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Clip description
John Waiko is walking around his village holding a child. He speaks loudly about having been away for so long and acknowledges that he has confused some customary terms. The village appears almost empty. This sequence is followed by the title, then historical footage of John Waiko being introduced to a large audience at the Australian Museum in Sydney. Waiko speaks about PNG cultural gains and losses and sings a haunting song.
Curator’s notes
Waiko’s academic supervisor, Dr Hank Nelson, who is interviewed in the film, states that ‘very few people are truly at home in two cultures’. Waiko is seen in this clip operating in two cultures that couldn’t be more disparate.
The young child that Waiko carries around is his son, Bao Waiko. In 2006, Bao Waiko co-directed Minister Without Money, a film that documents his father’s political rise and fall around the heated atmosphere of the 2003 PNG elections.
