Brittania in Kieta Harbour with Prince Philip on board, April 1971. It is anchored behind a freighter waiting to dock at Kieta wharf (right) (Terence Spencer)
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA – Early on the morning of Wednesday 17 March 1971, the black-hulled royal yacht HMY Brittania slipped slowly into Kieta harbour through the narrow main channel abeam of Pok Pok Island.
On board was Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, visiting for a two night stay on Bougainville after a voyage through the Panama Canal and the Pacific islands and on to the then Territory of Papua and New Guinea.
Continue reading "Musing on the death of Prince Philip" »
Pauline and Sean Dorney. "This book, even though written by an Australian, is the PNG voice speaking to Australia"
TANYA ZERIGA-ALONE
| Academia Nomad
The death of Michael Somare on 26 February renewed interest in the Papua New Guinea about its own history. To advance this mood, Academia Nomad invited reviews of books about PNG – KJ
Sean Dorney: The Embarrassed Colonialist
Link here to details of how you can buy the book
PORT MORESBY – This 140- page book was published in 2016 by Penguin Books for the Lowy Institute in Australia.
The book is short and easy reading but its eight chapters are packed with much insight about the Australia-Papua New Guinea relationship.
Continue reading "Review: Sean Dorney’s book is full of insight" »
Hoisting the British flag at Port Moresby, 1888
ALLAN PATIENCE
| Pearls & Irritations
MELBOURNE - Australia’s ham-handed history of colonialism, in what today is the independent state of Papua New Guinea, began in 1883 when Queensland pre-emptively annexed the southeastern corner (Papua) of the great island of New Guinea in the name of the British Crown. (The British were not amused).
Late in the nineteenth century, the Australian colonies were fearful that Germany (Britain’s rival) was about to colonise the entirety of eastern New Guinea, posing (so they imagined) a threat to Queensland’s northern reaches.
Continue reading "The colony Australia tries to forget" »
Nikolai Nikolaevich Mikloucho-Maclay
BRADLEY GEWA
| Academia Nomad | Edited
Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare’s death on 26 February created renewed interest in a neglected subject – the history of Papua New Guinea. Many people called for this to be taught at all levels of education.
To advance this idea, Academia Nomad invited readers to submit reviews of books about PNG in nominated categories. This review by Bradley Gewa was submitted in the category ‘Racism and Colonialism’ – KJ
Continue reading "Review: The diaries of Mikloucho-Maclay" »
ANDREW CONNELLY
| Oceania vol 85 no 1, March 2015
Australians in Papua New Guinea:1960–1975. Edited by Ceridwen Spark, Seumas Spark and Christina Twomey, University of Queensland Press, 2014.
CANBERRA - This volume is a collection of invited essays by, and interviews with, 17 people, Australian and Papua New Guinean, with firsthand experience of the final decade and a half of Australian rule leading up to national independence in 1975.
This period saw Papua New Guinea move with dizzying speed from a late-colonial society, with all the paradoxes of humanism, racism, and paternalism that appellation suggests, to an independent nation full of promise and hope.
Continue reading "Looking back at a look back & a look forward" »
Kavali, Somare, Chan and Guise in 1973 - independence leaders whose idealism was compromised by the realities and opportunities of government
ALLAN PATIENCE
| John Menadue’s Pearls & Irritations
Published as 'On the death of PNG’s first MP, Sir Michael Somare'
MELBOURNE - The death of Sir Michael Somare, first prime minister of Papua New Guinea, has occasioned an outpouring of national grief and heartfelt obituaries for ‘the Father of the Nation’, ‘the Chief’.
That he was, and remains, widely respected, even loved, across the country is beyond dispute.
Continue reading "The death of Somare & the descent of PNG" »
Jim Taylor - artwork from Port Moresby Craft Market, 1996 (Pacific Manuscripts Bureau)
ROBERT FORSTER
The Sky Travellers by Bill Gammage, Melbourne University Press (1994). ISBN 9780522848274. 348 pages. Paperback $49.99
NORTHUMBRIA, UK - A re-examination of Professor Bill Gammage’s book, The Sky Travellers, published by Melbourne University Press in 1994, is timely.
It is especially relevant now given that many Papua New Guineans want to know more about their early colonial history and the attitudes of those who made it.
Continue reading "Of white supremacists & the ‘kanakamen’" »
Extract of the cover of the first issue of Black and White
KEITH JACKSON
NOOSA – In November 1966 I was transferred from my school in the bush to Port Moresby to edit the School Paper.
