable lifestyles for their employers in Paris. 5 Colonial desire is “a covert, insistent obsession with transgressive, interracial sex, hybridity and miscegenation—the story, in fact, of South Pacific and Bali-h’ai (Young 1995, xii). In archival documents and in the interviews that led to Houses Far from Home (2001), Rodman noted the obsession Young describes. Recent books and a British television series explore the attractions and aversions of colonial desire but have done little to critique the subject (Gill 1995). The alleged advantages of a “sleeping dictionary ” (Allen 1979, 199) for developing an officer’s knowledge of the “territory” were not confined to Africa, where French officers were advised in 1902 to take a native concubine (Hyam 1990, 157). House-Girls in Vanuatu could similarly be exploited. 6 See Abu-Lughod (1991) for the theoretical underpinnings of this approach. 7 For examples of research suggesting the disappearance of paid domestic work, see Romero (1994, 14) and Hansen (1989, 2). For counterexamples, see Anderson (2000), Giles and Arat-Koc (1994), Cock (1989), Sanjek and Colen (1990a, 1990b), Stasiulis and Yuval-Davis (1995), Glenn (1992), Hansen (2000), Rollins (1985), Romero (1997), and Rosenberg (1990). 8 For examples of this extensive literature, see Cock (1989); Rollins (1985); and Sanjek and Colen (1990a, 1990b). 9 See also Gwendolyn Wright (1991) for discussion of similar ideas in French colonialism. 10 See Foucault (1978, 1988) for discussion of the meanings of docile bodies. 11 Darrell Tryon (1999) documents the history of the men fieldworkers’ program. 12 The results of this study are published in Bolton (2003).

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INTRODUCTION

13 See Rodman (2001) for results of this research on British colonial space. 14 See also White and Lindstrom (1989) for an example of how (male) Pacific islanders’ recollections articulate with conventional histories. 15 The other official language of instruction is French. 16 Margaret Rodman did hear one remarkable story in other research in Australia: A ni-Vanuatu woman was apprehended as she raised a knife to stab her white “husband” the first night that he lay in bed with the bride he had brought from Australia.

Tanna

NUMALIN MAHANA, FIELDWORKER

M

Y NAME IS NUMALIN MAHANA, and I am a fieldworker from east Tanna. I will talk about the experiences I had with members of my family who were house-girls. This is a big topic, too big really, and I think a week-long workshop is far too short for the topic. That’s how it is with all the fieldworker workshop topics. It is like a house which has a treasure inside—you have to open the doors to see this treasure. I don’t know if the metaphor makes sense, but it is as if you have to open a door or a window, and when you do you see instructions telling you where to go. You open another door, and then you see an arrow pointing in the direction you should follow next. What interests me so much about fieldworker research is that the more research you do, the more you find that the work is without end. It goes on and on. The topic of this workshop, house-girls, seems to me to be an especially large one, because if you classify white people, then you have traders of many nationalities: there are many kinds of missionaries, there are the nuns, and the hospital matrons. These people don’t do the same work. There are doctors, district agents, teachers—many different professions. I’m talking here from the perspective of my island. There were many different kinds of people who worked on Tanna. Tanna was a center like Santo, Malakula, and Vila. That is why I think this is no small subject. We will find that we are discussing many things, and there will be things we want to discuss but don’t have time to cover. I don’t know if I have expressed this clearly, but as we go along you will see what I am talking about.

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Early childhood memories of missionaries I’ll begin with my childhood, the period when I lived with my grandmother, who worked as a house-girl for a missionary. My grandfather was dead. My grandmother had one son with her, and she had two children she’d adopted who were living with her. I forget the name of the missionary. My grandmother’s name was Naruasap. My parents didn’t go to church. My mother had married into an area where people didn’t go to church, which made things hard for her. So she sent me back to her own place, and I was able to go to Sunday School there. When I lived with my grandmother, I was able to see how she worked for the missionary. She worked, but I just played. I went to watch her do her master’s ironing. The missionary did the washing, but the washing was done in a kind of washing machine. I can’t describe the machine now—my memory isn’t clear—but I remember a big iron thing. When it was turned on, all the clothes flew around in it. All of us used to hide so we could watch it—me and all the village children. When we heard the truck coming we used to run away; we’d hide. Or if the missionary turned up, we would take off and hide. Eventually we discovered that the missionary was kind and wasn’t going to chase us, and then we began to feel free to come out of our hiding places. When a child was sick or one of us fell down, we used to go and ask for medicine because when the missionarPles ia nao, mi stap wetem grandmother ies came—I don’t know if this was true ia. Mi stap lukluk olsem wanem hem i in other places, too—they were wellstap mekem long wok blong ol misis. Long wok blong hem olsem mi, mi stap equipped. They had medicines. In those pleplei nomo ia. Go mi luk se hem i stap days there was no hospital; they treated mekem ol aeaning blong masta blong hem, mo misis wetem hem i wasem people in the village. So they worked as klos blong hem i mekem long “washing doctors, too. Anybody who was sick used machine” we mi no save diskraepem to go to them; we always used to go to naoia from memori blong mi i no klia long hem. Be mi look bigfala aean we i them. stap ron we ol klos i stap flae long hem. At the time I’m talking about, I Mifala evriwan i haed! Masin i go, i wasn’t yet going to school; the bigger stap. Mifala i lukluk, mifala wetem ol pikinini blong vilej. Afta mifala i harem children went to school. I used to follow se trak i kam afta mifala i ron i go bak, them. I used to go and watch. Sometimes mifala i go haed, or misi i kam mifala i go haed. Mifala i mekem gogo, mifala i I used to watch the trucks: two or three faenemaot se, no, misi hem i kaen, hem trucks would come, with lots of white i no ronem mifala. Nao ia bae mifala i people inside. We would go and hide and go kamaot nao. look through the window, or through the Missionary’s washing machine. Masin blong holes, to see what the white people were wasem klos blong misi. doing. Our parents told us about the

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war, how in the past men had fought and raced around. When we looked at the white men like this we were trying to find out what they would do: would they bring guns, or would they bring tinned fish or tinned meat or something else? We couldn’t communicate with them. It was hard to talk. Eventually the missionaries learned our language and talked to us, and then we went closer to them. We mixed together and played. They gave rice and tinned meat to my grandmother, and she cooked it in a special style. She would boil the rice and then turn the tinned meat into it and stir it, mixing it together. I don’t know if you’re familiar with this style of cooking or not, but that was the kind they made. When they shared the food, many of us there lined up for it. They didn’t share it out on plates; they served it on newspapers that they had finished reading. My grandmother would put a small helping on some newspaper and pass it to us. We felt pretty pleased that we’d done better than other children by getting to eat some of the missionaries’ leftovers. That’s about as much as I remember. Once I started going to school, I learned that they were missionaries and that we must respect them. So I stopped going to their house, and I didn’t eat their food anymore. I kept away. I kept away because I knew that it was important to be respectful toward them. So that’s the first experience I remember.

Learning from the rubbish pit My second experience was when I stayed with an aunt of mine who also worked for a white man. He was a businessman, an Australian. He came by himself, without a wife, and he made his station near our village. Someone in our family gave him the land and he built a house on it. He called his house Newcastle. I imagine that is the name of the place in Australia that he came from. He built a big house, a store, a cinema, and a copra shed. People used to say that the village worked for Master Cook. We would go and watch, and when we did we would see men diving for troche (a kind of shell). He had a boat, too, and he used to take men fishing, although I don’t know what they did with the fish afterwards. I know they used to catch big fish. They collected trocha: they used to dive for them and put them into copra bags. I never found out what they did with them either. As far as food goes, I never knew what food the master ate. He wasn’t the sort of person whose place was easy to go near. Sometimes we used to go and collect tins or plastic from his rubbish heap. Some of us who remember things as they were will remember crawling carefully. When the house-girl threw out the rubbish, we would go and get things for ourselves. We would get newspaper and tins and bring them back. If we heard the door slam we’d say, “Oh! The master

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will shoot us now!” and then we’d race for our lives. We really were frightened that he would shoot us. Their rubbish dump was on the path to the sea, so it was close by. I would creep to it. The master’s house was a little bit away from it. So when we saw them throwing rubbish away and walking away, we would come from the other Children making toys out of tins in the master’s garbage. Pikinini i usem tin we i stap long side and pick up the rubbish. We might doti blong masta blong mekem samting blong see a tin and keep it as a good container pleplei. for collecting water. Some of our mothers didn’t actually tell us not to do this, and I never heard my grandmother speak about it, but I felt that they disapproved. So I would hide these things initially, so that my grandmother wouldn’t see it straightaway. I’d hide things and then I’d bring them out gradually. I thought if I brought them out immediately she’d know I’d been to the rubbish heap. So I made a point of hiding them. But I wanted to look at the newspaper, so I’d take it. The tins, tins that held fruit and tins that held fish, we would bring back. They were very useful for us children. We’d break them and make small trucks, or we’d tie ropes to them and make them into shoes to walk about with. You might call it rubbish, but when we took these things and transformed them, they became great toys for us. Ol tin ia, bae mifala i go karem ol tin frut mo tin fis ol samting olsem, mifala i karem i kam. Hem i very useful long mifala. Bae mifala i brekem, mekem ol smolsmol trak. Mifala i mekem rop i kam olsem mifala i mekem se “shoes” blong wokbaot. Yumi talem se doti blong olgeta, be mifala i karem i kam, mifala i tanem gogo mifala i luk se wan gudfala pleplei blong mifala ia.

Question from a workshop participant Jean Tarisesei: I want to ask, when the house-girl threw out the rubbish and you went to pick through it, what were your thoughts? Were you looking for good things that you could take back to your house? Numalin:

I had no good intentions! I just wanted what the white man had. But with the newspapers, for example, I was interested in looking at the pictures.

The freedom of the yard When the master asked us to do some work for him, we were very pleased because it also meant that we had the freedom of his yard. He would say, “Today you must go and collect chilies for my hens.” So we would go to the bush and collect a heap of chilies and give them to him. He paid us twenty vatu. In the past it was one shilling for one bundle. Then we would go and get a heap of ripe pawpaws, fill a

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bag with them, and take them to his fowl. He had big hens and ducks, and we collected food for them and took the food there. As well, the master would say to our mothers, “Today would you weave coconut leaves?” In our island, we make houses with dry coconut leaves, not like those of you who use sago leaves. The master would say, “Today the mothers should make mats, house thatch for the roof of the generator house, or the copra shed,” and then all the mothers would sit down to do this. Whenever they did work, I was glad because then he would give them presents, a tin of fish, or some rice. There were two or three cooks who would cook this food. I don’t know what saucepans they used to cook in, but I think they probably cooked in gallon drums. I don’t really know but I think so because there were lots of women and they all got enough to eat. All us children who went to play, we used to share the food as well. They’d work on making the thatch and the master would pay them. I don’t know how much he paid them. And then often the next day, he would say that it was the day for the fathers to go and dive for trocha. So then they would all go. Nowadays if you go to that area you won’t be able to find a single trocha, but in those days they used to fill copra bags with them and then dry them in the sun. The master would call the mothers to go and clean off the seaweed that grew on the backs of the shells, clean them well, and then put them back in the copra bags. I used to watch them put the bags on the truck, but I had no idea where the truck took them. I guess the master put them on a ship. The main product that they made was copra. But on my island, there’s the volcano. When the volcano erupts, it destroys the coconuts. But the work that they did was mostly for copra. They had a big house for the copra. The ship would come and collect the copra and take it to town. Do you remember the ship that was called Trudy that went between Tanna and Vila? That’s the ship that belonged to this master. This ship went to take the copra and then it never came back. The Trudy ship was just lost; all the passengers and crew were lost on one trip to Vila. Still today, you and I hear lots of stories about it, and we’re not sure where the ship went. It went down in the seventies, I think. It disappeared with lots of people in it. And lots of copra. It’s true that the copra from our place isn’t the same as the copra from the north. They have big plantations; we have small plantations, but we make use of them. When a hurricane comes, everything goes down. The volcano, too, erupts, and wipes out everything. I can remember listening to our fathers discussing the fact that they were going to be paid that day. I don’t know how much they were paid, but on such evenings we used to hear them singing on the road as they went to buy bottles of wine with the money the master had paid them. I don’t think wine was as expensive then as it is now. I think it was cheap. When we heard them singing, dancing

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somewhere, we knew that Master Cook had paid them and that they had gone and bought drink and gotten drunk. Master Cook also had a big store, and this store was full of things. I can remember going to buy an enamel plate, a big one, and Master Cook told me what the price was. I wanted the plate, but what I don’t remember is how I asked for it. Maybe I asked in English, I can’t recall. I just remember that I came home with the plate. I do remember that he told me it cost one shilling. I imagine I made hand gestures and he counted my money for me, said it was the right amount, took the money, and gave me the plate. The foundations of that house, Newcastle, are still there. The master’s children have come back to look at it. I don’t know what they think about it. I’m not sure whether they have come to visit the place where they were born, or to start business again. The bread oven is still there, the cinema is still there, and the house foundations remain.

Playing with the district agent’s children Another experience in my life happened after I had gone to school. I was educated at Lenakel. My uncle was a policeman, a British policeman, and I stayed at their place and played with the children of the district agent. I remember one district agent whose name was Mr. Wallington. I stayed with them, and they were good and kind. When I say “kind,” there was a different atmosphere depending on nationality. Those of us who were being educated in English, we weren’t able to go near the French because we didn’t speak French. And we interpreted them as not being kind. This wasn’t right. It was just because we couldn’t communicate with or understand them, and so we were frightened of them. Whereas when it came to the English, who we could understand, we assumed that they were good. The fact of the matter was that every white person was okay; it was just that they spoke differently. Anyway, I stayed with them, and I played with the children, although I forget their names now. We would go and swim in the afternoon. When I finished school, I’d go and hang out with them. They used to share their food with me—sandwiches and fruits like apples.

Woman who worked for Mr. Picarou During my research, I also talked to an old woman in the village who I knew had worked a great deal as a house-girl. I asked her about it and she said, “I was a house-girl for many masters, but I have forgotten most of them. I don’t know how many years I worked; we didn’t go to school in those days, and we didn’t count the

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years. I just remember one master, Master Picarou, an Australian. There were lots of us working for him. As we worked, some of us would get tired and quit, and then others would take their place. We were paid one pound each month. That was a lot of money. At that time, most things cost only a shilling or a penny. The master treated us well: he gave us food and he gave us clothes. The clothes he gave weren’t like the dresses of today; his wife made them for us. She made clothes for us, and she didn’t give us clothes like the ones you all wear these days—tops and skirts. She made us dresses that we called ‘full piece.’ Some of these dresses were straight, but when the wearer swung around, the dress filled out like an umbrella.” This is what she told me. Now I have some more childhood memories to tell you.

Cinema and other social events The cinema wasn’t like the videos we watch today. It used big reels like those in the National Film and Sound Archive. The ones in the archive are small; these were big. When the master announced that he was going to show a film that night, white people from other stations, Lenakel, for example, would get in their Long saed blong sinema ia taem hem i se, “Long tunaet bambae mi soem trucks and come to us. Everyone would cinema.” Hem i no video we yumi luk watch the cinema. Ni-Vanuatu would tede be i gat ol big ril wei hem i stap long masin. Smolsmol wan blong hem also come from some distance —from up ia long Nasonel Film mo Sound Archive in the hills and all the surrounding vil- be hemia we mi luk hem i big big wan. lages. When people were on their way, we Mi luk bae ol waet man long narafala stesen long Lenakel olsem, olgeta tu ol were already sitting and waiting for the i tekem trak blong olgeta i kam blong cinema that evening. We were so excited mifala evriwan i wajem cinema. Afta ol man long vilej bae yu luk ol i stap kam that we couldn’t sit quiet because this long we, antap long hill, olbaot long ol was a new thing to us. They would arrive vilej long we. Ol i stat wokbaot finis i and we would watch however many films kam. Bae mifala i no save sidaon from rere long samting ia! Sapos ol i soem they showed. Usually they stayed watch- tunaet be bae mifala i no save sidaon ing until the first cocks crowed before from hem i niu long laef blong man long taem ia! Olsem mifala i wajem dawn. At the end of the films, they got gogo haumas film ia? Ol i sidaon from up and walked home. I think sometimes samtaem klosap faol i singaot. Ale kam they went back when it was full daylight. long en blong hem, ol man ol i kirap oli wokbaot i go bak. Mi ting se taem That’s another memory of mine from my we ol i stap go bak be dei laet gud now. Hem nao hem i wan rimemba blong mi childhood. we mi bin experience long childhood The master had a big store that blong mi. sold alcohol. Big bottles of wine were Going to the cinema on Tanna. Taem blong cheap: six shillings, eight shillings, four lukluk sinema long Tanna

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shillings. The master gave us rice, tinned fish, tinned meat. We slept in our own homes. When he held dinner parties and his friends came from Vila or Australia or somewhere—I don’t know where—then we worked late and we would sleep at the house with the master’s children. Lots of women were house-girls when they were small. Traders’ children grew up with Tannese land-owners’ children. The children played, grew up, and then the girls worked as house-girls for them. They played together, they did things in the house with the master’s children, and then they became their house-girls.

MAILIE MICHAEL, FIELDWORKER My name is Mailie Michael, and I’m a woman fieldworker from Tanna. Now what these sisters did a long time ago, that’s all finished. But we look forward to this research about our grandmothers, our grandmothers who worked before.

The Grandmothers In the old days, our grandmothers worked for traders. Here are some stories old women told me about when they were house-girls. I found three old women who had been house-girls for traders named Master Keith and Master Lindsay Corcoran. These women’s names are Navalak Harry, Nagai Daniel, and Noakei Nase.

Navalak Harry In 1940, I began to work as a house-girl for Mr. Lindsay Corcoran. When I worked for him, I ate and slept in his house. When we were together, we never argued about anything. He and his family were so kind to me. The master gave me two pounds every month and it seemed to me that those were good wages. When Navalak went on Christmas holidays in 1942, Nagai Daniel took her place.

Nagai Daniel In 1942, when I worked for Mr. Lindsay Corcoran, I slept in their house and ate with them, and there was no fighting. They were kind to me and they paid me two pounds a month. And that was a lot of money because in those days the prices in the stores were not as expensive as they are today. So the money they gave me seemed like a lot, and they gave me some free things, such as clothes, knives, a plate, and a spoon. Nowadays, it seems to me that life is very hard. It is not like life was for us in the past.

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There was one abu who worked for Mr. and Mrs. Keith in 1948. Her name is Noakei and this is what she told me.

Namagai Nase When I worked for Mr. and Mrs. Keith, I slept in my own house but I ate lunch and dinner with them every day. They looked after me well and I earned ten pounds every month. Mr. Keith and his family gave me free clothes. I finished working for them in 1950. I think that those are all the old women who worked for traders in my area. Now I will tell you about my own experience.

Mailie’s work experience When I was small, but not that small, I was in Class Four or Five (about ten or eleven years old). One boss came to Tanna, to White Sands, to Iarkei village, to the missionary station. His name was Mr. Cooper. I think you all have heard of Mr. and Mrs. Cooper. I was already getting older so I went to stay with them. They looked after me. I slept with them in their house, and I did some small work for them. I cleaned their house, washed their clothes, and ironed their clothes. They treated me like a child of theirs. I would go to school in the mornings and then do small work for them in the afternoons. So in the mornings I would wake up, go and make tea for them, set the table for them, then wash the dishes when they finished eating. I would put everything away. Then I would wash the laundry. Then I would go to school. For lunch I would come back. The misis made the lunches. I ate with them. Then I would go back to school. After school, I would go back and do some small work. The school was very close to where they lived. They had two children, McDonald and Susan. In 1962, I finished school so I just stayed at home and another house-girl took over my work. At that time I didn’t think too much about it, but now I look back and I think that sometimes they were cross with me, although they never fought with me or sent me out. But when I did something wrong, or I didn’t do something they wanted me to do, the misis or the master would be cross, and they would talk strongly to me. Sometimes when they would tell me to hurry up with my work, I would run away, back to my house. My mother and father lived close by. So if they told me that I wasn’t doing something right, I would run away and go back to my house. But I was glad to stay with them. They paid me a little money, five dollars for one month. I would take the

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money to my father and give it to him; he kept it for me and then paid my school fees with it. My school fees were three dollars for one term. It was the village school. The teachers were just older people from the village. One was Tom Niavia. Another was Nase Nohot. These were my teachers. They’re all dead now. The teachers at the Presbyterian church had taught them at the Tongoa Training Institute—TTI is what it was called—in South Santo. When the first students went back home [to Tanna and elsewhere], they did work for the church. Before, the grandmothers worked for the traders. All the master’s wives came from Australia. On Tanna, all the Australian people went to White Sands. My mother worked for a Mr. MacLeod. She worked for free, but she was glad to be working for a white man. She was glad because the white people became like family; they all became very close. Her village was glad even though she wasn’t being paid. The white family gave her free food and clothes, and she stayed with them at their house. They could speak our language, the language of Tanna. And when they had children, they taught the children the language, too. Most of the traders didn’t know Bislama, and most of the house-girls didn’t know English. So all the traders learned the language of Tanna. Another woman I spoke to told me that she worked for a trader in 1952. He was an Australian man named Mr. Tim Cross. He came with the church, then he stayed and worked as a trader at Enapuas. This woman I spoke to was his housegirl. She told me that he treated her well, and he looked after her well. He gave her free food and free clothes, and she slept with them in their house. He paid her seven pounds, ten shillings. She said that this was big money. She worked there until 1955. She left and then another woman took her place. There was a missionary who still lived there after independence. I think the last man who lived there was Mr. Ken Calvert. Many people know him or know about him. I think he was from New Zealand. His son, Andrew, could speak the language of Tanna well. I think the government used him. He knew technology; he knew that well. So he came and helped the government and the Presbyterian church. I think he helped with the small school at Onesua before he went back. The children of Mr. Calvert weren’t his real children; they were adopted. There was Andrew and then triplets, James, Bruce, and Ian. They’re big now. I think that was the last master and misis to live there. There was one that you and I heard of, Mr. Blackwell: he died in a plane crash, in a plane going to Futuna from Tanna. After that, they still wanted someone to come, and so Mr. Calvert came.

Pango, Efate

LENA KALMAT, FIELDWORKER

M

Y NAME IS LENA KALMAT, and I am a woman fieldworker from South Efate. I live in Pango Village, but I am not originally from there. I married a man from Pango and moved there, which is where I do my fieldwork. I think my research is slightly different. I want to explain that I did not begin this research right away last year. I only began to work on it this year when I announced the project to all the women one day when we were in the chief ’s nakamal. I told everyone that I wanted to talk to house-girls, women who had worked as house-girls in the past. But not one woman came forward. Not one woman wanted me to talk about her experiences as a house-girl. I waited and waited. No one came to talk to me. So I went ahead with my research anyway. But I didn’t go to a woman; I went to a man. I asked a man to tell me about the women who worked as house-girls. This old man told me about what happened in 1942 when World War II came to the New Hebrides. At that time there were no houses in Vila town—just one house then some bush, then another house and more bush. Not a single Pango woman worked in Vila as a house-girl. There weren’t any at that time. I want to tell you how in my village of Pango, there was no one who worked as a house-girl in the town of Vila, even though our women were the first housegirls for the American soldiers who came here during World War II. The Pango women washed clothes for the American soldiers, and this is part of the history of house-girls. So I have brought this old woman, Eva, to tell you this history. Edna, 37

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the other woman I brought with me from Pango, will translate for Eva. Edna will tell her own story, too.

My heart was breaking My mother worked as a house-girl. It was when I was in school at Ulei in North Efate. There was a white man looking for a house-girl, and he came to Nguna. He asked some of the women and they pushed my mother into working as one. This is not to say that she became the house-girl of a white man. No, she became the house-girl for a Chinese man.1 When my mother started working as a house-girl, I felt like my heart was breaking. My mother had never even gone to Vila and now she was going there to work, and not for a white man but for a Chinese man. I was in school when the truck carrying my mother passed on the road. The truck stopped and they told me, “Your mother is in the truck. She is going to Port Vila.” I was so unhappy. We had always stayed in our home. My mother had never gone to work in Vila before. Later, I went to town and saw how her master treated her. He looked after her well. He gave her a place to sleep and he really looked after her. When we had a school holiday, my mother would come get me and I would go visit her in Vila. She stayed all the time with the Chinese family because they gave her a room. She stayed on and looked after the children from the time they were small until they were married and had their own children. Then she looked after the children’s children. She worked for this family from 1965 until sometime in the 1980s. I forget exactly when. This master was Mr. Nick. Mi harem olsem hat blong mi i brok Some of you from around here know from mama i neva bin kam long Vila him. He was a big man who worked for blong mekem wok, be nao ia hem i Burns Philip. He was a big man with a fat kam blong wok blong—i no waet man be hem i wan sinwa. Mi stap long skul belly. He paid my mother twenty dollars be ol i karem mama blong mi i kam pas each month. long rod. Taem truck i stop ol i talem My mother spoke Bislama and they long mi se, “Mama blong yu i stap long rod bae i go long Port Vila.” Mi harem spoke French, but she could understand nogud wei, from mifala i stap long ples French. blong mifala, mama blong mi i neva bin When Mr. Nick finished here, he kam long Vila blong mekem wok. took his wife and went back to Noumea. Watching her mother going to work. Gel i lukim mama blong hem i go longwe tumas But his firstborn son stayed in Vila. My blong wok. mother returned to Nguna, but then Mr.

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Nick’s son came for her again and so she looked after his family for quite a while. They had four children. As I said, when I finished school, my mother took me to stay with her, but my father stayed on Nguna. So my mother and I would go to Nguna on Friday and come back to Vila on Sunday in time for her to work again on Monday. I was never a house-girl myself, but when I finished school I worked at some different things. Mr. Nick had a store and I looked after it for him. Later, when I was pregnant, Mr. Nick’s son’s wife was pregnant, too. We had our babies at the same time. She suggested that we exchange babies, but I said no. It was hard for me to refuse her, but I was ashamed to have her look after my child after my mother had looked after hers.

Chinese employer was kind In my opinion, the Chinese man took good care of my mother. Whatever food they ate, Mama ate it, too. Whatever he had, he would give to her. They have looked after her right up to the present day. My mother has finished working now, and Mr. Nick has gone back to Noumea, but his son is still here. He had a business in North Efate, a big store, but I don’t know whether it is still going. Later on he also started a fishing business. He helped my mother a lot. When she didn’t have something she would send word to him and he would bring food to her. He would bring lots of food to her on Nguna and then come back to town. He gave her many free things. He also built her a house on Nguna. And he is still helping us—me, too. When I am short of something, he’ll never say he doesn’t want to see me. He will always help me. I don’t know about other Chinese, I only know this one, but this one was certainly good. He was good to my mother. And he was good to the rest of us. When he would come to Nguna he would bring things for my sister, too. This Chinese man looked after my mother as if she were his own daughter. As the Nguna people know, when my father died, this Chinese man paid for his coffin. We brought Papa’s body from the hospital; all of us carried him back to Nguna. One of our research questions was “Was the master good?” Another was “Are you still in contact with him?” I have to say that the children of this Chinese man have looked after my mother better than I look after her myself. They treat her as if she were their own mother. After Lena’s report, Tanni Frazer, a fieldworker from Malakula, said: “I just want to comment that in the morning we talked only about white masters and

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white misses, but this afternoon we had three different kinds of people: white masters, the American army, and the Chinese. I want to support this view of the Chinese. There were many of them at Norsup Plantation on Malakula and they helped a lot of people, a lot of women. They weren’t house-girls, but it is true that whatever the Chinese had they shared with everyone. So it seems to me that the Chinese expressed a lot of love.”

EVA KALTAPAN My name is Eva Kaltapan, and I am from Pango Village. When I was a small child living with my parents, I saw what happened when the American army came. It was the first time I had seen planes or warships come to the New Hebrides, now Vanuatu. No one in Pango had ever seen anything like it. We were frightened, very frightened, because we had never seen men in army uniforms before. When the planes and warships came, parents gathered up the young girls and smaller children and hid them in the bush. They stayed put in the bush. They didn’t go anywhere because they were so frightened by everything they had never seen before. And the army was right there. If you passed through Pango at that time, you would have seen something like lighthouses all along the side of Pango Point. So the chief told the people in the village to keep a close eye on the children and the young people. At night, once people went into their houses, there wasn’t one person who opened their door again until morning. The doors were kept closed according to the chief ’s orders; in those days, fathers and mothers respected their chiefs. During this time, an army officer came to see the chief. He asked if the young girls in the village could do the washing for the army. At that time, the girls in the village were not allowed to go to the seashore or the reef or to the gardens; they just stayed in the house with their mothers. So when the army officer made his request, the chief spoke with the adults in the village and told them that the young girls would begin washing clothes for the army. We washed everything including bed sheets. In Pango, we have a well in the middle of the village. It has been there a long time and is still in use today. The well is what we used to wash the army’s laundry. In the morning, the dirty laundry would be collected from the army posts all through the bush. They would fill up a tractor load. They would fill it right up and then drive the tractor over the hill through the bush and into the village. The tractor would dump out the laundry. We were happy to wash the clothes. But we couldn’t collect the clothes from the place where the tractor dumped them. The chief would call out, “You all come and do the soldiers’ washing!” Then the

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men distributed a pile of laundry to each young girl so she could wash them. We Long moning ol Armi ol i stap olbaot long bus ia ol i karem ol kaliko blong were afraid because we had never seen olgeta i kam. Ol i fulumap long wan men like these soldiers before. But the trakta. Ol i fulumap klos blong olgeta i fulap gud, alle ol i draevem samting ia chief told us to wash the clothes, so we i kam antap long bus long hil. Alle, ol i washed the clothes. When we finished, kam sakem. Alle jif i singaot se “Yufala i we folded the clean laundry. In the after- kam was blong ol soldia!” Ol mama i go, oli karemaot ol kaliko be oli fraet we oli noon the big tractor would come back to fraet long olgeta. Oli fraet long olgeta collect the laundry. This was the routine from ol i no stap luk ol man olsem ia (ol soldia). Be jif i talem se bae ol i was until the army left the New Hebrides and blong olgeta so ol i was. Taem ol i was finis, ol i putum ol kaliko ol i stap gud. went back to America in 1946. When the washing was done and Long aftenun ol i draevem bigfala samting ia i kam. Afta ol i draevem bigfala taken back to the soldiers, the tractor samting ia i go long bus bakegen. So ol would return with white men’s food i gohed blong mekem olsem ia, gogo Armi ol i out long ples blong yumi ia to give to the women who had done Efate or Niu Hebrides long 1946 i go the laundry. In other words, we helped bak long America. the soldiers by washing their uniforms Doing laundry for American soldiers in Pango World War II. Woman Pango i wasem and in return they gave us food. It was during klos blong Armi long Wol Wo Tu. an exchange. The soldiers also gave us money for washing the clothes, and they gave us money to buy the soap. They gave us American dollars, which was okay because at that time all the stores in the village and in town accepted American money. After some time, the boss of the soldiers came down to see the chief. The boss said that the soldiers were tired of white men’s food. They wanted to try some island food. So the chief sent word out to each house to make laplap out of yams and taro — foods like that. We all made laplap and added island cabbage to it. When the food was ready, the men carried it to the chief ’s house. All the soldiers came down and ate with the Pango men. But all the women and young girls just stayed in their houses. We made the food but the men carried it to the chief ’s house because it was taboo for the women and young girls to go near the soldiers. The soldiers became friendly with the Pango men. They were in Pango for a while, and as time went by they began to mix more. But there was no marriage between the local women and the soldiers. In North Efate, there are a few old women who had children with the white soldiers — children who are already grown and married now. But in Pango, there was not one woman who had a child with a soldier. Many of the soldiers were black. Some of them fathered children with the women here. During this time, when the American army came, they made a road.

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They had arrived with their big ships loaded with big things, clothes, trucks, Red Cross, everything. In 1942, the young boys didn’t have trousers. For a long time they had covered themselves with a small piece of cloth. But when all the American soldiers were around, they saw us, and they gave us trousers. So from that time, from 1942, our people started wearing trousers. At that time, none of the women in Pango had been house-girls. Some of the Chinese sharing their love with ni-Vanuatu. Ol sinwa i gat ol bigfala lav long olgeta man men had been house-boys, but there were ples. no house-girls. These women washed the soldiers’ clothes right there in the village. I have never worked as a house-girl, but I washed clothes for the soldiers. When we talk about the history of house-girls, these really were the first house-girls, the young women who worked for the American army in 1942. Mi wantem talem nomo se long moning yumi bin storian long saed blong waet man, olsem ol masta mo ol misi; be tis aftenun yumi gat tri difren man: olsem long saed blong waet man wetem ol army wetem ol sinwa. Olsem mi jes wantem sapotem wanem Lena hem i talem long saed blong sinwa, from taem mi stap long Malakula fulap ol i bin stap long Norsup plantesen. Ol i bin halpem fulap pipol olsem ol woman. Ol i no haos gel, be i tru long wanem we ol i bin gat oli serem long ol pipol. So mi luk se ol sinwa tu ol i gat ol bigfala lav ia.

EDNA ALBERT My name is Edna Albert. I’m from Pango village. I have worked both as a housegirl in a private home and as a cleaner in a hotel.

