Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua: Moving Pictures 3031155785, 9783031155789

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Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua Moving Pictures Lara Lamb · Christopher Lee

Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua

Lara Lamb · Christopher Lee

Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua Moving Pictures

Lara Lamb University of Southern Queensland Toowoomba, QLD, Australia

Christopher Lee Griffith University Brisbane, QLD, Australia

ISBN 978-3-031-15578-9 ISBN 978-3-031-15579-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15579-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Christopher Lee This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgements

Projects of this length and complexity are only possible because of the generosity and assistance of many people and institutions. A very special recognition is owed to Cathy Alex, our liaison, facilitator, and translator in Papua New Guinea. This project would not have been possible without her logistical skills, expertise, wisdom, and enthusiasm. We also thank Bryce Barker, from the University of Southern Queensland, for his advice and his facilitation of the early stages of the project, and for his assistance on some of our early field trips when our projects overlapped. We would like to thank the leaders and peoples of Goare Village on Goaribari Island, Kinomere Village on Urama Island, and Kikori Village on the Kikori River, for their hospitality, support, generous participation, and instruction in this study. We would like to thank Councillors Buara Isego and Anthony Kabua, and acknowledge the time, assistance, and expertise of Mr. Kenneth Korokai, Mr. Andrew Dairi, Mr. Samweel Auwonya, Mr. Makia Oigai, Mr. Malson Mekemu, and Mr. Henry Geii. We would also like to thank the staff at the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery, the Australian Museum in Sydney, the National Library in Canberra, and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) Library at the University of London. We would specifically like to thank Andrew Moutu from the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery for his support of the project. We also acknowledge Yvonne Carrillo-Huffman who facilitated the visit of the Kerewo v

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

leaders to the Australian Museum, and Patricia Egan and Robert Dooley for their assistance obtaining Hurley’s photographs from their collection. Eleanor Goodwin and Chris Turner assisted us with permissions and images from the NLA collection. Michael McCarthy, the curator of Maritime Archaeology at the Shipwrecks Museum in Fremantle, provided expert advice that assisted us with enquiries on behalf of the leaders of Kinomere. We are grateful to the late Ms. Adelie Mooy-Hurley for her support of the project and permission to take her father’s photographs and cinefilm back to the Kerewo and Urama peoples. We especially acknowledge the late Ron Vanderwal who pioneered the work of returning Frank Hurley’s photographs to the people of Urama Island. Joshua Bell, Laurie Gaffney, Jane Hodges, Roger Lamb, Jane Lydon, and Ian McNiven gave up their valuable time to read the manuscript and offer generous comments. Yolarnie Amepou, Gabrielle Rowen Clarke, Ian Herbertson, and Glenn Ross provided valuable research assistance. For their encouragement and enthusiasm, we are indebted to Garrick Hitchcock, Jane Hodges, Majella McSweeney, Lynette Russell, and Chris Urwin. We would also like to acknowledge support funding from the University of Southern Queensland and the Centre for Social and Cultural Research at Griffith University.

Contents

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Introduction Moving Pictures Collecting Cultural Artefacts in the Gulf Region of Papua New Guinea Frank Hurley and the Papua Expeditions Colonial Discourse and Interdisciplinary Methodology Outline of the Book References Exploration, Salvation, Protection, and Development: European Contact and Control in Papua New Guinea “First Contact”: Voyages of Exploration The London Missionary Society Colonial Administration: British Protectorate, British-Australian Colony, Australian Territory The Goaribari Expeditions 1901–1904 Administrative Control of Labour Agricultural Development: Plantations Systems of Surveillance: Law and Order, Health and Hygiene “Understanding the Native”: Salvation, Science, Governance References

1 1 2 7 13 18 19 25 27 31 38 39 43 47 51 57 68

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CONTENTS

77 78

Frank Hurley in the Gulf of Papua Hurley’s Papuan Expeditions 1920–1923 The Dispute Between Hurley and the Papuan Administration Reception and Distribution of Hurley’s Work References

107 111 114

The Lure of Barter: An Understanding of Papuan Peoples as Established Agents of Movement and Exchange The “Lure of Barter” The Myth of First Contact: Language and Migration The Myth of First Contact: Trade and Exchange Village and Community Wartime Post-World War Two References

117 117 125 128 134 140 148 154

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Visual Repatriation or Exchange? Theory and Method Theory Method Ambiguities and Limitations References

163 163 170 183 186

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Contemporary Kerewo and Urama Responses to Frank Hurley’s Collection Identifying Ancestors Intergenerational Loss, Preservation, and Change Knowledge by Acquaintance; Knowledge by Description The Agency of Photographs The Relational Quality of a Museum Collection “Pearls and Savages, Geez What a Title”: Attitudes Towards the Man, the Photographs, and the Film References

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Decolonial Aspiration, Postcolonial Agency, and the Uses of Heritage References

191 192 196 203 208 213 223 231 235 256

CONTENTS

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Conclusion: Public Exchanges and the Decolonising Enfranchisement of Modern Citizens References

Index

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261 268 271

About the Authors

Lara Lamb is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. She has worked with people in Papua New Guinea from 2008 to the present day, and has published a wide range of academic papers that have expanded our understanding of the Gulf Province significantly. Lara also has a long history of working with Indigenous communities on the central Queensland coast and in Arnhem Land, where she is engaged with ethnography, oral history, and archaeology. At the time of publishing this book, she is conducting ethnographic and archaeological investigations on the Great Papuan Plateau. Christopher Lee is Professor of Literary Studies in the School of Languages, Humanities and Social Science at Griffith University and a member of the Griffith Center for Social and Cultural Research. He is one of the foundation editors of the Journal for the Study of Australian Literature (JASAL) and a former national president of that professional association. He has published widely on settler-colonial literature and cultural history with a special interest in the circulation of representations in the world. His most recent book publications are a study of settler-colonialism in the historical fiction of the Australian novelist Roger McDonald (Postcolonial Heritage and Settler Well-Being, 2018); and an edited collection of essays on the recollection of trauma in the public sphere with Jane Goodall in Palgrave Macmillan’s Memory study series (Trauma and Public Memory).

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Abbreviations

TS TSAM

Transcript Transcript of encounters at the Australian Museum

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List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 1.2 Fig. 3.1

Fig. 3.2

Fig. 3.3

Fig. 3.4 Fig. 3.5

Fig. 3.6

Map of the Gulf of Papua New Guinea Map of the study area The Seagull and theFleetwings at Port Moresby (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, VV3108) Captain Hurley’s seaplane, waterfront (Curtis Seagull), Kaimari (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04873) A glimpse in the Holy of Holies , a secret chamber at the remote end of Kau Ravi, Kaimari (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, PIC FH/817 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 49/19) Hurley’s diary sketch of a “stuffed” human head, at Lake Murray (Hurley 1922c, 17 November) Capt. Frank Hurley’s Pearls and Savages (Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, PIC FH/856, PIC FH/984) Skulls impaled on posts facing the river as a sign of hospitality for visitors to Kerowa village on Goaribari Island in the Gulf of Papua. The figure is that of the head man, and the vessel in the background is the Eureka (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-151337088, PIC/14197/140 LOC Drawer PIC/14197)

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 3.7

Fig. 3.8

Fig. 3.9

Fig. 3.10

Fig. 3.11

Fig. 3.12

Fig. 4.1

Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3

Fig. 4.4 Fig. 5.1

Fig. 5.2

Fig. 5.3

A glimpse in the village of Kinomere (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04753) Male type from Kinomere (left), Young uninitiated man in mourning (pectoral girdle) (right) (Photographs: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04793 and AMS320/V04792) Interior of Dubu, village of Tovei (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04784) Kaiva-kuku ceremony, Urama village (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04776) “Gormier”, chief of Kinomere dubu with victims’ skulls (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04780) Captain Hurley bartering with the natives, Kinomere (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04779) Uninitiated men’s Dubu at Kinomere (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04751) Schematic drawing of a longhouse interior, by Henry Geii, photograph: Lara Lamb, 2016 The skull rack of Gormier, chief of the dubu daima of Urama (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, PIC FH/810 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 49/12) Sketch map from Kikori Station Patrol Report no. 15, 1943–1944, depicting several villages of concern Awaho Waoii discussing Hurley’s photographs on the beach at Goare Village, Goaribari Island, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012 Kenneth Korokai and Andrew Dairi inspecting western Gulf artefacts in the Australian Museum, Sydney, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012 Malson Mekemu (far right) discussing Hurley’s photographs with Urau Aibau, the great, grandson of Komei (“Gormier”), photograph: Christopher Lee, 2013

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 5.4

Fig. 5.5

Fig. 5.6

Fig. 6.1

Fig. 6.2

Fig. 6.3

Fig. 6.4

Fig. 6.5

Three generations of women from Kinomere Village viewing Hurley’s photographs on the iPad, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2013 Komu Aitavai, the man identified as carving the Uraman canoe preserved in the Melbourne Museum, discusses Hurley’s photographs in group 1, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2016 Women of Kinomere (group 2) looking at the photographs taken at the Australian Museum in 2012, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2016 Goaribari woman sitting on a platform with mother of pearl shell headdress and necklace, armbands, earrings (left), Goaribari woman sitting cross-legged with mother of pearl shell headdress (right), photographs: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, PIC FH/847 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 51/8 and PIC FH/848 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 51/9. This woman was identified as Aboro by her grandson, Kemau Havia Types from the villages of Urama, Kinomere & Tovei, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-149 352764, PIC/8907/29 LOC Album 1067. This man was identified as Mailaku, by the people of Kinomere Village Native with mourning bands, Urama village, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04795. This man was identified as Gegea, and the “mourning bands” were said to be “not for mourning, but … for normal dressing, for dancing” by the people of Kinomere Village A widower of Kaimari village, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum AMS320/V04806. This man was identified as Garai, by the people of Kinomere Village The interior of the communal house at Kerewa, Goaribari Island, communal at Kerewa, Goaribari Island, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-158048274, PIC FH/826 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 50/5. This photograph was identified by Kenneth Korokai as the interior of the longhouse, Gewo

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 6.6 Fig. 6.7

Fig. 6.8

Fig. 6.9 Fig. 6.10 Fig. 6.11 Fig. 6.12

Fig. 6.13 Fig. 6.14

Fig. 6.15 Fig. 6.16 Fig. 6.17

Fig. 6.18

Fig. 6.19

New longhouse at Goare Village, Goaribari Island, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012 Man of Kerewa regrinding a stone adze, Goaribari Island, Gulf Province (left), photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320, V4233. Man making a canoe with three children (right), photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, PIC FH/926 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 57/11 Woven sago strainers, presented in response to those photographed in the Australian Museum, photograph: Lara Lamb, 2016 Cassowary bone dagger, heirloom object, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2016 Uraman men’s list of “dressing ornaments” appearing in Hurley’s photographs, photograph: Lara Lamb, 2016 Kenneth Korokai inspecting a traditional Kerewo drill with a steel point, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012 Andrew Dairi (with Kenneth Korokai) inspecting fish traps from his mother’s clan, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012 Kenneth Korokai with a Kerewo gope board, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012 Kenneth Korokai and Andrew Diari inspecting the leg ornaments collected by Frank Hurley and Allan McCulloch, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012 Several generations examining Hurley’s photographs in Kinomere Village, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2016 Initiating discussion about the hiri trade, in the Kinomere Village aid post, photograph: Lara Lamb, 2016 A hand-written sheet of corrections, made by Kinomere community leaders, to the captions of nineteen of Hurley’s photographs, photograph: Lara Lamb, 2016 Natives before the Dubu Daima of Tovei village, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04777. This photograph was corrected to “identify, Kinomere village, not Tovei” (refer to Fig. 6.17) Two witch doctors going through their ceremonies, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, V4774. The people of Kinomere Village recaptioned this photograph as “Kinomere Warriors Act”

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212 213 214 215

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219 226 227

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 7.1

Fig. 7.2

The schoolhouse of Kinomere Village, fallen into disrepair and disuse. The sign reads “Welcome; Kinomere Primary School Striving for Future”, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2016 This photograph is mislabelled A canoe with its compliment of warriors, Lake Murray, Papua New Guinea, 1921, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-151336471, PIC/14197/132 LOC Drawer PIC/14197. The photograph was taken at Kerewa, on Goaribari Island as evidenced by the skulls impaled on posts (far left) and the adornment of the Kerewo warriors in the canoe (see also Fig. 3.6)

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Moving Pictures The Moving Pictures project seeks to contribute to an interdisciplinary field of study that addresses and interrogates the legacies of colonialism. It does this through the case study of an expedition in the 1920s to what is now the Gulf Province and Western Province of Papua New Guinea, by the Australian journalist, photographer, cinematographer, and explorer Frank Hurley. The purpose of the expedition was to obtain cultural items, photographs and film, for use in science, education, and multi-media forms of the popular entertainment industry. Scholarly work on Hurley has documented the ways in which his representations of these peoples and places flowed transnationally in different forms and institutional contexts, to a variety of audiences in the English-speaking world. This transnational, multi-media industry invested strategically across a spectrum, balancing education and entertainment as it sought to widen and consolidate various rapidly diversifying markets for its products. These markets were characterised by changing technological forms, emerging institutional spaces, evolving registers of representation, and the different classes of leisure, profession, and vocation that sought to invest in them (Bell et al. 2013; Dixon 2011; Griffiths 2002; Ruoff 2006). The global flow of such representations inflected the ideological projects of colonialism in diverse, even unpredictable ways by presenting the “native” as an exotic reference point for the disorientating pace of change that © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Lamb and C. Lee, Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15579-6_1

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marked modernity. These representations also further informed the justifications of colonial agents as they engaged with science and exploration, government administration, trade, and the church (Asad 1973; Bennett et al. 2017; Clifford 1997; Rony 1996). Moving Pictures has two main objectives: to reach a more accurate, representative, and equable understanding of what takes place in exchanges such as those which occurred between Hurley’s expedition and the Kerewo and Urama peoples of the western Gulf; and to understand how these exchanges continue to affect the contemporary communities. To achieve these goals we believe we need to know more about the agencies through which the people were colonised, and their response to those agencies, through an exploration of the cultural, ethnographic, and historical conditions that influenced the collection and representation of Frank Hurley’s photographs. This process utilises a trans-disciplinary interest in history, biography, anthropology, ethnography, politics, communications, and representation, to describe a historicised set of exchanges between cultures. In taking Hurley’s images back to the Urama and Kerewo peoples who are represented in and through them, we seek their comment and testimony so we can begin to understand the ongoing effects and affects of colonial influence on their communities. In doing so, we also add the response of the Kerewo and Urama peoples to our understanding of the transnational reception of Hurley’s colonial images and elucidate the modest role that visual repatriation (see Chapter 5 for a discussion) might play in supporting the self-determination and self-representation of colonised peoples.

Collecting Cultural Artefacts in the Gulf Region of Papua New Guinea The peoples of the Gulf Province occupy a stretch of coast from Cape Possession in the east, to the Turama River in the west (Fig. 1.1). A number of giant rivers that originate to the north, in the central range, transect the low-lying and swampy coastline. The area with which we are principally concerned belongs to the Kerewo and the Urama peoples, whose languages belong to the Kiwai language family, and who in the past migrated from the westerly Fly River region to Goaribari and Urama Islands. To the east of Urama Island is the Purari Delta, occupied by a group of people who also have close cultural ties to the people of Urama Island (Fig. 1.2).

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Fig. 1.1 Map of the Gulf of Papua New Guinea

Fig. 1.2 Map of the study area

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The collection of Papuan cultural items, by foreigners to that territory, dates from at least 1845 and continues up to the present day. This material culture, often described as the richest, most diverse and well-executed art in all of Papua New Guinea, has found its way into countless private collections and galleries, and also into public museums and art galleries all over the world (Welsch et al. 2006). A select number of older items have, in the past, sold for over one million US dollars,1 while contemporary pieces made for the commercial market are sold for as little as a few hundred dollars or less. Early collecting took place in conjunction with a range of colonial endeavours as the region was opened to exploration, trade, evangelism, and government control. It continued after the time of initial expansion, up to and beyond independence, as research into the natural and cultural sciences burgeoned in the region, and access grew easier for people with commercial and personal interests. Broad chronologies for visitation and ethnographic collecting in the Pacific begin with explorers, then traders, missionaries, planters, colonial officials, and ethnologists (Thomas 1991, 126). The western Gulf region was on course to conform to this chronology of visitation prior to April 1901, having had early explorers through the region from 1845 and a subsequent missionary presence on Daru Island. The death of the missionaries James Chalmers and Oliver Tomkins2 on Goaribari Island in 1901 on the London Missionary Society’s first voyage to this area, however, resulted in a series of punitive raids by colonial officials and a regular missionary presence in the Kikori River region was delayed until 1912 when the Kikori Government Station was established. The earliest collectors in the western Gulf, specifically the area west of the Purari Delta, were explorers such as Captain F. P. Blackwood and Joseph Jukes in 1845, followed by Theodore Bevan and Luigi D’Albertis some 40 years later. Several types of collecting played out during this 1 On the 15th of May, 2009 an Iriwáke figure from Kinomere Village on Urama Island was sold for $1,202,500 USD at Sotheby’s. The catalogue described the item as “the god of thunder and head hunt, is a visually striking masterpiece from the lost world of pre-contact Papua New Guinea. It is one of the major cultural remnants from the Papuan Gulf, one of the central images of an entire culture, and one of the major works of art from Papua New Guinea in the world”. https://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ ecatalogue/2009/african-oceanic-pre-columbian-art-n08552/lot.146.html. Accessed 22nd November 2019. 2 Tomkins’ name is inconsistently spelt in the sources with a p. We use the spelling he uses when he corresponds with the London Missionary Society.

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period. So-called curious amateurs among ships’ crews collected “curios”; and those undertaking scientific collections, while deeply curious themselves, held amateurs in scorn and legitimised their own field collecting by “privilege[ing] … their own [scientific] interests in specimens” (Thomas 1991, 140). This concomitant collecting of cultural items undertaken by the earliest scientific expeditions enabled a very loose kind of description of peoples encountered, based upon the material forms of those people’s objects (see MacGregor 1897, 48–66), frequently invoking their “evolutionary stage” as one less advanced than that of industrial societies (O’Hanlon 2000, 5; Stocking 1985, 114). A similar approach to understanding the region’s people was undertaken by the London Missionary Society (LMS), who collected and often displayed items at the LMS museum or in individual churches, as a way to both generate funding and disseminate knowledge about Papua (Bell 2013, 58). The LMS narrative portrayed the people as morally bereft and yet also worthy of saving, a racist representation which was steeped in the evolutionary understandings of the time (Thomas 1991, 152–153). Efforts at evolutionary classification were also undertaken by British colonial government and the colonial administration, in part through the official collection of material culture items pursued by Lieutenant-Governors William MacGregor and John Hubert Murray, with their officers. MacGregor was particularly concerned with obtaining a collection representative of people across the possession that could be deployed in the interests of cultural preservation (see MacGregor 1897, 48–66; Torrence et al. 2020, 111). Nevertheless, the administration used such representations as a basis for the evolutionary narratives of colonial modernity and as a “field of intervention, through which indigenous customs, habits and practice came to be harnessed to the aims of administration” (Dibley 2014, 264). The emergence of anthropology as a formal, academic discipline resulted in a range of initiatives that aspired to a putatively autonomous understanding of Papuan culture, as distinct from the interventionist agendas of the colonial administration (e.g., Austen 1934; Haddon 1918, 1919, 1923; Landtman 1913, 1916, 1917, 1927; Lewis 1931, 1932). There was also a concurrent movement to make anthropology of practical use to the colonial government. Murray, who was influenced by the anthropologist Charles Seligman, was a keen amateur collector of material culture. Both he and anthropologist Alfred Cort Haddon lobbied at various times for the appointment of a government anthropologist (Schaffarczyk 2007, 202). They argued in terms of both salvage and economic

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development by detailing the benefits of documenting a culture that was fast disappearing and espousing the economic advantages of having “expert advice” on interactions with a colonised people (Dibley 2014, 265–266). Murray claimed that an anthropology based upon precepts of the unity of humankind could assist a government in maintaining the “welfare of [the] native race” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920, 105). This could be achieved, he argued, by appointing an anthropologist as an officer of the government, who would have the necessary expertise to discern the customs that it would be “safe” to abolish and those whose discontinuance would cause harm (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920, 104–111). In a nod to functionalism, Murray saw that great harm could indeed be caused by the removal of some apparently isolated customs, because of what he phrased as “the interdependence of ideas among savage races” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920, 106). The government anthropologist, once appointed, would be engaged in the collection of cultural items only as a secondary occupation, however, as their principal occupation would be “to help us in reconciling an intelligent, though very backward, race to the inevitable march of civilization, and in finding the easiest way for its advance” (Murray 1920, 41). The promise of modernity, explicit in Murray’s justification for his administration, remains an important component of contemporary peoples’ understanding of their relationship with the legacies of colonialism. Walter Mersh Strong was appointed the first government anthropologist in 1920 (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921, 9). The Cambridge-trained anthropologist Wallace Edwin Armstrong assisted him until 1922,3 when Francis Edger Williams was appointed to the assistant’s position. Williams was subsequently promoted to the principal position in 1928 and remained the government anthropologist until 1943 (Schaffarczyk 2007, 198). Williams, who referred to himself as a “perfunctory” collector, soon adopted the view that collecting was detrimental to the people and that his primary concern was “the encouragement, adaptation, and development of artistry and handwork in the native village” (Williams 1939, 398). He made this view clear in a document called The Collection of Curios and the Preservation of Native Culture (Williams 1923) that 3 As Strong retained his role as Chief Medical Officer, collecting was most likely undertaken by his assistant, Armstrong, during his short tenure (Schaffarczyk 2007, 203–204).

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was released after he observed Frank Hurley’s methods of collecting in the Purari Delta and the public controversy that ensued (Young et al. 2001, 19).

Frank Hurley and the Papua Expeditions The Australian Frank Hurley was an entrepreneur, photographer, cinematographer, journalist, adventurer, and explorer who was involved in the sensational representation of some of the epic media events of the first half of the twentieth century. He served as a photographer on four polar explorations: Sir Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) (1912–1913); Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (ITAE) (1914–1917); and the two British, Australian, New Zealand Antarctic Research Expeditions (BANZARE) (1929–1930) and (1930–1931). He was an official photographer for the Australian Imperial Forces in France and the Middle East during the First World War (1917– 1918). He reprised that role in the Middle East in the Second World War (1940–1943), prior to transferring to the British Ministry of Information (BMOI) so that he could remain in the Middle East when Australian forces were withdrawn to fight in the Pacific (1943–1946). In between the wars, he organised two expeditions to the south west Pacific: the Torres Strait and Papua Expedition (1920–1921) and the Papua Expedition (1922–1923) (McGregor 2004). It is during his visits to Papua that Hurley encountered the peoples and collected the materials with which our study is concerned. It is important to understand that Hurley was not a scientist, but rather an entrepreneurial producer of multi-media, who sought his fame and fortune by addressing international audiences, conjured through, and enamoured with the spectacles of modernity (Gordon et al. 2013; see also Dixon 2011). His aspirations of adding an emerging scientific audience to his rapidly differentiating target markets nevertheless ensured that his expedition can also be assessed as an exemplary instance of what Gordon et al. (2013, 4) call “expeditionary anthropology”. The period between the wars is understood as the eminent moment of expeditionary anthropology prior to its supersession by Malinowski’s model of extended participant observation. According to Homiak (2013, v), a better understanding of amateur expeditionary anthropology offers insights into its diverse popular roots within the travel and adventure genres of the entertainment industry, modern technologies of transport, communication, and visuality, and developing institutions of governance, colonial

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administration, commerce, and the military (see also Dixon 2001). Bell et al.’s collection of essays, Recreating First Contact (2013), compiles several case studies that are set, for the most part, between the wars and are interested in this complex of historical articulations. One of the general observations that comes out of this work concerns the way expeditions used their transport and visual technologies to represent themselves as modern, by virtue of their mobility through time and space, while fetishising the “native” as frozen in the amber of a superseded age and a sequestered place (Gordon et al. 2013, 20; see also Clifford 1997; Fabian 2014). The fantasies of “first contact” and the imperatives of “salvage anthropology” flow seamlessly from these propositions, and the contributors to that volume suggest that they continued well into the twentieth century as a motivation for science, and indeed on into the twenty-first century as enduring fascinations within popular culture (Bell et al. 2013; Kuklick 2013). Hurley’s career reached its peak in the mid-nineteen twenties when he toured the United States of America, exploiting sensationalized ethnographic material gathered from his expeditions through the Torres Strait and the Territory of Papua (Dixon 2011; Dixon and Lee 2011; McGregor 2004). Hurley’s changing roles in different kinds of expeditions, ventures, and entertainments gave him access to a significant international network of politicians, public officials, businessmen, explorers, scientists, missionaries, journalists, and entrepreneurial media personalities. His use of this network, and the established accounts of his controversial attempts to negotiate the conflicting aims, protocols, and politics of the various stakeholders of the Papua expedition, make this a resonant case study of expeditionary anthropology. Hurley inherited his business model from those developed for geographic and scientific explorations in the nineteenth century during the peak of the British Empire. As Beau Riffenburgh has shown, the financing of nineteenth-century exploration was closely associated with the rise of sensational journalism in the United States of America and Britain, and the promotions which entrepreneurial editors such as James Gordon Bennett of the Herald organised to increase circulation (Riffenburgh 1955). These promotions adopted a variety of forms with which to seek new consumers, from lectures, books, and newspaper reports to new technologies, fashions, equipment, and toys. Photography and the collection of exotic material objects played an important part in the publicity generated by exploration for a rapidly expanding, evolving, and

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differentiating multi-media industry. The industry’s mode of appeal to its consumer encouraged a particular discursive line in the reportage of exotic places and peoples: This relationship between newspapers and explorers required more than ever that new lands be portrayed as tests for daring individuals who were willing to risk their lives to make gains for science, the flag, or mankind. The public now wanted heroes it could admire for perseverance in the face of difficulties and courage in the face of danger. A demand developed for triumph over obstacles, and the greater the difficulty, the more the danger, the longer and harder the journey, the better the public liked it. (Riffenburgh 1955, 56)

Hurley’s initial venture to the Torres Strait and Papua New Guinea was the first expedition that he himself planned, financed, and led for the express purpose of commercial profit and public reputation. He was a great admirer of Henry Morton Stanley’s In Darkest Africa (1890) and in planning this expedition he had before him the media model of the explorer-hero as an imperial celebrity, who leveraged fame through an ensemble of different forms of performance and representation. In Hurley’s case, these included personal testimony; journal, memoir, magazine, and newspaper articles; photographs, lantern slides, cinematography, and sound recordings (McGregor 2004; Specht and Fields 1984). This ensemble of forms was then drawn upon for dissemination through a variety of public and media institutions: the print media (newspaper, serial, and book publication); performance media (learned society talks, library and museum lectures, theatre presentations, and the cinema); and the museum (visual and material collections) (Dixon 2011). In September 1919 Hurley sought unsuccessfully to float The Hurley Australian Film Production Company Limited. He considered the possibility of a partnership with the American journalist Lowell Thomas, who toured New Zealand and Australia in 1920 and was responsible for mythologising Colonel T. E. Lawrence as Lawrence of Arabia (Dixon and Lee 2011; Stephens 2017). Instead, he undertook to provide a promotional film for the Anglican Board of Mission’s work in the Torres Strait and Papua, in return for their financial and logistical support. He also used his celebrity as an Antarctic explorer and official war photographer to enlist the cooperation of the territorial administration in Port Moresby and the Catholic Sacred Heart Mission at Yule Island in this project. His primary intention in undertaking the expedition, however, was to secure

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photographs and cine film for a travelogue that would tour Australia, and with Thomas’ support, North America and Europe. On 3 December 1920, Hurley left Sydney on the Taiynan for Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, where he arranged passage to Darnley, Murray, Moa, Mabuiag, Coconut, and Saibai islands. While documenting the missionary work of the Anglicans, he also gathered images of and information about the spectacular coral reefs, and the local marine industries such as beche-de-mer fishing and pearling. At the end of the month, he arrived in Port Moresby, where he photographed the “picturesque” tidal platform villages of Hanuabada and Elevara. Three months later he travelled east along the coast from Port Moresby to the island of Samarai off the south-eastern tip of the mainland. During an eight-week cruise along the north east coast, he filmed the material culture and village life in that region. In July 1921 he left Port Moresby for a second time, striking out inland towards the imposing Owen Stanley Range. Hurley’s decision to return to Papua New Guinea immediately after this first visit makes it clear he had not quite achieved what he had initially set out to do. He soon saw the market limitations of “tame” records of village Papuans and New Guineans who were quickly adapting their traditional ways of life to the demands of the colonial administration, the missionaries, and the plantation owners. He wanted a more dramatic “first contact” encounter with precolonial, and therefore “premodern” peoples, more in keeping with the nineteenth-century media model made famous by Stanley. He sought the narrative of hardship and danger that Riffenburgh (1955) suggests was conventional to the sensational reportage that sold newspapers. Hurley was inspired by discussions with Ernest William Pearson Chinnery and Lieutenant Governor Sir Hubert Murray about the western Gulf and those peoples who remained beyond the official boundaries of the administration in the upper reaches of the Fly and Strickland Rivers, and on the shores of Lake Murray. He took a government steamer from Port Moresby to the government station at Kikori and spent time photographing Kaimari Village in the Purari Delta, and the villages on Urama Island, where he was impressed with the great ravis, dubus , or longhouses, and the striking dress and ornamentation of the inhabitants. The people of this region were already internationally renowned as head-hunters and cannibals on account of the deaths in 1901 of the legendary LMS evangelist James Chalmers, his assistant Oliver Tomkins,

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and nine Kiwai mission students who had accompanied them to Goaribari Island (see Langmore 1974). It is Hurley’s work amongst the people of Goaribari and Urama Islands that is the principal focus of this project. These were the people whom the photographer described in typically racialised language as “the most primitive and wild of all the natives I have so far come in contact with” (Hurley 1921, 27 June). The film Pearls and Savages , based on Hurley’s first expedition, toured south-eastern Australia with some success, but he was determined to return to the Gulf of Papua to collect artefacts and obtain footage, which would develop the theme of “first contact” for a wider, transnational market. The Papuan administration had in place legislation that restricted the collection of artefacts and prohibited the export of human remains, and Hurley required scientific credibility if he was to engage their assistance and achieve his own ends (Specht 2003). He used his connections to arrange a letter of recommendation from the Australian Government to the Papuan administration, and he negotiated an agreement with the Australian Museum to obtain the permits he would require to export cultural items, which could both embellish multi-media presentations and enrich the collections of the Museum. Jim Specht (2003) gives an insightful account of the ways in which institutions such as the Commonwealth Government, the British Colonial Administration, and the Australian Museum were connected in potentially compromising ways with the media and business interests that were sponsoring Hurley’s venture. Lebbeus Hordern, who provided Hurley with two aircraft and support crew, was interested in developing his aerial surveying work along the coast, and investing in the development of the flying boat for use in tropical and subtropical climes. Sir Hugh Denison, the proprietor of the Sun newspaper which would publish Hurley’s sensational accounts of the expedition, was a frequent benefactor of scientific expeditions (in the mould of James Gordon Bennett), a financial supporter of the Museum, and the brother of the president of its Board of Trustees (Specht 2003, 11, 25). Each of these institutions, and the people who represent them, is connected in a network of relations that intersect their different fields of expertise and authority. Tensions in these alliances draw attention to the different motivations, protocols, and codes of conduct associated with their various professional, public, and private dispositions. The historical resonance of Hurley’s images is a phenomenon of these different institutions and the variety of the audiences which receive the images, beyond the boundaries of emerging

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institutions of a science, such as the museum, and those of a government, such as the colonial administration. The focus of Hurley’s second expedition was to be the Kiwai region from the Fly, Strickland, and Herbert Rivers, and Lake Murray in the west, to the Purari Delta in the east (refer Fig. 1.2). It was announced to the Australian public as a cooperative scientific and media venture that would use the latest modern technology in the form of the aeroplane, the wireless, and cinematic equipment, in conjunction with the scientific and administrative expertise of the Australian Museum and the colonial administration. It would conduct aerial surveys of remote areas extending outside the control of the current authorities and collect valuable artefacts for the Australian Museum’s collections, and by extension, for the peoples of Papua and Australia. The intended collaboration with administration officials ultimately fell apart because of technological problems and personal disagreements attributable to Hurley’s disdain for bureaucratic officialdom, and the administration’s own internal political rivalries. When Hurley failed to gain the cooperation he sought from the villages he visited, he resorted to intimidation and trickery and that fell afoul of the administration’s established protocols for dealing with the Papuan peoples. A public scandal ensued that compromised his collection of objects and photographs, and drew attention to the tensions between the differing objectives of commerce and governance. Hurley’s collection and documentation of the Gulf peoples was both cued and enabled by the semi-autonomous, cooperating, but also competing agencies involved in the governance, administration, socialisation, and commerce of colonialism. The expedition’s controversial use of coercion and threat implicated the administration and exposed its practices of colonial subordination. The products of Hurley’s endeavours, from his collection of cultural items to the hundreds of photographs and feet of cinefilm documenting the Gulf peoples are therefore not only contingent upon, but also inextricably entangled with the various agents of colonialism. This case study of that entanglement is symptomatic of First People’s experience of colonialism, which leaves a legacy that continues to cue fundamentally not only the perception of the relevant cultural materials by contemporary international consumers, but also our own exchanges with the Kerewo and Urama peoples when the provenance of that material is investigated, and it is returned (cf. Dixon 2001, 72–98).

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Colonial Discourse and Interdisciplinary Methodology The various institutions and authorities involved in the colonial project in Papua New Guinea produced a series of essentialist discourses and representations about the country’s people. These exist in the form of government reports advocating measures for the protection, control, development, and exploitation of the population; ethnographic writings seeking to understand their various customs, social structures, and belief systems—sometimes in the service of science, sometimes religion, sometimes governance; material culture collections dispersed internationally in private collections, to various museums catering for different populations; and, in Hurley’s case the promotion of mixed media entertainments such as photography and film-sometimes for official record, sometimes scientific research and general education, sometimes for popular entertainment or personal souvenir; travellers’, explorers’, missionaries’ and government officials’ diaries, journals, and memoirs; and missionary lectures and publications. These different forms of representation, and the historical agencies behind them, continue to have a voice both in global perceptions and in local ontologies of Papua New Guinea peoples. An enquiry into the repatriation of appropriated objects and representations requires an interdisciplinary re-examination of these discourses, to be achieved through both a historicised approach to a range of colonial exchanges, and an examination of the legacy of these interactions situated within contemporary Gulf populations’ reception of returned representations. In 2006 Max Quanchi was lamenting that the enormous archive of photographs, negatives, postcards, published prints, and cine film depicting Pacific Islanders remained fragmentary and thus ephemeral to the research community, with Pacific historians preferring written documents, art, and artefacts. He argued that visual histories based on photographic evidence have the potential to reveal “quite different stories, incidents, memories, attitudes and cross-cultural relationships” (Quanchi 2006, 165). In recent decades, work on the history of photography, theories of realism, and the politics of representation, combined with radical shifts in thinking about photographs and source communities, has challenged the notion that photographs are merely unproblematic raw data. Indeed, the value of photographs extends beyond their use as a body of evidence awaiting forensic examination, as they are highly mutable objects of exchange containing “complex layers of cultural information

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and knowledge” (Edwards 2003, 83). The recognition that it is important to take these images back to their source communities has been a significant outcome of this rethinking of archival representations. Elizabeth Edwards describes it this way: Visual repatriation might be defined as the conscious shifting of photographs from a ‘public’, ‘outsider’ to ‘private’ and ‘appropriate’ spaces. Photographs that were created as colonial documents, and which became ‘ethnographic’ records through their entanglements within specific institutional structures, become family history, clan history or community history. None the less, while returned to the same locations, photographs are at some level returning to very different social relations. Communities are faced with what is known to them from their own ways of remembering, through the eyes of an outsider, with very different resonances. Conversely, photographs might destabilise an idealised past and thus the foundations of identity. Such transformation and translations are not necessarily straightforward or painless. (Edwards 2003, 85–86)

Multiple ways of viewing, constructing, and acquiring knowledge, indeed multiple knowledges, inflect the process of translating an object’s meaning from one social context to another. The process of translation, which occurs as part of visual repatriation, is a multivalent proposition. It is a “social process that brings knowledges into a common signifying space in which meanings are negotiated and articulated, in which objects of knowledge are defined and redefined, and given new meaning” (Silverman 2015, 3). Our own visual repatriation of the images and objects taken by Frank Hurley in the early 1920s was initially conceived of as a reception study, in which the responses of Kerewo and Urama people were added to those of the people who produced those images and those who commented upon their international distribution. To this reception study we sought to add an account of the social biography of the photographs, which understood them as artefacts central to “creating, distorting and perpetuating ideas about culture”, and which would undergo further formation (Edwards 2003, 83). Our goal was to enable a series of new narratives capable of offering alternatives to those produced in the context of the colonial disruption and commodification of the culture of the Kerewo and Urama peoples. We found, however, that while the photographs elicited a complex range of interactions in which histories were (re)constructed and narrated, they also functioned as social actors themselves (Appadurai 1986), taking part in a range of social and political engagements that were inextricable from their colonial contexts of production.

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The materiality of photographs (Edwards and Hart 2004) creates a specific and localised ontology that necessitates paying attention to “what objects do” (Bell 2015b, 106) in creating unique and specific readings (Bell 2015b; Edwards 2012; Halvaksz 2010; Hull 2012; Strathern 2018; Wright 2004). Thus, photographic representations are more than their own inferred social biography; their materiality as objects also heavily influences the form of “embodied apprehension” (Edwards 2012, 228) that comprises part of the image’s visual economy. Photographs as social agents possess a powerful relational quality (Strathern 1999, 17–18) that is manifest in how images (and the specific forms they take) “occupy the spaces between people and people, and people and things” (Edwards 2006, 27). When we directed our attention to these dynamics and varied the forms in which we displayed the photographs, the impact of the image expanded beyond its context and content, to a range of sensory engagements that elucidated yet another set of narratives. These narratives very clearly demonstrated that the social present is deeply entwined with an intercultural past that is engaged with colonial and neo-colonial legacies (Lydon 2010, 174). The key scholarly intertext for our study is an impressive body of work undertaken over twenty-two years by Joshua Bell, who has made an extensive study of the visual repatriation of photographs taken by the government anthropologist F. E. Williams in the Purari Delta (to the east of the area in which our work takes place). The stated objectives of Bell’s research are to “generate counter-narratives to the once monolithic, colonial and disciplinary histories that the photographs themselves often help to create and sustain” and “untangle the knots that bind these histories and the assumptions invested in them” (Bell 2003, 111). The special value of visual repatriation is the opportunity it provides to reinvest “host communities with a degree of agency and a voice in what we write about them” (Bell 2003, 120). Bell’s research provides a detailed case study of the ways in which colonial images can prompt or reanimate narratives around the cultural property of the Purari peoples, and the ways in which that property is then implicated in the legacies of colonialism in general, and contemporary struggles over access to resources and development in particular (Bell 2003, 2006a, 2006b, 2006c, 2009, 2015b, 2021). Bell’s work pays particular attention to the ways that photographs have been subsumed by the mechanisms the government and the logging and oil resource companies use to identify land entitlement and allocate compensation (Bell 2006a, 2006b, 197; 2009, 2015b). These processes

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have materially revalued “the ambiguous status of the traditional past” and politicised the relations between generations, clans, and individuals in specific ways (Bell 2009, 28; see also Bell 2006b). This is an important aspect of the ways in which Papuan peoples are involved in the development of a form of postcolonial modernity that shares characteristics with other forms of modernity, but which is, in many ways, particular to those peoples and places (Eisenstadt 2002; Mota and Delanty 2015). Bell’s conclusion that “visual repatriation enables the critical reappraisal of how we have represented and understood our mutually entangled histories” and that “this is an important step in the process of reinvesting communities with a degree of agency and a voice in what we write about them” (Bell 2006a, 205) nicely resonates with the aspirations of this study, and his body of work remains a comparative touchstone throughout. An important part of recognising agency and voice is a disruption of colonial tropes that would deny these peoples as thoroughly “modern” in a time, and in some respects a space, that we all share. The Moving Pictures project understands that colonial processes are influenced by the social and political contexts of events at early colonial contact, and that these contexts are themselves shaped by precolonial cultural dynamics (Thomas 1991, 1994). Our attention to biographical agency enables us to reimagine how historical subjects working within and across institutions and discourses sought to act with purpose in the colonial project. In this way, we endeavour to understand some of the complexities of assorted social and political interactions between the agents of colonialism and the peoples of the Kikori River Delta. Our methods re-examine a contact history that profoundly influenced colonial, social, and political experience, and yet was largely omitted from colonial accounts produced for a remote, imperial, international audience. We work with the understanding that objects are alienable and mutable. They are neither fixed with the values inscribed at the moment of manufacture, nor objective records of a cultural moment in time (Darian-Smith and Edmonds 2015; Jones 2018; Thomas 1991, 4–5). Thus, objects transported across space, between cultures, and through time take on distinctive values, generated by intersecting histories themselves constituted by “a historical network of global relations” (Thomas 1991, 8). We put this perspective to work in two ways. Firstly, we build a picture of dynamic culture contact by demonstrating that early colonial encounters and material culture exchanges were frequently undertaken in, and given meaning by, the context of existing social systems (Godsen

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2004; Terrell 1998; Thomas 1991; Torrence 2000). This picture highlights how the movement, use, and exchange of objects can produce distinctive and previously unrecognised forms of value, often at variance with the value inscribed at the point of exchange. Secondly, we extend our exploration of mutable objects into the context of the contemporary social and political sphere of the twenty-first century by returning Frank Hurley’s colonial-era photographs and a reconstructed version of the film Pearls and Savages to contemporary people in the Kikori River Delta of the Gulf of Papua. In doing so, we demonstrate that the images are not simply a proxy for the delta people in the early 1920s, but rather agents of continuing intercultural interaction, which represent and reproduce the social forces that shape people’s own contemporary history-making and identity (Brown and Peers 2006; Kingston 2003; Lydon 2010). This two-part organisation of the project seeks to respond to the comments, suggestions, and questions expressed by those people who responded to the photographs and film that we shared with them in the western Gulf. In returning these materials to the source communities and facilitating a journey by two Kerewo community leaders to the Australian Museum in Sydney,4 we have encountered responses comparable to those described by Alison K. Brown and Laura Peers (2006) in their repatriation of ethnographic photographs to the Kainai Nation in North America. Brown and Peers’ work was motivated by a desire to establish an ongoing reciprocal relationship that shared knowledge between the museum and the source community. Their process, like Bell’s, and indeed ours, emphasised the importance of these cultural materials in providing a new sense of the past, which could be used as a community resource for the future. Like Brown and Peers, and Bell, we found that photographs were particularly effective in illuminating issues around the generational loss of cultural heritage, which is a common feature of the postcolonial condition of First Peoples (Bienkowski 2015). The photographs also had profound relational qualities (Edwards 2001) that produced a range of actions and interactions around performing knowledge and authority, and around contentious but important acts of memorialisation. Some powerful and important grievances about their situation in the contemporary political and social landscape were aired, in addition to the retelling of stories that firmly situated traditional power in internationalised political spaces. 4 The Australian Museum holds a significant collection of material culture from the region with which we are concerned.

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Outline of the Book In Chapter 2 we outline the encounters of explorers, traders, missionaries, military personnel, administrative officers, and scientists with Papuan peoples. The different objectives and functions of these colonial vocations create a register of possibilities for the colonial encounter; though, of course, each and every one of these foreign agents is overdetermined in key respects by the colonial assumption that the colonisers possess a knowledge of both the world and the Indigene that justifies their sovereignty over peoples whom it understands as inferior or less developed (Gordon et al. 2013; Steinmetz 2007, 35–38). The overwhelming view of the European presented to the Papuans, was one of a powerful and dangerous race of people who needed to be appeased if immediate security and long-term prosperity were to be obtained. The carrot presented alongside this stick was the promise of protection and development that was a bargain unevenly imposed upon the Papuans by missionary, administrator, and developer alike. That bargain emerges from our study as a failed promise that the people continue to consider as payment long overdue for their achievements as modern citizens of an independent, postcolonial, Christian nation. Our detailed exposition of Hurley’s mediatised expedition in the Gulf in Chapter 3 establishes the specific circumstances in which images and artefacts were collected, and details the contemporaneous responses to his expeditions in Papua and Australia. We also identify Hurley’s ambivalent attitudes to his expedition and the Papuan peoples he encountered on it, as a state of confusion that mixes the conventions of entertainment and education in ways that are typical of the era of expeditionary anthropology, and influential still in contemporary media representations of developing peoples (Kuklick 2013). We establish a number of the pressure points, or what Bell (2015a, 131), following on from Paul Farmer, calls the “structural violence” of the extraction industries of which Hurley, and in some respects we, ourselves, are a part. In Chapter 4 we reconsider the Kerewo and Urama peoples as historically resourceful agents of negotiation and exchange. The focus and trajectory of this narrative is the historical and ethnographic representation of these peoples as representatives of their communities, in a globalised setting. Together our three historical chapters establish the context for the description of our frameworks and methods in Chapter 5. Chapter 5 also attends to some matters around the interdisciplinary use of

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the ethnographic method and illuminates some contentious aspects of the concept of visual repatriation itself. This is followed by the enumeration of some results in Chapter 6, which illustrate the different ways in which photo elicitation and a reacquaintance with material culture stimulates those reconsiderations of heritage that are not solely private, traditional, clan orientated, or circumscribed by historical or contemporary understandings of community. Chapter 7 then traces the ways in which our return of Hurley’s photographs and our discussions of heritage can be understood as stimulating resources for an ongoing decolonial struggle, in which these peoples are to be recognised as custodians of a distinctive and valuable heritage that enables their participation as engaged, enfranchised citizens of a modern nation and a globalised world. Ultimately the trajectory of our discussions around cultural heritage moves outwards from the individual, the clan, the village, and the tribe to the province, the nation, and the world, as contemporary Kerewo and Urama peoples seek to negotiate their place in a time that we all share with large institutions such as the Church, the government, and the company. In our concluding chapter we reflect upon some of the issues raised by the study with respect to supporting contemporary source communities to access both their heritage and the archive, as an enabling resource for an ongoing negotiation of their place in an environment, a society, a culture, a polity, and an economy.

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Halvaksz, Jamon. 2010. “The Photographic Assemblage: Duration, History and Photography in Papua New Guinea.” History and Anthropology 21 (4): 411– 429. https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2010.521556. Homiak, J. P. 2013. “Forward.” In Recreating First Contact: Expeditions, Anthropology and Popular Culture, edited by J. A. Bell, A. Brown and Robert Gordon, v–xii. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institute Press. Hull, Matthew S. 2012. “Documents and Bureaucracy.” Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 251–267. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.012 809.104953. Hurley, Frank. 1921. Frank Hurley’s Diary, No. C. Papers of Frank Hurley. National Library of Australia, MS 883. Jones, Philip. 2018. Ochre and Rust: Artefacts and Encounters on Australian Frontiers. Mile End: Wakefield Press. Kingston, Deanna Paniataaq. 2003. “Remembering Our Namesakes: Audience Reactions to Archival Film of King Island, Alaska.” In Museums and Source Communities: A Routledge Reader, edited by Laura Peers and A. Brown, 123–135. London: Routledge. Kuklick, Henrika. 2013. “Afterword.” In Recreating First Contact: Expeditions, Anthropology, and Popular Culture, edited by Joshua A. Bell, Alison K. Brown, and Robert J. Gordon, 231-240. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. Landtman, Gunnar. 1913. “The Poetry of the Kiwai Papuans.” Folklore 24 (3): 284–313. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1255430. ———. 1916. “The Magic of the Kiwai Papuans in Warfare.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 46: 322–333. https://doi.org/10.2307/2843396. ———. 1917. The Folk-Tales of the Kiwai Papuans. Helsinki: Finnish Society of Literature. ———. 1927. The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea. London: Macmillan. Langmore, Diane. 1974. Tamate, a King: James Chalmers in New Guinea, 1877– 1901. Melbourne University. Lewis, Albert B. 1931. Carved and Painted Designs from New Guinea. Vol. 5. Anthropology Design Series. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History. ———. 1932. “Ethnology of Melanesia.” Guide (Field Museum of Natural History) 5: 1–209. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41506493. Lydon, Jane. 2010. “Return: The Photographic Archive and Technologies of Indigenous Memory.” Photographies 3 (2): 173–187. https://doi.org/10. 1080/17540763.2010.499610. MacGregor, William. 1897. British New Guinea: Country and People. London: John Murray. McGregor, Alasdair. 2004. Frank Hurley, a Photographer’s Life. Camberwell: Viking Press.