At 22, I felt it was my big break. An opportunity that put me on the doorstep of journalism.
It was far from a major newspaper; but it was paid, full-time writing job.
Continue reading "Black & White magazine: a reflection" »
Kenyan leader and independence advocate Tom Mboya talks with a school student when visiting PNG in 1964
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY – In 1971, between 4 January and 19 February, Paulus Arek took his Select Committee on Constitutional Development on a fact finding tour to gauge the feelings of Papua New Guineans about self-government and independence.
Arek, the MP for Ijivitari, was first elected in 1968 and was also Minister for Information (1972-73) and the first president of the Federation of PNG Workers' Associations.
Continue reading "Tom Mboya, Paulus Arek & PNG independence" »
Territories Minister Bill Morrison, Michael Somare and Gough Whitlam at a
press conference at Parliament House, Canberra January 1973
BEN JACKSON
NOOSA - English scientist Isaac Newton admitted that, if he “had seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants”, was a reflection that we all benefit from the work of great people who came before us.
Last month, one such person was lost to the world.
Grand Chief Sir Michael Somare was a giant of Papua New Guinea and, indeed, the world because of his significance to the decolonisation movement.
Continue reading "Sir Michael: The loss of a giant" »
The Regimental Colours return to 2RPIR, Wewak 2013 (Anara Private Archives)
ALEXANDER NARA
PORT MORESBY - From among the countless stories about Sir Michael Somare comes this one, about a secret.
It originated from near the tip of Cape Moem peninsula in Wewak, East Sepik Province.
This part of the Sepik coastline is home to the PNG Defence Force’s 2nd Royal Pacific Islands Regiment (2RPIR), the sister battalion to the Taurama-based 1RPIR in Port Moresby.
Continue reading "Sir Michael & the secret of the Colours" »
Brian Cooper at Mascor after his release from prison
CHRIS OVERLAND
"[Brian] Cooper wasn't the only one espousing such messages in Papua New Guinea before independence, especially after the UPNG was established. In most cases the local kiap or the district commissioner would have a quiet word with them and tell them to tone it down and that would be the end of the matter" – Phil Fitzpatrick
ADELAIDE - I think that Phil is right. At worst, Mr Cooper was guilty of tokim mauswara tasol or, as my children would have said, ‘dribbling shit’.
Why then Australian prime minister Robert Menzies decided to single him out as an 'enemy of the people' is hard to fathom.
Continue reading "Brian Cooper’s conviction was a fit-up" »
Sir Alan Mann, then PNG chief justice, conceded that the words attributed to Cooper were highly improbable
MICHAEL HEAD
| University of Western Sydney | Extract
SYDNEY - In January 1961, when [Brian Leonard] Cooper landed in Port Moresby for his trial, a large police contingent awaited his arrival at the airport.
Media publicity ensured that the courtroom was full of spectators.
The Crown prosecutor opened by telling the territorial Chief Justice, Alan Mann, that Cooper had demonstrated “prior motivation” to commit a criminal act.
Continue reading "The trials of Brian Leonard Cooper" »
Brian Cooper - Uttered a n opinion that the Australian government of the time was determined to suppress
CHRIS OVERLAND
ADELAIDE – The story of Brian Leonard Cooper is a very sad story indeed.
The early sixties in Australia were a period in which there was developing a simmering pent up desire for significant socio-economic change.
Continue reading "When orthodoxy seeks to strangle dissent" »
Brian Cooper - the man who wanted PNG independence
PETER KRANZ
| Edited
MORRISET – The man in the photograph is Brian Leonard Cooper; convicted in Papua New Guinea and jailed in Australia for sedition.
His crime? Advocating independence for the then Territory of Papua and New Guinea.
His fate? Suicide.
Continue reading "The man jailed for urging PNG independence" »
Bousimae, the Binandere chief
SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country
LAE - Papua New Guinea is a collection of nations, each with its own rich history.
Much of that history has been lost and much needs to be told.
The stories need to be told not in the context of the 200 years of colonialism, but from the perspective of our elders and based on 60,000 years of unwritten precolonial history.
Continue reading "Bousimae, the chief who resisted colonisation" »
Port Moresby town centre, 1960s
CHRIS OVERLAND
ADELAIDE - Rebecca Kuku's article, Growing Up in 60s Port Moresby, describes Port Moresby as I too remember it.
Although colonial Moresby had its problems, it was generally a pleasant and mostly peaceful place to live at that time.
