In compiling my reading list I started reflecting on the difference between knowledge and experience. Most of my documentary information about Pohnpei and Micronesia has come from books that I read only after completing my Peace Corps tenure, and I am delighted with and grateful for the enrichment they have provided. On the other hand, reading could not capture the experiences that I had “on the ground,” as the saying goes—the feelings, the sounds, smells, the moods, the friendships, the hopes and fears.
For example, in Pohnpei you can always hear a rain squall coming because it is preceded by a rustling breeze and, after that, by the thunderous clatter of the rain torrent on the leaves. You have just enough time to run for cover or open your umbrella. If it’s a good Pohnpei rain, it comes down heavily and loudly enough to transport you into an altered state.
Another example. There was a corner in the path from our host family houses on the way to the dining hall, which was, during the rest of the year, the main floor of the Catholic mission school in Wene. The mission feast house, called the nahs, was a separate building about a hundred yards from the school, and it was the nahs that created this corner in the path. They used this feast house for lots of events, which meant that the stone oven right at the open-air front of the house was redolent with the smell of baked breadfruit, almost as if the smell had marinated the wood posts and floorboards of the nahs. I can still imagine turning that corner and smelling that sweet, warm, nutritious, delicious smell. That is something I could never get from a book or a web page.
The following list of books is arranged in the order in which I read them.
A Reporter in Micronesia: A lively and perceptive account of our unique twenty-year trusteeship in the Pacific, by E. J. Kahn
This was the only book I could find before I went into Peace Corps training. I don’t remember anything about it, but I do recall that the author visited our training site in ‘68, and I spoke with him just long enough to mispronounce Ponape (as “puh NOP ee”) for the first and only time in my life. I have 20-20 recall for all embarrassing moments going back to toddler hood.
West from Katau, by William McGarry
This is a photocopied stapled draft that got circulated to volunteers in 1969, I think. Today it shows up on a Google Books listing as published by the Ponape Department of Education. The conversational book talks mostly about lore, legend, and customs such as the annual breadfruit harvests, many of which are no longer in practice. I would guess that David Hanlon’s book was partly inspired by this work.
Nest in the Wind, (1st Edition) by Martha C. Ward
Martha and her husband Roger were in Pohnpei in the years around 1970. They were conducting field research that was supposed to relate blood pressure to modernization. It was a difficult assignment, and for various reasons the results were never published. The book is mostly about how Martha learned how to live and enjoy life with Pohnpeians. She is a terrifically insightful and entertaining writer. I say a little more about her in my notes for the second edition below.
Upon a Stone Altar, by David Hanlon
David was a Peace Corps Volunteer in the Micro 9 group, I believe. He emailed me that he met me at the Peace Corps office, and I am sorry that I don’t remember the occasion, because his book is fabulous. It is probably the one book I most wish I could have read before I went to Pohnpei—if only it had existed then.
Island Traders: Memories of the Carlos Etscheit Family, by Evette Etscheit Adams
I found this short book in Jack Gillmar’s home and read it during my return trip from Pohnpei. I had been in the Etscheit stores a few times in Kolonia, but I never met any of the family. They were part of the mysterious past of Pohnpei that I never attempted to learn. The Belgian Etscheit brothers—Carlos and Leo--came out to Micronesia at the beginning of the German colonial period (1899-1914), and for whatever reason they stopped talking to each other for years, maybe forever. Some members of their family remained on the island for the rest of the 20th century, even enduring internment by the Japanese army during WWII. The book tells this story from the viewpoint of Evette, who was just a kid during the war. She is now considered to be “one of the island’s most successful business people.”
The Edge of Paradise, by P. F. Kluge
Kluge was shocked to hear about the apparent suicide of Lazurus Salii, a Palauan politician whom he had befriended as a Peace Corps Volunteer working near the Trust Territory government in Saipan. So he took leave from his teaching job at Kenyon College and flew out, just the way I did, except it was a few years earlier and he went all the way to Salii’s home island, far to the west of Pohnpei. He spent a fair amount of time in bars and came away with a combination of disillusionment and depression. The book received a negative review from anthropologist Glenn Peterson, who had once admired Fred’s work.