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Mota, Aurea, and Gerard Delanty. 2015. “Eisenstadt, Brazil and the Multiple Modernities Framework: Revisions and Reconsiderations.” Journal of Classical Sociology 15 (1): 39–57. Murray, John Hubert Plunkett. 1920. Review of the Australian Administration in Papua from 1907 to 1920. Port Moresby: EG Baker, Government Printer. O’Hanlon, Michael. 2000. “Introduction.” In Hunting the Gatherers: Ethnographic Collectors, Agents and Agency in Melanesia, 1870s–1930s, edited by Michael O’Hanlon and Robert L. Welsch, 1–34. New York: Berghahn Books. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920. Melbourne: Government Printer for the State of Victoria. http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163758545. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921. Melbourne: Government Printer for the State of Victoria. http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-165341564. Accessed 14 May 2018. Quanchi, Max. 2006. “Visual Histories and Photographic Evidence.” The Journal of Pacific History 41 (2): 165–173. https://doi.org/10.1080/002233406 00826052. Riffenburgh, Beau. 1955. The Myth of the Explorer: The Press, Sensationalism, and Geographical Discovery. New York: Oxford University Press. Rony, Fatimah Tobing. 1996. The Third Eye: Race, Cinema, and Ethnographic Spectacle. Durham: Duke University Press. Ruoff, Jeffrey, ed. 2006. Virtual Voyages: Cinema and Travel. Durham: Duke University Press. Schaffarczyk, Sylvia. 2007. “A Rara Avis: F.E. Williams, the Government Anthropologist of Papua, and the Official Papuan Collection.” In Hunting the Collectors: Pacific Collections in Australian Museums, Art Galleries and Archives, edited by Susan Cochrane and Max Quanchi, 198–220. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Silverman, R. 2015. “Introduction: Museum as Process.” In Museum as Process: Translating Local and Global Knowledges, edited by R. Silverman, 1–18. New York: Routledge. Specht, Jim. 2003. “When the Cause of ‘Science’ Is Not Enough: Frank Hurley in Papua.” The Sixth Museum of Antiquities Maurice Kelly Lecture, Armidale. Specht, Jim, and John Fields. 1984. Frank Hurley in Papua: Photographs of the 1920–1923 Expeditions. Bathurst: Robert Brown and Associates. Stanley, Henry M. 1890. In Darkest Africa, or the Quest, Rescue, and Retreat of Emin, Governor of Equatoria. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. Steinmetz, George. 2007. The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stephens, Mitchell. 2017. The Voice of America: Lowell Thomas and the Invention of 20th Century Journalism. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

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Stocking, George W. 1985. Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture. Vol. 3. History of Anthropology. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Strathern, Marilyn. 1999. Property, Substance and Effect: Anthropological Essays on Persons and Things. London: Athlone Press. ———. 2018. “Portraits, Characters and Persons.” Social Anthropology 26 (2): 197–210. https://doi.org/10.1111/1469-8676.12450. Terrell, John Edward. 1998. “30,000 Years of Culture Contact in the Southwest Pacific.” Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology, Occasional Paper 25: 191–219. Thomas, Nicholas. 1991. Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific. London: Harvard University Press. ———. 1994. Colonialism’s Culture: Anthropology, Travel and Government. Oxford: Polity Press. Torrence, Robin. 2000. “Just Another Trader? An Archaeological Perspective on European Barter with Admiralty Islanders, Papua New Guinea.” In The Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating Cross Cultural Engagements in Oceania, edited by Robin Torrence and Anne Clarke, 124–162. London: Routledge. Torrence, Robin, Elizabeth Bonshek, Anne Clarke, Susan M. Davies, Jude Philp, and Michael Quinnell. 2020. “Regimes of Value in Museum Practices: A Networked Biography of the Macgregor Field Collection from British New Guinea.” Museum History Journal 13 (2): 111–131. https://doi.org/10. 1080/19369816.2020.1807122. Welsch, Robert L., Virginia-Lee Webb, and Sebasitan Haraha, eds. 2006. Coaxing the Spirits to Dance: Art and Society in the Papuan Gulf of New Guinea. Hanover: Hood Museum of Art. Williams, Francis Edgar. 1923. The Collection of Curios and the Preservation of Native Culture. Vol. 3. Anthropology. Port Moresby: E.G. Baker, Government Printer. ———. 1939. “Creed of a Government Anthropologist.” Proceedings of the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science Congress 14: 145–159. Wright, Chris. 2004. “Material and Memory: Photography in the Western Solomon Islands.” Journal of Material Culture 9 (1): 73–85. https://doi. org/10.1177/1359183504041090. Young, Michael W., Julia Clark, and Francis Edgar Williams. 2001. An Anthropologist in Papua: The Photography of F.E. Williams, 1922–39. New York: C. Hurst & Co.

CHAPTER 2

Exploration, Salvation, Protection, and Development: European Contact and Control in Papua New Guinea

The building of a new order in the villages, a process underway in some communities before 1884, continued in the 1920s and 1930s. But the character of the change was as various as the communities themselves, for it depended on local factors: the values of a people before contact with foreign ways; their proximity to missions, plantations, and gold fields; their experience of the government; their judgment about the value of the new ways compared with the old; their meetings with other Papua New Guineans who acted as agents and interpreters; and the effect of contact with the wider world on traditional social structures. Nowhere were these things the same. (Griffin et al. 1979, 59)

In this chapter we present a concise account of the contact between Europeans and Papua New Guinean peoples, and the subsequent colonial administration of those peoples, with a specific focus on the Gulf region where Hurley collected his material objects and took his photographs and cinefilm. It assembles some of the important contexts that cued the exchange between Hurley’s Expeditions and the peoples of the Gulf. These contexts are necessary for assessing the claims that Hurley makes for his expedition, and they are also necessary for an understanding of the social, cultural, and political issues that arise when these materials are returned to their original source communities, almost a century after their collection.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Lamb and C. Lee, Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15579-6_2

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The history of European contact with the peoples of Papua New Guinea might be understood with respect to the motivations and objectives of the Europeans who visited and sought different forms of exchange with the Papuans and New Guineans. These objectives include exploration, commerce, trade, evangelism, administration and control, development, and protection. Though each has its varying periods of intensity or dominance, they tend to operate concurrently, and continue to do so in conjunction with colonial and neo-colonial legacies as the now independent nation attempts to manage partnerships with multinational corporations and foreign interests who seek to exploit its natural resources. Between 1883 and 1975 when Papua New Guinea gained independence, the country was subject to differing levels of colonial administration, which ultimately reshaped its cultural economy. Increasing concern in the Australian colonies about German activity along the North coast of New Guinea, and in the islands to the east, led to the annexation of British New Guinea by Queensland in 1883. This action was initially repudiated by the British and it was not until 1884 that they felt it expedient to establish a Protectorate in the south-eastern regions. Four years later the area was proclaimed a British colony to be managed jointly with the Australian colonies (Roberts-Wray 1966, 897). From 1884 Germany, under Chancellor Bismarck, embarked on a period of colonial policy that had at its heart the annexation of existing trading and economic interests, by grants of charters to private companies (Ohff 2008, 10). Between 1884 and 1899 German New Guinea, the northeast portion of the island, became a centre of plantation development under the auspices of the German New Guinea Company, which also administered the region under imperial charters. In 1899 the German Imperial Government began to administer the region through a governor, assisted from 1904 by a government council. This arrangement persisted until 1914. Meanwhile, in 1902, control of British New Guinea was transferred to the (at that time) British Dominion of Australia. In 1906 the possession was newly constituted as the Australian Territory of Papua (Roberts-Wray 1966, 132). In the early stages of the First World War, Australia took control of German New Guinea by force. These territories were formally ceded to the Commonwealth in 1919 under the treaty of Versailles, though the territory was administered separately from Papua until after the Second World War. The Papua and New Guinea Act 1949 united both territories as the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, which operated under a system

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of local government until 1972 when a territorial ministry was elected, led by Chief Minister Michael Somare. Somare led Papua New Guinea to self-government in 1973, and to independence in 1975.

“First Contact”: Voyages of Exploration Numerous short visits by passing ships and traders, slightly longer sojourns by select voyages of discovery, and some interest from amateur expeditionary anthropologists (Gordon et al. 2013, 4) and scientists preceded the official administration of the Protectorate. The objectives of early expeditions in the Gulf of Papua were understood as first explorations, first sightings, naming expeditions, and first contact. These expeditions invested in the mediatised conventions of heroic exploration that included the scientific and geographic “discovery” of new peoples and places; populist incantations of the dangers of isolated, hostile, primitive, treacherous, and barbaric “natives”; and romantic idylls with noble, happy, healthy, and innocent “savages”. Intimidation of the Indigenous population in the interests of access, sustenance, collection, security, and ultimately control was a tactic from the very beginning. In 1841 Captain F. P. Blackwood was commissioned to conduct a hydrographic survey of the northeast coast of the Australian continent, the Torres Strait, the southeast coast of Papua New Guinea and islands of the Eastern Archipelago. His two ships explored the Gulf of Papua in April and May 1845, navigating, describing, and naming a portion of the Fly River, as well as the Aird Hills, and the islands and cays off the coast and in the estuaries. Blackwood encountered the Papuans in the Gulf region several times, helping himself to their property when he found it unattended, and intimidating them with displays of force whenever they sought to deny access and threaten his party (Jukes 1847a). They found the people of the vast deltas of the Bamu and Fly rivers to the west, and the Kikori and the Purari Rivers to the east to be fiercely territorial (see Knauft 1993; Landtman 1927). The first known hostile exchange occurred on 11 May 1845 in the vicinity of the Aird (Kikori) River and in view of the Aird Hills. This resulted in the exchange of several arrows and rifle shot, but no “bloodshed” according to Jukes, who recorded that the sound of the rifle was a significant deterrent (Jukes 1847a, 225). The following day, May 12th, saw a similar incident whereby “two arrows were shot … one of which flew over us, but the other dropped short. Captain Blackwood raised his rifle and put a bullet into a canoe … when

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at the sound of several muskets and the whistling of the balls, they jumped overboard, and swam for the woods” (Jukes 1847a, 231). At least two further incidents resulted in the explorer firing on the Gulf peoples. On the 17th of May, a reported 150 men in 10 canoes approached the cutter, Prince George. “When within distance, several arrows were discharged, which fell near the cutter, but struck no one. On this, they fired upon them with ball, and several of the natives fell… The necessity for bloodshed was to be regretted, but exposed as our boats now were… it was absolutely essential to teach the savages the great superiority of our weapons, and the danger of attacking us” (Jukes 1847a, 241). The attitudes of Blackwood’s expedition towards the Gulf people changed significantly at this time (Di Rosa 2016, 147). Less care was taken to avoid casualties, and force was utilised to send a clear message that the expedition was not to be impeded. On May 29th in the Kikori River Delta they were once again met by canoes, and when arrows were fired “Captain Blackwood then gave the word to fire; and there was a general discharge, several of the men loading again and firing without orders, and before it could be stopped I dare say thirty muskets had been fired… It is probabl[e] … that ten or a dozen savages were struck, of whom several were no doubt killed” (Jukes 1847a, 265–266). Blackwood’s original orders in relation to the Indigenous peoples he might encounter discouraged the use of force, because it compromised claims to imperial benevolence. They stipulated that he: will endeavour to preserve an amicable intercourse with them at all times. You should appear to forget their former crimes, and to caution your people against giving them any offence. When purchases are made, an officer should be present to prevent any misunderstanding, and you are to impress on the minds under your command, the mischievous consequences of exciting the jealousy of the men, by taking any liberties with the females. It would be a subject of deep regret, that an expedition devoted to the noble purposes of acquiring and diffusing beneficial knowledge, should be stained by hostilities and bloodshed. (Jukes 1847b, 260)

The putative nobility of purpose of Blackwood’s mission effaces the commercial and strategic interests motivating and financing the expansion of scientific knowledge, and his insistence on violence rather than peaceful withdrawal establishes the greater claims of the Empire over and above the interests of the local population. It is partly this assumed insistence on authority and priority that compromises exchanges between the agents of colonialism and the Papuans.

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Some 40 years later, Theodore Bevan also made an exploration of the Aird River on the S.S. Victory, in the interests of both science and commerce (Craig 2010). The New South Wales Government, the Queensland Government, and the Royal Geographical Societies of London and Australia (Bevan 1888, v) supported the expedition and Captain F. A. Boore, Master of the S. S. Victory, was tasked with “ascertain[ing] the practicability of getting into the interior of New Guinea, and to the mountain ranges by means of any of the many rivers flowing into the Papuan Gulf” (Bowden 1887). He was also expected to collect “Geological, Ethnological, Natural History and other scientific specimens” and to look for gold or other minerals. Bevan’s voyage was expected to make “fresh geographical discoveries” and collect “reliable information as to coastal formation and outlying dangers, the entrances, courses, distances … of the rivers, and in fact any and all information which may be of value to further explorers and travellers” (Bowden 1887). This expedition, like Blackwood’s before it, sought to secure unrestricted access to inhabited territory by menacing the Indigenous population. Boore writes that when six canoes approached the SS Victory, carrying men armed with bows and arrows: “… I ordered the steam whistle to be blown, which frightened them so badly that they dropped their bows and arrows and stood gazing at us in speechless astonishment. We then fired a few shots over their heads. As soon as they heard the report every man was over the side of the canoes in an instant…” (Boore 1888, 22). This incident is cited in the Annual Report on British New Guinea 1891–1892, which also reports a similar, more serious confrontation on the next visit to the region at approximately the same place, several miles upstream from the Aird Hills (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1891–1892, xxi, 45). The report suggests that casualties amongst the Papuans were unlikely to have been great in number since “Mr. Cameron and myself were satisfied with shooting at the canoes; but some of the men certainly did their best to shoot those that first seized their bows… I saw at least one man fall overboard as if shot” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1891–1892, 45). This distinction between the attitude and conduct of the officers in relation to the Papuans, and that of their subordinates, is a feature of these reports. It makes a class distinction between ruling class men whose restraint is a function of their education and who possess a ruling culture of disinterest, and working men who are driven by baser needs and instincts that require the supervision of a better class of men. It is a distinction that becomes central

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to the ways in which the Australian Pro-Consul Hubert Murray sought to govern, and a means by which Hurley, himself an escapee from the working class, sought at first to ingratiate himself with the administration in the 1920s, and then defend his later actions. Such voyages and their products such as maps, and meteorological, geological, and botanical observations, were undoubtedly prompted by sound scientific questions (Thomas 1991, 128). Nevertheless, the observations relating to the people themselves appeared to be composed in emotive and/or damning evolutionary descriptions. Typical of these accounts is Bevan’s comment that “the Papuans are by nature both treacherous and bloodthirsty” (Bevan 1888, 42). The material culture items that were collected during such voyages were also implicated in the substantive attempts to define the region (O’Hanlon 2000, 6). This is exemplified in the Italian explorer L. M. D’Albertis’ description of a collection he made in a village on the Fly River, during his 1876 expedition: “We inspected everything, and took away with us some weapons, stone implements, and several ornaments, which will serve to show by comparison and examination the race of people inhabiting this part of New Guinea” (D’Albertis 1877, 14). D’Albertis made three trips up the Fly River between 1875 and 1877, during which he used explosives and rockets to menace the local population, so that he could gain unrestricted passage and seize cultural items. The distinguished Cambridge anthropologist Alfred C. Haddon later characterised D’Albertis’ methods as robbery and looting (MacGregor 1897, 97). When the people of the Fly River asserted that they were unable to provide the Italian with a specimen of the Hornbill bird for example, he “sent three rockets in the direction of the village …” (D’Albertis 1877, 23). When people at “Kaiwai” were unwilling to sell his men a pig they took it anyway, later offering “a large knife, a blanket, a Crimean shirt, and a pair of trousers” as payment (D’Albertis 1877, 24). Lieutenant Governor William MacGregor condemned the Italian, who “wantonly robbed and plundered” and characterised the “so called curiosities” he collected as “neither more nor less than the family jewels and heirlooms … which they can seldom be induced to part with even for the much-coveted steel axe or new shirt” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1889–1890, 45–46). Exchanges between explorers and the Indigenous peoples often took place in the context of previous intimidation and displays of force. Collection often occurred in the absence of an exchange partner, and therefore without consent. It was theft, predicated on an unwavering belief in the

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inherently revolutionary, technologically sophisticated, and thus pacifying nature of the goods they were offering in exchange. It was an invasion and subordination of other peoples, justified by a self-righteous belief in the superior claims of science, civilisation, and Empire.

The London Missionary Society A notable inclusion in D’Albertis’ 1875 voyage up the Fly River was the London Missionary Society (LMS) representative Rev. Samuel McFarlane. In 1870 McFarlane was tasked with recruiting assistance from the LMS’ South Pacific Missions to begin missionary work in Papua New Guinea. In his self-regarding account of the execution of that task, McFarlane claims to understand his evangelical mission as part of a progressive European enterprise that acted in concert with science to save the “natives” from commerce and dissipation (McFarlane 1888, 14–15). “We are fully convinced”, he wrote, “that this gospel is not only the best civilizer, the best reformer, and the best handmaid to science, but that it is the only way to eternal life, and indeed the only means of preventing the natives from being swept from the face of the earth by the great tidal wave of what we are pleased to call ‘human progress and civilization’” (24). McFarlane established bases in the Torres Strait Islands close to the southwest coast of the Papuan mainland and also far to the east, initially visiting Redscar Bay, but ultimately selecting Port Moresby as the administrative base. From these two sites west and east of the Gulf respectively, the LMS slowly expanded—initially east, and then west from Port Moresby, but also up into the mouth of the Fly River from their missions in the Torres Strait. The peoples of Urama and Goaribari Islands, who were positioned in the Kikori River Delta in the western Gulf, were difficult to access and amongst the last to be contacted. McFarlane, who based himself in the Torres Strait, and W. G. Lawes, who took up the post in Port Moresby, soon disagreed over the best method for evangelising the Papuan peoples. Separate spheres of responsibility were agreed upon to settle the issue, and McFarlane claimed responsibility for the Gulf. The shallow, muddy alluvial rivers in this region rendered navigation dangerous, particularly during the unstable weather conditions that were common, and the strength and aggression of the headhunting Kerewo and Urama peoples made communication with them perilous. McFarlane’s remote method exacerbated these difficulties. His strategy was to base himself in the Torres Strait and leave

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teachers recruited from the Pacific Islands in the coastal villages Katau, Manumanu, and Tureture, to instruct the Papuans. He monitored their progress through visits across large distances at irregular intervals. The difficult waters, the prevalence of tropical fevers, the language difficulties, the distributed system of authority in the villages, and the aggressive, independent character of the peoples all combined to complicate the prospects of his mission and threaten the health and security of his teachers (Lovett 1902; McFarlane 1888; see also Council for World Mission, Papua New Guinea Reports 1882–1883). His own residence on Murray Island in the Torres Strait was remote from the mainland and did not facilitate a push further east into the Gulf, nor north up the Fly River towards the distant Lake Murray. Nevertheless, when James Chalmers pushed into the region from the east, by placing missionaries and teachers further to the west of Port Moresby, McFarlane resented his intrusion (Prendergast 1968, 134). James and Jane Chalmers joined W. G. Lawes in Port Moresby in 1877 three years after he settled there with his family. McFarlane’s exaggerated reports of his own progress in the Torres Strait, and his open criticism of Lawes’ embedded method of living amongst the people, led to a poor opinion of the Port Moresby operation in London, prior to Chalmers’ arrival. Chalmers had already enjoyed a substantial reputation for his work in Rarotonga. As a younger man he embodied and articulated a vigorous and popular form of muscular Christianity (see Chalmers 1885; Lovett 1902, 34–36). He practised this adventurous form of evangelism by boldly pursuing “first contact” with Papuan peoples. In 1879 following the death of his first wife, he pushed west into McFarlane’s territory in the Gulf, claiming the British discovery of the Purari River Delta. The initial annexation of Papua by Queensland in 1883 alarmed Chalmers and Lawes who feared a repeat of the infamous treatment of Indigenous Australians by that colony, and the return of “blackbirders”1 associated with its tropical labour markets and the development in North Queensland of agricultural industries (Lovett 1902, 236–237). Chalmers advised Commodore Erskine, the man who proclaimed the British Protectorate in Port Moresby the following year, that the Papuans needed little administration. He recommended that they become self-determining and 1 A term used to denote the spurious recruitment, if not outright kidnapping of South Seas labour.

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have their customs as little interfered with as possible. He felt systems of law could be developed from their own codes of conduct and thought they ought to be left to their own forms of dress. He pointed out that the Papuan peoples were happy and healthy, and his experience in the South Sea Islands caused him to doubt if British rule would enable them to stay that way. Lawes, for his part, made it clear to the British that the best outcome would have been for the people to be “left alone” (Lovett 1902, 260–261). A comparison of McFarlane with Lawes and Chalmers demonstrates the tensions aroused by the personal differences that could exist within any one colonial agency. Although an LMS missionary, McFarlane had amassed considerable wealth by trading in the Loyalty Islands prior to his move into the Torres Strait and Papua (Langmore 1989, 46). In his memoir Amongst the Cannibals of New Guinea (McFarlane 1888, 30, 70, 95 respectively) he described the people as “debased savages”, “howling savages”, and “degraded savages” although he was also capable of a recourse to the trope of the noble savage that Hurley was later to embellish in his own multi-media representations: “the natives are found in their primitive simplicity, the undisputed lords of the soil, displaying a proud independence, their lives void of care, and with little to excite either ambition or jealousy” (McFarlane 1888, 132). McFarlane’s more comfortable and self-interested method of remote and infrequent visitation contrasted with Lawes’ and Chalmers’ insistence on the importance of living amongst the people (Prendergast 1968, 107–119). The latter method had the comparative disadvantage of increasing the demand for more English missionaries to extend the LMS’ operations however, and the LMS would always be restricted in PNG, as elsewhere in their global operation, by a shortage of funds and an insufficient supply of British personnel. The logistical advantage, together with McFarlane’s tendency to report far more positively on his own progress, earned him the good opinion of the LMS board. Lawes’ and later Chalmers’ own more realistic appraisals of their efforts saw them suffer in comparison (Langmore 1989, 188). The two sides lobbied for support for their different approaches, and the rivalry that developed between them helped delay the LMS’s push into the Gulf and inland up the Fly and Strickland Rivers. Chalmers and Lawes also differed with McFarlane with respect to the use of tobacco in the communities. The difference of opinion provides an informative example of their rivalry, and offers some perspective on Hurley’s controversial exchanges in the 1920s. McFarlane viewed tobacco

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as an expensive and corrupting influence, while Lawes, himself a nonsmoker, could not see any harm in the practice. He defended it on the grounds that it provided an important form of currency and goodwill, without which their mission work would not be possible: The quantity of tobacco used is large in the aggregate, but it has to be divided among twenty teachers and missionaries. Each teacher uses about one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco a year. It is really the currency here; houses and churches are built with it, boats are pulled by it, gardens and fences made with it; it is our wood and water, our fruit, vegetables, and fish; it is the sign of peace and friendship, the key which opens the door for better things, and (as I so often stated in England) the shortest way to a New Guinean’s heart is through his tobacco-pipe. (Lawes qtd in Lovett 1902, 216; see also Hayes 1991)

In his study of the issue, T. E. Hayes cites examples that suggest that tobacco was the only inducement powerful enough to enlist the cooperation of many villagers; both in terms of attendance at missionary services and classes, and in work supporting the living arrangements of the teachers and the missionaries. He argues that while tobacco may have been first introduced to Eastern Papua by traders seeking profit, the missionaries “were a major force in supporting and spreading the custom” (Hayes 1991, 104). Chalmers understood that the main objective of the people when obtaining a missionary or teacher for their village, was their utility in protection from attacks by European sailors and traders, and rival villages, and the opportunity that came with that protection for increased trade with their fellow Papuans and the Europeans (Chalmers 1885; see also Langmore 1989, 136–137). Tobacco, whose addictive properties were not widely understood at the time, was an important part of these transactions and a potent symbol of the different kinds of social relations implicated in evangelism, trade, and protection: To some the Gospel simply means peace between tribes, whilst others look upon it as tobacco, tomahawks, beads, and salt, but some can appreciate it as God’s messages of love to man and the record of a life we are taught to copy. (Chalmers 1885)

The tensions between the missionaries were also complicated by the different emphases that their South Sea Island teachers used in their teaching, as compared with that preferred by Lawes and Chalmers (Lange

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2017, 293–297). Lawes, at least initially, had mixed opinions about the use of South Sea Island missionaries, though Chalmers on this matter supported McFarlane’s view that they were capable of good work. Chalmers suggested there was an unnecessary class distinction between the Islanders and the English missionaries, and he insisted that they ought not be used as servants, nor as collectors of artefacts for museums or missionaries (Prendergast 1968, 184). Samoan teachers were accustomed to more independence and authority in the Church than the Rarotongans (Mullins and Wetherell 1996) and so there were also tensions among English missionaries who found Samoans less tractable, and among teachers from other South Sea Islands who found them condescending. The Islanders were from a political culture organised around a powerful hereditary chief and their tendency amongst the more mediated and egalitarian big-man systems of authority, favoured by the Papuans, was to adopt forms of authoritarianism that sometimes caused conflict within the villages and with representatives of the colonial administration (Lange 2017, 293). This difference in political disposition was also manifest in their approaches to biblical teaching. Where English missionaries like Lawes and Chalmers preferred to preach about a God of love and, in Chalmers’ “worldly gospel” at least, a God capable of dispensing rewards in the current life, the Islanders frequently emphasised a God of wrath and punishment, and the threat of an eternal damnation that apparently had more in common with local traditions of sorcery (Chalmers 1885; see also Langmore 1989, 146). The connection of the God of wrath with the legacy of explorer violence and the more recent punitive responses of the colonial administration to local violence, could not have gone unnoticed. Chalmers described a government revenge killing for the murder of a LMS teacher in no uncertain terms: “the Government party killed one woman, two girls, one man and a boy and burned the village. Our system of revenge is thoroughly savage and is certainly a most miserable business” (Chalmers 1888). The LMS was also forced to intervene on one occasion when a South Sea Island teacher murdered a Papuan villager because he would not trade his canoe for tobacco. The colonial magistrate absolved the Islander of the crime and the LMS was forced to petition the administration to prohibit his return to the Gulf, to prevent Papuan anger at the colonial double standard (Chalmers and Hunt 1899). The varying approaches and attitudes of different individuals within the same institution created a variegated field of possibilities, and Papuans discerned

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those possibilities and made their own choices. It is not a stretch to surmise however, that the overall impression of the Papuans and New Guineans with respect to the different agencies and agents of colonialism was that they were intimidating forces, who sought control and influence through an orchestrated system of protection, a monopoly supply of new technology, and trade in what we now know to be an addictive substance. The internal tensions within the LMS were accompanied by external tensions with rival missionary organisations and with the colonial administration. During the 1880s the Anglican Mission, the Australasian Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, and the Sacred Heart (Catholic) Mission began joining the LMS, and in 1890 the Protestant churches came to an informal agreement that defined separate spheres of influence in the British possession. According to Diane Langmore, these missionaries “were the main agents of European culture, as well as Christianity, in the country” between 1874 and 1914 (1989, xi). The Catholics were not party to the agreement regarding separate spheres however, and a sense of rivalry with them was one of the motivations behind the LMS’ push westwards from Port Moresby that saw them place missionaries at Delena (H. M. Dauncey), Jokea (J. H. Holmes), and on the other side of the Gulf at Saguane (Chalmers) on Kiwai island in the mouth of the Fly River. It was Chalmers’ stated objective to establish amongst the Papuans an independent Christian Church over which they might claim stewardship, and he felt more emphasis should be placed on languages and education than on preaching (Chalmers 1885). The greater emphasis on vocational training was one of the advantages that the Catholics putatively enjoyed over the LMS and it was an issue that Hurley himself noted in their favour some thirty years later (Hurley 1921, 13 July). Competition amongst the Christian missionaries coexisted with rivalries between them and the colonial administration, with regard to contacting and “pacifying” the headhunting tribes in the Gulf. Holmes, who was based in the Orokolo area provides an interesting stream of correspondence in which he compares the LMS strategy of peaceful contact with the administration’s show of force. He claims the superiority of the LMS approach by virtue of his ability to push beyond the regions of government control, to bring previously “savage” and intractable headhunters into communication and trade within the LMS network (Holmes 1899). Holmes’ method was to offer the village leaders the renown of being the first to renounce headhunting, and at the same time threaten them

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with the shame of having their teacher, and with them their access to European trade materials, withdrawn. “You will understand why I wish this letter to be kept out of The Chronicle”, he writes to R Wardlaw Thompson, the foreign secretary of the LMS, “The reference to peace making at Maipua & Muru alone would set our Government friends agog. Then again that we should be creeping onto territory unknown to them, & finding villages not supposed to be in existence, altogether in one issue would simply make matters uncomfortable for me” (Holmes 1899). In the next paragraph he indicates that the ultimate objective of his exploratory ventures further west is to secure a strategic advantage over the Catholics: I have yet to state the goal to which we have been steadily pushing for the past three years. If you have at hand a No4 Admiralty chart of the Gulf of Papua, you will see we have reached within 45 miles of GOARBARI Island. We must have this island Sir. Kindly spare the time to look it up and you will see why we have kept an eye on it for so long. (Holmes 1899)

Holmes’ rivalry with the government regarding making contact and brokering agreements with the Gulf peoples is part of an ideological competition that prefers a strategy of peaceful penetration, leveraged both as Christian humanitarianism and, because of the risk of martyrdom, Christian heroism. Successful contact might then be attributed to the grace of God rather than the threat of force or the reach of colonial power. It was an evangelised form of the heroic explorer narrative that was often used for fund raising in Britain on behalf of the LMS’ activities (Chalmers and Gill 1885; Langmore 1989; Lovett 1902; McFarlane 1888). Providence was thus pitted against the intimidating tactics of the colonial administration in such a way as to disavow the way the one underpinned the other. The push westwards towards Urama and Goaribari Islands was strategically conceived as a need to secure bases at the mouths of the Purari, the Kikori, and the Fly rivers, the key river systems in the Gulf, so that they might push inland in search of more villages and their peoples. The competitor for this later project is not so much the colonial administration as the Catholics from the Sacred Heart Mission, whose different tactics regarding the local population posed a competitive threat to the operations of the LMS. The threat from the Roman Catholics also motivated Chalmers’ interests up the Fly River, and eastwards from Kiwai Island towards Goaribari

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Island. Chalmers was under pressure from the LMS committee to relinquish his post in Papua and return to Rarotonga. The LMS debated whether the Society ought to consolidate its activities in more profitable areas of the world (Lovett 1902, 465) and Chalmers, its most powerful advocate for the Papua New Guinea mission, was ageing and in ill health. His second wife Sarah Elizabeth Harrison died on board the Niue off Daru Island in October of 1900, and at that time the encroaching sea was rapidly engulfing their station at Saguane on Kiwai Island. Oliver Tomkins was sent out from England in the hope of relieving Chalmers of his post but upon his arrival, the veteran missionary refused to depart unless two more just like him were sent as replacements. Chalmers himself was aware that recent martyrs in China would inspire increased donations for missionary purposes in that country. “For years to come”, he wrote, “China will be first and foremost in the home churches” (qtd in Lovett 1902, 465). He used his second wife’s estate to purchase a whale boat capable of navigating the treacherous shallows of the Gulf and immediately put it to use in making his fatal contact with the Kerewo people at Dopima Village on Goaribari island. There, he and Tomkins became martyrs to the mission (discussed below) and the colonial administration were presented with an occasion to exercise their authority over the Papuans in a spectacular manner, which brought with it international attention.

Colonial Administration: British Protectorate, British-Australian Colony, Australian Territory From 1885 until 1974 the colonial administration asserted control over the Gulf by following in the footsteps of the missions and establishing stations initially in key locations along the coastal fringes, and then up along the major river systems. They developed a system of native regulations that controlled behaviour, movement, employment, taxation, and hygiene, and they developed a system of surveillance and policing utilising government patrols and village inspections by Australian patrol officers, a Papuan constabulary, village constables, and ultimately village councillors. To help advise them on “native affairs”, the administrators had initially relied on the assistance of missionaries with in-country experience. Later they enlisted anthropological expertise. The Queensland Government administered the Gulf region from the coastal stations of Kerema in the east and Daru in the west until

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1906. Thereafter the Commonwealth Government took responsibility and the station of Kikori, some 45 km upstream of Goaribari Island on the Kikori River, was added in 1912. The primary functions of these government stations varied through time, but they utilised several initiatives that sought to discipline and control the population. From these stations, colonial officers patrolled the region with the assistance of a Papuan constabulary and a network of village constables drawn from the population in situ. When a village proved consistently recalcitrant, they relocated the population into larger government settlements where they might be more efficiently monitored (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921, 61). The history of the colonial administration of Papua presented here, demonstrates how successive administrations, operating with historical agents, sought to balance an obligation to humanely protect the Papuans against pressure from the Australian Government to both develop the country, and provide a revenue stream in excess of the costs of administration to the Commonwealth. The tensions between these imperatives, and the advocacy of different interests within the colonial agencies, politicised the exchanges that took place between Hurley’s expeditions and the Peoples of the Gulf, and the colonial and Australian interpretations of those expeditions.

The Goaribari Expeditions 1901–1904 The Report on British New Guinea 1893–1894 describes a clash in Koriki (Kairu) Village in the Purari Delta, in which the colonial administration established a “necessary” initial show of force in the Gulf. The report is true to convention in carefully insisting that the extent of violence was both less than might have been expected and necessary to the establishment of authority and control. The patrol encountered “400-500 fighting men who had not hitherto been visited by a European, and believed themselves all powerful” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1893– 1894, 26). After the theft of several European axes, and an unsuccessful attempt by the patrol to negotiate for their return, the latter sought to depart the village. At this, at least one bowman (one among many who were armed) went to draw his bow and was fired upon. An exchange of shots and arrows followed, with an estimated 400 rounds fired by the patrol, which included at least eighteen armed Papuan constables. Three or four Korikis were killed (Annual Report on British New Guinea,

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1893–1894, 28) and though the patrol officer regretted the incident he considered the violence inevitable: The power of the Government has never before been displayed in the delta, and the communities there are great and powerful, and were confident in their own might. Sooner or later a trial of strength had to come. On the Government side the problem, was not only to beat the other side, but if possible to do so without loss; for whatever the final result might be, two or three casualties on the Government side would be greatly boasted of. By good luck and steadiness of the party, the event turned out as desired. (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1893–1894, 28)

Following this confrontation there appears to have been very little official government traffic to the delta for five years. In 1898 a patrol travelled from Yule Island, to Kerema, Bailala, Orokolo and then proceeded straight to Kiwai Island, bypassing the delta region altogether (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1898–1899, 5–6). Then in April of 1901, James Chalmers, Oliver Tomkins, and nine Kiwai mission students were killed on Goaribari Island by Kerewo peoples from several villages, who were assembled at Dopima Village (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901; Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea 1904). This event set in train three punitive and recuperative expeditions to Goaribari Island (May 1901, March 1902, and March 1904), to retrieve the missionaries’ remains and to punish the people directly responsible for Chalmers’ and Tomkins’ deaths. Sir George Le Hunte, the Administrator of the possession, undertook the first of the expeditions. He issued a clear set of instructions to his crew and soldiers that they were to fire only if fired upon, and that any punishment exacted should be in the form of burning down the fighting men’s dubus (longhouses) and destroying “several of the large war canoes” (Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea 1904, 12). Le Hunte was very careful in his testimony to the subsequent Royal Commission to demonstrate that he was in full control of the actions of his party, who acted only upon his orders, which were themselves derived from consultation with experienced members in his company. His determination was to meet armed opposition with force but to confine that force to the interactions with warrior men. Women, children, and other non-combatants should be exempt. His decision to burn the single men’s dubus was

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intended to make it clear to the Kerewo that the colonial administration’s revenge was directed at punishing the perpetrators of the massacre and those who sought to oppose the colonial authority with force. The expedition resulted in the deaths of approximately 34 Goaribari men (Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea 1904, 11) and the capture of a chief informant Kemeri, but it was unsuccessful in its goal of recovering the remains of the two missionaries. The second punitive expedition nine months later was also undertaken by Le Hunte who gave an undertaking to the villagers that he “would not do anything to them now” so that he could prioritise the location of the missionaries’ remains (Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea 1904, 13). He resolved to make peace with the villages except for those associated with the men identified by Kemeri as directly responsible for the murders of the missionaries. These suspects were from the villages of Dubumuba, Dopima, Bai’ia, Aidio, and others (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901, 33). Le Hunte interdicted trade with Turotere and Dopima to make it clear to the inhabitants that they had a choice between trade and protection or resistance and retribution. The skull of Chalmers was recovered on that journey, but not that of Tomkins (Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea 1904, 13, 14). The expedition seemed to have no interest at this time in recovering the remains of the missionaries’ nine Kiwai companions. Le Hunte was absent from Papua in 1903 during the critical dry months of January through to April, and thus the third expedition did not take place until 1904, this time under the command of the acting Administrator Judge C. S. Robinson, a solicitor from Queensland. Robinson’s goal was to recover Tomkins’ remains and to arrest the people responsible for the deaths because there was, according to Le Hunte, an “unpurged offence still to account for” (Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea 1904, 15). Robinson felt that he had a “duty to endeavour to complete his [Le Hunte’s] work, and to carry out the exactions of which he notified the natives, by taking prisoners and recovering if possible the heads of the victims, especially that of Mr Tomkins” (Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea 1904, 15). The ensuing “affray” that took place on Goaribari Island on the 6th of March 1904 resulted in what the subsequent Royal Commission came to consider as the unlawful arrest

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of Goaribari villagers and at least eight preventable Kerewo deaths.2 The Commission’s report determined that the expedition had behaved unethically in enticing the villagers to board the government yacht under the pretence of trading with them, when their intention was the capture of suspects. The specific failing was “a breach of confidence, and the same disregard of sanctuary” (Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea 1904, 24). The strategic error was to undertake action against the Kerewo that would be viewed by them as treacherous, and would therefore be ultimately counterproductive: To seize the opportunity given by friendly dealing in order to make an arrest, even of an actual murderer, was repugnant to [Sir George Le Hunte], and was, by his report, expressed to be so, and to be ruinous to the chance of making friends of the natives: but to carry that act so much further as to entice on board the ship a number of natives, perhaps quite innocent of the former misdeeds of their compatriots, who were not necessarily fellow-tribesman, and then to spring upon them and violently detain them, was such a grievous extension of what Sir George Le Hunte had spoken of as an act of treachery in the eyes of the natives as to appear utterly inexcusable and likely to destroy the prestige of the Government, upon which, as a sentiment, so much of its gradually-growing authority rested. (Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea 1904, 23)

Robinson’s additional intention to detain villagers for the purpose of conscripting them for training as policeman recalls the methods of the Queensland blackbirders, and the Commissioner determined that was inconsistent with the intention of the administration to avoid the mistakes of Australia’s colonial past: Your Commissioner sincerely hopes … that the now happily fading traditions of Northern Queensland, of the time when the native blacks were treated almost as noxious game, will never be revived in New Guinea: and he sincerely prays that the painfully suggestive removal by the Goaribari natives of their women and children to places of safety on the nearly inaccessible mainland, at the sight of the white man’s ship, may not be an

2 In the minutes of evidence to the subsequent Royal Commission, the Resident Magistrate in the Gulf, Mr A. H. Henry Jiear, claimed that 15 people died (Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea 1904, 50).

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omen of the rapid degradation and disappearance of their race through the white man’s alluring poison and his foul disease, introduced under the guise of so-called civilisation. (Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea 1904, 27–28)

Tomkins’ skull was ultimately retrieved in March of 1905 during a relatively peaceful administrative visit to Goaribari Island, undertaken for the purpose of returning two of the six captives taken by Robinson the year before. The Goaribari people were described as extremely wary of the government party, which “warned [them] not to take up arms against the Government in future, and to keep peace among themselves” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1904–1905, 8). Six years later, the Annual Report recorded that “The general conduct of the natives of the Division has been an improvement on past years, and, considering the recent date of the western portion having been brought under the influence of the Government, the progress made has been exceptionally good. It may be safely asserted that this Division, in so far as the coastal and Delta districts are concerned, is thoroughly under control” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1910–1911, 69). Hubert Murray, who was then Chief Administrator, recovered further skeletal remains of the missionaries during an official visit in 1908 (Murray 1912, 187; Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1907–1908, 113).

Administrative Control of Labour Once administrative control was established in Papua, the government sought to pursue development through the encouragement of European settlement and commercial investment in trade, agriculture, and mining. A regular feature of the annual reports is a detailed listing of natural resources with the potential for exploitation and profit. Commercial development required regulations to control how settler and colonial enterprises might access Papuan land and exploit Papuan labour. The attempted annexation of Eastern New Guinea by the Queensland colonial government in April 1883 corresponded with a spike in illegal recruiting of labour for the Queensland labour trade (Moore 1989, 9). In November of the following year, the Queensland Government moved to stop the practice by passing legislation that prohibited Queensland vessels from recruiting in Papuan waters (Moore 1989, 17). Protection from blackbirders was one of the services that Papuans sought when extending

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their cooperation to missionaries, prior to administration. The missionaries regarded the Papuans as fellow human beings created by God and in this, they were at odds with the small but growing population of settlers who saw the people primarily as an important source of cheap labour, necessary to the development of the country. The colonial administration tried to achieve a balance between the two positions by regulating the use of Papuan labour, while at the same time endeavouring to preserve and support village life, which they deemed essential for the health and well-being of the people. The Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of the Territory of Papua (1907) emphasised that “it cannot be too emphatically laid down that its [Papua’s] successful future depends on the preservation of the native races, for the native is one of the best assets that Papua possesses” (xiii). The early Labour Ordinance Acts of 1891–1893 corresponded with the first “tentative commercial plantings … by resident traders, government officials and missionaries” (D. C. Lewis 1996, 25). These endeavours had very little capital behind them and should not be conflated with the large, commercial enterprises that were to arrive after 1907. Anticipation of this later development prompted ordinances that opened possibilities for recruitment that were previously prohibited by the Natives Removal Prohibition Ordinance of 1888, while still attempting to protect the population from exploitation that might threaten the peace and security of the colonial possession. Ordinance No. ii of 1892 explicitly stated that “natives cannot be taken for more than 25 miles from their homes, unless they are engaged before and with the sanction of a Resident Magistrate. Within 25 miles of their homes, natives can be employed for periods not exceeding one month at a time, without the intervention of a magistrate” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1891–1892, viii). The 1892 ordinance was modified the following year to allow people to be taken “by any Christian Mission established in the Possession to any Queensland island north of the tenth degree of south latitude” for the purpose of learning English or to further the work of the Mission (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1893–1894, v). As part of this ordinance, provision was also made for the punishment of Papuans who broke their contract. Further evolution of the labour laws shows the pressure brought to bear upon the colonial administrators by both the settler population and commercial interests. Throughout 1897 and 1898 new ordinances sought to make the recruitment of Papuan labour more flexible. Recruits could be taken to any place of business in the possession

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or any Australian port as long as the employer had a bona fide place of residence or business (Ordinance No. II of 1898). At this time, recruits could also be engaged by any local magistrate or otherwise qualified person, without the intervention of the Chief Magistrate in Port Moresby or Daru (Ordinance No. II of 1897 ). In 1898 the parameters of the bona fide place of business were extended to include ports anywhere in Australia or certain islands in the Pacific, enabling shipping operators to recruit Papuan seamen. Furthermore, anyone found to be actively inducing labourers to desert their employers could be punished by law (Ordinance No. VIII of 1898) (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1897–1898, v–vi). Two years later these laws were consolidated under the Native Labour Ordinance of 1900 (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1899–1900, v). As part of the Papua Act (September 1906), which legislated the transfer of responsibility for administration from Britain to the Australian Commonwealth, the Native Labour Ordinance of 1907 removed “many of the restrictions which were considered necessary when the Ordinance of 1900 was passed”. These changes left “the employer and labourer freer to adjust their mutual relations” and labourers were free to sign on for a three-year term, rather than being limited to 12 months. They could also sign on again should they wish to do so, if the successive contracts did not exceed 4 years (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1906–1907 , 5; see also West 1968, 132). It was a system of indentured labour in which men were signed to contracts with the approval of a magistrate, who was expected to ensure that the worker understood the agreement and was willing to enter into it, and that the employer was capable of fair pay, fair treatment, and the return of the worker to their village at the expiration of the contract (West 1968, 132). Indentured labourers were confined to their allocated quarters after 9 pm and their employers were protected by legal sanctions threatening imprisonment if the indentured worker broke their contract. Hubert Murray, who was appointed acting Administrator in 1907 following the Royal Commission into the present conditions and best method of Government of Papua 1907 , sought to maintain traditional village communities by prohibiting men from taking their wives with them when they left a village for work, so that at the expiration of their contract they would be forced to return to their family. Nevertheless, the tendency for settler development to take place in areas that required relocation of significant amounts of Papuan labour from their traditional villages, tended to disperse them and to introduce European influences that undermined

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traditional cultural practices (Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua 1907, xiii). The transfer of responsibility from British to Australian administration was marked by a shift in emphasis that prioritised the development of the country through access to land and cheap labour. The Australian administration negotiated the perceived tension between development and protection by positing the value of labour and industry as substitutes for raiding, warfare, and the customs and rituals associated with them. The 1907 Royal Commission into the Present conditions of Papua expressed concern that protection had emasculated the Indigenous population by removing the need for martial endeavour and by providing improved technology that enabled subsistence living with minimum effort: “the net result of hurling him into the iron period has been to render him more effeminate, and correspondingly indolent and wanting in proper manly self-reliance” (Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua 1907, xiii). The Commissioner recommended that European settlement might be encouraged, to provide employment for the “indolent” Papuan whose reluctance to adopt the material benefits of paid employment might also be stimulated by a government tax, which would necessitate paid employment or labour in lieu of it. Murray’s intention was to reinvest the tax into the development of services to the villages (West 1968, 184), to illustrate for the villagers, the connection between paid employment and “modern” services. The Australians believed in the benefits of the bifurcated policy of protection and development, despite the potential incompatibilities and inevitable tensions inherent in it. Acting Administrator Murray, who was to become the long serving Lieutenant Governor of Papua, understood the complexities and the challenges of the policy (West 1968, 73). He also knew that if the settlers or the government ill-treated or cheated Papuans it would reduce the supply of willing labour. In 1910 and 1912 he amended the labour laws to improve accommodations, rations, and sanitary conditions for indentured labourers, and made these matters subject to inspection (West 1968, 133–135). Francis West describes some of the issues encountered by the administration in ensuring an adequate supply of Papuan labour while also protecting the culture, industry, and well-being of village life: The removal of adult males obviously reduced the village work force and thus hindered subsistence food production. … If too many left the village,

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starvation might be a danger. While they were away, ceremonial life might suffer, the remaining males might increase the number of cases of adultery with the wives left behind, although it was essential to prevent the wives accompanying their husbands because if the women left the village, the men had no incentive to return. When the labourer returned with European wealth in money or goods, he might be disruptive: contemptuous of the authority of the old men who had never been away, superior because of his knowledge of the European world. (1968, 136)

Indeed, the tensions introduced into village life by the recruitment of indentured labour are well noted in the diary Hurley kept of his own expeditions in the Gulf during the 1920s, as are his strategies of exploiting them to achieve his own commercial objectives (see Chapter 3). Murray advocated for the education and “civilization” of the Papuans as a necessary condition for development (West 1968, 156). This required increased funding from the Commonwealth to enable the administration to extend its network of stations, and to increase patrols to put an end to conflict between different Papuan tribes across the territory. This funding enabled the establishment of the station in Kikori in 1912, and the broader arguments and considerations concerning the development of the population eventually led to the appointment of a government anthropologist. Procuring men with the personal and professional qualities required to maintain Murray’s standards in dealing with the Papuans, however, was an ongoing challenge. The problem was exacerbated by the loss of experienced staff who were recruited to serve during the First World War. Indeed, in 1913 and 1914 Murray complained about the Kikori Station’s failure to effectively patrol its areas of responsibility and threatened to remove the officers responsible, and to restructure the division (West 1968, 161).

