[Mihalic] Wahgi Besta - aha!

John Burton john.burton at anu.edu.au
Mon Mar 14 09:58:38 EST 2005


Tida, Mary, Robin

> There is a kind of sweet potato called "Waki Besta" in Simbu. 
>  I was eliciting sweet potato names from some informants when 
> I first heard the name "Waki Besta" in 2001. 

My South Wahgi intelligence service confirms that Waki Besta _was_ the
introduced carp. However, new information confirms your sweet potato, Waki
Besta, in South Wahgi as well in recent years.

Looks like Waki Besta is jumping from 'new powerful thing' to 'new powerful
thing': new fish, new sweet potato, new athlete's power diet.

> "Wahgi" is "Waki" for the Dom people, with whom I am working. 
>  They live in South Simbu and "Waki" is their pronunciation 
> (phoneme string, strictly speaking) for the name of the Wahgi river.

'Wahgi' is the spelling given by Jim Taylor in his patrol diary of 1933.
'Waki' is indeed the correct way to render it in WHP as in Dom.
Unfortunately, there is a significant 'Wake' river in western Enga so it is
useful to go on with 'Wahgi'. (Also, electorate: 'Angalimp-South Wahgi'.
Except the Post-Courier, sign-writers etc often spell it 'Waghi', and worse
'Whagi'.)

> Sweet potatoes usually do not have Tok Pisin names, but 
> people use indiginous names.  A few sweet potato names as 
> "Barsu Maune Kepa" (Airport Sweet Potato) and "Saina Apal" 
> (Chinese Lady) include a Tok Pisin word, but the names do not 
> completely consist of Tok Pisin words.  A vernacular word 
> should be added as the head of the word as: "... Kepa" (... 
> Sweet Potato), "... Apal" (... Lady) "... Gi" (... Girl).

South Wahgi: 'aka' sweet potato, 'amb' woman.
Thus 'aka swit amb', 'aka Lae Rot amb' ...

John Burton



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