P-MAN VIII Update #24
9 March 2006

Our first stop today was back at the new Belau National Museum, where we had an appointment with Melvin, the curator of photographs and films. He showed us some video - it's material on VHS that they hope to digitize soon. It appeared to be from the period around 1945, while the repatriation of American troops from Palau was beginning to take place. We recognized some of the places in the film. Quality isn't great, and Melvin isn't sure where the original film resides, but there's a good chance that this is the only place on the planet where some of this footage still exists.

The library also has a large collection of still photos, but there's a preservation process that much of this material is going through as part of the move of the museum from the old facility into this new one, which opened last year. Maybe next year when we come by we can see the material. In the meantime, now that Melvin knows what we're after, he said that as he digitizes the existing material, he'll keep an eye open for things that may be of interest to us and will let us know if he runs across something.

We dropped Pat off at the President's office for his meeting with the Chief of Staff, then headed over to the aquarium to talk to Carol, who is the person who's given a bunch of maps and historical stuff to Jon Vogt. She's trying to contact a Palauan for us who she says has translated a lot of the old Japanese names into Palauan - it would be valuable for us to see his work and to talk to him.

Carol began to show us the material she has, and it looks like the material that Jon Vogt passed on to us the other night is exactly the same collection of stuff. It's going to take us a year to get through all of it.

It's not particularly relevant, but remember the salt-water crocs
I sometimes mention our almost encountering in the mangroves?
This guy is an inmate at the aquarium. About 8 feet long. Meeting him here
COMPLETELY satisfies my curiosity about them. © Reid Joyce 2006

Carol suggested a person for us to contact at the Palau Community College library, so we headed over there. The person Carol suggested wasn't there, but we met Gretchen, who explained what they have, went through their collection of maps with us (we have just about everything they have), and turned us loose with their computerized card catalog. While we were looking through their collection Pat came back from his meeting and joined in.

Some of us eventually went over to the internet cafe to check e-mails, leaving Mike behind to finish up. Shortly after we left, Mike got into some documents that contain hundreds of pages of interviews with Palauan elders that were conducted back in the '80s. He went through tons of material, photographing many interview transcripts of interest.

We spent much of the rest of the afternoon individually researching some of our own data. Late in the afternoon, we spoke with Jolie Liston, an American archaeologist who worked with the Compact road for several years and is temporarily back in Palau to write up an extensive report on that project. We've invited her to accompany us as we hike back to the fortress area tomorrow, this time heading in on the old Airai road from the north, from its intersection with the Compact road. We're eager to hear about her experiences in Palau, and she's eager to visit this fortress site, which she's never seen. It'll be cool to have a real archaeologist on the team again for a bit, even if it isn't Bill Belcher. We want to be able to head off the road up in Ngatpang by about 9:00; it'll be a full day.

- Reid