Agricultural Development: Plantations It was not until the discovery of gold on Sudest Island in August 1899 (D. C. Lewis 1996, 18) that any serious consideration was given to largescale acquisition of land beyond that of small areas for public and private purposes, established principally around the Port Moresby region. In the months following his arrival in September 1888, the British Administrator William MacGregor enacted several ordinances that restricted foreign investment, in order to protect Indigenous interests. These ordinances

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established the prima facie right of the Papuans to the ownership of their lands and closed the territory to the international recruitment of labour (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1888–1889, 6). The Crown Lands Ordinance of 1890 watered down these restrictions, however, and paved the way for settler acquisition. The Australian Government subsequently asserted the right to determine which lands were “‘waste and vacant’” (qtd in D. C. Lewis 1996, 21). In 1890, MacGregor sent prisoners to Daugo Island, off Port Moresby, to plant coconuts. The objective was to demonstrate to local Port Moresby people the utility of extending their own coconut groves (D. C. Lewis 1996, 23). The British Administrator introduced a regulation enforcing mandatory planting of coconuts throughout the possession in 1894, at which time the first sizable coconut plantation (440 acres) was also established at Dedele, Cloudy Bay. The colony was deemed “in the condition of being ready for considerable agricultural development” and, perhaps spurred by the belief that “natives are not likely alone to ever add much to the exports of the colony” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1897–1898, xliii), a range of commercial endeavours were approved from 1894–1897, which saw the planting of coffee, coconuts, and native rubber, totalling some 5000 acres (D. C. Lewis 1996, 29). In the 1897–1898 Annual Report, MacGregor laments that these efforts have “failed to attract settlers” and resolved “…to grant such facilities and inducements as may attract settlement of the kind now required” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1897–1898, xliii). He received a proposal by the newly formed British New Guinea Syndicate of London to allow settlers access to Crown lands, and in 1898 passed an ordinance that enabled the activity “not exceeding … two hundred and fifty thousand acres in area” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1897–1898, vi). Following agitation by Theodore Bevan, the Queensland Government, followed by the New South Wales and Victorian Governments, opposed the initiative. A conference between MacGregor’s successor George Le Hunte and the Queensland and New South Wales Governments the following year, determined that any grants over 6,400 acres should be approved by the colonial governments, and that no grants over 50,000 acres were to be made at all (D. C. Lewis 1996, 32). By 1906, 353,614 acres of land had been purchased from Papuans with 22,099 acres allotted to settlers, including missions (D. C. Lewis 1996, 40). When the sale of freehold land was prohibited under the Papua Act of

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1906, laws around acquisition of land were revised to accommodate the new policy (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1906–1907 , 5). In 1903 Miles Staniforth Smith, a Western Australian senator who developed a significant interest in British New Guinea, conducted an “investigatory tour” that produced a series of opinions concerning the economic development (among other things) of the possession (D. C. Lewis 1996, 56). These included the notion that “each magisterial and assistant magisterial district” should enlarge the residencies’ gardens “into small model farms or nurseries, where all the trees, plants, and valuable vegetable products suitable for the soil and climate of that district could be planted” (Smith 1903, 21). Three years later, Smith tabled a report to the Australian Parliament that expanded on some of these ideas, having returned from an investigative visit to Java, the Straits settlements, and the Federated Malay States (D. C. Lewis 1996, 57). The report recommended that government plantations of rubber and coconuts “be worked near the sea level in conjunction with the experimental stations [nurseries]” using prison labour (Smith 1906, 62–63). He argued that the 4000 Papuans already in indentured mine and portage labour “will much more readily accept service for plantation work, as they are accustomed to agricultural pursuits, and prefer clearing scrub and planting to any other work” (Smith 1906, 67). Smith’s interest in the territory saw him appointed as Director of Agriculture, Mines, and Public Works in September 1906, with a directive to enact those policies outlined in his Report on the Federated States of Malay and Java (D. C. Lewis 1996, 59). He later became a political rival and chief competitor with Murray for the position of Chief Administrator, and the men’s respective positions in the colonial administration personalised the political tensions between development and protection (West 1968, 71–72, 108). Prime Minister Alfred Deakin became concerned with Chief Administrator F. R. Barton’s apparent hostility towards white settlement3 and established a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Method of Government of the Territory of Papua, which handed down its report in February 1907. Barton was considered “so constituted that he cannot deal always impersonally with public matters incidentally vitally affecting the rights, privileges, and prospects of those under him” (lxv). Judge Hubert 3 The details of this concern are not pertinent here but relate to the perception that there was obstruction of the timely processing of land grant applications (D. C. Lewis 1996, 62–66).

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Murray, the Chief Judicial Officer at the time who was an important witness before the Commission of Inquiry, was appointed acting Administrator in Barton’s stead and later became the longstanding Australian Lieutenant Governor from 1909–1940. According to his biographer, Murray discerned a split in Barton’s public service between British Colonial Office appointments who favoured protection, which Barton himself favoured, and Australian appointments who pushed for development, which he did not: “To Murray Barton seemed a very nice fellow whose chief idea was to preserve the territory as an old curiosity shop of native life and to keep Australians from coming into it” (West 1980, 63). The Royal Commission therefore insisted that the “right kind of white man can be induced to settle [in Papua] and wake its dormant possibilities” and that “the question of importing coloured labour need never arise, owing to the plentiful local supply” ( Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua 1907, xii), which “is one of the best assets that Papua possesses” (xiii). The Commissioners “suggest the encouragement of white settlement as one of the surest and most practical methods of arresting the present indolent, apathetic state into which Government protection is sinking a race capable of a more useful and worthy destiny” (xiii). The report emphasised the worth of government plantations (xxiii) and recommended that recruitment of labour be transacted through a government agency (xxx). This foreshadowed the implementation of policy (mentioned above), which used taxation to compel Papuans to labour on village plantations intended to develop a local industry, the proceeds of which, both tax revenue and sales, were to be returned to the Papuans as an investment in their education and development. Some seven years following the Royal Commission, soon after the government station at Kikori was established, a 150-acre plantation was cleared on the station and planted with sweet potatoes, coconuts, nuts, bananas, pineapples, and other fruits including lime trees. At the same time, an A. D. Williams leased 300 acres four miles north of the station (Ogomobu coconut plantation), while the LMS leased 100 acres “on the Kikori River”, also for the purpose of establishing a coconut plantation and “600 acres of land on Aird Hill” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1913–1914, 96–97). The latter was in the territory of the Porome people, which would draw significant Kerewo migration following World War 2. Di Rosa (2018, 188) claims that tensions between the two tribes here ultimately led to the decline of LMS influence amongst the Kerewo and

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enabled the entry of the Seventh Day Adventists. While the Ogamobu and government plantations were the only successful plantations in the Delta Division at this time, the number across Papua rose from 76 in 1908 to 259 in 1922. Their further expansion was subsequently set back, however, by a collapse in the price of copra and rubber, the application of an Australian Navigation Act preventing direct exports from the Territory, and competition amongst the carriers (D. C. Lewis 1996, 105; West 1968, 188–189).

Systems of Surveillance: Law and Order, Health and Hygiene Governor MacGregor saw a need for an armed native constabulary when he arrived in the colony in 1888. At the time there existed a “heterogeneous collection of foreigners and local Papuans” who formed something of a police force, but who were untrained, and had little official legal power (Dutton 1985, 63). Ordinance No. I of 1890 established the constabulary, and a fledgling force of two Fijians and twelve Solomon Islanders were subsequently joined by Papuans (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1889–1890, 6; Dutton 1985, 64). In the early iteration of the armed constabulary, the principal source of recruits were the prisons, which were established under Ordinance No. V of 1889 and situated at the government stations. This same ordinance also established the Prison Rules for the treatment and punishment of prisoners (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1889–1890, 5). Prisons dealt principally with people convicted of murder, unlawful wounding, rape, manslaughter, sedition, receiving stolen goods, extortion as a constable, larceny, robbery, adultery, witchcraft/sorcery, and goal break. Incarceration was seen to provide an opportunity to instil a knowledge of and respect for the values held by the Colonial Government, however, and so prison was considered “an industrial reformatory rather than a house of correction”, and a logical source of recruitment for the constabulary (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1894–1895, 28). The position of Village Constable was established in 1892 under Native Regulation No. 1 to address the perceived need to gain and maintain government control at a local village level. A local magistrate appointed the constable, who was usually not one of the existing chiefs (as the government perceived their authority as limited), and charged him with maintaining peaceable conditions in the village and throughout the region

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in which they lived ( Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua 1907, xli). The principal concern of the government was to have oversight in areas such as the Western Division where patrols were infrequent ( Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua 1907, xlii). Annual patrols were usually conducted by the Resident Magistrate accompanied by an armed constabulary, but they were limited in scope by factors such as transport, accessibility, proximity to the government station, and a history or lack thereof of amenable established relations. The administration saw in the village constable a member of the village community who might represent the government, though they later added a Village Councillor when they realised that such an officer could not also represent the will of the village. By 1907 prison recruitment was largely superseded and recruits were “chiefly obtained direct from the various tribes” (Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua 1907, xl). At this time the constabulary consisted of 160 men whom, while “welldrilled” (xl) were nevertheless considered as “inadequate to meet the requirements of reasonable safety” (Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua 1907, xli). This was a pressing concern, as the encouragement of white settlement in the interests of colonial development necessitated the provision of security for the immigrant population (Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua 1907, xiii). The commissioners felt that if there was a “native rising”, a lack of an adequate constabulary would carry serious implications for remote stations and the people who may “retire” there, in the event of such an uprising (xli). Although Goaribari Island, as noted above, had several government incursions after the murder of Chalmers and Tomkins in 1901, Urama Island to the east of Goaribari Island, was not visited by Europeans until February of 1909. In his memoir, Murray describes the Uraman’s reputation as “ferocious giants, with pigs the size of ponies” but notes that “on acquaintance they proved to be less formidable” (Murray 1912, 185; see also Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1908–1909, 88). His Commissioners of Inquiry asserted that it was easier and more efficient for “unsettled Divisions” to “be pacified and kept under observation than … waiting until a district had got out of hand” ( Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua 1907, xli). The Kikori Station began operation in February of 1912 to address the gap between the patrol areas of Daru and

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Kerema Stations, an area that was proclaimed the Delta Division in March of 1913 (Hope 1979, 43). This development brought the Gulf people, and specifically those of the Delta Division, into swift and regular contact with government regulations that, though active from the late 1880s, were largely unknown in this region. Murray noted that “As regards the pacification of the natives the principal event has been the establishment of the station on the Kikori River… [which] has the effect of bringing practically the whole of the coastline under control. The waters of the Kikori run into the Gulf of Papua between the Purari and Turama Rivers; the Turama could be reached from Daru and the Purari from Kerema, but there has hitherto been a gap which was patrolled only by means of yearly visits of the Merrie England” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1911–1912, 10). Typically, a resident magistrate and a patrol officer staffed the Kikori Station. During World War One many commissioned officers enlisted and as a result the Lieutenant Governor lost “nearly half of the whole service” and many of his best men (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1916–1917 , 5). When circumstances improved, however, the staff were supplemented by an assistant resident magistrate and a range of other officers such as a sergeant, a lance corporal, and armed constables. In addition to exploratory patrols, the patrol officers and armed constables were responsible for carrying out regular patrols to villages in the region, to ensure compliance with the stipulations of the Native Regulation Board. A prison was established at Kikori Station under the Prisons Ordinance of 1889 (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1911–1912, 55) and the prisoners there supplied much of the labour for public works projects conducted by Kikori Station. Time-expired prisoners, now with an expanded and more detailed experience of the colonial territory, were returned to their home villages by the station patrol officers. The health and hygiene of the village populations were also of considerable concern to the administration, being “intimately connected with the question of the labour supply” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1911–1912, 8). The appointment of a Chief Medical Officer in 1911– 1912, whose job it was to analyse the various divisional health reports, reflected this growing concern. Considerable attention was given to documenting diseases that might result in more catastrophic epidemics, such as dysentery (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1910–1911, 154). Venereal diseases were also feared, and possessed the added burden of moral concern. In the 1915–16 Annual Report, the acting Chief Medical

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Officer described venereal disease as “the trouble which most seriously threatens the native population” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1915–1916, 38) because it was difficult to eradicate, such efforts being “hampered by the social customs and conditions which exist among the people” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1913–1914, 95). Intestinal worms were also identified as endemic, and preventative measures to protect the population were outlined at some length by the newly appointed Chief Medical Officer (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1914–1915, 154–158); for example, patrol officers were responsible for instructing the villagers to erect “latrines in suitable places over the water and to see that they were used by all the people” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1920–1921, no. 2, 5). These instructions met with varying degrees of success and villagers who did not comply were sometimes jailed at Kikori. It is not clear to what extent these health problems existed previously, although dysentery and venereal disease likely increased at colonial contact. Widespread intertribal warfare and ritualised headhunting was largely suppressed by around 1912, and thereafter there was more regular contact between groups that had been previously hostile to one another (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1910–1911, 69). After a “venereal inspection” in the Delta Division in July 1921, it was reported that “venereal disease was spreading rapidly amongst the Purari Delta Villages apparently through the intimacy which has sprung up of recent years between the Goaribaris and the Purari Villages”. The resident magistrate subsequently forbade “any such visits to be made in the future” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1920–1921, no. 2, 5). The Goaribari people’s reputation for “immorality” is observed in Hurley’s diary where he also describes their attempts to “prostitute” women amongst the crew of his boat (Hurley 1922–1923, 4 January). The Rockefeller-funded researcher Sylvester M. Lambert (1942, 64) also noted that “The hookworm infestation was probably much less general in the old days of unchecked cannibalism and warfare” and opined that “It was spreading [because the] Goaribaris no longer hunt each other openly, and they do a great deal of visiting around” (see also Lambert 1942, 53). Having created the conditions under which disease could spread through the Papuan population, the colonial administration then embarked on a range of scientific programs to contain it. Western Science offered new strategies for combatting the perceived moral and ideological corruption implicated in poor health. In 1911 Chief Medical Officer

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F. Goldsmith made a series of recommendations, among which was a plea for Papua to participate in emerging international health science research programs. He also wanted to “establish a bacteriological laboratory for the proper investigation of the various diseases peculiar to tropical climates and conditions”. A “white wardsman” was considered “necessary…to see that affairs are progressing as they should” and “an incinerator … required for the disposal of dysenteric motions and other rubbish and garbage likely to cause infection” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1910–1911, 155). Five years later, Special Medical Officer Strong, who later became the first government anthropologist, observed that “During recent years there has been an increasing tendency to ascribe the ‘inertia’ of the tropics to … infection with one or other of the intestinal worms … Complaints of laziness among natives are by no means uncommon in Papua, and I have long thought that agchylostomiasis might in part explain the same” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1914–1915, 154). Collection, analysis and documentation of bodily samples such as faecal matter was considered “an excellent antidote to poisons generated by the tropical environment and by a weak disposition” (Fabian 1990, 346). During 1917–1918 the medical officer for the “western parts of the territory”, Dr Boag, made his headquarters at Kikori in an effort to bring venereal disease “under control” and an oil launch was made available to him (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1917–1918, 51). Early in 1918 a hospital was built at Kikori Station and staffed by Papuan administrators. Lambert, the research scientist, visited Papua in 1921 as part of the Rockefeller Foundation-assisted Australian Hookworm Campaign (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921, 102). He and his six European assistants aimed to do a complete survey of Papua to document the prevalence and spread of the disease, which represented the first such survey of the Delta Division (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1918–1919, 92).4 Lambert found that both the plantations and the villages were heavily infected, and he reported that “intensive control measures … were impractical, if not impossible, in Papua” because of the “impossible expenditure of money” required and “the constantly shifting labour of the indenture system”, which resulted in “natives travelling from 4 A Dr Waite of New York had previously been to Papua for a similar purpose in 1917, but he restricted his activities to the Moresby region (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1918–1919, 92).

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one end of the Territory to the other” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921, 109). Lambert placed the onus firmly back on the administration for the development of what he called a “A Special Plan”: Papua is so highly infected with hookworm disease that it can never be eradicated or controlled till the native has been brought up through the stages that intervene between the Stone Age in which he lives and that in which we live and still battle for better sanitation. It will not take him so long to evolve as it has the white man, because he has the white man’s guidance. (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921, 109)

As indicated previously, the colonial administration sought to regulate Papuan bodies in the name of prevention, thereafter instructing and policing villagers in the erection of latrines and the disposal of rubbish (e.g., Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1920–1921, no. 2, 5). People in the neighbouring Purari Delta were also encouraged to create new villages to reduce the density of people living with human waste. This tendency to “segregate” the population increased the workload of the administration, but it was considered necessary for the health of the people (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921, 61). Controlling the movement and location of people in the landscape was of concern to the government for several other reasons. The tendency to spend months at a time away in the komobatis or camps, where people would base themselves while hunting or making sago, was seen to “increase the difficulties in enforcing Native Regulations in villages of this district” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1918–1919, 21). These absences resulted in “unkempt and deserted” villages and were construed by the authorities as a desire to avoid the work being asked of them by the government “seeing that the whole of the surrounding country is equally as swampy and uninviting as are the villages” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1921–1922, 50). The administration made it compulsory for people to “remain in their village for four days at every new moon and during that time they were expected to attend to the cleaning of the village, repairing platforms and fences, and any other work required to be done” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1921–1922, 50). Settlement in and around Kikori Station was also encouraged for logistical purposes, the additional people also being “of great use to the station in many ways, especially when canoes are wanted for patrols” (Papua: Annual

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Report for the Year 1914–1915, 86). The establishment of the hospital in 1918 consolidated Kikori Station as something of a focal point and it continued to attract people, slowly reducing the population of the coastal villages in the delta. Law and order were also a justification for relocating people because higher numbers of “serious crimes” were documented in those areas that were not regularly patrolled (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921, 61). The government was therefore invested in bringing people together in larger villages and in closer proximity to the government station.

“Understanding the Native”: Salvation, Science, Governance Colonial administrators came to understand that if they were to ensure the health and well-being, as well as the prosperity of the Papuan peoples, then they would have to develop a more effective understanding of their customs and values. Early in the colonial history of Papua New Guinea, prior to sustained contact in the Gulf Province, Lieutenant Governor Sir William MacGregor used selected material submitted as the Annual Reports on British New Guinea5 to compile a publication called British New Guinea: Country and People (MacGregor 1897). MacGregor’s somewhat ground-breaking descriptions of the Papuan people were followed by further accounts in Lieutenant Governor Murray’s Papua or British New Guinea (1912), F. E. Williams’ The Natives of the Purari Delta (1924), Lewis’ Ethnology of Melanesia (1932), Haddon’s Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits (1935), and some specialised descriptions of particular cultural aspects of the Gulf region (e.g., Haddon 1918; Holmes 1902a, b, 1905, 1913; A. B. Lewis 1931). There was a range of memoir-style publications by missionaries and government officers with an interest in ethnographic descriptions (Beaver 1920; Butcher 1963; Chalmers 1887, 1895; Chalmers and Gill 1885; Holmes 1924, 1926; Riley 1925) and photography also became an important part of this documentation and representation of the possession. Bell (2005) describes the work of 18 photographers whose work in 5 The reports themselves were only somewhat concerned with ethnographic descriptions, being otherwise focused on documenting the development of legislation, noting expenditure, describing visits of inspection, cataloging natural resources, detailing exploration, and the like.

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the Gulf between 1890 and 1930 is collected in the Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology’s Papuan Gulf photographic collection. These include Chinnery, E.W.P., Hurley, Frank and de Rautenfeld, Paul on Urama Island in 1916, 1922, and 1925, respectively; and Barton, Resident Magistrate G. O. Manning, Landtman, A. C. Haddon and Kathleen Haddon, Frank Hurley, and de Rautenfeld on Goaribari Island in 1905, 1907, 1912, 1914, 1922, and 1925 respectively. MacGregor’s 1897 account is a broad natural history and cultural description of the colony prior to systematic government contact with people in the Kikori River Delta. In describing the people of British New Guinea, MacGregor first tackles the people’s “race and personal character” before proceeding to various practices, all of which he perceives as a product of the people’s “evolutionary position”. He moves from these descriptions to a depiction of socio-political traits that is characterised by his paternalistic view of the ways that the putative naïve and childlike emotions of the Papuans overdetermined their encounters, particularly those which included violence. MacGregor’s identification of different Papuan peoples is codified by their skin tone, and he notes that “The darkest people are confined to the Gulf and Fly estuary. Inland tribes at the British-German boundary, at the centre of the island, are of a light bronze; the Tugeri, the tribes on the Morehead, at Biroe on the upper Purari, and those near Kovio … are much the same colour as the dark brown of Port Moresby; on Mount Knutsford in the Owen Stanley Range, on Mount Maneao, and up the rivers of the northeast coast, the colour is about the same. Only in the Gulf and near the Fly estuary is the blackest population met with” (MacGregor 1897, 28). Phrases such as “Good high foreheads” and “deficits of the chest and legs” are also typical of the Administrator’s attempts to physically assess the subjects of his administration (e.g., MacGregor 1897, 28, 29). The Gulf people are also linked to a trope of the “particularly primitive” by Bevan, who talks about them as being “dark bronze” and “almost entirely nude. Though with well-nourished and muscular frames, yet their retreating foreheads and heavy eyebrows gave them a sinister expression” (Bevan 1887, 602). Of people encountered in the mouth of the Kikori River, Jukes remarks that “Their faces had a general resemblance to those of the islanders; but they seemed more ugly, and had a more fierce and savage looking expression of countenance” (Jukes 1847a, 279). Referring to the people of Maipua Village, Governor Murray records that “The inhabitants are of a dark-brown colour, verging sometimes upon

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black, and present the usual Semitic type of the Western Papuan, though not to so marked a degree as the inhabitants of Goaribari or Kiwai” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1907–1908, 10). Considerably later, he combines tropes of race, primitivism, and romanticism in describing the Gulf region: To the west of Cape Possession, there lives a very different race from the Papuo-Melanesians of the Mekeo plain – a darker, stronger race, armed with the bow and arrow instead of the spear and club, and speaking a Papuan language. On rounding the Cape one feels that one has come into a different land – a land of huge club-houses, full of strange masks and figures used for ceremonies of which white men know nothing, in which the youth of the community are taught to assume the responsibilities of manhood. (Murray 1912, 167)

Papuan cannibalism and headhunting fascinated those writing about the Kikori Delta following the 1901 killing of the LMS missionaries. Prior to that, MacGregor was adamant in his defence of the virtues of the people in the face of allegations of cruelty and cannibalism. In 1897 (45) he notes that “Beneficent people visiting and working among coloured races are often ludicrously keen in looking out for cases of cannibalism and female infanticide”. He regards such views as “an unjust reflection on the race” and opines that “If to be a cannibal means being an eater of human flesh, I know of no such practice among the Papuans” (MacGregor 1897, 76). He considers the skulls found in the Kiwai villages in the Fly estuary, for example, as “trophies” and nothing more (MacGregor 1897, 76). MacGregor is also accepting of other practices: “when [selfinflicted violence] does take place, it is, as a rule, the outcome of one of the strongest and best characteristics of the race – from affection” and “in certain circumstances murder, deliberately planned and ruthlessly executed, is, according to their code of ethics, a conspicuous virtue, a moral duty” (1897, 33). The British Administrator denies that the people are “treacherous, aggressive, bloodthirsty, and cruel” (MacGregor 1897, 33–34), and he uses the trope of childlike immaturity to claim that it is natural timidity and suspicion that makes the Papuans likely to draw weapons on strangers for “they are not by any means a naturally cruel people” (33). Where perceived cruelty is present, he likens the perpetrators to “white children” who “are sometimes thoughtlessly cruel” but “that they are so naturally can hardly be believed by anyone that has

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seen their touching tenderness of heart” (MacGregor 1897, 34; see also Nakata 2014, 195–196). When the government had cause to descend upon Goaribari Island four years later to investigate the disappearance of the LMS missionaries, Governor Le Hunte superseded MacGregor’s humanitarian appreciation of duty, timidity, and suspicion with a sterner diagnosis of treachery and defiance6 (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901, xvii). He regarded headhunting as a practice incompatible with humane civilisation and a threat to the political and commercial stability of the colony. Le Hunte sought to discourage the practice with a tactical show of greater force so that the people could be “civilized” and the territory developed. The abolition of this complex cultural practice was viewed as a measure of the government’s success in their attempts to bring the region under control, just as it had been a marker of the progress of the LMS’s evangelical program (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1912–1913, 7). Le Hunte’s determination to respond aggressively to any sign of resistance from the Kerewo is represented as a change of strategy from that putatively inherited from the early explorers who used “every effort to conciliate the natives and avoid collision, even refraining from retaliation of dangerous attacks as many a time our officers and men have bravely done” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901, 27). Le Hunt’s aggressive defence was justified as a response to what he perceived as treachery and cruelty: I gave orders that we were not to begin hostilities, but that directly the natives began to fire their arrows at us we should return it with rifle fire at once, and that on no account if they called out “peace” … was any answer to be given, as I had no intention of misleading them as to the nature of our visit … I had come to meet face to face a cruel set of savages, who, we were now satisfied, had committed a treacherous massacre of a defenceless and peaceful party of white man and native whom they had invited ashore. (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901, 27)

At the same time, however, he was careful to acknowledge a certain culpability on behalf of the government for failing to make a planned

6 That is not to say that terms such as “defiance” had not been previously used (e.g., Jukes 1847a, 268).

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visit to the region in the year prior to the ill-fated visit of the missionaries: “for had that taken place they would certainly have visited Goaribari before the Mission party went there, and in all human probability the massacre would not have happened” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901, xvii). He also carefully notes, in a statement that reminds us of the LMS missionary Holmes’ rivalry with the administration, that in a region that “is as yet untouched or brought under administrative control” and notwithstanding “Mr. Chalmers’ marvellous personality and control of savage natives, it was a great risk – and not humanly speaking a necessary one – for an unarmed party to go there until the Government had had some better knowledge of the people” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901, 27). No doubt Le Hunte felt the need to justify colonial violence lest it be seen as a consequence of poor management, and his account of the retaliatory visits to Goaribari Island pre-empted a number of potential criticisms. He conceded that his party were under a degree of time pressure, having to leave ahead of the southeast trade winds and that those unfamiliar with the conditions “would no doubt jump to the conclusion that the work had been carried out with unnecessary haste” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901, xvii). This expedition to Goaribari Island in April 1901 is a significant turning point in the government’s understanding of ritualised headhunting in the Kikori River region. Le Hunte refers to Jukes’ earlier description from 1847 and observes that “The most curious objects were fantastically carved, and painted figures fastened to a sort of seat with dozens of skulls, some of them carved and painted, in front of them … there were hundreds of these skulls before numerous figures, which we take to be idols of some kind, in all the dubus” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901, 28). In keeping with MacGregor’s view, however, there does not appear to be any assumption in the dispatch made by the captain of the Niue or in that from Governor Le Hunte, that Chalmers, Tomkins, and the nine mission students were eaten. Cannibalism was only raised when the captured eyewitness, Kemeri, made his statement to the party and told them that they were not only eaten, but that the “pieces were divided among people from the various villages” and “handed … over to the women to cook, which they did, mixing the flesh with sago” (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901, 33). Six years earlier Chalmers himself had described in some detail the practice of cannibalism within the Namau district, specifically at Maipua

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in the Purari River Delta, which appears to be the most easterly extent of his headhunting observations in the Gulf (Chalmers 1895, 99). He provides significant detail regarding some ritualised elements of the practice, including an origin story (Chalmers 1895, 104–106; see also Holmes 1924, 192–193), and he considers that the “splendid temple” (longhouse) indicates that “although my new friends are cannibals, yet it goes to show that they are something beyond the mere wild savage; might I call them ‘cannibal semi-civilised savages?’” (104). Chalmers’ observations form part of a corpus of travel writing for a popular audience, which Barker (1996, 109) refers to as “propaganda”. Its purpose was to secure support and funding from the missionary societies and encourage recruitment. For the missionaries, however, there was always a delicate balance required between representing the Papuans on the one hand as dangerous and in need of civilisation, and on the other as meritorious and worthy of salvation. Of the two potential “civilizing” forces of “civilisation” and Christianity, missionaries such as Chalmers and McFarlane firmly denounced the former. “Nowhere have I seen our boasted civilisation civilising”, Chalmers writes, “but everywhere have I seen Christianity acting as the true civilizer” (qtd. in Lennox 1902, 142). According to Chalmers, it was western civilisation that posed the threat to the Papuan people’s ultimate salvation: “savages …are not [immoral] when compared with the more highly civilised countries of the world. I am sorry to have to say that it is contact with the civilised white that demoralises them, and they then become loose and immoral” (qtd. in Lennox 1902, 143). Chalmers insisted that if Papuan people were well-taught and granted autonomy, then “a more suitable and better civilization [would] be theirs” (qtd. in Lennox 1902, 142). This view was not uniformly nor even widely shared within the LMS. Chalmers’ experience in the South Seas and in Papua led him to champion a form of Christian evangelism that interwove a Christian code and an independent Indigenous society, leaving them otherwise unmolested as a sovereign people who might autonomously develop a new and completely unique Christian order (Barker 1996, 118). The prevailing thinking of the colonial administration, however, was firmly entrenched in cultural evolutionism, and the darker-skinned Gulf peoples were viewed as beneath the lighter-skinned people in the eastern part of the island (Langmore 1989, 16–21). Successful governance of the Papuans would therefore require, it was thought, a surgical

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replacement of the “savage” aspects of their culture with “modern” alternatives. Christianity was only one part of that program, as the intertribal raiding associated with headhunting and cannibalism was also putatively replaced by labour, which was deemed necessary for less “effeminate” independence (Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua 1907, xiii) and colonial development. A close association developed between missionaries and anthropologists at the Royal Anthropological Institute (Barker 1996, 110) and several LMS missionaries published their own ethnographic observations. Both Holmes and Riley (Barker 1996, 119; Langmore 1989, 112) are credited as ethnographers for their work in the Gulf region, the former for In Primitive New Guinea (1924), and the latter for Among Papuan Headhunters (1925). Holmes, however, felt the need to apologise for his interest in the social lives of the people he worked amongst, stating “…at the cost of disappointment to many old friends, I have deliberately endeavoured to portray the Papuans I have known as they regarded themselves. Their views of life do not lack a philosophy which was intelligible to them. I do not endorse them, neither do I condemn them. I have set them down as I got to know them with the hope that they may prove a helpful contribution to the growing bibliography of an intensely interesting people” (Holmes 1924, Preface). Chalmers was also frequently sought after by scientific societies, who wished to engage him in scientific expeditions in search of new country and new peoples. However, his responses to these requests make a point of prioritising his work for God in the interests of human salvation, over the work of science which had more material objectives, associated with a more personal form of fame and profit (Lovett 1902, 425, 430). Prior to his 1924 publication of In Primitive New Guinea, Holmes published (at Haddon’s invitation) a more focused series of reports on language, totemism, initiation ceremonies, and religion in the region (Holmes 1902a, b, 1905, 1913; see also Bell 2013, 60; Langmore 1989, 111). Both Holmes and Riley (1925) describe forms of religious life in some detail, which they posited as a somewhat repressive basis for social order (see Barker 1996, 119). This position was part of a growing tendency to regionalise and differentiate between peoples based on custom, which had not hitherto been credited as an organisational force. Goaribari Island hosted an anthropologist for the first time when A. B. Lewis visited to collect cultural items in 1912, and for a second time

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when A. C. Haddon and his daughter Kathleen went there in 1914. The Haddons’ visits to this island produced several publications (e.g., Haddon 1918, 1923), Kathleen Haddon’s unpublished account An English Girl in New Guinea, and a substantial collection of photographs and material culture. The work undertaken on Goaribari Island, and indeed in the Gulf region generally, was grounded in cultural evolutionism and was principally concerned with documenting a “Neolithic” way of life before it disappeared (Bell 2005, 176; McNiven 2021; see, for example, Haddon 1901, 220). Attending these goals was the meticulous, comprehensive, and putatively scientific documentation of physical types, both of people and material culture items (Edwards 2000). These primitivistic representations of the “living past” and the “savage” ideals associated with them were codified in ways that neglected the localised cultural contexts, and the colonial entanglements in which we are interested. Hurley would also use the trope of a vanishing neolithic way of life to justify his own sensational representations of the Papuan peoples and his collection of their material culture, but despite the scientific pretensions of his expedition, he would neglect the anthropologists’ methods of documentation. Governor Murray was familiar with the work of anthropologists C. G. Seligman, A. C. Haddon, and W. H. R. Rivers, and in 1916 he sought permission to appoint a government anthropologist “with a view to reconciling native opinion with native development” (West 1968, 210). His interest in using anthropology to manage the development of the Papuan population, however, was not necessarily compatible with the interests of the anthropologists who wanted to preserve and document a “superseded moment” of human development in the service of a science. Murray argued that the preservation of the health and well-being of the Indigenous population was a necessary condition for the achievement of the goals of colonial development (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920, 104–111), and that therefore the Australian Administration could not simply substitute Christianity, sport, or labour for what they saw as undesirable local customs. In support of this view, he quoted Dr W. H. R. Rivers who argued that “the customs we regard as wrong or foolish are often so intimately interwoven with others of an indisputedly (sic) useful kind that they cannot be abolished without destroying or greatly impairing the efficiency of the whole organisation”, and that “any reform should be carried out in such a way as to preserve the good which is associated with the bad” (qtd. in Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921, 9).

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Thus F. E. Williams, the assistant government anthropologist from 1922 and principal anthropologist from 1928, was tasked with acquiring an understanding of Indigenous culture and custom, and of the functional interplay between them, so that colonial intervention might modify Indigenous behaviour without damaging the beliefs and practices that gave life meaning and purpose. Williams, however, came to see the preservation of customs and rituals as an essential part of Papuan well-being and believed that the government and missionary preference for Christian dogma over traditional ritual failed to adequately address the important role that ceremony played in Papuan life (Griffiths 1977, 141–151). “One might suggest”, he wrote, “that the Christianity that would succeed among the natives would be with a minimum of perplexing doctrine, but full of sacrifice, communion feasts, baptism by immersion, processions, pageants, fastings, flagellations”7 (Williams qtd. in Schwimmer 1976, 378). With the possible exception of Chalmers and perhaps Lawes, the LMS and other Protestant missionary ventures were seen as driven by religious dogma at the expense of more practical forms of education and communication. The Catholic missionaries, however, were often exempted from this generalised view, because of their more tolerant and pragmatic approach. Chalmers, for example, commented on how the long services of the LMS in comparison with the shorter Catholic Mass, and the London Missionary Society’s insistence on forbidding work on the Sabbath, put them at a disadvantage (Chalmers 1898). Williams also held strong views on Papuan material culture. In The Collection of Curios and the Preservation of Native Culture (Williams 1923a, 2) he outlines two ways that material culture items can be distinguished as scientific specimens, from the “curio interest” and the “art interest”. In keeping with the likes of Lewis and Haddon, he acknowledged the ethnographical significance of objects, the comparison of which “will reveal the significant resemblances and differences which are at once the problems and data of ethnology” (Williams 1923a, 3). His insistence on the “technological and psychological” (4) values of scientific specimens, however, represents a departure from his scientific colleagues. In this formulation, Williams references the “general value in illustrating native modes of action and reasoning” (4). This attention to the localised 7 Originally printed as F.E. Williams (1923b) “The Vailala Madness and the Destruction of Native Ceremonies in the Gulf Division”, Territory of Papua, Anthropology Report, no. 4, Port Moresby, Government Printer.

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social and cosmological realms of Gulf society is commensurate with the overall objectives of the government anthropologist, and it represents a departure from Haddon’s approach to the “Stuffed Human Heads” (1923) for example, which is entirely based on a decontextualised empirical description of morphological attributes, as is his treatment of the “Agiba Cult of the Kerewo” (Haddon 1918). Williams notes that “there is a queer notion … that stuffed and mummified heads are exceptionally ‘anthropological.’ If they are, indeed, it is only because they may supply a clue to something further, a possibly complex mortuary ritual, of which, however, at present we know nothing” (Williams 1923a, 4). Thus, the form of ethnography that Williams undertook was aimed at systematically representing “social, aesthetic, and magic-religious activities” (Williams 1923a, 5) which was partly directed, if not motivated, by the needs of governance. Murray set out his own thoughts on the relationship between governance and anthropology in an address to the Science Congress in Melbourne in 1921.8 He begins this address by identifying Papuans as an “inferior” race, a “different colour from ourselves” and specifying this inferiority as an “incapacity for self-government” based upon a lack of “nationality or patriotism” associated with a lesser ability in “subordinating individual interests to those of the general body” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920, 104). Though making it clear that no colonial power had been motivated to take on the “white man’s burden” in the interests of subject peoples, he nevertheless advanced his view that what distinguishes British and Australian colonialism from the European powers is its insistence that governance needs to be conducted in the best interests of the subject peoples. The fundamental distinction for Murray, which he traces back to the impeachment in the 1780s and 90s of Warren Hastings, the Governor General of India, is whether subject peoples are to be considered “as a means to an end or as an end in themselves” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920, 104). The first position is a justification of slavery, while the second is the basis for the British view that the benefits of the colonised people ought to be one of the first objectives of any colonial administration. Lest anyone suspect Murray of hypocrisy, he is also quick to point out that this humanitarian view is “accepted and greeted with applause everywhere throughout the Empire, except in

8 Printed in 1921 in the Papua: Annual Report 1919–1920, 104–111.

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those countries where it is supposed to be carried into effect” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920, 105). Murray deems the British view as “the only one that is worthy of a civilized nation” regardless of its unpopularity amongst settler-colonial populations, and most importantly “the only attitude that can be considered scientific”, by which he means “reconcilable with the principles of anthropology or ethnology” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920, 105). The ethnographic problem for Murray is how to “raise” the Indigenous population to the level of the coloniser; a problem he conceives of in terms of class mobility. He understands the “native” more as ignorant than unpredictable, and concludes that it is therefore better to govern “indirectly” by using ethnology to conserve “such of those customs as appear to be useful or even harmless, and to make use of them, so far as may be, as an instrument of good government” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920, 106). He perceives his central challenge as discouraging customs such as cannibalism and headhunting, without interfering with the rituals and customs that are responsible for providing the people with a sense of human purpose and social connection. The proposed government anthropologist’s “chief value will be to help us in reconciling an intelligent, though very backward, race to the inevitable march of civilization, and in finding the easiest way for its advance” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920, 111). In the Annual Report following that which reprinted Murray’s lecture to the Science Congress, he includes an extract from an article by the anthropologist Dr W. H. R. Rivers, which endorses his position by linking the sustainable supply of Papuan labour to the ethnographic understanding and administrative protection of their way of life. According to Rivers the “dying-out of the native races depends in the main on [their] loss of interest in life” and this malaise is attributable to “the injudicious and indiscriminating way in which native beliefs and customs have been treated by white men whether official, missionary or trader” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921, 9). Only by understanding “far more completely … the complex web of custom and institution by which the life of the native is regulated” (10) can “we expect to preserve the interest and good-will which are essential to human efficiency” (9). Our concise account of the colonial history of Papua leading up to Hurley’s expeditions in the 1920s shows how the Papuan peoples were understood as a set of problems, risks, challenges, and opportunities that were related to the differing objectives and personalities of the various

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agents of colonialism. These agents drew upon an eclectic range of inconsistent, and at times incompatible ideologies according to their own individual characters and dispositions, as well as those ideologies which informed and disciplined the vocations and institutions they represented. It was far from a unified, coherent, coordinated, or agreed process of contact, occupation, administration, and governance. Across this diverse spectrum of colonial contact with the Papuans, one can nevertheless discern the domineering influence of a powerful, arrogant, patronising new authority, underwritten by intimidation and the threat of force. Hurley’s encounters with the Papuan people, which form the topic of the following chapter, show him mobilising inconsistencies in the various colonial forms of address and representation, to fashion a marketable account of first contact for a popular international market, and for an emerging set of professional institutions invested in science and education. These representations include the mediatised conventions of heroic exploration: the scientific and geographic discovery of new peoples and places; romantic idylls with noble, happy, healthy, and innocent savages; and of course, populist incantations of the dangers of isolated, hostile, primitive, treacherous, and barbaric natives. Throughout, the expeditioner and media entrepreneur opportunistically draws upon the master narrative of colonial authority in order to compel his subjects to cooperate with his endeavours.

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Chalmers, James. 1888. London Missionary Society Annual Report, 1887. Council for World Mission/ London Missionary Archive, 1764–1977. 14.4, Papua Reports: 1882–1939. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London. Chalmers, James. 1895. Pioneer Life and Work in New Guinea, 1877–1894. London: Religious Tract Society. Chalmers, James. 1898. Correspondence. Council for World Mission, LMS. 14.1, Papua Incoming Correspondence, 1898–1900. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London. Chalmers, James, and William Wyatt Gill. 1885. Work and Adventure in New Guinea: 1877 to 1885. London: Religious Tract Society. Chalmers, James, and A. E. Hunt. 1899. Report to the Council for World Mission. Council for World Mission/London Missionary Archive, 1764– 1977. 14.4. Papua Reports: 1882–1939. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London. Council for World Mission, Papua New Guinea Reports. 1882–1883. Council for World Missions Collections, Box 1. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Craig, Barry. 2010. “‘Scenes Hidden from Other Eyes’-Theodore Bevan’s Collection from the Gulf of Papua in the South Australian Museum.” Artefact: The Journal of the Archaeological and Anthropological Society of Victoria 33: 30–48. D’Albertis, L. M. 1877. Journal of the Expedition for the Exploration of the Fly River. Sydney: Frederick White. Di Rosa, Dario. 2016. “Mediating the Imaginary and the Space of Encounter in the Papuan Gulf.” In Brokers and Boundaries: Colonial Exploration in Indigenous Territory, edited by Tiffany Shellam, Maria Nugent, Shino Konishi and Allison Cadzow, 141–160. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Di Rosa, Dario. 2018. “Frustrated Modernity: Kerewo Histories and Historical Consciousness, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea.” PhD, Australian National University, Canberra. Dutton, Thomas Edward. 1985. Police Motu: Iena Sivarai (Its Story). Hong Kong: University of Papua New Guinea Press. Edwards, Elizabeth. 2000. “Surveying Culture: Photography, Collecting and Material Culture in British New Guinea, 1898.” In Hunting the Gatherers. Ethnographic Collectors, Agents and Agency in Melanesia, 1870s–1930s, edited by Michael O’Hanlon and Robert L Welsch, 103–126. New York: Berghahn Books Fabian, Johannes. 1990. “Religious and Secular Colonization: Common Ground.” History and Anthropology 4 (2): 339–355. https://doi.org/10. 1080/02757206.1990.9960803.

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Gordon, Robert, Alison K. Brown, and Joshua Bell. 2013. “Expeditions, Their Films and Histories: An Introduction.” In Recreating First Contact: Expeditions, Anthropology, and Popular Culture, edited by Joshua A. Bell, Alison K. Brown and Robert J. Gordon, 1–30. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. Griffin, James, Hank Nelson, and Stewart Firth. 1979. Papua New Guinea: A Political History. Victoria: Heinemann Educational Australia. Griffiths, Deidre J. F. 1977. “The Career of F.E.Williams, Government Anthropologist of Papua, 1922–1943.” Masters Dissertation, Australian National University, Canberra. Haddon, Alfred C. 1901. Head-Hunters: Black, White, and Brown. London: Methuen & Co. Haddon, Alfred C. 1918. “The Agiba Cult of the Kerewa Culture.” Man 18: 177–183. https://doi.org/10.2307/2788511. Haddon, Alfred C. 1923. “Stuffed Human Heads from New Guinea.” Man 23: 36–39. Haddon, Alfred C. 1935. Reports of the Cambridge Anthropological Expedition to Torres Straits: General Ethnography. Vol. 1. London: Cambridge University Press. Hayes, T. E. 1991. “’No Tobacco, No Hallelujah’: Missions and the Early History of Tobacco in Eastern Papua.” Pacific Studies 14 (4): 91–112. Holmes, John H. 1899. Correspondence with R. Wardlaw Thompson. London Missionary Society Incoming Correspondence. London Missionary Society Archive 1764–1977, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Holmes, John H. 1902a. “Initiation Ceremonies of Natives of the Papuan Gulf.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 32: 418–425. https://doi.org/10.2307/2842829. Holmes, John H. 1902b. “Notes on the Religious Ideas of the Elema Tribe of the Papuan Gulf.” The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 32: 426–431. https://doi.org/10.2307/2842830. Holmes, John H. 1905. “Introductory Notes to a Study of the Totemism of the Elema Tribes, Papuan Gulf.” Man 5: 2–6. https://doi.org/10.2307/ 2787536. Holmes, John H. 1913. “A Preliminary Study of the Namau Language, Purari Delta, Papua.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 43: 124–142. https://doi.org/10.2307/2843165. Holmes, John H. 1924. In Primitive New Guinea. London: Seeley, Service & Company. Holmes, John H. 1926. Way Back in Papua. London: George Allen & Unwin.