The harbor master When I finished school in December 1968, a cousin of mine came to tell me that a certain white man was looking for a house-girl. In my entire life I had never worked as a house-girl. I had just been a student, and I had helped my mother in the house. But I said, “Yes, I’ll go.” So in December, the same month that I finished school, I went to work for this family. I worked for them until 1973. I worked for an Englishman and his wife. They had four children. Edna Albert and Eva Kaltapan The master’s name was Captain Robin

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Bibby. He worked as the harbor master. When I started working for them, one of his children was just a small baby. They lived in what is now Independence Park (formerly the British Paddock). When I spoke to my employers, I spoke English because I had learned English in school. Mrs. Bibby taught me to wash clothes in the washing machine and to wash the master’s uniforms. She taught me what to do with his uniform. In terms of the cooking, she got the food and taught me how to cook it. From that day until now I still remember her recipes. She did not give me a cookbook and the two of us never used one. The two of them were good to work for, except that the misis would speak harshly to me when I was late. I had to get a bus to go to work. And every time I was late she would speak to me about it. She would say, “You must be at the house by 7:30 a.m.” There was a bus belonging to a French man that left Pango at 6:30 a.m. and reached Vila at 7:00 a.m. It carried all the men who worked in the offices to town, as well as the house-girls. It went back in the afternoon. The pick-up point was at the marketplace. After work we would walk down to the marketplace. At that time, bus fare was the equivalent to fifty vatu. Earlier it was twenty vatu. I did not sleep where I worked. I slept at their house only when I babysat, when they went to a party and came back somewhere around midnight. There was a house-girls’ house, where I slept when I stayed over. Often, if they had a dinner party with a lot of washing up to do, the master would drive me back to Pango after the party. In my own house, we had a two-burner stove. But in the mistress’ house there was a big gas stove. Most of the time I prepared my own food, but when there was a lot of meat, such as chicken in the ice box, the mistress would give me some to cook and eat for myself. And when there was a party, she would just give me orders for what she wanted me to cook. Sometimes there were twenty or thirty people for dinner and I made all the food for them. She did not give me a recipe to follow. She just told me how to prepare the food and I did it. I worked from Monday morning to Saturday morning every week. They paid me (the equivalent of ) fifteen thousand vatu each month. If there was a dinner party, they paid me extra. They also paid me extra for babysitting. In the morning, the first thing I did was wash the plates. Then I would make the beds and sweep. Some of their children were at school in England and only came to Vila during their holidays. But the lastborn was just a baby. I took care of him. The last thing I did every day was polish the floor. It wasn’t a tile floor; it was wooden and I had to really polish it. I also had to wash Captain Bibby’s uniform.

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There was a room in the house-girl’s quarters with a washing machine. The uniform was made of very heavy cloth and I had to iron it. The captain wore white cotton trousers and a shirt. First I would wash them, then hang them until they dried. Then I ironed them. When I ironed, I would have to wet the clothes slightly first. So that was it. It was just the uniform and the floor that I didn’t like. My misis did not work; she just stayed at home. She did a lot of sewing. She sewed dresses and bed covers. Although I was a house-girl, I would spend my free time with her. If I had been in my own house I could have sewn these things and sold them for five hundred vatu each, but I never did. She did not sell them, but her friends, all white women, would give cloth to her that she would sew. I did not wear a uniform or special clothes for work; I just wore island dresses. She did not ask me to wear anything in particular. It was up to me. At the time I did not sew my own clothes. My sister sewed them for me. I have only recently started to sew.

Le Lagon Hotel maid After I finished working for Captain Bibby, I started work as a maid at Le Lagon Hotel. Captain Bibby and his family went on leave. When they came back, they asked me to come back to work for them but I did not want to. So a “sister” of mine from Efate took my place. It was good working at the hotel because there were white men there from many different places. Some spoke French, some spoke German. Sometimes we would want to clean the room but couldn’t because they had put a “do not disturb” sign on their door. This meant that we often had to wait to clean their rooms. So if you had five rooms, you would clean four and then you might have to wait to clean the fifth. At the hotel there were two shifts. One shift finished at two o’clock. These workers were from Erakor. Those of us from Pango came to work at five o’clock. We had to change the towels on the racks, change the bed sheets, and mop the floor thoroughly. We had to do all this before we could go home. Those who started at five o’clock would finish at ten o’clock at night. It was good. We made many friends, but we did not know French. I know English, Bislama, and our own language, but French is hard. Our supervisor was a French woman, and it was hard for us to communicate. The Japanese people were really good, along with the Australians. If they saw one of us cleaning their room, we would talk. The Japanese usually traveled in groups. Sometimes when we made up their rooms, we would find bottles of per-

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fume placed under the table or under the pillow with a note saying “For the house maid.” When they left, they would also give us money, and that was good. NOTES 1 We have translated the Bislama word “Sinwa” as “Chinese,” but the employer may well have been Vietnamese

North Efate LEISARA KALOTITI, FIELDWORKER

M

Y NAME IS LEISARA KALOTITI. I come from Mangaliliu village on Efate Island. I am a woman fieldworker for the Cultural Centre. I have collected information on two women who worked as house-girls: Toutiti Naviti and Leimala. But I also worked as a house-girl myself and so I’ll begin my report with my own story.

Independence movement leader I was born on May 17, 1956. I finished school in 1969 and I wasn’t doing anything in particular. In 1970, Peter Taurokota (from Lelepa Island off North Efate) was transferred to Santo as the assistant education officer. He was married to Nellie (from Tongoa) and they had one daughter at that time. So I went to work for them as their house-girl. That’s what they called me. I was afraid on the flight to Santo; it was the first time I had been on a plane. I knew nothing about being a housegirl. I didn’t know how to use an electric iron or anything like that. Nellie showed me how to use the settings on the iron: steam, cotton, delicate. Nellie taught at Sarakata Primary School. They lived in the British Paddock (headquarters for the British District Agency, Northern District) on the edge of town. I still remember that on March 26, Donald Kalpokas, who was teaching at Hog Harbor, went with Peter to Malo Island to hold a discussion about the government taking over the education system. They wanted to know what the Malo people thought about this and they found out! The Malo people were so angry about this news that they refused to feed Donald and Peter. After that, the two men stayed up very late talking. That’s when they decided to form a cultural association [that led to the formation of the Vanua’aku Pati]. The district agent asked them to 46

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come to his house, not his office, and he loaned them a truck. They drove to the Rarua family’s place to talk more about their plans. They concluded that all land should come back to ni-Vanuatu, and they decided to press for independence. So I worked as a house-girl for a man who was part of the beginning of the independence movement. I looked after the firstborn, Nancy [who became a nurse], and then I looked after the second daughter, Amy [who became the first ni-Vanuatu woman to train as an airplane pilot]. My salary was twelve Australian dollars every two weeks. Peter and Nellie opened a savings account for me. After I married I stopped working for them, but they would give me gifts of sugar when they saw me in town. They were kind to me. This is how I learned the work of a house-girl before I was hired by Pastor Casey.

Kindly Pastor Casey In 1972, I went to work again as a house-girl. The master that I worked for was a boss for the PMC, the Paton Memorial Church. He was a pastor. His name was John Casey. He was from Australia. When my father, who was an elder, went to a Presbyterian meeting, Pastor Casey told him that he wanted a house-girl. So my father came back to our island and told me to think about whether I wanted to work for him or not. I thought that he would be all right, and that if he didn’t find another house-girl, I would be happy to go and work for him. I worked for Pastor Casey for one year. He had five children: two boys and three girls. The two boys lived in Australia, and the two girls lived in the New Hebrides, as Vanuatu was called before. They gave me a room, and so I slept in the house with them. They ate in the morning and in the afternoon, and we shared the food. Whatever they ate, I also ate. You all know what we black people eat, but the white people . . . some of the white people’s food we don’t know. So sometimes when the food came to the table, I would look at it. I wouldn’t know what it was, and I would be frightened. Some of their food I knew. When I stop to think, I remember one food that I didn’t know. It came in a tin, the mushroom, I think. When we wanted to eat, I felt like I was Long taem ia yumi save talem se yumi ol going to throw up. I tasted a little, that’s blak man yumi kakae olbaot. Be ol waet man samfala kakae blong olgeta yumi all. My boss said that I had to eat, that if I no save kakae. Be taem we oli kakae i kam long tabol be mi luk samfala kakae didn’t eat I’d be hungry. And so I ate. I didn’t think about going home mi no save kakae. Mi fraet, bei mi traem bes blong mi se mi mas kakae, spos mi on the weekends. Only one time did I go no save kakae bae mi go hangri. home on the weekend. I slept with them Strange foods. Difren kaen kaekae. in the house, and I saw that their ways

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were good. The food that we ate, we shared it together. So I didn’t really think about going home. The time that I did go, I came back Sunday afternoon, because Monday I had to start work again. I was glad to work for them. The misis and the master—their ways were good. They paid me five dollars every two weeks. I swept the house, I washed the plates, I cleaned around outside, and I washed the bathroom and the toilet. Sometimes the misis would send me to the market to buy vegetables. Sometimes she would make a list for me to go down to the store to go shopping. I would go to the BP—now it’s called the general store; it’s close to the market house. Their ways were good, and their children were also kind to me. Whenever they would come back from school they would bring back some chocolate. And when I finished doing something, they would sing out to me, “Stop your work and come, and we’ll eat some biscuits or some chocolate.” I was happy to be with them. The pastor took care of me. He knew that being on the island was different, that life was different, that when you come to town, life is different, town is different. When I stayed with them in Vila, he took care of me. He said that if I wanted to go out I would have to tell them where I was going and when I would come back to the house. I worked for them for one year. In 1972, I went to my island. I was married in 1977. My husband was a teacher who lived on Tanna. So we went to Tanna and stayed there until I had my second boy in 1982. In 1982, we all came back to Efate for the Christmas holidays. When we were back I went by the hospital. Pastor Casey saw me in town and said to me, “You know where we live, that we’re at the PMC, so why did you wander around town like this and not come and say hello to us in the house where we all ate together?” That is what he said to me. I was frightened. He said, “Next time you go to the hospital, you have to come to the house.” So when I went to their house, he and the misis said we had to go to the office. And when we went to the office, they put a sewing machine on the table and told me that they were giving the machine to me. It’s a second-hand machine from an Australian man, who had brought it with him and left it behind. That man had paid for it, but they gave it to me for free. I took it. I Fasin blong tufala i gud, mo pikinini used it on Tanna; I still use it today. Once blong tufala tu ol i kaen long mi. Taem ol i kam bak long skul ol i karem ol it had a small problem, but I managed to joklet. Taem mi stap mekem wan wok, fix it. So I still use it today. be ol i kam singaotem mi se, “Yu stopem In January, I went to the hospital to wok ia yu kam yumi kakae bisket or joklet fastaem.” give birth to my baby. Pastor Casey was there visiting a friend of his. He saw me Kind children giving her chocolate. Gudfala fasin blong pikinini, i givem joklet kong haosat the hospital. At the hospital, the food gel. is not what you and I like to eat. So when

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he came, he passed by and saw me. He asked me what time I had come to the hospital. I told him that I had come yesterday. He looked at the plate of food that they had given me; it was on the little cupboard that they give you at the hospital to put your things inside. My plate had two bananas that weren’t ripe at all and this soup. He came and said, “Leisara, is this your food?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “How is it possible for a woman to give birth to a baby when all they give her to eat are unripe bananas?” He told me that he wasn’t happy with the food they had given me, that I shouldn’t eat it, that when they come in I should tell them to take the food away. He said that he was going to tell his wife to prepare some food and he would bring it. So I didn’t eat the hospital food. He went to his house, his wife prepared some food for me, and he brought it in a container. Later he brought me some fruit—some apples, pears, and oranges. He came and gave it all to me. That day was Saturday. In the afternoon, I started feeling some small pain. At about midnight I gave birth to my baby. On Sunday morning, he came and visited me. He came by and said that he had gone to the ward to ask the nurse about my baby. He found out that I had given birth to twins, two boys, but that only one was alive. When he came in, he was sorry that I had lost one of the twins. He came and prayed. And he gave me some encouragement. When he went back to his house, he told his wife that I gave birth to twins, but sadly, only one lived. So, in my opinion, this master’s ways were good. He was very good. I liked him when I stayed in his house. I remember he told me to call him “papa” and her “mama.” Our friendship was very good. Our relationship was strong. I liked them, and they too liked me. When I got married, they said, “Sometime, when you come to town, you have to bring your husband to the house.” Now, they’re in Australia. I want their address—I really want their address—but I don’t have it, and so I can’t contact them. So, that is the end of my story. Now I will tell you about the women I spoke to. The first one is Toutiti Naviti, and this is what she told me.

Toutiti Naviti My name is Toutiti Naviti. I was born on Lelepa Island on September 5, 1937. I worked as a house-girl from 1959–1960. The first place I worked was at Onesua. The master’s name was Mr. Gray. Many of us on Efate know of Mr. Gray because he was the first teacher at Onesua. During the time that Mr.Gray was a teacher at Onesua, he had many busses. So he asked for help all around Efate, and lots of volunteers came to clean his busses. This is when I went to work for him. Mr. Gray had a wife and four children, two boys and two girls. I was twenty-two years old when I started working

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as a house-girl. At that time, there was a house for the house-girls, and that is where I slept. I did the same kind of work every day: I washed plates, I washed windows, I swept inside and outside of the house, I cleaned outside, and I weeded the flowers. I rested for a half day on Saturday and then for the whole day on Sunday. I rested every Sunday so I had the chance to take a Bible class. Before, at Onesua, all the girls slept at Epule in a hostel that was a little bit far from the school. I cooked food for myself Baking Mother’s Choice cakes. Mekem kek long Mother’s Choice. at my house. Mr. Gray ate brown rice. Whenever we ate brown rice, we would not have enough energy so we would go into the bush to look for manioc. We would cook it, mash it until it was soft, and then mix it with some butter and eat it. Sometimes, Mr. Gray would invite some friends over, other teachers from the school. They would come and eat at the house. So I would go and help Mrs. Gray get the table ready and make the food for their friends. Sometimes, if half of the food was left over, Mrs. Gray would share it with me. Now we all bake cakes. Baking cakes is something that has come to us in Vanuatu. I’m talking about the packet cakes, the ready mixes. But I was the first woman in Lelepa who learned from Mrs. Gray how to make cakes out of a packet; it was called Mother’s Choice. I made scones and biscuits. Still today people are making biscuits from Mrs. Gray’s recipe. But I was the first mama on the island to learn how to make a cake. Mr. Gray paid me one pound, ten shillings each month. If you were to convert that into vatu, it would be three hundred vatu. So I worked with them like that for two years. My salary was three hundred vatu from 1959 until 1960. I was glad to get that salary from them. I wasn’t cross. I didn’t think, “This salary isn’t good. Why do I waste my time working for one pound, ten for a month? It’s not good; I should go back to my island.” I was glad to be with them, to work for them. Now when girls work, they look at what they’re paid, which isn’t good, and they say, “This master doesn’t pay me well. I work hard every day, but the salary that I make is small. It’s not enough. I have to get out.” But me, before, I didn’t think like this. I was glad to work as a house-girl. Olsem naoia yumi stap bekem ol kek, nao ia ol samting ol i kam long yumi long Vanuatu, olsem naoia ol paket kek ol i redi mix be mi nao fes woman Lelepa we Mrs. Gray hemi laenem mi blong hao blong mekem kek long paket flaoa blong “Mothers Choice.” Mi mekem skon mo biskit. Taem mi go bak long aelan mi go laenem ol mama long hem be evri kek we mi yusum nao ia ol i no redi mix ia, mi stap pem Mothers Choice nomo blong mi yusum blong mekem kek. Mo mi stap mekem bisket long recipi blong Mrs. Gray nomo nao ia. Mo mi nao mi fes mama we mi go laenem ol mama long aelan hao blong mekem kek.

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When I finished working for Mr. Gray, I went back and stayed at Lelepa Island. In 1963, there was a teacher who came from Ulei, a New Zealand man. He was the teacher at Ulei Primary School (which has now become a high school). His name was Mr. Patrick. He had a wife and they had one son. Mr. Patrick wanted a housegirl, so he asked me on the island if I would go and work at Ulei. I went to Ulei and worked for Mr. Patrick for three months. I went and two women taught me how to work, what kind of work to do inside the house, what kind of work to do outside the house. Mr. Gray and Mr. Patrick both came from New Zealand. So when I went and worked for Mr. Patrick, he knew that I had worked for Mr. Gray at Onesua. He contacted Mr. Gray and asked him how much he had paid me. Mr. Gray told him one pound, ten shillings each month. So Mr. Patrick paid me the same. When I worked for Mr. Gray, they spoke English. Because our schooling wasn’t very good before, I could only talk to them in broken English. So I talked in broken English, but I talked only a little bit. But when I went to work for Mr. Patrick, he knew the language of Nguna. So we used to talk in Nguna. Mr. Patrick was a funny man. When he wanted to make fun of me, he just spoke English to me. Sometimes I also spoke a little English, but most of the time we used Nguna. When I worked as a house-girl for Mr. Patrick, I was twenty-six years old. When I finished at Ulei I went and stayed at Lelepa Island. I stayed there until 1967. My brother went to school at TTI (Tangoa Training Institute), he came back, then he went to school at Kawenu College. At Kawenu there was a teacher, a white man. He said that he wanted a house-girl. My brother knew that I had worked as a house-girl before, and so he asked me. This master’s name was Mr. Blake. I worked for him from 1967 until 1969. When I started I was thirty-two years old. I wasn’t married yet. Mr. Blake was a good man. Out of the three masters I had, Mr. Blake was the best. Even though I wasn’t married then, when I looked after his children I treated them like they were my own. I liked them, and they also liked me. If I was still sleeping, the children would come and sing out at my door, “You come, you come, and make the tea for us.” They were kind to me. When I was working for Mr. Blake at Kawenu, a family came and asked me whether I would marry one of their sons. My family had written me letters telling me to find a boyfriend and then come back and get married. I was tired from my work, and the family of the boy was asking for me with the support of my family. When I saw the letter, I didn’t know whether to answer yes or no. I thought and I thought and finally said yes. Then my family contacted me to get everything ready for the marriage. And so I got married in June 1969. My husband lived on the island. When I married I stayed for awhile with my husband, but returned to Mr. Blake, who had

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asked me earlier to come back for just two more weeks. After that, I saw Mr. Blake and his family off at the wharf. The ship came and got them, and they went. I just took a taxi back, collected all the things that the master had given me, and then just went back to the small island of Lelepa. Master Blake paid me ten pounds each month. If you convert that to vatu, it’s about two thousand vatu. When I earned these ten pounds, I was glad. During this time the prices of things were low. So when I earned ten pounds, I thought that it was big money. Plus, they gave me food, I slept in the house-girls’ house, and I thought that the master’s ways were good. He made it so that I didn’t have to spend the money that he paid me. This is all I have to say. After Toutiti, I spoke with Leimala. This is what she told me.

Leimala My name is Leimala. I am from Nguna, North Efate. I was born in a French hospital in 1949. I worked as a house-girl from 1964 to 1965. The first master I worked for was a Chinese man named Maxim. He worked as a mechanic for SMET. This was in 1964. When I first went to work for Maxim, I was only fourteen years old. My father’s name was John Mantai. He worked at the Public Works before he died. When my father worked at the Public Works Department, we slept in the part of Vila called Number Two. You know that Chinese masters are sometimes good, sometimes not so good. I was glad when I got the job working for him because when you’re a young girl, you want money. You want money to help you. So sometimes he didn’t treat me well, but I was happy to have a job. I cleaned the house, I washed, and I cleaned around the yard. This Chinese man didn’t go to church on Sunday. But my father was an elder at the Paton Memorial Church (PMC). So every Sunday we would all go to the PMC for the service. When I worked and had money, I would go to the store and buy clothes like the misis. Sometimes I wore island dresses. Today, you sew island dresses, decorate them, make them fancy with ribbons or lace. But before, women didn’t make such nice island dresses. So sometimes I wore dresses like my misis, and sometimes I wore island dresses. My master paid me two pounds at the end of every month; that’s about four hundred vatu today. I thought that that was not good, but what could I do? It wouldn’t have been good for me to stop working for this Chinese man. So I worked for him until I finished working for him, and by that time, I wasn’t even think-

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ing about not working for him. When I worked for this Chinese man, I wasn’t Masta hem i pem mi tu pound, hemia 400 vatu tedei, long en blong evri married yet. I was fourteen years old and manis. Mi luk se hem i nogud be bae I looked after his children like they were mi mekem wanem? I gud nomo blong mi save stap wok blong Sinwa ia. So mi my own. And they too, they liked me. I wok blong hem gogo. Taem mi finis was happy to look after them. I bathed long hem, mi nomo mi tingting blong finis. Taem mi stap wok blong sinwa them in the afternoon. I changed them. ia mi no mared yet, mi gat fotin yia I stopped working for him in 1965, nomo be mi stap lukaotem pikinini and I went and stayed with my parents blong hem, olsem ol i pikinini blong mi. Mi glad mi lukaotem gud olgeta, mi in Number Two. I stayed with them until swimim olgeta, long aftenun olsem, mi 1966 when a master came from the PMC. janisim olgeta. His name was Mr. John Cooper. Mr. Reasons for continuing to work as a house-girl. Cooper came to attend a session in 1966, Olsem wanem hemi stap wok olsem haosgel. and my father came and told me that he wanted a house-girl. So I went to work for Mr. Cooper from 1966 until 1976. I was seventeen years old. Mr. Cooper had a wife and four children, three girls and a boy. Mr. Cooper’s wife was the sister of Miss Marie, who was the boss on Taloa, one of our islands at Nguna. I didn’t sleep at Mr. Cooper’s because my father worked for the Public Works Department, and I could sleep at home. I worked half days for Mr. Cooper. I did the same kind of work every day. I cleaned the house, made the beds, washed the clothes, washed the plates. I rested on the weekends. I often had lunch with them, and we spoke to each other in Bislama. Mr. Cooper paid me about three pounds a month; that’s about six hundred vatu. Whatever food they ate, I also ate. Sometimes I wore island dresses, and sometimes I wore dresses like the misis.

LESARURU TAMEARU, FIELDWORKER My name is Lesaruru Tamearu and I’m from Nguna. I’m a woman fieldworker for the Cultural Centre. When you and I finished at the workshop last year, I took the paper that was given to me about the workshop on house-girls, and I went back and I did my research. I found two women in the village who were house-girls during the condominium government. The first is Ruth. This is what she told me.

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Ruth Lenitasala My name is Ruth Lenitasala. I was born in 1942 in Matua Village on Nguna Island. I worked as a house-girl from 1965 to 1970 at the Joint Court, Independence Park, Burns Philp, and Lycee. I was a house-girl for masters in all these places. The name of the master I want to talk about is Lionel Michel. I have forgotten every master that I worked for except for this one. I remember Master Lionel Michel. I forget what kind of work he did, but I remember that he had a wife and two children, two boys, Dominic and Pascal. I started working as a house-girl when I was sixteen years old. My master had house-girl quarters, and so I slept in the house for house-girls. I cleaned the house and washed their clothes. I had two days of rest and went to church on Sundays. Whatever food the master ate, I ate. I ate with them. We talked in Bislama and a little bit in French. They paid me twelve dollars. I could wear any kind of dress to work, but if I wore island dresses, I would have to sew them myself. When I started working for them, I was not married yet. So I alone went to live with them. I worked, then I got married. When I had children, my mother looked after them. Master Michel had another woman from North Efate working for them as a house-girl, too. Her name was Netty. Netty was from the small island of Pele. I will always remember the time when I lived in this house, in this master’s house. My master made me feel like I was part of the family. I tell my children and grandchildren about the master who was kind to me, the master who gave me food, clothes, and other things. When he went back to his country, he gave me lots of things, things that I still use today. The second woman is Netty Joseph. She was able to come with us and will now talk to you herself.

NETTY JOSEPH My name is Netty Joseph. I was born in 1938 in Mere village on Nguna Island. I worked as a house-girl. When I finished school in the village, I started working as a house-girl in Vila. My brother came and told me that he thought it would be good for me to go with him to Vila and find some small work. So I came to Vila and stayed with my brother at the place where he worked. He worked for a Master John Ah Po making bread.

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The first job I had was working for a master from Australia. This was in 1950. It was the first time I had worked for a white man. It was also the first time I had seen a white man. But I wasn’t frightened of him or his family. I came and lived with them. We ate in one kitchen. They gave me a house to sleep in. I started working as a house-girl when I was sixteen. Throughout my life I have worked for five masters. I have forgotten most things about most of them. The master I remember best is Mr. Bill Reese. He was an Englishman and a big boss at Burns Philp. He had a wife and three children: Jeffrey, Joanne, and Karen. His wife worked in the British Office. I wasn’t the only house-girl working for them. There were three other women who worked there: one was Taunare—she was also from Nguna, one was Marian from Emau, and one was Naomi Taktuel from Nguna. They all said that they’re interested in talking about when they lived with Master Bill Reese. They also had some boys from Burns Philp who cleaned the master’s yard. My job was to do the kitchen work. The other house-girls did other work. One house-girl did the ironing, someone else worked in the bedroom—she cleaned it, made the bed, swept. The other house-girls came in one at a time to replace each other. We all lived together in the house-girls’ house. We were paid ten dollars each. I rested on Saturdays and Sundays. When I worked for them, I worked in the kitchen. Every day I cleaned the kitchen and did the cooking. Sometimes I looked after the children. No one taught me to cook. I just cooked everything. I cooked rice, kumala, things like that. The misis made soup for them. I just stayed in the kitchen. I cleaned the kitchen. I cooked breakfast for them, I made their food, and I put it on the table for them. When they finished eating, I would take the food away. In the morning and at dinner, I boiled their tea. In the afternoon, the misis would make food for them. The kitchen was inside the house. It was an old house. They had a gas stove. You could see the smoke coming out and you would know that they were cooking. They had one oven that you could cook bread inside. Also they always had a big saucepan full of hot water. We talked to the master in Bislama. My master could speak English, but we spoke in Bislama. On the island we only spoke the island language, but with him we spoke Bislama. He was good. He never did anything to make me cry or anything like that. Sometimes my master would pay for food for me, and sometimes I would eat with them. My master was good. I felt like I was part of the family. I wore dresses to work. If I wore island dresses, they were ones I had sewn. Since they went back, I haven’t received any letters or news from them. I worked for them for a long time. Then one day my sister’s husband came

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and told me that we had to go, that I was getting married. I went and got married. The man I married was on the island. So then I stayed on the island.

SINLEMAS KALO, FIELDWORKER My name is Sinlemas Kalo, and I’m a woman fieldworker. I’m from North Efate. After last year’s workshop I went back to my island and did some research. But I am very sorry to tell you that some of the women who were house-girls during that time are now dead. I found only two women who were house-girls for masters on plantations. The first one I’ll talk about is Alice Temo. She was born in Sagamai village on Emae. She was born in 1937 or 1938. In 1951, she went to work as a house-girl on the Sulua plantation. This is what she said.

Alice Temo The name of my master was Cecil McCoy. He was a man from Norfolk Island. I worked as their house-girl until I was seventeen years old. I wasn’t married yet. The master was married to an Australian woman named Jenny. They didn’t have children. When I was their house-girl, they gave me my own room. So I slept with them at Sulua plantation. They also gave me food, rice, sugar, soap, and sometimes meat. They paid me three pounds each month; I think that is about six hundred vatu. I didn’t wear a uniform. I just wore island dresses that I sewed to work. Each morning I would first wash the plates and all the cooking things. Then I would straighten the beds. Then I would sweep the floor, which was made from wood. I also cooked for them. I worked from Monday through Friday in the morning and in the afternoon. On Saturday I was free, and I would go back to my village. I would go to church on Sundays and then in the afternoon I would go back to Sulua to be ready for work on Monday morning. Master Cecil had a small boat. When he left Norfolk Island he went to Malapoa. When he left Emae he went to Malapoa, so he called his small boat Malapoa. The crew on the ship were men from three places in Ambrym: Biap, Sanesup, and Sesivi. The captain of the ship was Obed, who came from Sanesup. Master Cecil had two businesses, one on Sulua plantation on Emae and a

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small store in Southern Malakula on a small island called Bagatelle. This small island is close to the Maskelyne Islands and Sakao. Sometimes I would go with him and his wife to the small island. He would go and visit his businesses on Malakula. The misis and I would find rabbits there. I didn’t know how to cook rabbits, so I think we sent them somewhere on the island or maybe we sent them to Vila. I stopped working for Master Cecil in 1965 when he went to live in Malapoa. Then later he went back to Norfolk Island. The other house-girl I talked with was Dora Lemas. She is from North Efate. This is what she said.

Dora Lemas My name is Dora and I was born on Makira. I am not sure what year I was born. My sister was a house-girl on Olafea plantation on North West Epi. Her master was Mr. Molitu, a French man. He had a wife. I’m not sure whether they had children or not. My sister worked for them from 1967 until 1968. She made their beds, she cleaned the house, she swept the floor, she cooked food for them, she fed the dog, and she cleaned the grass around the house. She told me that they paid her twelve pounds, ten shillings every two weeks, so she was paid twenty-five pounds a month. In 1968, my sister went back to Emae. She had worked for them for only one year. Master Molitu moved to Vila and then later he went back to France. He went back to France at the same time that other white people were going back to their countries because they were afraid of independence.

LONNETTE TASALE In 1964 and 1965, I worked as a house-girl at the Forari manganese mine because the wages were good and I knew some men who worked there. I worked for the manager. I stayed in the manager’s house during the week and came back to Vila on the weekends. I remember there were three shifts of workers working night and day in the mine: 6 a.m. to 2 p.m., 2 p.m. to 10 p.m., and 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Big busses transported the workers. There were a lot of Tahitians and Wallisians. Both Ballande and Burns Philp had stores out

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there, but there weren’t any Chinese stores like there are in town. There was only one church. It was used for Catholic mass in the morning and for a Presbyterian service in the afternoon. I don’t remember what I was paid, but my employers were good. I worked out there until the manager went back to France. This was before I had children. The master and his wife were French; everyone spoke French out there. They had a small son. There were other house-girls at Forari from Emau and lots of Tahitian house-girls. The manganese mine was a very dirty place. It especially polluted the sea. The houses were high on the hill so they weren’t too hard to keep clean.

CHAPTER 4

Tongoa LEWIA CHARLIE, FIELDWORKER

M

Y NAME IS LEWIA CHARLIE, and I am from the island of Tongoa. I’m a woman fieldworker for the Cultural Centre. I’ve done a lot of research with many of the older women and aunties in my area. Some are still alive, but some are dead. All of us on the island of Tongoa know that there were many white men who came to Tongoa. I’m going to tell you about one of these white men. When he came to Tongoa he came and lived like a Tongoan man. He lived with one of my grandfathers and one of my grandmothers. While he lived with them, he responded to them as though he were one of their children. Eventually he wanted to take a Tongoan wife; he told my grandfather that he wanted to marry his daughter. But she didn’t want to marry him. So this white man went back to his country, and he married a woman from his country. But then he came back to Tongoa, and he asked many, many times for this woman to have him—but she didn’t want him. The woman was my mother. The white man’s name was Oscar Newman.

Oscar Newman Oscar Newman had two sisters, Olive and Thora. He didn’t have a brother. One of his sisters married Mr. Breusch. The other one married Mr. Page, and one of my grandmothers worked with them for a long time. Master Oscar had a white misis who was the mother of Alec and Eddy. He wanted my mother very much, but my grandfather didn’t want that. He thought

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that it wouldn’t be good for the master to take her, that it would cause trouble. My grandfather didn’t want it. Afterwards, the mother of Eddy and Alec came out to the island. They are in Australia now. Just last week, when I was getting ready to come out here, Eddy came and talked with our chief. He wanted the title that we had given his father. He said that he wanted to come back to do something for the chief. They told him that if he wanted to come, he could come. Master Oscar took many women, especially women from Malakula. He had many children on Ambrym and Malakula and in Vila town. He also had some in New Caledonia and on Tongoa. He was a master whose behavior and actions weren’t good. His death was difficult because he had so many women, especially in Tongoa and Malakula, who argued about where he should be buried. He was from Tongoa, and so that is where he was buried.

Conversations about Oscar Newman Lepakoa Dick: There are lots of stories about when he was sick. When he was sick, he said that he wanted to be buried in Tongoa. Afterwards, they took him to Tongoa. I was with him when he said that he didn’t want to be buried in Vila. He wanted to be buried in Tongoa. Lewia Charlie: In 1977, a Malakulan chief said that his body should go to Malakula, but the master had said that he wanted to be buried in Tongoa. At the time of his death there was huge rain. Many families went by ship; one plane crashed. My mama took Oscar Newman on the plane with Eddy and Alec to Tongoa. He was dead already. When he was dying he said that he wanted his cash box; he wanted to be buried with his cash box. But you know that he had many children all over, and the women fought about where to bury him. Eventually they buried him along the road near the local government headquarters. There is a big grave with a marker on it. After he died, his wife ran away back home. But the two children stayed with one of my grandmothers; she looked after them. She knew that he had plenty of children around there. Kate Ruth:

One story I know about Oscar Newman was when he went to Santo. When he went to Santo, he would get drunk. Then he would shoot people. Or one time, I heard that he filled a bag of

TONGOA

rice and he tied it to the arms and legs of a niVanuatu man. Then he just threw the man into the water near Norsup Island. People say that the man died. They all went ashore at Tisman where Oscar lived. Later Oscar got very sick and had a big operation and after a while he died. Tanni Frazer:

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Olsem mi gat wan stori long hem. Olsem Oscar hemi bin stap long Tongoa. Hemi bin kilim pig, hemi bin tekem wan hae rang long Tongoa. Be man ia i stap mekem fasin ia blong Malakula, I no long Tongoa. Mi no ting se hemi pikinini blong wan man, mi ting se hemi pikinini blong rod, from fasin blong hem i no gud. Olsem ol pipol ol i no laekem hem tumas, oli hatem hem. Olsem yumi tokbaot. Olsem sapos ol man Malakula ol i stap long ples ia ol i no laekem from fasin we hemi mekem bisnes long Malakula. Hemi wan bigfala bisnes man long saot est Malakula. Spos ol man oli go oli askem wan gudfala samting nomo, be hemi wantem sutum olgeta long masket. Olsem wanem we hemi bin kilim wan man Malakula we hemi ded be [ol i no panisim] from hem ia long taem blong koloniel gavman.

