Michael Monsell Davis, BA (Hons), PhD Macquarie University, was a social anthropologist, ethnographer and author, with connections to the University of Papua New Guinea and the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. Davis spent many years observing and recording historical and ethnographic data about the people living in the coastal villages opposite Yule Island, Papua New Guinea, His research interests included language, crime and the law, distance education, religion, witchcraft and totemism, AIDS/HIV, politics and government. Davis also studied the language and genealogies of the Roro speaking people of the Central Province region of Kairuku-Hiri and in the coastal villages of Nabuapaka and Bereina. His diaries were consulted by Australian author, Drusilla Modjeska, whose writings reflect his observations, particularly in her book, The Mountain (2012).