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Hope, Penelope. 1979. Long Ago Is Far Away: Accounts of the Early Exploration and Settlement of the Papuan Gulf Area. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Hurley, Frank. 1921. Diary D. My Diary. Papers of Frank Hurley. National Library of Australia, MS 883. Hurley, Frank. 1922–1923. Diary No. 3, 4 December 1922 - 12 January 1923. Papers of Frank Hurley. National Library of Australia, MS 883. Jukes, J. Beete. 1847a. Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of the H.M.S. Fly. Vol. 1. London: T. & W. Boone. Jukes, J. Beete. 1847b. Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of the H.M.S. Fly. Vol. 2. London: T. & W. Boone. Knauft, Bruce M. 1993. South Coast New Guinea Cultures: History, Comparison, Dialectic. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Lambert, Sylvester Maxwell. 1942. A Doctor in Paradise. London: J.M. Dent. Landtman, Gunnar. 1927. The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea. London: Macmillan. Lange, Raeburn T. 2017. Island Ministers: Indigenous Leadership in Nineteenth Century Pacific Islands Christianity. Canberra: Pandanus Books. Langmore, Diane. 1989. Missionary Lives: Papua, 1874–1914. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Lennox, Cuthbert. 1902. James Chalmers of New Guinea: Missionary, Pioneer, Martyr. London: Andrew Melrose. Lewis, Albert B. 1931. Carved and Painted Designs from New Guinea. Vol. 5. Anthropology Design Series. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History. Lewis, Albert B. 1932. “Ethnology of Melanesia.” Guide (Field Museum of Natural History) 5: 1–209. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41506493. Lewis, D. C. 1996. The Plantation Dream: Developing British New Guinea and Papua 1884–1942. Canberra: Australian National University Printing Service. Lovett, Richard. 1902. James Chalmers: His Autobiography and Letters. London: The Religious Tract Society. MacGregor, William. 1897. British New Guinea: Country and People. London: John Murray. McFarlane, Samuel. 1888. Among the Cannibals of New Guinea. Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath-School Work. McNiven, Ian J. 2021. “’All Memory Had Perished’: Salvage Ethnography’s Archaeological Blind Spot Illustrated by Alfred and Kathleen Haddon’s Visit to Torres Strait in 1914.” In A Trip to the Dominions: The Scientific Event That Changed Australia, edited by Lynette Russell, 29–67. Clayton: Monash University Publishing. Moore, Clive. 1989. “Queensland’s Labour Trade and the Annexation of New Guinea in 1883.” In Papua New Guinea: A Century of Colonial Impact

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1884–1984, edited by Sione Latukefu, 1–18. Port Moresby: National Research Institute. Mullins, S., and David Wetherell. 1996. “LMS Teachers and Colonialism in Torres Strait and New Guinea.” In The Covenant Makers: Islander Missionaries in the Pacific, edited by Doug Munro and Andrew Thornley, 186-209. Suva, Fiji: Pacific Theological College and the Institute of Pacific Studies, University of the South Pacific Press. Murray, John Hubert Plunkett. 1912. Papua or British New Guinea. London: T. Fisher Unwin. Nakata, Martin. 2014. Disciplining the Savages, Savaging the Disciplines. Canberra: Aboriginal Studies Press. O’Hanlon, Michael. 2000. “Introduction.” In Hunting the Gatherers: Ethnographic Collectors, Agents and Agency in Melanesia, 1870s –1930s, edited by Michael O’Hanlon and Robert L. Welsch, 1–34. New York: Berghahn Books. Ohff, Hans J. 2008. “Empires of Enterprise: German and English Commercial Interests in East New Guinea 1884 to 1914.” PhD, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Adelaide. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1906–1907. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163903696. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1907–1908. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-158284369. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1908–1909. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-158298678. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1910–1911. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163939808. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1911–1912. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-158343362. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1912–1913. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163602106. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1913–1914. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-164108480. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1914–1915 (Melbourne: Government Printer for the State of Victoria). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-164165580. Accessed 14 May 2018.

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Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1915–1916. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-165374439. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1916–1917. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-165161331. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1917–1918. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163709137. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1918–1919. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163720851. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1919–1920. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163758545. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-165341564. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1921–1922. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163760092. Accessed 14 May 2018. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1920–1921. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb53941907. Accessed 20 February 2015. Prendergast, Patricia. 1968. “A History of the L.M.S. In British New Guinea, 1871–1901.” PhD, University of Hawaii, Honolulu. Report of the Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua. 1907. J. Kemp Government Printer (Melbourne). https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj2498352381. Accessed 14 November 2017. Report of the Royal Commission on the Affray at Goaribari Island, British New Guinea. 1904. Government Printer of the State of New South Wales (Sydney). https://trove.nla.gov.au/work/17947120. Accessed 20 November 2017. Riley, E. Baxter. 1925. Among Papuan Headhunters. New York: AMS Press. Roberts-Wray, Kenneth. 1966. The Commonwealth and Colonial Law. London: Stevens and Sons. Schwimmer, Erik. 1976. Francis Edgar Williams: “The Vailala Madness” and Other Essays. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. Smith, Miles Staniforth Cater. 1903. British New Guinea with a Preface on Australia’s Policy in the Pacific. Australian National University Archives, AU ANUA 481-162. Smith, Miles Staniforth Cater. 1906. Report on the Federated Malay States and Java: Their Systems of Government, Methods of Administration, and Economic

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Development. Government of the Commonwealth of Australia (Melbourne: Government Printer). Thomas, Nicholas. 1991. Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific. London: Harvard University Press. West, Francis James. 1968. Hubert Murray: The Australian Pro-Consul. Melbourne, New York: Oxford University Press. West, Francis James. 1980. “The Australian Expatriates: Gilbert and Hubert Murray.” In Australia and Britain: Studies in a Changing Relationship, edited by James Homs and Wyndraeth Humphreys Morris-Jones, 54–67. London: Frank Cass and Company Limited. Williams, Francis Edgar. 1923a. The Collection of Curios and the Preservation of Native Culture. Vol. 3. Anthropology. Port Moresby: E.G. Baker, Government Printer. Williams, Francis Edgar. 1923b. The Vailala Madness and the Destruction of Native Ceremonies in the Gulf Division. In Territory of Papua, Anthropology Report. Port Moresby: Government Printer. Williams, Francis Edgar. 1924. The Natives of the Purari Delta. Port Moresby: Government Printer. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-192001115. Accessed 2 May 2018.

CHAPTER 3

Frank Hurley in the Gulf of Papua

The dispute that arose between Frank Hurley and the Papuan Administration over his collecting during the second expedition to Papua in 1922–1923, draws attention to the ways in which the administration moved to protect Papuans from certain types of exploitation by other colonial agents. A brief account of that dispute follows our analysis of Hurley and McCulloch’s own representation of how they collected material culture items, and obtained photographs and cinefilm, from the peoples of the Gulf. Jim Specht argues that the disagreement between the two parties “epitomizes the ambiguities, contradictions and inconsistencies that surround collections made under colonial conditions” (2003, 5). His study of the controversy is couched as a case study on “some of the problems relating to collections that Museums have inherited” rather than what he acknowledges are the significant “moral dimensions” of the issue (5). In our account below, we seek to provide a detailed account of Hurley’s expedition from the expeditioner’s perspective, tease out some of the themes established in our earlier discussion of the different agencies involved in the colonial enterprise in British New Guinea, and document the Australian’s experience of Papuan trade, which we take up in the following chapter. Hurley’s methods and tactics in seeking the cooperation of the peoples of the Gulf differ in detail and degree from those used by the administration, but it is entirely understandable that people were deceived into © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Lamb and C. Lee, Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15579-6_3

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thinking Hurley and McCulloch were representatives of Murray’s government. The administration, through its legislation, specifies what can and cannot be extorted under threat from the people, who might appropriately wield the authority for colonial intimidation, and in whose interests. Our concern lies in the ways that particular themes, which emerge in these different forms of exchange between the colonisers and the colonised, become narrated and performed during the return of Hurley’s photographs, and by the photographs themselves. In pursuing that end, we trace the ways in which Hurley’s behaviour and understanding was cued by the complex colonial history outlined in the previous chapter, itself inflected in unforeseen ways by personalities and different agencies, but always in a manner that is overdetermined by broader colonial strategies of control and intimidation.

Hurley’s Papuan Expeditions 1920–1923 As we saw in the previous chapter, contact between the peoples of the western Gulf and Europeans lagged behind other areas of the coast of British New Guinea, but it was considered well established by the 1920s when Hurley arrived. The peoples of Lake Murray were more remote and remained outside of the control of the administration at this time. In fact, Murray himself later questioned whether Hurley actually had a case to answer for breaching his administration’s laws there, on the basis that it remained outside the boundaries of his control (Hurley 1923b). Hurley went to Lake Murray seeking a narrative of “first contact” so that he could take advantage of an established entertainment market for dramatic comparisons between the technological marvels of modernity, which enabled the mobility of European peoples, and the “primitive”, “stone-age” cultures of remote, geographically confined, and relatively undisturbed Papuans (Dixon 2001, 79–80; 2011, 165–207). However, as discussed in Chapter 2, the record of European and Australian contact with the Fly River dates from 1845, when the survey ship HMS Fly reached its estuary. From 1875 to 1877 D’Albertis mapped, with the use of violence, the navigable extent of the river. Following D’Albertis there were a small number of government patrols and expeditions prior to MacGregor’s journey up the Fly and Palmer Rivers in 1890, and G.H. Massey-Baker’s venture all the way to Lake Murray in 1913. Lt Governor Murray visited the Lake in 1921, but the region remained remote and little contacted in 1922. It was outside the area claimed by Murray’s

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administration, but it was not unknown to that administration. Hurley’s expedition mapped new areas of the lake but it was not an expedition that might accurately claim first contact (McGregor 2004, 256). Hurley secured funding from a “small company of leading citizens”, who invested 4000 pounds in return for a share in the world distribution rights to his film, and set about equipping his second expedition with some modern technological marvels (McGregor 2004, 241; see also Specht 2003). These included a radio receiver and transmitter (through Amalgamated Wireless Australasia sponsorship); two seaplanes—the Fleetwings and the Curtis Seagull —loaned by the wealthy Sydney aviation enthusiast, Lebbeus Hordern (Fig. 3.1); a man of science—ichthyologist Alan McCulloch of the Sydney Museum; and his cinematographic, photographic, and sound recording equipment. Hurley returned to Port Moresby for his second expedition in early September 1922, with his new equipment and personnel. The Lieutenant

Fig. 3.1 The Seagull and the Fleetwings at Port Moresby (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, VV3108)

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Governor invited Hurley to stay at Government House with him, and the Australian photographer subsequently made a point of siding with Murray in a dispute with the plantation owners over his administration’s protection of the Papuans (Dixon and Lee 2011, xxix). Contacts within the administration were useful to Hurley and helped expedite his application for permits to collect cultural items on behalf of his media ventures and the Australian Museum, as well as his efforts in arming and supplying his party. While in Port Moresby, he rented and refitted a small steamer, the Kerema, which he renamed Eureka. The aircraft were unloaded from the Burns Philp steamer Morinda and Andrew Lang, the expedition’s pilot, conducted the first powered flights in the territory. Hurley used the occasion to document the comparisons that would structure his film and syndicated news reports: “The amazing spectacle of the native canoes & man’s supreme achievement – the aeroplane – moving off in procession across the bay – contrasting the most primitive & modern method of progression was indeed a unique & epoch making event” (Hurley 1922b, 6 September). His diary eagerly describes the sensational effect of the technology upon the Papuans for his Australian and international audiences. When the diary is revised for his article in The Sun newspaper two days later, he makes a point of noting the Papuan’s response to the work of the missionaries and implies the existence of an early syncretic cosmology: The natives are flocking in from the mountains and coastal villages, all anxious to see the strange machines, which many regard as the manifestation of doctrines taught by the missionaries. Captain Lang is spoken of in terms of the supernatural, and the machines are regarded with reverent awe. (Hurley 1922a)1

Within the week he was paradoxically reflecting upon the superior technical skill with which the village children had fashioned for themselves detailed replicas of the aircraft (Hurley 1922b, 12 September). In assembling a crew for the Eureka, Hurley states his preference for a Papuan coxswain, Vaieke Igo. His positioning of himself in relation to 1 The Sun articles are more sensational than the diaries and show an altered mode of address for the newspaper audience compared to that which seems to feature in the lecture entertainments and the diary. They are more sensational and populist and less educative though this assessment is one of degree rather than kind. For an extended discussion of Hurley’s sense of audience (see Dixon 2011; Dixon and Lee 2011, xxiv, 139–150).

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the local people is clearly influenced by his siding with the administration over the plantation owners—a position that enables him to flatter himself that he is an enlightened admirer of the local peoples, and a supporter of their protection from the commercial exploitation of the colonialists. He is frustrated by the slow progress of European labour in the refitting of his ship and makes his displeasure clear: “I would classify the majority of the whites here, as the misfits of the Commonwealth & loafers & highway robbers” (Hurley 1922b, 26 September). The sentiment extends to his Australian crew with frequent criticism of his engineer (Robert Bell), pilot (Andrew Lang), and mechanic (A.J. Hill). Hurley’s own self-image as a veteran expeditionary is inflected by the well-worn convention of a weary modernist nostalgia for the immanent, romantic authenticities of “primitive” life: Then by the camp fire with the star studded canopy of heaven above us we talked with the natives of what the white people do, of their cities & other things, & greatly were they interested & bewildered. Yet here were we by the camp fire separated by thousands of years of civilized evolution glad to get back again to primitive life. 8 pm the cities are flocking to the theatres & pictures to gaze upon shadows – shadows of things being acted & here we are here living the real life – happy & free – all this - & life in a city flat!! good heavens what a contrast! One often wonders, is civilization all that we think it is. If I were a savage – without ambition – which after all counts for most of the miseries of life – I would not seek to be more than what I was – a wild free child of nature rather than a serf of civilization. (Hurley 1922b, 22 September)

After initial studies of Port Moresby’s coral reefs, the expedition moved west along the southern coastline. The Eureka sailed into the treacherous waters of the Gulf, while Hurley and his pilot followed above in the Curtis Seagull . The ship took on aviation fuel at Yule Island, then continued to Kaimari Village where the aircraft soon joined them (Fig. 3.2), the Eureka needing 44 hours to transit the coast, and the aircraft two hours and twenty minutes to catch them at their anchorage. Hurley reflected with satisfaction on his rapid transit and the evocative arrangement he had contrived to display, with his modern technological marvels side by side with the village architecture: The Eureka floats with her electric lights ablaze a few hundred yards away. McCulloch has just finished speaking via wireless to Thursday Island. The

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Fig. 3.2 Captain Hurley’s seaplane, waterfront (Curtis Seagull), Kaimari (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04873)

Seagull swings at her moorings nearby and around us rests the strangest of villages, with its great Dubus or Ravis silhouetted against the moon. It is the realisation of a Jules Verne. The most ancient and modern resting by the shores of a time-old lake. White men and Black men—the modern and the ancient strangely commingling. Truly we seem to have entered another planet. (Hurley 1922b, 6 October)

It is in this village of Kaimari in the Purari Delta, that Hurley enters the great ravi which he describes as “an immense structure that towers up to 65 feet from mud level to the entrance peak, & 500 feet in length” (Hurley 1922b, 6 October). Here he barters tobacco with an old man to gain entrance to a restricted low chamber at the end of the building, the “Holy of Holies”, in which he finds remarkable wicker

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figures (kaiemunu 2 ). The following day he returns with McCulloch to covertly photograph the contents of the ravi, which included a range of ceremonial masks and the kaiemunu: There were very few in the Dubu so we walked to the far end, presumably inspecting masks & details. This section of the Dubu or Ravi is held aloof from all young men & none must enter it. Whilst none were about, Veiaki showed his contempt for their beliefs by removing the barrier & screen so that “the terrible spirits” stood revealed. There were eighteen strange effigies made of cane – evidently intended to resemble crocodiles. These were crammed together so that one had to crawl beneath them to pass through. (Hurley 1922b, 8 October)

Hurley urged the villagers to organise dances and a canoe regatta, so that he could dramatise the technological distance between the Papuan means of transportation and that of the European, but the weather was not suitable for photography and the people were uncooperative. He also wanted to defy custom and open the “Holy of Holies” up to the sunlight so he could capture its contents on film. When the villagers failed to respond to his requests for the regatta, he used the village constables and threats of government retribution to extract compliance. His initial requests for dances met with similar resistance. Hurley noticed an emerging difference of opinion between the old men and the younger men of the village, which we noted in the previous chapter as a significant concern of the colonial administration. The willingness of younger men, with work experience outside the village, to challenge established custom and ritual becomes a common observation of Hurley’s diaries and it resurfaced as an important issue during our work some 90 years later. I tried hard to arrange a dance, but it would appear that the dance will not take place for another twelve months & anything which is not in keeping with the time old traditions & customs would bring terrible consequences down upon those who participated in it. Happily many of the young men have “signed on” for various periods & many have returned from work with a broader knowledge. These manifested something of a contempt for 2 Hurley, perhaps following Murray (1912, 179–180) uses the term “kopiravi” in his diary and photograph captions. However, we follow the terminology of F. E. Williams (1924) and use “kaiemunu”.

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the pseudo beliefs of the elders & were for a dance, but the old men held out irresolutely. Nevertheless I am in hopes that the dance will eventuate, especially as I have offered big presents. It would appear that the old men strive to keep the younger men in constant dread of certain spirits which inhabit the crocodile effigies in the holy of holies, the far screened off end of the Ravi. (Hurley 1922b, 9 October)

Hurley endorses the “authentic primitivism” of the villagers as a marketable convention for his populist account of the region, but his personal observations are less respectful. He is not interested in documenting the rapid adaptation of the Papuans to commercial and administrative contact, or in contextualising this within their previous experience of culture contact with a wider world (cf. Dixon 2001, 86). Wherever he meets resistance, Hurley quickly turns against the authentic culture, construing it as a superstitious confidence trick in which the lazy old men of the village take advantage of the younger men, the women, and the children. Those who do submit to a photograph in return for a stick of tobacco, however, are considered innocents, oblivious to the purpose of the technology and uninterested in the photographs that it produces. When Hurley and Lang make a flight in the Seagull, a rumour is started by the old men that they have gone out to sea “to bring back a big steamer filled with white men who were going to wipe out the village” (Hurley 1922b, 2 October). The story can be interpreted as a demonstration of the sensitivity of the people to the imminent threat of colonial power, and of the contexts in which villagers perceived Hurley’s demands for cooperation. A week after his initial attempts to photograph the kaiemunu, Hurley exploits the opportunity provided by the death of a villager to enter the ravi and secretly photograph the “Holy of Holies” (Fig. 3.3). He is aware that his methods are “strange and … unfair” (Hurley 1922b, 17 October), when he describes how he provided McCulloch with a set of firecrackers to divert the Kaimari people returning from the funeral, to prevent his discovery. He justifies his tactics by referring to the putatively duplicitous way in which the elders use superstition to exploit their people—most particularly the women and children. He goes on to somewhat perversely make the point that the “enlightening” “progress of civilization” is eroding these local customs, and that his record is a necessary salvage operation. Hurley’s commitment to the authenticity of the Indigenous culture is clearly compromised by his intention to sell it, and

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his justification for the right to collect is based upon prejudices about the evolutionary superiority of his race, his culture, and his technology. Nevertheless, he appreciates the difficulties involved in accurately appraising the culture of the Kaimari people, when commenting on the work of F.E. Williams, who at the time was the assistant government anthropologist. He notes the villagers’ reluctance to divulge the details of their material culture and the ceremonies with which they are associated. To this reluctance is added the difficulties of translation through different forms and registers of language, and the unavailability of intermediate interpreters capable of bridging those differences: “The cross questioning continued until all were thoroughly weary & at the end of the inquiry I doubt if little accuracy was gained. To gain information, one needs must live amongst these people for years” (Hurley 1922b, 20 October). It is a point of interest that, like the missionaries Lawes and Chalmers, Hurley quickly recognised the limitations of brief expeditionary contact and the need for extended participant observation, if people were to be understood. Hurley’s scepticism over the veracity of the anthropological information collected by the government anthropologist is followed up with an account of the difficulty he had persuading the villagers to exchange their sacred objects. Coercion is used to obtain cooperation and cultural items when payment is refused, and in this way the expedition secures one bullroarer from each of the packages associated with the kaiemunu in the “Holy of Holies”: “I explained through the interpreter that the things were wanted for Record & Museum purposes & to show white people how the Kaimarians lived. They scarcely believed that Sydney had no Ravis or sago palm bungalows” (Hurley 1922b, 20 October). He goes on to explain to his readers that the expedition’s collecting depends upon their cooperation with the elders’ use of superstition to maintain their traditional authority over the younger men: It was quite apparent that the whole affair was regarded ominously by the young people, a condition which the old men are very anxious to propagate. We are always careful of anything of an esoteric nature that we might collect, for the reason, that if we made light of the beliefs, it would doubtless mean a fall in the prestige of these ancient swindlers & it would be the end of our collecting. By pandering to them & holding in reverence their official dignity, gives a fillip to their waning prestige & assists trading. (Hurley 1922b, 20 October)

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Fig. 3.3 A glimpse in the Holy of Holies , a secret chamber at the remote end of Kau Ravi, Kaimari (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, PIC FH/817 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 49/19)

The Kaimari man Aua-Mairau’s subsequent testimony to the enquiry into the expedition’s conduct noted that Williams’ presence with Hurley and McCulloch gave the impression that “they had something to do with the Government” (Aua-Mairau 1923; Dixon 2001, 85). Hurley’s biographer attributes Williams’ exit from the expedition at Daru to a difference of opinion over methods, but notes that neither McCulloch nor Hurley mention any disagreement in their diaries (McGregor 2004, 254). Despite all the bravado about the evolutionary modernity of the white men, Hurley is ultimately forced to concede his increasing anxiety over the reliability of his advanced technologies in the tropical conditions of the Gulf. His wireless is frequently falling into disrepair and requires constant attention. The aircraft is plagued by the deterioration of its extensive rigging and fabric surfaces, and it is only possible to fly in the early morning because the heat of the day causes severe turbulence

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and poorer performance. The Seagull takes progressively longer to get airborne as the efficiency of its engine, propeller, and airframe deteriorates under tropical conditions, and Lang finds it increasingly difficult to lift the machine from the water and climb away from the dense jungle fringes of the narrow waterways. The river water poses an additional problem for the photography because of its silty contaminants, which slowly despoil the glass plate negatives. From Kaimari, Hurley and Lang take the Seagull to Daru. Once reunited with the Eureka, they proceed in the ship to Thursday Island to overhaul their equipment, with varying results. They return in early November for the voyage up the Fly River to Lake Murray, in search of their much-coveted evidence of first contact. Hurley makes the decision to send the pilot, the mechanic, and the seaplane south to Thursday Island, from where the aircraft can be shipped home. This decision represented a partial failure of his initial plan and a departure from the pre-expedition publicity narrative, but he was relieved to be rid of the machines before they succumbed to the conditions and revealed the frailties of technological modernity to a wider public (Hurley 1922c, 5 November). Thus, when the Eureka entered the “muddy waters of the Fly” on 6 November 1922 for the journey to Lake Murray, it was with a faulty engine and without the vaunted aircraft. The small vessel struggled up the river against the current, nursing a tired engine in need of frequent overhaul, and Hurley was furious at his engineer for failing to secure the necessary spare parts in Port Moresby to properly maintain the technology (Hurley 1922c, 8 November). By the tenth of November, the expedition reached the extent of the tidal influence, just north of Alligator Island. Hurley noted in his diary that they were now in “hostile country and have to keep alert”. Thus far, they had seen no sign of a person or village and he may have been recalling D’Albertis’ earlier account of hostile villagers further up the river. Two days later, they reached Everill Junction where the Strickland River meets the Fly, and turned northeast. Late the following day they left the Strickland for the Herbert River, the final leg of their route to Lake Murray, which they reached on the 15th of November. The initial plan was to rendezvous here with the Lt. Governor and the administration’s vessel, the Elevala, but the shallow mud bar across the lake entrance barred the larger vessel, and so the Elevala waited only a few days before departing without them (McGregor 2004, 259). Hurley observes an impressive longhouse, which the villagers appear to have temporarily deserted, and

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the following day he leads a shore party to investigate, heavily armed with weapons supplied to them by the government in Port Moresby. He finds “a skull on a pole & arrows” that he removes and replaces with “emblems of peace. A broken bough [sic], strings of beads, red calico & a number of benzene tins, for these people are destitute of cooking utensils” (Hurley 1922c, 16 November). The party moves into the village and Hurley’s diary slips back into the conventions of the ripping yarn: “The whole place was inexpressibly gloomy, & ramshackle & disorderly & is surely the most primitive dwelling I have visited in New Guinea. … We seem to be back in the remote dark ages amongst the prehistoric people dwelling on the shore of a primeval sea” (Hurley 1922c, 16 November). Though the longhouse contained tools and human remains, Hurley opines that the inhabitants, who clearly vacated the village in response to their approach, have removed anything of value. After spending the night in the middle of the lake, to avoid attack from unseen forces, Hurley and McCulloch returned to the village to “ransack the communal house & secure unusual specimens & photographs” (Hurley 1922c, 17 November)3 : We untied scores of these bags finding such things as grass ramis, stone axe heads, arrow points, yellow ochre, bits of wood – evidently the charms of puri puri mussel shells & sundry odds and ends of apparently no value whatsoever. … We selected the choicest & took delivery thereof substituting for the “theft”, axes, knives, tobacco, beads, red calico according to their value. We also left a dozen benzine tins in the dubu which will be of unmistakable value to these hapless folk for cooking utensils – they being entirely destitute. (Hurley 1922c, 17 November)

The diary describes, in detail, the acquisition of a “stuffed” human head with accompanying freehand sketches of the “gruesome object” (Fig. 3.4). According to Hurley “these stuffed heads are greatly valued and are looked upon as the emblems of a warrior’s power & wealth” 3 McGregor (2004, 260) compares this entry with a Sun article (Hurley 1923a), which clearly admits that the Australians are taking artefacts without permission: “In the cause of Science, McCulloch allows that even unfair exchange is no robbery; so we collected and exchanged to the great advantage of the owners and to our complete satisfaction. Skulls, human bits, and tit-bits filled our bone-bag; whilst [steel] axes, knives and fabrics were substituted … [And in one alcove] Human heads! Stuffed heads!... Had we raided a bank and carried off the bullion we could scarcely have been more pleased with such desirable objects”.

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(Hurley 1922c, 17 November). To this narrative of trespass and discovery he adds the conventional explorer’s story of a struggle against the environment, by carefully detailing the discomforts posed by the tropical conditions: insects, heat, illness, poor sleep, long hours. The shallow lake makes it difficult to navigate with confidence and the party is frustrated by the elusiveness of the local people who observe them without showing themselves and resist the “gifts” left in exchange for the items stolen by the expedition.

Fig. 3.4 Hurley’s diary sketch of a “stuffed” human head, at Lake Murray (Hurley 1922c, 17 November)

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After exploring the lake for ten days, the expedition finally makes its longed-for contact with the local people, coming across some men in several canoes. Hurley dramatically arms his party to protect it from the cannibals and head-hunters who might threaten them and calls “Sambio Sambio” to the men, which he understands from Murray is a local word for peace.4 He claimed it was the only local word they knew and whatever its meaning, they finally succeeded in reassuring the local people: I admired the prowess of these few men immensely. They put down their bows & arrows & approached us – not knowing of their fate nor our intentions but relying solely on the honor of that magic word Sambio! Perhaps they were just as eager to ascertain what sort of creatures we were as we were to see them. Perhaps, the fame of the white man & his implements of steel was a lure worth risking even life for. How strange; we keenly desirous of securing their primitive weapons & tools & they anxious to possess the products of modern civilization. The strange people, when they came alongside, fulfilled all the grotesque & fanciful ideas I had formed of them. Truly indeed they were prehistoric creatures, practically nude, covered with the hideous sipuma scaly skin & of the most amazing features. …. The cast of features of these people is remarkably Hebraic. In fact were it not for their deep bronze they might well pass for ‘the lost tribe’. (Hurley 1922c, 22 November)

After some consideration, Hurley decides to go ashore at the village5 but on approaching, he suddenly changes his mind and the villagers’ welcome entreaties are reinterpreted as a dubious stratagem designed to lure his crew to their deaths. This account borrows some of the narrative conventions of the reports of Chalmers’ and Tomkins’ killing, but the decision to abort is attributed to the coxswain Vaieke’s observation: Vaieke who has the astuteness & cunning of any cannibal informed me that he had seen the natives in conversation & that the ruse of friendliness should be displayed until we went ashore. They would then lure us to the big house & kill the party. (Hurley 1922c, 22 November)

4 We note that “Sambai” in Tok Pisin can mean variously “to wait”, “to be ready”, “to help”, or “to protect or guard”. 5 He later refers to the village as “Du Kuoif”.

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Having admitted that sambio was the only local word possessed by the party, it is difficult to discern accurately what Vaieke may have “seen” in the villagers’ conversation. The account nevertheless complies with the conventions of populist colonial adventure narratives, and the expedition’s experiences on Lake Murray are duly rendered as dangerous first contact with unpredictable head-hunters, in an undiscovered wonderland. According to Hurley “I had seen the people, of the fabled lake for whom I had come nearly two thousand miles to see. The realisation was a supreme satisfaction & an accomplishment. This is the first time that white men have ever sailed these reaches, the first-time white men have ever seen these people, & the first time these people have ever seen white men” (Hurley 1922c, 22 November). The following day, the villagers row out to the Eureka without their weapons and Hurley is able to photograph some of them as a collection of “types”, which he inexplicably locates in Hebraic and Egyptian lines. This pseudo-science of racial types is further augmented by racial bias revealed by his anti-Semitic allusions to Shakespeare’s “Shylock” and the village chief’s “aristocratic & kingly type”. The latter “with his corona of Bird of Paradise flumes”, he went on to say, “would have passed for the reincarnation of Solomon”. According to Hurley “All that one might fancy of the grotesque & fearful was realised by these strange & primitive creatures. Albeit they were Jews in feature – from our point of view they were not in trading” (Hurley 1922c, 23 November). Prior to departing Lake Murray, the Eureka is surprised by a canoe paddled by ten men who resided in the abandoned village that they had previously visited. Hurley describes them as of an entirely different appearance to the men from Dukoif Village. These men “did not wear their hair in long grass plaits… but in comparatively short thick curls like a mop, nor did they have the same Hebraic cast of features, but were very similar to the people of the Urama villages of the Delta” (Hurley 1922c, 25 November). The new arrivals trade bows and arrows, and other personal items, and Hurley asks them for skulls. They agree to go to their village for them, but they do not return. Hurley soon grows tired of waiting and sails back into the Herbert River for the Gulf. The expedition visits several villages on the return trip down the Fly River, though these are noted for their reluctance to establish contact with the expeditioners. This changes on the 3rd of December when they reach the end of the river just beyond Khaled Island, where they find a large, well-kept village that Hurley refers to as Aduru. They linger

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here for a few days while he photographs the people, and they trade in “natives bric-a-brac”. The fickleness of the adventurous photographer is on show in his diary. When Hurley’s objectives are opposed, he is swift to adopt an aggressive pose; but when he is received generously and offered cooperation, he can be moved to reflect upon the uneven distribution of power that underwrites the exchange: “we go everywhere & examine all things, without care or question – we are the privileged white race to whom we expect, like our impudence, these savage peoples & all colored races must fall subservient. This be it so & may it remain so, but to invade the privacy of even a cannibal & to pull his belongings about & to question him of his life & reasons at times seems arrogant” (Hurley 1922c, 4 December). A semi-jocular patter follows a now familiar set of conventions. The villagers he represents with imagery drawn from classical and biblical references, as well as the pseudo-ethnographic catalogue of “native types” that later adorn his promotional banner (Fig. 3.5). He makes a contemptuous analogy with the Garden of Eden when describing women who have covered themselves with mud as part of a mourning ritual: “No conception of abnormal intellect could design such a rig. Even if Eve were so attired Mr Adam would have scaled the garden wall & cleared out into the vacant spaces – then I suppose we would not be here looking at this strange evolution of the fig leaf” (Hurley 1922c, 4 December). Hurley considers the women as the “masters of Aduru” because they do all the work, and he speculates that, in the past, the men must have “merely kept themselves fit for fighting, making weapons & canoes” (Hurley 1922–1923, 5 December). It appears to the Australian that the administration’s suppression of intertribal war has left the men without purpose. The observation echoes the concerns of the 1907 Royal Commission of Inquiry into the Present Conditions of Papua and those of the current administration, and one might wonder whether it was prompted by his discussions with the Governor, Chinnery, or Williams. The expedition moves ten miles downstream to the village of Samagi, where the Australian records his disappointment at the villagers’ rapid adaptation to the colonial presence and their lack of ceremony. Eleven intricately decorated canoes of 40–50 feet length are being finished for launch the following day, but Hurley is disappointed because a steel axe has been used in their construction. Though he tries to contrive the shot he seeks, the villagers cannot be induced to use the stone implements for the sake of his camera.

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Fig. 3.5 Capt. Frank Hurley’s Pearls and Savages (Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, PIC FH/856, PIC FH/984)

The following day, the canoes are launched before dawn without the forms of ritual or ceremony sought after by the Australian adventurer. The disappointing adoption of the technology of “civilisation” extends to the men’s clothing and hairstyles, though Hurley notes that the women remain resistant: They were not nearly so attractive as the men of Aduru being more civilized, having shorn off their natural coiffure & wearing dirty loin rags. Nothing in my mind can make a native more unsightly than these cast off rags of civilization. Yet strange to say they pride themselves on wearing anything belong[ing] to white men. Fortunately the women were quite unchanged & to my great delight found them wearing similar grass encumbrances to the women of Aduru & to be less shy. (Hurley 1922–1923, 7 December)

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Hurley is scathing about the unattractiveness of these women to his eye, although on this occasion he makes an exception in the case of some of the younger villagers who remind him of “Jewesses” (Hurley 1922– 1923, 7 December). On departing Samagi, he discovers that his crew of Hanuabadan villagers from Port Moresby had been harbouring a choice selection of arrows that they had withheld from the collection destined for the Museum. He is furious, and rather than appreciating their awareness of the trading opportunity provided by their voyage, he decides that their duplicity must be punished: I was thoroughly wild & informed them that I would hand the whole crew over to the magistrate on return to Port Moresby. This gives an insight into the psychology of the Hananabada [sic] intellect & its thieving craftiness. Likewise I informed them that where favours were granted in the past, they could now expect that treatment which is meted out by the usual trader. I have entirely lost faith in their honesty & intend dealing severely with them in the future. Kindness is taken for weakness. To be fair to oneself & to get the best from these people, one must keep them in constant fear & treat them harshly. (Hurley 1922–1923, 7 December)

Hurley takes advantage of a vacant plantation house at Mediri, in the mouth of the Fly River, to spend a few days developing his photographic plates. While here, he shows some plates depicting his party armed with guns at Lake Murray to a LMS missionary E.B. Riley, and to the manager of the plantation, H.P. Beach. The photographs are shipped, along with McCulloch’s museum specimens, via Daru to Thursday Island on a passing lugger, the Aramia. The Eureka spends the next week filming nesting turtles and coral habitats before setting out again for the Aramia villages. The poor performance of their engine and the opposition of wind and tide force them further east, and they change their destination to Goaribari Island. Navigation in the Gulf defeats them once again, however, and they find themselves between the Turama and Bamu Rivers, some 15 miles to the east of the Aramia villages, their original destination. The Eureka enters the Bamu and then the Aramia River on Christmas Eve, anchoring off the village of Bimaramio. Here they attempt to trade axes and knives for ornately carved drums, but the villagers will not part with their instruments. Arrows are traded for sticks of tobacco, and they return in the evening to watch the women dance. Men are not permitted

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to view this ritual, however, and they retire to their vessel disappointed. They spend Christmas day and the day following, making their way further along the river looking for villages. A local pilot is opportunistically recruited, and he guides the Eureka through what Hurley describes as a swampy lake, where they espy large barn-like dwellings built upon the bare ridges. On reaching Totani Village, he is amazed to find practices much more palatable to his Australian sensibility: On going ashore at the village new scenes of wonderment were to unfold. The village which comprised a single large communal house, was built on the crest of one of the rises ... It was encircled by a well laid out & kept garden & by grass free paths. Everywhere was scrupulous cleanliness & order. It seemed strange to fall in with a comparatively highly developed & aesthetically inclined people dwelling amidst such [an] environment – the shores of a swamp in the heart of Papua. The gardens which encircled the house gave to it an air of great homeliness. In fact it was one of the few places which we civilized folk would regard as a home. The gardens were trenched & hillocked (sic) & planted in orderly rows, though the plants were a strange collection. ... It was much the same as us growing vegetables & flowering plants in one bed. Arranged along the centre of the beds were uprights over which yams trailed giving a very charming effect to the gay colored ornamental shrubs. This place is the first native village that I have seen where any attempt has been made to beautify environment by horticulture. The house which we were invited to enter, was a still more remarkable edifice; & though not as big as others we have entered was undoubtedly the best built place that we have seen. (Hurley 1922–1923, 26 December)

The Aramians are praised for their friendly cooperation, though they resist Hurley’s attempts to purchase one of their canoes until the eve of his departure. According to the Australian, the large, ornately carved canoe that he eventually acquires has been superseded by vessels with less decoration. For Hurley, the lamentable disappearance of traditional custom and material culture justifies his collecting. On the 2nd of January 1923, the faulty engine of the Eureka breaks down just short of the Kerewo village of Kerewa on Goaribari Island. Hurley can hear a large ceremony taking place and describes drums and chanting. By the time of their arrival next morning, the ceremonies appeared ended and the villagers were dispersing. Hurley is impressed with the intricate adornments of the Kerewo people:

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They were intensely pictorial in their feathery plumes & paint, more so at a distance; close investigation displayed, grease soiled feathers, & much raddle, charcoal & filth – not mentioning that strongly pungent & repugnant smell of unwashed natives. The Goaribaris are conspicuous by the amount of ornate trappings which they wear – chiefly made from shells, & I must admit they are competent in the art of display. No Goaribari is dressed without his leggings which fit the calf tightly & are adorned up the front by two rows of small cowrie shells. The women load their arms with the highly valued armlet shells, (sections cut from the Cone Shell) & adorn the breast with shapely crescents cut from the Mother of Pearl shell. This treasured ornament which can only be afforded by the well-to-do is suspended by a string round the neck which is attached to either end of the crescent. Then the ladies wear many rowed necklaces of beads & band their shaven crowns in a manner that must be a sore encumbrance. The men are of medium build, & well proportioned, & look as though food were abundant. The women are not as ugly as those of the Fly & a few might be regarded as comely – but a very few. Perhaps if they wore a little more clothing they might be more attractive, for apart from a grass belt & a very narrow V of fibre – even less than a fig leaf, they are unclothed. The men wear more, a large cumbersome V section cut from the bailer shell, a very ornate belt of carved bark & a strange bundle of teasled fibre or grass, that falls behind like a bushy tail. As a race, they may be all very well for signing on as labourers but in culture, they are not comparable with the genial & aesthetic folk of TOTANI of ARAMIA. (Hurley 1922–1923, 3 January)

Hurley describes the Kerewo longhouse as the longest yet seen, and is impressed by the groups of skulls displayed on poles in front of the structure (Fig. 3.6): “They appeared to me to present rather a warning to guests than hospitality”. A distinctive, dilapidated raised walkway above the mud is attributed to the demands of the visiting patrol officers who apparently objected to the village custom of walking through the mud from the huts to the longhouse. The Australian is attracted by the skull racks on display in the longhouse and tries to obtain them, without success. The Kerewo people explain that “the Government now forbids us kill more victims & so we are deprived of the means of getting more & will not part from those which we have”. According to Hurley the resistance is generational: “only the old & ancient warriors” prevented the exchange, for “the young men, changed by contact with civilization would have sold the lot at a stick of tobacco a head” (Hurley 1922–1923, 3 January).

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Fig. 3.6 Skulls impaled on posts facing the river as a sign of hospitality for visitors to Kerowa village on Goaribari Island in the Gulf of Papua. The figure is that of the head man, and the vessel in the background is the Eureka (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, nla.gov.au/nla.obj151337088, PIC/14197/140 LOC Drawer PIC/14197)

The Australians leave the longhouse and enter one of the smaller adjacent huts that accommodate the women. Hurley repeats his habitual observation of female work and male indolence—particularly in relation to the preparation of food: “The women here are ever busy. They are bought like merchandise & become slaves to the indolent males. When the food was cooked, the women carried it to the Long House where the hungry lords awaited”. That evening he is offended by the Kerewo people’s apparent attempts to “prostitute” their women to his crew. The following day, Hurley is back in the village bartering for stone adzes. His now familiar theme is oft repeated—the willingness of the young men to trade their grandfathers’ hard-won heritage for a few sticks of tobacco: “These young men have not improved with civilized contact, nor has

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peaceful Government improved them. In place of stalwart warriors, deft in the use of the arrow & spear: whose life depended on their valour & strength of arms, the present-day youth signs on for 15/- a month & returns to his village, a loafer on the women, ‘Superior’ in his dirty singlet, & cast off apparel” (Hurley 1922–1923, 4 January). The expedition secures some flash-lit pictures of the longhouse and then moves on to the village of Dopima, the scene of Chalmers’ and Tomkins’ demise. Here the mud and the tide prevent them from going ashore, and they decide to move on to the villages on Urama Island. En route Hurley espies a new longhouse facing a beach, and the Australian is again drawn to a skull shrine at the entrance. Though he offered the son of the owner “100 sticks of tobacco, 20lbs rice, 5 ramis, 5 strings beads, 5 white cowrie shells, 5 Bidi Bidi (the head of a cone shell), 1 axe, 1 large knife, and 2 large arm shells” he declined the sale: “The son of the owner informed us that if he disposed of these things his father would be annoyed on his return & also that the old men would kill him by Puri Puri” (Hurley 1922–1923, 5 January). He claims to have then secured permission from the young man by adding “a large & tempting bundle of arm shells” to the pile, but having secured the exchange, the Australian reneges on the deal because he required the ornaments for another use. It is tempting to read this gloss as a dubious claim designed to ridicule the sincerity of the villager’s fear of puri puri (or sorcery, see Murray 1912, 209). Hurley habitually ridicules anyone who obstructs or thwarts his intentions; particularly those whom he has positioned as inferior to his own standing and achievements. He also switches, whenever it suits him, between a nostalgic appreciation of unspoiled, authentic, native culture and modern contempt for a primitive, disingenuous, and superstitious people (Dixon and Lee 2011, xxxi). Vaieke recommended that the Eureka navigate between the islands and via Port Bevan to Urama Island, rather than venturing south around Cape Blackwood, but to Hurley’s disgust the attempt left them temporarily stranded on a silt flat. By midday (Hurley 1922–1923, 6 January) they were anchored off the Urama villages of Kinomere and Tovei (Fig. 3.7), which Hurley recalls visiting two years previously on his first expedition to Papua. He is once again impressed with the “pristine condition of the people & the villages. Traders scarcely seem to have visited the place which is unaltered in any way from its original state, excepting that the people are peaceful & now friendly inclined” (Hurley 1922–1923, 6 January). He purchased a single-man canoe paddled deftly by a Urama

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man, and he pays six men four sticks of tobacco each, to paddle 50 miles to Kikori with a message for the magistrate there. He records in his diary that Urama is “the name given to a group of villages in the vicinity of the people who were known on account of their warlike nature & the failure of the authorities to subdue them until recently. Even now”, he claims, “the villagers will have naught to do with traders or recruiters – which pleases me greatly” (Hurley 1922–1923, 6 January). Once again, he enlists the village constables for help and engages local villagers to transport them around the complex of villages in a canoe: The villages which are now directly ahead of the vessel are built up on a rise some 15 feet above the surrounding mudflats. These rises appear to have been built by the age old accumulations of shells, coconut husks, canoe chippings & refuse. A shapely group of trees shade the villages which have the backs of the houses abutting the water. Here & there rise those high arched structures known as Ravis, the club houses of the men. Here, as in the villages of Goaribari & the lower Fly, the womenfolk live apart from the men; but instead of all being housed together in family groups as I have written of GOARIBARI, each wife has her own home & there is more of family life as we understand it. (Hurley 1922–1923, 6 January)

Hurley is delighted with the attractiveness of the village, and the people of Urama Island are compared favourably with the attentive Aramians. Their fondness for what Hurley calls “display” is particularly useful to him, and he expresses his intention to have them dance the “Kaiva KuKu” dance,6 which he alleges is only displayed once every seven years. This was the dance that Hurley tried to convince the people of Kaimari to perform for his cameras, without success. What follows is Hurley’s detailed and ultimately dismissive description of a Uraman “brave in all his regalia”: On the head is worn the characteristic Urama head dress. This wild toke is made of two plumes of Cassowary feathers joined onto a narrow band. The band passes across the forehead, is tied behind the head & the two plumes, rise slightly above the head & trend back in a stream line effect. The hair is matted into innumerable curls like a mop with grime, each curl terminating in a mud or wax blob. The hair is also generally decorated with two White

6 When we took Hurley’s photographs back to Kinomere Village, his labelling of the “Kaiva KuKu boards” was corrected to “Keveke boards”, keveke being the Uraman word for mask (see Brown et al. 2016, 109).

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Fig. 3.7 A glimpse in the village of Kinomere (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04753)

Cockatoo tail feathers, secured over the crown & trending forward. The stems of the feathers is split, so as to delicately hinge, & sway to & fro in the breeze or when the wearer moves about. Two large ear rings of boars tusks, or woven from the central stem of cassowary feathers, & a large “nose bone” pushed through the septum, made from Clam shell, completes the head dressing - now there is the painting. There appears to be no law governing this decorative art; it might extend to painting black circular spots around the eyes or to daubing the entire face with red ochre, or a modification as the wearer inclines. Strings of beads in festooning necklaces girdle the neck, & a large half or quarter moon crescent hung from the horned lips rests on the breast. Bandolier of plaited fibre adorned with a central line of small shells, cross from shoulders to under the arms. They are generally united front & back like a double pair of braces. The arms are girdled with arm shells & the private parts are hidden beneath a large “V” section cut from the bailer shell. This is fastened over the hips by a girdle also made of fine shells. Around the waist the exquisitely

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carved belt, with a dirk stuck in askew, made from the thigh bone of the Cassowary. Exquisite leggings fit elegantly the calves, woven from fibre & adorned down the front with two rows of small cowrie shells placed back to front. A long bundle of teasled fibre is secured under the waist belt & extends over the “rump” like a bushy maris tail. As I have said a fully dressed Urama brave resembles nothing so much as a caparisoned draught horse groomed for a show. (Hurley 1922–1923, 6 January)

Descriptions such as these reveal the intent behind the documentary photos (e.g., Fig. 3.8), which was to detail the ceremonial dress of the Urama and Kerewo people. On entering the longhouse, the photographer meets the “wild eyed yet kindly head of the Dubu” whom he calls “Old Gormier”.7 What follows is a detailed description of the longhouse, which includes skull racks, gopi boards, and animal skulls. A dance is arranged with the head of the village, Coir, for the following day. The women and children are sent away, the men are decorated for the dance, and Hurley returns to the dubu to observe the assembled dancers: “A great commotion of dancers & chanting was going on inside. … It sounded just like a teacher & a kindergarten & it was difficult to realise that the voices were those of grown men” (Hurley 1922–1923, 6 January). Once inside, he finds the “spectacular, grotesque & wild gathering” that he has been seeking: “Ye Gods what a stupendous & amazing sight! A couple hundred dancers arranged in long lines down the length of the hallway, the light from the doorway glinting on decorations & glistening eyes, the diffused half light faintly throwing up the setting of great Kaiva Kuku masks & grotesque carved Gopi & the eyeless sockets from the skull racks the only beholders besides McCulloch, myself & interpreters” (Fig. 3.9). Though he found the dance itself short and “disappointing” he is pleased with the size of the gathering and the advantages of the vantage point outside the dubu, where he sets up his camera to film the proceedings. Given the absence of the women, which was necessary for the conduct of the dance, Hurley requested that Gormier permit the use of the kaiva kuku masks in the “seven-year dance”, which he grandiosely claimed had never before been witnessed by white men. His description of the spectacle, however, concludes with yet another dismissive comparison: 7 Corrected to Komei by the people of Kinomere Village during our field research (see Chapter 6, see also Vanderwal 2005).

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Fig. 3.8 Male type from Kinomere (left), Young uninitiated man in mourning (pectoral girdle) (right)8 (Photographs: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04793 and AMS320/V04792)

The warriors arranged themselves in a circle & squatted down chanting & drumming: the Kaiva KuKu came from out the Dubu & danced in short jumpy steps into the centre of the ring of swaying bodies & heads. Then began the same caperings only turning round, facing one another, drawing close & then separating. Were it not for the extraordinary masks & their fantastic decoration the whole ceremony would have been dull & uninteresting. The purport of the ceremony I know nothing of nor could I find out. But I surmise it is of the same nature as the initiation of new members into the Masonic order. (Hurley 1922–1923, 7 January; Fig. 3.10)

Hurley acclaimed these dances and the kaiva kuku ceremony on Urama Island as the “culmination” of his film (Hurley 1922–1923, 7 January). The following day, buoyed by his success, he decides to

8 The caption on this photograph was corrected by people at Kinomere Village as “men’s normal dressing, not for mourning” (see Chapter 6).