Continue reading "Port Moresby, colonialism and after" »
The view across Koki Market in 1963
REBECCA KUKU
| My Land, My Country
PORT MORESBY – My mother, Eka Kama-Haro Kuku, was born at the Port Moresby General Hospital on 13 May 1965 to Kama Haro and Aiha Aee Kama.
This is her story.
__________
Continue reading "Growing up in 60s Port Moresby" »
John Gordon-Kirkby was a kiap in Enga when he encountered Daniel Kumbon as a boy. After connecting on the internet in recent years, they have formed a great friendship
DANIEL KUMBON
PORT MORESBY - Early this morning, I received a ‘thank you’ note from one of the kiaps (patrol officers) John Gordon-Kirkby, now aged 84, who had served in Enga Province up to the time of Papua New Guinea’s independence in 1975.
A few days ago, John asked me to send him a dedication note with my signature on it so he could stick it somewhere in my new book, ‘Victory Song of Pingeta’s Daughter’, which he had just ordered.
Continue reading "‘Victory Song’ dedicated to a kiap wantok" »
Chimbu Valley - 24,000 years of settlement
MATHIAS KIN
| Republished in an edited form from ‘Not always easy, not always nice, but look where we are’, PNG Attitude, July 2018
KUNDIAWA - From the north coast our ancestors climbed into the mountains arriving here in Chimbu more than 24,000 years ago.
Organised in small groups, they freely roamed the vast forests of the time, living by hunting and gathering.
Continue reading "Chimbu peoples uneven & constant rise" »
A small group of government officers approach Mt Lamington after the 1951 eruption (Fred Kleckham - PNGAA)
FRED KLECKHAM & MARJORIE KLECKHAM
| Library of the PNG Association of Australia
Fred Kleckham - The last surviving expat remembers
BRISBANE - 21 January 2021 commemorates the 70th anniversary of the eruption of Mount Lamington, near Popondetta in Papua New Guinea’s Northern Province.
Mt Lamington was probably the most destructive volcano to human life in modern history, taking the lives of an estimated 4,000 people.
Continue reading "Calamity of the mountain in the mist" »
At the time heavily forested. Mt Lamington was not believed to be a volcano until shortly before it exploded
SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country
POPONDETTA - It’s early morning at Hohorita village, a few kilometers outside Popondetta town.
Organisers of the 70th anniversary commemoration of the Mt Lamington eruption on 21 January 1951 are putting the final touches to preparations as they wait for the guests to arrive.
Continue reading "Mt Lamington: Remembering the 4,000" »
Manki masta Kure Whan at Balimo, 1972
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - When writing about their experiences in Papua New Guinea, many old kiaps mention the special relationship they enjoyed with members of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary.
Very often they highlight the sense of teamwork enjoyed with the policemen under their command – those wise old sergeant majors and sergeants get special praise.
Continue reading "The indispensable manki masta" »
1997 was a dangerous year in PNG, but it ended more positively with Sir Mekere Morauta at the helm
SCOTT WAIDE
| My Land, My Country
LAE - In the first quarter of 1997, word came out that the government of Sir Julius Chan was in talks with a British security contractor, Tim Spicer, to bring in South African mercenaries to end the Bougainville civil war that had been running for eight years.
The protracted conflict had seen the PNG Defence Force (PNGDF) withdraw from Bougainville, depleted, demoralised and badly in need of rebuilding.
Continue reading "1997 – That turbulent and defining year" »
Sir Mekere Morauta - brought Papua New Guinea back from the brink of economic disaster
MATTHEW MORRIS
| DevPolicy Blog
CANBERRA - Following independence, the Papua New Guinea economy fared relatively well. From 1980 to 1994 it grew at an average of 4% a year.
It was a bumpy ride though, with peaks and troughs in growth, notably the closure of the Panguna mine in 1989 and the start of the Kutubu oil project in 1992.
Continue reading "Morauta’s masterclass in economic reform" »
Dame Rose Kekedo
CATHY KEIMELO
| Ples Singsing | Edited
Dame Rose Kekedo by Eric Johns, pamphlet, Famous People of PNG series, 27 pages. Pearson & Longman Publisher, South Melbourne, Australia, 1 January 2002, ISBN-10: 0733933300. Available on Amazon for US$39.99 at this link
WAIGANI – This is a short biography of Dame Rose Violet Kekedo (1942-2005), the first Papua New Guinean first woman to venture into fields and roles that had been traditionally reserved for men.
