b'4.A short history of the making of the dictionaryThe history of a dictionary must be in part the story of its lexicographer(s).My role as a lexicographer of Kiriwina evolved through a long and happy association with the Kiriwina people, coupled with helping them with translation of church-related texts. However, when I went to Kiriwina in 1962 I had not the slightest clue that I would need to be linguist and dictionary-maker, and none of my fellow missionaries warned me. I began my training for the Methodist ministry in 1949 and did a degree in history and philosophy at the University of Adelaide. In 1956 the Mission Board in Sydney appointed me and my wife Margaret to the teaching staff of the new Wesley High School at Salamo, Fergusson Island, in Milne Bay Province of what is today Papua New Guinea. In the initial period my teaching was strictly in English but on weekends I superintended church work in surrounding villages and learned the Dobu language, which the church used for its village work on Fergusson Is.In 1962 the Lawtons were transferred to the Kiriwina Circuit, taking up residence at Oyabia, adjacent to Kavataria village on Kiriwina Island and we lived there until 1973. I found that my fluency in Dobu, a language known to many Kiriwina people, proved to be a valuable aid in learning Kiriwina, which is grammatically similar.Soon after arriving at Oyabia I was confronted with the need to prepare Kiriwina language materials including hymn book and catechism and Bible translation. Translations of the four Gospels existed but printed copies were soon exhausted and the translations were defective. So I began the work of Bible translation, beginning with the New Testament. I gathered a committee of Kiriwina church leaders for this, as I had no confidence in my own ability as a translator. The Kavataria dialect had been in use for literary and Government work since the 1890s and it was agreed by an overwhelming vote of leaders in the Kiriwina community that this dialect be used for the Bible translation. It was here that the need of a reliable lexical resource was evident, as an appreciation of words functioning within a wide cultural context was needed for effective translation and such an aid was not to be found in the existing word lists. I had already gathered a list of words and phrases needed for daily conversation and common activities but now every item coming from my colleagues in translation had to be examined. The platform for making a dictionary is the list of headwords to be treated. In this early stage of compiling a lexicon of Kiriwina I was materially aided by the typescript dictionary left by a former missionary, Hedley Shotton (Shotton 1949).A decade later Fathers Bernard Baldwin and Kevin Twomey of the Sacred Heart Catholic Mission, working in the Kilivila dialect, made their word lists available to me (Baldwin 1967, Twomey 1970). However, my primary source was the speech of Kiriwina colleagues, who introduced many words and phrases not in Shottons dictionary. My accumulation of headwords was based mainly on observation of places, people and events, aided by informants explaining those things I observed. My first concern was to identify words relating to everyday family life. I took every opportunity to record events of social importancecustoms relating to annual gardening, the practice of fishing monopolies, when fishing was frequently a communal act. I investigated the technology behind thesemaking of gardens and fences, building of canoes, and how skills were recognised and rewarded. I had a particular interest in mortuary customs, as the ceremonies surrounding death and mourning, and customs relating to sharing of inheritances. Participating in community recreations proved to be productive.12'