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Fig. 3.9 Interior of Dubu, village of Tovei (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04784)

flashlight-photograph the dubu and enters into negotiations for the acquisition of one of the skull racks. While photographing the dubu, he rearranges the interior to suit his own preferences in terms of the miseen-scene. His principal aids in this were the village constable, (“the indispensible Bormi”), and the “dignified Gormier” (Fig. 3.11). The latter apparently greeted his request for a full skull rack with astonishment, but Hurley had now perfected his salvage pitch: … we white men were travelling over the length & breadth of New Guinea, learning the customs & ways of its people, collecting their arts, crafts & all things appertaining to their life. That beyond New Guinea & the sunrise was a great world where the white people came from. I spoke of their great villages & of the enormous Dubu made of stone that the great Cities owned, wherein all things belonging to the native people all over the world were kept. That white people came day after day to look at these things & learn of other people. That all things were kept there for all time. That

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Fig. 3.10 Kaiva-kuku ceremony, Urama village (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04776)

when GORMIER died & his people died & new people came, the trophies which we would collect would live on & memories of them would never be forgotten. We had collected from everywhere & now we wanted the people of Urama to help us. (Hurley 1922–1923, 8 January)

For all the disingenuousness and prejudice that taints the argument, it is one that continued to resonate with the Kerewo when they viewed the collection in the Australian Museum in Sydney, ninety years after Hurley’s visit (see Chapter 6). In response to Hurley’s appeal, Gormier convinces his peers to each part with one skull, one gopi board, and one animal skull so that, by this way, a full installation might be reassembled without the complete loss of any one man’s collection (Fig. 3.12). Hurley’s reaction is again typical. When the villagers comply with his requests, he is moved to regret his interference in another culture that he isolates as an authentic— because it is apparently unchanged—phenomenon from the deep past:

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Fig. 3.11 “Gormier”, chief of Kinomere dubu with victims’ skulls (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04780)

“It might seem strange that I felt rather sad about the whole affair; to secure a head from a head hunter might sound a permissible action to most people; but when it is understood that many of these skulls were relics passed down by ancestors – fine old warriors – heads won in fair combat – by strength of arms & valour & objects of religious reverence, it is natural that many must have felt a deep pang when parting with them” (Hurley 1922–1923, 8 January). This is Hurley’s dilemma. He wants an “authentic pre-contact” culture with which he achieves a privileged first contact communication, but he recognises that this putatively authentic condition is now compromised by his own intervention and collecting. Further, he recognises that the justification for his interference is that subsequent contact will soon require the “authentic” culture to adjust to a system of power that he sees as a mixed blessing, or even a poor bargain: The expression was downcast & sad. What volumes of tragic story these racks could tell, what awful sights the eyeless things had seen. Awful to us who regard with horror the eating of human flesh, but infinitely worse are we who murder by the million. I had great esteem for these men that

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Fig. 3.12 Captain Hurley bartering with the natives, Kinomere (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04779)

parted with their belongings – things that ordinarily could not be bought, for I am convinced that no tobacco nor trade objects could have rendered these things. Elsewhere I had striven to purchase them at fanciful prices but had failed. Henceforth each rack will have a vacant hole, perhaps it will remind them of the strangers who passed their way; but I am sure it will ever be a space of regret. (Hurley 1922–1923, 8 January)

Hurley paid each villager twenty-five sticks of tobacco, four bidi-bidi and one arm shell for their contribution, and had them reconstruct a replica of Gormier’s skull rack on which to display the items. The following day the Australian organised a canoe race in which seventy-five crafts were entered. He then tried his luck with Gormier again, seeking permission to obtain examples of the kaiva kuku masks, which the old man declined. As a compromise, Gormier offered to have several old masks repaired and repainted for the Australian.

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The following day, the Eureka left Urama Island for Kaimari Village in the Purari Delta. Hurley recognised that his successful attempts to secure precious cultural items from the reluctant Papuans were only made possible by the destructive effects of the colonial process: “The natives of this village are an indolent populace & rather than work they would prefer any discomfort & makeshift. The days of fighting are done. There is no incentive to keep fit & active. The women feed the men & they now prefer to idle in the Ravis chewing betel or smoking. For this narcotic they would sell their souls which indeed fits our purpose well just now” (Hurley 1922–1923, 10 January). Back in Kaimari, he renews his endeavours to have the villagers perform the kaiva kuku ceremony for his cinematograph. Though there is a level of cooperation in return for tobacco, there are also mixed feelings. Some men believe they will die if they don the masks without first holding a feast. Others were reluctant to remove the front screen of the ravi so that Hurley might use his camera. Hurley called these concerns “humbugging”: “I cursed the lot to my full lung power & threatened that we would at once go to Kikori & have the ring leaders put in gaol. This greatly disturbed the elders who amidst tumultuous clamour removed the screen” (Hurley 1922–1923, 11 January). The reluctant dance that results from these threats is a “farce” that further angers the Australian. In the end the villagers who “would sell their souls” for tobacco exacerbate his displeasure by refusing to sell him the masks he covets: “The people”, he concludes, “are a lazy worthless lot & a miserable contrast to their cheery & energetic neighbours of Urama”.

The Dispute Between Hurley and the Papuan Administration Hurley returned for this second expedition to Papua in 1922–1923, seeking more spectacular footage of first contact with head-hunters and cannibals, and a collection of material culture so that he might decorate the theatres screening his film Pearls and Savages . To satisfy the conditions for an export license for these materials, he needed permits from the colonial administration as well as an association with a respectable museum, through which he might claim his collection to be in the interests of science. The collection was seized in Port Moresby and the permits suspended after Rev. E.B. Riley, the LMS missionary who encountered the expeditioners in the Fly River, confided to Alexander C. Rentoul, the

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Assistant Magistrate at Daru, that “McCulloch openly boasted that he had secured several curios during the absence of their owners through fear, and that he had left certain trade goods in exchange”. McCulloch’s account of their conduct on the lake to Riley and the Mediri plantation manager H.P. Beach, together with the developed photographic plates showing the party heavily armed on the shore of the lake, convinced both men that Hurley’s collection had been obtained by dubious means. Riley went on to add that both Hurley and McCulloch treated the theft of the villagers’ property “airily” and that the items obtained included two stuffed heads, which they well knew “would not be bartered” by the Papuans (Inquiry Re Alleged Grave Irregularities with Natives by Captain Frank Hurley and Party in the Western Division 1923). Under the Papuan Antiquities Act , officers of the administration had a responsibility to seize any items that they believed were being exported without proper process, and Rentoul duly informed the acting Governor of the need to act on the missionary’s report. Murray, the Lieutenant Governor, was absent in Australia at the time and his deputy and afore mentioned political rival Staniforth Smith acted in his place (McGregor 2004, 262). Smith authorised the seizure of Hurley’s collection pending an investigation, and some commentators have suggested that he may have been motivated in this by a desire to embarrass Murray for his support of, and association with, Hurley (Specht 2003). The grounds for his intervention under the Act, however, were clear. Hurley was outraged and waged war through the pages of the newspapers, in his customary fashion. Trouble with officialdom was nothing new to the Australian, who had experienced differences with both Douglas Mawson and C.E.W. Bean in relation to his commercial use of materials collected under their public authorities as scientist-explorer, and official war correspondent and historian respectively (Dixon and Lee 2011, xv–xxiii). Murray, seeking grounds for restricting any further action by Hurley in PNG, wrote to the Defence Minister George Pearce, enquiring whether or not Hurley had been sacked for inappropriately using official war photographs for his personal profit9 (McGregor 2004, 271). Hurley’s tactics in the dispute were in keeping with his fickle changes of allegiance between the “good” and “bad native” and the worth or worthlessness of Indigenous culture. He now swiftly swapped sides in the battle between 9 Pearce denied Hurley had been dismissed, but confirmed the illegal use of the photographs.

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the administration and the plantation owners, and used his press connections to paint a picture of the bungling officialdom and red tape that was putatively thwarting the industrious colonists’ attempts to commercially develop a promising territory. The charge was politically powerful at the time, for the collapse of copra and rubber prices and the application of the Navigation Act restricting foreign shipping from operating direct from the territory, were both placing commercial interests in the territory under pressure (West 1968, 188–189). One of the problems for Hurley was that his own sensational accounts of his expedition in the popular press undermined the scientific credentials of his undertaking, and helped cast some doubt over the legitimacy of his collecting. A clipping of an article by Hurley (1923a) in the Adelaide Register, collected as part of the government investigation into the matter, is headlined: “Head-Hunters’ Citadel/Gruesome Human Relics/ Victim’s Heads Stuffed”. As Hurley’s biographer Adrian McGregor points out, the Papuan Administration had clear admission in Hurley’s journalism that artefacts had been collected from the villagers, under duress.10 McCulloch’s register of collections, which he left in Port Moresby with the impounded items, also contradicted Hurley’s public assertions of his innocence. In his notes on the collection of a bundle of 18 bullroarers from Kaimari, he indicates that compliance was only secured after the “apparent threats of … our interpreter”. The diction McCulloch uses to describe the removal of the items is “robbed”. Collecting the specimens was also described as “unpleasant work” both because of their location and condition, and because. … all the time there was the feeling that I was violating the genuine beliefs and fears of the crowd who would certainly have refused to permit me to take anything had it not been for the fear in which white men are held in village [s] ’under control’ of the government. (McCulloch qtd. in McGregor 2004, 270)11

Resident magistrates were sent to Kaimari, Aramia, and Lake Murray in search of more information. The Lake Murray people’s desire that the 10 McGregor (2004, 270) cites correspondence from Acting Administrator C. E. Herbert to the PM, W. M. Hughes. 11 For a discussion of Hurley’s public defence against the allegations see McGregor (2004, 267–271; see also Specht 2003).

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investigating magistrate not enter their villages might be read as an indication that Hurley’s behaviour had undermined their confidence in the government. As Hurley (1922b, 20 October) himself predicted, however, difficulties with translations led to inconclusive results there, and little information was forthcoming from Aramia. Testimony from the people of Kaimari in relation to the theft of the bullroarers from the “Holy of Holies” backed up McCulloch’s account, however, and Aua-Mairau from the Api ravi testified that: They wished to purchase UPURA IMUNU (bull-roarers) and KOEI (Carved shields) but we did not want to sell these things. They asked us many times to sell, but we refused. The day before they left for DARU, they went into APU RAVI, and took one KOEI and one parcel of UPURA IMUNU, there are ten in a parcel. The KOEI belongs to an old man BARIA-POIMO, and he did not want to sell. They did not ask him about it, or pay for it, they just took it. The UPURA IMUNU belong to the RAVI (communal ownership). The tall man (McCulloch) took the KOEI, and the other man took the UPURA IMUNU. There were only a few men in the Ravi at the time, not more than ten. We talked among ourselves about it, and were wild, but were frightened to say anything as we thought they had something to do with the Government. (Inquiry Re Alleged Grave Irregularities with Natives by Captain Frank Hurley and Party in the Western Division 1923)

A second witness, Baria-Poimo, gave a remarkably similar statement (Inquiry Re Alleged Grave Irregularities with Natives by Captain Frank Hurley and Party in the Western Division 1923). He expressed his satisfaction with the payment for non-precious personal items, and anger at the theft of sacred items and communal property, which should not be sold or otherwise removed. In his statement, Aua-Mairau expresses the concern that Hurley “had something to do with the government” while Baria-Poimo makes no mention of this. However, Hurley’s diary clearly records him threatening them with government retribution. The upshot of the affair was that some items were identified as the ones in question and removed for return to the villages,12 while the rest of the collection was cleared for export.

12 There is some suggestion that a number of items were returned to the wrong place (see Schaffarczyk 2008, 122; Specht 2003, 22).

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Specht’s summary of the matter concludes that “there were many aspects of the seizure that the public did not hear about, probably because the release of the information might have embarrassed Hurley, the Australian Museum, the Papuan administration, the Commonwealth Government and the popular media” (2003, 40). Our discussion of Hurley’s own account shows that he uses the threat of force and retribution, bribery, and theft to obtain subjects and performances for his cameras, and cultural items for his own collection as well as the museum’s. More importantly, it shows how his behaviour fits into a pattern of colonial behaviour that the administration struggles to discipline, codify, legitimise, and apply in what is putatively the best interest of the Papuan peoples. The legacy of this complex web of colonial entanglements is a significant factor in the reception of these images during our attempts to return them.

Reception and Distribution of Hurley’s Work The film Pearls and Savages , which Hurley made from the footage gathered on his expeditions to Papua, toured Australia (1921–1922, 1923), the United States and Canada (1923–1924), and Great Britain (1924– 1925). Robert Dixon shows how Hurley adapts his diaries, newspaper articles, radio scripts, photographs, cinefilm, and material items to create multi-media entertainments deliverable through different platforms and in different markets and institutional contexts (Dixon 2011, 165–207). In this way, Hurley seeks to navigate a rapidly changing international field of representations and extract the maximum commercial value possible, while managing different forms of public reputation: explorer, collector, entrepreneur, promoter, publicist, showman, journalist, photographer and cinematographer, and media celebrity. Dixon describes the ethnographic travelogue as a “distinct genre that had its own history, its own visual language and promotional rhetoric” (Dixon 2011, 167). Drawing upon the work of Alison Griffiths (2002) on the early use of film in ethnographic study, he makes the point that: In the 1920s and 1930s, the boundaries between ethnographic and popular film were quite fluid and the provenance of films often uncertain, as museums frequently screened commercially produced films, while popular travelogues combined sensational forms of entertainment with scientific and educational pretensions. (Dixon 2011, 167)

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Ethnography ultimately asserted its emerging professionalism by disapproving of the sensational codes of representation that appealed to a wider audience, while remaining attracted to the potential of the medium to record and disseminate scientific knowledge and raise funds for research (Griffiths 2002). The tension comes from the pressure points created by the institutionalisation of specialist knowledge for the purposes of educating or “improving” an emerging modern population. The social mobility and increasing commercial power of this population presents the state with an issue of governance (Bennett 1995). Hurley’s interest in the established credibility of science as an emerging professional specialisation, with an increasing role to play in providing advice to the government, is less of a priority than his commercial success, if it is a priority at all (Dixon 2001, 2011). The entrepreneur’s frequent clashes with officialdom during his career are always a result of the methods he uses to sell his collections to mass audiences. These methods use sensational entertainment—a newly industrialised and commodified mass mode of address—to achieve celebrity and commercial success, and they appeal to the very forces that government and the establishment—which claim a higher register of disinterested culture—seek to discipline. The official culture of the ruling establishment suspected that sensation and the crowd could be the means by which power and privilege, and the order it superintended, might be overwhelmed by popular demand. Hurley teased a “mob” that the government sought to groom in the conditions of a form of civility, that itself was conducive to their sense of order and control. Hurley’s representations might therefore be seen as a threat to governance as well as to administration; although the complicated web of personal relationships amongst the businessmen, politicians, public servants, and media owners described in Chapter 1 offers substantial opportunity for variation, inflection, and appeal. This was the entangled context in which Hurley undertook his collecting in Papua. Robert Dixon theorises Hurley’s multi-media project as more than a text or set of texts, and more than a performance or a season of performances. For him, it was a malleable vehicle of representation that was adaptable to different venues, institutions, regions, and audiences. This malleability enabled it to adapt to different markets by assembling a heterogeneous audience, which makes it difficult to specify the ideological effects of these representations (Dixon 2011, 171). The other point he makes is that the expedition orchestrated a mediated ensemble of stunts that resulted in a hyper-mediated set of representations (172). The

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ideological function of Hurley’s representation of the Papuan cultures is therefore difficult to prescribe. Dixon describes several different but overlapping audiences, which are interpellated by the specific institutions involved in Hurley’s activities. So, for example, the travel journalism for the Sun presents a “miscellany of novelties and wonders” for a “low to middle brow” readership familiar with “the music hall, light literature and the cinema” (Dixon 2011, 174). In this way Papuan and Melanesian culture is made “part of the familiar world of modern entertainment” (Dixon 2011, 175). Dixon’s discussion of the relationship between the film and colonial governance draws on the work of the German cinema historian Assenka Oksiloff, who argues that while the different forms of cinema represent varying relations to colonial governance, they can be broadly characterised as pro-colonialist. Dixon’s view is that Hurley’s film combines “entertainment and information” in representing Papua “as a field for adventure and entertainment rather than as a scene of active colonization and modernization” (Dixon 2011, 191). Ultimately, he sees Hurley as a trafficker of a “decentered” form of colonial modernity for different metropolitan audiences in Sydney, London, and New York (207). Hurley’s chief success in the United States comes not from the outdated modality of his film Pearls and Savages (Dixon 2001, 72–98)—a characteristic that incited the anger of the people of Urama to whom we showed it in 2016—but rather from the print media where newspaper and magazine stories of his expedition circulated alongside reproductions of his photographs. McGregor (2004, 273) notes that the publisher Randolph Hearst ran Hurley’s articles in 30 of his newspapers, and prestigious print institutions such as the New York Times provided him with notable coverage. On the back of this widespread publicity, G.P. Putnam agreed to publish an illustrated travel book Pearls and Savages : Adventures in the Air, on Land and Sea – in New Guinea (Hurley 1924) based upon the diary and a handsome reproduction of the photographs. The film tour through the United States and Canada lost £8000 and although the British season of the film proved more successful, Hurley decided to give up on the lecture-as-entertainment and turn his attention to filming the “sex film” (McGregor 2004, 277–278). Murray refused permission to film these motion pictures in Papua, however, and from 1925 Hurley filmed instead in the Torres Strait Islands and Dutch New Guinea (Landman 2006, 63–66).

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References Aua-Mairau. 1923. Written Statement Taken by C.A. Leonard, Assistant Resident Magistrate, Kikori 28 February. Captain Frank Hurley—Ethnological Collection. National Archives of Australia, A1/15, 1923/10606. Bennett, Tony. 1995. The Birth of the Museum. London: Routledge. Brown, Jason, Alex Muir, Kimberley Craig, and Karika Anea. 2016. A Short Grammar of Urama. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. Dixon, Robert. 2001. Prosthetic Gods: Travel, Representation and Colonial Governance. Brisbane: University of Queensland Press. ———. 2011. Photography, Early Cinema and Colonial Modernity: Frank Hurley’s Synchronized Lecture Entertainments. London: Anthem Press. Dixon, Robert, and Christopher Lee, eds. 2011. The Diaries of Frank Hurley 1912–1941. London: Anthem Press. Griffiths, Alison. 2002. Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, and Turnof-the-Century Visual Culture. New York: Columbia University Press. Hurley, Frank. 1922a. “Awe of the Aeroplane: Hurley Machines Astonish Natives.” The Sun, 8 September. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/ 221519150. Accessed 15 August 2015. ———. 1922b. Diary No. 1. My Second Expedition to Papua. Papers of Frank Hurley. National Library of Australia, MS 883. ———. 1922c. Second Expedition to New Guinea, Diary No. 2. Papers of Frank Hurley. National Library of Australia, MS 833. ———. 1922–1923. Diary No. 3, 4 December 1922–12 January 1923. Papers of Frank Hurley. National Library of Australia, MS 883. ———. 1923a. “Head-Hunters’ Citadel.” The Register, 8 February. https:// trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/63829897. Accessed 15 August 2015. ———. 1923b. “Hurley in Papua, Statement by Governor About Those Skulls.” The Sun, 7 February. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/ 223449824. Accessed 15 August 2015. ———. 1924. Pearls and Savages: Adventures in the Air, on Land and Sea—In New Guinea. London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Inquiry Re Alleged Grave Irregularities with Natives by Captain Frank Hurley and Party in the Western Division. 1923. Papers re Visit to Western District, Papua, by Capt. Frank Hurley, 1923. Australian National University, Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, MS 916. Landman, Jane. 2006. The Tread of a White Man’s Foot: Australian Pacific Colonialism and the Cinema, 1925-62. Canberra, ACT: Pandanus Books. McGregor, Alasdair. 2004. Frank Hurley, a Photographer’s Life. Camberwell: Viking Press. Murray, John Hubert Plunkett. 1912. Papua or British New Guinea. London: T. Fisher Unwin.

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Schaffarczyk, Sylvia. 2008. “The Papuan Official Collection: The Biography of a Collection at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra.” PhD, The Australian National University, Canberra. Specht, Jim. 2003. “When the Cause of ‘Science’ Is Not Enough: Frank Hurley in Papua.” The Sixth Museum of Antiquities Maurice Kelly Lecture, Armidale. Vanderwal, R. 2005. Frank Hurley in the Gulf of Papua: Photographs of the 1921– 1923 Expeditions. Unpublished Manuscript. West, Francis James. 1968. Hubert Murray: The Australian Pro-Consul. Melbourne, New York: Oxford University Press. Williams, Francis Edgar. 1924. The Natives of the Purari Delta. Port Moresby: Government Printer. https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-192001115. Accessed 2 May 2018.

CHAPTER 4

The Lure of Barter: An Understanding of Papuan Peoples as Established Agents of Movement and Exchange

The colonial history presented in the previous chapters offers context for Hurley’s collection of images and artefacts, and for the ways in which he selectively used the various discourses of colonialism to process his own understanding, and account for his own collecting. In this chapter, we turn to an ethnohistorical account of the Kerewo and Urama peoples, informed in part by our own fieldwork encounters. This account is made necessary by our contention that to arrive at a more inclusive understanding of what takes place in historical exchanges, such as those with Hurley and those within our own field trips, we need to know more about certain Papuan contexts; for these contexts both inflected, and were inflected by, the colonial setting. The colonial view that when contacted by Europeans, Papuans were a naïve and geographically sequestered people who struggled to understand the technology and culture of modernity in general, and the commercial exchange of goods in particular, is disavowed by this concise ethnohistorical account.

The “Lure of Barter” The distinction between the gift economy and the economy of commodities, particularly as they are attributed to Indigenous and European (or classed) societies respectively (Gregory 2015), is used extensively when examining colonial appropriation of Indigenous cultural materials. These © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Lamb and C. Lee, Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15579-6_4

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divisions augment the trope of Us and Them by simplifying the range of variation that exists both among European peoples, and among their Others. Putatively stable economic domains are examined against each other, to explain the mismatched, unequal, and destructive nature of the colonial exchange of cultural materials. Transgressions of transactional protocols in gift-giving economies have social effects that errors in commodified transactions rarely carry (Thomas 1991, 15). Thus, when inalienable gift items from within one culture are acquired as alienable commodities by another, the consequences can be profound for one group while being irrelevant to the other. These consequences can be overlooked when the conflict is understood as resulting from interaction with an irrelevant, outdated, or even inferior economic system. When we examine the commodified transactions that Europeans undertake with colonised Indigenous societies, for example, the assumption that trade goods “embody some irresistible attraction that is given the status of an inexorable historical force” (Thomas 1991, 103) denies the colonised people any agency in the transaction. It also fails to recognise that they might attribute distinctive forms of value to such items, which differ from those ascribed by colonial assumptions of an unequal relationship. Nicholas Thomas rejected the notion of the tribal society as a “gift economy”, citing a continuum between gift and commodity economies and such societies’ “entanglement with other systems such as capitalist trade” (1991, 4). Acknowledging this complexity requires being attentive to historical forms rather than economic abstractions, and connecting these forms to the specific historical-political settings that produce distinctive regimes of value (Bell 2017; Brown 2014; Harrison et al. 2013; Myers 2001; O’Hanlon and Welsch 2000; Phillips and Phillips 1998; Thomas 1991, 16; Weiner 1992). Distinctive forms of value are to be found not only in cross-cultural constructions of an object’s meaning, but also in the reconstitution of this meaning through time and space, among groups and between groups. Thomas argues that “objects are not what they were made to be but are what they have become” (Thomas 1991, 4). They are creatively reconstituted, re-authored, and re-contextualised. They are not of fixed contexts nor are they records of one moment in time. Distinctive forms of value across space and time, across and among cultures, are produced through complicated entanglements and are never solely representative of the item’s original contexts of production and use. Therefore, our aim here is to disrupt some of the assumptions around Indigenous desire for,

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and use of, European items; around the binary oppositions of the introduced/local (Flexner 2014); around the notion of the “less advanced” cultures that subsumed the traits of “superior” cultures (e.g. Torrence and Clarke 2000), and of the traits’ putative effects on radical change or fatal impact (Flexner 2014, 44). In doing so, we will look at examples drawn from areas that Hurley visited in the Kikori River Delta and the Fly River region. We present our interpretation of these examples as both contextualised within, and a product of, an historicised political setting, so as to add complexity and context to events frequently portrayed as far less entangled than they are in practice. As outlined previously, European items passed into the hands of Papuans largely in four ways: as the result of shipwrecks in the region; as trade for ethnographic materials collected or commercial goods (such as food or services) purchased; as gifts intended to “pacify” the population by establishing trust and good will, the ultimate goal of which was to create a governable population; and indirectly, by way of trade between Papuan communities themselves. In a trope that Thomas refers to as “the allure of barter”, the complexity of trade relations between Papuans and Europeans is subsumed in a “just-so” story that emphasises the “gap between primitive tools and the manufactured things of white men: the magic and abundance of the latter are the source of asymmetry between powerless natives and dominant European colonizers” (Thomas 1991, 84). Where items are successfully exchanged or gifted, it was presumed to be achieved despite a great deal of fear and trepidation on the part of the Papuans, which was supposedly overridden by the irrational desire for items that are worthless or vastly overvalued. One of the effects of this trope is to establish a particular kind of asymmetry in the earliest engagements, thus displacing the culpability for subsequent tensions and violence onto the Indigenous population “who become to a certain extent authors of their own predicaments” (Thomas 1991, 85). The lure of barter is a colonial trope that disavows the rationality of subject peoples and disregards Indigenous agency in the processes of exchange. The common refrain about Papuans expressing reluctance to part with heirlooms, which is a feature of our account of colonial exchange in general and Hurley’s expedition in particular, is indicative of the fact that, in contrast to the presumed inexorable allure of European trade goods, people often exhibited agency in carefully choosing the kinds of items with which they were willing to part. This often occurred in the context of mobile collecting (see O’Hanlon 2000, 13–15), where people would

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visit the collector’s ship, for example, having already determined what they would bring forward to trade (see Thomas 1991, 138). On the Kikori River during his fifth trip to Papua New Guinea in 1887, for example, Bevan’s ship was approached directly by the people of Tamu Village, after having been observed for some time from the Aird Hills. The result of the subsequent transactions saw Bevan exchanging bone-tipped arrows for red cloth, hoop iron, and “one or two trifles” (Bevan 1887, 599). In this instance, he was materially limited by what people chose to place in their canoes when they went out into the river to meet the boat. Furthermore, collecting was incidental to his primary purpose, which was to verify geological observations made earlier that year (Davies 2007, 84). This raises the question of who initiated these specific encounters. In contrast, Bevan’s earlier expedition in 1885 was issued a permit to “explore and trade in British New Guinea” (Bevan 1890, 133, emphasis in original) and to establish beche-de-mer stations in Port Moresby. The Gulf attracted him “partly, perhaps, because it was largely a terra incognita, and partly, no doubt, from the sight of the great lakatois … brought annually to Port Moresby by black Gulf Papuans” (Bevan 1890, 138, emphasis in original). Being a trader, he was interested in sago and copra as potential commercial interests, as well as what else the region might offer as terra incognita. His collections of commercial and ethnographic items were central to his endeavours in the Gulf (see Bevan 1890, 137) and his stationary weeks at Motu Motu would have enabled an entirely different kind of collecting practice than anything he undertook on his later exploratory voyages on the Aird River. These factors, in combination, allowed him to depart having “loaded the Electra to the combings” (Bevan 1890, 145). While stationary collecting practices can result in a greater range of goods being collected, this is not always the case and nor is reduced agency necessarily implied in these instances. As Michael O’Hanlon (O’Hanlon 2000, 17–18) notes, stationary practices can result in extended efforts by the Indigenous population to control the flow of trade goods according to local economic and political structures, as was occasioned during D’Albertis’ expedition up the Fly River in 1876. While prevented from continuing his voyage from August 7th to November 2nd due to bad weather, D’Albertis had to enter frequent negotiations with people from Katow and Moatta villages for provisions. This was achieved with varying degrees of success, with the villagers not uncommonly

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refusing to accommodate his requests, and attempting to significantly renegotiate the terms of trade to include rifles. Furthermore, the Moatta people were endeavouring to interrupt the flow of trade goods between D’Albertis and their inland adversaries, by preventing their visitation and threatening to fight them (D’Albertis 1877, 29; see also Chalmers 1895, 45–46). Thus, the existing social, economic, and political structures adapted to the presence of new trade opportunities by negotiating, mediating, and incorporating them, rather than being fatally disrupted by them. Other instances of a kind of agency playing out between Papuan peoples and collectors can be inferred from a set of interactions that occurred further to the east, in the vicinity of Goaribari Island. George Dorsey, the Curator of the anthropology program at the Field Museum, sent his newly appointed assistant curator A.B. Lewis to Melanesia in 1909, to help develop a collection within a generally competitive environment that existed among the world’s museums (Welsch 1999, 451–452). The museum developed its collection partly by purchasing from private collectors, but it prioritised collecting in the field. Field collections offered the opportunity to document rigorous, more comprehensive material culture descriptions than did private collections; there may have also been an element of “glamour” that contributed to the allure of mobile field collections (Welsch 1999, 450–451). It is not unlikely that these two factors played into the museum’s methodologies, as they seem somewhat commensurate with the broader cultural and political aspirations of North America at the time (Greenhalgh 1988, 76). A.B. Lewis and the biologist William Patten made ethnographic collections around Goaribari Island from the 17th March to 22nd March, 1912. The two men visited the island the year the government station was established on the Kikori River, eleven years after Chalmers and Tomkins were killed at Dopima Village. By that time, there had been a short period of regular contact between the government and the delta people, and on this occasion, the visit was made as part of Governor Murray’s inspection of the region to investigate a reported coal seam on the Kikori River. Generally, Lewis was not particularly happy with the limited range of items he procured. Of the 332 items that the two men collected over the four days on Goaribari Island, 163 were arrows. On March 21 Lewis notes that they “Went with gov. to Aimaha in whale boat. This the most interesting village visited, but had very little time to buy things”. Then on March 22 they “Visited Dopima again, but did not get much … Got

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several woven rattan masks of different kinds, bark belts (narrow), feather ornaments, clothing, etc.” (qtd. in Welsch 1998, 460–462). Elsewhere in the Gulf, at Kerema Village for example, Lewis noted that people refused to part with “planks” that were “mementos of the departed”; when they would, he had to pay them in shillings rather than trade goods (Welsch 1998, 469). Further east, at a village near the Vailala River, Lewis was thwarted in his efforts to buy the kowabe dancing masks (Welsch 1998, 474), and at Orokolo the people would not sell him “their good things”. Similarly, in the neighbouring village of Erihauva “all refused to sell, as they said they were made by their fathers, who were now dead, and no one now could make so good ones” (Lewis, qtd. in Welsch 1998, 475). It is evident, from this aspect of the historical record, that people retained a degree of control over determining which items to trade and which to retain. Admiral John Erskine, on a voyage among the islands of the Western Pacific, noted of the island of Niue that “their articles of traffic are almost entirely weapons” and that weapons were items of personal property, being “ornamented with a few feathers, the arrangement of which … represented the owner’s name, and enabled him to claim the credit of a successful throw in battle” (qtd. in Thomas 1991, 89). Thomas makes the point that such items, after having been initially acquired from a specialist, were likely to be thenceforth removed from circulation and not utilised as items of exchange. Desirous of avoiding any kind of social relationship that might be inherent in the exchange of certain items, yet wanting to attain European trade goods, the Niue traded their personal weapons. This enabled them to avoid the “debt or burden of friendship” by making “free, unsocial commodities out of precisely the things they would not have exchanged among themselves” (Thomas 1991, 91). Linking such locally constituted understandings with a limited range of goods offered for exchange, requires that more be known about the nature of custom around weapons themselves, and their place in the economy, if we are to credit them as mechanisms for stifling a reciprocal, social, and ongoing relationship. In his ethnography of Kiwai peoples Landtman (1927) notes that arrows are both obtained from neighbouring groups, and “properly belong to some tribe or groups of tribes” (28). When a property is dispersed at the time of death, a son is said to inherit his father’s personal property, including his canoe, ornaments, tools, and weapons (Landtman 1927, 202); and that “old and beautifully made weapons and implements of various kinds are particularly taken care of”

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(203). This suggests that weapons can be considered personal property as opposed to part of the exchange economy. A brief search of the Hood Museum collection, which retains many objects collected by William Patten, shows that the arrows from Goaribari Island were elaborately painted or carved, and tipped with bone, hardwood, or multiple wooden tips (see also Landtman 1927, 28–31), suggesting that they could have been personal and intergenerationally curated items of a kind unlikely to be normally offered in typical, reciprocal, extended exchange relationships. If so, offering them to European collectors as one of the primary objects of trade could be interpreted as Thomas (1991) has suggested: the people encountered in the Kikori River by Bevan in 1887, and later by Lewis and Patten on Goaribari Island, offered their weapons as trade, wishing to avoid a social relationship defined by transactions of typical exchange items. In Chapter 2 we presented evidence that early contact between the Kikori River Delta people and Europeans was undertaken reluctantly, particularly prior to the Kikori Government Station being established. Instances of this can be found scattered throughout Jukes’ (e.g., 1847, 222–224) and Bevan’s (e.g., 1887, 595, 596, 601; 1888, 9–10) accounts of the Aird River region, and in D’Albertis’ (1877, 9, 10) account of his voyage up the Fly River. Such accounts often frame the interactions as either hostile or fearful, the latter represented in terms of a childlike naivety that is eventually overcome by appealing to a “natural curiosity”. These accounts in no way represent the range of responses that must have existed on a continuum of ill-ease, contextualised by cultural values relating to the external intruder in an inalienable cultural landscape. The two examples below illustrate how the reception of Europeans transcended the generalised fear and hostility as portrayed in these “first contact” encounters. D’Albertis writes about the disinterest of people during some of his attempts to trade with them: June 5: very early this morning I observed a canoe about three hundred yards behind us, and all our attention was directed to gain their confidence, but all our presents of red calico and bottles, sent down by the current, were unavailing; they did not notice or seem to care for them, but crossed the river and disappeared among the reeds. A short time after two other canoes, manned by natives, passed the same way without communicating with us. At 6.30 p.m. five large canoes came out from the place where the

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other canoes had disappeared, with about twelve or fifteen men in each. After looking at us for some time, they passed on, making a great noise, and at times appeared as if they would approach nearer … I endeavoured to pacify them by sending some red calico, knives, and bottles fastened on a piece of wood, but they did not take any notice of my presents or pick them up. (D’Albertis 1877, 10)

These incidents suggest a desire to limit contact that is more complex in origin than the depictions in many early reports would suggest; such reports commonly describe interactions using diction such as terrified, panic, frightened, vanished, scurried or, for example, “to take as one man to the water” (Bevan 1887, 595). Rather, these interactions described by D’Albertis, in which people purposefully avoided direct contact, might be understood as the result of existing cultural protocols around strangers. Landtman, for example, observes that among the Kiwai peoples “any stranger was looked upon more or less as an enemy” and that in chance encounters between strangers there “is no effective way of signalling or calling out one’s friendly intentions, so as to stop the others from running away, because every endeavour to do so would only be regarded as treachery” (1927, 178, 179). The desire to remove oneself from a situation where a stranger is offering a gift can be understood in this social context, and departs significantly from typical colonial assumptions of the people’s certain fear of the supposedly superior and incomprehensibly exotic “white man”. Administrator F. R. Barton’s account of a visit of inspection to Goaribari Island in February 1906 provides another instance in which these encounters can be theorised as defined by existing cultural protocol. In this entry, he describes his displeasure at the departure of the women and children from Dopima Village during his visit, and indicates that he considers this response to be born of fear and suspicion: They were still disposed to be extremely suspicious of us, and when in the afternoon we landed at one end of the village their women and children were seen streaming away in canoes, and scurrying away into the mangroves at the other end. Upon expressing to the assembled men my displeasure in an indignant voice, they with one accord began shouting to their women to return, apparently in abusive terms … Eventually the women and children all came back to the village, and the unconcerned manner in which they forthwith set about their usual avocations gave one the impression that their departure had not been so much due to their own

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fear or suspicion as to that of their masters. (Annual Report on British New Guinea 1905–1906, 7)

Landtman writes of the Kiwai peoples that if women and children are among a party of strangers visiting a village, the party is assumed to be friendly (1927, 179). Related to this, he suggests that the presence of women and children in a village indicates that “a visitor can be easy for a time” and that the possibility of friendly, social interaction is signalled (Landtman 1927, 181). Conversely, the removal of women and children may speak to an issue of protocol around the desire to avoid direct social contact (see also Thomas 1991, 91). Being even moderately attentive to the available ethnographic information for this region allows us to reimagine these two accounts, presented here, as defined by an established set of cultural values and locally constituted ways of understanding, regarding encounters with strangers. This reimagining is markedly different from colonial assumptions of the time, which are firmly positioned in a paternalistic ignorance, typical of the colonial context. The cultural ignorance of the coloniser prevents them from understanding the actions of the population and undermines their claims to a superior science and more dependable reason; claims which are used to justify invasive colonial practices (Bhabha 1994, 102–122).

The Myth of First Contact: Language and Migration Hurley specifically sought representations of a “pre-modern” people who were unaffected by contact with colonial modernity (Chapter 3). The peoples he encountered in the Gulf failed to fulfil this requirement, which necessitated his second expedition further afield up the Fly and Strickland Rivers in search of the peoples of Lake Murray, with whom he hoped to secure an “authentic” first contact experience. The very notion of first contact itself requires interrogation, and this can be achieved by examining previous periods of contact and exchange in the region. The notion of pre-contact, contact, or first contact is predicated on the idea of the Other; of contacting a previously unknown, undocumented, and in almost every way, differentiated group of people. This reliance on the Other to construct notions of contact—what Alexander Lesser refers to as “the myth of the primitive isolate” (Lesser 1961, 42)—renders all “precontact” contact between Indigenous peoples themselves as insignificant,

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meaningless, or simply non-existent in the eyes of colonisers (Flexner 2014, 48). Lesser argues that we should assume “the universality of human contact and influence” when examining the history of sociocultural processes (1961, 42; e.g., Swadling 2019; Terrell 1998; Torrence 2000). The dynamic Gulf region of Papua New Guinea, and the Western and Delta Divisions in particular, have a long and complex history of migration, culture contact, and exchange, with societies both within and outside of the region. We examine this, below. The languages of the Kerewo and Urama people belong to the Kiwai language family (Franklin 1973a, 14), although Urama is considered a dialect of the NE Kiwai language, which is comprised of the Urama, Gope and Giabo dialects (Wurm 1973, 248). Most people in the region of the Kikori River Delta are now multilingual, with Tok Pisin and Motu Hiri being particularly common. English is taught to school-aged children and is the language of further education and the government sector, however it tends not to be spoken by the most elderly people, and the youngest people tend to no longer be taught Motu Hiri (Brown et al. 2016, 4). There are some 1500 to 2200 speakers of Kerewo, which is spoken on the lower Omati River, on Goaribari Island and other islands in the western Kikori Delta, and in the village of Kikori (Busse et al. 1993, 29; Wurm 1973, 225). Urama is spoken in the Pai-a and Iviri Inlets and Era Bay, on both the northern and southern tips of Ini Island, across Urama Island and at the confluence of the Wapo, Era, and Baru Rivers by approximately 1700 people. However, due to various factors which prompt dispersals (intermarriage, education, job prospects, and the formulation of new Incorporated Land Groups or ILGs), it is difficult to be precise about the number of speakers in either language. Kerewo and Urama share many similarities and are mutually intelligible (Wurm 1973, 248), their morphological features indicating that they are each a product of language migrations from the west (trans-Fly area) to the north (Bamu and Gama Rivers), then to the northeast. Furthermore, there are some indications that Kerewo and Urama developed sequentially. Wurm (1973, 251–253) notes that many Kerewo words are considerably shortened compared to Kiwai languages to the southwest, which he explains as the product of a migration from the Kiwai area, and subsequent regionally-specific development. Furthermore, in instances where some Kiwai language elements are preserved in Kerewo, they are either absent or “replaced by a guttural stop” in NE Kiwai (Urama), which may represent a subsequent migration

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from the Kerewo into the Urama area (Wurm 1973, 249, 251–253; see also Frankel and Vanderwal 1982, 90). A migration of Kerewo peoples1 from the west/southwest is also supported by oral history, which indicates that they came from the Bamu River area (Barker et al. 2012; see also Goldman 2008, section 2, 53; Haddon 1920, 238). The Kerewo people derive their name from the origin or ancestor village of Kerewa (Otoia) on Goaribari Island (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1912–1913, 75). From Otoia, people dispersed to form the villages of Goare, Aiedio, Namai, Mubagoa, Yowa, Golo, Ubua, Aimaha, Dopima and Dubumuba (Barker et al. 2012, 2015; Goldman 2008, section 2, 53). Indeed, the archaeological record makes a strong case for dating the ancestral village of Otoia to approximately 500 years ago, with the secondary villages of Old Dopima and Aiedio dating within the past 200 years (Barker et al. 2012, 2015). Further to the east a raised mound in the centre of Kinomere village on Urama Island was excavated in 1981, returning a date of 400–500 years (Frankel and Vanderwal 1985). Oral history recorded with the Uramans by Frankel and Vanderwal (1982, 90) also indicates that people came “from the west” at least seven generations ago, to establish the first villages of Kivaumai and Kinomere. As a result of population pressure, people moved out from Kivaumai to establish the villages of Larimia, Mirimailau, Morovamu, and Veraibari (Brown et al. 2016, 3), and from Kinomere, they established Kivaumai, Amou and Aibigahe (and others, not detailed) (Frankel and Vanderwal 1982, 90). Brown et al. (2016, 3) list Gauri, Mairevepea, Omaimere and Tovei as also being established from Kinomere. Later migrations from Urama Island are said to have taken place in several directions. According to Holmes (1924, 24) “both the Maipuans and the Kaimarians had authentic oral records of their migration from Urama to the Purari Delta” (see also Chalmers 1895, 110; Williams 1924, 250–251). There is also at least one government account of a northern migration from Kinomere, up the Era River to “Kipi Creek” (Gope area) where the village of Nanomere was established (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1920–1921, no. 8, 5). This was said to have happened owing to a “quarrel” after which “one section” of the village migrated away. Similar 1 We will use the term Kerewo when discussing cultural trends such as migration as far as Goaribari Island. Kerewo or Urama will then be used to discuss other place-specific details such as settlement, subsistence, and aspects of cosmology, as they pertain to the people as far east as Era Bay.

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accounts are told by one of our contacts whose family are past residents of Kinomere Village. Pilita Iviriau, a local government magistrate of Kapuna, told us that her ancestors migrated many generations ago from Queensland to Parama Island, then further northeast to Moroge Island in the Fly River delta, where their vessel was wrecked. They travelled northeast along the coast with an heirloom relic of their vessel, and made their home at Dopima Village on Goaribari Island. According to Pilita, her ancestors were one of two groups that settled on the island, the other being the Kerewo of the Bamu River. After the missionary James Chalmers was killed in 1901, Pilita’s great grandparents fled to Urama Island, where they were accommodated by the people already living there. Her grandfather then migrated up to the Gope tribe at Meagoma Village where her father was born (Iviriau 2016, pers. comm., 22 November).

