Things Worth While

by Evelyn Cheesman

This is not intended to be an autobiography. That is to say, it is not a record of the thoughts, ideas, emotions,affections and reactions of one person. The person herself is not interesting (1) but her experiences are unusual and of outstanding interest, with quite alot of matter new to the general reader.
To condense an account of such a checkered life into a moderate-sized volume requires considerable restrictive selection; however, the main events of my eight solo, collecting expeditions in New Guinea and the south west Pacific are here set forth, together with their prelude to present a more or less complete picture. Other events, and particularly descriptions of scenery and insects, etc., will be found in my other books.
EC

1 An opinion we cannot share
The Publisher



My great, great Aunts reminises from 1881 to 1955

320 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1957

Reviews

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite its vague, unenticing title, this is a remarkable account of a British woman’s research expeditions to the remotest parts of the South Pacific, where she collected insect species for the British Museum. She led her expeditions, defying colonial regimes which were reluctant to grant a solitary woman permission to travel in lands unknown to westerners.

She relied on islanders to carry her gear to the remotest areas in the Marquesas, Papua New Guinea, and New Hebrides, and managed to stay safe because of their mutual trust. No outing was too dangerous In pursuit of bugs in the jungle, which she collected nightly on a moth screen in front of a lantern. Losing her footing and slipping down a jungle hillside once, she remembered “When I did come to a halt by holding on to two fistfuls of bracken, I was more than three-quarters over a perpendicular wall looking down to a small stream about thirty feet below.”

Cannibals were an ever present danger. Her guide in New Hebrides explained the cannibal’s motivation: “…although I did no harm in life yet my ghost had powers for evil unless I had been eaten.” “A murdered enemy as a hostile ghost would do endless harm, having more power to inflict it than when he was alive. If the corpse were divided among certain of the tribe and eaten then the spirit, the revenant, did not exist.” But cannibals didn’t seek to murder, warning interlopers “Go further away or we will come down and kill you.” — like the Māori warning to Darwin “Come on shore and we will kill and eat you all.”

From a mountainside path 3000 feet above the ocean, she observed a colossal squid, churning, which she reckoned to cover a fifth of the bay.

Exploring on foot in Papua New Guinea gave her unique knowledge of second WW Pacific battlegrounds. “My notes and sketches when lecturing to H.M. Forces helped them to understand what a tough problem [the Buna plain] presented.”
“For of all the separate campaigns which made up that terrible jungle war, this attempt of the Japanese to consolidate a position behind Port Moresby was the most significant. It was defeated by the unyielding nonchalance of the Australians, by acts of heroism never recorded, just carried out with cool courage as part of the day’s work.” Which describes her own behavior too.

[Daniel Ferguson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first heard of Evelyn Cheesman when I was collecting insects on the islands of Vanuatu. It was only recently that I found out she wrote books. I found a copy of this book in my school's library and read it. It was awesome. There were times when she dragged on about things that I didn't think were very important, but I will say that when she talked about Vanuatu, all the things she talked about were interesting, so maybe the background to the islands is important. But when she spoke about the grumblings of the volcano on Tanna, I could relate because of the time I spent there and she wrote it in such an awesome way.

Overall, this is not so much a memoir about Cheesman, it is more about her crafting a story about what she did and how she did it. There is maybe one time where she mentions her ability to endure and the importance of effort, but she never really delves into her feelings or ever expands on her experiences, which I would have loved to read about.

[Andrée · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this quite depressing as much of what she wrote about has disappeared just a century later.