Director's grandfather, Bubu Aila (far right) c. 1950s

 

 

This film is rooted in my own personal response to a British law imposed on Papua New Guinea (PNG) early last century and how it affected many families, including my own.

 

 

Like most PNG men of his generation, my grandfather, was warned to stay away from European women or risk being beaten or even executed.

 

 

The “1926 White Women’s Protection Ordinance” imposed the death penalty for the crime of rape or attempted rape of any European female by a PNG man and was influenced by similar legislation in British-ruled Zimbabwe (formerly Southern Rhodesia) and the lynching practices in America's Deep South.  The legislation was discriminatory and harsh.

 

 

In practise, this law meant that men like my grandfather were not allowed to even look at or talk to white women without getting arrested.  European women had no power either as they were not permitted to have friendships, let alone relationships, with PNG men.

 

 

The background to this legislation was the "Black Peril", or the fear that native men, who were seen as endowed with "strong sexual instincts" (particularly for white women), were going around in their hordes raping white women.  This fear was common among many colonialists but in fact there was little proof that this was happening.   

 

It seems this segregation policy existed in PNG until 1958, although the death penalty ceased in 1934.

 

 

Director's grandfather, Bubu Aila (lower right) with his family c. 1940s