The Myth of First Contact: Trade and Exchange Europeans acknowledged the social exchanges and trade relationships between the Gulf peoples and peoples from the Torres Strait, from their earliest encounters with them. In 1845 Joseph Beete Jukes (1847, 213) observed that the people of the south coast of Papua were capable of understanding elements of the Torres Strait’s Erub or Darnley Island vocabulary (see also Di Rosa 2016). While this capacity diminished progressively as his expedition moved northeast from the Fly River (Jukes 1847, 223), nevertheless the south coast of Dowdee (Papua New Guinea) is thought to be part of a network of social exchanges incorporating Cape York Peninsula and the Torres Strait Islands (see Di Rosa 2016, 143; Lawrence 1994; McNiven 2022). The Finnish ethnologist and collector Gunnar Landtman (1927, 33– 34) references several cultural items observed in the Kiwai or Fly River region as evidence of an “extensive traffic in various articles” with the Torres Strait Islands. Principally among these were the baidam-ibunuro (a fighting stick mounted with sharks’ teeth) and some stone axes and adzes (emoa or emoa-iobo) (cf. Beaver 1920; but see McNiven 2016). He also describes other cultural exchanges between the Torres Strait Islands and the south coast of Papua New Guinea: The harpooning of dugong and turtle was originally practised by the natives of the Torres Straits islands, from whom the people on the neighbouring coast of New Guinea learnt it. The origin of harpooning

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is explained in this way by the natives themselves, and the statement is corroborated by many circumstances, among others by the fact that harpooning is not practised by all the groups of the Kiwai people who live further east in the delta of the Fly … The first harpoons were introduced at Mawata and other coast villages from the islands in the Torres Straits in the course of trading, which in former times was pursued on a large scale between the islands and the villages along the coast. (Landtman 1927, 126–127)

Landtman also writes that “according to certain traditions … dugout canoes were introduced to the Torres Strait Islands from the Kiwai district; from the same group of traditions we gather that the Kiwais learnt to make their double outrigger canoes from the islanders” (1927, 211; see Lawrence and Varjola 2010). The historical record also describes contact between the Torres Strait Islands and the south coast of Papua, as can be seen in Jukes’ account of Erub people’s attitudes towards the latter— specifically those of a man called Seewai (Jukes 1847, 248). “Seewai shook his head, drew his finger across his throat, and said ‘Dowdee no good! Arress, arres [war or fighting]! Sarreg! [bow/to shoot with a bow]’”. According to Jukes “They all seemed to regard Dowdee with considerable horror, and said the people of Dowdee would kill them; making signs, by biting their arms, as if they would also eat them afterwards” (Jukes 1847, 261). There are accounts that European goods were in circulation in the region, prior to colonial administration. These accounts tend to describe articles presumed to have come from shipwrecks, observed in use, and reported amidst speculation as to the fate of the crew. Rev. MacFarlane reported one such instance in 1882, in an account published in The Queenslander: “On the beach we picked up a ship’s buoy in good preservation, with “Tavioni, Auckland”, painted on it, and subsequently heard of a wreck off the mouth of the Fly River. The Kiwai men are said to have killed the crew and plundered the ship; of the latter, however, there is abundant evidence in their village” (“Mission Work on Coast of New Guinea” 1882). The Queenslander followed up the article three days later with a report “that a vessel had recently struck on a shoal off the mouth of the Fly”. A missionary teacher called Goochin “noticed amongst natives articles of European clothing, also wreckage … rope, canvas, ironwork, and cabin fittings, painted green, with polished cedar scuttles … The

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wrecked vessel was a three-masted schooner of about 300 tons register” (“Wreck and Massacre at New Guinea” 1882). In 1886 the cutter, Manu Manu, was wrecked up the Fly River. The ten crew made their way to the mouth of the Fly where they were assisted by the inhabitants of Wygi, and the Captain, Christie Johnson, travelled to Brampton Island in a canoe that had been given to him by local people (“New Guinea, the Commissioner’s Recent Trip” 1886). While the many accounts of this event do not mention European goods being observed in situ, it appears as though some goods that were intended to be given by Johnson to his Indigenous hosts were “stolen” from the expedition (“The Sketcher” 1886) and presumably circulated. On Saturday 15th February 1890, it was noted that off Kiwai Island “there yet remains the wreck of the Rosie Welt which was lost there about four months ago” and that “one great peculiarity about these people, and which strikes the traveller, is the quantity of European clothing they seem to possess amongst themselves” (“The Traveller” 1890). On this occasion too, the ship’s crew survived, and the wreck was later recovered and sold at auction (“Wreck of the Rosie Welt” 1889). In 1901, as part of the expedition to Goaribari Island to recover the remains of James Chalmers and Oliver Tomkins, Governor Le Hunte also noted the presence of several shipwreck items: We found Mr. Hunt and Mr. Dauncy on shore with the others searching; they found two recently cooked shinbones … and some pieces of brass or gun metal, and a large iron “knee” and rudder irons which Mr. McDonald recognised as belonging to a large vessel which may have been wrecked somewhere in these parts; one of these brass pieces was beaten into a wedge in the shape of a stone adze … (Annual Report on British New Guinea 1900–1901, 30)

The Administrator’s visit of inspection to Goaribari Island in 1908 references “three axes made out of bits of iron which had perhaps been taken from the wreck of some ship” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1907–1908, 12). An iron knee was also recorded further to the east at the village of Mai-aki on Urama Island, nine years after one was seen on Goaribari Island: “I saw here the iron knee of a ship; the people told me they had got it from Ivianu, the village we first visited” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1909–1910, 19). When Wilfred Beaver was making regular patrols sometime around 1911, he observed that “The Goaribari

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natives, long before they could have possibly come in possession of iron by any other means, had obtained a good deal of this almost priceless commodity from wrecks and turned it into adzes and axes, a job that must have required no little patience and ingenuity. A few years ago I saw at one of the Goaribari villages part of the stock and flukes of an anchor of a very old pattern” (Beaver 1920, 246). Beaver also found “many small pieces of brass and iron” in a village upstream on a tributary of the Kikori River (the Mobi/Mubi River). These he attributes not to contact with Europeans, but rather to the “close and frequent communication with the coast” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1910–1911, 183). There was a significant movement of other goods between the people of the upper Kikori River/Southern Highlands, and the corresponding coastal region. The Kairi people were trading tobacco and betel nut for mud crab and arrows (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1909–1910, 15, 16; Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1911–1912, 73). Bulmer and Bulmer (1964, 56) note that shell was traded into the Southern Highlands from the lowlands or south coast. In 1936 Ivan Champion encountered Huli men on the northern slopes of Mt Bosavi who had come south to trade tobacco for shell with the Kewa (Champion 1940, 200), who themselves had likely obtained the shell from the south coast (Patrol Reports, Kutubu Station 1952–1953, no. 9, 25). The anthropologist Paul Freund’s work among the Kasua of the Southern Highlands noted that they obtained “small nassa shells” from the Kerewo (Freund 1979, 68) who in turn, it has been noted by Austen, obtained cowrie shell (and possibly other varieties such as nassa) from Urama Island (Austen 1948, 19). Williams (1924, 3, 125) reported on trading expeditions from Urama Island to the Purari Delta; while Chalmers noted that “the pearlshell comes in large quantities from Urama [to the Purari Delta], and long, long ago tobacco came to them from there” (1895, 110). The Kerewo and Uraman peoples were dependant on stone supplied from further afield to make axes, essential for most kinds of construction from housing and canoes, to clearing space for villages and gardens. Rhoads and Mackenzie (1991) provide an overview of the ethnographic accounts of indirect stone axe and adze trade into the Gulf region. They identify two main sources: one to the east in the western Owen Stanley Ranges and one to the north in the Highlands. The Owen Stanley material was traded east to west along the coast, having likely landed on the coast at Hall Sound. The axe trade from the Karimui and Pour plateaus in the Highlands moved stone to the Samberigi Valley and then to Lehi

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Creek, which feeds into the Kikori River. Ian McNiven (2016) also details a range of ethnographic accounts of the large stone axes and adzes coming from either the upper waters of the Fly River or, more likely, from the Torres Strait Islands2 (see also Beaver 1920, 187). Another significant trading phenomenon, well documented ethnographically, was the Motu hiri trade system that originated in the Port Moresby area and terminated at Vaimuru, on the eastern side of Era Bay.3 Western Motu ceramics manufacturers would ship thousands of hiri pots west, on large trading canoes or lakatoi pushed by the southeast trade winds, bringing home tonnes of sago and canoe hulls from the western Gulf (Dutton 2011; Oram 2011; Seligman 1910, 114; Skelly and David 2017).4 Any pots that were received west of Vaimuru were obtained indirectly via villages on the westerly end of the trade route (Chester 1878, 9), which may have acted as distributors of pottery and other items to villages further up the Kikori River as well (Barker et al. 2012; David et al. 2010; Rhoads 2011, 141). There are oral records of hiri traders coming as far west as Urama Island, after headhunting practices ceased in the first decade of the twentieth century, and these records indicate that relations continued between the two world wars, and sometime after (Frankel and Vanderwal 1982, 90; Geii 2016, pers. comm., 19 November). There can be little doubt that endemic warfare between peoples west of the direct hiri distribution network restricted contact between the Kerewo/Urama and the Motu hiri traders (David et al. 2010; Knauft 1993). Delayed contact with this region is also supported by the late arrival of the Motu Hiri language, which was only introduced at the turn of the twentieth century by missionaries (Barker et al. 2012, 161). Both Bevan and Chalmers provide accounts of European items being incorporated into hiri trading ventures. Bevan notes that

2 A petrographic analysis of 20 axes from the Fly River Delta demonstrates that the majority (90%) are made from igneous rocks with known or possible outcrops in the Torres Strait (McNiven 2016, 76). 3 This most westerly destination is sometimes noted as Baimuru, upstream on the Pai River, However, historic sketch maps in the Annual Report on British New Guinea 1892– 1893 and the Territory of Papua Annual Report 1925–1926 show Vaimuru at the mouth of Port Romilly; also supported by Murray (1912, 57) and MacGregor (1897, 33). 4 James Chalmers notes, on several occasions, some reasons why the people of the western Gulf were seeking pots (Chalmers 1895, 85, 112).

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“sago is exchanged with the Motu tribe of Port Moresby and neighbourhood (chiefly for earthenware pots, or chatties, and trade obtained from Europeans)” (1890, 138–139). Chalmers also mentions European trade items amongst the list of items on the lakatoi voyages: “All ready; but we have to wait for wind, so the time is spent in going over their wealth. What a collection! Arm-shells, large and small; tomahawks, old and new; beads, foreign and native, cloth of all colours, nose-jewels, frontlets and breastplates” (1895, 78). It is worth noting, as Goldman (2008, section 4, 316) does, that the presence of trade relationships does not in any way preclude the shifting of those relationships to that of enmity, and from enmity back to amity (see also McNiven 1998). For example, there are scattered references to poor relations between the Uramans and people to the north (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1914–1915, 86–89; Patrol Report Kikori Station 1915, no. 11, 4), and to the east in the Purari Delta (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1914, no. 17, 3; Williams 1924, 125). The Kerewo were also raiding peoples in the upper regions of the Kikori River (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1917–1918, no. 28, 3) and the Omati River (Haddon 1918). The motives for protracted warfare are attributed to a range of factors, which are not unrelated to one another. Vanderwal (2005, 21–22) explains the concept of imunu, the “vital strength”’ that is embodied in all things, and indeed in some things more than others. This, he proposes, is the concept that underlies the ritual headhunting of the Kiwai-speaking peoples, and the ceremonies that legitimise the practice. Of early accounts, Knauft (1993, 196) remarks that “the general sense one gets from the accounts of Landtman (1917), Riley (1925) and Beaver (1920) is that warfare among the Kiwai themselves was driven by political disputes and revenge rather than ritual mandate”. Knauft (1993, 210–211) himself notes an “elaborate social and political as well as cosmological linkage between the fertility power of ritual sexuality” and the “violent taking of life-force through headhunting”. As testimony to the extent of the practice, the Rev. H.M. Dauncey remarked that “in one of the dubus there were over seven hundred skulls, and at another four hundred. Some of the other dubus were cleared out before the party reached them, but I am within the mark in saying that there must have

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been ten thousand skulls in the twenty dubus burned” (qtd. in Haddon 1918, 180).5

Village and Community In 1913, Resident Magistrate H.J. Ryan documented seven villages between Pai-a Inlet and Era Bay (on Urama Island), and fourteen villages in the vicinity of Goaribari Island and the adjacent mainland areas (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1912–1913, 79). In contrast to many coastal villages today, the villages on the coast were once made up of very sizable populations, living in a range of housing types, including the large men’s house or dubu (Fig. 4.1). Other house types included those for the younger, uninitiated men, ohiabai-daimu, and the women’s houses, upi-daimu. MacGregor documented “three or four very long houses” of about 300 to 400 feet each in “Anawaida”, which according to its position on the accompanying sketch map, is the village later known as Dopima (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1891–1892, 45–46; see also Barker et al. 2012, 160). In the same report, the village of Pai-a was speculated as the largest in the possession, although the people there were later posited to be “of different stock” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921, 63) than the surrounding peoples.6 Ryan noted that the seven villages on Urama Island housed approximately 4000 people combined (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1912–1913, 79). Two years later, Resident Magistrate C.L. Herbert estimated that the two Urama villages, Ebi-ka-o and Mai-aki alone, held 3000 people between them (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1914–1915, 87). Residence and inheritance patterns typically followed a pattern of patrilineal descent (Landtman 1927, 199, 201). Rights to land were and are connected to clan membership that is, itself, also based on patrilineal descent. Therefore, men and their wives and children typically lived on land that was passed down to the men in a direct patrilineal line. A similar rule is applied to sea and river rights. While individual clans themselves are not known to have rights to specific places in the rivers or on the coastline, such rights are connected to larger groups, composed of

5 Goldman (1999, 19–20) outlines reasons to be skeptical of this figure. 6 They were actually speakers of Minanibai, an inland Gulf Stock language (Franklin

1973b, 269).

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Fig. 4.1 Uninitiated men’s Dubu at Kinomere (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04751)

several related clans (Geii 2016, pers. comm., 21 November). Matrilineal kinship ties (social ties and obligations that one has to their mother’s family) also influence settlement patterns and river/sea rights, as do ties forged by marriage. These obligations may explain such undertakings as fostering or adopting children from outside a clan, a man moving to his wife’s village, or a man bequeathing land to his sister’s children (see Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1912–1913, 76, for example). Goldman and Tauka (1998, 8) outline other variations to strict patrilineal inheritance rules in the case of sago palms that are planted by a man’s wife, who has external clan membership. In such cases, her relations may also have rights to that resource. Historically, Kerewo villages were often positioned on the coast or on large waterways like the Aumo Inlet off the north coast of Goaribari Island. Urama villages were more frequently located 50–150 m or so inland along the larger creeks passing through the island from Era Bay,

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Pai-a Inlet or the southern coast, possibly for purposes of protection and defence (Goldman 2008, section 4, 281). Subsistence was principally derived from the sea (fish, mud crab, stingray, and crocodile), the sago palm, and pigs, and was supplemented by a range of bush foods such as coconut, fruit bats, and cassowary (Busse et al. 1993). Although the low, swampy conditions on Goaribari Island generally precluded people from constructing large gardens, there were smaller, local gardens either close to, or within the villages where possible (Goldman 2008, section 4, 281). Today, gardens are typically limited in scope and extent, although the slightly higher land of Urama Island is more conducive to larger, healthier gardens than is Goaribari Island. Nonetheless, it is not uncommon to see small stands of sugar cane and banana in or near villages (see also Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1908–1909, 89), and coconut seedlings are regularly transported around the region and replanted near villages; a practise that was encouraged by the colonial administration between the wars (West 1968, 130). Rhoads (1980, 1981) describes a range of sago palm use and management strategies for the Kairi on the upper Kikori River, including canopy clearing, weeding, transportation, and the planting of suckers or seedlings that could be typical of the broader region (Goldman 2008, section 4, 301); although the intertidal swamps of the Kikori and Purari Deltas inhibit full growth of the palms (Piajams, cited in Rhoads 1981, 48). Clans own and maintain ancestral knowledge such as origin stories and migration histories, and possession of this knowledge is, for the most part, a necessary condition for clan membership. As noted previously, questions of inheritance and residency are adjudicated through these groupings. Village longhouses were places where the men of several clans resided, as well as being the keeping places for sacred objects, imbued with clan history and meaning. Internally, the longhouses were partitioned into spaces for each clan. The Kerewo used a prefix to the clan name, which was attributed according to their place in the dubu: tamu (front or head of the house), goho (middle) and nupu (back of the house). Kerewo oral history recalls that at Otoia there were two longhouses named Gewo and Ubu Gewo. Housed in the Gewo dubu were the clans of Kibiri, Atenaramio, Karuramio, Hide’ere, Guei, Pinei and Neboru and in Ubo Gewo there were the Neauri, Kurami, Gibi, Adia’amudae and

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Fig. 4.2 Schematic drawing of a longhouse interior, by Henry Geii, photograph: Lara Lamb, 2016

Neboro clans (Barker et al. 2012, 158). Henry Geii, Paramount Chief7 of Urama Island, with senior community members, described the population of Kinomere Village as being composed of two tribes, Ne’edai and Tauadai. Ne’edai had a longhouse called Gemei and Tauadai had a longhouse called Daubai. Within the Gemai longhouse were the two principal clans of Oniamiodai and Oumaudai; within the Daibai longhouse were the principal clans of Gaiabu and Airavi. Also figuring into the village were the Obo Gaia’u and Pinoi peoples, the latter having migrated to Urama from Puri’i8 (Kerewo). The Urama longhouses were partitioned down the centre and on each side, into clan residences (Fig. 4.2). Longhouses were both residential places and the keeping places of sacred cultural objects. The connection of these sacred objects to ancestral knowledge and to places of sacred importance make the longhouses themselves places where people connect to a broad social cosmology (Bell, cited in Goldman 2008, section 4, 291). They are not, however, places wherein engagement with the spirit world is isolated, as the cosmology of the Kerewo and the Urama peoples is manifest in daily life. Longhouses are “places where in … human actions have implications for the future shape and survival of the world as a sacred domain” (Goldman 2008, section 4, 304). It is not possible to provide any kind of comprehensive overview of the ritual elements of Kerewo and Urama peoples, as little of a comprehensive nature has been documented. In the material 7 In the Purari Delta, Williams (1924, 114) referred to a similar position as the mari or “supreme ceremonial chief”. 8 See Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1917–1918, no. 6, 1 for the first mention of the "Puri" on Urama Island.

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outlined below, we use a combination of sources (government reports, historic ethnographies, and our own and others’ more recent work) to selectively outline important elements that arise in colonial history and during Hurley’s expedition. Our account will concentrate on material culture and/or conflict, as these were the principal sites of concern in the colonial period (see Di Rosa 2018, 44–49). Among the Kerewo, agiba ancestral boards or skull shrines were traditionally kept within the longhouses, with one of the last documented (in 1966 by Thomas Schultze-Westrum) residing at the village of Dumbumba (Craig 2010, 156). The agiba rest on a flat board or shelf that also holds the skulls of people slain in warfare, although it may also hold the skulls of kin and family members who had either been killed in warfare and retrieved, or had passed away from other causes (Haddon 1918, 177–178). The skulls of family members were distinguishable from those of rivals by their embellishments, often in the form of prosthetic noses (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901, 33; Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1908–1909, 89), and were decorated with shells, paint, and clay (Specht and Fields 1984, 141). A smaller board, a marabu, was also kept in the longhouse. Unlike the agiba, it was free standing, did not rest on a shelf, and was adorned with birds’ skulls attached directly to it (Haddon 1918, 180; Welsch 1998, 462). The Kerewo also possessed a larger gope board (titi ebiha) that was used in the gibumamu dance (described in Austen 1934; see also Welsch et al. 2006, 40) but these were rarely documented, due perhaps to their concealment under the roof in the rafters of the dubu (see Wirz 1937, 409). On Urama Island, skulls taken in warfare were enshrined in a different manner, incorporating the use of large gope boards and skull racks (Fig. 4.3). In this arrangement, the gope boards were placed at the base of the rack, and in front of the boards were placed a combination of crocodile and pig skulls. The human skulls were arranged in tall racks above the boards, each one placed in its own small “cubicle” with the face turned out to the front. As among the Kerewo, the skulls of kin were also kept in the longhouses, a practice that did not continue to the east, at Baimaru in the Purari Delta for example, where they are said to be kept in the “private houses” (Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1908–1909, 89). While at Urama Island, Hurley noted that the boards represent the ancestral spirits and that they were placed below the skulls of their enemies to effectively imprison them (Specht and Fields 1984, 160).

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Fig. 4.3 The skull rack of Gormier, chief of the dubu daima of Urama (Photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, PIC FH/810 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 49/12)

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Carved boards were also an integral part of the keveke dance on Urama Island (Specht and Fields 1984, 156–159). The exact nature of the connection between the boards (agiba, keveke, and gope) and ancestors is unclear, but certainly they embodied or otherwise represented Urama urio or gabidi (spirit) or the Kerewo guna. The designs themselves, at least among the Kerewo, have been said to de-emphasise differences between the clans to which they belong (Welsch et al. 2006, 36–37). However, it has also been indicated that each clan has its own design, and the boards are identifiable to the village or clan by these unique signifiers (Di Rosa 2018, 43; Korokai 2012, pers. comm., 6 February). On Urama Island, people held the bullroarer (kaiemunu) in high, sacred regard, keeping them hidden from public view behind screens at the end of the longhouse (as the Purari Delta people kept the wicker work kaiemunu) (Welsch et al. 2006, 33). The common name for both items raises a question about nomenclature that Wirz (1937, 409) discusses briefly, and infers that the term kaiemunu may be derived from the Purari words kai (a legendary person), kai (earth or the earth) or kaia (thunder or cloud) and imunu (spirit) (see also Williams 1924, 134). Much of the ethnographic literature uses the term kaiemunu ubiquitously for items that hold a vital strength or spirit. Thus Wirz (1937, 409) writes about the bullroarers being “identified with kaiamunu” in the Era/Wapo River area (including Urama Island), and further to the west among the Kerewo, the gope or titi ebiah boards as being, collectively, kaiemunu boards (409). Austen (1934, 5), however, makes a distinction between the Kerewo gope and kaiemunu, the latter having no hole in the upper part of the board. The protocols for naming the boards offer a further distinction between the two. If a clan has separated and moved from its parent village, a new name cannot be given to a gope carved for that clan; in this instance, the new gope will take the old name. On the other hand, kaiemunu names do not belong to the clan but to the individual and thus new names can be given to kaiemunu boards (Austen 1934, 5).

Wartime Kerewo history, following Hurley’s visit in the 1920s, is formed in large part by their surveillance and control under the various health, labour, and criminal ordinances of the administration. Indentured labour drew men from the villages in numbers, and one consequence of this was depopulation of the villages. This, as the administration was aware, made

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it difficult for people to maintain ritual and communal life, and to comply with colonial regulations regarding the village conditions and the behaviours of its members. Kerewo men worked on regional plantations, and they were also part of the slow but accumulating movement of local peoples to the capital, Port Moresby, in search of work. There they laboured on plantations, in domestic service, as well as in policing (Di Rosa 2018, 177–178, 193). The reputation for sexual impropriety that Hurley described during his visit to Goaribari Island caused problems for the Kerewo men when the sexual assault of European women resulted in the White Woman’s Protection Ordinance 1926–34. This legislation restricted Kerewo domestic servants to the Gulf division, because of their reputation (Di Rosa 2018, 178). During the Second World War, Kerewo men were conscripted as labourers, in some cases against their will. These men were treated poorly, often cruelly, given little reward, and scant appreciation for the role they played in resisting the Japanese. Kerewo resentment at this mistreatment coalesces around an oral history about Sgt Katue, a largely unacknowledged Kerewo combatant (see below). Katue is considered to have played a key part in bringing the war to its successful conclusion, by assisting in the killing of a senior Japanese officer, and an important post-war role in seeking to develop commercial enterprises that might deliver the sought-after prosperity of postcolonial modernity (Di Rosa 2018, 165– 175; Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1949–1950, no. 3, 11–12; Yeates 2005). The Papuan presence in WWII became official with the formal recognition, in August 1940, of the Papuan Infantry Battalion (PIB). Between its inception and its recognition, the unit attempted to recruit Armed Constables (ACs) who were “fit for active service” with a promise of three years’ worth of pay (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1939–1940, no. 4, “Instructions”). Similar instruction was given to patrol officers stationed in the Urama region: “all ex A.C.s seen are to be warned to hold themselves in readiness to report at Kikori immediately when called upon – if ever” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1939–1940, no. 5, “Instructions”). Recruiting excursions for “general labour” were also undertaken throughout the region, with men being transported to Port Moresby to work on plantations or act as carriers for the war effort (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1941–1942, 5a, “Object of Patrol”).

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Over time, the success of these recruitment drives led to concerns about the impact on the villages. The lack of manpower created a destructive cycle that resulted in population decline to such an extent as to cause concern for the long-term viability of the Purari and Goaribari peoples (e.g., Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 21, “Maj. Healy Comment”). The crumbling social system and the desertion of villages was, at times, attributed to “a desire on the part of some to avoid being recruited” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 2, 9). Instances of these absences are well chronicled. When visiting Kerewa Village, Patrol Officer Robinson notes that there was “something wrong with this village” and that numbers of people had relocated to other villages such as Turura and Ururumaba (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 2, 2). On patrol, while visiting Dopima Village, he found that the villagers were away trading with the Kairi people and their dubu was in poor repair (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 2, 2). A quantity of people at Mubugoa were reported as living at Kurimadau Village, and several people from Goare Village, on Goaribari Island, had apparently left for the Omati River a full month prior, to make canoes and sago (Fig. 4.4) (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 2, 2). “Here again as at Kerewo,” he writes, “there seems something wrong” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 2, 3). The patrol officer interpreted these developments as signs of a “house divided against itself” and even questioned whether the time spent at the small hunting camps (kombatis ) constituted an “unconscious revolt against the dubu” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 2, 9). More experienced and senior heads attributed the crisis specifically to the destruction of ritualised, traditional life, brought about by the absence of men who were recruited for the war. Major W. R. Humphries, drawing upon the work of “Carr Saunders, Malinowski, Haddon, Dr. Rivers, Durrad, Seligman, Sir Hubert Murray, Report of the Fiji Commission, AriI Taimai and others”, asserted a sustaining relationship between vigour and morale, and the traditional rituals and practices that affirmed and maintained their social organisation. This view understood the declining numbers of the Kerewo as a wartime consequence of disastrously interfering with their traditional culture: Interference with the work of one group might affect the whole community. With the advent of the white man the social order began to change. Able bodied men were induced to leave their homes, nonentities were

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Fig. 4.4 Sketch map from Kikori Station Patrol Report no. 15, 1943–1944, depicting several villages of concern

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appointed Village Constables and commenced to give orders to head men. Government Officers made demands on the men and women for labour. Carriers and canoes were demanded. Rest houses, fences, roads and unnecessary bridges had to be made, where formerly logs had served quite well as crossings, scores of men were taken away and imprisoned for trifling offences, or were taken on patrol, often while the people were in the midst of preparations for feasts and tribal ceremonies. These and other forms of interference made serious inroads on the time of the people and when the majority of their able bodied men were recruited, they found themselves unable to fulfill the needs essential for the preservation of their system of living. They saw this system crumbling about them and they became apathetic and depressed. (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 22, Maj. Humphries’ Comment)

The state of the dubu became a key indicator of the health and resilience of a village, and this persisted after the war (e.g., Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 22, 4–6). Wartime recruiting practices operated under existing labour ordinances (Riseman 2010, 168) and were ostensibly based on volunteerism, with no minimum wage set other than “fair” remuneration (Shlomowitz 1986, 179). However, Smith (2017, 39) notes that in a wartime situation “necessity was as often as not the principal criterion in relation to the utilisation of indigenous labour” and his claim is borne out by the patrol reports. One patrol officer who sent a batch of recruits to Kikori from upriver, wrote on 3 April 1942 that “the chance of finding [future] recruits is hopeless, as none of the number being sent in have actually volunteered” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1941–1942, 5a). Further west in the Fly River area, Patrol Officer Robinson noted: “Two recruits obtained. Just prior to departure one ran away and hid in the bush. All males and A.Cs. sent to look for him. Found by A.Cs. GONA and ATEMBO. Eminently satisfactory in the circumstances” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 2, 6). Our photo elicitation amongst both the Kerewo and Urama participants brought out community memories of recruits who were neither volunteers, nor paid employees. Regarding the former they opined that “the white people just get to the population villages and get every young man and the warriors … without explaining them; explanation cannot also be understood” (TS3 2012). One Urama man reiterated the view that Australia has failed to remunerate or recognise their contribution to the war effort: “They fought, they defend Australia, but Australia never do anything”; further that “[you] have to be

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fit to go to war; have to use your customary, customary things. You have to have something, power to protect you. Cannot just go, just simple person … So Australia’s not looking at these things, you know, to pay compensation … they came back with nothing … like how many, four or five years they stay, they give them no money” (TS2 2016). Post-war patrol objectives included the identification of Papuans affected by war work and the payment of compensation; but the ongoing dissatisfaction in the contemporary community suggests that recognition, development, and Australian citizenship remain outstanding for wartime service, which sacrificed life, liberty, and well-being. Urama and Kerewo men served as plantation workers, carriers on the battlefield in combat zones with the PIB, and/or as police officers (Kituai 1998, 171). Their descendants express concern at their misuse and abandonment and are conscious of what they consider to be a lack of recognition for their role in the allied victory over the Japanese. In 2012 when Kenneth Korokai and Andrew Diari visited Australia, they specifically sought out books and pamphlets at the ANZAC War Memorial that would corroborate their version of events, in which “our grannies [ancestors] were heroes, along with soldiers” (TS3 2012). They found no mention of their ancestors (and therefore of themselves) in Australia’s official recounting of events. The Kerewo, however, have a series of communal narratives (Di Rosa 2018, 165) that portray the pivotal role they believe their ancestors played in the war effort (see Di Rosa 2018, 165–176, for a thorough analysis of these stories). Kenneth and Andrew proudly recounted some of these narratives to us, after visiting the ANZAC War Memorial in Hyde Park, Sydney. One of the stories recounts how Katue Gegai, enlisted voluntarily because of his own righteous anger at the attack on Port Moresby on 18 June 1942, when Japanese bombers targeted and sank the MacDhui in Fairfax Harbour. Katue was so enraged by this action that he felt compelled to enlist: “He got cross when the Japanese first bombed Port Moresby and you can see that white boat [still] there … outside Port Moresby. The boat name is Megadu [MacDuhi]. He got cross and he took off his policeman uniform and he [decided he would fight] … he was the first man to shoot the plane” (TS3 2012). The phrase “got cross” does not sufficiently convey the strong emotion and passion with which Andrew related his story. He pounded his chest to express the morale and determination of his forebear, when he ran out of words to describe what Katue was feeling as he tore off his policeman’s uniform (Lee 2012, fieldnotes, 12 September).

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Katue’s local reputation as a warrior of note is supported by widespread media reports of his exploits in the Australian press, some of which are in the hands of the Kerewo (Di Rosa 2018, 168). These begin in 1937 in an article that reports on his heroism as an Armed Constable, during a patrol by the legendry patrol officer Ivan Champion up the Bamu river in the west, and across to the Purari River in the east (“Thrilling Jungle Exploits” 1937; see also Champion 1940, 203). In October of 1942, the famous Australian writer and correspondent George Johnston described Katue’s exploits as moving “like a black phantom through the dripping jungles” to pursue the Japanese behind their own lines (Johnson 1942; also cited in Di Rosa 2018, 166).9 The article was widely syndicated across the country and in January of 1943 there were further widespread accounts of his citation as the most successful sniper in Papua New Guinea, and for the award of the Military Medal (“Papuan Native Included. Military Medal for Sergt. Katue” 1943; “The King Honors Papuan Stalker of Japs” 1943). Brisbane’s Sunday Mail included a detailed account that connected Katue’s warrior spirit to the Goaribari people’s reputation as “the gamest of the game” and to his forebears’ murder of Chalmers and Tomkins (“Papuan Hero Is the Gamest of the Game” 1943). Kenneth Korokai expanded on Kerewo accounts of the heroic reputation of Katue, and on the role of the people of the Kikori region in victory over the Japanese in the Pacific. He tells us at Paga Hills at the point there [Paga Hill Battery], there is a gun there, a tommy gun there that bombed down the Japanese ship at the entrance to the harbour. So Katue Gegai was the one; he’s a magical man. While the boat was just coming into attack Moresby harbour [Andrew Diari exclaims “bomb!”] he flew like a bat to the tommy gun and then he just made it [and shot the Japanese ship in the entrance of the harbour]. (TS3 2012)

This story pays important homage to what Andrew called “local power” (ebiha) and recognises its importance to the PIB soldiers’ success on the battlefield (see Di Rosa 2018, 169–170). When considered alongside the Urama man’s belief (above) that “You have to have something, power to protect you”, it is clear that a combination of existing warrior or 9 See also, for example, “Black Warrior. Private Jungle War. Astonishing Exploits of Katue” 1942.

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“paramilitary” skills (Kituai 1998, 185) and ebiha were considered necessary for the success of Papuan soldiers and labourers. Indeed, Andrew Diari expressed his frustration that despite his own grandfather’s previous employment as a policeman, and the training that he undertook at his recruitment, his grandfather was unable to participate as a soldier (TS3 2012; see also Kituai 1998, 186). The raw power of the supernatural element was compounded in the story of how Katue died. According to Kenneth, who as a young boy had listened to Katue’s stories, the revered veteran would never tell a complete account of his wartime successes. If he gave any more than a “hint”, the chairs would break, and general havoc would ensue: “so that’s how he actually passed away”; as a result of telling the story to somebody in an “interview” (TS3 2012). The substantial role that Kerewo and Urama people played in World War Two was reinforced on Urama Island in 2016. Henry Geii opined that “this World War Two is won by Kikori people, that’s another thing [in addition to not getting paid]; was our Kikori man shoot down the Japanese Emperor … peace came. Australia and then England, the United States, they said they won the war; it was won by Kikorians. Emperor was shoot down”. Kenneth Korokai informed us in the same conversation “that’s right, so the most contributors to World War Two was our people from [the] Kikori [river region], especially the Uramans; Kerewo was [at] Moroge” (TS2 2016). This fleeting reference to Moroge Island, in the Fly River Delta, recalls wartime observations in respect to Goaribari Island, that the “vast majority of the people … [were] not living in the villages” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 2, Capt. Foldi Comment). At the time, the Kerewo people told Patrol Officer Robinson that this was due to sickness and death in the villages. This the officer attributed to poor hygiene, diet, and the failings of architectural design, which was in turn partly a product of the lack of manpower available to maintain the village (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1943–1944, no. 2, 8–9). However, Kenneth’s positioning of Kerewo as secondary to the Urama people as prominent actors in WWII, may well have signified a recollection of either efforts to avoid recruitment, or a recollection of the otherwise turbulent nature of Kerewo settlements at the time (discussed above), or both. This turmoil in the established villages becomes a consistent trend post-war, and offers more insight into the conditions during the period Kenneth understands as that in which transgenerational instruction was significantly interrupted (see Chapter 6).

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Post-World War Two Katue Gegai remains a key post-war figure in this history, because he returns to the Gulf to develop a sago trade in which western Gulf people could trade their produce for hard currency in Port Moresby (Di Rosa 2018, 153). The unsuitability of the Gulf for agriculture, compared with other regional areas of PNG such as the Highlands, meant that the Gulf peoples fared less well than other groups in developing sustainable commercial ventures. Post-war attempts to develop an industry through sago, then copra, struggled because of a variety of pressures. These included differences between the policies and the practices of the colonial administration that feared the decolonising forces unleashed by the war, and problems in relation to the lack of administrative and accounting knowledge amongst the people, as well as shortages of labour, investment capital, and transport access to remote markets (see also Di Rosa 2018, 5). Similar to Katue, Tom Kabu developed a post-war movement further to the east amongst the Purari peoples, about which there is a significant body of scholarship (e.g., Hassall 1991; Hitchcock and Oram 1967; Maher 1958, 1961; Pixley 1981). Tom Kabu’s wartime experience of Australia and Australians enabled a new sense of the lack of development in Papua, and a realisation that Papuans might aspire to commercial independence. Increasing competition among different Christian sects of the missionary movement revealed that their hold over the allegiance of the people continued to depend on their ability to consistently staff the villages with energetic and effective missionaries (Di Rosa 2018, 187–193). An interest in development projects, managed by the Papuans themselves, opened a field of possibilities or choices that enabled the emergence of a sense of extra-tribal collective identity or interest the proto condition for ideas of political independence, nationalism, and decolonisation (Hassall 1991; Mar 2016a, b). These developments issued a challenge to traditional village societies and helped Kabu persuade Purari peoples to abandon their traditional rituals and beliefs, which included the destruction of the ravi and its associated ritual objects and practices. This is a key post-war moment amongst the Purari people that disrupted the passing of traditional knowledges and skills from one generation to another (Bell 2009). Tom Kabu differs from Katue in that he travelled to Australia during the war, where he was befriended by Australians and acquired significant experience of the state of development there. He returned to Papua after the war,

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intent on fostering commercial trading ventures that would enable the Purari peoples to develop independently from the paternal controls of the administration and the missions. That program is important because the steps necessary to deliver the promise of colonial modernity and independence to the Purari included the rejection of traditional cultural beliefs, rituals, symbols, and structures, and the encouragement in their stead of pan-village, pan-tribal, and pan-kinship cooperatives, monogamous marriage, and under SDA influence, the Christian faith. Once again, these changes are seen more as a set of conditions that would transform the way of life of the people through the economic prosperity they would deliver, rather than an actual conversion to Christian belief systems (Hassall 1991; Hitchcock and Oram 1967; Maher 1958; Pixley 1981; Yeates 2005). Nevertheless, they represent a significant shift in seniority within the village community, from polygamous elders enfranchised by tradition, to a younger generation with experience of European culture, who aspired to the material benefits of European modernity associated with the Christian family unit. Kabu served unofficially in the Australian Navy, and he drew upon the friendships formed there and the sense of respect he derived from those relations, to aspire to independence from the paternal practices of both the missionaries and the administration. While the development of independent Papuan commercial interests was in keeping with the new deal proposed by the post-war Australian Labor Government and their insistence that the interests of the Papuans be privileged over those of other concerns, they nevertheless caused tensions (Yeates 2005, 71). The administration’s policy was to invest in those Papuan initiatives that had the support of the missionaries, who were (and still are) often responsible for providing welfare services such as health and education. Kabu’s insistence that Papuans stop working for colonial commercial ventures so that they could cooperatively develop their own, also led to retaliation from those ventures who denied the movement adequate transport and distribution for their products. A lack of business, accounting, and administrative acumen also thwarted the enterprise (Hassall 1991; see also Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1947–1948, no. 2, 15). The missionaries, colonial commercial interests, and the local administrative officers each feared different forms of disenfranchisement because of the new assertion of independence. The LMS’ declining prestige, under pressure from Seventh Day Adventists’ and Catholics, saw them report critically on Kabu’s activities to the administration, and to opposition politicians back

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in Australia (Hassall 1991). Patrol officers personally sought to thwart him, to preserve their exclusive authority in the delta, which underwrote a pre-war system where the interests of colonial business and government administration took precedence over the development of Papuan initiatives (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1947–1948, no. 2, 14–16; Yeates 2005). The strong emphasis on Katue’s heroic wartime contribution to victory does not seem to be a part of the Kabu narrative. Patrol officers nevertheless report the increased prestige of those men who returned from any kind of war service to the villages of the Purari Delta. One of the changes the Purari men brought back with them was a desire to construct new European-style dwellings (e.g., Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1947–1948, no. 12, 2), and to the west in the Goaribari village of Dopima, there was an aspiration to operate a store with the proceeds of war service (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 10, 9). Katue, like Kabu, encouraged the establishment of Goaribari settlements in Port Moresby (Di Rosa 2018, 183) so that they could organise a commercial trade in sago for money, thus further diminishing the Kerewo population in the Goaribari subdistrict. Katue’s camp in Port Moresby assembled people from a number of Kerewo villages (Paile, Kiriwapo (Kerewapo), Dopima, Ubuo, Babai, and Umuria) (see Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1949–1950, no. 3, 12) but the manufacture of sago is reported as initially concentrated in his own village of Goro, and that of Mumuria (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1948–1949, no. 5, 8)10 , with Goro coming under scrutiny for the consequential neglect of the village (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1948–1949, no. 2, 5). In a subsequent patrol to the Goaribari subdistrict, Goro appeared to have improved (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1948–1949, no. 5, 2), and a short while later the patrol officer observed that “interest in making sago for sale in Port Moresby appears on the increase” and that it “no longer appears to be interfering with normal village work” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1948–1949, no. 6, 6). By 1950, however, the scheme is reported to have collapsed and the Kerewo were encouraged

10 Several Patrol Reports for 1948–1949 were mis-labelled by the patrol officers, recording the Purari patrol and the first Goaribari patrol both as No. 4. This mistake was corrected on the front sheet. We refer to the corrected number for the first Goaribari patrol here (No. 5) and thus the subsequent patrol to Goaribari as No. 6, as per the front sheet.

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instead to form cooperative ventures trading in copra (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1949–1950, no. 6, 5). After the war, depopulation and declining traditional village life continued to be recognised as a significant problem by the colonial administration, which maintained the view that it was essential to conserve an intact and productive population in the Gulf. A tendency for villagers to disperse into kombatis was seen as contributing in significant ways to this decline, and although kombatis were an essential component of traditional village life for hundreds of years11 it is probable that the use of these camps increased12 after the war for a number of reasons. The patrol officers commonly attributed village absences and population decline to a generalised desire to avoid the patrol, to polygamy and infertility (due to the high incidence of venereal disease among the Goaribari people in particular), and to the laziness and torpidity of the population (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1948–1949, no. 9, 9; Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1952–1953, no. 7, 4; Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1954–1955, no. 4, 3). There were, however, more feasible explanations. For instance, during the “medical inspections”13 for cases of venereal disease, it was mandatory for people to relocate to the Kikori Native Hospital for treatment.14 Villagers who “absconded” were arrested and brought in for treatment (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 4, 9). This prompted people to leave the village and return only “when the sickness ends” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1948–1949, no. 3, 21) believing that “they may be sent to hospital” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1948–1949, no. 3, 24).15 11 This was noted in Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1948–1949, no. 6, 6. 12 There are many references to this, scattered throughout the Kikori Patrol reports

from 1943 onwards (e.g., Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1947–1948, no. 2, 7; Patrol Reports, Kikori Station1947–1948, no. 6, 8; Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1948–1949, no. 2, 7). 13 Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1949–1950, no. 8 used this term throughout. 14 For example, Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1947–1948, no. 11, 10. 15 The reluctance to seek medical treatment in the Delta was in clear contrast to those villages close to the LMS Mission Station at Aird Hills, and it was observed that people in Ero Village “have a fair idea of elementary Hygiene and realize that a hospital can cure much sickness” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1951–1952, no. 2, 5). Indeed, the ‘baby clinic’ run by Mrs. Fenn, Rev. Fenn’s wife, is cited as a reason for the population increase in those villages (e.g., Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 5, 6; Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1951–1952, no. 2, 4).

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The “scarcity of young men” in particular, was attributed to the “recent opening of the district to recruiting” for work in various commercial ventures (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1948–1949, no. 2, 10).16 The impacts on the village were profound. Young men were being recruited at a rate of over 50% of the population in the subdistrict of Goaribari (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 10, Atkinson Comment), and then quickly returning to work after only a short period of time in the villages (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1951–1952, no. 3, 4). This not only interrupted daily ritual life in the dubu but it would have placed an additional burden on the people who remained in the region, to supply villages with food and goods from various locations away from the villages (as observed in Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 9, 7). These prolonged absences at the kombatis were repeatedly implicated in villages falling into disrepair17 and the end of “communal life” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 11, 5), which prompted the administration to consider outlawing a number of kombati under Section 101 of the Native Regulations (e.g., Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1951–1952, no. 3, Atkinson Comment). Nevertheless, Patrol Officer Council sagely notes that while kombatis undoubtedly pose problems for the administration “it is hard to see how these difficulties can be overcome when sago-making, crab catching, fishing, canoe-building etc. must always be done in places at some distance from the villages” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1952–1953, no. 7, 4–5). By the early 1950s all extant dubus in the Goaribari subdistrict, with the exception of the one at Pai’ia’a, had become communal houses (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 10, “Appendix B”) wherein men, women, and children lived together when not in the kombatis (see Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 10, 8). In this way, villagers could assemble at a central location for the patrol census, while maintaining their residence in, and use of, other locations. Thus, through time, migration to regional and urban centres, declining populations, a reduced emphasis on the dubu as a men’s house, and 16 Patrol Officer Routley notes the problems this caused in strong terms, in a special report on recruiting, and advises a moratorium on recruiting from the area for a period of two years (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 10, 12). 17 For example, Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1948–1949, no. 2, 5, 7; Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 2, 2; Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 9, 7; Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1951–1952, no. 3, Atkinson Comment.

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eroding custom in the face of religious and government surveillance resulted in the ritual traditions associated with the dubus being gradually discontinued. Moreover, there was a significant migration of Kerewo people to the village of Samoa, to land at the base of the Aird Hills that the Porome people had either given or sold to them (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1951–1952, no. 2, 4). At this location, they had access to limited health services, education, and aspirations to the benefits of colonial modernity at the hands of various resident LMS missionaries (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 5, Champion Comment).18 Disaffection between the Kerewo (particularly Dopima) people and the missionary Edward Fenn, saw the Kerewo encourage the SDAs to increase their teaching activities in the region and assist them in establishing a trade store (see Di Rosa 2018, 189–190). As a result of these interfaith and intra-community tensions, Dopima Village was divided into two settlements, each aligned to the LMS and SDA respectively. These are the origins of the sectarian differences that now provide an additional complication to the contemporary affiliations of the Kerewo diaspora.19 The coastal Kerewo villages are now semi-permanent, with fluctuating populations often comprised of pre-school-aged children, women, older people and sometimes teenagers; though Goare, where we did some of our fieldwork, is under great pressure as a result of rising sea levels, which have been exacerbated by climate change. Many Kerewo live in permanent settlements such as Kikori or the nearby settlement of Kekea, both of which offer proximity to churches, markets, schooling, medical care, transport, and employment. There are also substantial emigrant Kerewo settlements in and around the capital, Port Moresby. Villages on Urama Island, such as Kinomere, appear to be less transient in nature although there is still regular movement between Urama and Kikori, Baimuru, and Port Moresby (Geii 2016, pers. comm., 19 November). While in previous decades they generated an income from the sale of cultural items to the Ministry of Commerce, and fish to the Department of Primary

18 D.O. Healy makes an observation that infant mortality in villages around the Aird Hills mission are “somewhat lower than the villages further away from the Mission” (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 5, Healy Comment; see also Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1950–1951, no. 5, 6). 19 Di Rosa has explored this extensively in his PhD thesis (2018), Frustrated Modernity: Kerewo Histories and Historical Consciousness, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea. See Chapter 6, particularly.

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Industries (Frankel and Vanderwal 1982, 88), people are now employed in a range of occupations in the fields of education, health care, the churches, mining, and logging. Both Kerewo and Urama village populations continue to operate subsistence strategies that have been present for centuries including fishing, small-scale hunting, gathering mud crab, sago processing, and coconut cultivation.

References Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1891–1892. Government Printer (Brisbane). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-84330873. Accessed 28 February 2017. Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1892–1893. Government Printer (Brisbane). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-84336012. Accessed 28 February 2017. Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1900–1901. Government Printer (Brisbane). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-156152851. Accessed 28 February 2017. Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1905–1906. Government Printer (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-95834351. Accessed 28 February 2017. Austen, Leo. 1934. “The Dance of the Gope in Kerewo.” Man 34: 4–8. https:// doi.org/10.2307/2790891. ———. 1948. “Notes of the Turamarubi of Western Papua.” Mankind 4 (1): 14–23. Barker, Bryce, Lara Lamb, Bruno David, Kenneth Korokai, Alois Kuaso, and Joanne Bowman. 2012. “Otoia, Ancestral Village of the Kerewo: Modelling the Historical Emergence of Kerewo Regional Polities on the Island of Goaribari, South Coast of Mainland Papua New Guinea.” Peopled Landscapes: Archaeological and Biographic Approaches to Landscapes, edited by Simon G. Haberle and Bruno David, 157–176. Canberra: ANU E Press. Barker, Bryce, Lara Lamb, Bruno David, Robert Skelly, and Kenneth Korokai. 2015. “Dating of in Situ Longhouse (Dubu Daima) Posts in the Kikori River Delta: Refining Chronologies of Island Village Occupation in the Lower Kikori River Delta, Papua New Guinea.” Quaternary International 385: 27–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.04.003. Beaver, Wilfred N. 1920. Unexplored New Guinea. London: Seeley, Service & Company. Bell, Joshua A. 2009. “Documenting Discontent: Struggles for Recognition in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 20 (1): 28–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1757-6547.2009. 00002.x.

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———. 2017. “A Bundle of Relations: Collections, Collecting, and Communities.” Annual Review of Anthropology: 241–259. https://doi.org/10.1146/ annurev-anthro-102313-030259. Bevan, Theodore F. 1887. “Discovery of Two New Rivers in British New Guinea.” Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography 9 (10): 595–608. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1800953. ———. 1888. Mr. Theodore F. Bevan’s Fifth Expedition to British New Guinea: Preliminary Presentation Pamphlet. Sydney. http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-527 66691. ———. 1890. Toil, Travel, and Discovery in British New Guinea. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co. Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge. “Black Warrior. Private Jungle War. Astonishing Exploits of Katue.” 1942. Western Australian, 10 October, 1942. Accessed 10 November 2020. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/47350782. Brown, Alison K. 2014. First Nations, Museums, Narrations: Stories of the 1929 Franklin Motor Expedition to the Canadian Prairies. Vancouver: UBC Press. Brown, Jason, Alex Muir, Kimberley Craig, and Karika Anea. 2016. A Short Grammar of Urama. Canberra: Asia-Pacific Linguistics. Bulmer, Susan and Ralph Bulmer. 1964. “The Prehistory of the Australian New Guinea Highlands.” American Anthropologist 66 (2 (4)): 39–76. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/668431. Busse, Mark, Susan Turner, and Nick Araho. 1993. The People of Lake Kutubu and Kikori. Hong Kong: Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery. Chalmers, James. 1895. Pioneer Life and Work in New Guinea, 1877–1894. London: Religious Tract Society. Champion, Ivan. 1940. “The Bamu-Purari Patrol, 1936.” Geographical Journal 96 (3): 190–206. https://doi.org/10.2307/1788555. Chester, H. 1878. Narrative of Expedition to New Guinea. Brisbane: Government Printer. Craig, Barry. 2010. Living Spirits with Fixed Abodes. Adelaide: Crawford House Publishing. D’Albertis, L.M. 1877. Journal of the Expedition for the Exploration of the Fly River. Sydney: Frederick White. David, Bruno, Jean-Michel Geneste, Ken Aplin, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Nick Araho, Chris Clarkson, Kate Connell, Simon Haberle, Bryce Barker, Lara Lamb, John Stanisic, Andrew Fairbairn, Robert Skelly, and Cassandra Rowe. 2010. “The Emo Site (Oac), Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea: Resolving Long-Standing Questions of Antiquity and Implications for the History of the Ancestral Hiri Maritime Trade.” Australian Archaeology 70: 39–54. https:// doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2010.11681910.