I have a story about him, too. So, Oscar was on Tongoa. He killed a pig to take rank but he did it according to Mala- Master killed pigs in Tongoa “Malakula style.” Masta i stap long Tongoa be hem i folem fasin kula kastom, not Tongoa blong kilim pig blong Malakula. kastom. I don’t think he was a child of a man, I think he was a child of the road. His behavior was no good. Many people didn’t like him. They hated him. Just like what you and I are saying now. Even people from Malakula didn’t like Oscar because of the way he did business on Malakula. He was a big business man on Southeast Malakula. If people went to ask him for something, he wanted to shoot them with his musket. That’s what he did with one man from Malakula; it is said that he killed a man. It was during the time of the colonial government.

Lewia Charlie: But the government didn’t do anything to this man Oscar. I think because he had bought a big license from the government. So they didn’t do anything to him. It’s not the same nowadays. I have three uncles who worked for him. They say that when they went with him to Malakula, he behaved like he was from a different country. He would throw coconuts at them; he would chase after them with a knife. He had a musket and wanted to shoot them. Lucy Moses:

These [white] people who were in Tongoa . . . we can see that their behavior was no good. Many people know about one [white]

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Olgeta ol i stap ia nomo ol i stap long Tongoa. Be fasin blong hem yumi luk se fasin blong hem i no gud. Mekem se fulap man i save se hemi wan man blong rob mi save talem olsem, fromhemi stilim woman. Taem hemi kam stap wetem wan famle olsem hemi no save go stap fri, hemi mas givim pikinini long famle ia. Mekem se taem hemi kam long mifala long Ambrym mifala i save se man ia fasin blong hem i no gud. Taem hemi luk ol woman hemi sue long olgeta. Wan taem hemi go luk wan angkul ia. Afta hemi harem se bae ol i mekem wan seromoni. Afta hemi se mi tu bae mi mekem wan seremoni. Afta ol man ol i harem fasin blong hem ia. Afta ol i se no, man ia i no save folem kastom blong yumi, from kastom blong yumi hemi wan samting we ol man oli respektem. Sapos olsem bae yumi gat bat nius long hem, from hemi gat plante pikinini olsem hemi go stap wetem hemia hemi givim pikinini long hem. Master who did not respect kastom and got many women pregnant. Masta we hem i no respektem kastom, hem i givim pikinini long plante woman.

man who stole women. I’m going to tell you about him. When he came, he stayed with this one family, and he never stayed for free, always left behind a baby with the family he was staying with. So when he came to us on Ambrym, we knew that his ways were no good. Every time he saw a woman he would use obscene language with her. One time he went to see one of my uncles. When he heard that they were holding a kastom ceremony, he said that he too wanted to hold a ceremony. But everyone knew his way of being and told him that in Vanuatu customs were something to be respected. People thought that if he made a ceremony it would be bad news. He has many children. He would stay with [local women], and he would give children to them. After that he wasn’t allowed to come and join in the ceremony. So he never did.

Mr. Breusch Another one of these men is Mr. Breusch. He was also in Tongoa for a long time. He hired many house-girls from my village, including my aunty, Nelly Kalo. Many of them are now dead; I think only three are still alive.

Nelly Kalo Nelly, one of my aunties, was the wife of the village chief. She was a house-girl to Mr. Breusch. Time went on and then Mr. Breusch and his family went to Ambae. So he took my aunty and some other house-girls with him. When they went these girls were only seventeen years old. They went and stayed with them on Ambae. My aunty was there until she was thirty-six years old. She was called to come back to Tongoa because the boy chief was getting married. When she was with this master, she talked to him in Tongoan and Ambae. They didn’t use Bislama. Mr. Breusch didn’t use Bislama; he talked Tongoan to my aunty.

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My aunty did everything for them. She slept in the house with them. All the other house-girls slept in the house-girls’ house, but she slept in their house because she called him “papa” and called his wife “mama.” When it was time for her to go back to Tongoa, the master told the whole group that they should go together. So all these girls went with her on the ship. Then after the marriage, they all went back to Ambae. They stayed on Ambae until one wanted to come back to Tongoa. She didn’t want to go by herself, so she made the whole group go with her. They went and eventually they came back. In terms of salary, he paid two pounds, ten; five hundred vatu for each house-girl. That’s for one month. I think they had seven women who came out from my village to work as their house-girls. Five came back, but two stayed there until I think 1973. This aunty and two other women only came back to Tongoa just recently.

Conversations about Mr. Breusch Lepakoa Dick: Mr. Breusch was from Australia. He went all over doing things, but his misis was good. She lived quietly. The woman that he had children with, Rita, was from Emau. He was with his white wife on Tongoa, but when he was out on the ship, he would go and see Rita. He was the same as Oscar. Lewia Charlie: Then there was an old woman who followed the army. She had a child that everyone called Jimmy. You could see he wasn’t a Tongoan; he was the son of an American who had come with the army in World War II. The old woman and an old man looked after this boy, and now he lives on Epi. He has a wife and the two of them live on South Epi where they have made their own village. When he was on Tongoa, he did some things that weren’t right, and afterwards he felt he didn’t belong on Tongoa. So he went to stay with an old man on Epi and now he doesn’t come to Tongoa anymore.

White fathers’ responsibilities When these children are small they don’t know anything, but when they’re big they want to know where their fathers are. And when the children know that their father is in Malakula or Santo, they go because they know that it’s their father. That’s why I think people like this should stay on Tongoa. They should get to know their children.

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I think you know about one of the fathers who died in a plane crash on Tanna. He too behaved in the same way. He would go and spend time on an island. Now the son is driving a bus in Vila. His father’s family sent word that he should go to Vila. The pilot of the plane behaved in this way, too. When he went to Malakula, he left children behind; when he went to Epi, he left children behind. When he went to Tongoa, he gave children to the women of Tongoa. When he was in Vila, he gave children to the women of Efate. Most of us think that this behavior isn’t right. The next woman I want to talk about is Lesap Tina. She was another aunty of mine. She didn’t go anywhere to work; she worked on Tongoa. She was the house-girl for a nursing sister, a woman from New Zealand or Australia. This woman came to Vanuatu to work in a clinic or health center. She came and stayed on Tongoa when the clinic was there, around 1948 to 1953, I think. When she came to Tongoa, this aunty of mine went and worked for her.

Lesap Tina This woman came and told Lesap’s father that she wanted a girl to look after the food and do things like that; she wanted a girl who could look after the house. So my grandmother went and worked for her. All of them worked. So in the morning they would tell her what work to do. She went with them to another village, and that’s where she stayed. She did everything for them, and when she was finished she just stayed in the house. In the past, as many of you know, there were two villages that fought all the time. It kept people from walking about freely. When the women wanted to go someplace, they had to take a local man with them. This is where they put the mission school. It’s still there. They called it the Mission Camp. All the things from the mission are still there: the cook house, laundry, the children’s bathing area. The first day that she went to work for this sister, when the sister said, “Good morning” to her she said, “Olsem wanem?” Later she taught the sister some of the local language. After that the sister would say good morning to her in language. So the sister learned the language of Tongoa. As well, the house-girl learned the sister’s language. They had five missionaries on the island of Tongoa. The first one was Mr. Michaelson. The next one was Mr. Basil Nottage. The third one was Mr. Graham Miller. The fourth one was Mr. Murray. The fifth one was Mr. Harroway. They were all bosses at the mission in my village. They had a big house that stood until a hurricane knocked it down in 1986.

TONGOA

House-girls on horseback

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Taem hemi wantem sendem tok i go

Many women worked as house-girls for long not, abu woman i klaem long hos i go long taon. Misis ia hemi gat wan hos. the missionaries; some other women Taem misis ia i tok long hem i karem abu were messengers. My grandmother, woman ia i putum hem stret long ples Annie, and my grandmother’s sister, we hemi blong go long hem. Abu woman blong sista nem blong hem Lesongi, be Lesongi, were messengers. When the abu woman blong mi nem blong hem missionaries wanted to send a message Annie. Sapos misis hemi talem se yu go putum leta ia long wanem vilej wea hos to the north, one of the women would ia i go stret long ples ia. From olsem climb on a horse and go. The mission bifo, i no gat bus o trak. Ating fulap long had a horse. The misis talked to the yufala i luk long kaljoral senta i gat wan kad we wan misis I bin sendim long hos horse and told it where to go. She would I go long narafala ples. Olsem bifo ol i take one of these women and put her on talem war sip hemi karem hos ia i kam long Australia. the horse. Suppose the misis told you carry messages on horseback. Haosto go and take a letter to a village; the House-girls gel i klaem long hos blong karem leta. horse would go straight to that village. In those days there were no busses, no trucks. I think many of you have seen at the Cultural Centre a postcard that a misis had sent by horse to another place. They say the horses came on a warship from Australia. When the misis went, we no longer had a horse on Tongoa. There was one uncle who had one on Epi. In those days, the men were frightened of riding horses. When the misis told them that they had to go, they wanted to say no. She said that she liked my grandmother because while the men were frightened to ride the horse, my grandmother wasn’t. In those days on Tongoa, women didn’t know how to ride horses. Only three of our grandfathers knew how to ride horses. When this misis came to Tongoa, she taught the women how to ride horses. All the missionaries had women who came and made food for them, who washed for them, who did everything for them. Many of these women are now dead. I think that only two are still alive. The first one is from the Rarua family, the firstborn, and [the fieldworker] Sinlemas’ grandmother. Those two were the first house-girls at the mission. But one of my grandmothers was the first house-girl of a missionary that everyone knows, Mr. Mokinson. I think in my village, only my mother is still alive. My mother’s name is Lepakoa Dick.

LEPAKOA DICK My name is Lepakoa Dick and I am from the island of Tongoa. I worked for a Mrs. Neal, a woman from Australia. I think she came to Vanuatu for business; she sewed dresses, island dresses.

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We wore the island dresses that she sewed. She made them, and then she would give them to us, to many of us on Tongoa, to Selina’s mother as well, even though she was on Emae. When we cleaned the house and when we cut the grass around the house, we would be given the dresses. These dresses weren’t like the island dresses today. Now an island dress is an island dress. But in those days it was an island dress from Tongoa, or wherever. Before, our aunties and grandmothers sewed dresses, and when you saw a dress, you knew who had sewn it. It was the same with these dresses; you knew that they were sewn up by this misis. Mrs. Neal taught me to sew. I would work for her and then she would teach me to sew island dresses. In 1990, during the women’s festival at the Lycee, the dresses that I made were there. I told one tailor from the Shepherd Islands to make one; she sewed it like they did back when I was sewing dresses. This misis showed me how to sew, and then I sewed. Now everyone knows how to sew, but then, I was the only one who knew how to sew. Later, this misis gave me a machine. This machine was a different kind of machine, not like the ones that we use today. I think she ordered it from her country and they sent it to her. It was a wooden machine. We sewed dresses for children and men. This woman had a small book, with maps and patterns in it. One piece of paper—you cut it across for shirts for men, also dresses and skirts for women. One piece of paper and you cut it. This woman stayed for three months. After three months she said, “I’ll give you a bag of rice and you give me a piece of land.” In those days life was good. When I finished working for her, I worked for Master Laurence. I worked there from 1958 until 1962. He was a missionary, a French teacher, and also the headmaster at the Primary School. His first name was Henri. I swept, I made the beds, and I cooked. His wife also cooked. I sat at the table and ate with them. She was a good misis. They were kind. They spoke only French. When we couldn’t talk to each other, we used our hands, which worked well. When I did something that wasn’t right, he didn’t say anything because he knew that I couldn’t speak French. When they went back to France, someone else came, but I didn’t work for them. I went to Vila. I was seventeen years old. In Vila I got a job working for Master Andre Rolland. I’m not sure where he was from. He had a wife whose name was Rita. She was from Emau. I worked for them, doing the same kind of work that I did before as a housegirl.

TONGOA

Working at the laundry

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Hemi givim mi 8,000 vatu long wan

When I finished with this master, I manis. Mi no stap witem hem, mo hemi neva givem food long mi. Hemi pem mi went and worked in Jacobé’s laundry 8,000 vatu nomo! Mo mi wok long ples in Tagabe. When, for instance, the Le ia long taem. Mi stat long seven klok mi Lagon Hotel brought in their clothes to finis wok long haf pas faef. Samtaem wea bos blong klos, hem i no kam, mi mas be cleaned, I marked all the things. And wet bae hem i kam bak. Samtaem hem i when the master brought in his things kam putum klos blong hem blong mifala I wasem. Afta hem i no kam from kwik, to be cleaned, we did the same thing. alle mifala i mas waet from hem blong They paid me eight thousand kam karem klos blong hem. Olsem mi vatu for one month. They didn’t give wok long Vila long taem. Hemi no gud. me a place to live. They didn’t give me Bad job working for the laundry in Vila. Wok long wasem klos long Vila i nogud. any food. They only paid me eight thousand vatu! Eight thousand vatu, that’s all! And I worked a long time! I started at 7 a.m. and I worked until 5:30 p.m. Sometimes, when the boss of the clothes didn’t come, I would have to wait until he came back. Sometimes he came and gave us his own clothes to wash, and then he wouldn’t come back quickly. I would have to wait for him to come and take his clothes. So that’s how I worked in Vila for a long time. It was not so good. In the laundry, when the machine had washed the clothes, I would take out the clothes and put them in another machine to make them dry. You would put them inside the machine because it was hot in there. When you press the button, it goes and it makes the clothes dry. There was one machine for the white clothes and one machine for the colored clothes. I worked there until my children told me that I had to take a rest from working. I had been working, I think, for twenty-four years. In 1984, when the politics were “strong” we went back to the island.

Lewia’s story about the laundry I have to tell you about one time when I was in school. I went to my mother’s workplace at the laundry. I washed small loads. This man, he wanted a house-girl so I went and worked for him. I did everything for him. And when he paid me, he paid me twelve thousand vatu. My father saw the money. He said to me that it was too much, I should watch

Mi stap talem nomo wan taem, mi skul, mi stap wetem mama blong mi long wok blong hem lon laundry. Mi wasem smol pot. Man ia i wantem wan haosgel, so mi go wok long hem. Mi go. Mi makem evri samting. Taem mi karem 12,000 vatu ia taem papa blong mi i luk, hem i se gel blong mi lukaot babae hem i tekem yu, yu nomo go. Afta mi nomo go wok long hem. Thinking the boss wants to have me. Haosgel i ting se bos bae i tekem hem.

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out, that the man wanted to have me, that I shouldn’t go back there. So I didn’t go back and work for him. At that time the politics were very tense. This man came to Tongoa and said to me, “If your papa doesn’t prevent you from working for me, I think you will be my woman.” When he was at Melcofe he was still a young man, and I went to work for him. He was there a long time; he just left recently to make the Blue Hole project up in Santo. Every afternoon he would say to me, “I’m going to take you back to the house with me,” but I didn’t want to, so I didn’t go.

Ambrym LUCY MOSES, FIELDWORKER

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Y NAME IS LUCY MOSES, and I am from North Ambrym. I am a fieldworker for the Cultural Centre. Last year we took our research questions home looking for some house-girls who worked before independence. I did my best to find some. I talked to lots of women, but they weren’t interested in supporting my research. In the end I only found two, three counting myself. One of them is Rachel. She is here with me today to contribute to the discussion.

RACHEL I also come from North Ambrym. I worked for George Mitchell at the Ranon plantation. He had many people working for him. Some took care of the pigs; others looked after the chickens. He employed people to cut the grass, to sweep, and to do the laundry. I think that’s all I want to say right now.

LUCY I also talked to an old woman, one of my “mothers”—not my real mother because she died when I was small. Anyway, what she told me was that she worked as a house-girl for a master on Malakula named Gaby Lamoreux. He had a woman from Mele named Anna. My “mother” washed and cooked for them, and she looked after their children. She says they were kind to her as she was an old woman; she ate

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with them and they gave her a room with her husband. They moved to Malakula when her master went there to manage the Sarmettes plantation near Bushman’s Bay. Thank you, I think I’ll stop there and turn to my own story.

Desire for education I was born in 1942 during World War II. My father knew that the army was going to come and take them all to war. One of my grandfathers had worked in Queensland, and he didn’t want my father to go to war because my mother was pregnant with me. So they dug a very big hole and covered it with coconut leaves and then with earth. The men went inside this hole to hide. I imagine they were hiding from bombs or guns, which the army was firing around the place. But they were discovered. My father went to the war, and I was born in 1942. I only went to school for a short period. I wasn’t educated for very long. I just finished at Class 5 in the village. There wasn’t anyone to pay my school fees, so they told me that I could no longer go to school. I was very worried about this. I thought, “What will I do with myself?” There weren’t even any other children. My mother only had three other children. The firstborn was a girl, but she’d already grown up and was married. Then there were two boys. One had gone to a school in Noumea, and the other one was at school with me. But the question was “Who would pay the school fees?” so then they said I should stop going to school. I felt I was just wasting time, what could I do? I was just hanging about doing nothing with everyone. And I was by myself because there weren’t any other children. When the others went to school, I felt so bad I used to go down to the beach. And the next day, if they went to school again, I’d take a bush knife and go to the bush. So there I was. Then a man called Leon Japani turned up. He was part of our family. I don’t know why they called him Leon Japani—maybe because he fought with the Japanese in World War II? Master Leon Japani was a little bit of a half-caste. His mother was in our family, but I don’t know who his father was. When I was grown he was already old, but I knew he was family because he used to take care of us whenever he visited the island. He used to buy rice, sugar—lots of things—and give them to us saying, “This is for you.” He was the father of two men who live in Santo now, Estelia and Jojo. When Leon Japani turned up, I asked him where he was going. He said he was going to Malakula. I said, “Can I come with you?” He said, “Where are you going? Do you want to come with me to Santo?” I said, “No. I will go to Malakula and visit my two aunts there.” He said that was fine with him. Everyone else had

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gone to the garden, and they didn’t know I went on the ship to Malakula. I went there and stayed with my two aunts. I stayed for about a month, and then I came back.

The double life My aunt on Malakula had married Master Savoie. She went to school at Montmartre in Port Vila—the Catholic place—and she studied there until she finished. Then she worked in Port Vila as a house-girl. She went back to the island for a bit, and then she returned to Vila. I guess she met Master Savoie in Port Vila—met him there and then went back to the island. Then Master Savoie came to Ambrym, and we all thought he came to do business, but when he left, he took Aunty with him to be his woman. When they left Ambrym the crew of the ship thought that she was going to be his house-girl, but by the time they got to Malakula, he had taken her as his woman. So as I said, I went to Malakula, and then I went back to Ambrym. Aunty and Master Savoie lived together and had two children, and then they took a ship to go and buy copra (on Ambrym). Then Aunty said that I should go with them and look after their children. So I went to live with them. They treated me very well. They gave me a room, and Aunty was good to me. I worked for them for five years. I couldn’t speak French; we spoke Bislama. I washed clothes. The house wasn’t too big; it was quite small. It was like an army Quonset hut made of corrugated Master Savoie hemi i gat tufala woman ia. Taem we blak anti ia i go stap long iron bent in a hoop. It had windows on aelan, ale waet wan hem i kam stap both ends, a bathroom and toilet inside, wetem masta. Taem waet wan hem i stap go long Noumea o Franis, ale blak and a kitchen. wan hem i kam stap. Taem misis hem Master Savoie had two wives. When- kam stap wetem olgeta, hem tu hem i ever my black aunty went to Ambrym, the gud long mi. Planti taem, taem hemi stap long Niu Caledonia hem i sendem white woman would come and stay. And ol ting blong olfala mama blong Masta when the white wife went to Noumea or Savoie i kam, nao hem I mas sendem wan blong mi. Olsem anti blong mi hem France, then the black one would come i save wok long karen; mifala i go klosap and stay. When the misis stayed there, dina, mifala i kam bak long haos. Olsem she was also good to me. Often enough, misis, wok blong hem i no strong, be anti wok blong hem i strong, ating from when she was in New Caledonia and she hemi blak woman, i no save se yumi was sending things to Master Savoie’s sidaon. Yumi wok long haos, mo yumi wok long karen tu. mother, who lived with him, she would Savoie’s two wives. Tufala waef blong also send me something. Aunty used to Master Master Savoie. work me hard in the garden, right up

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until it was time for dinner and time to go back to the house. But the misis didn’t require hard work in the same way that Aunty did. I guess Aunty did because she was a black woman. With her, we worked in the house, and we worked in the garden. Master Savoie was one of two; his brother was a businessman man, Emile Savoie. He made a house for them all in France, and then he went to Australia. I think he died in Australia, but he made a living for them all in France. There is also a house they all have in New Caledonia. The mother-in-law is dead, my black aunty is dead, and Master Savoie is dead as well. Only the children are still alive. Andre is the one who took over for his father, and he manages the plantation at Sarmettes today. But the children of the misis are all in France. Master Savoie was pretty tough. When he saw something that wasn’t right: fire! When he was good, he was good, but when he saw something wrong, he could really talk! He would make a row and he might slap you, too. But the misis and the old mother, they were okay. Aunty had three children, three sons, and a daughter who died. The three boys are alive today, but the girl died when she was born. The white woman also had three children, two boys and a girl. They went to school in Noumea. One of them was called Paul Savoie. The girl was called Hélène. The eldest was in France, and the other two were educated in Noumea. So we lived. When the children were big enough to go to school and to understand, the misis used to bring them to Malakula, and I would look after them. When Aunty went to the island and the misis sent her children to us, they would see Aunty’s three children with me and with the old woman. The misis ’s children used to call me “mother,” but I corrected them. I said, “You call me ‘sister’ because we are members of the same family.” So then they asked who these other children were. I said to them, “Well, the way it is, your father is Master Savoie, and he is their father, too.” They said, “Is that so? Then who is their mother?” I said, “She has gone to the island.” Then they understood that there was another mother. Then suddenly the misis wanted to come to Malakula. The black woman was a bit frightened of the white one. It was funny, really. She was afraid. The misis was in France and she rang on the teleradio. She didn’t ring the master; she rang her mother-in-law and said she was coming. One evening, when the others had gone to the bush, the mother-in-law called me and said, “I’m going to tell you and don’t you tell your aunty, but the misis is coming. She is coming tomorrow. She’s already in Vila.” I said, “I hope she won’t come and shoot one of us.” She replied, “No, but she wants to see your aunty. I told her not to do anything to her, because she looks after me so well.” So then we stayed quietly until morning when the others came back. I was very troubled: I thought for sure the white woman was going

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to come and shoot my aunty. Aunty noticed that I was listless. At about ten o’clock she asked me, “What’s going on, Lucy? You look tired.” I said, “I feel bad.” She said, “In what way do you feel bad? Are you sick?” She saw me sighing. She said, “Hey, what’s going on? Is something going on?” I said, “No, nothing.” Then I thought about the first day when I had started work there. In the evening the master had had a talk to me. He’d said, “You know, I am a strong master. I talk strongly, and I used to be a lawyer. If you are going to be here, you have to behave well. Don’t behave wildly.” But I didn’t know then that he’d already behaved wildly himself. The mother-in-law and I waited, and we were frightened. There was a white man who lived at Norsup called Tommy. He was an Australian and was married to an English woman. We were startled, looking along the long road, to see his truck coming. Then I freaked. I started running, not knowing where to go. I grabbed the mother-in-law—I called her grandmother—“Grandmother! Grandmother! The truck is coming!” She said, “Where is it?” I said, “There it is! It is already on the way.” The two of us hid out in the bathroom. We listened. The others didn’t know what was happening; they were chatting and laughing. When they heard the sound of the truck, the master got up to go and look, and he saw the misis standing up in the back of the truck. She was wearing jeans; she hadn’t put on a dress. We thought for sure she was going to shoot Aunty. It wasn’t good. When she jumped down from the truck, she said, “Where are the two of them?” The mother-in-law said to me, “We’d better go out.” So we went out. When we got out there, the misis grabbed the old woman and really squeezed her. She didn’t touch Aunty. But she talked to her mother-in-law, and she really had a go at her. She didn’t speak in French; she spoke in Bislama. She wanted all of us to hear and understand what she was saying. She said, “Okay, today I am going to leave this man. I’m going to quit. You have got to look after your children. You are a lawyer, so how come you are breaking the law?” She stayed three days and then she said, “Today I am going back. I’m making the old woman your responsibility. You must look after her until she is dead. All the children, too. I’m going to go between France, Noumea, France, Noumea. But everything of mine in this house, Master Savoie, you are going to have to take care of because the children’s future is in your hands.” Then it was really up to me to do everything because the mother-in-law was sick. She had something hanging from her side, and she couldn’t do anything. She sat down all the time. When she wanted to bathe, I went and got the water for her and put it in the bathroom. Then I washed and dried her. When she got dressed, I dressed her. When she got up, I lifted her. So life went on. One day, two sons of the black woman —you know what the children of

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white men can be like —wanted to swing on a rope. They went and cut a vine from where it was growing and they swung on it. After a while one of them, I think it was the lastborn, he threw himself on the rope, but his hand slipped and he fell down. The smaller bone in his forearm was broken. The master sent me with him to Paton Memorial Hospital on a small island in Vila harbor called Iririki. This was somewhere around 1950-something—I can’t remember exactly when—maybe 1957 or 1958. We were there for only three weeks, and then we went and stayed with a man at Ohlen, a master called Harry Ohlen. The misis came back from Noumea at that time, and she took the two of us back to Malakula.

A warm welcome I was with them for five years as a house-girl. I was eighteen years old when I finished working for them. I went back to Ambrym and stayed there. I married. I didn’t hear from them until my last child was born. I gave birth to him at the hospital in Vila, and he was handicapped. He couldn’t straighten out his hand, and he didn’t cry. When you saw that he was crying you could just see the tears falling. When he and I went back to Ambrym, the medical staff filled out some paperwork about us, and the two of us went to Norsup. Then the doctor at Norsup sent us to Santo. The Santo doctor looked at my son, and I think he saw that he couldn’t resolve the problem, so he sent the two of us back to Norsup. Then they sent word to New Zealand. Two women came from New Zealand. One of them was called Carolyn, and the other was called Jocelyn. They saw the two of us at Norsup. They looked at my child, and they explained what they would do to make him better. So we stayed there, and they treated him for a long time, and then he could straighten his hand. They were going to be able to cure his problem. They said, “Okay, you two go away for three months, and then you come back.” But I said, “There will be a problem if we go to Ambrym. It will be hard for us to come back.” Then I had an idea. One of my sons had gone to school at Walarano. He’d finished school, and then he had gone to stay at the Tisman plantation. So the two of us tried to go to Tisman, but there had been a great deal of rain and the river was flooded. The truck couldn’t cross it. They said, “We’ll have to go back to Norsup.” I said, “No, the two of us can’t go to Norsup, but we will stay at Unua because we have some family there.” They said, “You can’t stay at Unua. There isn’t any clinic nearby.” Then I said, “Then drop us off at Master Savoie’s household.” So they dropped us off there. At that time the family in France rang me, and they understood that I was

AMBRYM

very glad that they were talking to me, that I hadn’t known how they were doing, and that they didn’t know how things were for me. I said to them that I had had a child who was handicapped and that I hadn’t known if he would be all right, or if he would die. They gave me some small presents. They gave me two big saucepans, and they filled them with clothes, and they sent them to New Caledonia, where family members sent them on to Malakula. When I stayed with the Savoie household at Malakula, I felt as if I was really a part of their family. It was wonderful to be with them. It wasn’t like when I was in the island, when I felt so bad that I couldn’t go to school and my brothers could.

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Taem ia olgeta long franis ol i toktok wetem mi. Ol i save se mi tu mi glad taem ol i toktok wetem mi, mo mi tu mi no save se ol i stap ol i olsem, mo olgeta tu ol i no save se mi stap olsem wanem. Mi talem long olgeta se mi karem wan bebi blong mi, be hem i handicap, be mi no save se bae hem i oraet o hem i ded. Ale ol i givim smol presen blong mitufala long taem ia, ol i givim tu pot sospen, ol i fulumap sam klos, ol i sendem i kam long long Caledonia, ale tufala i sendem i kam long Malakula. Taem mi stap wetem olgeta olsem mi famili stret wetem olgeta. Taem mi stap mi harem gud. I no olsem taem mi bin stap long aelan [taem mi pikinini], mi bin stap sore from mi no stap skul, mi luk we ol brata blong mi oli go long skul. House-girl feeling like one of the family. Taem mi stap wetem olgeta olsem mi famili stret wetem olgeta.

Malakula TANNI FRAZER, FIELDWORKER

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Y NAME IS TANNI FRAZER. I come from Uripiv Island, Malakula, in central Vanuatu. I am a woman fieldworker at the Cultural Centre, and I have never worked as a house-girl. My “sisters,” yes, they have worked as housegirls, but me, I don’t want to be anyone’s house-girl. I think of it as slave work. In my opinion, I would hate working as a house-girl because I don’t want anyone to be my boss. I just want to be able to do what I like. I have experienced the work that house-girls do, even though I have not been a house-girl myself. I have come to report on a lot of stories I have gathered about house-girls who worked for teachers, for missionaries, and on plantations.

Working for Mrs. Gillan First, I want to start with a missionary who lived on our island, Uripiv, in 1889. According to my information, the Uripiv people who worked for the missionary did not do housework for him; they helped him with his work and helped him learn their language. In those days, our great-grandfathers did not know Bislama, nor did they know how to speak English. They just communicated with gestures. And they were afraid of white people because of the difference in their skin color. So the missionary went ahead and learned the language, then he got a housegirl. This missionary had a wife. The missionary was John Gillan and his wife was Helen. That was his first wife. After the two of them learned the language, they asked for a house-girl. My own grandmother was a woman named Kari. She was from the small island of Norsup, the island near the hospital. She came and stayed with her sister, 76

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who was married to a man from Uripiv. So she stayed with her sister at Uripiv. This sister and her husband lived near the church and the mission station. So when John Gillan was looking for a house-girl, he just went next door to the house of this man who was my grandmother’s brother-in-law. He asked, “Can I take Kari to be my house-girl?” The man said, “All right.” After that, Kari became a house-girl for Mrs. Gillan. When she went to work for the missionary, she was afraid of them. Everyone was afraid of white people in those days. But Mrs. Gillan looked after her. This ancestor of mine said that John Gillan did not pay her. They gave her clothes and the knowledge of how to talk to God and how to sing hymns, too. That was how they worked with her while she was a house-girl. At the same time, they gave her a broom to sweep inside the house, as well as outside. She also removed the grass from the yard. Her main job was to look after the missionary’s child inside the house. The child she looked after was named Whitecross. In 1942 during World War II, he was the principal of the Tangoa Institute. My grandmother’s main job was to look after the baby. She did not know how to change a diaper, how to put perfume [lotion] on him or anything like that. In those days, you know, they did not understand how to do these things. But Mrs. Gillan showed her how to do them. When the missionaries would go to Lambubu, they would take their baby and my grandmother; all of them would come stay on Malakula. They would stay one week or one month, whatever, then they would come back to Uripiv. One thing my grandmother learned about was a small tree that produces white Wok blong hem blong lukaotem pikinini ia nomo. Olsem hem i no food. In the old days, there was no flour. save hao blong putum napkin, be Teachers from Samoa taught everyone how misis hem i laenem hem hao blong putum ol samting ia, hao blong to make flour from this plant. It was a lot of putum perfum long pikinini mo ol work to make this flour. Our grandparents narafala samting moa. Be yu save called it “arrowroot.” They would make it in bifo ol i no save hao blong putum ol samting ia. Be misis hem i stap soem white cloth. They would squeeze it through hem hao blong mekem ol samting the cloth. Then they would dry it in the sun. ia. Taem olgeta oli wantem go long Lambubu narasaed long Malakula, When it was dry, they would save it in a bag. ol i karem hem ol i go stap long This is one thing my ancestor learned when Lambubu, ol i karem pikinini wetem abu blong mi tu ol i go stap long she was a house-girl for the missionaries. Lambubu. Ol i go stap wan wik or At that time, no one had clothes. wan manis olsem, afta ol i jes kam When my grandmother was a house-girl bak long aelan. she learned to sew, like you are learning How to change a diaper. Hao blong putum about [in the fieldworkers’ project on the napkin. history of island dress]. Another thing she

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learned was how to make mats from coconut fiber called “sandwich mats.” There is one style of dress that they say people from Efate taught them. It is a style that just drops straight down. Now our dresses flare out more. You could say one side goes up and the other goes down—that’s an island dress.

Working for a ni-Vanuatu In my research there was a woman who worked as a house-girl at Bushman’s Bay plantation. She worked for Mr. Gaby Lamoreux. Her name was Leven Kalmat. She worked as a house-girl when she was young, when she was not yet married. I don’t know what year she worked for him. She swept, she washed, and she helped prepare food. But this woman only worked for him for six months. Master Gaby married a woman from Mele named Anna. He was the manager of Bushman’s Bay plantation. Mr. Gaby did not treat his wife like a white misis because she was a black woman. The house-girls wore island dresses and she also wore island dress because she was from Mele. She was just a black misis. This house-girl received four pounds each month for her work. She swept and washed and they also gardened. When Anna wanted to make a garden, every one of them went to clear the bush and plant the food crops in the garden. When the house-girl washed, she did it all by hand; she did not use a machine. If they were preparing a meal for some white guests, the master would help prepare the meal. If the master wanted to go somewhere, the house-girl would go with them on a picnic. She also looked after their little girl, Anais, who eventually married (former prime minister) Maxime Carlot Korman. As for rations, the two of them gave her clothes and food. Sometimes she ate in their house. But as for sleeping, she slept with the plantation workers. As for looking after the child, she was already quite big, about five years old. So there wasn’t much work to do with her. I think that’s all about Master Gaby and the plantation at Bushman’s Bay.

