Florence Ngatokura "Johnny" Frisbie QSM (born 19 June 1932), also known as Johnny Frisbie Hebenstreit, is a Cook Islands author. Her autobiographical children's novel, Miss Ulysses of Puka-Puka (1948), was the first published literary work by a Pacific Islander woman author. [1] [2]
Frisbie was born in Papeete, Tahiti, the second child of American writer Robert Dean Frisbie and Ngatokura ‘A Mata’a. In 1934 the family moved to Ngatokura's home of Pukapuka in the Cook Islands, where Frisbie was raised. As a child she helped her father type up his writings and kept a journal in Pukapukan, Cook Islands Māori, and English, which she learned from her father's library and from comic books. [3] Following the death of her mother in 1939 the family left Pukapuka and travelled to Manihiki and Rarotonga before settling on Suwarrow in January 1942. Later that year the atoll was hit by a tropical cyclone which washed away 16 of its 22 islets; the Frisbies survived by tying themselves to trees and taking shelter in a tree house. The family continued to travel around the South Pacific [4] until her father's death of tetanus in 1948. During this time, Frisbie published Miss Ulysses of Puka-Puka, dealing with her life on the atoll and her bond with her father and family. [3]
Following her father's death, the family was split up to be raised by friends and relatives of her father in New Zealand and Hawaii. In 1950 Florence moved to O‘ahu to be raised by the Engle family. [3] She attended Punahou School in Honolulu, and after graduating the author James A. Michener encouraged her to take a job in Japan as a secretary in the military. In 1956 she married TV personality Carl 'Kini Popo' Hebenstreit. In 1959 she published a biography of her family, The Frisbies of the South Seas. They subsequently moved to New Zealand, where Frisbie lived for thirty years, working for the University of Otago and writing children's books. [3] After her husband acquired a commercial radio licence she became involved in commercial radio, [5] and then in television, working with Selwyn Toogood as a panelist on the New Zealand version of Beauty and the Beast . [6] She served on the Māori and South Pacific Arts Council [3] and was later a founding member of P.A.C.I.F.I.C.A. [7] She subsequently returned to the Cook Islands, [8] and then Hawaii. [2]
In 2015 Frisbie returned to Pukapuka to participate in a documentary about life on the atoll. [9] The film The Island in Me (originally titled Homecoming) debuted in November 2021 at the Hawaii International Film Festival. [10]
In the 1991 Queen's Birthday Honours, Frisbie was awarded the Queen's Service Medal for public services. [11]
The Cook Islands is an island country in Polynesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It consists of 15 islands whose total land area is approximately 236.7 square kilometres (91 sq mi). The Cook Islands' Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) covers 1,960,027 square kilometres (756,771 sq mi) of ocean. Avarua is its capital.
The Cook Islands can be divided into two groups: the Southern Cook Islands and the Northern Cook Islands. The country is located in Oceania, in the South Pacific Ocean, about halfway between Hawaii and New Zealand.
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
The Tuamotu Archipelago or the Tuamotu Islands are a French Polynesian chain of just under 80 islands and atolls in the southern Pacific Ocean. They constitute the largest chain of atolls in the world, extending over an area roughly the size of Western Europe. Their combined land area is 850 square kilometres. This archipelago's major islands are Rangiroa, Anaa, Fakarava, Hao and Makemo.
Suwarrow is an island in the northern group of the Cook Islands in the south Pacific Ocean. It is about 1,300 kilometres (810 mi) south of the equator and 930 kilometres (580 mi) north-northwest of the capital island of Rarotonga.
Pukapuka, formerly Danger Island, is a coral atoll in the northern group of the Cook Islands in the Pacific Ocean. It is one of the most remote islands of the Cook Islands, situated about 1,140 kilometres northwest of Rarotonga. On this small island, an ancient culture and distinct language have been maintained over many centuries. The population of Pukapuka is around 400 people.
Marquesan is a collection of East-Central Polynesian dialects, of the Marquesic group, spoken in the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia. They are usually classified into two groups, North Marquesan and South Marquesan, roughly along geographic lines.