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Davies, Susan. 2007. “In ‘the Land of the Rare Bird of Paradise’; Three Collectors in Southern New Guinea 1875–1887.” In Hunting the Collectors: Pacific Collections in Australian Museums, Art Galleries and Archives, edited by Susan Cochrane and Max Quanchi, 70–97. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Di Rosa, Dario. 2016. “Mediating the Imaginary and the Space of Encounter in the Papuan Gulf.” In Brokers and Boundaries: Colonial Exploration in Indigenous Territory, edited by Tiffany Shellam, Maria Nugent, Shino Konishi, and Allison Cadzow, 141–160. Canberra: Australian National University Press. ———. 2018. “Frustrated Modernity: Kerewo Histories and Historical Consciousness, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea.” PhD, Australian National University, Canberra. Dutton, Thomas Edward. 2011. The Hiri in History: Further Aspects of Long Distance Motu Trade in Central Papua. Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea Press. Flexner, James L. 2014. “Historical Archaeology, Contact, and Colonialism in Oceania.” Journal of Archaeological Research 22 (1): 43–87. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10814-013-9067-z. Frankel, David, and Ron Vanderwal. 1982. “Prehistoric Research at Kinomere Village, Papua New Guinea, 1981: Preliminary Field Report.” Australian Archaeology 14 (1): 86–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.1982.120 92842. ———. 1985. “Prehistoric Research in Papua New Guinea.” Antiquity 59 (226): 113–116. Franklin, Karl. 1973a. “Introduction.” In The Linguistic Situation in the Gulf District and Adjacent Areas, Papua New Guinea, edited by Karl Franklin, 1–30. Canberra: Linguistic Circle of Canberra. ———. 1973b. “Other Language Groups in the Gulf District and Adjacent Areas.” In The Linguistic Situation in the Gulf District and Adjacent Areas, Papua New Guinea, edited by Karl Franklin, 263–277. Canberra: Linguistic Circle of Canberra. Freund, Paul Joseph. 1979. “Social Change Among the Kasua, Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea.” PhD, Univeristy of Iowa, Iowa City. Goldman, Laurence. 1999. The Anthropology of Cannibalism. London: Bergin & Garvey. ———. 2008. Social Impact Assessment, Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas Project. Brisbane. Goldman, Laurence, and R. Tauka. 1998. Omati Social Mapping, Report to Chevron Asiatic. Brisbane. Greenhalgh, Paul. 1988. Ephemeral Vistas: The Expositions Universelles, Great Exhibitions and World’s Fairs, 1851–1939. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

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Gregory, Chris A. 2015. Gifts and Commodities. Chicago: Hau Books. Haddon, Alfred C. 1918. “The Agiba Cult of the Kerewa Culture.” Man 18: 177–183. https://doi.org/10.2307/2788511. ———. 1920. “Migrations of Cultures in British New Guinea.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 50: 237–280. https://doi.org/10.2307/2843485. Harrison, Rodney, Alison Clark, and Sarah Byrne. 2013. Reassembling the Collection: Indigenous Agency and Ethnographic Collections. Santa Fe: School of Advanced Research. Hassall, Graham. 1991. “The Failure of the Tommy Kabu Movement: A Reassessment of the Evidence.” Pacific Studies 14 (2): 29–51. Hitchcock, Nancy E., and Nigel Denis Oram. 1967. Rabia Camp: A Port Moresby Migrant Settlement. Edited by RG Crocombe. Vol. 14. New Guinea Research Bulletin. Canberra: New Guinea Research Unit, Australian National University. Holmes, John H. 1924. In Primitive New Guinea. London: Seeley, Service & Company. Johnson, George H. 1942. “Papuan Sergeant’s Private War.” The Argus, 10 October, 1942. Accessed 10 November 2020. https://trove.nla.gov.au/new spaper/article/11999437. Jukes, J. Beete. 1847. Narrative of the Surveying Voyage of the H.M.S. Fly, Vol. 1. London: T. & W. Boone. “The King Honors Papuan Stalker of Japs.” 1943. Sunday Times, 3 January, 1943. Accessed 10 November 2020. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/art icle/59174560. Kituai, August Ibrum K. 1998. My Gun, My Brother: The World of the Papua New Guinea Colonial Police, 1920–1960. Vol. 15. Pacific Islands Monograph Series. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Knauft, Bruce M. 1993. South Coast New Guinea Cultures: History, Comparison, Dialectic. Cambridge Studies in Social and Cultural Anthropology. New York: Cambridge University Press. Landtman, Gunnar. 1927. The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea. London: Macmillan. Lawrence, David. 1994. Customary Exchange Across Torres Strait. Vol. 34. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum. Brisbane: Queensland Museum. Lawrence, David, and Pirjo Varjola. 2010. Gunnar Landtman in Papua: 1910 to 1912. Australian National University ePress. Lesser, Alexander. 1961. “Social Fields and the Evolution of Society.” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 17 (1): 40–48. https://doi.org/10.1086/ soutjanth.17.1.3628867. MacGregor, William. 1897. British New Guinea: Country and People. London: John Murray.

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Maher, Robert F. 1958. “Tommy Kabu Movement of the Purari Delta.” Oceania 29 (2): 75–90. ———. 1961. New Men of Papua: A Study in Culture Change. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Mar, Tracey Banivanua. 2016a. Decolonisation and the Pacific. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. McNiven, Ian J. 1998. “Enmity and Amity: Reconsidering Stone-Headed Club (Gabagaba) Procurement and Trade in Torres Strait.” Oceania 69 (2): 94– 115. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1834-4461.1998.tb02697.x. ———. 2016b. “Stone Axes as Grave Markers on Kiwai Island, Fly River Delta, Papua New Guinea.” Journal of Pacific Archaeology 7 (1): 74–83. ———. 2022. “Beyond Bridge and Barrier: Reconceptualising Torres Strait as a Co-Constructed Border Zone in Ethnographic Object Distributions between Queensland and New Guinea.” Queensland Archaeological Research 25: 25– 46. https://doi.org/10.25120/qar.25.2022.3885. “Mission Work on Coast of New Guinea.” 1882. Brisbane Courier, 13 December, 1882, 2. Accessed 3 August 2018. http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle3412778. Murray, John Hubert Plunkett. 1912. Papua or British New Guinea. London: T. Fisher Unwin. Myers, Fred R., ed. 2001. The Empire of Things: Regimes of Value and Material Culture. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press. “New Guinea, the Commissioner’s Recent Trip.” 1886. Brisbane Courier, 28 September, 1886, 6. Accessed 3 August 2018. http://nla.gov.au/nla.newsarticle4483036. O’Hanlon, Michael. 2000. “Introduction.” In Hunting the Gatherers: Ethnographic Collectors, Agents and Agency in Melanesia, 1870s–1930s, edited by Michael O’Hanlon and Robert L. Welsch, 1–34. New York: Berghahn Books. O’Hanlon, Michael, and Robert L. Welsch. 2000. Hunting the Gatherers: Ethnographic Collectors, Agents, and Agency in Melanesia 1870s–1930s. New York: Berghahn Books. Oram, N. 2011. “Pots for Sago: The Hiri Trading Network.” In The Hiri in History, edited by Thomas Edward Dutton, 1-34. Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea Press. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1907–1908. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-158284369. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1908–1909. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-158298678. Accessed 14 May 2018.

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Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1909–1910. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-158312564. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1910–1911. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163939808. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1911–1912. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-158343362. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1912–1913. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163602106. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1914–1915. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-164165580. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1920–1921. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-165341564. Accessed 14 May 2018. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1925–1926. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). “Papuan Hero Is the Gamest of the Game.” 1943. Sunday Mail, 10 January, 1943. Accessed 10 November 2020. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/art icle/97802402. “Papuan Native Included. Military Medal for Sergt. Katue.” 1943. Daily Advertiser, 1 January, 1943. Accessed 10 November 2020. https://trove.nla.gov. au/newspaper/article/144107962. Patrol Report Kikori Station. 1915. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb8056330f. Accessed 20 February 2015. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1914. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb87389335. Accessed 20 February 2015. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1917–1918. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb6725262q. Accessed 20 February 2015. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1920–1921. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb53941907. Accessed 20 February 2015. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1939–1940. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb5291801z. Accessed 20 February 2015.

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Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1941–1942. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb3960732q. Accessed 20 February 2015. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1943–1944. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb3278133t. Accessed 20 February 2015. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1947–1948. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb1264463z. Accessed 10 November 2020. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1948–1949. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb0615992q. Accessed 20 November, 2020. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1949–1950. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb92508835. Accessed 20 November, 2020. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1950–1951. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb8602414h. Accessed 15 November 2015. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1951–1952. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb7919811r. Accessed 20 November 2020. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1952–1953. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb7919811r. Accessed 20 November 2020. Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1954–1955. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb7237213m. Accessed 20 November 2020. Patrol Reports, Kutubu Station. 1952–1953. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb2390916g. Accessed 20 June 2021. Phillips, Ruth Bliss, and Ruth Phillips. 1998. Trading Identities: The Souvenir in Native North American Art from the Northeast, 1700–1900. London: University of Washington Press. Pixley, N.S. 1981. “Tommy Kabu of Papua.” Annual Meeting of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, 24 September. Rhoads, James W. 1980. “Through a Glass Darkly: Present and Past Land-Use Systems of Papuan Sagopalm Users.” Doctor of Philosophy, The Australian National University, Canberra. ———. 1981. “Variation in Land Use Strategies Among Melanesian Sago Eaters.” Canberra Anthropology 4 (2): 45–73. https://doi.org/10.1080/031 49098109508591.

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———. 2011. “Prehistoric Papuan Exchange Systems: The Hiri and Its Antecedents.” In The Hiri in History, edited by Thomas Edward Dutton, 131–151. Port Moresby: University of Papua New Guinea Press. Rhoads, James W., and Douglas E. Mackenzie. 1991. “Stone Axe Trade in Prehistoric Papua: The Travels of Python.” Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society 57 (2): 35–50. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0079497X00004497. Riseman, Noah. 2010. “Australian [Mis] Treatment of Indigenous Labour in World War II Papua and New Guinea.” Labour History: A Journal of Labour and Social History 98: 163–182. https://doi.org/10.5263/labourhistory.98. 1.163. Seligman, C.G. 1910. The Melanesians of British New Guinea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Shlomowitz, Ralph. 1986. “The Internal Labour Trade in Papua (1884–1941) and New Guinea (1920–1941): An Economic Analysis.” Journal de la Société des Océanistes 42 (82): 177–187. https://doi.org/10.3406/jso.1986.2833. Skelly, Robert John, and Bruno David. 2017. Hiri: Archaeology of Long-Distance Maritime Trade Along the South Coast of Papua New Guinea. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. “The Sketcher.” 1886. Queenslander, 30 October, 1886, 690. Accessed 3 August 2018. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article19808750. Smith, Douglas W. 2017. Labour and the Law in Papua New Guinea. Canberra: Development Studies Centre, The Australian National University. Specht, Jim, and John Fields. 1984. Frank Hurley in Papua: Photographs of the 1920–1923 Expeditions. Bathurst: Robert Brown and Associates. Swadling, Pamela. 2019. Plumes from Paradise. Sydney: Sydney University Press. Terrell, John Edward. 1998. “30,000 Years of Culture Contact in the Southwest Pacific.” Studies in Culture Contact: Interaction, Culture Change, and Archaeology, Occasional Paper 25: 191–219. Thomas, Nicholas. 1991. Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific. London: Harvard University Press. “Thrilling Jungle Exploits.” 1937. The Herald, 5 April, 1937. Accessed 10 November 2020. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/244636236. Torrence, Robin. 2000. “Just Another Trader? An Archaeological Perspective on European Barter with Admiralty Islanders, Papua New Guinea.” In The Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating Cross Cultural Engagements in Oceania, edited by Robin Torrence and Anne Clarke, 124–162. London: Routledge. Torrence, Robin, and Anne Clarke. 2000. The Archaeology of Difference: Negotiating Cross-Cultural Engagements in Oceania. London: Routledge. “The Traveller.” 1890. Leader, 15 February, 1890, 38. Accessed 3 August 2018. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article198088064.

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Vanderwal, R. 2005. Frank Hurley in the Gulf of Papua: Photographs of the 1921–1923 Expeditions. Unpublished Manuscript. Weiner, Annette B. 1992. Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping-While Giving. Oxford: University of California Press. Welsch, Robert L. 1998. An American Anthropologist in Melanesia: Field Diaries, vol. 1. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ———. 1999. “Historical Ethnology: The Context and Meaning of the A.B. Lewis Collection.” Anthropos 94: 447–465. Welsch, Robert L., Virginia-Lee Webb, and Sebasitan Haraha, eds. 2006. Coaxing the Spirits to Dance: Art and Society in the Papuan Gulf of New Guinea. Hanover: Hood Museum of Art. West, Francis James. 1968. Hubert Murray: The Australian Pro-Consul. Melbourne, New York: Oxford University Press. Williams, Francis Edgar. 1924. The Natives of the Purari Delta (Port Moresby: Government Printer). https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-192001115. Accessed 2 May 2018. Wirz, Paul. 1937. “The Kaiamunu-Ébiha-Gi-Cult in the Delta-Region and Western Division of Papua.” Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 67: 407–413. https://doi.org/10.2307/2844146. “Wreck and Massacre at New Guinea.” 1882. Warwick Argus 16 December 1882, 1882, 5. Accessed 3 August 2018. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-articl e75666329. “Wreck of the Rosie Welt.” 1889. Sydney Morning Herald, 23 July, 1889, 7. Accessed 3 August 2018. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article13742798. Wurm, S.A. 1973. “The Kiwaian Language Family.” In The Linguistic Situation in the Gulf District and Adjacent Areas, Papua New Guinea, edited by K. Franklin, In Pacific Linguistics, 217–262. Canberra: The Linguistic Circle of Canberra. Yeates, Anthony. 2005. “The Patrol Officers and Tom Kabu.” The Journal of Pacific History 40 (1): 71–90. https://doi.org/10.1080/002233405000 82335.

CHAPTER 5

Visual Repatriation or Exchange? Theory and Method

Theory The use of the term visual repatriation to refer to the return of images requires some qualification, given the specific requirements for repatriation established by origin communities, museum professionals, anthropologists, and other parties interested in the restitution of human remains and physical artefacts. To repatriate someone or something is to return it to its original location, as a possession of the source commu´ which refers to the nity. The Ancient Greek roots are patria (πατρια) ancestral line of descent through the father, used to identify membership of a tribe, clan, or family; and patris (πατρ´ις), which locates that genealogy within a specific place, the place of one’s fathers, one’s homeland, or origin country. The association frequently carries suggestions of a spiritual or metaphysical relation between genealogy and place, that in turn establishes the basis for social, cultural, and environmental affiliation. A sense of exclusivity or distinction in relation to outsiders who are understood as other people from other fathers and other places is also a part of the semantic provenance of the term. When dealing with human remains or cultural artefacts the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Regulations (NAGPRA)1 define repatriation as transferring possession (“having physical custody”) of an autochthonous object 1 See https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-43/subtitle-A/part-10.

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of cultural patrimony to the originating community, where an object of cultural patrimony is defined as “having ongoing historical, traditional, or cultural importance…”. The Australian Government programs and policy documents also indicate that repatriation is the unconditional return of physical remains or secret/sacred objects.2 Questions regarding the ownership and provenance of cultural materials are fundamental to repatriation, and are sometimes contested if the cultural patrimony of a tangible object cannot be authenticated (e.g., Boast and Enote 2013). When debates are principally concerned with human remains and archaeological artefacts, the scientific community (specifically archaeology and physical anthropology) has tended to view repatriation as an irreversible loss to research endeavours. This position is predicated on the assertion that everybody benefits from research into our universal human past (Kakaliouras 2012, S211), and that the interests of everybody outweigh the interests of the few (Thompson 2004). Scientists’ claims to professionally represent this universal human interest is the basis of their claim for privileged access to disputed artefacts (Hubert and Fforde 2002, 3; McNiven and Russell 2005, 212; Turnbull 2010, 4). Hurley espoused this view in the 1920s when his expedition acquired its artefacts and collected its images, and it was underwritten by Lt. Governor Murray’s 1913 legislation, which made an exception to the ban on the exportation of Papuan antiquities if they were destined for “an officially recognised scientific institution” (Papuan Government Gazette, October 1916, cited in Busse 2000, 86; see also Specht 2003, 23). Murray’s Colonial Administration considered Papuans a pre-modern people, and so according to The Papuan Antiquities Ordinance (1913), even cultural objects manufactured by them in the present might be understood as antiquities (see Busse 2000). Hurley was not interested in the western objects that the villagers had exchanged or adapted for their use. Rather, he sought to photograph and collect traditional objects made by villagers with local materials, or what Murray’s ordinance called “such 2 For example, see the National Museum of Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Secret/Sacred, Sensitive and Private Material Policy 2019, https://www.nma.gov. au/about/corporate/plans-policies/policies/aboriginal-torres-strait-islander-secret-sacredprivate-material, Museum Victoria’s Repatriation of Indigenous Cultural Property Policy 2016, https://museumsvictoria.com.au/collections-research/repatriation-of-ancestralremains/ and the Australian Government’s Policy on Indigenous Repatriation 2016, https://www.arts.gov.au/documents/australian-government-policy-indigenous-repatr iation.

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articles manufactured with Papuan tools and according to Papuan methods” (qtd. in Craig 1992, 1529).3 The legislation narrowly defined what was considered valuable with respect to Papuan heritage from the perspective of a putatively universal science, and failed to adequately consider the different claims of the Papuan peoples to their culture. The prioritisation of the scientific claim not only clashes with the many and varied reasons that people agitate for the return of human remains; it also sets up a false dichotomy, representing two apparently mutually exclusive categories between the claims of science and the claims of those who draw upon Indigenous knowledge and custom (Hubert and Fforde 2002, 1–2; Joyce 2003). The ethicist Jenna Thompson argues that universal humanist arguments for transgenerational, transcultural, and trans-geographical value do not have privilege over the autochthonous claims of specific peoples. “To insist that the carvings [for example] must be valued in our way, and not in theirs, is disrespectful [because] … We would be subverting the framework they use to give meaning and value to their activities” (Thompson 2004, 556). She proceeds to say that even if a people no longer held to the beliefs associated with the cultural object, they would still be entitled to claim possession and control on the grounds that “they want to honor their dead and keep faith with their traditions by following some of the practices that their ancestors believed in. They too are entitled to value transgenerational exchanges and the obligations that arise from them” (556). Over the next fifty years, Murray’s initial legislation underwent a number of modifications culminating in The National Cultural Property Ordinance (1965), which moved away from the scientific definition of antiquity to a more inclusive cultural consideration of “any object, natural or artificial, used for, or made or adapted for use for, any purpose connected with the traditional cultural life of any of the peoples of the country, past or present” (qtd. in Busse 2000, 88, emphasis added). In this way, the new ordinance expanded the class of objects to be protected by heritage legislation to include objects that “were important to Papua New Guineans’ own understandings of their cultures and their past” (Busse 2000, 88).4 These changes enable management practices that 3 Although the 1922 Antiquities Ordinance subsequently allowed “other articles or things of historical or scientific value or interest and relating to New Guinea” to be included in the definition of antiquity (qtd. in Craig 1992, 1529). 4 This became The National Cultural Property (Preservation) Act at Independence.

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seek to balance national control and custodianship of cultural heritage with local claims that the cultural property concerned belongs to specific individuals, clans, and tribes (see Busse 2000). This balance or tension between the nationalist concerns of a metropolitan-based state and the local concerns of the regions, emerges as a significant issue in our return of Frank Hurley’s photographs. We would have to step outside of the parameters of the NAGPRA definition of repatriation if we were to consider the visual or digital representation of an object as repatriable. While the digital representation may, in some circumstances, be considered as a proxy or surrogate for the original object (Bell et al. 2013, 6; Boast and Enote 2013, 110), there remains an issue with the undeniable fact that a representation is not the same thing as the original material object, and such objects can be problematic if left in the custody of the institutions of another people and another place, more especially if those institutions and their publics are implicated in the legacies of colonial history and governance. In unpacking the potential of visual rather than material repatriation, we might consider Walter Benjamin’s influential essay on The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (Benjamin 1969). Benjamin suggests that the mechanical reproduction of art, exemplified by cinema and photography, removes it from the here-and-now of its original production and ritualised use, and separates it from its history. With the etymology of repatriation in mind we might also say that it separates it from its genealogy and the location of that genealogy in a place. Photography and cinematography enable new ways of seeing and interpreting the artistic object that Benjamin associates with the destruction of the truth of the object and the removal of its authenticity and “aura” (4). Since Gulf ritual practices play a role in maintaining social structure, both as an expression of a shared cosmology and an undisclosed but effective politics, the removal and reproduction of cultural materials enables a potentially revolutionary repurposing of the work. Benjamin approved of this process because he saw in it the potential for the work of art to become a resource for the masses, rather than a tool of an established political hegemony. In the colonial situation, however, mechanical reproduction takes the object out of its place in the ritualised practice of an autochthonous culture, and commodifies it as an alienable object of exchange, which may, in turn, contribute to the subjection and exploitation of colonised peoples. In the diction of cultural heritage policy, it separates the tangible object of culture from the intangible heritage that gives it meaning, and in this

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way, the representation makes the autochthonous object available as a resource for a range of (post)colonial institutions, and the overlapping markets and publics they address, through their own strategies of display and representation. Positivist attachments to representations as standing in for or testifying on behalf of an object (Lynch 1994, 140) sometimes view this putatively mimetic relationship as unproblematic. Photographs and digital images offer the flexibility of presentation and, as Benjamin pointed out, an enhanced capacity for analysis (Benjamin 1969; Born 1997, 139). Further reflection upon the nature of biography as it applies to visual representations, however, suggests that greater consideration of the social and historical processes that shape their interpretation is necessary (Edwards 2012; Morphy and Banks 1997, 2). An uncoupling takes place when the truth and/or aura is detached from the object, not just through its representation via photography or cinematography, but also through its removal from its source community. A representation of a thing represents what its interpreters ascribe to it, and that interpretation is as much a function of the context of its reception as any act of individual ascription. A representation, therefore, becomes a new and unique object (Bell et al. 2013, 5–6), as the time and place and context in which it is interpreted changes. The alienability of the photograph, cine film, or video problematises the notion of cultural patrimony and uncompromised return, and therefore repatriation itself.5 All this is not to say that a photograph or film cannot act as a prompt and locus for autochthonous cultural memory and practice. The return of a visual representation of Indigenous subjects and material objects can still play a part in a decolonising history, through the production of cultural knowledge and intangible heritage by postcolonial peoples (e.g., Reddy and Sonneborn 2013); however, the photograph portraying an Indigenous subject remains a product of a colonial process and cannot be considered as simply autochthonous. Hale Lahui from Papua New Guinea’s National Cultural Commission drew upon the UNESCO definition of intangible heritage in his contribution to a 2006

5 Similar to Boast and Enote (2013, 111), we are not suggesting that visual repatriation projects claim that the visual representations are actual proxies for original items, or that such projects that are invested in data-sharing are diminished because they are aligned with a process labelled as visual repatriation.

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interdepartmental meeting that discussed the Convention on the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage (2003). According to article 2 of that convention: intangible heritage generally refers to expressions and practices, knowledge and skills that are recognized by communities, groups, and in some cases individuals, as forming part of their cultural heritage; are living, transmitted from generation to generation and constantly recreated; are crucial for the sense of identity and continuity of communities and groups; are in conformity with human rights, and, mutual respect and sustainable development. The definitions also include objects and spaces that are associated with manifestations of intangible cultural heritage. (Lahui 2008, 2)

This line of reasoning challenges the notion that material objects are the primary site of knowledge circulation and production. Intangible heritage might be the product of the elicitable potential of photographs, which may be viewed in the origin community not merely as the product, record, or trace of a historical encounter enshrined in collective memory, but also as a prompt for the recollection and reanimation of histories, knowledge, authorship, and practice. Such a process might be seen in Benjamin’s terms as a re-evocation of the “aura” of the objects depicted, and that aura might also include what Michael Busse, referring to the beliefs of the Lake Murray and Middle Fly River peoples, conceives of as the “person-in-the-object” (2000, 94). Broadening the scope of materials that are returned to communities, in response to those communities needs and desires, reduces the risk of reprising the colonial tropes that separated the “native” from a history of exchange, and sequestered them in an antiquated time and place. Objects and representations with a colonial provenance are valuable in this context, in part, because they offer a set of shared and disputed historical associations. These associations are reanimated when exchanged anew between the agencies historically engaged in colonialism. In the Purari Delta for example, the reception of A.C. Haddon’s and F.E. William’s photographs constructed them as “not only from the past, but also…of the past” (Bell 2003, 115, original emphasis). Invoking the entanglement that exists between colonial perceptions of a subject, what comprises the subject’s construction of themselves and how these frames of reference interact with each other through time, one might question the category of autochthonous, itself, as being somewhat reductive in this setting.

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Indeed, applying a static framework to the concept of autochthonous materiality through decades and centuries, despite contrary indications from contemporary source communities who themselves have undergone vast and sweeping change, denies both the mutability of objects and the capacity of culture and society to change. In short, it suppresses a history that might affirm a peoples’ place in modernity, should they be seeking it. Visual representations, precisely because they embody a history of contact, exchange, collection, preservation, and use, offer an opportunity to recognise and facilitate the agency of the originating peoples in respect to generating valuable intangible heritage. In our program, for example, Hurley’s visual materials and our own images of museum objects collected by Hurley’s expedition prompted discussions within personal, familial, clan, and tribal groupings, some of which were appropriate and available for communication to us, and some of which, for reasons of cultural protocol, or because of more practical or logistical reasons, were not available for our documentation. It is true that the lack of absolute possession and total control of the object means that these representations remain available for neo-colonial interpretation and use, but they also become available for discrete dissemination, which includes smaller group appreciations of cultural heritage, as well as a more public contribution to a decolonising discussion that can involve all parties in the exchange. What are the implications of this discussion for our, or any, program of returning copies of historic, colonial-era photographs or cine film to their origin communities? In this project, we choose to modify the language we use, and rather than using the term visual repatriation, we use the term visual return (see Bell et al. 2013) or visual exchange, depending on the context. The notion of exchange is particularly useful, as it addresses the role that multiple parties play (and the multiple roles that parties play) in utilising cultural materials as a decolonising form of heritage; it also indicates a change in disposition, which acknowledges the views of source communities as an essential perspective in wider conversations about cultural heritage previously collected under colonial conditions. Elsewhere, this acknowledgement is utilised to form a range of new agendas, situated in collaborations between museums, communities, anthropologists, and other program leaders in the areas of heritage revival and management, as well as in knowledge production and circulation. The digital realm is particularly suited to these agendas because it enables a variety of programs that successfully share information across a

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wide variety of platforms (e.g., Hennessy et al. 2013; Hess et al. 2009; Rowley 2013; Smith 2008); although, as we discover below (Chapters 6 and 7), there still remains an important role for print-based—that is to say, material—publication of visual materials. The outcomes of these data-sharing programs can include new kinds of collaborations and relationships, community-shaped research questions, decentralised power, shared curation and annotation of material culture items, and knowledge revitalisation. This increasingly diverse landscape of collaboration both generates and reflects the new needs and contemporary perspectives of source communities that go “well beyond property claims or individual artistic expressions” (Reddy and Sonneborn 2013, 128). From this, we might ask: if collaboration has evolved, can the understanding of repatriation, in the language of Papua New Guinea’s National Cultural Property (Preservation) Act , be “adapted for use”? Or should institutions, individuals, and source communities work instead with notions such as visual exchange as we do here, leaving repatriation to respond to the often-urgent need for the uncompromised return of materials to their source communities? The answers to these questions will be partially contingent on the source communities themselves, who may decide on a case-by-case basis which objects, which interpretations, and what knowledge circulates, and why; where, when, and with whom; and the role, if any, that visual materials might play in that process. As Thompson points out, the justification of the origin community’s right to repatriable objects belongs to a heritage framework that transcends their claim. Under those conditions, the community may allow the distribution of selected items in contexts that provide access to a wider selection of peoples and places (Thompson 2004, 557).

Method The Moving Pictures project was greatly assisted by the prior relationships that Lara Lamb had established as part of other, earlier work with people on the Kikori River. From 2008 to 2012 Lamb and Bryce Barker (University of Southern Queensland) visited the region as part of an ARC Discovery project coordinated by Bruno David (Monash University), to work with communities on the archaeology of ancestral village sites, both in the Kikori River Delta and upriver, near Baina (Kesele) and Kopi (Rumu). During multiple field trips, the team conducted archaeological excavations, and compiled private family histories and clan stories,

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for the personal use of the peoples concerned. The length of time working in the region and the safe delivery of a range of confidential community reports established a relationship based on collaboration, trust, and friendship. We believe this amicable relationship was also facilitated by the fact that Lamb and Barker brought their children into the field on a number of occasions (Okely 2013, 126–131). The people with whom we worked correctly verbalised this as a genuine expression of ease, confidence, and commitment (see Cassell 1987, 260; and Cassell 2010 for a thorough examination of children in the field). In combination, these factors predisposed our collaborators to receive our initial ideas with interest. The Papua New Guinea fieldwork component of this project was undertaken over three seasons, in 2012, 2013, and 2016, and in several locations including Kikori (a large village on Kikori River on the site of the old government station), Goare Village (Goaribari Island), and Kinomere Village (Urama Island). Our visual materials in 2012 and 2013 consisted of images from the main Hurley photo gallery on the Australian Museum and National Library websites.6 These were presented in A4 size, contained in large ring binders so that individual photographs could be detached and handed around. We also made use of iPads to show digital reproductions of the images, as well as Keith Pardy’s National Film and Sound Archive’s 1979 reconstruction of Hurley’s 1921 film Pearls and Savages , having gained permission for the use of Hurley’s intellectual property from Frank Hurley’s daughter, Mrs Adelie MooyHurley. The 2016 materials consisted once again of the film, and a more comprehensive set of 40 high-resolution images printed on quality photographic paper, reproduced with the permission of the Australian Museum, and bound in a hard cover. In 2016 we added a book of photographs depicting the material objects collected in the western Gulf by Frank Hurley in 1922–23, and by others at various times. These photographs were taken in 20127 during a visit to the Australian Museum in Sydney with Kerewo leaders (see below), and were also reproduced on high quality, glossy photographic paper, bound in a robust hardback cover.

6 See https://australianmuseum.net.au/frank-hurley-papuan-photographs and https:// www.nla.gov.au/selected-library-collections/hurley-collection. 7 Obtained with the assistance of Ms Yvonne Carillo-Huffman from the Australian Museum.

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On each occasion, we utilised what might broadly be called photo elicitation, which facilitated discussion with several participant groups (Collier and Collier 1986; Harper 2002). We also participated in conversations with small groups and individuals who were interested in us as well as the photographs, and who took time to talk with us. These conversations added a layer of data to the elicitation and group discussions, as in these instances people appeared more open and willing to share material that, for differing reasons, was not deemed appropriate in a more public setting (see also Bell 2006, 198–199). Aside from times when we were conversing with English speakers, we relied on translation that was undertaken either on the spot, or later using audio recordings. Neither of us are Kerewo or Motu speakers and have a limited understanding of Tok Pisin, sufficient only to follow the broad direction of a conversation. Detailed notes were taken during all meetings/discussions and expanded upon at the end of each day (Bernard 2011, 291–305), while more general notes from memory were also recorded at the day’s end. All audio recordings were transcribed verbatim by Lamb, and we conducted a combination of summary and verbatim transcriptions for all digital video recordings. The transcriptions, fieldnotes, and other data were coded thematically, either manually or in Nvivo 11, while all photographs were coded manually. Gulf Field Trip, February 2012 The Moving Pictures project was initiated in 2012 when Lara Lamb, Christopher Lee, and Bryce Barker visited the region to discuss it with representatives of the Kerewo, while also working on an unrelated project with Kesele people near Baina Village, in the headwaters of the Kikori River. Upon our arrival at Kikori we met with Kenneth Korokai, one of the Kerewo community leaders and a long-term collaborator on Bruno David, Bryce Barker, and Lara Lamb’s archaeological project in the Kikori River Delta. We introduced the project to him, foregrounding the historical context in which Hurley took his photographs of Kerewo people. We also explained our motives (as they existed at the time) for returning copies of the images to the region, in the broad terms of giving the descendants of Hurley’s subjects the opportunity to see the photographs and articulate their impressions. Kenneth was supportive of the project, which he valued as an opportunity to share and develop his connection with ancestral history. At the time, he specifically articulated a concern that the Kerewo youth knew little of their heritage, a product of the

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growing disconnect between them and the older generations brought about by changes orchestrated by development, mobility, and demands associated with the forms of work available to his people. He anticipated that the images would help reconnect them to, or teach them about, elements of their culture that were no longer widespread, and help stimulate an intergenerational dialogue (Lamb 2012 fieldnotes, 9 February). Kenneth offered to escort us to the village of Goare, his home village on Goaribari Island, over the coming days so that we might make an initial presentation of the images and film to the Kerewo people residing there. When we arrived at Goare Village on 8 February we found that the community had built a new longhouse since our last visit in February 2010, the first on the island since the 1960s or 1970s (Lamb 2012 fieldnotes, 9 February). The longhouse was approximately 30m long, with family/clan sections arranged on either side of the central passage in a traditional fashion. Kenneth, who was the main driver of its construction, told us that it was inspired by the need to maintain clan identity: “we are trying to keep our culture going”; and that the longhouse provided an important meeting place for the village (Lamb 2012 fieldnotes, 9 February). It was not lost on us that, perhaps for the first time, Hurley’s photographs would be returned to a Kerewo longhouse, a structure that Hurley himself had helped to establish as an integral part of the colonial visual economy of the 1920s. In the evening we introduced ourselves and the project to the wider community. Kenneth translated for us, and spoke to the community at some length on his own behalf, incorporating information about his prior association with members of our team. The community response was positive and at this time we obtained permission to take photographs and make audio recordings. Shortly afterwards, we showed the photographic images and the film Pearls and Savages on an iPad in the low light conditions of evening. The iPad screen was slightly larger than our laptop and able to be handed around to interested persons for comment. A group of about 60 people was present, give-or-take the comings and goings of small family groups, mostly women and children. As people spoke, we took notes and audio recordings, and Kenneth offered us some on-the-spot translations of the audience’s reaction. After showing the photographs, the group then gathered as we played the film Pearls and Savages . Children from around the age of five or six, up to adolescence, sat in the front rows, older men were seated on chairs or stools in the middle, with younger men and women standing towards the back

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and sides of the group. Kenneth translated the silent film’s storyboard in Kerewo, in addition to anything we said to the group as the film played, and again offered us some on-the-spot translations of what they said in return. The remainder of the translation from that evening was conducted by Kenneth, from the audio recordings, back at Kikori Village the next day. On the following morning (the 9th) we conducted a small group viewing of the photographs on the beach in front of the village, with approximately 20 people present. On this occasion, we used the photos compiled in a ring binder, which Kenneth suggested we initially share with the oldest man present, Awaho Waoii (Fig. 5.1). The group was smaller than the previous night because people were preparing to depart for the funeral of a young man in Kikori, a tragic event that necessitated the shortening of our planned visit to the community. This new setting appeared less formal in terms of who was given licence to closely examine the photographs and to speak, with women and children freely looking over Awaho’s shoulder as he turned the pages and talked softly to the younger men by his side. Councillor Buara Isego, of the area’s Local Level Government (LLG), also spoke about the photographs to the people present and, as previously, we made an audio recording of the viewing, which was later translated for us by Kenneth Korokai when we returned to Kikori. Kerewo Leaders at the Australian Museum, Sydney, September 2012 As part of Monash University’s ARC-funded Kikori River archaeological project, Kenneth Korokai and Andrew Dairi were funded to come to both the University of Southern Queensland and Monash University, to view the archaeological facilities where we were analysing their cultural materials from previous archaeological excavations. The aim was to break down, as much as possible, the divisions between research/er and community, which are particularly prevalent when the material leaves the source community and community control is effectively extinguished (McNiven and Russell 2005). We had already completed our initial Moving Pictures fieldwork with the Kerewo earlier in the year, and in collaboration with collections officer Yvonne Carrillo-Huffman, we now took the opportunity to facilitate the access of the two Kerewo leaders to the aspects of the Australian Museum’s Pacific collection pertaining to the Kikori Delta region (see Fienup-Riordan 2005). Kenneth and Andrew took

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Fig. 5.1 Awaho Waoii discussing Hurley’s photographs on the beach at Goare Village, Goaribari Island, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012

photographs and handled the material during the lengthy visit. Lee and Barker also took a series of photographs of Kikori River Delta material culture items, many as the material was being handled by the two Kerewo men (Fig. 5.2), with the intention of incorporating the photographs into the visual exchange program in future years. Thus, in addition to Hurley’s photographs, the collection of images was expanded to include photographs of the Kerewo men with cultural items, some of which Hurley himself had collected at the time he was taking the 1922–23 photographs. All parties were profoundly affected by the joyous reunion of these men with the cultural items of their region, including the human remains that formed part of the collection. These remains were carefully stored in a bio-hazard facility and the two Kerewo men, on being given access, performed a ceremony that enabled them to enthusiastically invite Lee and Barker to participate in the event.

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Fig. 5.2 Kenneth Korokai and Andrew Dairi inspecting western Gulf artefacts in the Australian Museum, Sydney, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012

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Gulf Field Trip, December 2013 In the absence of any other available form of communication, our liaison Cathy Alex, then of the Oilsearch-sponsored Community Development Initiative (CDI), delivered introductory letters prepared by us in Australia, to Councillor Anthony Kabua on Urama Island, during 2013. Councillor Kabua agreed to introduce us (Lee, Barker, and Alex) to the village of Kinomere so that we might seek the consent of the community to initiate the Urama component of the project. As in 2012, we brought with us the reconstructed version of Hurley’s film Pearls and Savages , and on this occasion, his Urama photographs taken in 1922. The photographs were stored on two iPads, and the film was downloaded to two laptops and an iPad. When we arrived at Kinomere Village on the 10th of December, the Councillor was absent on business, and as a result the people there were not entirely prepared for our visit. Regardless, they took us to the longhouse where they kindly offered us coconut milk and kept us company while we waited for the Councillor to arrive. In the preliminary community meeting, following his arrival, we spoke principally with the community leaders Samweel Auwonya and Makia Oigai, and through their translation, with the village Chief Malson Mekemu. These senior men were appreciative of our efforts to come to Kinomere, welcomed our interest in sharing the photographs, and played a principal role in helping us plan and communicate the aims of the project to the community in the following days (see Fig. 5.3). The viewing of the photographs and film took place in the village longhouse on the second day at Kinomere (11th of December), at which time we sought permission to make audio recordings and to take photographs and digital video. Cathy Alex also communicated information in Tok Pisin about our project and prior involvement in the region, to the community. The village Chief Malson Mekemu contributed some Hurley images that were in his possession, some of which were photocopied from Jim Specht and John Field’s book Frank Hurley in Papua (1984). There was a great deal of general interest in the photographs as the iPads were passed around, with small groups of older men talking about them with the children. Women and children also gathered in groups around one of the iPads (Fig. 5.4), although the public discussion largely involved the older men. There were approximately 80 people in attendance. That same evening we screened the 1979 reconstruction of Pearls and Savages in the longhouse to a much larger group than was present for the

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Fig. 5.3 Malson Mekemu (far right) discussing Hurley’s photographs with Urau Aibau, the great, grandson of Komei (“Gormier”), photograph: Christopher Lee, 2013

Fig. 5.4 Three generations of women from Kinomere Village viewing Hurley’s photographs on the iPad, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2013

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daytime viewing of the photographs. In our notes, we observed that word of the project could have spread throughout the village during the day, and therefore we had a larger group in attendance. It may equally have been the case that people had come in from a remote day’s work, and were thus afforded the opportunity to participate in the evening’s activities. Our intention was to screen the film simultaneously on two laptops to improve visibility, however one of them had failed so we substituted that device with an iPad. The film screening and discussion that accompanied it was audio recorded. Our preliminary impression of both the photograph viewing and the film viewing was that there was less coordinated communication of thoughts and feelings to us, than there was discussion among the people themselves (to be addressed in Chapter 6). When people spoke publicly, the leaders Samweel Auwonya and Makia Oigai provided translations in English for our benefit. Between viewing the photographs in the morning and the film in the evening, several community members sought us out for assistance with a separate issue. We undertook to help them with this confidential matter, not discussed here, and to deliver the outcomes the next time we came to Urama Island. Due to logistical issues and incompatible schedules between the principal fieldwork participants, this was not possible until November 2016. Gulf Field Trip, November 2016 We were accompanied by Kenneth Korokai and our liaison Cathy Alex as we travelled from Kikori to Urama Island, in November 2016. As in 2013, we sent advance letters of introduction in English and Tok Pisin to the Councillor care of Kinomere Village, in July and again in September 2016. These letters were dispatched by boat, by Cathy Alex from the Kikori CDI on our behalf, and in them we sought permission to again come to the island and consult the community. It became apparent when we arrived at Kinomere Village that the letters either had not arrived or had not been shared with the rest of the village, as our arrival was unexpected. The community made us welcome regardless, and although there were many new faces, others recollected our earlier visit in 2013. The Paramount Chief of Urama, Henry Geii, is a proficient English speaker and although he was not present in 2013, he welcomed the project when we reprised our initial representation of the research for him. This was particularly important, as our key informants amongst the 2013 leadership cohort were absent from Kinomere

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Village on this occasion. We welcomed the chance to again meet with the community and community leaders that afternoon, to have some more general discussion about the project aims and the goals for the coming days. Our first day was also occupied by several informal gatherings with some women, children, and a few older men who came to visit us in the aid post where we were staying. During these visits, we showed the photographs that we took around Kinomere in 2013. That evening we again met with the leaders, and topics of conversation revolved around some common interests (political, economic, historical, and resourcebased), mutual friends/acquaintances, and the work we had undertaken previously in the province. With Henry Geii’s guidance, we arranged to conduct a photograph viewing the following morning and a film viewing that evening. We anticipated the day after would be occupied with small group consultations/discussions, and a final meeting with the leaders to hear their thoughts and observations. On the 20th of November, the day’s photo viewing began in a large, open space under a house,8 with a presentation of the book of Hurley photographs to the gathered community of approximately 65 people. This presentation was undertaken by Lee and Henry Geii, with Lee providing some brief commentary on each page, translated by Henry Geii to the community. If anyone had something to say publicly, Henry translated it back to us in English. As with previous elicitation sessions, it was both audio and video recorded. At the conclusion of this public, introductory perusal, all books were handed out to the community. This generated the formation of three groups: 1) A group of senior men sat with the large Hurley photo book and carefully looked at it, page by page (Fig. 5.5). At the conclusion of their examination, they gave us a list of annotations and corrections to the captions of 19 of the 41 photos from the Australian Museum’s Hurley photographic collection. 2) Lamb and Cathy Alex sat down with a group of women and inspected the book of photographs that were taken while visiting the Gulf collections at the Australian Museum in 2012. This generated a rich response and several women brought out heirloom items akin

8 Between 2013 and 2016 the longhouse had fallen into disrepair and was unavailable for use.

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Fig. 5.5 Komu Aitavai, the man identified as carving the Uraman canoe preserved in the Melbourne Museum, discusses Hurley’s photographs in group 1, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2016

to those in the book of photographs (Fig. 5.6). Among these were two different kinds of fish trap, a kundu drum, some stitched fibre matting, a canoe paddle, a pot (uro), and one short wooden paddle. Lamb documented the conversation regarding the photographed museum items (discussed in Chapter 6). This was achieved, in part, with the assistance of Cathy Alex who, where necessary, communicated with the women in Tok Pisin and translated back to Lamb. 3) The third group was generated when the senior men (who had finished with the Hurley photo book) came over to observe the group of women. Rather than have this group disrupted, we gave the men a duplicate book of museum photos to examine. This was also very productive and generated a list of 19 item names and descriptions (discussed in Chapter 6). After groups 1 and 3 had finished with the books, they were then passed around to the rest of the people present. Group 2 sat with their book for the morning until the whole community broke for lunch. At this point, all books went back into circulation within the village and were

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Fig. 5.6 Women of Kinomere (group 2) looking at the photographs taken at the Australian Museum in 2012, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2016

slowly returned to us throughout the afternoon. At 7:30 in the evening, we screened Pearls and Savages to approximately 80 people on two laptops simultaneously. While no audio recording was captured, Lamb took some video footage that captured a reasonable amount of dialogue, particularly between the senior men during the Urama segment of the film. At the conclusion of the film, the unprompted topic of discussion was the repatriation of human remains (discussed in Chapter 6). The following morning, we again met with the community. The group was not as large as the day before, and consisted largely of men, young and old. There were women and children present in smaller numbers, but they did not participate in the public discussion. At this meeting, we reported on the outcome of the confidential matter raised with us in 2013, as promised. Other topics of discussion were repatriation, the Chalmers/Tomkins killing, Hurley and his methods, the film Pearls and Savages , the incorrect captioning of the Hurley photographs, and the matter of Uraman heritage in overseas collections (see Chapter 6). Towards the end of the meeting, we asked the community if they wished to ask us anything or wished to ask anything of us. Consistent with previous fieldwork seasons we made undertakings to assist the community in several matters, to be delivered back to them at the next opportunity.

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Ambiguities and Limitations We broadly characterise our fieldwork methods as ethnographic, by which we mean “a family of methods involving direct and sustained social contact with agents” (Willis and Trondman 2000, 5). However, as an emerging interdisciplinary methodology or even as an evolving anthropological methodology, ethnography has invited interrogations as to its efficacy in the provision of accurate or socially relevant descriptions of social reality (Borneman and Hammoudi 2009, 3; Clifford and Marcus 1986; Marcus and Fischer 2014; Said 1978). Indeed, the complex interdisciplinarity of ethnographic writing has illuminated what some view as the fallacy of transparent representation (Clifford 1986, 2), while the relationship between anthropologists and source communities specifically, has changed after a number of legislative, social, and political negotiations within and across national boundaries (see Stocking 1991). Cumulatively, this has resulted in a reconsideration of the authority of anthropology and its methods, and a heightened awareness of alterity. The imperative to adjust anthropological method to address different forms of agencies/agency is manifest in the emergence of a range of approaches such as dialogism, anthropesis, world systems theory, transnationalism, auto-ethnography, and constructed subjectivities as knowledge critique. Borneman and Hammoudi (2009, 5) note that this “uneven” state of the current discipline nevertheless continues to make “repetitive theoretical claims” and they raise the concern that “the insistence that all translations are partial, all truths relational and perspectival—sound ideas and assumptions with which we agree—often becomes an excuse for offering superficial translations that prefer surface over depth” (see also Fabian 1990). The juxtaposition between deep and superficial fieldwork methods can be represented by works such as Clastres’ Chronical of the Guayaki Indians (2021) and Clifford’s Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (1997). In the latter, Clifford expands on his methodological interest in “deep hanging out”, which the likes of Geertz and Friedman disparage as hit-and-run ethnography, freestyle anthropology, and thoroughly ephemeral (cited in Wogan 2004, 130). The perception of a pervasive need for revised practice on the one hand, and the claim that anthropology’s methods of deep translation are what give it its distinctiveness, rigour, identity, and authority on the other (e.g., Ortner 1984; see also Wogan 2004), gives us cause to briefly outline some fieldwork matters of our own.

