Twentieth Century and Later
The Hiri voyages continued, interrupted only by the Second World War, until the late fifties, when a heavily laden and storm-damaged lagatoi foundered off Boera village on its return voyage with heavy loss of life. Further voyages were forbidden by the colonial authorities.
With independence, and the need of Papua New Guineans to preserve and celebrate their culture, the Hiri Moale Festival was started. The festival coincides with the national independence day celebrations, and features traditional dances, the Hiri Queen contest (a beauty pageant), the arrival of the lagatoi, canoe racing, musical presentations, and an arts and crafts exhibition.
In recent years, there has been some controversy about Hiri Moale being held in Port Moresby, rather than at nearby Boera, traditionally regarded as the birthplace of Edai Siabo.
Read more about this topic: Hiri Trade Cycle
Famous quotes containing the words twentieth century and/or twentieth:
“In the middle of the next century, when the literary establishment will reflect the multicultural makeup of this country and not be dominated by assimiliationists with similar tastes, from similar backgrounds, and of similar pretensions, Langston Hughes will be to the twentieth century what Walt Whitman was to the nineteenth.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“The descendants of Holy Roman Empire monarchies became feeble-minded in the twentieth century, and after World War I had been done in by the democracies; some were kept on to entertain the tourists, like the one they have in England.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)