Like her mother, Dame Mary Kekedo, she was knighted for her services to the government and people of PNG before and after independence.
Continue reading "Rose Kekedo’s string of firsts" »
MV Craestar alongside the small ships’ wharf at Kieta circa 1965 (Peter Steele)
BILL BROWN MBE
THE CHRONICLE CONTINUES - On 24 July 1968, Craestar (1), Conzinc Rio Tinto's (CRA) research vessel, motored into Kieta harbour.
None of the onlookers were excited, even though Craestar had a helicopter sitting on a landing pad over the stern.
The townsfolk had seen it all before. CRA had been using the vessel's helicopter to move drilling gear around Panguna in 1965.
Continue reading "A Kiap’s Chronicle: 29 - 'CRA, you're unwelcome'" »
Alfred Max Parkinson Uechtritz shows his delight at receiving the first English translation of Dreissig Jahre in Der Südsee (Thirty Years in the South Seas) in 1999
MAX UECHTRITZ
SYDNEY - "Without Richard and Phebe Parkinson, we would be strangers in our own land."
These words were spoken by the wonderful Papua New Guinean historian Gideon Kakabin in our first conversation and formed the basis for our enduring friendship and shared passion for history.
My Danish great grandfather Richard Parkinson published his famed tome Thirty Years in the South Seas in 1907.
Continue reading "Now a video record of an historic moment" »
Many ex-kiaps maintain a close relationship with PNG. Here Bob Cleland looks out over the Asaro Valley from the Daulo Pass. Bob was instrumental in building this challenging stretch of the Highlands Highway in the early 1950s
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - It began about 10 years ago when a group of ex-kiaps sought to have their services in pre-independent Papua New Guinea formally recognised.
The end result was a reluctant awarding of a Police Overseas Service Medal by the Australian government for those interested in applying for it. It was a fancy piece of tin to keep the old chaps quiet.
The award failed to recognise the kiaps’ primary function as change and development agents and concentrated solely on their police role, which in many cases was minimal.
Continue reading "Ageing kiaps worry about their legacy" »
Kerry Dillon today - his perceptive chronicle of a time in PNG as independence loomed is well worth reading
KEITH JACKSON
The Chronicle of a Young Lawyer by Kerry Dillon, Hybrid Publishers, August 2020, 384pp. ISBN: 9781925736410, $35. Available from Booktopia & all good bookstores, www.hybridpublishers.com.au and as an ebook from Amazon, Kobo, Google Books and Apple iBookstore
NOOSA – In case you missed it, or on the off chance you want to know more, in this piece I’m revisiting Kerry Dillon’s memoir, ‘The Chronicle of a Young Lawyer’.
After publishing a brief review of the book in PNG Attitude in August, I exchanged a number of emails with Kerry, mainly on the subject of Rabaul in 1969-70 when his and my paths crossed during the tense days of the Mataungan Association’s challenge to the colonial Administration.
Continue reading "Time of tension: Revisiting Kerry Dillon’s ‘Chronicle’" »
Author Daniel Kumbon and the subject of his latest book, Paul Kiap Kurai with the vista of Enga below them
DANIEL KUMBON
This is the Introduction from a new book by Daniel Kumbon which will come off the presses in a few weeks’ time. It tells of three generations of a prominent Enga family over a period of 90 years, from first contact with waitman gold prospectors in 1930 to the present day. The book features the prominent Enga businessman Paul Kiap Kurai who carries with him the knowledge that tradition is not something of the past but part of the spirit that carries his people forward into the future - KJ
Continue reading "From tragic first contact to now" »
In the early 1880s, Sir Peter Scratchley was sent to Papua to manage the affairs of this latest addition to British imperial interests. And so began the important practice of compiling patrol reports
FACT SHEET
| National Archives of Australia
CANBERRA - Papua New Guinea's patrol reports had their beginnings in 1885 and are credited to Sir Peter Henry Scratchley who, as well as establishing Port Moresby as the seat of government and administration of British New Guinea, also developed a plan for administration and land policy.
The administration plan involved establishing government stations along the coast. These were staffed by a government officer, whose tasks included establishing contact and developing friendly relations with the inhabitants of the area.
Continue reading "Papua New Guinea patrol reports" »
Aerial view of the new Maramuni road
DANIEL KUMBON
WABAG - Graham Hardy was posted to Wabag as a cadet patrol officer in 1954 and has recalled that period in an enthralling book, ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’, and in other writing, including a September 2015 article in Una Voce, the newsletter of the PNG Association of Australia.