Puka-Puka is a small inhabited coral atoll in the north-eastern Tuamotu Archipelago, sometimes included as a member of the Disappointment Islands. This atoll is quite isolated, the nearest land being Fakahina, 182 km to the southwest.
Pukapukan is a Polynesian language that developed in isolation on the island of Pukapuka in the northern group of the Cook Islands. As a "Samoic Outlier" language with strong links to western Polynesia, Pukapukan is not closely related to any other languages of the Cook Islands, but does manifest substantial borrowing from some East Polynesian source in antiquity.
Nassau is an island in the northern group of the Cook Islands. It is approximately 1,246 kilometres (774 mi) north of the capital island of Rarotonga and 88 kilometres (55 mi) from Pukapuka coral atoll. Lacking an airstrip, it is accessible only by boat. It is named after a 19th-century whaling ship. Its indigenous name, Te Nuku-o-Ngalewu, means "Land of Ngalewu" after the Pukapukan who was put in charge of it.
Robert Dean Frisbie was an American writer of travel literature about Polynesia.
The Northern Cook Islands is one of the two chains of atolls which make up the Cook Islands. Lying in a horizontal band between 9° and 13°30' south of the Equator, the chain consists of the atolls of Manihiki, Nassau, Penrhyn, Pukapuka, Rakahanga and Suwarrow, along with the submerged Tema Reef.
Written Cook Islands literature has in some ways been a precursor to the development of Pacific Islands literature. Cook Islander Florence Frisbie was one of the Pacific Islands' first writers, publishing her autobiographical story Miss Ulysses of Puka Puka in 1948. Tongareva poet Alistair Te Ariki Campbell published his first collection, Mine Eyes Dazzle, in 1950. In 1960, Cook Islanders Tom Davis and Lydia Davis published Makutu, "perhaps the first novel by South Pacific Island writers".
Akava'ine is a Cook Islands Māori word which has come, since the 2000s, to refer to transgender people of Māori descent from the Cook Islands.
Ernest Beaglehole was a New Zealand psychologist and ethnologist best known for his work in establishing an anthropological baseline for numerous Pacific Island cultures.
Renewable energy in the Cook Islands is primarily provided by solar energy and biomass. Since 2011 the Cook Islands has embarked on a programme of renewable energy development to improve its energy security and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, with an initial goal of reaching 50% renewable electricity by 2015, and 100% by 2020. The programme has been assisted by the governments of Japan, Australia, and New Zealand, and the Asian Development Bank.
Motu Kotawa is one of three islands in the Pukapuka atoll of the Cook Islands. It forms the western apex of Pukapuka's triangular atoll, and is the smallest of the three islands. The island is low-lying, with a maximum elevation of 3 meters above sea level. The island is uninhabited and used as a food source. It is home to numerous Frigatebirds, as well as plantations of taro, papaya, breadfruit, coconuts and bananas, and is regulated by the village of Yato. A reef extends from the west of the island, connecting it to the islet of Toka.
Motu Kō is one of three islands in the Pukapuka atoll of the Cook Islands. It forms the southern apex of Pukapuka's triangular atoll, 10km south of Wale, and is the largest of the three islands. The island is low-lying, with a maximum elevation of 5 meters above sea level and most of it only one or two meters. Motu Kō is uninhabited and used as a food source, and is regulated by the village of Ngake.
Wale ("house") is one of three islands in the Pukapuka atoll of the Cook Islands. It forms the northern apex of Pukapuka's triangular atoll, and is the only permanently inhabited island. The island is low-lying, with a maximum elevation of 4 meters above sea level. The three villages of Yato, Loto, and Ngake are located on the island, and regulate the other two islands as food sources.
Elizabeth Foster Wright-Koteka is a diplomat from the Cook Islands who represented her country in New Zealand.
The first instance of a published literary work produced by a native Pacific Islander actually arose in 1948 in the form of Miss Ulysses of Puka Puka, written by Florence 'Johnny' Frisbie of the Cook Islands.
Miss Ulysses, her first book... was the first publication by a Pacific Island woman writer.
Now based in Ngatangiia
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