Working at Sarmettes plantation Another report I have is about two women who worked as house-girls. This was at the Sarmettes plantation, Paul Savoie’s plantation. He was a Frenchman. His children included one called Paul Savoie. This is their family. One of the children married a woman from Ifira. Of the two who were house-girls for Master Paul at Sarmettes, one was Dorosty Kennett’s mother and the other one was called Tetinne. Sarmettes is on the east side of Malakula. The work that the two of them did included washing large pieces of cloth such as bed sheets and table linen. The two of them did not wash

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them; they boiled them. Every day the two of them carried the laundry down to Wok blong tufala i blong was nomo, be tufala i se was ia i no se ol smol samting. the river where there was a very large pot Tufala i wasem ol big bigfala kaliko. on the bank. Because there was no pipe Tufala i no wasem be tufala i kukum ol klos ia, boelem olgeta. Evri dei tufala i to pull the water up to the house, they mas boelem klos blong olgeta. Evri dei took the clothes down to the river. This tufala i karem ol klos i go long reva. I gat is near where the airport is now. So they wan bigfala sospen from i no gat paep blong pulum wota i go insaed, be ol i carried the clothes down to wash them, karem klos i go daon long reva. Olsem i then carried them back to the house. The gat wan bigfala aean pot we i stap blong ol i kukum klos long hem. Hem i long thing they used for boiling the laundry wei tumas. Ples ia kasem airport hem was always there by the river. They put i klosap. Ol i karem ol klos i go blong firewood under the pot and lit a fire to wasem, afta karem i kam bak. Samting blong boelem klos hem i stap kolosap boil the water in which they washed the long riva, ol i yusum faea wud nomo clothes. The kind of soap they used had blong putum ananit long pot blong boelem ol klos. I gat wan sop we ol i stap four corners. They called it “four-corner yusum bifo hem i waet mo hem i gat foa soap.” It only cost one shilling, but it was kona long hem. Ol i pem long 1 shilling nomo, be hem i bigwan. a big piece of soap. Taem tufala i was i no se bae tufala When the two house-girls washed, i finis long tina, samtaem tufala i save it did not mean they would be finished by tekem hol dei. Afta ol klos ol i save hang long veranda blong masta nomo. lunchtime. Oh, no. It took the whole day. Long narafala taem long narafala dei oli Then they had to hang the clothes to dry putum ol narawan bakegen blong tufala on the master’s verandah. On another i wasem. Hem i se ol klos blong olgeta wetem ol pikinini wetem ol bigfala bedday, they would do it all over again. They sit kaliko blong bed. washed everyone’s clothes, including the Boiling laundry by the river. Boelem klos klosap long reva. children’s things and the big bed linens. The two of them could not tell me exactly what years they worked. They weren’t married yet and one of them said she was in her twenties at that time. It must have been somewhere around 1950. They said that the wages for the two of them were four pounds per month. But when they took one pound to the store in those days, they could buy a lot of things and still get change. Four pounds was a lot of money in those days. When they killed a bullock on the plantation, the house-girls would get rations: rice, beef, whatever there was. The master would give some to the house-girls. Clothes, too. They told me, “The master and misis were very good to us when we were working for them. But we only worked for three months. After three months we were tired, so we stopped working. It was just the washing! That was what tired us out!” As for the misis, sometimes she would notice something that wasn’t right and she would speak her mind. She would talk; she would scold them. She would talk! But because she was French, she would only speak French to everyone. The

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master wasn’t like that; he wasn’t one to criticize people. Still, sometimes he would see people doing something incorrectly in the plantation and he would try to correct them. It was a really big area. Someone this morning [at the workshop] referred to it as Savoie’s place, but there were a lot of Savoies who had property inside this big area. If you saw it on a map, the map would say “Sarmettes,” but there are a lot of names for the smaller places inside the plantation, as well as the names of all the family members who held property within the plantation. For example, Pierre Theuil’s family was related to the Savoies. They were brothers but they had different names. Pierre Theuil’s sons were Laurence and Ronnie. Paul had Anita and Leontine. Savoie and Theuil had different plantations.

Working for the Vanair manager There was a woman who worked for a man who was the first manager of Vanair in Norsup. His name was Peter Wright, a man from Tonga, and he was the first manager of the airport at Norsup. This woman who did his washing, her name was Emie. She said she looked after the two of them, Peter and his wife. She told me she did the laundry, ironed the clothes, and swept. Some things she did not do; the wife did them. Peter Wright’s daughter was Helen. I think Helen lives in Vila, but her father is now dead. Emie worked for them in 1968, but she found the work quite hard so she ran away from it. She did not fulfill her agreement to work for them for a year. She only stayed a short time and then she quit. Her work was to sweep and wash and iron. I think she was paid five pounds a month.

Working for Master Corlette As I said earlier, I have never worked as a house-girl. I have just done research on house-girls. This morning I have one more research report to make. It is about Master Corlette. He was a master but I didn’t ask where he was from. I don’t know if he was French or English. This is something I don’t know about. But I do know that he married a woman from Ambae named Robe. He has quite a few descendents, some living in Australia. Well, not that many but fairly many because he married two women. The first was the mother of Miss Margie, whose children were Jennifer, Ronnie, and Laurence. The second was the woman from Ambae named Robe. She gave birth to Madeline, whose children were Isabel and Cindy. Cindy got married and lives in America. I don’t know if Isabel married or where she lives. Laurence still lives at the Sarmettes. He married one of my aunties, a woman from Uripiv.

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Master Corlette was a pretty big master. He owned a big plantation on Malakula. He also bought a number of small parcels of land all over. So he was a big master and many people worked for him. He also had a ship. He bought copra on Ambae and Ambrym, and he went all around Malakula buying copra. At that time, many Malakula people worked for him and there were lots of people from other places like Ambae and Ambrym who came here to work for him. The master lived here from the 1800s up to World War II. He worked for the two colonial powers just like Mr. Wilkins did later on. He worked like Jerome, a Frenchman who married a woman from Mele named Tomet, who ruled the black people of Malakula in the old days. Mr. Wilkins was more recent, but in those days Master Corlette and Master Jerome ruled all us black people on Malakula. Sometimes the two of them were masters of plantations and sometimes they were administrators who enforced the law. When the two of them said something, everyone did what they said. Master Corlette was both a master and an important man in the government. It was he who trained all our men to become soldiers in 1942 during World War II. He collected these men from wherever they came from. So as for Master Corlette, I can’t say much about the house-girl who worked for his first wife because I did not gather any information about this, but I can say something about Miss Robe. Her house-girl was afraid of the master but not of her. The house-girl was also from Ambae and her name was Eti. She and Robe spoke the same language; perhaps Eti was a close relative. She did all kinds of work in the house. Robe never criticized her for anything because the two of them were close, but Eti was still afraid of Master Corlette. In those days, black people did not know enough about the white people who managed everything. And whatever directions the white people gave, the work boys and house-girls just had to do what they were told. This old woman Eti told me that she swept. They made gardens and looked after Master Corlette and Robe’s children. Miss Madeline married Master Gidley. They gave her a house so that she could stay nearby in a place called Metaven. It had been part of Corlette’s plantation but when the master died then Master Gidley owned it because he had married Miss Madeline. So anyway, her work was to sweep, work in the gardens, feed the chickens, feed the cats, and feed the dogs. Then she would do the rest of her work. Her salary was small, but in those days they helped out by giving clothes to their house-girls—any kind of clothes. They gave clothes to their house-girls and their workmen, too. You understand that this was because the master controlled everything to do with his place single-handedly. Malakula people could only make

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their own gardens near the seashore. As for the hills, the master alone controlled everything. There, workmen could plant gardens and so on but only as workmen for him. This was from the 1800s to World War II or even into the 1950s. After that, Master Gidley took Master Corlette’s place. Nevertheless, I have to say that Robe was a good mother. She looked after many children. If a mother died, Robe would look after her child. One of her aunties died three days after giving birth and when the baby was just fourteen days old, they took her to Robe, who raised her. The child’s name was Anita. She later married a man from Tanna named George, who just died last Saturday. Another child was Benny from up in the bush. Robe looked after him and when he grew up he became a driver for Mr. Wilkins. A third one was Noel who was from Uripiv. Robe cared for these children as if they were her own, as if she had given birth to them. They all grew up with Master Corlette and Robe. In this regard, the two of them were really good. They helped black people in that if a mother died, the two of them would take care of her baby. Perhaps that’s what I want to say about the history of Master Corlette: he was a tawian [in-law] to the people of Ambae. Master Corlette had men and women working for him. They shelled out copra, made gardens, milked cows, things like that. They also planted coconuts on the plantation—lots of men from Ambae, women from Ambae, men from Ambrym, women from Ambrym, men from Malakula, women from Malakula. As I have said, he was a really big master. And he had a ship that he used to go to Ambae. That’s how he got a woman from Ambae. Girls from Ambae also worked for him as house-girls. Robe started out as his house-girl but after a while she became his mistress. In my research, I found out that the salary was two pounds for workmen, but I don’t know how much he paid the house-girls. You know that in those days two pounds was big money. Today, if you get two pounds it might be enough to pay for breakfast, but not lunch and dinner! I want to return to the short history of Master Corlette and Robe, the one he brought here. Because he was a big master, he lived in a house with an iron roof. Well, it had an iron roof but otherwise it was made of local materials. It seems to me that it was because his wife was black that he made this nice house, but he was the only one who lived in it. We know that in the old days, houses were different from today. They were round. Some had iron roofs but still they were round. This is not to say that the master took over everything, but she helped him with everything and then he alone lived in the house. The children lived with Robe in her house and Master Corlette slept alone in his house nearby. He treated Robe like that, but it was different in those days. She would have

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respected him or something like that. As I have said, in those days this master was a big master and he was also important in the government. This was the man who trained the Malakula men to become soldiers in World War II. They all passed through him after the French and British contacted him.

ESTELLE My name is Estelle. I come from the small island Uripiv, where I lived with my mother and father. I went to school in Lakatoro. Later a misis came and I worked for her. A sister of mine was working at Lakatoro. This woman told my sister that she was looking for a house-girl, and my sister told me about it.

Working for Anne and John Naupa I went to work at Lakatoro in 1969, when I was nineteen years old. But I only worked there for six months, not even a full year. I started work at seven o’clock every morning. I had breakfast with just the misis. After breakfast I would wash our cups, then I would sweep inside the house. Then I would wash inside; I would wash the windows. Then I would wash all the clothes. This misis was a teacher. Her name was Mrs. Anne. At lunch she would come back and she would cook meat. The two of us would eat together, and then each of us would rest. At one o’clock I would start working again, and I would finish at four o’clock. I did not have a watch but I knew what time I finished because she would tell me. In the morning, I knew it was time to go to work after the school children got up. The cook at the school slept with the students at the school. He had to prepare meals three times a day. I think Mrs. Anne was the first woman from overseas to teach at the school and the first teacher to have a house-girl; the French school was new at that time. So there were no house-girl quarters at the school. The British district agent and others had house-girl quarters; everyone in the colonial government had quarters for their house-girls, too. But they didn’t have house-girl quarters at the school. I had a room to myself, but it was inside the dormitory.1 I slept there from Monday until Friday. I did not wear special clothes. My clothes were the same as the ones Mrs. Anne wore. They did not give food or anything like that to me. On the weekends I would go and relax on the small island of Uripiv. In those days, there were very few speedboats—just two of them—so I would paddle my canoe to the small island. Now there are more than fifty speedboats that provide

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a taxi service between Uripiv and the main island. But we just used canoes. Because it was so hard to paddle back and forth from Uripiv to Lakatoro, I often did not want to go back to work. It was all right when the wind was good, but when the wind was strong you had to paddle into it. The small island is quite a distance Why we knew how to paddle a canoe. Olsem from Lakatoro. On Sunday afternoons, wanem mifala save padel long kenu. I would have to paddle back to Lakatoro. One weekend I was on the small island and the sea was very rough—so rough I could not get back to Lakatoro and I had to stay on Uripiv. I did not want to come because when the sea is rough like that it is frightening. It’s a long way to Lakatoro. We learned to paddle canoes because we had some gardens on the main island. The place where we made gardens was a long way away from where we lived. So you had to paddle and paddle until you were tired. If you wanted to go to the garden you would have to get up at 3 a.m. and start paddling. This is why we knew how to paddle a canoe. Once in a while we would make a garden on the main island, but most of the time we gardened on our own island. There was a large area for this on the small island. Once in a while we might need something from the big island, but we did not go every day. Almost everything we needed was on the small island. It’s closer to paddle from Lelepa Island to the main island of Efate than from Uripiv to Lakatoro. You go from Uripiv to two small islands, Nabut and Tenga, then you come into Lakatoro, so it is quite a long way. It takes forty-five minutes in a fast speedboat. A slow boat can take an hour. Sometimes if the sea is calm you may meet dolphins on the way, as well as many other kinds of fish. They don’t bite people. One time a doctor from Belgium swam from Malakula to the two small islands. Perhaps it was the year before last. A shark did not eat him, but it did eat his shoes! Mrs. Anne’s husband was ni-Vanuatu; he was from Erromango. His name was John Naupa and at that time he worked for the government. When they were in Lakatoro, the two of them did not yet have children although they were already married. They spoke only English with each other. Anne’s work was at the new Lakatoro Senior Primary School. John was Assistant District Agent. They got married in 1968 in the Paton Memorial Church in Port Vila. His way of being was good. If you made a mistake or did something he did Mifala i lanem hao blong padelem kenu from se mifala i stap mekem garen long big aelan. Be ples ia we mifala i stap mekem garen long hem, hem i long wei. Yu padel gogo yu taet. Sapos yu wantem go long garen yu kirap long tri klok olsem yu stat padel long canoe, hemia nao i mekem se mifala i save padel long kenu.

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not think was right, it was Mrs. Anne who would criticize you. She was the only one who told me what to do, never the master.

ROBIN KEN My name is Robin Ken. I come from the small island of Uripiv. I worked as a housegirl for only one year in 1977. I worked at Lakatoro for a master who worked for the Livestock and Agriculture Department. His name was Mr. Franz and his wife was a teacher from Canada. He and his wife, Alice, had two children. A cousin of mine came to tell me that I could become a house-girl for this particular master because he was the best friend of her own employer. At the time I was just a youngster. When my cousin told me to become a house-girl I was frightened. She said it would be good if I came with her, that we could paddle across together every morning. My mother offered to come sleep with the school children at Lakatoro, but instead we paddled over every morning, and every evening we paddled back home again. I started work at half past seven and worked until eleven, then from half past one until four o’clock. They paid me two thousand francs, about two thousand vatu per week. Perhaps they gave my cousin a room of her own, but I did not want to sleep at Lakatoro so that meant we both went back to the small island to sleep. In Lakatoro, in 1977, there were lots of white men working in government offices. But my feeling was that I just could not sleep at Lakatoro because I would not be able to see my mother and father every morning and afternoon. I wanted to see them all the time. At this time, my master had two house-girls: me and one other. The other house-girl’s job was to look after the two children and to cook for everyone. My job was to wash and iron and to clean inside the house as well as around the flower garden. The misis gave me things. After about three months, she piled up some of her clothes and gave them to me—two or three items of children’s clothing. She gave them to me so I could give them to my brothers. She only spoke English with my cousin and me, but when she was with her husband the two of them only spoke French.

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I never ate with them; maybe the house-girl who worked inside the house ate with them. As for me, when 11:30 came, I went off to eat the food I had brought from home. As for parties, when I went home I think the house-girl who lived there prepared for the party. The master worked with livestock and this meant that he had no time to eat with his friends. I noticed that my cousin’s master would leave some food from their dinner for her to eat. I could see that many masters were good, as my cousin’s master was. But my cousin was the only house-girl working for her master whereas there were two of us where I worked. This meant that the one who worked inside stayed with them, whereas when the time came for me to stop working I would go home.

Paddling a canoe to work When we had a reliable canoe, we would go back and forth. We knew how to handle canoes and we understood the sea conditions. We have been doing this for a long time. We paddle every single day. Because we were all so used to paddling, we were not afraid to make the crossing. But we would have to get up at about six o’clock and start paddling in order to get to work on time. If we were a little late, we would let our bosses know because we lived on the small island. There is a big tide in that area. That’s why they built the big wharf at Litzlitz, so large ships could come in no matter what the tide was like. But at that time there were not many ships. If the wind and tide were with us, we could paddle across in half an hour. If not—if the wind was strong—we would paddle to a point on the island, then go to the next island, then over to Lakatoro. Sometimes when the wind was strong, the two of us would have to sleep with relatives on the big island for several days, then we would paddle and go back to the small island. We worked from Monday until Friday only. On Saturday we didn’t work.

The misis who shouted too much As soon as I started work I found it very hard. And the woman, she was very hard, too! If you made any mistakes, she would shout at you. Her husband was a Frenchman, but he was good. From the beginning, I saw her speak harshly to her own children. Right away I could see that her way of being was not good. Every time a house-girl did something wrong, she would criticize her. And whenever the master wanted something, he had to ask the misis for it. So in other words, the misis was the boss of the household. When I started working for them, the woman who worked as a house-girl

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inside the house said to me, “Misis says you should do things this way.” After that Taem ia mi no mekem wasing, mi mekem wasing long tri days nomo. I didn’t want to say much to the misis, Taem ia blong aeanem klos mi no save. because if you tried to say anything to Mi aeanem olsem wanem from taem ia mi jes finis skul nomo. Aiting mi gat her she might shout at you. I remember twelef yia nomo. Mekem se mi no save that I finished sweeping and set about gud hao blong wok, be mi save smol. From taem ia mi tu mi no save aean be doing the ironing. mi aean wan klos we hem i slik [nylon]. At that time I did not know much Taem mi aean olsem be hem i blak. about washing. I had only done washing Dres ia i brok wantaem. Naoia mi wari. Mi singaot long haos gel ia we hemi for three days, that’s all. When I ironed lukaotem pikinini from hem i wan clothes I had no idea how to do it. I mean, kasin blong mi. Mi talem se, “Sori mi I had just left school; I was only twelve mi mekem bigfala samting from misis i mas tok had long mi ia. From mi no years old! This meant that I really didn’t save. Sapos yu bin talem aot long mi se know much about how to do housework. yu no aeanem slik! Be hit blong hem i kasem, i brok wantaem.” I only knew a little bit about it. So I didn’t know how to iron. One time I ironed a Don’t iron nylon! Yu no aeanem slik! piece of clothing that was made of nylon. As soon as I ironed it, the shirt turned black. The fabric melted immediately leaving a big hole. I was worried. I went to the other house-girl, my cousin. She was looking after the children, and I said, “I’m sorry. I’ve made a big mistake. The misis is really going to yell at me now! It was because I didn’t know. If only you had told me that I shouldn’t iron nylon! But the heat of the iron melted it and now there is a big hole!” So I waited. The misis lived at Lakatoro but she taught at Norsup at the French school. Perhaps some of you who have visited Malakula know this school? After noon she was bound to come back home. So I said to the other house-girl, “When misis comes back, don’t tell her what I have done. Then after I have left for lunch, that’s when you can tell her.” Eleven-thirty, the time when the misis would come back, was also the time when I would leave for lunch. When my cousin and I were on the island we would prepare some food that we would bring for our lunch. After 11:30 came, we would sit down in a shed, eat our lunch, then go back to work. When we sat there eating our lunch, I didn’t say a word to my cousin, but my mind was working overtime. I knew I’d have to go back to the house at half past one and the misis would fire up at me! I didn’t say a word but I couldn’t think about anything else. So 1:30 came and I went back inside. The house-girl who had stayed in the house said she had told the misis about my mistake. I came inside; she yelled at me. She taught me again. I spoke, but I said very little. She shouted and yelled. You see, she was a Canadian woman—I know some Canadian women

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are nice but this one shouted and yelled. She said, “That’s the last time! Don’t ever do this again!” In my mind I thought “That’s the last time!” meant my cousin and I would go back to our small island and I would never be able to come back to work again. We finished our work for the afternoon, then the two of us went back, paddling, to our island. In the morning, my cousin said, “Okay, let’s go!” She was ready for us to go back to Lakatoro. I said, “No. I don’t A misis who talked too much. Wan misis we i toktok tumas. want to go. I don’t want to work. If the master asks after me, tell him I don’t want to work.” She said, “No, come on, let’s go.” I said, “If we go, the misis is going to fire up at me again. I don’t want to go.” But my cousin forced me to go, so I said, “Okay, I’ll go but only after the misis has left for work.” So we paddled really fast; we hurried to get to work. As we paddled I was thinking we were certain to be late, the misis was sure to have left for school. When we arrived I told the house-girl who was looking after the children that I was sorry I was late. She said, “That’s all right. Just continue with your work.” A few days later, I was doing the laundry again. The misis came back at 11:30. She noticed me but I didn’t open my mouth or say anything. I just kept quiet, did my work, didn’t speak. When she came in for her meal she said hello to me and I said hello to her. But anything to do with housework, I no longer would ask her about it. She had really yelled at me! She had shouted at me so much! If some water spilled, I rushed to clean it up, because this misis was a misis who shouted much too much! I spent the weekend on the island. The next Monday my cousin said to me, “Let’s paddle to work!” I said, “No. I don’t want to work any longer. As I already told you, I don’t want to work!” After that I stayed home for three days. I just stayed in the house. After that the misis sent my cousin to speak with me. The misis said, “You tell her again that she must come to work. If she says she no longer wants to work, then we will pay her the wages we owe her.” So I went back to work. After two or three days, the misis asked me, “Do you want to work or not? What is it?” So I said to her, “Well, I’m frightened because you shout at me much too much.” At that time, the master was there. He was a Frenchman, but he was good. Perhaps he was embarrassed by the misis, perhaps he spoke to her later and said, “Because this Narafala dei mi mekem was bakegen. Misis i kambak long 11:30, misis i luk mi be mi nomo openem mout blong mi mo talem olsem wanem. Mi stap kwaet olsem, mi wok nomo, mi nomo toktok. Taem misis hem i kam long tina taem hem i talem halo, mi talem halo long hem. Be ani samting long haos olsem wanem mi nomo askem long misis from. Misis i stap toktok long mi wei! I stap toktok we i toktok. Sapos wata i foldaon mi mas hariap blong klinem, from misis hemi wan misis we i toktok tumas!

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house-girl is very young, you must speak kindly to her.” At the time she just said, “You continue your work.” After this, I said very little. I kept on working as their house-girl until the year was over. When my cousin’s master took her with them to Santo, I quit. I didn’t work as a house-girl after that. I only worked for them for a year. I don’t know where they live now, nor am I in contact with them. NOTES 1 At this time the dormitories for the students had not yet been built. Estelle probably slept at Litzlitz village during the week. (Anne Naupa, personal communication, 10 November 2006)

Ambae JEAN TARISESEI, VANUATU CULTURAL CENTRE COORDINATOR

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Y NAME IS JEAN TARISESEI, and I am a coordinator at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. I am from Ambae. I’m not really a house-girl, but I stayed at a place where there was a man who had lots of men working for him. There were also lots of house-girls, so I was able to see what was happening with them.

Mr. Breusch’s house-girls My father worked for Master Stanley Breusch and his family. They had a lot of places in Vanuatu and had many house-girls working for them. The place where their house and store were is still there today at Longana area in Ambae. Because my father worked for them and because we lived near them, I was able to see what was happening with their house-girls. All the men who worked for this family helped them to run their business. They had a ship and they had a big truck, which they called a “lorry” or something like that. At this time I was still small; I hadn’t yet been to school. Sometimes I would follow my father to work. There were plenty of women who worked there as house-girls. They washed, they fed the cat, they fed the pig, they even cooked for the workmen, the driver, all the men who worked on the ship, and all the men who came with the truck to take the copra. They also cooked for all the work boys who worked at the store. So during this time they had many house-girls. These house-girls came

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from Tongoa. It was the first time I had ever seen island dresses from Tongoa. We were not used to seeing these island dresses, and when the men or the boys looked at these island dresses they told them that they were wearing parachutes! I liked these women and so I spent time with them. These house-girls lived in a place like a school dormitory. They had bunk beds. Whenever I went to visit them, they looked after me. I would climb on their beds; I would sleep on their beds. My house was close to where they lived. When they would go to the garden to pick pineapples or something, I would go with them. Sometimes they would go swimming or go to a party. If they had a party someplace, the boss would take them there in the big lorry.

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So wan taem mi tingbaot se mifala i bin go long lafet, antap long hil, mifala olgeta i go long hem. So mi go wetem olgeta wetem Papa blong mi mo Mama blong mi, mifala i go long lori ia. Mifala i go, be trak i no save go long hil. Olsem hem i go antap afta i klis, afta i go bak afta ol i pusum hem. Ol i sakem sam ston ol i se babae hem i go antap long hem. Olgeta man ol i talem se, “No, trak hem i hevi tumas. Yufala ol woman, yufala i jiam daon.” So evriwan ol i jiam daon. Yu save ol aelan dres ia ol i bigwan? Olsem parasut ia! Taem oli jiam daon, sam ol i hang antap lo saed blong trak. Mo tufala olfala woman i terem klos blong tufala. So taem mifala i finis long ples ia, mifala i rere blong go, be tufala i se, “Baebae mitufala i go bak, from dres blong mitufala i brok.” So taem tufala i kam bak, tufala i sapos blong go long ples blong masta ia be tufala i kam mestem rod. Tufala i wokbaot i go, be tufala i fanem sam man. Nao tufala i talem se mitufala i bin mestem rod. Be from tufala tu bislama blong tufala tu i no gud tumas. So ol i askem tufala se, “Olsem wanem?” Tufala i se, “No, mitufala i wantem go bak long ples blong mifala.” Be ol i luk save se tufala i no woman ples. Ol i save se ol haos gel blong tufala masta [Masta and Misis Breusch] ia nao. So ol i talem long tufala se, “No, ples blong yufala antap lo wei.” So ol i talem rod long tufala, be from i gat fulap rod ol i stap kros olbaot so ol i talem long tufala se, “Yufala yu folem rod ia, yutufala yu go bak antap, yutufala folem hem nomo, yutufala i no tanem long rod bae yutufala i kasem ples blong yufala.”

I remember one time I went to a party on top of this hill. I went with my mother and my father. We went in the lorry. We went, but the truck wasn’t able to get up the hill. It went up, then it rolled down, and we had to push it. We tried to put some stones down, but the man told us, “The truck is too heavy! The women have to jump off the truck.” So all of us Parachute dresses and lost house-girls. Aelen dres i olsem parasut, mo haosgel i lus long rod. jumped off the truck. You know those island dresses? They’re big ones. They look like parachutes. When some women climbed out of the truck, they got their dresses stuck on the side of the truck. Two ended up tearing their dresses. So they said they had to go back and change. These two women tried to walk back to where they lived, but they missed the road! They walked about for a while, and then they found a man. They told the man that they had missed the road, but their Bislama

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wasn’t very good, so the man didn’t understand them. He just said, “What are you talking about?” They said in Tongoan that they just want to go back to their place. This man knew that these two women were from another island. He also knew that they were house-girls for this master. So he told them that their place was over there somewhere. He told them exactly which road to take, because there were lots of roads that crossed all about; he told them, “You have to follow this road here. It will take you there.”

Other memories of life with the Breusches This master and his wife had two children, two boys. When the master got older he became sick, and so they left. They had two centers on Ambae, their store and their house. One was at Boiboi; the other was at Naruku. At the time of the rebellion, some people spoiled Naruku. Boiboi eventually fell down, but some of the men who had worked for Mr. Breusch rebuilt the house and now they and their family sleep there. One time when they were older they came back to visit. They came with their children, too, but they did not want to see the places where they had once lived. I think because it wasn’t good anymore, so they didn’t want to go and look. They felt sorry about what had been happening to this place; they found it too hard to go and look at a place where not-so-good things have happened. I wasn’t a house-girl, but when I was small I saw what was happening with the house-girls and the master. It looked as though all the women were happy all the time, but if they did something wrong, the misis would “sing out” to them. I found it funny that they would call her “misi.” I thought it was a funny way of talking. But now I know it was a form of respect, to respect the master’s wife. The called the master’s children by their real names, but for the master and his wife they used “master” and “misi,” that’s all. They never used their real names. It happened that this family built a big oven for baking bread. It was the first bread oven. My father was the best baker in the whole place. He made bread and sold it. So the family helped him when he first started out with his bread business. It was a good thing for them to do. They looked after us even though me and my mother and my brother didn’t work for them. But they looked out for us. I’m not sure how much they gave to my father, but they gave him things. During this time small tins of fish and sweet biscuits were twenty or thirty vatu. I think big tins of fish were not more than one hundred vatu. They often fed us. When it was time to eat or time to cook, they would bring a tin of fish or a tin of meat and say, “This is for you to cook, for you to eat.” They did this for all the boys; they fed all of them. I’m not sure whether they paid them as well, or whether they

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took money off their salaries because they were also feeding them. But these men were fed every time they worked.

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So ating hemia hem i wan samting we i hapen long laef blong mi we mi wantem serem wetem yufala. Mi tingbaot taem mi stap wetem olgeta i gat wan yangfala nomo hem blong Tongoa. Mitufala i stap hem i stap toktok long mi be mi tu mi no save gud bislama. Taem mi folem olgeta mi harem ol toktok. Samtaem ol i toktok bislama, mi toktok lanwis long olgeta. Ale wan gel ia we mi tingbaot, mitufala i stap, mitufala i storian. Hem i toktok long bislama mi toktok lanwis blong mi long hem. Go nao mitufala i fanem ol eg insaed long paenapol. Ale babae mitufala i talem olsem wanem, mi talem se yu go talem long misi se i gat eg -- from taem i gat eg olsem hem i wantem se oli karem i go long hem. Ale, eg ia i gat tri i stap. Afta i go nao i talem se misi. Afta taem misi i lukluk naoia i kirap nao i talem se i gat “fres tri” insaed long Paenapol. Afta misi i stanap i lukluk mitufala se, “Wanem ia, se i gat eg long paenapol?” Taem misi i kam luk mitufala i se i gat eg insaed long paenapol. So mi tingbaot toktok ia kasem tede olsem hem i wan samting mi no save fogetem from mi tingbaot se “fres tri” ia hem i wan difren samting, be olsem hem i wan communication, hem i touch long communication we hem i no gud be even ol i wok, ol i andastanem olgeta, misi i andastanem, masta i andastanem, ol wok man tu ol i andastanem.

There’s one experience that I want to share with you. I’m thinking about the time they had a young girl from Tongoa working there. One time when I stayed with them, I stayed with her. She spoke in broken Bislama, but I also didn’t know Bislama. So sometimes she would speak Bislama, and sometimes I would speak their language. So one time we were walking in the garden and we found an “egg” inside a pineapple. We were talking about who should go and tell the misis that we found an egg in the pineapple because she had told us that if we find one we should tell her. This egg already had things growing out of it. So we told the misis and she came to look. She said that it had a “fresh tree” [a new pineapple] growing inside the old pineapple. After, she stood up and looked at us two and said, “What does it mean when there is an egg growing inside the pineapple?” Fresh trees or eggs in pineapples. Fres tri o eg long paenapol. When she came to look, we had told her that there was a fresh egg growing inside the pineapple. So it’s one thing that I think about, even today. I won’t forget that she said “fresh tree” and we said “egg.” It was a different word, but it was still communication. Even though our communication wasn’t very good, it still worked. We still understood each other. Misis understood. Master understood. All the workmen also understood.

Pentecost SIABAN DENISON, FIELDWORKER

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Y NAME IS SIABAN DENISON. I come from Vanrasini in East Pentecost. I am a woman fieldworker for the Cultural Centre. As part of my research I brought Françoise with me to the workshop. She used to work as a house-girl and will share her story with you. Our reports are quite short because in our area there were not many white people. We got a little information about some women and some men or boys who worked for masters.