It is clear that he, like former kiap and magistrate Chips Mackellar, developed a special affection for the people of Enga and related areas of the Papua New Guinea highlands.
Continue reading "Patrolling the Maramuni with Graham Hardy" »
Members of the Akmana gold prospecting field party and local villagers. The party were the first outsiders into Enga in 1929
DANIEL KUMBON
WABAG – The field party of the Akmana Gold Prospecting Company were the first Europeans to set foot in what is now Enga Province.
The Akmana prospectors, trekking south from the Sepik, had penetrated the Maramuni area and into the Wabag district four years before the ill-fated Leahy brothers’ expedition of 1934.
Michael Leahy’s diary stated that 15 tribespeople were killed and an equal number injured in a bloody encounter at Tole village and five more were killed as the Leahy party retreated back to Mt Hagen.
Continue reading "The first outsiders into Enga" »
Kwikila District Office
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - If you drive around the older suburbs of Port Moresby you can see houses, still occupied, that date back well before independence.
Here and there old dustbin cages can also be seen, still sitting up on their steel poles out of the reach of stray dogs.
Continue reading "They built them to last back then" »
Newly recruited kiaps having completed their training in Port Moresby observe a march past by police in the early 1960s
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - In an article a few days ago about Francis Nii and the effort to memorialise his contribution to Papua New Guinean literature, Keith Jackson reiterated an earlier comment that “this is likely to be PNG Attitude’s last big project. It was always going to happen that Phil Fitzpatrick and I would age and gradually run out of steam. Well, that point is arriving”.
I can wholly endorse that observation, no matter how hard I try to build up a head of steam about lots of things these days it seems to inevitably dissipate in ineffectual little puffs from all the leaks in the rusty old boiler.
Continue reading "The papers being sorted; the drawers emptied" »
ROBERT FORSTER
NORTHUMBRIA, UK - It does no good to pretend that late 19th and early 20th century Papua New Guinea with its stone based technology and scattered and perpetually warring tribes could have lain forever undisturbed by the relentless impetus of the world.
Any discussion of Australia’s presence in PNG should not begin with whether it had any right to be there, but with what might have happened if a potentially harsher Japanese or Indonesian administration had taken over the country before it became independent.
Continue reading "There’s no escape from our changing world" »
Prince Charles speaks at PNG's independence day. Sir John Guise (left) and Sir John Kerr (centre) themselves had an interesting private talk the night before
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - There’s an interesting conversation currently taking place in the Australian media following the release of letters exchanged between Queen Elizabeth II and Sir John Kerr, the former Australian governor general who dismissed the Whitlam government in 1975.
The release of the 211 ‘palace letters’ from the Australian Archives follows a protracted effort by historian Jenny Hocking who wanted to know what role the queen might have played in the dismissal of an Australian prime minister.
Continue reading "Guise & Kerr – the Whitlam connection" »
The Australian colonial Administration's basic position was that PNG people should be brought under the rule of law as humanely and non-violently as possible
CHRIS OVERLAND
ADELAIDE - Phil Fitzpatrick is right to equate racism with economic oppression, as they clearly go hand in hand.
You do not need to be a Marxist to understand that neo-liberal capitalism relies upon the ability to exploit labour in order to flourish.
The basic theory underpinning capitalism as outlined by Adam Smith is that if each person is free to pursue his or her own economic best interests so the total economy must inevitably grow.
Continue reading "How PNG escaped colonialism’s worst" »
"Young came to have more profound impact on the Wopkaimin than any previous colonial administrative or army patrol. He made ethnographic observations but more importantly recorded that the streams seemed to contain copper deposits"
COL YOUNG
EX KIAP WEBSITE - I have often meant to write of my 24 day patrol to the Star Mountains (Wopkaimin) in August and September of 1966 and the finding of copper sulphate presence in that remote north western corner of the then Western District.
There has been some confusion as to who first discovered evidence of copper leading to the Ok Tedi venture, hence this article.
Continue reading "The finding of Ok Tedi" »
CHRIS OVERLAND
ADELAIDE - As regular readers will know, our esteemed guide and editor has until very recently been in a world of pain, having undergone unpleasant surgery in a hopefully successful attempt to treat a debilitating back condition.
Anyone who has undergone major surgery can tell you that the easy bit is the time spent unconscious on the operating room table. What follows is almost invariably unpleasant. It is merely a question of degree really.