9307, by Steve Nix
Nix, a Jehovah Witness conscientious objector, served a thirty-month sentence at various U.S. prisons for refusing to serve in the armed forces during the Vietnam conflict. He later worked on construction projects in Hawaii and volunteered to travel to Pohnpei in 1970 to help build the J.W. Kingdom Hall in Kolonia. This is the same building where I asked for Pohnpeian language brochures and received a generous supply. I am about halfway through the book at present. I discovered it when Googling the internet for "Matt Mix," who turns out to be part of the story that Nix tells about his dealing with Robbie Etscheit, nephew of Leo Etscheit.
Sabbatical, by John Rider
Rider and his wife were Methodist (I think) missionaries who traveled the world and spent part of their time on Pohnpei. The Amazon description of the book:
From the deep green jungles of the Federated States of Micronesia to the blazing rainbow from inside the Northern Lights.....from the swaying back of an elephant in Malaysia to the swaying back of a camel approaching the pyramids. From the depths of the Mt. Blanc tunnel to the heights of the Jura Mountains...from the writhing traffic and sounds of Lahore to the mosques of Saudi Arabia. We have listened to the sound of the hyenas circling the compound in Ethiopia...and have been aboard the MICRO GLORY as it made its way over the Pacific to the far away islands of Nukuoro and Kapingamarangi, and across the world watched the sun rise on the morning of our 25th anniversary on the island of DUGI OTOK. This is an eye witness daily journal of mind-stretching travel by a middle-aged couple as teachers, photographers and videographers.Master Blaster, by P. F. Kluge
This is a fictional suspense yarn that is probably also a roman à clef for people who lived in Saipan between the 60s and 90s, where nearly all of the action takes place. The blaster is an anonymous internet poster who exposes the corruption and hypocrisy of business and politics in the Mariana Islands, where there had been, in real life, more than adequate grist for Kluge’s mill. For starters, just think of the secret CIA training camp and the illegal sweat shop garment factories that employed “guest” workers from at least a dozen Asian countries. I never had any desire to visit Saipan before I read Master Blaster, and now I am super sure I never want to go there.
Nest in the Wind, (2nd Edition) by Martha C. Ward
Another Micronesia hand who went back to Pohnpei for a second round, Martha added two or three chapters to the first edition of Nest, and much of what she added was bad news—primarily the general decline in diet and health of Pohnpeians as a result of eating junk food and getting almost no exercise since the road around the island was completed. Diabetes and heart disease seem to be the primary killers. Still, you have to think, or at least hope, that somehow they will muddle through this depressing chapter.
Remaking Micronesia, by David Hanlon
Hanlon, author of Upon a Stone Altar, above, wrote this book with a deep skepticism toward the concept of economic development and international assistance. It’s highly informative and a great companion for the Hezel books that follow in the list. He spends several pages describing the parade of studies and reports, dating back to the U.S. Naval administration, that analyzed the prospects for achieving a self-subsistent economy in Micronesia. I was surprised to see no mention of the 1967 Stanford Research Institute proposal called Planning for education and manpower in Micronesia: final report, as several copies were lying around various offices that I stumbled into during my first year on the island. As I learned from Strangers in Their Own Land, the only time that conventional economic development actually succeeded in Micronesia was during the Japanese colonial adminstration up to the beginning of WW2. The catch: it was the Japanese immigrantwho were generating the export revenues and not the Micronesians, who had essentially become second-class citizens during that period and who continued to subsist in their traditional economies.
Making Sense of Micronesia, by Francis X. Hezel
This is Hezel’s most recent commentary on the cultural disconnect between Micronesia and the helpers from America and other advanced economies who have been perplexed by the work ethic and other attitudes of island life. In an early chapter he explains a typical example. When he was working in Chuuk (then Truk), he would answer the phone and the Micronesian calling party would say “Who is this?” which at first struck Hezel, as it would strike you or me, as rude. But he eventually figured out that the calling party needed to know the social status of the person he or she was addressing in order to use the appropriate language. I assume the same sort of thing happens in Japan, where honoric language is still a huge deal. I wonder how they handle it. Attitudes toward freedom of the press, accounting, nepotism, and a dozen others, which I as an American take to be fundamentally self evident, are critiqued and explored from the standpoint of an island dweller who is completely dependent on his family network for love and life support. Hezel was understandably distressed by the relatively high rate of suicide among young Micronesian males.
