Papua New Guinea

“ In the interior of the large island of Papua, or New Guinea, there exists a race of men called Haraforas, who live in trees, to which they mount by means of a notched piece of wood, which they draw after them, by way of guarding against surprize.
The principal commerce of the Papuans is with the Chinese, of whom they purchase their different instruments and utensils. They give in exchange ambergris, sea snails, tortoiseshell, small pearls, birds of Paradise, lories, and other birds, which they stuff with great dexterity. The women appear to be industrious ”

“ O. C. Stone, and the missionaries who have recently explored the southeastern extremity of New Guinea, have been greatly struck by the apparently quite distinct races they have found there. As far eastward as the head of the gulf of Papua (on the east side of Torres Straits) the typical Papuans prevail, the natives of the Katow River being described as nearly black, with Jewish noses, and woolly hair, using bows and arrows, and living in houses a hundred feet long elevated on posts, in all respects exactly agreeing with the prevalent type in the western portion of the island. ”

“ Papua New Guinea is at war with another country by virtue of a declaration under Section 227 (declaration of war) ; or (b) a declaration of a national emergency is in force under Section 228 (declaration of national emergency) . Division 2.—Periods of Declared National Emergency Division 2.—Periods of Declared National Emergency.
227. Declaration of war.
The Head of State, acting with, and in accordance with, the advice of the National Executive Council, may publicly declare that Papua New Guinea is at war with another country. ”

“ The race seems doomed to perish. Something can be done to prolong their life, to make it more pleasant; but they will never be a people, never take any share in the development of the continent which was once their own.
A quite different type of native comes under the rule of the Australian Commonwealth—the Papuan. [43] Though Papua, or New Guinea, as it was once called, is only a few miles from the north coast of Australia, its race is distinct, belonging to the Polynesian or Kanaka type, and resembling the natives of Fiji and Tahiti. ”

“ British New Guinea or the Territory of Papua consists of the southeastern portion of the island, with an area of 90,540 square miles and a population of 350,000 natives. The Australian commonwealth took control in 1901. The Dutch have done little for their territory; but the Germans are developing theirs through a company, though the imperial government administers public affairs; and the Australians have reduced many districts of the Territory of Papua to order and made tribes in large areas settle down to industry. ”

“ What New Guinea may become to the trader is outlined later in the present volume, merely, be it noted, from the outside observer’s point of view, but this of course has in it a large measure of uncertainty, contingent on conditions of
“Labour and the changing mart and all the framework of the land.” Be this as it may, one thing remains sure, the extraordinary value of Papua to the man of science, particularly to the entomologist and the ornithologist. ”

“ PAPUA NEW GUINEA LAND 475,369 km2
Land boundaries: 966 km
WATER Limits of territorial waters (claimed) : 12 nm (economic including fishing 200 nm)
Coastline: about 5,152 km
PEOPLE Population: 3,126,000 (July 1982) , average annual growth rate 2.2%
Nationality: noun—Papua New Guinean (s) ; adjective—Papua New Guinean
Ethnic divisions: predominantly Melanesian and Papuan; some Negrito, Micronesian, and Polynesian
Religion: over one-half of population nominally Christian (490,000 Catholic, 320,000 Lutheran, other Protestant sects) ; remainder animist
Language: 715 indigenous languages ”

“ Australia never sent any students from Papua or New Guinea; they still maintained that these natives were too “backward.” I had worked in the jungle with Papuan and New Guinea boys, and I knew that they were no more backward than the inhabitants of the Solomon Islands and New Hebrides, who were represented with us from the first. I still feel that Australia, with her tremendous problem, will never make any progress with native health until she establishes some institution similar to the one in Suva—which is out of the question now, because they haven’t the proper set-up. ”

“ Though no trace of their blood is left, New Guinea must at one time have been a halting place in the migration. Papua it is called, and one finds the word current in Polynesia, meaning a garden, a rich land. The natives of New Guinea are as unlike the people of the eastern Pacific, I should say, as the average American or Englishman, and yet throughout New Guinea there is a most curious cropping out of Polynesian words, pointing to a very ancient intercourse between the races. Consider the word for woman among the Polynesians. ”

“ The central mass on which almost every part of this sub-region is clearly dependent, is the great island of New Guinea, inhabited by the Papuan race of mankind; and this, with the surrounding islands, which are separated from it by shallow seas and possess its most marked zoological features, are termed Papua. A little further away lie the important groups of the Moluccas on one side and the Eastern Papuan Islands on the other, which possess a fauna mainly derivative from New Guinea, yet wanting many of its distinctive types ”

“ Papua New Guinea has power to acquire, hold and dispose of property of any kind, and to make contracts, in accordance with an Act of the Parliament. (2) Papua New Guinea may sue and be sued, in accordance with an Act of the Parliament. ”

“ New Guinea, or Papua, is an island larger than Borneo, and next to Australia—which, however, cannot be called an island—is the largest island in the world. It has an area of 319,000 square miles; is about 1500 miles long by 450 miles wide at the broadest part. It was in 1883, two years ago, that Sir Thomas M‘Ilwraith, the Premier of Queensland, annexed all that part of the island which was not Dutch ”

“ Iti-nui (Whiti-nui in Maori) may be one of the Maori Tawhitis, and from its position may be one of the Indonesian Islands, but it is more probably Fiji, though, at the same time if this is so, it should not precede the two following names. Papua is some island north of Fiji which cannot be identified—it is not New Guinea, as might be supposed by the similarity of names, because, that name is Malayan, and is descriptive of the woolly-haired Papuans who dwell there, and has been given long since the Polynesians left Indonesia. Papua is found in Rarotonga and other places as a local name. ”