House-girl for the Whitford family The woman I will talk about today is named Evelyn Grace. I wanted to bring her to the workshop, but she was having problems with her hands and did not want to come. Before I go on, I want to note one thing. You will see that the story of Evelyn Grace and her family connects all of our islands. This woman spent her long life among white men in a world connected by boats. These white men would steal family members and move them from one island to the next. So if you hear the name of someone from your own family or from your own place in this story, that’s the reason—that and the fact that this woman is so old. She turned one hundred last year in 2000. She spoke, and I took down her report. It was a slow report, because she would have to stop and think about the parts of the story she couldn’t remember, then carry on. Also she used some old-fashioned words. Evelyn told me that she came from Lotawan village on Mota in the Banks. Here is what she said in her own words. 94

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Evelyn Grace I am an old woman who has spent her entire life with white men and masters from the old days. There was an old man in Nduindui who had ten women. One was called Bure. Bure was the mother of Ada, and Ada was my mother. That’s a little genealogy. The ten women lived together and one day they had a big argument. Bure was so angry that she decided to take her baby, Ada, and go off into the bush. She carried Ada on her back, wrapped in calico, and set off into the bush near the seashore. One day a sailing boat called at Nduindui passage on West Ambae. Bure and her child approached a village and asked for a firebrand. They lit a fire down by the seashore to attract the attention of the boat’s crew. When the captain saw her, he ordered the boat’s crew to go ashore. At that time, people were still heathen. Bure spoke in the Ambae language. She called out, “Boat, boat, boat! Boat, come ashore!” The boat’s crew did not understand her. So Bure used gestures to say, “Me and my child want to go on the ship.” After that, the ship took her to Captain Whitford’s small island, Pakea, in the Banks. When women who were trying to escape bad relationships ran away, people were glad. They were glad because they would not know where their women had run to and so were unable to find them and bring them back. People in those days did not know how to speak Bislama or English. And when a woman went away on a ship, the men were afraid to call out or to ask after her because they were afraid of the white men. It was like that. They couldn’t do anything about it. Captain Whitford had planted the entire island with coconuts so that even today the island is full of coconuts. When the ship reached Pakea, Bure went ashore with her daughter. Bure went to work for Captain Whitford’s misis, Sarah, a woman from the Gilbert Islands. Now Bure didn’t know Bislama, but they used actions to communicate with her and she could understand what they were trying to tell her. So time passed and eventually Bure died. Bure’s daughter, Ada, took her mother’s place working for the misis. It wasn’t long before Captain Whitford brought a Banks islander named Samuel Sarawea to work for him at Pakea as a boatman. Now, Samuel took a liking to Ada. He went to Captain Whitford and said, “Master, I would like to marry Ada.” The master replied, “My boy, if you want to marry Ada the two of you must spend your lifetime together. Moreover, you must stay here with me always.” Samuel replied, “I will.” The bishop held a marriage service for them, and Samuel married Ada.

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Sometime later, there was heavy rain one night. Samuel got up, saying he had to go check on the ship’s boat. If the rain was too heavy, the small boat would fill up with water, break its rope, and float away. So he left his house, went to the seashore, and swam out to the boat. He climbed into the boat and began to bail. It wasn’t long before the rope attaching the small boat to the ship broke. The little boat began to drift, but Samuel wanted to finish bailing because there was a lot of wind and rain. He kept on bailing, but the rain kept filling up the boat. When he looked up, he saw that the small boat he was in had drifted far from the ship. So he took off his rain hat and raincoat and laid them in the boat. Then he jumped into the sea. He tried to swim but the water was very rough and he and the boat floated in different directions. The boat drifted ashore at Port Patteson. Samuel tried to swim ashore but the shore was so far away that eventually Samuel drowned. They only found the boat, but Samuel must have drowned. When they found the boat, there was his name marked in the bow — Sarawea. Everyone knew this had to be Master Whitford’s boat because Samuel had worked for him. Ada stayed on with Miss Sarah. Now, when she and Samuel had been together, the two of them had had children. One was me and the other was my sister, Pansy. Pansy was married and went to Bowie on Southeast Ambrym. I was hanging around with a lot of white men. Miss Sarah and Master Whitford had two daughters, one named Dorothy and the other named Chrissie. There was a man named Willie Grube from Germany. Willie took Pansy to Southeast Ambrym as his house-girl. Dorothy was still there at Pakea. She had a man, Dennis, working for her. Dennis wanted to “steal” me. So Dennis stole me and took me to Malapoa, near Vila. He took me to Master Henin’s plantation. He got me pregnant and we had a child, a little girl. We stayed quite a while at Malapoa. The little girl grew to be quite big, but then she died. While I was at Master Henin’s, his “fashion” was not very good. I thought Master Henin didn’t like me, because he encouraged Dennis to leave me. The master kept talking like this and eventually Dennis did leave me. Master Henin sent him up to Sola on Vanua Lava in the Banks to work on Henin’s ship, Percival. He sent Dennis to pick up copra there. At that time, our daughter was a big girl. When the Percival returned to Malapoa with its copra, the master refused to let Dennis come ashore because he thought Dennis would try to see me. Instead he tried to send Dennis on another ship, but Dennis refused. He said he would only work on the Percival. While Dennis was away, the master got me pregnant. When Dennis returned on the ship and heard this, he was very angry. He took all of my things and threw them out of our house. He threw them all over the place.

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At that point, I left. I went up to Bellevue where I worked for Master Des Masta ia taem ol i stap long Malapoa gogo hem i kirap, hem i givim pikinini Granges. I stayed there and looked after long Evelyn bakegen. Taem man blong my little girl. Later, a man from Pentecost Evelyn, Dennis, hemi i kam bak hem i harem Evelyn hem i olsem. Naoia hem took me. This is the man I am still with i no wantem Evelyn, hem i no wantem today. He also worked for Des Granges. nao. Taem hem i harem, hem i sak But one day Master Des Granges ran the sakem ol ting blong tufala olbaot. two of us off the property. So I put my Master gets house-girl pregnant and husband angry. Masta i givim pikinini long haosgel, child on my back and wrapped her in man blong hem i kros. calico. The Pentecost man and I crossed Efate Island and went to Havannah Harbor. The Pentecost man looked after me and the child I had had with Dennis. Then he got me pregnant, too. My children are all grown now. Their names are Jack Milton, Roy Milton, and Jean-Marc Milton, and Rachel and Sarah. Rachel is married and has settled somewhere around Vila. Sarah is married and lives in Pentecost. I have another child, David, who works at the Ecole Communal. These are all my children. I spent my long life with white men. Now I am very old, but if you go to my house you can see that I have lived with white people all my life. Whenever I left a master, even if I ran away, they would give me presents: saucepans, plates, clothes. When you see my house, you can tell it is true that I am a woman who worked for white people in the past.

Working conditions Our second research question was about work. I asked Evelyn where she slept when she was working for those white men. She said, “I slept with all of them. I looked after their chickens and ducks and did everything. Sometimes when there were not enough men to cut copra, I helped to do that, too.” I asked if they gave her days off. She said that if she wanted to rest, she would stay in her room. “That doesn’t mean I wasn’t doing anything,” she said. “I would have to work on something in my room.” I asked her if any of her masters went to church. She said the one on Pakea never went, and the ones at Malapoa and Bellevue sometimes went. As for what they ate, she said that they killed cattle then salted the beef, because in those days they didn’t use iceboxes much. They also ate fish and rice as well as shellfish. She said Master Henin paid her fifty dollars per month but at Bellevue they only paid her thirty dollars. At Pakea she worked for free. She explained that when her mother died, she took her mother’s place. I asked her why they had not paid

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her anything, as she was already a big girl when her mother died. She said, “No, because at that time we all lived together. I thought Captain Whitford was my father because they treated me like their own children.” Back then, they did not wear island dresses. She said they used silek. This is what they called nylon clothes. She said they taught her how to sew. “If we put the pieces of cloth together wrong or sewed it wrong, they would hit your fingers,” she said. I asked if she felt like she was a part of their family. She said, “Yes, when I was with them I felt that we were all family. It was only the one at Malapoa who was such a tough master. If he said, ‘Today you wash,’ it didn’t matter if my baby was crying at home. I just took the baby and tied it on my back and washed. Master Des Granges at Bellevue also was strict. When he said it was time, he meant it. You could never waste time.” Evelyn said she is still in contact with them. She said that some of the children are in Noumea and some are in Vila. “When the family visits in Vila,” she said, “they ask after me. Then they say, ‘You go tell Evelyn that we wish her good luck in her life.’ They don’t write to me anymore, but I get messages that people pass to me from the family.” Finally, I asked her if there were other women who worked with her when she worked for these white men. She said there were women from different islands, but none from Pentecost.

FRANÇOISE MOLWAI My name is Françoise Molwai. I come from Vanrasini on the east side of Pentecost. In the old days, I lived with my father and mother, and they sent me to school at Melsisi. That was when I saw all the white men and women, the sisters, and the pères, or fathers. When I finished Class 5 at school, I spent three years at home with my parents, then I was asked to work with the sisters at the church. I went to school at Melsisi. We lived on the east side of Pentecost, but Melsisi is on the west. You know how we refer to each other as sisters? We say, “You are all my sisters.” But Catholics use the term “sister” differently. When they train men to become fathers, it is like training them to become pastors. But they get training in many other things, too, such as medical training or teacher training. They can’t get married.

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My job was to cook, milk the cows, do the laundry, sew the fathers’ clothing, Olsem bifo i gat wan ples we hem i olsem wan stokyad. Olsem taem ol i and sweep the church. An old woman ronem buluk, ples ia nao bae ol i putum named Ola and I cooked all the meals for olgeta long hem. Bae per I talem se ples ia nao bae yufala I putum buluk long the fathers and sisters. There were a lot of hem, from olsem bifo ol per olsem ol i sisters working there. One of the fathers stap long plantesen. Taem ia nao bae ol led prayers in the mornings and after- i melekem titi blong buluk. Olsem taem ol i karem ol buluk ia tede ol i mas wait noons. Everyone from the village came ova naet bifo ol i melekem titi blong together on Sundays to worship together buluk. Ol i usum pis kaliko blong putum long maot blong baket afta melekem I go where we lived. insaed. Oli mekem finis, ol i putum ova I sewed clothing for the fathers naet. Afta long moning ol i jes kukum and sisters by hand and on the sewing nao. Ol i kukum gogo I hot insaed. Afta I kolkol afta ol i miksim wetem ti nao. machine. There were two kinds of sew- Taem mifala i mekem ol waet man ia ol ing: mending and sewing. The kind we i drink gud. Afta taem hem i finis afta mifala i mekem narawan bakegen. I gat did was mending. We did not sew full gar- faol, we ol i stap kakae wetem egg blong ments. The sisters and fathers used their hem. special robes for church; otherwise they Milking cows at Catholic mission plantation. wore ordinary clothes in their houses. Hao blong melekem buluk long plantesen blong per. But they put on their “uniforms” when they went out on the road. With regard to pay, they gave us two dollars. I slept with the women who cooked for all the house-girls, inside the sisters’ house. There was one area that was a stockyard. That’s where they put the cattle when they rounded them up. The father would give an order to round up the cattle, because in those days a father would also manage the plantation. When the cattle were in the stockyard, it meant that it was going to be milking time. They had to leave the cattle in the stockyard overnight before they milked them. They would stretch a piece of calico over the top of the bucket so the milk would go through it as they worked. They would let the milk stand overnight. In the morning, they would heat it, then let it cool. Then they would mix it with their tea. When we had a milking, all the white people would drink a lot of it. When all the milk was gone, we would do it over again. There were also chickens to eat as well as eggs.

Banks

KATE RUTH, FIELDWORKER

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Y NAME IS KATE RUTH and I am a woman fieldworker from the Banks Islands. I come from Veteboso village in Vanua Lava. At last year’s workshop we were given the topic of house-girls. I went back to my village and when I did my research I found women who worked as housegirls in town. I brought one of these women with me to participate in this workshop. Her name is Jocelyn Kibi. But before Jocelyn gives her report, I will tell you about the other women I spoke to.

The first woman I spoke to was Pekitas Ramao, and this is what she told me.

Pekitas Ramao My name is Pekitas Ramao and I come from Veteboso village in West Vanua Lava. I was born in 1920. I was twenty-seven years old when I went to work as a housegirl. But it was different back then. When I went to work as a house-girl, I didn’t go and work in a house; I went and worked on a plantation. When I went to work, I was already married. I already had two children. I went to work in Santo. It was 1947. My master’s name was Henri, and his wife’s name was Susan. They had two children whose names were Lapia and Rawin. They were from Africa. This man was a big boss and he had many different people from different places working for him — from Futuna, Wallis, and Ambrym. These people all came to work for him. 100

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He gave us rooms to sleep in, food, and every Saturday he gave us tinned Olsem masta hem i masta be hem i jusum wan bos we hem i stap lukaotem fish, sugar, and bread. This master had a mifala man blong hem. Boss long taem coconut plantation, and he also had cat- ia hem i stret bubu blong mi nomo. Evri moning mifala i stap dring ti long tle and pigs. We had fresh meat on Tues- haf pas faef. Long sikis, olsem mifala days and Thursdays. This master shared aot go long ples blong wok. Spos long moning yu no girap bae bos i singaot the meat with us. long mifala se, “Alle yufala girap! Yufala The men who worked on the plan- go wok!” Spos yu laet long trak bae yu tation did different things. Some cut the jes wokbaot nomo yu go long wok long plantesen. Long dina ol i stap holem copra; some dried the copra. We women kakae nomo blong dina long laen blong cut down the young coconut shoots, and kakao. Long saed blong wok, sapos man we also gathered the ripe coconuts and o woman hem I no wok gud bae bos nomo hem i gat raet blong talem se yu put them in bags to give to the boys who finis. Hem i no talem se yu finis be hemi i yusum wan toktok se, “Yu fuck off !” yu dried them. save se yu go rolem mat blong yu afta yu When I worked for this master, he go. Taem mifala i wok long laen kakao knew Bislama. He paid me four pounds ia—from laen kakao ia i long long wan every month. At that time, we women we I long wan—sapos yu no finisim laen kakao kasem faif klok, yu save se yu didn’t wear Mother Hubbard dresses. I mas finis bifo yu go long haos. Mifala I first saw a Mother Hubbard dress the first “wokem mak.” Bos blong mi long taem ia hem i blak man. Taem hem i kam i time I went to Santo. They were calling luk se yu no karemaot sam kakao i stap, the dress the “Paama women’s dress.” We bae hem i kam talem long yu se yu mas were frightened of calling it that, so we karemaot evri cocoa we hem i stap, or sapos hem i fanem se yu no bin katem just called it the “wing of the flying fox” yang sut blong kakao blong yu bae hem because that’s what the hanging sleeves i talem se yu mas go katem yang shut blong kakao ia bifo yu go long haos. on the dresses looked like. Taem long aftenun taem evri wan i go Our master was the master, but long trak sapos yu mestem trak bae yu he chose a boss to look after us while we wan yu jes wokbaot i go long haos. worked. The boss whom he chose was Working to a mark on a cocoa plantation. Wokem mak long plantesen blong kakao. my grandfather. Every morning we had our breakfast at 5:30 or 6:00 and then we would go to work. Some days when we didn’t wake up, he would come by and yell at us that we had to get up and go to work. If we were late and we missed the truck, we would have to walk to the plantation. If we weren’t good workers, he had the right to fire us; and he wouldn’t just tell us to go, he would say, “You fuck off !” You would know to go roll up your mat and leave. When we worked on the cocoa trees, the lines of trees were very long. We worked to a mark (wokem mak). We had to collect all the cocoa in our lines before 5:00 p.m. If we didn’t finish, we had to stay late and collect the cocoa before we could go home. He would come and tell us that we would have to pick up every

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coconut before we could go home. Or suppose he saw that we hadn’t cut back every young cocoa shoot. He would tell us to go and cut the young shoots before we could go home. After work, everyone would take the truck back, but if you had to stay late to finish your work then you would have to walk home. That is the story of the first woman I spoke to. The second woman I spoke to was Sarah Wanam. This is what she said.

Sarah Wanam My name is Sarah Wanam. I am from Veteboso village in Vanua Lava. I was born in 1918 in Abun village at Motalava. When I married, I moved to Vanua Lava. I worked for the same master as Pekitas Ramao. We worked for the same master, but I worked inside the kitchen. After my husband died, I thought about doing some work on the plantation. When I went to work, the worker’s boss was my brother; my brother put me to work in the kitchen, not in the field. I started working there in 1947. I worked in that kitchen for twelve years. I was given food. I slept with the family inside their house. I knew how to speak Bislama, so I spoke to them in Bislama; the children could only speak French, and so I learned to speak a little French as well. In 1950, I went with the two children to Noumea to look after them while they went to school. I stayed with them there for eight months. When the children were at school, I just stayed inside the house; I didn’t go walking all about. When school was done, the master came and got us and brought us back to the plantation on Santo. He paid me six pounds every month. Another woman I spoke to was Marian Rigiren. This is her story.

Marian Rigiren My name is Marian Rigiren, and I am from West Vanua Lava. I was born in 1920. In 1948, I started working for Master George Tapa. George was from France. I worked as his house-girl, but then I became his woman. We had one child whose name was Rutia, but Rutia died at eight months old. When I was with this white man, he was kind and we were rich in every way. When he went back to France, he gave me lots and lots of things. He had to go back to France because his contract was finished. He went back in 1954. He was here six years. The next woman I spoke to was Hilda Soddy. This is what she said.

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Hilda Soddy My name is Hilda Soddy, and I was born in Veteboso village, West Vanua Lava. I was Masta ia nao hem i wan long olgeta we i bin kriatem rebelian long taem born in 1946. I was already married when ia long 1979. Wan dei mi go wok, afta I went to work as a house-girl. I went to trifala pikinini blong hem i se, “Ei yu kam long rum ia.” Mi se, “Wanem?” Be work as a house-girl in 1976, when I was oli se, “Yu kam.” Be taem mi go insaed thirty years old. My boss’s name was Mas- olsem taem ol i openem doa olsem, mi ter Cronstadt and he was from Noumea. luk ol masket ol i stap insaed. Mi stap wok be tingting blong mi i no stap His wife’s name was Noëlle, and they had long wok nao. Taem mi luk ol masket ia tingting blong mi se bae mi finis. three children: Patricia, Janet, and Anik. Mi no wandem wok nomo. So mekem When I worked for them I looked se long taem blong rebelian, ale mi after the children. Sometimes I also cleaned muf mi go bak long aelan. up outside, washed the windows, or served Master had a room full of guns during the rebellion. Masta i gat fulap masket long wan the family their meals. rum long taem blong rebelian. They often gave me the children’s clothes. I slept up top at Mango Station; I think that was because their house was full with their three children. Later they gave me my own house close to theirs. My master knew how to speak Bislama, and he often invited my children to come and play with his children. We ate rice with tinned meat and tin fish as well as our own island foods. He paid me six thousand vatu every month. This master was very kind and good to me and to my entire family. This master is also one of the people who created the rebellion in 1980. One day I went to work and the children called me into their room. So I went into their room and I saw all these muskets in the room. When I saw all these guns I started thinking that I didn’t want to work there anymore. So when it was time for the rebellion, I just moved back to my island. The last report I have is about a woman named Florence Elman. This is what she told me about working as a house-girl.

Florence Elman My name is Florence Elman. I was born in 1936 and I am from Vanua Lava. I was already married when I started working as a house-girl in Santo; I was already forty years old. My boss was Miss Raymond. She was from Noumea and she was not married. I only worked for her for four months. She knew Bislama so we communicated in Bislama. The main work that I did for her was to cook, wash the

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clothes, sweep around the place, and do all the work in the kitchen. I didn’t eat with her. At dinnertime I just went back to the Mango Station and ate my own food. I did not sleep at her house. I liked working for her, but for some reason after four months she told me that she didn’t need me to work for her anymore.

JOCELYN KIBI My name is Jocelyn, and I am from Veteboso village, West Vanua Lava. I was born in 1952. I went to work as a house-girl when I was nineteen years old. I was already married.

Working for Master Michel The master who I went to work for was Michel, and he was from France. When I worked for him, he was a teacher at L’ecole Communale. His wife was also a teacher and they had one child, a boy named Ishmael. During the time when I went to work as a house-girl, my husband and I were living in the house of one of my cousins. My cousin worked, and my husband drove a taxi. I stayed at home. One day my cousin came home and said, “Oh, there is a white master and misis who want a house-girl. You should go and work for them.” Well, I was a little bit frightened to work for them; I wasn’t sure about the work I would have to do. When I walked through town I saw lots of women from Paama, Malakula, and the Banks Islands walking with their Chinese and sometimes white employers. But I was frightened to work. I was especially frightened because they were French and I couldn’t speak French. But my cousin said, “No, you must not be frightened. The two of them are good.” So I said, “Okay, I’ll go and work.” So my cousin went and told Master Michel that I would work for him, and Michel told my cousin to tell me to be ready at 7:00 a.m. the next day. The next morning at 7:00 a.m., I saw a truck stopping outside our door. Everyone in my house said, “Ei! A truck has come for you; now you have to go to work.” I looked at the truck and then I saw the master coming out of the truck. I looked and I saw that the misis was sitting inside the truck. I felt so sick! My master said, “So do you want to come and work?” And I said, “Okay.” But I was so frightened, so frightened. He then said, “Come, you have to get into this truck.” It was 7:00 a.m. They had to get going because they had to be at work by 7:30 a.m.

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They were teachers. So I went inside the truck. We drove to their house and my Long nekis moning olsem ia long seven klok olsem mifala i luk wan trak i stap master told me to make the beds, wash long doa. Olgeta long haos i se, “Ei! Trak the plates, and sweep inside the house. i kam from yu nao, blong yu go wok.” Mi lukluk i go, mi luk masta i kam Then they went off to school. aot long trak mo mi luk misis tu i stap I did everything that the misis told long trak. Mi seksek we! Masta i se, “Yu me to do, but the whole time I kept think- wandem kam wok?” Mi se “OK” be mi fraet we mi fraet. Hem i se, “Alle yu kam ing, “Am I doing this work right?” They insaet long trak.” Hemi long seven klok came home for lunch at 11:30 a.m. But olsem, from haf pas seven bai tufala i go wok olsem tufala i tija. Alle mi go insaet I hadn’t cooked! So the misis prepared long trak. Taem mifala i kasem haos something small for them to eat. They blong tufala, masta i talem long mi se ate and then the master told me that it bai mi mekem bed blong tufala, wasem plet, brum insaet long haos olsem, ale was my time to rest. So I went and rested tufala i go long skul nao. and then at 1:30 I went back. The misis House-girl is afraid of going to work on first told me what work I had to do: I had to day. Haosgel i fraet long fes dei blong wok. wash the clothes, iron the clothes, clean the windows, set the table, and clean and water the flower garden. She had also told me that after I finished all that, I should cook, too. So the two of them went back to work, and I did all the things she had told me to do. Then it was time for me to cook. So I cooked. I cooked rice, but I didn’t cook it on a gas stove; I cooked it on an electric stove. They had a special electric saucepan that was connected to the electric socket in the wall. I cooked the rice in that. I also cooked meat from a tin. I set the table the way the misis had shown me at lunch. When they came back from work, I went to my home. So then I knew how to do all that kind of work, and I thought I was actually a pretty good house-girl. I was no longer frightened of these people. So I worked there for a while and then the misis had a baby boy. His name was Erik Marie. One day she told me that they were going to a party and that I would have to babysit. That was fine and so I stayed at their house. She told me that if the baby woke up during the night, I would have to make some milk for him. She told me that they would come back at around midnight or 1:00 a.m. I put the baby to sleep and I went to sleep in the baby’s room so I would hear him if he woke up. When they came home, the misis came in and asked, “Are you alright?” I answered, “Yes.” She said, “Okay, now go back to sleep and we will see you in the morning.” So I went to sleep and then I started work again in the morning. This master and misis were good to me. They paid me twenty dollars every month. Sometimes they would go out and have a picnic and I would stay with the child. They gave me food and clothes. I worked for a long time, then one Christmas I said to them that I wanted to go back to the Banks. They asked me whether

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I would come back. I said that I would. So I went to the Banks. But when I came back—maybe I had been gone for too long—they had taken a Paama woman as their house-girl. And so I just went back and stayed at home.

Working for Master John Lum In 1974, I got another job as a house-girl. I worked for Master John Lum. He was married and they had a small girl whose name was Jeannette. He was a Chinese man; many people in Vanuatu know him. He owned a store. He was a good master, but his wife—she was no good! Her style was just no good! She talked too harshly. One time Master John wanted to go and rest, and he asked me to take his place in the store. He was a great master, but his wife was no good. She talked and talked. So I told him that I was happy to watch his store, but I was afraid of what his wife would say. He told me it was okay. One day I went to the house. When I saw the master, he said to me, “So you’re coming to work?” I said, “Yes, I’m coming to work,” and he said, “Go and see the misis in the kitchen.” So I went and found her in the kitchen and she told me what work she wanted me to do. She wanted me to wash, iron, make the beds, sweep the floors, and wash the plates. One thing that I didn’t have to do was cook. This was because Chinese cooking is so different from my cooking. So only the misis cooked. Whenever I ate with them I had to use chopsticks, but I didn’t know how to use them so I had to use a spoon. They taught me how, but I never became Olsem mi mi save wok blong haosgel finis. Taem mi was, o misis i no save luk very good at it. wan flae o anis i ded i stap insaed long By that time I knew how to do the ol klos we mi putum long dis blong was. Sapos hem i luk, bai i jes talem long work of a house-girl. But when I washed, mi, “Sakem aot!” Mi sakem aot everi the misis wasn’t happy. If she ever saw klos long dis ia, afta mi putum klin a fly drop into the wash bucket full of wata, afta mi wasem ol klos blong hem bakegen. Samtaem bae hem i wokbaot clothes, she would yell at me to throw nomo kam luk mi, mi stap was. Afta it out. So I would have to throw out the sapos i luk ol klos we mi hangem finis i stap, mo sapos hem i luk wan flae is water, put in new water, and wash the sidaon long wan napkin bai i talem long clothes again! I had to do this every time mi, bae mi sekem aot napkin ia long a fly landed in the wash bucket or landed toti. Taem hem i luk olsem bai hem i talem se, “Sakem aot! Sekem napkin ia on the clothes! She would walk around long toti kwiktaem nomo!” So bae mi while I washed the clothes. Sometimes mas mekem kwiktaem. if a fly landed on the clothes that I had The misis who hated flies. Misis hem i no hung up on the washing line to dry—if laekem ol flai nating. a fly landed on a napkin—she would yell

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at me to throw it out. She would say that the napkin was dirty. She would yell, “Throw it out. Wash the napkin again! It’s dirty! Wash it quickly!” So then I would have to wash it again quickly. One time she said to me, “Today, you iron. You only iron.” I had to iron all the master’s clothes. I burned one of the master’s trousers. When I saw that it was burning, I quickly pulled out the plug, but the trousers were already black. I didn’t tell the misis; I just told the master. The master just said, “It’s okay.” For a long time I wasn’t very good at ironing clothes. Sometimes the master would go and visit some of his friends. Often the misis would tell me, “Take the telephone and ring the master. Tell him to come back quick.” The master would come back and he would come up to me and say, “Man, the misis! She talks too much!” I think sometimes they fought with each other. I think that sometimes they talked about me; I was never sure because I didn’t know their language. But I never wanted to know what they were saying. This misis was no good, but the master, he was good. I worked for them for only one year. They paid me thirty dollars every month. Sometimes the misis gave me clothes, but that’s it. But she talked too much!

A Vietnamese Orphan in a French Household JEAN MITCHELL ROM 1996 TO 1999, I conducted doctoral research in Vanuatu focusing on issues facing young people living in urban areas, particularly Blacksands on the outskirts of Port Vila. I started the Young People’s Project at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre during this period. I received my PhD from York University in 2002 and am currently an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada. This chapter is part of my larger research project on the history of Vietnamese in Vanuatu. Uwan is a Vietnamese girl who was orphaned in the 1930s at seven years of age when her parents worked as indentured laborers in Vanuatu, then known as the New Hebrides. Uwan was raised in a French planter’s household in South Efate, where she became a companion to a young French girl and the caretaker of the girl’s younger brother. The fragmentary story of the young girl’s childhood and life in a French planter’s household reveals much about how life in the New Hebrides in the 1930s and 1940s is remembered. It draws attention to the experience of indentured laborers in the New Hebrides of which, as Meyerhoff (2002) suggests, far too little is known. Indentured laborers from the gulf region of Tonkin (in what is now the Socialist Republic of Vietnam) first came to work on plantations in the New Hebrides in the 1920s. They were instrumental in saving the French plantation economy from ruin. Known as Tonkinese, the indentured laborers were only permitted to work for French settlers, and thus their labor contributed to the ascendancy of the French-owned plantations in the New Hebrides. I have never spoken to Uwan. She was repatriated to North Vietnam while still a young woman in the 1940s. I only know of her life through the voice of Celestine, the now elderly daughter of the French planter in whose household the orphaned girl came to live. In an interview in Port Vila in 2001, Celestine told me,

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“[Uwan] was just like me!” (emi olsem mi). She talked about how they grew up together, sharing a household and a childhood in the New Hebrides. Celestine’s childhood memories are woven around the orphan’s arrival in the household. The girls were of similar age and their lives became deeply enmeshed. Celestine’s memories of the intimacies of their childhood transcend and yet reinforce the differences between the Tonkinese and French girls. Celestine’s naive contention that Uwan was just like her, while no doubt heartfelt, did not account for the profound power differences and the world of privilege that separated not only the two girls, but also the French and the Tonkinese in the New Hebrides more generally. In sketching the outline of Uwan’s life story, I want to draw attention to the construction and complexities of domestic space in the first half of the last century that was marked by the influx of Tonkinese laborers to French plantations as well as French homes. In particular, I hope to illuminate the ways in which the domestic spaces of French planters and their families were enlarged and embellished through the labor of the indentured Tonkinese. Domesticity means more than keeping house; domesticity also implies historically specific, power-laden social relationships. In this chapter, the exploration of memories of one French home asks questions about the history of indentured labor. How did indentured labor make it possible for employers to lead more genteel lives and enlarge their domestic space? What were the relationships in those domestic spaces, and how was power embedded in those intimate, everyday relationships? In foregrounding the story of Uwan, I want to underline the importance of understanding the experiences of children in these domestic spaces. In the New Hebrides, indentured and indigenous children were deployed to work in French and English households. I heard many stories from women who as children had experienced the domestic worlds of French and English expatriates. I was struck by the poignant ways in which they described the foreign domestic worlds they had inhabited as child workers. There was ambiguity in the roles they occupied, for young girls such as Uwan served as both companions and caretakers to the French children. Uwan, as I will show, occupied a particularly conflicted space in the household—that of an orphaned child who was part of the intimate life of the French household but who was at the same time designated as a Tonkinese indentured servant. I conducted research in Vanuatu with formerly indentured Tonkinese and their descendants during the summers of 2001 and 2002. I had earlier spent several years in Vanuatu (1996 –1999). During that time, I became increasingly interested in knowing more about the Tonkinese who had played a critical but often unrecognized role in the New Hebrides between the 1920s and their repatriation to Vietnam in the early 1960s. Uwan’s story expresses feelings of loss and force-

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fully underlines the vulnerability of her life as well as the lives of the indentured Tonkinese in the New Hebrides. While I have chosen to focus on the orphan girl’s story, I shall also draw on the experiences of other Tonkinese women whom I have met and interviewed in order to discuss French domestic spaces and Tonkinese domestic labor in greater detail.

Indenturing labor and building plantations In the New Hebrides from 1925 on, most of the largest French plantations were using Tonkinese laborers. By 1929, the Tonkinese comprised about 10 percent of the total population of the whole New Hebrides; there were a total of nearly six thousand Vietnamese workers in Vanuatu: roughly thirty-seven hundred men, twelve hundred women, and one thousand children (Meyeroff 2002, 47). Indenture — a contract by which a worker agreed to labor for a defined period of time in exchange for transport, money, and sustenance —was certainly well known to indigenous islanders. It had been by far the most important industry in the New Hebrides in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, dwarfing copra and other crops (Shineberg 1999, 238). The indentured laborers from the Gulf of Tonkin who came to the New Hebrides became crucial when French planters could neither persuade nor force sufficient numbers of indigenous islanders (ni-Vanuatu) to work for adequate periods of time to ensure harvests. Those ni-Vanuatu who did work preferred short-term contracts that enabled them to take part in their kin-based societies and economies (Bedford 1973). Islanders were also increasingly interested in cultivating their own small plantations and chose to avoid the often punitive life on the plantations. The British precedent in nearby Fiji where Indian indentured labor was secured for sugar plantations undoubtedly made indenture an attractive and viable option for the French in the New Hebrides. Facing a critical shortage of labor, the French settlers looked for it in the Gulf of Tonkin, which was crowded, impoverished, and colonized by the French. The early plantations in the New Hebrides were often tenuous affairs with few resources. Mortality rates were high among the indentured laborers, and it was only the extreme difficulties of life in Tonkin that made indentured contracts an option (Dong Sy Hua 1993). The Tonkinese came to work for five-year contracts in the New Hebrides (Meyeroff 2002; Shineberg 1997). Indenture was a contentious institution. The long distance transportation of non-white workers to plantation zones throughout the world evoked comparisons to the slave trade although defenders argued that the workers were freely entering into contracts. As Cooper puts it (1997, 105), “The brutality of the indentured system and the widespread use of violence and

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penal sanctions to extract and discipline labor underlines the charge that indenture was a ‘new system of slavery ’ derived from the fact that the worker ‘chose’ to be a slave for a finite number of years.” Uwan’s vulnerability as an orphaned child is bound with the vulnerability of all the Tonkinese who worked as indentured laborers. In my research, the exploitation and hunger of indentured laborers in the New Hebrides were powerful and recurring themes. The laborers, far from their homes, were forced to work in very poor conditions that were marked by violence and deprivation. They rarely got the full entitlements they had expected, and the shortage of food and pay were their constant concerns. They became dependent on the good will of the plantation owner and had little recourse to justice when contract obligations were not met. There was no doubt variation in the treatment of the workers from plantation to plantation, and I know little of the conditions that prevailed at the plantation where Uwan came to stay. I was told by many Tonkinese that workers in South Efate (where Uwan lived) felt more secure than those who were on distant plantations on other islands out of sight of the colonial government that was headquartered on Efate. Celestine’s grandparents were settlers who came from Europe to make a life in the Pacific, where her parents were born. Jean-Pierre, her father, was born in New Caledonia while her mother, Marie-Louise, was born on a plantation in a northern island in the New Hebrides. Her parents married in 1926 in Port Vila. Celestine’s father, who later became a substantial plantation owner, started modestly, for example, cutting firewood for people in town. They began acquiring land in South Efate and started to plant copra, cocoa, and cotton. Jean-Pierre purchased a large area of land — more than 560 hectares in South Efate — and tried to start working the plantation with only two men from the Banks Islands. They cleared an area and planted coffee, cocoa, and 330 coconuts. In 1937, he contracted forty Tonkinese indentured workers. At the time there were 1,822 Indo-Chinese laborers (Tonkinese) including 414 women and children. The number of Tonkinese living in the New Hebrides had declined from the approximately 6,000 present in 1929, presumably due to the global market crash and depression of the early 1930s (Condominium of the New Hebrides 1939, 15).