Continue reading "The end of the world – Part 2" »
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - If you were born in Papua New Guinea after 1975, especially if it was in Port Moresby or one of the other big towns, you would have grown up in an entirely different country to the one your parents knew.
Even if you were born in a village after 1975, unless it was extremely remote, the same circumstances apply.
Continue reading "Such is life" »
The Yucatan meteor strike left a crater 150km wide and caused climate disruption that made extinct 75% of Earth's plant and animal species including any dinosaur that could not fly
CHRIS OVERLAND
ADELAIDE - In the very midst of the Dark Ages of Europe, the coming of the year 1000 was viewed with fear, trepidation and alarm.
This was the year many theologians of that era believed would see the end of all things and the second coming of Jesus as foretold in the Bible.
There was a palpable sense of expectation throughout Christendom which grew steadily as the year 999 CE progressed, reaching a crescendo on New Year’s Eve.
Continue reading "The end of the world" »
CHRIS OVERLAND
ADELAIDE - The study of history is not likely to inspire belief in the inherent virtues of humanity.
There are so many conspicuous examples of our species’ propensity for violence, venality and depravity that it sometimes takes a certain resolve to stare the facts directly in the face and recognise them for what they tell us about the human condition at a given point in time.
Continue reading "Our horrible history" »
Sean Dorney on the job. His early independence history reveals a significant turning point in PNG's story as a nation
CHRIS BANGA
Papua New Guinea: People, politics and history since 1975 by Sean Dorney, 335 pp. ABC Books, 2000. ISBN-10: 0733309453. Available from Amazon here for $US31.70
PORT MORESBY – In this book, first published in 1990, the noted journalist Sean Dorney gave us a glance of Papua New Guinea, its people, politics and history over its first 15 years after independence.
Dorney lived and worked in PNG for 17 years as the correspondent of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation having previously been assigned there in the early 1970s to work with the embryonic National Broadcasting Commission.
Continue reading "Turning point: Dorney’s history revisited" »
District Officer Ross Henderson in 1968
BILL BROWN MBE
THE CHRONICLE CONTINUES - Tuesday 7 May 1968. District Officer Ross Henderson and I were dumbstruck at the tone of the on-site meeting at Panguna that morning.
Conzinc Rio Tinto Area Manager Colin Bishop was unusually forceful with his demands.
He wanted more assistance in the coming months when the CRA teams - geologists, engineers, planners and surveyors – would start tramping through the villages and gardens of central Bougainville.
Continue reading "A Kiap’s Chronicle: 28 – In defence of the people’s land" »
Papuan kiap, Geoff Smith
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - I served as a kiap in both New Guinea and Papua. In New Guinea the kiap rig generally consisted of a khaki shirt and shorts, shiny RM Williams boots and a slouch hat.
In Papua, especially on the remoter stations, kiaps tended to get around in whatever took their fancy or whatever they deemed suitable for the climate and circumstances.
Continue reading "Telling a kiap apart from the crowd" »
Newspaper advertisement for kiaps, 1966
PHILIP FITZPATRICK
TUMBY BAY - How often have you heard the admonition to always read the fine print before signing anything?
And how often have you had some sneaky little paragraph in the fine print pointed out that you never read excusing a manufacturer or insurer from honouring what you thought should have been an obligation on their part?
When we signed up to become kiaps we all swore an oath of allegiance but very few of us actually queried what that actually entailed.
Not only did we not read the fine print but we didn’t ask whether such a list of obligations existed.
Continue reading "The soldiers that never were" »
Kerewa longhouses, Goaribari Island, 1923 (Frank Hurley)
CHRIS OVERLAND
ADELAIDE - Daniel Kumbon’s recent article on the work of early missionaries in Papua New Guinea triggered some memories for me, especially in relation to Goaribari Island.
By a strange quirk of fate I met a man who witnessed the events of 8 April 1901 when the Reverends James Chalmers and Oliver Tomkins, together with 12 colleagues, were murdered and then eaten by the people living on Goaribari Island.
Continue reading "The tragic history of Goaribari Island" »
RABAUL HISTORICAL SOCIETY
RABAUL - The 18-year-old Errol Flynn – with an already shady background - arrived in New Guinea in October 1927 to make his fortune on the newly discovered goldfields at Edie Creek.
His later and unexpected career as a celebrated Hollywood film star lay a few years ahead.
Continue reading "Errol Flynn - the Rabaul years" »