“ Freedom based on law consists in the least amount of restriction on the activities of individuals that is consistent with the maintenance and development of Papua New Guinea and of society in accordance with this Constitution and, in particular, with the National Goals and Directive Principles and the Basic Social Obligations. (2) Every person has the right to freedom based on law, and accordingly has a legal right to do anything that— (a) does not injure or interfere with the rights and freedoms of others ”

“ In particular, Acts of the Parliament, not inconsistent with the Constitutional Laws, may provide for all matters that are necessary or convenient to be prescribed for carrying out and giving effect to this Constitution. (3) No law made by the Parliament is open to challenge in any court on the ground that— (a) it is not for the peace, order or good government of Papua New Guinea or the welfare of the People ”

“ It is known, that on the Malayan Peninsula, in Luconia, Borneo, and most of the larger islands of the Eastern Seas, there are occasionally found in the mountainous tracts a scattered race of blacks entirely distinct from the rest of the population. Some have conceived them to be the aborigines of these countries; others considering them as of the African race, adduce them in proof of an early and extensive intercourse between Africa and these islands. I shall content myself with observing, that they appear at the present day to form the bulk of the population of Papua or New Guinea. ”

“ For the avoidance of doubt, it is hereby declared that—
(a) in this Constitution— (i) a reference to "the Head of State" is a reference to the Queen and Head of State of Papua New Guinea for the time being and includes a reference to the person or persons exercising sovereignty over the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in the event of the youth or incapacity of the person in that sovereignty ”

“ The Prime Minister shall table in the National Parliament any direction to the Public Prosecutor at the next sitting of the Parliament after the direction is given unless, after consultation with the Leader of the Opposition, he considers that tabling of the direction is likely to prejudice the security, defence or international relations of Papua New Guinea. ”

“ The following State Services are hereby established:— (a) the National Public Service; and (b) the Police Force; and (c) the Papua New Guinea Defence Force; and (d) the Parliamentary Service. (2) Acts of the Parliament may make provision for or in respect of other State Services. 189. Civilian control.
All of the State Services other than the Defence Force shall be civilian services, and all of the State Services shall be subject at all times to ultimate civilian control.
Division 2.—The Public Services Commission Division 2.—The Public Services Commission. ”

“ The Torres Strait is regarded as no less dangerous for its bristling reefs than for the savage inhabitants of its coasts. It separates Queensland from the huge island of Papua, also called New Guinea.
Papua is 400 leagues long by 130 leagues wide, with a surface area of 40,000 geographic leagues. It’s located between latitude 0 degrees 19’ and 10 degrees 2’ south, and between longitude 128 degrees 23’ and 146 degrees 15’. At noon, while the chief officer was taking the sun’s altitude, I spotted the summits of the Arfak Mountains, rising in terraces and ending in sharp peaks. ”

“ Garnett,) which is Malay. In the quarters about to be given in detail the evidence is less exceptionable.
New Guinea.—Here there is little except Negritos; and here we meet with the name Papua. What is said of the Papuas must be said with caution. Physical conformation being the evidence, there are in New Guinea two nations, if not more than two:—1. Those of the North, with curly hair, which are subdivided into the pure Papuas, and the Papuas that are looked upon as a cross with the Malay (Quoy, Gaimard and Lesson in the French Voyages) . 2. ”

“ Short of aircraft carriers after Midway, the Japanese decided to attack Port Moresby by an overland advance from Buna instead of around Milne Bay by sea. This plan dictated a push through some of the most forbidding terrain in the world. The Papuan peninsula of eastern New Guinea is dominated by the Owen Stanley Mountains, a saw-toothed jungle range reaching a height of 13,000 feet. High temperatures and humidity near the coasts contrast with biting cold above 5,000 feet. Rainfall is typically torrential and can amount to as much as 10 inches per day during the rainy season. ”

“ It is necessary to rely on yourself to secure followers, though here and there a chief may aid you. One such, the greatest “character” we encountered in Papua, will be introduced to the reader at the proper place. On the march continual apprehension besets the traveller lest his carriers bolt, for if this happened in the interior he would be done for, and he would have a terrible business to get out of the country, if indeed he got out at all. ”

“ The navigation along the whole coast is difficult, and no vessel can travel at night.
There are a large number of rivers in the Protected Territory, and the whole of it, with the exception of the district around Port Moresby, appears to be well watered. The largest rivers are those which drain the basin of the vast level region which begins on the west side of the Gulf of Papua. The largest of these rivers is the Fly River, which rises some hundreds of miles in the interior. It is supposed that many of the smaller rivers are mere branches leading into the Fly. ”

“ The women are the agricultural labourers of Papua. Early in the morning they go out to till the gardens and the yam- or taro-patch; they are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. Every night at Hanuabada we used to watch the long files of them wading across the shallow channels to the villages, carrying the great bundles of wood they had collected. Their families are not large, seldom more than two or three children, and though they treat them quite kindly, there is no demonstrative affection. ”

“ LAKATOIS PREPARING TO SAIL.
23The ethnologist, too, has in Papua a happy hunting ground; for the tribes on the fringe of exploration present wonderful varieties of type, and as the mountain fastnesses of the interior are gradually opened up, there can be no doubt that rich material for the propounding of new problems and perhaps the solution of old ones will come to light. Language is curiously diversified: here you meet a tribe with a distinct speech, and camping near them for a time you learn the common currency of their tongue ”

“ The native Papuans much resemble the bushrangers of Australia; they are Negritos, with black skins and woolly hair. There are a few tribes of natives that much resemble the peoples of Samoa and Hawaii; there are also other tribes that resemble the Malays of southeastern Asia.
The Papuan tribes of the coast are about as degraded as the bushrangers of Australia. Some of the tribes are cannibals who have a fondness for sailors that have been wrecked on the shores of New Guinea. They are neither better nor worse than most of the other tribes of islanders. ”