Enlarging plantations and embellishing domestic space It is clear that the arrival of the indentured workers radically changed life on the plantation, increasing its productivity and changing the nature of the domestic space. Tonkinese laborers cultivated and enabled the expansion of bourgeois sensibilities in the plantation households. Many expatriates had servants in the New

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Hebrides but could not have afforded them in their home countries. According to Celestine, three of the indentured laborers were assigned to work inside the house. Celestine explained that one woman worked as a house-girl while the other two Tonkinese workers made bread and cooked. The head cook was a man. An indentured servant also worked as a tailor. The arrival of specialized servants—cooks, tailor, and house-girl—raised the standard of living in the planter’s household. The presence of indentured labor shows how the “rituals of domesticity became increasingly global” (McClintock 1995, 35), linking disparate parts of the empire— in this instance, French Indo-China and the New Hebrides. For Celestine, the changes in the household were clearly exciting and opened up the realm of domestic relationships in new ways. One house servant’s husband was a builder and Celestine was very fond of this couple. She told me how she frequently ate with them, as the wife was a wonderful cook. However, the woman’s husband had tuberculosis and Celestine’s mother discouraged her from eating with them for fear that Celestine, too, would contract the dreaded disease. In any case, it seemed clear that Celestine was not concerned. These domestic relationships were important to her, as she had only one small brother and her mother worked in the condominium government. Celestine’s cursory description of the changes that ensued in her household with the advent of additional labor illustrates McClintock’s contention that domesticity has a historical genealogy (1995, 35): The idea of “the domestic” cannot be applied willy-nilly to any house or dwelling as a universal or natural fact. So often vaunted as involving a naturally occurring, universal space — ensconced within the innermost interiors of society, yet lying theoretically beyond the domain of political analysis — the cult of domesticity involved processes of social metamorphosis and political subjection of which gender is the abiding but not the only dimension.

In the New Hebrides, domination along lines of race and gender were critical dimensions in the making of French domestic spaces. McClintock speaks of the importance of race in domestic configurations, arguing that colonial space was domesticated “as domestic space become racialized” (36). The dimensions of gender and race are of crucial importance in considering the ways in which domestic space was cultivated and yet came to appear as part of the natural order of things. The arrival of forty indentured laborers in 1937 shaped life on the plantation and expanded domestic spaces in significant and specific ways. Ideologies of race and gender were fundamental to the practice of indenture through which French set-

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tlers and colonial officials commanded and shifted male and female labor from Indo-China to the New Hebrides.

The Tonkinese orphan: Child, companion, and caretaker Uwan’s life became enmeshed with Celestine and her family when the Immigration Office told Celestine’s mother about the seven-year-old Tonkinese girl who was orphaned. Celestine’s mother took her home to the plantation. Abandoned or orphaned Tonkinese children were one poignant indication of the painful nature of the lives of the Tonkinese in the New Hebrides. The Catholic Church ran an orphanage in the Port Vila area, and there were many Tonkinese children growing up there. I heard stories of new babies abandoned on well-trodden footpaths as a strategy to ensure their survival. For example, a woman named Marcella had been abandoned at birth in 1932 on a plantation in the Port Vila area. She had been found on a footpath by the Catholic priest who came to the plantation at the same time every week. In this way Marcella’s mother could be sure that her baby would be found and taken to the orphanage. The baby would survive. Infant mortality rates were high, as mothers had to return to work soon after giving birth; many babies died from malaria contracted when their mothers took them to work on the plantations. Marcella grew up in the Catholic orphanage without knowing the Vietnamese language. In the early 1950s, she married a man who had come to the New Hebrides as an indentured worker in the 1930s. They had five children and she worked as a house-girl in Vila. However, Marcella’s family was divided when her husband felt compelled to return to his place of birth. Her husband, who had been born in Tonkin, decided to go back to Vietnam during repatriation in the early 1960s. Marcella could not bring herself to go to a place where she had never been and to a people whose language she did not know. Her husband and two of their children went back while she stayed in Port Vila with the other children and worked as a house-girl. Such are the stories of loss and the sorrow of divided lives that are a typical part of the experience of indenture. In contrast to Marcella, when Uwan was orphaned at seven years of age, she was not sent to the orphanage but rather became part of the French household on the plantation. Not having met Uwan, it is impossible for me to gauge her perspective on her years there. I can only imagine that it must have been happier than life at an austere orphanage. She lived in a home with Tonkinese people around her at the plantation, which enabled her to retain her language skills in Vietnamese. At the French plantation, Uwan became the caretaker of the planter’s small son, and

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she had Celestine, a girl her own age, with whom to be friends. However, she was not sent to school as she would have been at the orphanage. Celestine described her relationship with Uwan like this: “Emi olsem mi. Emi silip wetem mi. Afta mi kam bak long skul mi bin lanem hem. Emi save rid mo raet.” (“She was just like me. We slept together. When I came home from school I would teach her. She was able to read and write.”) While Uwan didn’t go to school, she did go to church and to catechism. She was baptized. The young Tonkinese girl worked in the household, looking after Celestine’s brother while the mother worked. Uwan was, as Celestine told me, “like a mother” to the small boy who loved her. The relations forged in the household among the children were intimate and they shared day-to-day life. But there were, it seemed, limits to how much she was accepted as part of the family—the only family she had.

Child servants Women’s work in other people’s homes has been a feature of life in Vanuatu since Westernized domestic spheres were created with the advent of missions, planters, traders, and government officials. Some women’s work was, in fact, done by children in the domestic spaces of the colonial New Hebrides. Shineberg (1999) has pointed to the importance of ni-Vanuatu child laborers in the indentured labor trade from the New Hebrides to New Caledonia. In my discussions with the niVanuatu women who had worked as children in the New Hebrides, they invariably focused on their relationships with the expatriate children. Namu Ruth, growing up in a village in White Sands, Tanna, explained that as a small girl she was sent to live with the expatriate family who ran the trade store. There she doubled as a young house-girl and a companion to the expatriate child. Stoler has argued that in the colonial context, “servants were often a charged site of European anxieties” (2002, 133), and she suggested that it is important to understand how the servants shaped the ways in which European colonials and their children lived. Attention to children— both those children who were served and those who were serving—is important in thinking about the construction of domestic spaces. Servants occupy an ambivalent and ambiguous role, one that often is both uneasy and unclear. Servants, as Stoler argues, mediated between the outside world and the inner realm of home by occupying the inner recesses of bourgeois life. And yet servants were the consummate outsiders and by their very presence transgressed the boundaries of gender, class, and race that they were charged with mediating and patrolling in the household. Servants were to keep the world outside, but at the same time they brought the outside world of differences into the heart of the domestic realm. This

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double aspect of a servant’s life — intimate insider and perpetual outsider—is a particularly complex role for child servants to negotiate. They were at once playmates with the expatriate children while at the same time part of the workforce. Celestine’s memories of Uwan were warm and loving, and yet during the course of our interview she never questioned the limitations that were part of Uwan’s life or the privilege that was integral to her own life.

The intimacy of domestic spaces Uwan spent eleven years with the planter’s family. However, things changed rapidly in the household, as Celestine said abruptly, “But at eighteen years, we married her to a Tonkinese.” The hasty marriage was arranged because Uwan had become pregnant. Celestine obliquely explained, “When we stayed at the plantation there were three men, white men who came all the time to the plantation.” Uwan’s “halfcaste” child fathered by a French planter speaks to the domination that characterized social relations in the plantation economy. Uwan’s pregnancy and hurried marriage raise a number of troubling questions that can perhaps not be answered. They are, however, useful in highlighting the doubled aspect that characterized Uwan’s position in the French household. Was she the protected child raised in the household or the vulnerable female domestic worker? She had grown up in the home and though nurtured, she was clearly designated part of the domestic workforce. She had been protected from her orphaned and indentured circumstances, but why was the protection of her sexuality so inadequate? Predation, it seemed, was a part of her life as it was for many young female domestic workers. While Celestine obliquely mentioned three men who were frequent visitors to the plantation, it was not clear if this knowledge was speculative or factual. Uwan’s hasty marriage to the Tonkinese man seems intended to conceal the ragged edges of interracial domination that was central to the making of domestic spaces in plantation economies.

Servitude Ann Stoler, writing in another colonial context, has succinctly reminded us that “servitude and sexual service” (2002, 133) were often conflated in colonial domestic arrangements. According to my interviews with a number of Tonkinese women, some of whom had themselves worked as young indentured servants, there was clearly little protection from predation for female workers. It seemed that to be young, female, and indentured was a particularly difficult experience. Mary-Anne, for example, at only seventeen years old, came alone to Port Vila in 1929 on an

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indentured contract. She believed that signing the contract would allow her to escape some of the difficulties she faced in her life in her Tonkin village. She had been just fourteen and the oldest of five children when her father died. His untimely death left her family in vulnerable circumstances. Now in her eighties and living in Port Vila she had, in her own words, a “hard life.” Signing the contract for work in the New Hebrides saved her from an unwanted marriage and absolute poverty at home. She had also hoped to contribute something to her mother’s ability to care for her siblings. When she arrived in Port Vila she worked at a plantation in the Port Vila area. Mary-Anne spoke about the plantation owner for whom she worked: “[He] had money and so he had plenty of people working for him. They had plenty of house-girls: three women in the house and seven in the bush. If he looked at a nice woman, if he wanted to sleep with a woman, he just did.” Many Tonkinese women I interviewed told me that women often did not want to work in the plantation house; the punitive work of the fields was preferred to the proximity of the master in the household. In the plantation a woman could blend in more easily with the Tonkinese workforce, and in working as part of a group she was less visible and accessible.

“My brother loved her like a mother ” The family hastily found a young Tonkinese husband for Uwan. They knew a young man who had worked with the French administration as a cook for the French delegate. Uwan and her new husband went to work with other households in the South Efate area before going to Vietnam in the late 1940s. Uwan’s hasty departure was keenly felt by Celestine and devastated her small brother, who cried for one week after Uwan left. Celestine explained that she teased her brother about Uwan’s leaving. As she told me, she “cheeked” her brother singing, “Elle est partie parcequ’ elle l’a portée” (“She left because she was carrying it”). Celestine then conceded, “Yes, I was sorry, too, but my brother loved her like a mother.” He had grown up with Uwan taking care of him and was inconsolable when his beloved caretaker left in such a hurried and final fashion. Uwan’s firstborn child was Celestine’s godson; this again suggests a bond of affection between the two girls. However, when Uwan went back to Vietnam, Celestine and her family never heard from her again. Uwan never contacted or wrote to Celestine from Vietnam, even though Celestine had taught her to write in French. Perhaps the postal system made it difficult but the reasons remain a mystery. There is little known with certainty about her life after she was repatriated to North Vietnam with her Tonkinese husband in the 1940s. Celestine knew that Uwan had seven children and had heard that Uwan’s husband “was against

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the French in Vietnam.” He had become interested in the politics of Ho Chi Minh, who was at that time struggling to decolonize Vietnam. It was also rumored that he had been later shot by the French. His politics would certainly have separated Uwan from her French fictive family and employer. Was she, too, drawn to the politics of liberation? Had she become estranged from the household where she had spent her childhood? How did she feel about the way her life unfolded in the French household? How did her “half-caste” first son fare in Vietnam? There would have been many children of French and Vietnamese parentage in North Vietnam when they returned there.

Remembering Uwan Celestine’s memories tell us something about the way in which her father built up his plantation with the help of the indentured laborers and how they enlarged the parameters of bourgeois domestic life. Her childhood memories are powerful and detailed: the number of hectares her father had, the number of coconut trees he planted, the number of indentured servants he had contracted. Her memories speak of crossing racialized boundaries — Celestine who wanted to be with the Tonkinese servants despite the danger of tuberculosis; Celestine who came home from school and taught Uwan to read and write; Celestine who shared a room and a childhood with the Tonkinese orphan. Uwan’s story suggests the importance of indentured Vietnamese labor not only on French plantations but in the households where they shaped domestic space and services in often unrecognized ways. Uwan’s impregnation by a French planter also suggests the vulnerability of those young girls who served in households and points to the ways in which power operated in social relations (McClintock 1995; Stoler 2002). Uwan’s situation was particularly ambiguous because, as explained, she was almost a servant and yet not quite; this doubled aspect was integral to occupying the inner recesses of family life as child domestic workers often did. The orphan girl became a Christian and spoke French which, no doubt, made her seem a better caretaker for the young boy in the eyes of her foster family. Uwan was cared for and yet she was not. Uwan learned to read and write not in school but through the efforts of Celestine. Uwan the orphan was protected as a child in the household but clearly as a Tonkinese child was designated as part of the indentured domestic workforce. Uwan’s French fictive family could not embrace her fully because she was Tonkinese; the protection offered in that planter’s household was conditional and incomplete. In effect, Uwan lost two families in the New Hebrides. Through Uwan’s story, I hoped to draw attention to the more general issue

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of the vulnerability of the indentured laborer. The social relations embedded in the system were based on long-standing inequities. Uwan’s vulnerability persisted and probably intensified when she went back to Vietnam, where the French and Viet Cong were at war. American bombing commenced some fifteen years later. The theme of loss resonates. Uwan lost her first Tonkinese family, acquired a French family, and was hastily thrown into a marriage that brought her to Vietnam. It seems that she was buffeted about and that many key decisions were made for her by often tragic circumstances. Uwan’s eventful life and Celestine’s poignant memories underline the complexity of life in the New Hebrides during the last century. The movement of people between Vietnam and the New Hebrides in support of French settler interests connected far-off global spaces. Uwan’s story offers a way to explore how inequitable relationships nestled in the contentious intimacies of French planter households. Hirsch and Smith have noted (2002, 12), “What we know about the past, and thus, our understanding of the present, is shaped by the voices that speak to us out of history; relative degrees of power and powerlessness, privilege and disenfranchisement, determine the spaces and witnesses and testimony may be heard or ignored.” Celestine’s memories convey the power and privilege characteristic of life in a planter’s household when the plantation thrived with the availability of indentured labor. Yet her memories also give voice to the seemingly powerless Vietnamese orphan girl whom we might never hear about if not for Celestine. Her account of Uwan’s life provides a glimpse of the unique mixture of vulnerability and privilege that characterized the Vietnamese girl’s life in the world of a French New Hebrides plantation.

Conclusion In thinking about Celestine’s memories, it is clear that such “oral narratives are neither utterly spontaneous nor completely scripted” (Hershatter 2002, 64). Celestine narrated her life in a way that highlighted her losses and her grievances. Geoffrey White has noted the importance of querying the “discursive contexts” of life stories in order “to examine the political and rhetorical practices that naturalize life histories into fixed, stable texts” (2000, 184). Many important aspects of each storytelling exercise do not end up in the final text, as storytelling is a process of interpretation “encoded not just in what is remembered, forgotten, and rearranged but also in the pacing, emphasis, and tonality of a story” (Hershatter 2002, 64 ). The complex, interactive contexts within which life-story narratives are produced need to be recognized, as life stories—for all of their immediacy— do not provide an unmediated view of a person’s life. The

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storyteller and researcher are caught up in “a complicated, semantic, and political process of translating, interpreting, and representing. These acts of recontextualizing have a way of hiding the degree of indeterminacy and ambiguity, as well as the power relations that accompany representations of others” (White 2000, 184). This point is particularly useful in thinking about Celestine’s story and my representation of that story because it emphasizes that there is no unmediated place. Memories, however vivid and heartfelt, are imbued with ambiguity and enmeshed in power dynamics. There is any number of possible readings of Celestine’s memories of an earlier time, particularly from a postcolonial perspective. Having lived in a settlement around Port Vila in the 1990s myself, it seems to me that Celestine has been largely unwilling to accept the changes that have taken place with independence. And yet I see her sorrow in that few now know or care that she was born in Vanuatu and that her parents are buried in Vanuatu. The plantation that she recalled with such nostalgia has become a crowded settlement, home to many islanders who come to town to look for work. In Celestine’s narrative, there is a profound and enduring difficulty in understanding that the privileges of the plantation era diminished the possibilities of others, and that the era she clings to was over a long time ago. It is all too easy to be unsympathetic to Celestine’s narrative, but it is important to understand her particular perspective and the insight it provides into an earlier time. Celestine’s memories of a shared childhood suggest how affections subverted differences but did not question or transcend them. To say that Uwan was just like her seemed to avoid understanding the events that unfolded in Uwan’s life. Celestine’s contention reflected the naiveté of a child, but when repeated as an old woman, it seemed that she still did not grasp the nature of the power relations that lay at the heart of her household. She failed to recognize the power differentials between the status of a white French girl and a Tonkinese orphan. But perhaps Celestine was in some sense correct in her assessment that they were alike, as she too appears orphaned. She is clutching a past that does not enable her to read the present and the new generation of ni-Vanuatu. Celestine no longer belongs, and yet she cannot leave. Her orphaned memories and sense of homelessness in the independent nation perhaps ironically render her just like Uwan in more ways than can easily be known. The work of memory is complicated and contentious. Celestine’s childhood memories are rife with stories of the entanglement of the girls’ lives, but at the same time their estrangement disrupts the smooth narrative of the shared childhood. Her memories speak to the power of loss and the loss of power. Her recollections of Uwan are vivid yet childlike, and the Vietnamese girl remains a

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child who has no voice of her own. Celestine tells a story that connects the past and present as well as self and other, but only in fragmentary ways. Celestine’s memories of her childhood household of the 1930s and 1940s accord a specificity to the colonial context and in so doing provide a multilayered view of the power relations in this brief period of history when the French plantations were flourishing. However incomplete and partial, these recollections provide insight into life on French plantations in the New Hebrides and retrieve Uwan’s forgotten story.

House-Girls in 2001 DANIELA KRAEMER

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his chapter is composed of excerpts from interviews that Daniela Kraemer conducted in Port Vila and Pango Village in July and August 2001. All are translated from Bislama. This research followed the History of House-Girls Workshop and led to Daniela’s 2003 MA thesis, “In the House but not at Home: House-girls in Vanuatu,” where her methodology is described more fully. Here, she has organized edited excerpts from the interviews around themes of education, work, social relationships, and sexual abuse. Most of the interviews excerpted here are with house-girls, but comments from several officials and one employer are also included. Real names are used with the consent of the participants. Daniela’s questions are in square brackets.

Education Marion:

I’m not educated. I work as a house-girl. If I had gone to school, I think I would not be a house-girl; I would likely hold another job.

Lilly:

I finished school in year seven because of some family problems. My father’s mother said that they did not have a way of supporting my school fees. [Are you thinking of going back to school one day?] Yeah, I really enjoyed school. I have real interest in going back, but I don’t have a chance. I just feel that I don’t have a chance, so I just stay here and work as a house-girl.

Jennifer:

Oh! I used to go to school. I went to school. I just went to primary school. Afterwards, I was going to go to Epi High School. I passed the exam to go to Epi High School. My grandfather didn’t want it; he spoiled my chance of going. All the time I tell my boss, “If 121

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my grandfather hadn’t spoiled my chance of going, I think now I would be working in an office or wherever.” That’s what I tell him. When I went to school I started at form one and went on. Every time the teacher asked me a question, every time I wrote a test—I came first. My husband tells me that I should go and learn computers or something. But I can’t anymore. My grandfather spoiled my chance, so I didn’t go. I just stayed until I came to find a small job in town. I came and stayed in town. I worked in a Chinese store, and now I work as a house-girl. Milen:

I started working as a house-girl when I was twelve years old. I finished school and started work; I am a house-girl, that’s all. My life is being a house-girl. Now I’m thirty-two years old.

Work Jennifer:

When I go to their house, I clean the kitchen first. Afterwards I clean their sitting room. I make the bed. I clean the bathroom. I also wash in the morning. In the afternoon, I finish the work. I just wait for the clothes to dry; I iron them. When they’re away, I just clean the house some more. I wipe all the glass. I clean. Because it’s a big house, ah? It has two stories. Five bedrooms and three bathrooms. A big house.

Linda:

They go to work. I clean the house, I cook, and I do the washing. Then at lunchtime they come back, they eat, they go back. I clean the house again. In the afternoon they come back, then I go back to my house.

Elinda:

[Are they sometimes messy?] Yes. They throw things all about. I clean the house, then I come back and the place is dirty again. I clean the house. They throw things all about. They don’t keep it clean. It’s hard work. When they behave like that, then I don’t want to go work.

Francis:

The work is hard. Especially working for ni-Vanuatu because many ni-Vanuatu don’t have washing machines. If there is a lot of washing, my hands get sore. My skin is dry; sometimes the skin comes off.

Lilly:

Working for ni-Vanuatu is good but there is too much work, more work than with white people. With white people you just

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make everything inside, but with black people you must make laplap or something. Too much work. You must cut the firewood and things like that. Washing clothes—you must try hard when washing. I look and see that with white people it is easier because they have every thing—washing machines, irons—everything like that just makes the work easier. Esther:

I’ve been sick from doing so much washing, too much washing. I wash by hand. They don’t have a washing machine. If I wash too much then I start to feel pain. Sometimes my skin is red; it comes off. Sometimes when I do too much washing, I have problems in my stomach, in my tummy.

Sam Nimisa: 1 Many, many house-girls are working in some places where the work is not safe enough for ladies to do the job. Sometimes they are doing housework; they are working in some areas which are, let’s put it this way, not good for health and safety. House-girls are supposed to get something to protect them when working with chemicals, protect them from touching them when washing toilets. Just sometimes to protect their hands. And it is up to the employer to provide them. That’s what is in the law. But ahh! You just look at skin coming off. This lady, this is the only one who makes food for her family at home. You know, after finishing work here, she goes back to her family and then prepares the food for her kids, and that’s, you know, not healthy.

Working hours and vacations Hilda:

I don’t have one day of rest, and the times when I don’t go to work, my boss is cross with me even if I have a letter from the hospital.

Marion:

Sometimes the time passes, the time when I should finish work, but they tell me, they say, “You’ve got extra work to do” so I have to do extra work. But they pay me; they pay me extra.

Milen:

I work at 7:00 a.m. and I finish at 7:00 at night. When it’s lunchtime I stay with the children. I take the children to school; I go and pick the children up at school and take them to the house; I look after them. Mummy isn’t around the house—when she finishes work sometimes she goes and sees some of her friends, they eat some place. I look after the children. [You have a rest?]

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No, I don’t rest. I rest on the weekend. [You have vacation time?] No! [Four years and you don’t have vacation time?] No. I work. Toumal:

[Do you rest sometimes?] Yes. I have four weeks in one year. Two weeks in May, two weeks in August. They don’t pay me.

Alice J.:

[Do they give you rest?] Yes, they pay for rest. Two weeks I don’t work. The year before last they went to England, they paid me for two of the weeks they were gone.

Irene:

Every public holiday I work.

Jennifer:

When I want to take my holiday, my employer doesn’t want that. I must work, that’s all. When I want to take a holiday, he says that he would have to move out. He says he doesn’t want another person to work for him. He says he likes my work and my husband’s work. He says we must stay with him until the time when his business is finished. So now I promised him that.

Wages Jennifer:

I think that minimum wage doesn’t stretch far. If it were to be higher, it would be good because I know that cost of living now is increasing too much. In 2001, it seems to me that life is expensive. [What kinds of expenses do you have?] School fees, rent. I have three children: I pay school fees; I pay bus fare for them to go to school. I pay for food, I pay electricity, I pay the water bill, yes, and for clothes, and for school books. At the store today, one thousand vatu doesn’t go far.

Esther:

I don’t like working for this family too much because they’ve got too much work. My job is a big one, but the salary is small. Then I just, I don’t want to work for them; the salary is too small. [Do you think they have money? Could they pay you more?] I think that they could give me more.

Lilly:

Some employers have big money, but I think that they are greedy. They just don’t want to give a lot to the house-girl. They promise that they will give a big amount to you, but they never give it.

Simeon Tavoa: 2 When women who work as house-girls come in here, their number-one complaint is wages, not getting paid enough. Their wages don’t fit in the domestic and social situation. For example, they have to pay high school fees, and they can’t afford to if they’re

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earning minimum wage. Minimum wage is not enough for people. The cost of living has gone up so much. The majority of employers misinterpret what minimum wage means. It means that you must not pay below sixteen thousand vatu,3 not that you must pay sixteen thousand vatu. Workers should be able to get more. Jennifer:

It’s good to work for an expatriate. If you work for a ni-Vanuatu sometimes they don’t pay you well. Working for an expatriate is better.

Elinda:

[Do your ni-Vanuatu employers always pay you when you work?] Sometimes they don’t pay me. [What do you think: the pay is enough or the pay is not enough?] It’s not enough. [Have you ever asked them to pay you more?] No, I’ve never asked. I’m frightened. [Do you think they have money, that they could pay you more?] Yes, I know that they have money. [So why don’t they pay you more?] I don’t know. [Every time they pay you, do they pay you the same amount?] No, sometimes they give me half, that’s all. [When they pay you half what do you say?] I’m cross with them, yes. [Do you tell them you’re cross with them?] No, I don’t tell them that I’m cross. [Why?] They give me half, that’s all, like that. I feel my feelings are not straight because I work, work, work; but they give me half, so because of that I’m not happy with them.

Lilly:

[Is it true that lots of house-girls don’t get paid minimum wage?] True, especially with the black man. The black man, sometimes they give three thousand vatu, or they just give half, or they never give it. House-girls just feel out of place and they will just go. They do more work, but the master won’t pay her. The white man, when he promises wages he gives them. But the black man, no. He just says that he can’t give. So he just gives less.

Jema:

The ni-Vanuatu, they don’t pay house-girls well. That’s it now, so us, ni-Vanuatu, us house-girls, we don’t really want to work for ni-Vanuatu. We want to work for you people, you white people. It’s good. You people pay us good. But ni-Vanuatu, oh! They rob the house-girls.

Sam Nimisa:

Ni-Vanuatu are the worst for salary. Sometimes they say something like, “This is a family. This is my family so I can pay them

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below the minimum wage,” and you know it’s violating her human rights. Alice J:

[So your employers have money, but they pay you only six thousand vatu, that’s all?] Yes. [So have you ever asked them for more money?] No. I think that that’s not enough. Some house-girls are paid well; their salary is good. That’s why I want to quit. If only my employers were other people; but because they are my relatives, I’m frightened to leave them, to leave the job. The money they give me is small, yet I’ve stayed four years now. [You’re a bit frightened?] Yes, I’m frightened. Sometimes I think that I will finish working. Sometimes I come to work and I’m fed up; I hear them say that I’m lazy. I work for small money; it’s not enough for anything.

Milen:

I’ve worked for plenty of white people. I work until they go, when their contract is finished. They go, I stay, then the next one comes and I go to work. I’ve never worked for a ni-Vanuatu. Mostly I’ve never worked with black people; I’ve spent most of my time working for white people. In my opinion sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re not good. Some are good, some are not good. Sometimes I work for one who is not good. But I must work because suppose I don’t work—I lose my job. So I’m patient, that’s all. I have to work a full day. Sometimes they’re strict with the time; I don’t even have time to sit down. They don’t pay me well, and they want me to work harder! They talk harshly to me: “You must do this here. You must do that here.” Sometimes I work, and it’s time to go and they see that I have something that is not yet finished, they say, “You must come here. Do this here.” I have to do it because they are the boss of their money. Suppose I don’t do it? [Do you think they have money?] Yes, yes, they have money! [Where are they from?] He’s from the USA. He is a Peace Corps worker. He came with his family. I know he has money. He’s the boss; I’m sure that he has plenty of money. I worked for him for five years. He had children in the house; I looked after the children. They were good children; the children were good, but the parents! Between you and me, those parents, they behaved badly. [What did his wife do?] She stayed at home, that’s all. She stayed at home; she didn’t work. Every time I went in to work, she would ask me to cook, to clean the house, to prepare everything for her.

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I helped them. But at the end of the month, when they gave me money, I did not feel satisfied. [Did they ever give you clothes?] No, they never gave me clothes. [How much did they pay you?] He promised me that he would give me fifteen thousand vatu every two weeks, but he never gave that to me. He gave me seven thousand vatu for two weeks. [Did you ever ask for more money?] Yes, I talked with him one time. We argued. I said, “Okay, I think I’m not getting paid enough and so I’m going to stop working for you and go home.” I said this to him, that this is Vanuatu, not the USA; if I stop working for you, I will still survive!

Social relationships Lilly:

The work of a house-girl is alright, but it depends on the master. If the master is good, it is good with me. But if the master isn’t good, then I don’t know!

Alice:

[You worked for an English family, then you worked for a French family. So was the English family kind to you?] Yes, they were good. Especially the men, ah! They were good; the husbands were good. They were good, but their wives they mistreated us. [What did they do?] In my opinion they were not too kind to the house-girls. [The English?] Everyone. [They talked strongly to the house-girl?] Yes, sometimes they would see that I hadn’t straightened something that needed straightening up, then they would talk strong. Then they would talk French; they would talk to the husband. I don’t know what they told them. I would sometimes go to one small corner and cry. When I finished crying I’d go back and I’d straighten whatever had to be straightened. We house-girls faced hard times.

Ellen:

I was sick one time and I wanted to go to the hospital. I told my boss that I wanted to go to the hospital. He was a French man, from France. He told me that he needed a drink first, but that I should wait for him and he would take me. But after he finished his drink he didn’t take me, and he didn’t let me go. So I had to work when I was sick. I once wrote a note to him saying that I had gone to the hospital, but he didn’t believe me, he said that I was giaman, that I was lying. He said that I was lying, so then he sacked me. And then, because he said I was lying, he didn’t have

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to pay me severance pay. Sometimes employers make up that their house-girls are lying to them just so that they don’t have to pay the severance pay. They fire them just because they don’t want them around anymore. But if they fire them with just cause, such as stealing or lying, then they don’t have to pay compensation. I told him that I would go to the Department of Labor. And I went to VNPF 4 and found out that there were no vatu in my VNPF account; he had lied to me about contributing to my VNPF account. So I went back to Labor. And Labor told him. “You must pay or we will lock you up. You have one week to do it.” Labor told me to go back to work, but I said no. He spoke too harshly to me; I didn’t want to go back. And he’s very cross with me. Labor told him to pay me one hundred fifty thousand vatu. He has only paid me twenty-five thousand vatu. But it’s enough. I don’t want to fight anymore. In June, he went back to Noumea for business. He’s no good. Milen:

I really hate that American. When you think of the way that I prepared the food—I stood in the kitchen and prepared all the food. They sat down at the table; they called out for the food; I carried the food and gave it to them. They would sit down and eat, while I must stand in the kitchen and wait. Every time they said, “Bring the soup,” I came and brought the soup (laugh). [Did they have a bell?] Yes (laugh). You bring the soup, then you take the soup back. When they want me to bring the sandwiches, they call to me. They say I should bring the fruit salad or whatever else they need. When they call out to me I straightaway go and take it there. She never shared the leftovers with me. They never said, “You can have a little bit of that if you want.” Never. I just stood there where I worked, swallowing my saliva. I never tasted anything. But I learned plenty of cooking from that lady. In one way I’m cross with them, but in another way I’m glad that I learned something from them. They taught me in some ways, but they were selfish in some ways. [What do you think: were they selfish with their friends?] No. Just with me. When their friends came over, they shared everything with them. When their friends came inside they would say to me, “As soon as you’re finished in the kitchen, you must work in the next room.” You must know that the house where I worked for them was a big house.

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I think that while niVanuatu don’t pay Mi rili haedem man USA . . . from yu tink long wei we mi mi preperem kaehouse-girls well, we are kae, mi stanap long kijin, mi preperem one, that’s all! We are evri kaekae. Hemi sidaon long tebol, hemi singaot from kaekae, mi karem one! We share food, kaekae i go, givem long hem. Afta hem or we sometimes sleep i sidaon hem i stap kaekae, mi mi mas together or something stanap long kijin i stap. Wea evritaem hemi telem se yu karem sup i kam, like that. Like that, all mi kam mi karem sup (laugh). [Hemi our styles are the same, gat wan “bell”?] Yes (laugh). Yu karem sup yu kam, yu karem sup yu go. Taem that’s all. But the white hemi talem se karem sanwis ya, hemi man—many white men singaotem mi. Hemi se mi karem frut look down at the house- salad or whatever wea hemi nidim. Mi mi wok longtaem long hem. Mi save girl, at all black women. evri samting wea hem i nidim. Taem Sometimes white men hem i singaot, mi takem stretwei mi go putem. The leftovers she never shared eat well at the table, with me. Hemi neva telem se, “You can but the house-girl has have a little bit of that if you want.” to eat outside or some- Never. Mi jes stanap long we mi stap wok, mi stap swolem saliva blong mi. thing like that. [Why do Bei (laugh), mi neva testem eniting. Bei you think it is like this?] mi lanem plante cooking out of that lady. Wanwei mi kros long hem, bei In my view, they think samwei mi glad se mi lanem samting we don’t have a head aot long hem. Like cooking, mi lanem on our shoulders, that plante long cooking, she’s good. Hemi tijim mi in some ways, but hemi selfis because of the work we long samwei. [Yu yu tingting se hem i do we don’t have knowl- selfis wetem fren blong hem?] No. Just mi. Mi luk taem ol fren blong hem ol edge / intelligence, so we i kam insaed, hemi sharem evriting go and do this kind of wetem hem. . . . Taem olgeta fren i work, all dirty work. kam insaed hem i sendem mi, “As soon as you are finished in the kitchen you Work like this is not a must work in the next room.” Yu mas good type of work. And save se haos wea mi wok long hem, hemi bigfala haos. I think that they think that because we have Why Milen hated the American. Olsem wanem Milen I haedem man USA. different skin, we are different. And because we are grassroots, and they all are high class or something like that. So they are just using us people, like we are tools, ah! For vacuuming or doing things. “You! You’re a tool for wiping the plates, or the glass or something like that.” They don’t look at us like we are family.