Strangers in Their Own Land, by Francis X. Hezel
This is the sequel to the author’s companion volume, The First Taint of Civilization: A History of the Caroline and Marshall Islands in Pre-colonial Days, 1521-1885, which I may read some day if I can obtain it via interlibrary loan. If you ever want a detailed account of the modern colonial history of Micronesia, complete with names and dates, this book is like the Dead Sea Scrolls. Why did the Spanish raise their flag first in the islands, and why and how did the Germans and later the Japanese and the Americans, follow them? It’s an extremely readable and masterful treatment. I started by reading the last chapter, which begins with the handoff of the Trusteeship from the U.S. Navy to the Dept of the Interior in 1951. Then I went back and read the rest of the book from the beginning.
The First Taint of Civilization, by Francis X. Hezel
This book goes so far back in history that I thought it would be too academic for me, but Hezel is such a brilliant researcher and fine writer that I finally bought and read it to complete my Hezel set.
It was a page turner. I read about the English explorers Marshall and Gilbert. who discovered the islands that were named after them. Micronesian islands were extremely difficult to find, as you can imagine, without the chronometer to determine longitude. It all started with the craving for cloves (which helped preserve meat in European kitchens), but you will have to read the book to fill in the rich connective tissue. Hezel is awesome. The Jesuits know how to pick them.
Ponapean-English Dictionary, by Ken Rehg and Damian Sohl
This dictionary started where the earlier and less professional Pohnpeian-English word lists left off. Ken and Damian wrote it when they were still grad students at the University of Hawaii. I have looked up a few entries in it, and I am doing volunteer work for the current team that is compiling entries for a second edition, which will probably come out in a couple more years.
It is available online at
When I looked for a copy of this dictionary at the Kolonia Public Library, they didn't have one. Go figure.
Ponapean Reference Grammar, by Ken Rehg and Damian Sohl
I have read parts of this. It is a scary tome for anybody who thinks they have achieved some fluency in Pohnpeian. I knew about five percent of the stuff that Ken and Damian explain in this book. I might be able to master it in a year if I had the time and inclination.
The Eastern Carolines, by John L. Fischer
This book, in its reddish paperback edition, sat around my cabin for 3 years, and I did read parts of it. It talks about other places besides Pohnpei, which may be the reason I figured it could wait.
The Native Polity of Ponape, by Saul H. Riesenberg
I may still own this book. I know that its hard cover was attacked by mold, so I must have had it on Pohnpei for a while. It is pretty technical, as you would expect from a Smithsonian publication. As I recall, it focuses mostly on details of traditional political relationships and was more academic than I cared to wade into. The following paragraph about Fischer and Riesenberg is adapted and plagiarized from web pages describing both authors.
When the United States took over Micronesia from Japan after World War II, anthropological and other scientific investigations were funded to provide both practical and scientific information. Anthropologists like Fischer and Riesenberg opened up Micronesia as a research area to American scholars, and their role as professional advisers and cultural interpreters to a colonial administration probably altered the course of Micronesian history. Fischer’s contributions in developing civil and domestic laws, land tenure policies, and new political structures helped bring the insights of anthropology into the American colonial administration of a remote island area. Fischer was a professor of anthropology at the University of Hawaii from 1949 to 1957, years during which he was also the staff anthropologist for the Trust Territory System. Jack became a District Anthropologist (1949-51) and a District Officer (1951-53) in the newly created U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands under both the Navy and Department of the Interior administrations. After a year in Truk, during which they learned Trukese and had their first daughter, Nikko (Madeleine), the family moved to Pohnpei (Ponape) for 3 years. Jack again used Japanese as a contact language while he learned Pohnpeian in his usual meticulous manner. On Pohnpei, another daughter, Mary Ann, was born. The Fischers’ field research and intellectual growth from this time on showed a strong interest in comparative child-rearing, socialization, and the cognitive development of children.
Dr. Riesenberg became the first curator of Pacific ethnology at the Smithsonian in 1957. He served as department chairman in the late 1960's and was a senior ethnologist at his retirement in 1979. He was the author of numerous technical monographs, articles and books dealing with anthropological topics. But of particular interest to him was Ponape, a large volcanic island in the Carolines archipelago.