Betel mortar

Description

wood, lime, red ochre, black pigment,

Sofie Bezler (1898-1974) from Vellberg, Schwäbisch Hall district, was a deaconess of the Neuendettelsau Missionary Institute. From 1929 to 1937 she worked as a nurse in the hospital of Finschhafen on Papua New Guinea. Her journey on board a German steamship and her work are documented in an album of old black and white photographs.

The photographs show her witness of a volcanic eruption on the nearby island of New Britain in 1937, which severely damaged the town of Rabaul. Rabaul was built according to German plans and had been the seat of the governor of German New Guinea since 1909.

Finschhafen is located on the Solomon Sea in the Morobe Province of Papua New Guinea. The natural harbour was discovered by Otto Finsch in 1884 and named after him. From 1886 to 1891, it was the main base of the New Guinea Company.

As early as July 1886, the New Lutheran Neuendettelsau Mission settled in Simbang near Finschhafen. The house of the Lutheran missionary society from the German colonial period still exists here today.