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Hilda:

I walk to work because I can’t afford the bus fare.5 If I’m even a little bit late my boss is cross with me. So I leave my house at 4:00 a.m. to walk to the store to get there at 5:30 a.m. My husband walks with me because he doesn’t want me walking alone in the dark. My husband helps move the store’s protective shutters away, but my boss doesn’t pay him for his help. My husband asked my boss once whether he would pay him. But the boss said he didn’t want to, said that my husband was just helping me with my job. After I open the store I walk to my boss’ house and I do the housework.

Leikar:

My friend is always complaining about her employers because sometimes they don’t have certain things in the house, like pins for hanging up clothes. Sometimes she wants to wash—she washes every Monday. She washes by hand every Monday, every Wednesday, every Friday. Sometimes when she washes, she doesn’t have clothespins. So how is she supposed to hang up the clothes? She tells them, but they never buy them. They say that they will buy them, but they never buy them. Also sometimes when she wants to wash, there’s no more soap; she has to go and buy some soap. They never buy the soap, although they say they will. All the dirty clothes pile up. She says she has to wash all day; if she stops washing, they make enough laundry that sometimes all the clothes heap up in a big way. [Suppose she doesn’t finish the wash?] Then tomorrow she must wash. Sometimes, if they don’t buy the soap for Monday, it means that Tuesday she must wash. She must wash on Tuesday and Wednesday. I think that it is too much. Sometimes I go and I sit down with her. I think that it’s no good, but she must force herself to do it because she doesn’t have a choice. She doesn’t have a choice. If she quits, who will do the work? They depend on her; she does everything. Sometimes she tells me that when she is tired, she doesn’t go to work, that she doesn’t want to work. After, the next day, when she goes, everything is the same as it was before! Never do they help her! They just wait for her to come back. They never clean up inside. All the dirty dishes are still there! The dirty clothes are still there! She goes back the next day and she has to do all the work— double work!

Doris:

There are plenty of areas in Tasariki 6 where many house-girls get together to eat lunch, to sit down and talk. I’ve heard some of

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what they say. There’s one, she works next Fren blong mi, hem i komplen nomo, from planti samting long haos i no door to where I work. gat. Olsem pegs blong hangem klos. Yesterday I went and Samtaem hem i wantem was—olsem hem i was evri Mande, hem i was long talked with her. She says han evri Mande, evri Wenesde, evri that she earns five thou- Fraede. Samtaem i was, i no gat pegs. sand vatu for two weeks, Hao nao i go hangem ol klos olsem nao? Hem i talem be ol i neva peim. and that’s not enough Oli sei bei i peim bei oli neva peim. Mo because she’s got a child taem i wantem was, sapos sop i no gat, bai hem nomo i go karem. Ol i neva and she’s not married. karem. Ol i telem olsem, “Mi fala i go She’s got a child, and kam bak karem,” bei oli neva karem. she has to pay rent, pay Ol kloths oli fulap. Mekem hem i mas was ol dei. Samtaem ol I mekem ol klos the water bill, and pay oli hipap big wan antap! [Sapos hem for food. She pays eight i no finisem was?] Tumora i mas was. Samtaem sapos i no karem sop long thousand vatu in rent Mande, I minem se Tusde oli karem, for one month. But hem i was, be haf i stap. Hem i wasem she only brings home joinem bakegen long Wenesde. Mi luk se i tumas. Samtaem mi go sidaon ten thousand vatu in witem hem, mi harem i nogud, be i fos a month. She says that blong mekem from hem i nomo gat jois. Sapos bae hem i lego i stap, hu nao that’s not enough. Yes- i mekem? From olgeta oli dipen nomo terday we talked about long hem, hem i makem evri samting. this, and she said that Samtaem hem i talem, taem i taed, i no kam wok, hem i no wantem kam wok. last month she asked Afta nekis dei bae i kam, hem i luk ol her employers to give samting sam mak nomo i stap! Neva oli helpem hem! Ol i i mas wet long hem her a raise. Her employ- i kam bak. Neva ol i klinap insaed. Ol ers said that at the end doti plet i stap! Doti klos i stap! Hem of last month, the thir- bae i kam bak nekis de ol i makem bakegen— dabol wok! tieth of July, they would No soap and no clothespins, but they depend increase her salary. But on their house-girl. Nogat sop, nogat klos peg, they didn’t do it. They be olgeta oli dipen nomo long haosgel. gave her five thousand vatu, that’s all. So now she thinks that now she’s going to quit her job, that she doesn’t want to work for them anymore, that they were lying to her. [Are they white or ni-Vanuatu?] Ni-Vanuatu. The women work but the man doesn’t work. So she says that she looks at the work she does and she thinks that it’s too much—it’s too hard. Yes! Because she has to look after their small boy; I think he’s about two or three years old. When she fixes something up, then the child goes and spoils everything, makes a mess all

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about. He isn’t toilet trained. So she must clean up every time. She also cooks lunch in the afternoon. Often, I am done work early. But she, she says that sometimes at seven o’clock she’s still there. She has to cook, has to make food. Sometimes she doesn’t have money for the bus fare—her house is up at Ohlen7—so she must walk at six or seven at night. She must walk until she gets up there. [So her employers don’t pay her bus fare?] No, they never give her bus fare. They have a car and they have a bus, but they never give her a ride. [They never drive her?] The workman drives her sometimes. [What do you think of a ni-Vanuatu who is not generous with his fellow ni-Vanuatu?] I think that it’s not right because they make it so that the house-girl works much too hard. They should treat house-girls fairly. They must look at the work of house-girls, and they must give the right money to them. It seems to me that the work is too much, and the salary is too small. So I feel sorry for her. Sometimes when I’m inside the house where I work, I look over at the house where she works, and she’s working. She’s working. Sometimes at lunchtime she’s still working. I call out to her, “Enough! Time to rest.” But she makes a bad face. But she doesn’t say anything to her employers. [Is she frightened?] Yes, she’s frightened. She must finish her work, and afterwards she can rest. Her employers are from Pentecost. She also comes from Pentecost. [Are they family?] Yes, she says that they are family. She says that working for them is too much. Alice J:

My ni-Vanuatu employers are kind to me. They give me lunch. When they’ve got time in the afternoon they come back home; they give me some cake. When they come from town they give me some meat or chicken or something. They’re kind, but the work is hard.

Milen:

The New Zealand man that I worked for, oh! My entire family was happy with it, was happy with him because he shared everything with me and with my family. We really liked the New Zealand man. He went back in 1999. When he went, he bought a sailing boat. He promised me that he would sail back to Vanuatu, that he would meet me on July 30, 2000. And he came! He came with a big bag filled with goods for my children. I met him at the waterfront. I knew that he would come. I went down to the market; I bought fruits for him and his small children. I made

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some fresh food, local food of Vanuatu. He was good. He would eat food from Vanuatu. I bought yams and kumala. I bought grapefruits, papaya, fruits that filled up a big basket. I took it to him. He gave me a big bag full of things for my children, and food as well. He promised me that he would come back in 2005. I don’t know whether I will be alive in 2005 or not! Agnes:

I didn’t like my employer. He was an expatriate. He always shouted at me; he would call me stupid. Whenever I did something that he didn’t like he would shout out, “Why don’t you use that big coconut of yours? You’re stupid.” I really didn’t like him.

Barbara:

The men are good, but the women are no good. I don’t understand their thinking. When I do something, they’re not pleased. If I’m late, they shout, “You’re stupid,” “You’re lazy,” “You’re no good.” They’ve got money, a big house, everything. But what they pay me is small. When there was a death in my family, the woman told me to work a half day instead of a full day! They don’t consider my life. They’re white. They don’t have respect.

Elinda:

When I’m not happy with my boss, I screw up my face. When she tells me to do something, I go into a corner where my face will be in a shadow; I screw up my face and I don’t do anything she asks.

Raymonde:

When I’m not happy with my boss and my work, I pretend to be sick!

Belinda:

My friends aren’t so lucky; many times they tell me that they want to give up their work. But suppose they give up —what will they eat? Because they won’t have any work, ah? I say that they should continue even if their boss makes it hard for them, for where would they find money? [How do they make it hard for them?] They make them work long hours, but the pay is small. They don’t give lunch to them or anything like that. Sometimes if they make a small mistake, the boss yells at them.

Linda:

I quit because they worked me too hard, and the wife talked harshly to me. [Did you tell them you were leaving?] No. [Have you ever seen them since?] Yes, one time I saw the daughter. She saw me and asked me why I stopped coming to work. I told her that her mother talked too strongly to me. I told her that if she

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lived somewhere without her mother I would go and work for her and look after her children. I told her that I didn’t want to work for her mother, that if she lived somewhere far away from her mother I would go and work for her. Later I heard that the family had taken another house-girl. Milen:

Sometimes when he needed something he would call out to me. But he never called out to me kindly. He would yell out “Milen!” as if he was cross with me. One time he called to me like this, and so I went inside the room he was in, and I said, “Eh, why do you scream like that?” [What did he say?] I told him that I thought that when he screamed at me like that that there was something wrong with him. I asked him whether he was cross with me. He said no, that he was sorry, that he just thought I was somewhere on the other side of the house. I told him that I was inside the house near him. Yup! He never called out kindly to me. I remember when I worked for this one woman, a woman from Australia. I really liked it when she called to me because she would always call out “darling.” Whenever I entered the house she would say, “Good morning, darling. How are you this morning?”

Belinda:

The expatriate employers don’t consider us as if we are part of the family. They don’t look at us that way. That I, too, am a human being like them. If I don’t finish my work on time, the wife washes the plates; she does that. Washes the plates, dries them, and puts them back. But other friends of mine say the women they for never do that. They eat, throw their dirty plates, everything. If you are late, whatever the time, your work will be waiting for you; you will have to do it. If the child defecates or urinates or makes the place dirty or something, it’s the work of the house-girl—it’s up to you to do it.

Milen:

One employer, he was white, and do you know what he did to me with his food, food like bread? He wouldn’t give fresh bread to me. He would look at the bread and when he saw that the bread had mold growing on it, then he would give it to me. He would tell me, “I think you can eat this here.” I felt too shy with him not to take it. But I wouldn’t eat; I would just keep it and then throw it away. If I had said that I didn’t want it then I would ruin it—he’d think that I didn’t want him to give me food to take. But

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he wouldn’t even give me fresh food. When he gave me food, he gave old food with mold growing on it! Sometimes, they tell me that if they have plenty of friends there, I must go work outside in the garden. I go weed around the garden; I clean all their plants; I pick up all the dried leaves while waiting for her friends to leave. She tells me that I can’t stay with them because she knows that I talk English, too. When her friends come over, sometimes I’m sure that they all talk about their house-girls, ah! That’s why she doesn’t want me to be there. But sometimes I hide! I listen to what they say. [What do they say?] I hear her talking a little about me. She says that I’m a good house-girl, that I really work well, that I am faithful and honest, that she trusts me. Ha! She says that she trusts me! But her ways—she doesn’t really show me that she trusts me. Like, I look at all her actions. Every time she has to check the fruits, she has to check the food on the table, make sure that nothing has gone missing! [Do you ever hear her friends talking about their housegirls?] Yes. I heard one who said that she was not happy with her house-girl. I think—I’m not sure—that they were stealing. Her house-girl took a wristwatch or something. She stole. I heard her criticize her house-girl a little bit. She said that she wasn’t happy with the way her house-girl had been performing. [So did she fire her house-girl?] Yes. [Do her friends ever say hello to you?] Yes. Her friends say hello. They say hello to me, but I know that there are different feelings. Some people have good feelings; some feelings are different, are bad feelings. Marion:

I know one, a good friend of mine, who told me about her employers. The man is good, but the wife isn’t good. The wife didn’t want her to have anyone come into the house. Whenever she sees someone go into the house, she talks firmly to her. So she must hide people well, so that the wife doesn’t see them. If the wife sees them, she talks strongly to the house-girl. Her employer doesn’t want her house-girl to have visitors coming here. [Her employer doesn’t like it when she has visitors to the big house or to the house-girl’s house?] They go to her house, the house-girl’s house. Her employer says that suppose she were to keep letting people come over, they’d look at all the things in the place, and she thinks that one day they’ll come and think no one is home

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and will steal. So that’s it now. She doesn’t want visitors to go into the house. But I go. She’s happy with me because she knows my boss well. But other people, no. They’ve got to have good reason to come inside the yard. They’re not allowed to go into the yard. They’re not allowed to go without permission. Milen:

She didn’t like my children. The times when my children did come—I brought my children with me two or three times—they stayed out of the house, that’s all. They waited for me to finish work, then we went back home together. When we went, I think that my employer wasn’t too pleased to see my children inside her house. So I’m not happy about taking my children into the house of the white people.

Alice:

[Is it hard to leave your children all day, to come back late at night?] Yes, because from time to time my husband doesn’t work, so he looks after them. [Does that make you a little sad?] Yes, because you and I are women. When you and I look after our children it’s good; when they are with their father it’s good, but it’s not as good. He doesn’t know how exactly how to care for the children.

Jema:

My boss said, “You bring your son and you put him to sleep in my house when you work, when you clean up.” And so I took him, and he slept in their house while I worked. When I finished then I would take him, and we would go. The first family I worked for, the expatriate family, I worked for them for twelve years. They had a washing machine, but they never let me wash using the machine. They didn’t specifically tell me that, but I didn’t take my clothes and wash them in the machine. But my employer now, every time she says, “Oh, Jema, you can use anything, like the washing machine.” [Why do you think they didn’t let you use the washing machine?] Sorry, I didn’t say that they stopped me from using it. Just that they didn’t say that I could use it. I washed by hand, that’s all. Us niVanuatu use our hands for washing clothes, that’s all. But my employer now, she says, “Oh, bring your clothes and the clothes of your family. Come and wash them in my machine. Put them in the dryer; use the dryer.” She says things like that. [Did your past employer ever see you washing your clothes by hand?] Yes,

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she saw me. Yes! But she didn’t tell me I could. She’s not the same as my employer now. She saw me washing, but she didn’t offer anything. But my employer now, every time she sees me washing she says, “Oh, Jema, come bring everything and use the machine. You don’t need this hard work.” 8 Linda:

I sleep with them inside the house. The same house. I sleep in the same room as their daughter. [How old is their daughter?] Eight years old. [What’s her name?] Carolyn. [Do you eat with them?] Yes, I eat with them. [Do you cook?] Yes. Island food. We cook and we eat the same food.

Ellen:

The French man I worked for told me that I live like an animal. He would yell at me, “You’re no good. You’re lazy. You don’t know how to work. You steal from the houses of white men.”

Milen:

One employer I had was strict about her clothes. She locked up her clothes. The times when I ironed her clothes, I wouldn’t put them in the cupboard with her other clothes. With some of the other Europeans that I worked for, they allowed me to fold the clothes, to tidy everything up. [Do you know why she was like that?] I think, I think that she didn’t trust me. She was frightened that I’d steal her things. I worked for her for four years, and still she was really strict with me. Every morning she checked the food in the freezer to make sure that all the food that she had the night before was still there. When she came down in the morning, she would look to see that all her food was still there. Everyone is important. God created you and me; God loves you and me and everyone. So what’s the difference? Am I not a human being? I’m a house-girl so am I not a human being? If you sit in an office are you more of a human being?

Agnes:

My boss told me that they didn’t need a woman who was pregnant. And so they got rid of me because I was pregnant.

Sexual abuse Eva:

One day when I was working for an expatriate man, he pushed me up against a fridge. He took out his penis and dangled it in front of me. I was so scared I just ran away and never went back. His wife still doesn’t know why I quit and still asks me to come

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back. But now, I’m frightened to work. But I liked the job; I liked looking after the kids, and the work was easy for me. It was just the boss who was no good. The eyes of the white master are not the same as the eyes of you and me—they look you up and down, up and down and all over. Nettie:

This expatriate man that I worked for, one time he took off his towel and showed his penis to me! And he told this other housegirl who worked for him that he would pull her private parts off her body! He had no respect. He’s crazy (krangke), losing his head. One time he asked me to go with him. I didn’t want to. I was frightened. I hailed a car and I ran out the other door. He asked me plenty of times. I would tell him, “No, you’re crazy. I have my own family.” After three years I found another job.

Merilyn Tahi: 9 We’ve seen some at the Women’s Centre, expatriates, very prominent expatriates, who have been sexually abusing their housekeepers, their house-girls, and nothing has been done to them. [Can you tell me more about that?] I can tell, but I cannot tell you very much. There was one incident that our office had to deal with where, when the wife goes to work, he comes back to the house. And he had been doing that for many years until the wife found them. [And then what happened?] Sacked her. I don’t know whether they gave a little money to her or not—I think they did; I don’t know. And then when she was out of work, he was still asking for her to come around somewhere. And she was married, too, and had children, and she was very frightened of the husband. That person was somebody in this country. [How would the employer go about making a proposition to the housegirl?] Maybe it was a rape. The story she told seemed like a rape, but she couldn’t say anything because he got hold of her inside one of the rooms or something. And then, every day after that it was an everyday thing. Everyday thing, every day. And so. But I don’t think this is the only one. I think there are many who have this happening. Leah:

There was this man. He was married to a ni-Vanuatu woman. When his wife went to visit her village, he called his house-girl to come and work in town. He messed around with her. This went on for some time. The house-girl stayed with them. She became pregnant. The wife started fighting with her. She told the wife

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what had happened, that she was forced to. So, she asked for compensation. The man bought her some land. Even after all this though, the man still goes and sees her. He comes and forces his way into her house. He says he wants to see his son, but that’s not the reason. She has told the police, but he’s a politician so the police let him do whatever he wants. She’s fed up, so now she just lets it happen. Her family has told her that she must have someone stay around so the crazy man doesn’t come in. When his wife wakes up and sees that her husband is not there, she goes to this house-girl’s house to find him. He makes excuses that he’s there to visit the baby. But he’s there just so that he can use the mother again. Little bit of trouble. It’s better for the baby to stay with the grandmother; it stops the trouble. Otherwise the father follows the baby. She says, “No! No! No!” but she’s not strong enough. The man comes all the time, probably because she stays alone. He won’t come if another man is in the house. No one can stop him; he has the right. And then her own boyfriend hit her because of all this. It stopped when the baby went away. No one accepted the baby. Sophie:

These two men who live in the house across the street from me are gay, but one is bisexual. Their house-girl told my house-girl that the bisexual man lets his house-girl’s family into his house and allows them to make themselves as comfortable as they want. The reason he is doing this is because he wants to get with the house-girl’s sixteen-year-old daughter. This is house-girl pimping. It happens quite often. His house-girl told my house-girl that the reason he takes them out for dinner and drives them around in his car is because he wants to get with her daughter. The housegirl is about thirty, and her daughter is about sixteen. The housegirl is aware of this and is openly talking about it, about her daughter. It seems like she’s okay with it. Probably she’s afraid of losing her job if she acts against her employer or stops bringing her daughter around when he asks her to. So she’s torn; what can she do?

Vivian:

Ni-Vanuatu bosses are the worst. Some men are married and also have girlfriends. I heard of two women at the hospital giving birth, fighting with each other in the hospital because the father of their babies is the same.

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Merilyn Tahi: It’s enough that everyday expats are doing this, but the locals! And because many of their house-girls live with them, they’ve been abusing them, which is having sex with a person under your care. It’s very serious, and nobody reports them. And what’s even worse is that sometimes they are doing this with their own family members. We hear about them, but we cannot go and say, “Hey, we heard that.” That’s not how we work here. [They don’t report them because they are family?] Exactly. [Do you think this happens a lot?] Yes, this happens a lot. We know a few cases. Normally they are their nieces or maybe their cousins. Before, in some cultures it was taboo; in some cultures you don’t even talk to your sister-in-law. There is very strong respect there. You wouldn’t just walk into the bedroom of your brother-in-law and sister, or even into their house. It’s very strict. Well, now, it’s not strict anymore; people can move around. So these are some of the things that happen. And the other way, like you said, they take the husband’s relatives for the security, hoping he will not do that to her because it’s his family. But you’ll find that some will do it. And it’s not incest here unless it’s his sister. [So even if it’s his cousin or his niece?] That would be indecent assault; in our legislation, not many women know about it, but sex with somebody under your care is serious. But nobody is reporting it. Sophie:

There are these two expatriate men who have been living here for quite a long time. They were going through a midlife crisis or something and bet each other to sleep with their house-girls. And so they did! Had affairs with them. One wife found out and so there were big marital problems. This happens all the time.

Merilyn:

I know of one who was pregnant, who was pregnant by the son of the expatriate family she was working for. The child was born and she wanted to give away the child. You know the trauma. Every day she saw the child; the child just reminded her about it. But then again, why didn’t she talk about it? It went on and it went on, and then she got pregnant. And then he took off for his big school. And maybe he’s come back, but there’s been no maintenance for that child. That girl doesn’t have anything.

Marion:

If she tells him that she doesn’t want it, then she’s out of a job. If she says she doesn’t want it, the boss will think no good of her and so she’ll have to quit her job. Or sometimes maybe the

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house-girl will say, “Oh, let me find you a girl who will come and be with you.” Yes, that happens now, too. But when she says to the boss, “I don’t want you,” he’ll be cross. And sometimes he’ll say, “You go.” Or if she doesn’t walk away from the work, the boss will fire her, or she’ll have to leave because she doesn’t want the boss to tell her she’s out. So she loses her job. Leah:

A friend of mine, Francis, worked for an expatriate man, a teacher. The master was using his house-girl in the house for sex. Paying her extra money. He took her with him when he traveled to Epi Island. She would get extra money for that. He traveled to Epi a lot. Going and coming to Epi like peanuts. Francis was happy with the arrangement. When his wife was away, she would go and stay with him in the house. Everyone in school could see what was going on, could watch the master picking up Francis here. He would stop at the side of her fence. He wouldn’t come up, but she would go down and talk to him. It looked like a boy and girl making friends. People told her that she should be close to the misis, not to the master, because the misis knows what to do. Fiona also has a boyfriend and three kids. They live together like a family. The boyfriend fights with the master. Boom, on the floor! He says that she lies to him. The police talked strong to the white man and sent him back to Australia. But now Francis has a little white baby. Her boyfriend hits her sometimes. He says that she is not interested in her husband anymore because she has been with a white man.

Marion:

[Do you think many house-girls have sex with their employers because their employers have money?] Yes. They face hard times. Especially young girls. Yes. Some are young girls. Their life today isn’t like life before, when we were young. We didn’t know white men. When we worked for white men, we were friends. But nowadays, you look and all the young girls are with the white men. They go with the tourists; they go with all the men from the marines, the cruise ships. They don’t think about themselves—they just go. They just want money. [Do you think that lack of money is the number-one problem here?] Yes. I know some people; some people, they want money, they like money. If they don’t have money, they will not eat. And they have to find money somewhere, with the family they work for. They have to find money somewhere, so that they can go to the nightclub to

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drink kava. “If I don’t have money I won’t be able to eat, I won’t be able to drink kava, I won’t be able to drink alcohol at the night club. I must find money, where will I get money to go and dance at the nightclub?” So life today, that’s what it’s like. One day, when you go to the hospital and you sit there, you’ll find all these young girls hiding there. About eleven or twelve years old and they’ve all got babies! Eleven or twelve years old, and they have babies! When you see this you’ll feel sorry for them. So that’s what people are like now. Sam Nimisa:

But what is actually even more upsetting for an outsider to see is that most of the time, most of them do not understand that this is against the law, so they just ignore it. Sometimes ladies come here to raise complaints about their salary and things like that. Then we explain to them about salary and some other points, and then something just clicks in her mind and her mind says, “Look, all the time this boss walks past and pinches me and does this and does that to me—that’s also something against the law.” So there’s a real lack of awareness about these issues. These ladies should come and report what’s happening in the workplace so that we can bring it up. One of the biggest problems is education awareness. We have a lack of education awareness.

NOTES 1 In 2001, Sam Nimisa was a complaints officer with the Vanuatu National Workers’ Union (VNWU). 2 In 2001, Simeon Tavoa was the secretary of the Labor Advisory Board 3 Minimum wage in Vanuatu is a monthly figure. In 2001, it was sixteen thousand vatu per month. 4 Vanuatu National Provident Fund (VNPF) is the national retirement fund. Each employer must pay 6 percent of their employees’ annual salary into the fund. 5 Bus fare was one hundred vatu in 2001. 6 Tasariki is a predominately expatriate residential area near an international hotel on the edge of Port Vila. 7 Ohlen is the site of the old Ohlen family plantation. 8 It is important to acknowledge, in this context, the ni-Vanuatu etiquette of needing to be asked. 9 In 2001, Merilyn Tahi was the director of the Vanuatu Women’s Centre.

Conclusion DANIELA KRAEMER AND MARGARET RODMAN

Whenever my employer talked harshly to me, afterwards I cried. He never told me he was sorry. He was always up to no good; I would often cry. He would go into Vila; I would stay at the house. He didn’t see my heart. —Ellen, a house-girl in Vila in 2001

W

RITING ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA, anthropologist Jacklyn Cock states that paid domestic workers are largely trapped: as black women they are trapped in a vulnerable and powerless situation, a situation within which they are subject to oppression and exploitation (1989, 4). Is this the case in Vanuatu today? To some extent, yes. House-girls are regularly underpaid, overworked, and harassed. While it could be assumed that the end of colonialism improved the circumstances for house-girls, quite the opposite has occurred. Indeed, the History of House-Girls Workshop and Daniela Kraemer’s research after the workshop suggest that house-girls feel worse off in today’s postcolonial context than before. There are several reasons for this. First, during colonial rule, more housegirls were live-in workers. On plantations, mission stations, and even in town, they were almost always given free accommodation in house-girl quarters and often provided with food and even clothing. Today, however, the majority of house-girls are day workers. This means that they have to spend part of their wages on daily transportation; most employers do not provide bus fare. In addition, they must pay rent; accommodation near urban workplaces is more expensive than in outlying areas. House-girls must also pay for utilities and for all their food, which used to be fully or partly paid for if they lived in quarters on their employers’ property. In this way the cost of living has increased dramatically for ni-Vanuatu housegirls, yet wages have not kept pace. 143

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Further, the shift from live-in to day worker has negatively affected the relationship house-girls have with their employers. Contact between house-girls and their employer families was frequent when house-girls lived on the premises. As reports from fieldworkers and house-girls suggest, such interactions were not always positive, but a closeness and concern for each other’s well-being did exist among many house-girls and employers. Some house-girls reported a feeling of being part of their employer’s family. Today, such feelings are rare. Many housegirls work for employers who work outside the home all day themselves. The house-girls go home in the evening, so opportunities for social interaction are limited. Under these circumstances, few employers express much interest in their house-girls’ lives or offer any material or emotional support. While house-girls who have fixed working hours and decent pay might accept an impersonal working environment, most of the house-girls interviewed in 2001 felt overworked, underpaid, and ignored in terms of their own personal needs and private lives. These are wearisome conditions for work.

Ni-Vanuatu employers Another factor affecting the working conditions of postcolonial house-girls is the increased employment of house-girls by ni-Vanuatu employers. Rare before the islands gained independence (see chapters 5 and 6 for examples), ni-Vanuatu employers are the result of a growing indigenous middle class. For house-girls, the difficulty is that ni-Vanuatu bosses are reputed to be the worst. This is often because they cannot afford to pay decent wages or buy appliances on the same scale as expatriates, making the house-girls’ work more time-consuming and physically demanding. House-girls working for ni-Vanuatu employers also face stresses of a new kind. How do they confront employers, report them to the Labor Department, or quit jobs when they are working for family members or for members of their community? Since it is often not socially acceptable for house-girls to stop working for family members, many feel trapped in abusive or exploitative working conditions.1 Many house-girls working today feel they have to negotiate much more complex interpersonal work relationships than ever before.

Lack of attention to working conditions Working in private homes has been the most common occupation for wage-earning women in Vanuatu; 2 however, little attention has focused on the problematic conditions under which these women work. Vanuatu women’s organizations

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acknowledge that house-girls “actually are the last ones” to receive governmental attention.3 This is because most of the policymakers are also employers of housegirls and are reluctant to make changes, as changes would mean that they would have to pay their house-girls higher wages. An increase in minimum wage might also upset the large expatriate community in town. Indeed, many people in Port Vila believe that the low minimum wage is the result of the government catering to expatriate business owners. As one house-girl, Milen, remarked: Some people, government people especially, tell grassroots people that they must be patient, that when they increase minimum wage, salaries will increase also. But that will make problems with the foreigners, too. Problems with the bosses. Yes. I think that is the problem, but the government should work for the people of Vanuatu!

In an interview with Daniela Kraemer about house-girls, Merilyn Tahi, Director of the Vanuatu Women’s Centre, expressed her surprise at such conditions. In this day and age, very little has been done for [this group of women]. And from what we are seeing they are much more abused at the workplace. Some are sexually abused by their employers and also abused of their rights —rights to have a rest, to have only seven hours [of work] a day. I don’t know. I have heard that some are not getting the sixteen thousand vatu minimum wage. . . . I think this is an area that the government should be looking at, at their remuneration, their holidays, their conditions of work. We know of some that we’ve dealt with here—they’ve been sacked once they get pregnant. . . . [Employers] don’t care about your health. So, health is one thing. And once you get pregnant, they hire someone else. We know of some that don’t make the VNPF contributions. They get a house-girl for three or four months, sack her, and get another one so they don’t have to pay VNPF contributions. And [I wonder] whether or not the Department of Labor goes around and asks the house-girls, “How much are you being paid?” . . . So for us here, our issue is that their rights are being abused—for holidays, for maternity, and also the kids of their families. If they have small children, to go home, have one hour rest, and then come back to work or something, it is just not on. And some will do double jobs; they will work until the afternoon and if there is a party they will stay very late. And there is no standard [wage] if you stay late—maybe it’s just an extra three hundred or five hundred vatu?

The majority of ni-Vanuatu house-girls working in 2001 experienced poor working conditions. Few received the minimum wage. Of the house-girls Daniela

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interviewed, 62 percent of those who worked for expatriates, 88 percent of those who worked for ni-Vanuatu employers, and 100 percent of those who worked for their own ni-Vanuatu family members reported being paid below the minimum wage. Furthermore, nearly 75 percent of the house-girls who worked for expatriate employers said they felt mistreated, compared to only about 38 percent who worked for ni-Vanuatu employers. While the numbers are too small to be significant, the findings suggest that while the physical working conditions in expatriate homes may be better than in ni-Vanuatu homes, the psychological and social conditions of work may well seem less harsh and less negative when house-girls work for ni-Vanuatu employers. In general, house-girls said that ni-Vanuatu employers showed more personal kindness toward them than did contemporary expatriate employers, although they were well aware of specific instances of ni-Vanuatu employers mistreating their house-girls (see chapter 11). When things went badly with ni-Vanuatu employers, house-girls felt more trapped and less free to leave the job than when they worked for expatriates.

Employers’ constructions of difference From the History of House-Girls Workshop and Daniela’s subsequent research, it is clear that perceptions of difference are crucial to the employer-employee relationship. The fieldworkers and house-girls’ reports explore many differences in material culture, such as exotic washing machines and the mysteries of expatriates’ garbage (chapter 1). Intercultural communication is another major difference, one that gave rise to funny situations, such as Jean Tarisesei’s stories of the pineapple and of the Tongoan house-girls lost on Ambae (chapter 7). In the historical reports, poor communication focused on female employers who spoke to their house-girls too harshly, whether to reprimand a twelve-year-old for scorching clothes (chapter 6) or to insist on rewashing laundry that flies had touched (chapter 9). House-girls working in 2001 reported that a lack of communication with their employers was a major concern, a silence produced by the commoditization of the relationship, the shift away from house-girls living in quarters on the employer’s property, and an increase in employers working away from home all day. Less opportunity for talk and social interaction between a house-girl and her employer led to poor communication and a lack of mutual understanding. The politics of “difference” also point to a lack of cultural and social sensitivity. This was particularly clear in the case of the white man who showed disrespect for kastom, both regarding the ceremonial killing of pigs and proper behavior with ni-Vanuatu women (chapter 4). On the other hand, we’ve also seen examples of

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employers who knew how to respond with appropriate compassion to crises in their house-girls’ lives: the death of a newborn twin and the birth of a handicapped child (chapters 3 and 5). Race and gender identity were (and are) also notable differences. Racism and sexism have changed tremendously since the historical practices described in the workshop, yet both still exist. Daniela Kraemer found that the mistreatment of house-girls by expatriate employers was largely due to neocolonial racial discrimination and a perceived denigration of paid domestic work. The mistreatment of house-girls by their ni-Vanuatu employers seemed to be the result of socially constructed gender discrimination. Even today, many employers seem to construct notions of ni-Vanuatu house-girls as “different” in order to justify exploitation and/or to rationalize the social and economic inequality around them.

Denigrating paid domestic work One of the most intriguing research findings from the workshop and from the research on house-girls today is that ni-Vanuatu women themselves do not denigrate paid domestic work. On the contrary, they value washing, cleaning, and looking after other people’s children. While expatriate employers, ni-Vanuatu employers, and members of the general community seem to belittle paid domestic work and paid domestic workers, most of the past and present house-girls consider such employment to be important and useful work. But despite their employers’ denigration, most ni-Vanuatu house-girls seem to have a strong and resilient sense of self and are able to retain their dignity and self-respect even in exploitative working conditions. Historically and today, it is not paid domestic work or housework that house-girls find problematic; it is the conditions under which house-girls work that they find difficult. When working for expatriates, house-girls have always retained an “exit option,” that is, an awareness that they could simply quit the job and return home, as many of the stories in this book demonstrate. Sometimes, as in the story of Evelyn in chapter 8, a house-girl would leave one job when conditions got too bad and move to another employer, and then another if necessary. Hilda’s decision to leave the household that was storing guns for the Santo Rebellion (chapter 9), Edna’s frustration with ironing Captain Bibby’s heavy uniform (chapter 2), Lewia’s suspicion that her employer wanted her body as well as her labor (chapter 4), and Milen’s dissatisfaction with the wages the American paid her (chapter 11) all illustrate how ni-Vanuatu house-girls walk away from working conditions they disliked. Many house-girls expressed an awareness that their employers’ perceived

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sense of difference affects the way they and their work are treated. They recognize that the greater these perceptions of difference, the more negative their interactions and the poorer their working conditions are likely to be. The most successful relationships—those in which the house-girl enjoyed her work and felt like she was part of the family—were those in which differences were transcended through curiosity (e.g., about different cuisines or languages), “love” (as Tanni Frazer observed in chapter 2), or generosity of spirit and mutual respect.

House-girls want respect Given this context, it is interesting that what house-girls want from their employers is not equality. They accept that because they are employees, they will never be equal players in their interaction with their employers. Historically, even a housegirl who became a settler’s wife remained aware of the inequalities in her relationship: she ate and slept separately (chapters 5 and 6). Today, many house-girls still accept the central role inequality plays in the functioning of paid domestic service. They realize that equality in their workplace would actually destroy the industry in its present form. Ni-Vanuatu paid domestic workers themselves argue that this work, in this form, gives them an opportunity for financial and social freedom that they might not otherwise have. As well, house-girls in Vanuatu seem not to be concerned with narrowing or de-emphasizing racial, class, and /or cultural differences between themselves and their employers. In the workshop, expatriates expressed discomfort with the niVanuatu participants’ insistence on referring to themselves as black and to them as white; why not use ni-Vanuatu and expat instead? But such objections elicited shrugs from the ni-Vanuatu women and no change in terminology. The women saw no reason to deny that racial differences are labeled in their ordinary speech. That did not mean, however, that they or the women in their reports felt that all whites were alike. House-girls framed their employers’ different behaviors or different mannerisms not in terms of race, class, or cultural identity, but in terms of character. The central issue for house-girls, then, is not one of inequality/equality, nor one of “difference”; rather, it is an issue of respect. What house-girls want, and what house-girls need, is for employers to respect their feelings and dignity as human beings. This is evident in every chapter in this book. House-girls in the past and today often find themselves belittled, demeaned, berated, taken advantage of, and ignored. Although physical violence against employees was more tolerated and probably more common in the colonial period, it occurs even today. Daniela

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knew a house-girl whose expatriate employer, unhappy with the food she had prepared, took the frying pan out of her hand and smashed it against her head. Indeed, the need for respect is one shared by paid domestic workers all around the world. As Bonnie Dill suggests about such workers in the United States, “making the job good meant managing the employer-employee relationship, so as to maintain their self-respect. [Paid domestic workers] insisted upon some level of acknowledgement of their humanity [and] actively fought against their employer’s efforts to demean, control, or objectify them” (1988, 50). Certainly, in Vanuatu, part of the reason for insufficient respect is that housegirls and employers are involved in a complex relationship of understanding and misunderstanding. Arguably, communication was better in the colonial period when house-girls had more frequent interactions with their employers. Housegirls knew where they stood within the exploitative practices of colonialism. They knew when to hide in the closet (chapter 5), and they knew when they might expect gifts of chocolate (chapter 3). Today, although house-girls and employers intersect in the physical realm (i.e., house-girls work in the space in which employers live), they often spend little time talking to each other and thus do not intersect in terms of understanding and communication. Consequently, house-girls continue to walk a tightrope. For instance, one house-girl was told to help herself to anything in the refrigerator, yet was then berated for “eating the employer out of house and home” (Kraemer 2003). Twentyfour years after the harsh words from Robin Ken’s mistress over the blackened shirt (chapter 6), house-girls are still expected to use unfamiliar appliances such as washers and dryers yet are scolded when they make mistakes with these machines (chapter 11). While house-girls appreciate the labor-saving qualities of these devices, lack of familiarity with them can create a lot of stress. We hope that the stories in this book will remind employers of the importance of respectful understanding and communication in order to bridge cultural differences. Misunderstandings and miscommunications can make for funny stories, but too often they make the employee-employer relationship fraught with tension. A key to better relations is improved understanding and communication; without this, neither house-girls nor employers feel they are being respected or treated right. This concern with the many misunderstandings in paid domestic worker– employer relationships emerged as the workshop engaged house-girls and anthropologists (both indigenous and expatriate) in a dialogue about the history of such relationships. By the end of the workshop, what we all wanted was to create a way for ni-Vanuatu fieldworkers and house-girls to make their voices heard, thus

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empowering themselves and others like them. Since paid domestic work is private work and because ni-Vanuatu house-girls present and past are women with limited education and limited resources, they rarely, if ever, have had the opportunity to express their thoughts, feelings, and experiences to a public audience. We hope that in telling their tales in this book, these working women and many others like them will find greater understanding, respect, and dignity for their work and for themselves. Through this book, we extend the conversation from our workshop and fieldwork to readers whom we hope will include other Pacific islanders and employers of house-girls. This is a conversation in which house-girls, so often silenced and belittled, have the opportunity to tell readers

HOUSE-GIRL AWARENESS PAMPHLET (DRAFT 2003, ENGLISH TRANSLATION)

HOUSE-GIRLS HAVE HUMAN RIGHTS ■

House-girls have the right to be paid minimum wage. Minimum wage is 16,000 vatu per month.

■

House-girls have the right to break time. If you work more than 6 hours in a day, you have the right to take a 1-hour break for lunch and a 20-minute break for tea.

■

House-girls have the right to have 1 day off per week.

■

House-girls have the right to 3 months of maternity leave. Your employer has no right to fire you because you are pregnant. Your employer has to pay you 8,000 vatu per month for each of the 3 months you are on maternity leave.

■

House-girls have the right to take sick leave. If you have been working for the same employer for more than 1 year, you have the right to 21 sick days with pay.

■

House-girls have the right to their VNPF contributions. Your boss has to pay into your VNPF fund. Go to the VNPF office to make sure your boss is making your VNPF contributions.

■

House-girls have the right to be respected by their employers. If your boss hits or touches you, you have the right to report him or her to the Vanuatu Department of Labour.

If you think that your boss is not respecting your rights, you must report him or her to the Vanuatu Department of Labour or the Vanuatu National Workers’ Union. They will give you advice, help you, and sometimes even make your boss obey the law and respect your rights. Don’t be frightened. People at the Department of Labour and Vanuatu National Workers’ Union will not tell anyone about your problems. Many house-girls have problems with their work. But you must remember that you have rights! You must stand up for your rights. If we all stand up for our rights and remind our bosses of them, the work and lives of all house-girls will improve. Information for this pamphlet came from the “Republic of Vanuatu: Employment Act. No. 1. ”

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how they have experienced their work. Since many employers do not know how their attitudes and actions affect the women they employ, it has been our intention in giving printed voice to these women’s experiences to bring to employers and to the general public greater awareness of what life was like, and continues to be like, for these indigenous women. To bring greater public attention to ni-Vanuatu house-girls’ working conditions, Daniela, with the help of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre, wrote a worker’s rights awareness pamphlet for distribution in and around Port Vila. We end with the text of this pamphlet. NOTES 1 Interestingly, an officer at the Government of Vanuatu Department of Labor told Daniela that he does not like getting involved in disputes between house-girls and their family members, saying, “I don’t want to disturb the relationship; relationships are more important than money.” 2 In the 1999 Vanuatu National Population and Housing Census, the number-one specified occupation held by women was in the domain of “private households with employed persons” (Government of Vanuatu 2000, 189). 3 This is according to Daniela’s interview with Blandine Domake, Executive Director of the Vanuatu Family Health Association.

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Index

Page numbers in boldface type refer to illustrations.

Burns-Philp, 38, 54, 55, 57 Butler, Judith, 13

Abu-Lughod, Lila, 25n 6 Adams, Kathleen, 1 Africa, 100 African, 100 Albert, Edna, 6, 24, 38, 42– 45, 147 Allen, Charles, 25n 5 Ambae, 2, 7, 14, 21, 24, 62, 63, 80, 81, 82, 90 –93, 95 Ambrym, 2, 5, 7, 9, 19, 22, 24, 60, 62, 69–75, 81, 96, 100 North, 69 American, 127, 128, 147 military, 8, 23, 37, 40 – 42, 63 See also employers Anderson, Bridget, 25nn 4, 7 anthropologist, 11, 14 –16, 17 ni-Vanuatu, 1, 14 –16 western, 1, 14 –16 See also fieldworkers anthropology, 1, 3, 5, 10, 14 –16, 18. See also fieldwork Arat-Koc, Sedef, 25n 7 Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO), 3 Australia, 2, 8, 11, 26n 16, 47, 49, 55, 63, 64, 65, 72, 73, 134, 141

Canada, 14, 16, 17, 85 – 87 canoes, 83 – 84, 85 – 86 Charlie, Lewia, 6, 24, 59, 61, 63, 147 child care, 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, 22, 23, 38, 43, 47, 53, 69, 77, 78, 103, 105, 113, 123, 126, 131 children: of employers, 4, 8, 9, 10, 19, 23, 38–39, 42, 47, 49, 51, 53, 54, 60, 71, 72, 73, 82, 85, 92 as house-girls, 22, 24, 85 – 89, 108 –120 of house-girls, 4, 9, 48 – 49, 67, 71, 95–97, 100, 131, 136, 145 illegitimate, 23, 62–64, 115, 139, 140 of ni-Vanuatu, 19, 40, 70, 109 of soldiers, 63 See also child care; family Chinese, 8, 22, 23, 24, 38 –39, 45n 1, 52, 54, 104, 106 perception of, 40, 45n 1, 106 See also employers church, 4, 12, 15, 19, 20, 50, 54, 56, 77, 97, 114 Anglican, 6 Catholic, 6, 58, 98, 113 Presbyterian, 6, 47, 52, 58, 84 See also missionaries class, 3, 8, 11, 12, 13 –14, 114, 148 cleaning, 12, 22. See also work Clifford, James, 10 clothes, 77, 98, 137 gifts of, 33, 34, 35, 36, 42, 54, 70, 77, 78, 79, 81, 85, 91, 97, 105, 107, 127, 143 ironing of, 87, 107, 146, 149 washing of, 8, 9, 12, 18, 20, 22, 37, 40, 43 – 44, 69, 78–79, 83, 106, 107, 122–123, 130, 136 –137, 146 wearing of, 4, 8, 20, 52, 53, 54, 55, 67 See also work Cock, Jacklyn, 25nn 7, 8, 143 Colen, Shellee, 25nn 7, 8 colonial, 3, 8, 25n 1, 81, 143 British, 6, 7, 8, 24, 26n 13, 46, 55, 83, 109 “civilizing agenda,” 8, 12

Banks Islands, 2, 5, 11, 16, 94, 95, 96, 100 –107, 111 Mota Island, 94 Pakea, 21 Vanua Lava, 96, 100, 102, 103, 104 Bedford, Richard D., 110 Bislama. See languages Blacksands, 5, 108. See also Port Vila Bolton, Lissant, 5, 6, 7, 14 –15, 16, 18, 23, 25n 12 Bresnihan, Brian, 25n 3 Breusch, Olive, 21 Breusch, Stan, 62, 90 –93 British Paddock, 43, 46

157

158

INDEX

concept of work, 20 desire, 25n 5 French, 6, 7, 8, 24, 83, 109, 110, 117, 119 government, 61 history, 6, 17, 20, 25n 3 oppression, 14 times, 22 See also colonialism; employers; neo-colonial; post-colonial; space colonialism, 1, 3, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 143, 149 French, 25n 9 indigenous perceptions of, 16, 19 view of status of women, 6 women’s participation in, 3 See also colonial; employers; neo-colonial; post-colonial; space Comaroff, Jean and John L., 12 communication, 1, 16, 17–18 problems with, 21, 44, 51, 64, 66, 79, 88, 93, 146, 149 See also languages Condominium of the New Hebrides, Anglo-French, 6, 8, 25n 3, 53, 111. See also colonialism; New Hebrides Constable, Nicole, 12 Cooper, Frederick, 110 culture, 9, 10, 15, 19, 22

expatriate, 1, 16, 21, 23, 134, 146 family, 9, 126, 132, 140, 144, 146 female, 22 French, 8, 22, 24, 57, 104, 127, 137 houses of, 43 intimacy with, 10, 14, 19 living with, 38 ni-Vanuatu, 22, 24, 71, 78, 122, 125, 131, 132, 139, 144, 146 occupations of, 22, 44, 47, 49, 51, 52, 81, 87, 104, 144 perceptions of, 22, 38, 40, 47– 49, 51, 55, 58, 66, 71–73, 92, 98, 106, 123, 125, 126, 127, 134, 135, 143, 146 racism of, 21 Vietnamese, 22, 24, 45n 1 See also African; American; Chinese; colonial; English; expatriate; French; ni-Vanuatu; race; Vietnamese; work England, 10, 43, 124 English, 22, 24, 42, 73. See also languages Epi, 57, 63, 65, 121, 141 Erromango, 84 Estelle, 6, 83 expatriate, 1, 3, 6, 7–8, 11, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21, 23, 109, 111, 114, 125, 133, 134, 136, 138, 142n 6, 144, 145, 146, 148. See also colonial; settlers

Denison, Siaban, 6, 24, 94 Dick, Lepakoa, 6, 60, 63, 65 Dickey, Sarah, 1 Dill, Bonnie Thornton, 149 district agent, 46, 83 Domake, Blandine, 151n 3 domestic worker. See work domesticity, notions of, 1, 6 –7, 8–9, 11–14, 22 Dong Sy Hua, 110

family: commodification of, 9 of employers, 4, 9, 38–39 feeling of, 4, 23, 39, 54, 59, 63, 75, 82, 98, 109, 115, 126, 129, 132–133, 134, 144, 148 of house-girls, 9, 38–39, 59, 125–126, 140, 144, 146, 151n 1 of ni-Vanuatu, 4, 8, 9, 19, 59 See also marriage Fanon, Frantz, 25n 1 fieldwork, 3, 17, 18 fieldworkers, 1, 3, 5, 10, 11, 14 –15, 16 –18, 20, 21, 24 ni-Vanuatu, 14 –15, 149 women, 5, 10, 14 –15, 16 –18, 37, 46, 53, 56, 59, 69, 94, 100 See also anthropologist; workshop Fiji, 7, 110 Filipina maids, 11, 12, 13, 25n 4. See also work food, 20, 22, 41, 46, 47– 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 97, 99, 101, 102, 132, 133, 134, 143 cooking of, 8, 12, 20, 43, 50, 55, 57, 69, 83, 105, 128 eating of, 4, 5, 49, 50, 65, 83, 86 gifts of, 31, 32, 33, 36, 39, 41, 47, 48, 49, 52, 54, 56, 66, 70, 78, 79, 92–93, 101, 105, 132–133, 134, 143, 149 making of, 77 serving, 9 shortage of, 111 Foucault, Michel, 12, 13, 25n 10 France, 10, 66, 71, 72, 74, 127 Frazer, Tanni, 6, 20, 21, 39, 61, 76, 148

education, 10, 13, 18, 46, 70, 121 Efate, 2, 24, 50, 78, 97, 115, 130 Emau, 55, 63 Epule, 50 Erakor, 44 Iririki, 74 Kawenu College, 51 Lelapa Island, 46, 49, 51, 52, 84 Nguna, 38, 53, 54, 55 North, 5, 6, 38 –39, 46 –58 Onesua, 36, 49 Pango, 5, 6, 37– 45, 121 Pele, 54 South, 37, 108, 111 See also Port Vila Ehrenreich, Barbara, 11 employers, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 18, 21, 22, 95, 130, 148, 149, 151 African, 100 American, 8, 23, 37, 40 – 42, 63, 127, 128, 147 Chinese, 22, 23, 24, 38–39, 45n 1, 52, 54, 104, 106 English, 8, 22, 24, 42

INDEX

French, 22, 24, 57, 104, 127, 137. See also languages Futuna Island, 36, 100 garden, 20, 71, 81, 82, 84, 90, 93, 105, 135 gardener, 22 gender, 3, 5, 9, 11, 13–14, 20, 112, 114 division of labor, 7 relations, 7 roles, 6, 22, 40, 64, 92–93 See also men; women Giles, Wenona, 25n 7 Gill, Anton, 25n 5 Glenn, Evelyn Nakano, 13, 25n 7 globalization, 11 government, 4, 60, 61, 83, 112, 114, 116, 145 officials of the, 8 See also employers Grace, Evelyn, 94 –98 Gwero, James, 18 Hansen, Karen Tranberg, 11, 25n 7 harbor master, 42, 43 Hawai‘i, 7 Hershatter, Gail, 118 Hirsch, Marianne, 118 Hochschild, Arlie Russell, 11 hospital, 52, 74, 127 house servant, 7, 10. See also house-girls; work house-boy, 8, 42, 55, 81 house-girls, 1, 3, 4, 5–6, 9, 10, 11, 12–13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 24, 38, 42, 45n 1, 46, 47–53, 54–56, 57, 62, 64, 71, 74, 80, 81, 85, 89, 90, 92, 100, 102, 103, 104, 106, 112, 113, 121–122, 124, 126, 130, 137, 139, 143, 145, 147, 148 –149, 150 awareness pamphlet, 150 common experiences of, 20–23, 148 on horseback, 65 at hotels, 44 housing of, 4, 5, 43, 47, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 62, 91, 97, 101, 102, 105, 137, 143 in a mining community, 24, 58 at a mission, 98–99 as mistresses, 9, 10, 19, 22–23, 71, 82, 102, 138, 141 perceptions of, 76, 146–147 perceptions of women employers by, 20, 22–23 “pimping,” 139 on plantations, 24, 56–57, 69, 74, 100 reluctance to discuss experiences of, 37, 69 status of, 44 Tahitian, 58 training of, 43, 46 –47, 50, 51, 66, 77 as a transitional occupation, 20 travel by, 22 Vietnamese, 24 wages for, 20–21 See also work houses, 82 Hyam, Ronald, 25n 5

159

independence, of Vanuatu, 6, 9, 14, 36, 47, 57, 69, 119. See also pre-independence, of Vanuatu Independence Park, 54 indigenous people. See ni-Vanuatu Indochina, 112 Jaarsma, Sjoerd, 3 Japanese, 44 Jolly, Margaret, 6, 7, 12 Joseph, Netty, 6, 54 Kalmat, Lena, 5, 24, 37– 40 Kalo, Sinlemas, 5, 56, 62, 65 Kalotiti, Leisara, 5, 23, 46 – 49 Kaltapan, Eva, 6, 38, 40 – 42, 137 kastom, 10, 14, 15, 17, 19, 25, 60, 61, 62, 146 Kelly, Suzanna, 7 Ken, Robin, 6, 22, 85 – 89, 149 Kibi, Jocelyn, 6, 24, 100, 104 –107 Kraemer, Daniela, 5, 13, 23, 24, 121, 143, 145, 146, 148, 149, 151 labor. See work Labor, Department of, 128, 145, 150 labor, indentured, 108 –120 Labor Advisory Board, 142n 2 labor trade, 7–8 languages, 4, 5, 6, 16, 21, 51, 62 Bislama, 1, 4n * 5, 8, 16, 18, 21, 38, 44, 45n 1, 53, 54, 55, 62, 71, 73, 76, 91–92, 93, 95, 101, 102, 103, 121 English, 8, 18, 23, 43, 44, 51, 55, 76, 84, 85, 95, 135 French, 8, 26n 15, 38, 44, 54, 58, 66, 71, 73, 79, 86, 102, 104, 117 Vietnamese, 113 See also communication Le Lagon Hotel, 44 Lindstrom, Lamont, 18, 26n 14 MacClancy, Jeremy, 25n 3 Mahana, Numalin, 5, 17, 24, 27–34 Malakula, 2, 5, 19, 21, 22, 24, 27, 39, 40, 57, 60, 61, 63, 69, 70 –74, 76 – 89, 104 Lakatoro, 83, 85 – 89 Norsup Island, 61, 73, 74, 76, 80, 87 Unua, 74 Uripriv Island, 76, 80, 83, 85 Walarano Island, 74 marriage, 4, 9, 19, 22, 23, 26n 16, 37, 38, 41, 48, 51, 56, 59, 62, 84, 95, 96, 98, 103, 104, 115 of house-girls, 54, 69, 100 interracial, 9, 24, 66, 71, 78, 80, 138 McClintock, Anne, 10, 112, 117 Melanesia, 12, 25n 2 memories: from childhood, 24, 40, 109, 117, 118, 119 of employers, 24 of house-girls, 1, 6, 21, 24 of male ni-Vanuatu, 26n 14

160

INDEX

men, 91, 97 “bad behavior” of, 60, 63, 146 expatriates, 8, 10 as informants, 37 ni-Vanuatu, 6, 7, 10, 12, 19, 21, 23, 95 on plantations, 101 “white,” 9 –10, 19, 21, 23, 24, 29, 32, 38, 39 – 40, 42, 44, 54 – 62, 74, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 102, 104, 115, 138, 141, 146 See also gender Meyerhoff, Miriam, 108, 110 Michael, Mailie, 5, 34–36 mining community, 24 missionaries, 4, 8, 12, 21, 24, 64, 66, 76. See also church; employers Anglican, 6 Catholic, 6 Presbyterian, 6 missions, 64, 98–99, 114, 143 Mitchell, Jean, 5, 7, 23, 108 Molwai, Françoise, 6, 24, 94, 98 money, 19, 21, 51, 141–142, 151 Moses, Lucy, 6, 9, 19, 24, 61, 69 names, 24–25 Narayan, Kirin,16 narrative, 1, 9, 10, 118 neo-colonial, 23, 147 New Caledonia, 2, 7–8, 11, 60, 72, 111. See also Noumea New Hebrides, 6, 7, 37, 40–41, 47, 108, 109, 110, 111–112, 113, 114, 118, 120. See also Vanuatu New Zealand, 2, 51, 64, 74, 132 Newman, Oscar, 21 Nimisa, Sam, 123, 125, 142 ni-Vanuatu, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7–8, 9, 10, 12–13, 14, 15, 17, 20, 22, 24, 25n 2, 61, 71, 78, 110, 114, 119, 122, 125, 131, 132, 134, 136, 139, 140, 142n 8, 143, 144, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150. See also family; men; women Norfolk Island, 56 Noumea, 7, 38 –39, 70, 71, 98, 102, 103, 128 Ohlen, 132, 142n 7 orphanage, 113 Paama, 101, 104, 105 Parreñas, Rhacel Salazar, 13 Patterson, Mary, 7 Peace Corps, 126 Pentecost, 2, 5, 6, 7, 11, 24, 94 –99, 132 East, 94, 98 Melsisi, 98 Vanrasini, 94, 98 plantations, 4, 7, 8, 74, 80, 82, 102, 110, 111, 112, 119, 142n 7, 143 French, 110, 113, 116, 117, 120 house-girls on, 24, 56–57, 69, 74, 76, 78, 81, 96, 101 labor on, 5,12, 22

planter, 108, 114, 115, 118 Port Vila, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13, 15, 22, 27, 48, 52–54, 57, 60, 64, 66 – 67, 71, 72, 96, 98, 108, 113, 115, 116, 121, 142n 6, 143 in 1942, 37, 111 See also Efate post-colonial, 14, 20, 119, 143. See also colonial; colonialism; neo-colonial; post-colonialism post-colonialism, 7. See also colonial; colonialism; neo-colonial; post-colonial power: dynamics, 14, 15 –16, 19, 23, 39, 118, 119 inequalities, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 25nn 1, 2, 115, 117, 129, 143, 144, 148 resistance to, 6, 12, 13, 109 pre-independence, of Vanuatu, 20, 21. See also colonial Prince Edward Island, University of, 108 Queensland, 7, 20 race, 5, 11, 13–14, 20, 21, 112, 114, 147 perceptions of, 38 – 40, 47, 70, 76 –77, 78, 81, 99, 122–123, 125, 126, 129, 136, 148 Rachel, 6, 69 racial politics, 13–14, 23, 117, 148 Regenvanu, Ralph, 15 research, 121, 143 accessibility of, 3 collaborative aspects of, 1, 3, 5, 14 –16, 18, 19 ethics of, 17 ethnographic, 3, 6 –7 findings of, 143–151 funding for, 16, 23 historical structure, 3 methods, 3, 16 –17, 20, 23–25, 121 moratorium on, 14 –15 participatory action, 3, 16 research questions, 4, 17, 18, 146 skills training for ni-Vanuatu fieldworkers, 15, 17 theoretical contribution, 9–11 See also anthropologist; fieldworkers Rockefeller Foundation Team Residency, 23 Rodman, Margaret, 5, 6, 11, 14, 15, 17, 22, 23, 25n 5, 26nn 13, 16, 143 Rollins, Judith, 12, 25nn 1, 7, 8 Romero, Mary, 11, 12, 13, 25n 7 Rosenburg, Harriet G., 25n 7 Ruth, Kate, 6, 60, 100 Samoa, 7, 77 Sanjek, Roger, 25nn 7, 8 Santo, 22, 27, 46, 63, 68, 70, 74, 84, 100, 102, 103, 147 Malo Island, 46 Tangoa Training Institute (T T I), 36, 77 school, 1, 18, 28, 35, 36, 38, 42, 43, 46, 50, 61, 72, 74, 75, 83, 87, 90, 98, 102, 114, 121, 141 teacher at, 49, 51 See also education

INDEX

settlers, 1, 8, 10, 11, 12, 19, 21, 25, 108, 110, 148. See also colonial; employers; expatriate sewing, 22, 44, 54, 65–66, 77, 98, 99 sex: forced sex, 23 refusing, 68 sexual abuse of house-girls, 7–8, 10, 25n 5, 60, 62, 115–116, 137–142, 145, 150 sexual conduct, 10, 19, 96 sexual relations, 7, 9, 22 Shineberg, Dorothy, 7, 20, 110, 114 ships, 7, 8, 21, 42, 60, 71, 95 The Malapoa, 56 The Percival, 96 The Trudy, 31 Smith, Valerie, 118 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), 16, 17 space: colonial construction of, 9–10, 15, 18, 26n 13, 43, 83, 112, 136, 149 domestic, 5, 10, 109, 110, 112, 114, 117, 143 global, 117 ni-Vanuatu construction of, 9, 140 public / private, 6, 7 settler construction of, 5, 9, 19 “white,” 22 Stasiulis, Daiva, 25n 7 Stoler, Anne L., 9–10, 19, 114, 115 Strassler, Karen, 10 Strathern, Marilyn, 7 Tahi, Merilyn, 138, 140, 142n 9, 145 Tamearu, Lesaruru, 5, 53 Tanna, 2, 5, 6, 16, 17, 24, 27–37, 48, 64, 82 Iarkei Village, 35 Inap Port, 36 White Sands, 35 Tarisesei, Jean, 5, 14–15, 16, 23, 24, 90–93 Tasale, Lonnette, 6, 24, 57 Tavoa, Simeon, 124 Thomas, Nicholas, 12 Tonga, 80 Tongoa, 2, 5, 6, 7,19, 21, 24, 59–68, 91, 92 Shepherd Islands, 66 Tonkin, 108, 109, 113. See also Vietnam Tonkinese, 110–120. See also Vietnamese travel: for marriage, 22, 37 “traveling stories,” 10 –11, 19, 24 by women, 22, 62 to work, 22, 43, 83 – 84, 85 – 89, 132 Tryon, Darrell, 6, 25n 11 Uwan, 108 –120 Vanuatu, 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 13, 20, 22, 24, 25nn 1, 2, 40, 62, 90, 108, 109, 114, 119, 127, 132, 133, 142n 3, 143, 144, 145, 149 geography of, 2, 21 government of, 14 languages of, 6, 21 See also Ambae; Ambrym; Banks Islands; Efate;

161

Epi; Erromango; Futuna; Malekula; Paama; Pentecost; Santo; Tanna; Tongoa; Wallis Vanuatu Cultural and Historic Sites Survey, 15 Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VCC), 15, 16, 17, 23, 46, 53, 59, 65, 69, 90, 94, 108, 151. See also Women Fieldworker Network; Women’s Culture Project Vanuatu Family Health Association, 151n 3 Vanuatu National Population and Housing Census, 151n 2 Vanuatu National Provident Fund (VNPF), 128, 142n 4, 145, 150 Vanuatu National Workers’ Union (VNWU), 142n 1, 150 Vanuatu Women’s Centre, 138, 142n 9, 145 Vietnam, 109, 113, 116, 117, 118. See also Tonkin Vietnamese, 5, 7, 8, 19, 22, 24, 45n 1, 108, 110–120. See also Tonkinese village, 19, 40, 41, 42, 62, 64, 95, 99, 100 chief, 62 violence, 19, 26n 16, 64, 72, 110, 111, 150 domestic, 23 to house-girls, 148–149 to ni-Vanuatu, 61 Walter, Annie, 7 Wallis, 100 White, Geoffrey M., 26n 14, 118–119 wives, 42, 49, 50, 53, 104, 126, 148 mean, 22–23, 71–73, 86–89, 106–107, 127, 135 multiple, 9, 21, 26n 16, 63, 71–73, 80, 95 See also marriage women, 9, 11, 12, 13, 38, 41, 49, 69, 95, 144 constructions about foreign, 22 as employers, 22 English, 73 expatriate, 20 expatriate constructions of, 6 French, 24 ni-Vanuatu, 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16, 19–20, 22, 23, 26n 16, 147 perceptions of, 21–22 runaway, 21, 80, 87, 95, 97 traveling of, 21, 22 “white,” 9, 13, 19, 22, 23, 40, 71–72, 98, 100, 133–134 See also gender Women Fieldworker Network, 14 Women’s Culture Project, 5, 14 Woodward, Keith, 25n 3 work, 1, 2 as a colonial concept, 20 conditions of, 3, 4, 5,18, 20, 24, 111, 144, 145, 147, 151 domestic, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 25nn 1, 7, 109, 110, 114, 143, 150, 151n 2 gendered division of, 6 –7 getting fired from, 127–128, 145 at hotels, 44 hours of, 20, 23, 43, 44, 47, 50, 54, 55, 56, 83, 86, 97, 123, 150

162

INDEX

kinds of, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8–9, 12, 13, 22, 43 – 44, 48, 50, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 66, 76, 78, 90, 99, 101, 103–104, 105, 106, 112, 122, 132 location of, 4, 20, 22, 24 quitting, 19, 20, 79, 80, 87, 130, 131, 133, 137, 140 –141, 147 stigma against domestic, 12–13, 20, 76, 129, 147 stress from, 13, 123, 149 time off from, 123 –124 training for, 8 travel to, 22, 43 valuing of domestic, 12–13, 147 wages, 4, 5, 13, 18, 20–21, 38, 41, 43, 44 – 45, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 63, 67, 81, 82, 85, 97, 99, 102, 103, 105, 107, 111, 123, 124–125, 127, 131, 133, 142n 3, 145, 147, 150

See also children; cleaning; clothes; employers; food; house-girls workshop: fieldworker training, 5, 14–15, 16–17 topics of, 14 See also fieldworkers; research workshop, History of Housegirls, 1, 5–6, 9, 10, 11, 13, 16 –17, 20, 53, 94, 100, 143, 146, 149. See also fieldworkers; research World War II, 7, 8, 19, 21, 37, 69, 77, 81, 83. See also American Wright, Gwendolyn, 25n 9 York University, 5, 108 Young, Robert J., 25n 5 Yuval-Davis, Nira, 25n 7

About the Editors

Margaret Rodman is Professor of Anthropology at York University in Toronto, Canada. She first conducted research in Vanuatu in 1978. Her most recent books include Houses Far From Home (2001) and Home in the Islands (1997, co-edited with Jan Rensel). Both are published by the University of Hawai‘i Press. Daniela Kraemer received her MA in anthropology in 2003 from York University. She has taught at Pearson College, Victoria, BC and now lives in Toronto. Lissant Bolton is Curator for Oceania at the British Museum. She received her Ph.D. from Manchester University in 1994. She is the author of the University of Hawai‘i Press book Unfolding the Moon (2003). She has been advisor to the Women’s Culture Project in Vanuatu since 1991. Jean Tarisesei is Coordinator of the Women’s Culture Project which she established with Lissant Bolton in the early 1990s at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre. Together they developed the Women Fieldworkers Network and encouraged the kind of collaborative research that made this book possible.

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Production Notes for Rodman / House-Girls Remember Cover and interior designed by Dianna Little in Minion with display in Bickham Script Composition by Josie Herr Printing and binding by The Maple -Vail Book Manufacturing Group Printed on 60# Glatfelter Offset B18, 420 ppi