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In attending to Willis and Trondman’s (2000) view of the anthropological ethnographic method, we might ask ourselves: what is sustained contact? Does extended time with the same people on different projects signify as such, when that time has been instrumental in the formation of the current project? Mindful of participant observation as one of the central translative methods, we might ask did we do participant observation, or did we simply observe? In an active and agentive interaction, how can you just observe? On this, Fontein (2014, 75) asserts that “one participates in order to observe, so one is never either simply a participant nor simply an observer”. However, the demands that are placed on the observer will typically position them as an outsider which will thus, to a degree, objectify the participation. Our research relied on visual and verbal data, which is an essential part of the participant observation process, but not its sum. The self-imposed fieldwork time constraints on this project meant that we did not have the option to gather our own site-specific perpetual and embodied knowledge, which is also central to participant observation (Fontein 2014); although perpetual knowledge regarding some of our key research participants was obtained through sustained contact and communication, both in significant, impactful moments and over longer periods of time. Taken together, could we classify our own involvement in research-directed interactions, such as photo elicitations, exchanges, and group discussions, as well as sustained contact on previous projects, as participant observation? Is it acceptable to recognise different forms of participant observation, suited to a range of different research designs (as per Clifford and Marcus 1986)? From a more customary anthropological perspective, we would err on the ‘conservative’ side and propose that, although we undertook anthropological, ethnographic fieldwork, we did not necessarily engage in participant observation. However, from a more diverse standpoint (perhaps an historical, postmodern, or cultural studies perspective), we might hold that we undertook a form of participant observation; but also that the identification of divisions between, and adherence to, particular forms of such is not particularly fruitful in an interdisciplinary project, contextualised by an increasingly diversified range of disciplines engaging in various kinds of ethnographic methods (e.g., see Chapter 1 of Comaroff and Comaroff 1992 for an account of ethnographic ambiguity in historical anthropology; also Clifford 1997). In presenting our methodology as a self-reflexive account (Clifford 1986, 14–15; Davies 2012), we are being as transparent as

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possible, making our methodological claims subject to a transparent, interdisciplinary examination. We turn briefly now to the language barriers encountered during the project. These barriers were not unexpected and were built into the research design, in part by translating our project documentation into Tok Pisin and by arranging for our long-term collaborator Cathy Alex, who is politically neutral, multilingual, and highly respected within the region, to accompany us as our liaison and translator. As noted earlier, we were reliant either on translations of various languages, or on communications being undertaken in English. For the most part, the community leaders and Cathy Alex were the ones to both translate our words to the community and to translate the community’s words to us, both during large group discussions and the other contexts in which responses to the materials were gathered. In instances when the English-speaking community leaders were translating to and for us, during large group discussions, the question of whether the translations were accurate and representative is raised. It is likely that in some instances the leaders’ views were given primacy and that the nuance of other views was glossed. However, our principal method was orientated towards social groups, and in the instances where we found ourselves working with the leaders and representatives of the community (themselves in dialogue with other community members), we believe that our methods returned data that was apposite—embedded, as it was, in the conventions and protocols of the community itself. Where appropriate, we have named specific leaders who expressed their views. We have not identified any of the women we worked with, except when given permission to do so. The coalescence of different historical subjects within the project materials facilitates the creation and circulation of cultural value. Our project has assembled a range of diverse historical contexts in order to canvass and record that process as a collection of stories. This is done with the awareness that what we are doing here is creating and exchanging stories that curate the cultural value of these materials in different ways, for different peoples. The entanglement that forms the basis of this exchange of value can be selectively inferred from the stories and interpretations that represent the outcomes of our study, but it cannot be fully anticipated nor exhausted by them. This remains an ongoing process in which the different forms of power available to the respective agents involved in the exchange, exert a significant influence on the potential value, and therefore meanings, of the exchange.

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References Bell, Joshua A. 2003. “Looking to See: Reflections on Visual Repatriation in the Purari Delta, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea.” In Museums and Source Communities, ed. Laura Peers and Alison Brown, 111–122. London: Routledge. Bell, Joshua A. 2006. “Intersecting Histories: Materiality and Social Transformation in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” PhD: School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford. Bell, Joshua A., Kimberly Christen, and Mark Turin. 2013. “Introduction: After the Return.” Museum Anthropology Review 7 (1–2): 1–21. Benjamin, Walter. 1969. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” In Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Shockton Books. Bernard, H Russell. 2011. Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches, 5th ed. Lanham: Altamira Press. Boast, Robin, and Jim Enote. 2013. “Virtual Repatriation: It Is Neither Virtual nor Repatriation.” In Heritage in the Context of Globalization, ed. Peter F Biehl and Christopher Prescott, 103–113. New York: Springer. Born, G. 1997. “Computer Software as a Medium: Textuality, Orality and Sociality in an Artificial Intelligence Research Culture.” In Rethinking Visual Anthropology, ed. Marcus Banks and Howard Morphy, 139–169. London: Yale University Press. Borneman, John, and Abdellah Hammoudi. 2009. “The Fieldwork Encounter, Experience, and the Making of Truth: An Introduction.” In Being There: The Fieldwork Encounter and the Making of Truth, ed. John Borneman and Abdellah Hammoudi, 1–24. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Busse, Mark. 2000. “The National Cultural Property (Preservation) Act.” In Protection of Intellectual, Biological and Cultural Property in Papua New Guinea, ed. Mark Busse and Kathy Whimp, 81–95. Canberra: Asia Pacific Press. Cassell, Joan. 1987. Conclusion. In Children in the Field, ed. by Joan Cassell, 257-270. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. ———. ed. 2010. Children in the Field. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Clastres, Pierre. 2021. Chronicle of the Guayaki Indians. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Clifford, James. 1986. “Introduction: Partial Truths.” In Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, ed. James Clifford and George Marcus, 1–26. Berkeley: University of California Press. Clifford, James. 1997. Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus, eds. 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Collier, John, and Malcolm Collier. 1986. Visual Anthropology: Photography as a Research Method. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. Comaroff, John, and Jean Comaroff. 1992. Ethnography and the Historical Imagination. New Work: Routledge. Craig, Barry. 1992. “National Cultural Property in Papua New Guinea: Implications for Policy and Action.” Journal of the Anthropological Society of South Australia 3 (2): 1529–1554. Davies, Charlotte. 2012. Reflexive Ethnography: A Guide to Researching Selves and Others. London: Routledge. Edwards, Elizabeth. 2012. “Objects of Affect: Photography Beyond the Image.” Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 221–234. https://doi.org/10.1146/ann urev-anthro-092611-145708. Fabian, Johannes. 1990. “Presence and Representation: The Other and Anthropological Writing.” Critical Inquiry 16 (4): 753–772. https://doi.org/10. 1086/448558. Fienup, Ann. 2005. “Yup’ik Elders in Museums: Fieldwork Turned on Its Head.” In Museums and Source Communities, ed. Laura Peers and Alison Brown, 28–41. London: Routledge. Fontein, Joost. 2014. “Doing Research: Fieldwork Practicalities.” In Doing Anthropological Research. A Practical Guide, ed. Natalie Konopinski, 70–90. New York: Routledge. Harper, Douglas. 2002. “Talking About Pictures: A Case for Photo Elicitation.” Visual studies 17 (1): 13–26. https://doi.org/10.1080/147258602 20137345. Hennessy, Kate, Natasha Lyons, Stephen Loring, Charles Arnold, Mervin Joe, Albert Elias, and James Pokiak. 2013. “The Inuvialuit Living History Project: Digital Return as the Forging of Relationships between Institutions, People, and Data.” Museum Anthropology Review 7 (1–2): 44–73. Hess, Mona, Stuart Robson, Francesca Simon Millar, Graeme Were, Edvard Hviding, and Arne Cato Berg. 2009. “Niabara-the Western Solomon Islands War Canoe at the British Museum; 3d Documentation, Virtual Reconstruction and Digital Repatriation.” 15th International Conference on Virtual Systems and Multimedia. Hubert, Jane, and Cressida Fforde. 2002. “The Reburial Issue in the TwentyFirst Century.” In Heritage, Museums, and Galleries: An Introductory Reader, ed. Gerard Corsane, 116–132. London: Routledge. Joyce, Rosemary A. 2003. “Academic Freedom, Stewardship and Cultural Heritage: Weighing the Interests of Stakeholders in Crafting Repatriation Approaches.” In The Dead and Their Possessions: Repatriation in Principle, Policy and Practice, ed. Cressida Fforde, Jane Hubert, Paul Turnbull, 99–107. New York: Routledge.

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Kakaliouras, Ann M. 2012. “An Anthropology of Repatriation: Contemporary Physical Anthropological and Native American Ontologies of Practice.” Current Anthropology 53, no. S5: S210-S221. https://doi.org/10.1086/ 662331. Lahui, Hale. 2008. “State of Safeguarding PNG’s Intangible Cultural Heritage.” Inter-Departmental Meeting on the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Port Moresby, 18–19 March. Lynch, Michael. 1994. “Representation Is Overrated: Some Critical Remarks About the Use of the Concept of Representation in Science Studies.” Configurations 2 (1): 137–149. https://doi.org/10.1353/con.1994.0015. Marcus, George E., and Michael MJ. Fischer. 2014. Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. McNiven, Ian J., and Lynette Russell. 2005. Appropriated Pasts: Indigenous Peoples and the Colonial Culture of Archaeology. New York: Altamira Press. Morphy, Howard, and Marcus Banks. 1997. “Introduction: Rethinking Visual Anthropology.” In Rethinking Visual Anthropology, ed. Marcus Banks and Howard Morphy, 1–35. London: Yale University Press. Okely, Judith. 2013. Anthropological Practice: Fieldwork and the Ethnographic Method. London: Berg. Ortner, Sherry B. 1984. “Theory in Anthropology since the Sixties.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 26 (1): 126–166. http://www.jstor.org/ stable/178524. Reddy, Sita, and D.A. Sonneborn. 2013. “Sound Returns: Toward Ethical ‘Best Practices’ at Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.” Museum Anthropology Review 7 (1–2): 127–139. Rowley, Susan. 2013. “The Reciprocal Research Network: The Development Process.” Museum Anthropology Review 7 (1–2): 22–43. Said, Edward. 1978. Orientalism: Western Representations of the Orient. New York: Pantheon. Smith, David A. 2008. “From Nunavut to Micronesia: Feedback and Description, Visual Repatriation and Online Photographs of Indigenous Peoples.” Partnership: the Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research 3 (1): 1–19. Specht, Jim. 2003. “When the Cause of ‘Science’ Is Not Enough: Frank Hurley in Papua.” The Sixth Museum of Antiquities Maurice Kelly Lecture, Armidale. Specht, Jim, and John Fields. 1984. Frank Hurley in Papua: Photographs of the 1920–1923 Expeditions. Bathurst: Robert Brown and Associates. Stocking, George W, ed. 1991. Colonial Situations: Essays on the Contextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge. Vol. 7, History of Anthropology. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

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Thompson, Janna. 2004. “Art, Property Rights, and the Interests of Humanity.” The Journal of Value Inquiry 38 (4): 545–560. https://doi.org/10.1007/ s10790-005-5869-7. Turnbull, Paul. 2010. “Introduction.” In The Long Way Home: Meaning and Values of Repatriation, ed. by Paul Turnbull and Michael Pickering, 1–11. New York: Berghahn Books. Willis, Paul, and Mats Trondman. 2000. “Manifesto for Ethnography.” Ethnography 1 (1): 5–16. Wogan, Peter. 2004. “Deep Hanging Out: Reflections on Fieldwork and Multisited Andean Ethnography.” Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power 11 (1): 129–139. https://doi.org/10.1080/725289021.

CHAPTER 6

Contemporary Kerewo and Urama Responses to Frank Hurley’s Collection

For our duration is not merely one instant replacing another; if it were, there would never be anything but the present — no prolonging of the past into actual, no evolution, no concrete duration. Duration is the continuous progress of the past which gnaws into the future and which swells as it advances. (Bergson 1983, 4)

In this chapter, and the next, we seek to collect the responses of our collaborators to the different exchanges that constituted our field work, as described in the previous chapter. Responses detailed in this chapter include the identification of ancestors, which provided cues for our informants’ own identification and reaffirmation of familial, clan, and village lineages, as well as information about some of the individuals whom Hurley encountered. The Hurley photographs also provided the opportunity for identification and commentary on various items of traditional and ceremonial dress, which was again taken up in discussions that came out of an examination of images depicting the objects in the Australian museum. One of the enduring themes was a sense of the loss of traditional culture, associated with the loosening of ties between generations among the Kerewo and Urama peoples. This theme resonates throughout the colonial and decolonial histories articulated in Chapters 2–4. In the case of the Kerewo people at Goare Village, it was this reflection that inspired the reconstruction of a longhouse around 2010. Historically, the longhouse not only represented the organisation of the village, with clans © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Lamb and C. Lee, Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15579-6_6

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located in specific sections of the longhouse, but it was also the locus of intergenerational knowledge transmission and the place where those who came from outside, seeking different forms of knowledge exchange, were welcomed and heard. The Uraman response placed less emphasis on the failure of intergenerational transmission of knowledge and more on the loss of material cultural items to colonial agencies. The loss of these items, the very form of which was frequently associated with clan lineage and therefore cosmology and origins, is identified as a major factor in the decline of traditional knowledge and identity.

Identifying Ancestors Among both Kerewo and Urama people, the recognition and naming of their ancestors during 2012, 2013, and 2016 fieldtrips built upon the previous viewing of images from a range of sources. At Goare Village, Kemau Havia (b. 1950s) exclaimed “Otoia woman” as he recognised an image of a young woman as his grandmother, Aboro (Fig. 6.1). Kenneth Korokai explained that around 1972 there was a European man living at Kikori Station who was operating a bar. He had a “history book” that he showed Kemau Havia’s father Havia Auma, who recognised the woman as his mother. At this time, the book was likely to have been Hurley’s 1924 North American publication Pearls and Savages (see Hurley 1924, 183). The photos were retained by the people of Goaribari Island “just to remind the children” and indeed, this family curation of the photo was sufficient to elicit recognition by Kemau Havia, who had no firsthand knowledge of Aboro, his grandmother (TS1 2012). When asked specifically about the woman’s countenance, there was a short discussion among the older men. Kenneth related back to us that they did not know how Aboro felt about being photographed by Hurley, although he did elaborate at another time that it was probable that she was “scared” and “very, very shy” (TS3 2012). Similarly, at Kinomere Village on Urama Island there was knowledge of several male ancestors held by the senior men such as Samweel Auwonya and Makia Oigai. This was partly facilitated by at least one previous visual return undertaken by Ron Vanderwal in 1982–1983 (see Vanderwal 2005). There was also reference made to photos being given to the people at Kinomere by four Australians who came to the island prior to Vanderwal, to make a collection of cultural items: “They named [the people in the pictures] and we can still memorise them and we can call

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Fig. 6.1 Goaribari woman sitting on a platform with mother of pearl shell headdress and necklace, armbands, earrings (left), Goaribari woman sitting cross-legged with mother of pearl shell headdress (right), photographs: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, PIC FH/847 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 51/8 and PIC FH/848 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 51/9. This woman was identified as Aboro by her grandson, Kemau Havia

them by name” (TS2 2013). There was agreement that if all the young people were shown the photographs, this would enable them to retain the ancestral names and images, just as the older men of the community had done. "Gormier", Hurley’s liaison at Kinomere, was recognised as Komei of the Oumaudai clan1 , and was identified as the great grandfather of at least one man present at Kinomere Village in 2013. Three other male ancestors, Mailaku (Fig. 6.2), Gegea (Fig. 6.3), and Garai (Fig. 6.4) were identified in 2013, with Garai also being identified in 1982–1983 by Vanderwal’s informants (who claimed him to be of the Paia’amere lineage). Vanderwal (2005) also elicits identification of an additional two

1 This is consistent with Vanderwal (2005) who identifies the man as Komei Baia. See also Fig. 3.11.

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men: Kaea’a and Kaea’a’s son Kipaia of the Kaurimarea lineage, neither of whom were mentioned to us in 2013. There was a notable shift in people’s willingness to claim recognition of their ancestors between the 2013 and 2016 fieldwork. Komei was the only person identified in 2016, and when we revisited the picture of Garai with the community member who had claimed him as his great grandfather in 2013, he was not forthcoming; indeed, he gave the impression that he

Fig. 6.2 Types from the villages of Urama, Kinomere & Tovei, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, http://nla.gov.au/ nla.obj-149352764, PIC/8907/29 LOC Album 1067. This man was identified as Mailaku, by the people of Kinomere Village

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Fig. 6.3 Native with mourning bands, Urama village, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04795. This man was identified as Gegea, and the “mourning bands” were said to be “not for mourning, but … for normal dressing, for dancing” by the people of Kinomere Village

Fig. 6.4 A widower of Kaimari village, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum AMS320/V04806. This man was identified as Garai, by the people of Kinomere Village

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denied the relationship. Joshua Bell’s visual return of Kathleen Haddon’s and F.E. William’s photographs to the people of the Purari Delta noted circumstances that might explain what we observed at Kinomere (Bell 2003). According to Bell, in multi-clan settings the identity of individuals was “publicly puzzled over [while] in private [they] were pronounced with much conviction” (Bell 2003, 115). This was a strategy employed to retain secrecy over genealogical connections, claims to land, and claims to leadership status. In a later study, Bell goes on to associate that need for discretion with the contested nature of authority and entitlement, within a system of cultural property that has been disrupted and modified by colonial modernity, and also by the opportunities provided by what he calls “the transforming politics of resource extraction” (Bell 2008, 131). The 2013 gathering of Urama people, at which time multiple ancestors were recognised and claimed by members of the community, was therefore likely to be comprised of several closely related clans to whom this information would pose no threat or discomfort. In 2016 however, there were fewer faces that we recognised from 2013 and the senior men Samweel Auwonya and Makia Oigai were absent. The Paramount Chief Henry Geii was present for the first time, and was himself claiming descent from Komei. These multiple public/private inscriptions of meaning, made in the presence/absence of claims to ancestry, reveal Hurley’s photographs as active agents in the construction of the “‘plural frames of history’” (Edwards, cited in Bell 2003, 115). This is not simply an issue of alternative readings of the past, however, but a consequence of the protocols that closely guard items linked to identity, and therefore membership and resource ownership (Bell 2003, 114). The people who had previously claimed connection with the historic figures in Hurley’s photographs, but who deemed it inappropriate to do so in 2016, were perhaps subject to similar protocols. As Edwards (2006, 31) opines “photographs become entities acting and mediating between peoples” and “engagement with photographs as socially salient objects both encapsulates and defines relations between peoples”. The photograph, according to Bell is “a powerful new token of proof” (Bell 2008, 131).

Intergenerational Loss, Preservation, and Change The ancestor identified as Mailaku was said to be a prophet figure who had “told some kind of traditional prophesy of what will happen later”. The prophesy, according to one senior community leader, was that while

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dancing, Mailaku had stated that “later too late; might be the children, they will not know the custom. That’s why in my time, I must sing”. This was “already true” as stated almost sotto voce, by an elderly man in the group (TS2 2013). The concern with the loss of cultural knowledge was prevalent across all visual exchange meetings for both Kerewo and Urama people, and, in this context, reactions to the photographs often included expressions of gratitude to Hurley for preserving knowledge by having taken the photographs in the first place. Awaho Waoii, an elderly Kerewo man and Goare Village resident (Goaribari Island) articulated feelings of loss when he examined the photographs on the beach on our second day at Goare Village (refer to Fig. 5.1). He had lived in a longhouse in the 1960s and 1970s at the old village site of Goare (a village that had moved at least once), and confirmed for us that they still possessed agibe boards and skulls when he was a boy in the 1950s (Lamb 2012 fieldnotes, 9 February). Awaho Waoii also told us, through Kenneth Korokai, that some of the pictures he “didn’t experience them” and that he “want to see the photos but feel sorry” about the cultural losses. He added that today they find it hard to maintain control of the contemporary lifestyle “in the way it is wanted to be” and that in “those days we were enjoying ourselves” (Lamb 2012 fieldnotes, 10 February). Awaho’s comments seemed to have an especially poignant significance on this day, when many of the villagers were travelling to Kikori for the funeral of a young man. The previous evening, at the screening of the film, we specifically asked what the younger people in the audience thought of the pictures of their forebears, the material culture they featured, and Gewo, the great “700 foot” longhouse that drew awed responses from some in the audience, when it appeared in Hurley’s lingering panning sequence, during the screening of Pearls and Savages (see also Fig. 6.5). Kemau Havia (through Kenneth Korokai) replied that some of these elderly people, they were born in the day when they still had advice about how the tradition and culture, how the people lived. And from then, the next generation, even like myself we are in totally [in the dark/in doubt] about what was in the past. So that’s why the young people here, they are totally confused by what they seeing … so it’s surprising for them to see how the ancestors and grandfathers lived ... and how we lived, how we behave …. (TS1 2012)

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Fig. 6.5 The interior of the communal house at Kerewa, Goaribari Island, communal at Kerewa, Goaribari Island, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-158048274, PIC FH/826 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 50/5. This photograph was identified by Kenneth Korokai as the interior of the longhouse, Gewo

Kemau Havia continued with an explanation of the longhouse (through Korokai): in this longhouse, like their fathers and grandfathers, they had a continuous advice. Every morning, every mid-day they are there; [there] is always a spokes people, they continuously advise the young people. They live according to those advices. And because this kind of advice has somehow stopped and they nowadays our young generation, we don’t have those continuous advice, or we don’t know … all about our tradition … all about our culture. That’s what he’s saying [Kemau] … we … come to the situation that we are prepared to talk to yourselves … Before was continuous advice, we knew how the life was existing, but now somehow the advice has stopped and that’s why our young generation is totally confused (TS1 2012).

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Kenneth associates Kemau Havia’s comments with the community’s decision to construct a new longhouse (Fig. 6.6) in Goare, explaining: … the longhouse always will keep our mind into our tradition. The longhouse will always remind our mind, and also it was the real living of Kerewo men that there must be a longhouse in the village … a visitor that comes, a man goes to the men’s house and that where they will tell stories and … discuss whatever ceremonies will take place. So this building here, we are just trying to … keep our culture going. But part of the culture is already disappearing; like we don’t have knowledge of how to prepare kundus and arrows and bows … we are missing all those things. (TS2 2012)

Kerewo people see a renewed understanding of the practices of their forebears as a meaningful response to the alienating effects of (post)colonial modernity, but realise that the intergenerational loss of cultural knowledge still poses many challenges. “To [build] a longhouse

Fig. 6.6 New longhouse at Goare Village, Goaribari Island, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012

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in our generation today is not that easy. There has to be somebody that has experience of how to design the longhouse. And the lucky thing was there was a couple of old people, they contributed their ideas; they told the young people how to build the longhouse”. The scarcity of this knowledge, which is exclusively held by several elderly men (see also Bell 2015a, 108), raises concerns over the sustainability of this strategy when the older people pass away. Andrew Dairi laments that “they are dying one by one” and both he and Kenneth Korokai wonder whether they will ever be able to build a longhouse again: (Korokai) “After this longhouse, when the longhouse is built and gets old, the question is are we going to put up another one; that’s always [on] the mind” (TS3 2012). Kenneth explains that, traditionally, the posts of the longhouse would be carved with specific designs. He says the carvings that the people made on these new longhouse posts do not accurately reflect the traditional clan designs because “part of the knowledge of how to design carvings [is] disappearing from our minds”. Some of the older people retain the knowledge, such as Moro Geru, who in 2012 was living in Kikori, but this knowledge has not been passed on. Kenneth sees his own lapse in knowledge as a failure of the previous generation, and he sees his own son’s lapse in knowledge as the legacy of that failure: “If I fail my son, the failure is from my dad. If my dad doesn’t teach me, it’s a failure” (TS3 2012). Fathers are responsible for teaching their sons about their clan identity, rights, and responsibilities. Kenneth views his inability to pass on ancestral knowledge to the next generation as a weighty failure. He remembered his grandfather telling him stories of his ancestors, but at that time he could not see their significance. Now, he tells us, he realises that what his grandfather was trying to tell him is very important for the future well-being of the Kerewo (Lamb 2012 fieldnotes, 8 February). Ultimately though, he sees this problem as a failure of the previous generation who were born into a degree of traditional culture and failed to pass it on. Kenneth identifies the Second World War as one of the key events that interrupted this transmission of cultural knowledge to the next generation. As detailed in Chapter 4, the men were called away from the villages to support the war, and those who survived, returned, only to leave their homes again for work on the plantations: The people’s mind is now taken to another direction … so they lived two different lifestyles together … I remember one of them stories my motherin-law told [about] a man that comes from the plantation; he is paid some

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30 pounds … for the whole year … he dressed [in a] white singlet and short trousers and a headband. So you can see the difference of these two images? We’ve got a headband of shell and then this man, cause he’s coming from the [plantation] to the communities. He’s already attracting the community from one way to the other [way] and two or three people sometimes [say] ‘oh this is good, can I go over there?’ So this is how the knowledge gets spread … so now again, it’s hard for me to record it because my father hadn’t taught me what was already taught by his father. (TS3 2012)

This narrative around intergenerational loss did not seem to be as prevalent among the Urama people during our field work in Kinomere Village, although it did arise during the discussions around repatriation Henry Geii opined that, “we don’t have the customary identity, they steal our identity. Every clans have their own identity, the artefacts is our identification”. The acknowledgement of the loss of material culture, and the forms of identity bound up within it, is an important theme in our conversations with the community about the possibilities of preserving their heritage by recommencing reproduction of cultural objects. Henry reaffirmed Kenneth Korokai’s lament at the failure to receive knowledge from his father’s generation. “I don’t know which my father’s, which my artefacts. I know by names only, but colours I do not know. [I do not know] about the patterns for drum”. He also lamented not knowing “what patterns, colours” his forefathers made. We relayed to him a story about an artist from New Britain who visited the Queensland Museum, to familiarise himself with traditional items and techniques. That artist then produced a series of items from his visit. Henry’s response was to ask whether the artist incorporated “a customary element or component”. When we clarified that they were not the same as the traditional items, he replied, “that’s the point” (TS5 2016). To Henry, this example gave substance to what seemed a principal concern of his: the loss of this knowledge means that the items cannot be reproduced with integrity. Even when people have access to images of traditional items, there is a lack of clarity around who has the rights to which designs, and this is a key reason for the absence of contemporary production. Henry makes this point quite clear with respect to the question of whether material culture items might be reproduced for sale. To reproduce a design, one must know which designs belong to you or your clan: “your design is your design, my design is my design; that’s

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how the clans they live. Even [referring to] Kenneth [from the neighbouring Kerewo tribe] you do not put my design, I will not give it”. To illustrate this point further, Henry raised the issue of the “artefacts from Kinomere” that were used to illustrate the 5-and 10-kina notes in Papua New Guinea’s currency. He acknowledged that it was difficult to “protest” this unlicensed use of cultural material, because it was so widely “beneficial”, but he also noted the presumptuous nature of the government’s decision to use these images to portray a form of pan-continental and national identity, without the permission of those responsible for that heritage. Mimicking the government, Henry states “‘that’s alright, I just put it as decorations to entice people to use’ [the money]” (TS5 2016); furthermore, that “knowledge is changing because the artefact he sold, somebody buy it, and then ‘are you going to make this type of artefact?’”. The sale might provide a welcome source of money, but it also changes the knowledge invested in the item, and this has implications for the social relations expressed through that knowledge (TS2 2016). Kerewo men Kenneth Korokai and Andrew Dairi also expressed doubts over the viability of reproducing material culture items for sale as a way of rediscovering and reproducing cultural heritage, and generating a local source of income. Their concern came from a different perspective to that of the Urama community, as articulated by Henry Geii, and returned once again to the issue of intergenerational transmission. Kenneth used the metaphor of men such as he and Andrew acting as a bridge between the past and the future; they must balance the need for a source of income with the “purity and importance of culture”. They feel like they are in a position to assess and respond to two competing and important ways of life, because they “are standing at the centre” of their culture, able to look back and also to look forward: “I can sell my culture for money, but selling for money is not the point … it’s always the bigger plan that money comes in to help, so you can take another step with the modern world; but the purity and importance of culture … we are standing at the centre of our culture—what is the future of this culture and what was in the past—so [we] can see two different important [ways of looking at the issue]” (emphasis added). This sense of their role as a point of articulation and decision-making, which balances the past and the future, is a marked divergence from the opposition between past and present, old and new, age and youth, that Hurley sought to exploit in his own interest. Andrew and Kenneth are leaders who are responsible for directing the thoughts and actions of the community at large in these matters: “We

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address them [saying] ‘it’s important for money?’ or we address them saying ‘this is how we lost our, we are about to [lose] every lifestyle of our tradition and every image of our tradition so what do we do?’ [to] protect our children and our grandchildren so that they have a fair idea of how they access this; that is always [on] our mind” (TS3 2012). The desire to “take another step with the modern world” emerges throughout our fieldwork and reflects their feeling that the Gulf peoples are a modern people who are not recognised as such. This sense of “frustrated modernity” (Di Rosa 2018) is sometimes structured by the colonial distinctions that we documented in Chapters 2 and 3, and sometimes in the postcolonial and post-independence distinction between urban Papuan New Guineans and the so-called village people (see Chapter 7).

Knowledge by Acquaintance; Knowledge by Description The differentiation of secondhand referred knowledge from firsthand embodied knowledge, or what Bertrand Russell calls knowledge by description and knowledge by acquaintance (Russell 1910), was a persistent theme among the Kerewo community in 2012. Here we refer to and illuminate the more contemporary formulations, which hold knowledge by acquaintance may be claimed when a person “directly apprehends” experiential content that justifies the content of their belief (BonJour 2003; Brewer 2011), which itself may or may not be indebted in some part to knowledge by description. For some of the older Kerewo men, and the men of Kenneth Korokai’s generation, the experience of acquaintance manifested most remarkably when viewing images of the longhouse in the ancestral village of Otoia. These images were seen in a short, panning sequence of the village, during a screening of the film Pearls and Savages in the new longhouse at Goare, in 2012. The section of film drew an immediate response, with some of the older men crying out in recognition of a building that they knew by name but had never seen. Kenneth Korokai translated what the older men were saying in this regard: the old man [Kemau Havia] is saying that many of us don’t know this house, we only have the name. But now we can see the real house by that name that we know it. That’s the longhouse Gewo. The name Gewo we have been hearing from our grandfathers. (TS1 2012, emphasis added)

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These [men] are saying they also heard about it, but they did not actually see this house. They heard about it … they heard the name Gewo but they did not see the house themselves. And this also applies to us [people of Kenneth’s generation]. We’ve been hearing the name of this … but now we can see. (TS1 2012)

The village of Otoia (Kerewa), in which the longhouse Gewo was situated, is the source village from which all other Kerewo villages in the immediate vicinity are said to have derived. There is a robust migration story relating to the Kerewo people’s arrival on Goaribari Island, and the construction of Otoia. There is also a clear recollection of the names of the clans that are said to have lived there in the longhouse Gewo, and an equally clear understanding of clan identity, represented in part by their actual physical position and spatial arrangement within the longhouse (see Barker et al. 2012). Clan identity is outwardly connected to numerous cosmological, economic, and political elements, all of which are constitutive of the very rights that govern all aspects of daily living on Goaribari Island. In this original context, the central role and endurance of knowledge by description (in this case, oral knowledge) is reaffirmed in the daily, concomitant construction, experience, and performative realisation of knowledge by acquaintance (directly experiential), through a discipline imposed in situ by the designated places and significantly arranged spaces of the longhouse. Both forms of knowledge work together to create confirmation (Gillies 1998, 135–136) and in this original setting, the two forms of knowing are constituted by, and constitutive of, each other at all times. The disruption of this mutual reinforcement opens up a space of doubt, which invites conflict and disagreement. This new source of social division is part of the Kerewo people’s experience of colonial modernity. The longhouse Gewo has not been seen by any living Kerewo people, and yet it remains in the community memory where it continues to be sufficient for the constructions of a form of clan identity for some of the older men. The image of the longhouse provided by the film endorses the grandfathers’ description of Gewo. The panning shot withholds a complete image of the structure until the last moment, when a brief glimpse of the complete structure is revealed, only to be taken away by a rapid change of scene. The panning movement and the rapid cut-away evoke the massive size of a structure that seemingly cannot be contained within the mise-en-scène of the screen. In the book version of Pearls and Savages , Hurley described the “admirable view … of the longhouse,

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which extends along the river bank for no less than five hundred feet! This great structure was well and solidly constructed … and was, excepting in height, the largest house that we saw in Papua” (Hurley 1924, 201–202). Gewo appears as background in several of Hurley’s images of Kerewo men demonstrating skills such as canoe building (Fig. 6.7), but the effect of the lingering panning shot in the film underlines Bell’s point about the “promiscuity” of the various visual forms available to photography and cinematography, which give “otherwise transient moments a particular presence in the world” (Bell 2008, 124, emphasis added). The knowledge by acquaintance provided by the film is once again, years later, articulated with knowledge by description, provided by the name, Gewo. Perhaps this also explains the emotional response of the older men when they saw the moving image of Gewo for the first time. For younger people, the reception of the word Gewo, and all it entails, depended on the testimony of their grandfathers. The film vindicated that testimony for the younger generations, through the belated knowledge by acquaintance that it offered. The diction used by Kenneth distinguishes between the descriptive “name ‘Gewo’” and the acquaintance of the “real Gewo”. In translating the response of the older men, he makes a distinction between knowing the house by name and “physically see[ing] the house themselves” (TS1 2012, emphasis added). One could not help wondering, at the time, whether intergenerational descriptive knowledge, in the absence of acquaintance, is under pressure in the eyes of a younger generation who are now sceptical, in part because of their own acquaintance with the materialism of postcolonial modernity. Kenneth himself had disclosed that as a young man he could not see the significance of his grandfather’s stories. Hurley’s film and his photographs belatedly offer the Kerewo the opportunity to bear witness to—one might say in Russell’s terms become re-acquainted with—the objects of their grandfathers’ descriptive knowledge. As we saw in Chapter 3, Hurley believed that the younger men, exposed to modernity, were increasingly sceptical of the knowledge claims of the older men. The Australian exploited this apparent tension by attending respectfully to the older men and demonstrating his interest in their culture, so as to gain their cooperation. One wonders whether the older men viewing the film, in the prolonged absence of acquaintance and an extended period of the alienating and atomizing effects of postcolonial modernity, had also begun to doubt the authority of their forebears. As we saw in Chapter 4, Bell’s work with the people of the Purari Delta

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Fig. 6.7 Man of Kerewa regrinding a stone adze, Goaribari Island, Gulf Province (left), photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320, V4233. Man making a canoe with three children (right), photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, PIC FH/926 LOC Cold store PIC HURL 57/11

traces the profound disruption of their intergenerational transmission of cultural knowledge to the renunciation of that knowledge, and the material culture within which it was invested, by young Papuans returning from the war. These men sought a break with traditional society, to modernise the local economy as part of the Kabu movement (Bell 2008; Hassall 1991; Maher 1958). Kenneth also attributes a critical break in the intergenerational transmission of knowledge to this period. It was during this time that the Kerewo war hero Katue Gegai, another important postwar figure, attempts to establish a sago trading venture, and improve the economic security of his people. The return of historic photographs to source communities will have various effects and consequences, and the potential of the photographs and the moving images of cinefilm to acquaint postcolonial generations of Kerewo people with their heritage is open to question. When the possibility was raised that some photographs of Kerewo items in the Australian

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Museum could be brought back to the region and hung in the longhouse, to prompt younger people to engage with the stories associated with the missing material culture, Kenneth responded: “we can always do that but … the limited knowledge [of] the [old] people currently living … can give us the best knowledge”. In this instance he suggests that viewing the material plays a less significant role in knowledge creation than the descriptions imparted by older men who themselves possessed other experiential forms of in situ knowledge production (see Bell 2015b, 109). A second example points to a preference for the interplay of descriptive and acquainted knowledge production, when Kenneth talks about the ways that this was achieved in the historic longhouses. During the Kerewo leaders’ visit to the Australian Museum in 2012, we discussed his thoughts about the failure of the fathers to teach their children elements of custom. We then enquired about the response of the young people who saw Hurley’s photographs for the first time, earlier that year. Kenneth replied: nowadays our young people, their minds are not really concentrating back to all those things … it’s just like a movie to them so they just see it and that’s all … from our knowledge and listening to what my grandfather used to say …. there is a special time where our children [are] taught by the fathers … [the] fathers discipline their children and give them the advice of everything [his emphasis] so the young people, especially the men, are kept in the longhouse. (TS3 2012)

Kenneth illustrates that opportunities for building knowledge by acquaintance, using photographs or film alone are limited. Without the continuing “discipline” of the structured spaces of the longhouse and the quotidian practices of instruction enabled by that spatial arrangement, it is difficult to impress upon the next generation the cultural knowledge of those who came before them. There needs to be a substantive prior opportunity for young people to have gained notions, context, and/or beliefs about the traditional cultural setting, as Kenneth indicates above, if acquaintance is to have an enduring effect. Kenneth is aware that contemporary forms of knowledge production do not replicate the effects of traditional knowledge production systems that operated through a “meshwork of relations that was nourished through practices and material things” (Bell 2015b, 108), and which relied upon the repetition of sustained, daily interactions between generations. These

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interactions provided discipline because they were organised and enabled by the enduring structures of the longhouse and its ritual place within a community. Despite this, he leaves room for the possibility of the next generation of Kerewo people acquiring a new method of knowledge acquisition, if they are properly resourced and supported to gain access to the archive and museum collections.

The Agency of Photographs As outlined in Chapter 5, the photographic material we took back to the Kikori Delta region in 2012, 2013, and 2016 varied in form and composition from year to year. In 2012 the images were both compiled in ring binders and stored on an iPad; in 2013 an expanded set, obtained from the Frank Hurley Photographic Collection in the Australian Museum, was stored on two iPads; while in 2016 the photos were printed on high quality paper and bound as hardcover books to be left in Kinomere Village. In 2016 we also had photographs of the material culture from the region, taken in the Australian Museum during the visit of the Kerewo leaders in September of 2012; these were similarly printed on quality paper and bound as hard cover books that were left, along with Hurley’s photographs, as resources for both communities. In this section, we relate some of the exchanges that took place, which we view as either a direct product of, or significantly influenced by, the form and composition of the photographs. During our 2012 visit to Goaribari Island, a whole-group viewing of the photographs was conducted in the evening under low light conditions in the Goare longhouse, facilitated by an iPad with a member of the team holding it up and showing it around to maximise visibility.2 The next morning we gave a ring binder of A4 photos to a smaller group on the beach at the front of the village, so they could spend more private time with them (refer to Fig. 5.1). A broader licence to look at and speak about the photographs was afforded by this morning session. Unlike the previous night in the longhouse, where it appeared that only some men could speak, young children and women were leaning in, looking closely, and speaking to one another about what they saw. Awaho Waoii, who did not speak at the whole-group gathering the night before, expressed sadness that he “don’t experience those people” and also that he was 2 As it was an evening viewing, and dark inside the longhouse, it was not possible to use the printed photographs.

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“feeling very sorry for that, for the life they [ancestors] have”. This smaller, more private setting also generated some lengthy narratives from Kenneth Korokai about the importance of understanding the significance of material objects within ritual contexts. He expressed regret that they no longer possessed the items from the photographs, and that they were unlikely to again, because “everything that existed from their days was because of advice” and the continuous training imparted to both young men and women (TS2 2012). In 2016, the hardcover books of photographs (presented to the community as a gift) enabled a series of exchanges on Urama Island, which we had not previously seen in 2013 when using the iPads. After the initial meeting, during which we consulted the community about what we were hoping to do at Kinomere, the older men told us that they would dress in their own traditional dress and adornment for the occasion; although this did not actually transpire, the nature of the event occasioned a desire in people to share some traditional elements of cultural identity with us. We had enough photo books to facilitate several concurrent small-group sittings (refer Chapter 5) and they proved highly dynamic. Two groups, divided along gender lines except for the children, were able to take the books away and peruse them at their own pace with whomever they liked (refer to Figs. 5.5 and 5.6). In doing so, they were able to establish a relatively private, less formal setting that facilitated a range of discussions and interactions. This was particularly notable for the women, who were probably only able to do so because they were not competing with the men for access to the photographs. As the women examined the photographs of the cultural items in the Australian Museum, the discussion turned, page by page, to topics such as manufacturing method, source and trading, division of labour, the purpose of the items, their Urama names, and comparisons between some items pictured and their own items. The photographs also prompted some women to show us their own heirloom items. These items combine ritual action, quotidian practice, and ancestral knowledge, and, as suggested above, they have a greater capacity for iterative acquaintance, and hence enduring authority, than an acquaintance with the images alone (see also Bell 2015b). The disruption of the dissemination of knowledge through iterative, embodied interaction, as facilitated by the men’s longhouse, for example, has caused catastrophic interference in this form of knowledge transmission. As Bell (2009) notes, when the last generation of initiated men passes away, that loss advances and intensifies. Under these

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conditions, lived experience and heirlooms become further imbued with authority, and knowledge becomes isolated in a few individuals who are in possession of these items, or of other forms of authority such as private notebooks (Bell 2015b, 109), government archival materials (Bell 2009; TS1 20103 ), or old copies of ethnographies (e.g., Geismar 2009). The situation in respect to the women, however, is slightly different, as the exchanges between mother and daughter traditionally took place in the family or meri house, rather than the longhouse. Forms of knowledge and practice that take place in this domestic context may therefore be more intact than the practices that are structured and enabled by the longhouse (see below with respect to basketry). Although, as Bell has shown in the Purari Delta, other factors such as urban out-migration and the substitution of newer technologies and commodities for traditional domestic items, have also disrupted the social and cultural practices formulated in and through the socially-situated processes of crafting traditional items (Bell 2011, 39). On this day, at Kinomere Village, nine heirloom items were produced from various houses by the women: a cane fish trap, a sago strainer, a coconut shell spoon, a canoe paddle, a kundu drum, some stitched fibre matting, a clay pot (uro, a hiri trade pot), a wooden club, and a frayed sago leaf skirt. At their request, the women’s possession of these items was documented with a photograph, which in some cases featured the page of the book where the corresponding museum item was depicted. A consistent narrative throughout this project affirms the pivotal place of the constant advice imparted to younger men in the men’s longhouses by fathers, and to the girls in the meri house by the mothers. As with the men and their ritual objects, the women trace networks of connection through their own objects, such as baskets and the designs woven into them (Bell 2015b, 108). This was made clear to us during the women’s group discussion, when we turned to the page containing 16 woven sago strainers housed in the Australian Museum. The women stated unequivocally that the items in the photograph came from Urama Island and that each design, produced by a particular method of weaving, had a unique name. The photograph contained at least 4 different named designs, and while the women made it clear that they possessed knowledge of and understanding about the designs, the politics of that 3 This transcript was obtained during previous fieldwork in the region. It is used with the permission of our collaborators.

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knowledge determined that they did not elaborate as to the specifics. One woman, both demonstrating her existing authority, and in all likelihood accruing further authority, brought out two of her own sago strainers to be photographed (Fig. 6.8). On another occasion, a kundu drum was produced by a woman in the group after some discussion about how the drums in the museum differed from their own. The Urama drums had possessed different colours and designs, and were shorter in their bodies than those in the museum. The heirloom drum corroborated their opinions about the differences, and gave them a vehicle to add further weight to their authority as they provided us with additional information about the manufacturing process and the names of different components. This they requested we provide to the Australian Museum, for both the women and the men felt strongly about the errors and omissions in the museum labelling of their items, and they were concerned that those errors be corrected. Heirloom objects were also presented by several of the senior men of Kinomere, notably by Malson Mekemu who, in 2013, had some Hurley photographs in his possession. These photographs had not been in wide circulation through the village (TS2 2013), but Malson was prompted to display them alongside those that we had brought. In doing so, he identified himself and us as co “custodian[s of] history knowledge”. Our shared interest in Urama culture prompted the observation that we were not simply “white men come from Australia but because of this, we already one family” (TS2 2013). Indeed, this public recognition of common purpose may have sanctioned some of the men to ask us for assistance to investigate the origin of another (confidential) heirloom item, which to-date had been undisclosed to outsiders (Lee 2013 fieldnotes, 11 December). A cassowary bone dagger (Fig. 6.9), kundu drum and triton shell trumpet (Charonia tritonis) or túture (Landtman 1927, 47) were also presented. The túture was accompanied by some explanation as to its purpose, which was reflected in the written embellishments on the item. These included “use for stun” and “mouth fit”, inscribed above the blowing hole, and “sound outlet”, inscribed at the opening of the instrument. We were informed that the trumpet was primarily used to call people together for a fight or “for cassowary”, and that each tonal pattern had a different meaning (Lamb 2016 fieldnotes, 21 November; see Beaver 1916; Chinnery 1917; Landtman 1927, 47, 139, 162). Several other important articles were presented while people viewed the photographs at Kinomere, in 2016. The women made sketches of

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Fig. 6.8 Woven sago strainers, presented in response to those photographed in the Australian Museum, photograph: Lara Lamb, 2016

some items not represented in the book of museum material culture photographs, including sketches of canoes (pe’e), hafted axes, digging sticks (oba), a wooden “sword” (tabena) and canoe paddles (aibi). Of the latter, one of the sketches was made with the intention of distinguishing some of their own paddle shapes from the ones contained in the photographs (however at the time, a paddle resembling those in the photograph was also brought up from the river). The men compiled a list of 19 “Urama tribes’ dressing ornaments” appearing in Frank Hurley’s photographs of Kinomere men, including names and brief descriptions of each (Fig. 6.10), with a request to convey it to the Australian Museum. We also saw at least one younger man taking photographs of Hurley’s

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Fig. 6.9 Cassowary bone dagger, heirloom object, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2016

images on his own mobile phone. In doing so the historic photographs were reinscribed with what Halvaksz calls duration, and “a lasting indexical quality” (Halvaksz 2010, 427) that could advance through time, “promiscuously” gathering and producing more and different meanings as they continued to interact with those who viewed them in this new material form (Bell 2008).

The Relational Quality of a Museum Collection In September of 2012, Kerewo men Andrew Dairi and Kenneth Korokai came to Australia to visit the Australian Museum and witness the handling of archaeological samples from Goaribari Island, at Monash University and the University of Southern Queensland (see Chapter 5). The goal of the visit to the Museum was to look at the items collected from the Kikori River Delta that form part of the Pacific Collection, and in this endeavour we were generously hosted by the Museum’s Collections Officer Yvonne Carillo-Huffman. Part of this collection was obtained in the early 1920s by Frank Hurley and Allan McCulloch when they were in the Kikori and Purari River DELTAS filming Pearls and Savages and taking the historic images of the region. Kenneth and Andrew spent half

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Fig. 6.10 Uraman men’s list of “dressing ornaments” appearing in Hurley’s photographs, photograph: Lara Lamb, 2016

a day in the museum stacks, during which time we took several hundred photographs and lengthy video footage of the men examining the collection (e.g., refer to Fig. 5.2), while they also took photographs with their own cameras.

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Unsurprisingly, both men gravitated immediately to items of Kerewo origin, and we detail their observations and comments here. With regards to a headrest or ela’o, Kenneth said that “I can easily recognise this is ours”. He also discovered that some of the other ela’o originated from “our neighbouring tribes, like Uramas” (TSAM1 2012). Kenneth explained how a traditional drill with a steel point (Fig. 6.11) was particularly useful for drilling holes in dogs’ teeth when making a particular kind of head ornament. The encounter prompted him to mention that he still retained all the components of the “traditional dress” and to recall how he and his wife wore it to provide a “traditional welcome” to Lara Lamb and Bryce Barker on their first visit to Goaribari Island in 2008. Andrew became visibly ecstatic when he came to the fish traps and sago strainers (Fig. 6.12); the pictures of which later caused great animation among the women of Urama in 2016. Some of them he claimed to belong to his own mother’s clan. As he demonstrated the fish traps’ method of use, he stated that “so many times I see my mum fishing this way” and Kenneth confirmed that they are still in use by a “few of our women” (TSAM1 2012).

Fig. 6.11 Kenneth Korokai inspecting a traditional Kerewo drill with a steel point, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012

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Fig. 6.12 Andrew Dairi (with Kenneth Korokai) inspecting fish traps from his mother’s clan, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012

The smaller of the two varieties of carved bark belts in the collection prompted Andrew to recount their magical properties, said to be useful when a person encounters an accident or some other form of trouble. An “uncle or aunty will tell you ‘hold my belt’ … [and] you fly; you go under the water or under the ground. You’re already gone; very powerful” (TSAM2 2012). Kenneth, examining a complex comb and feather head ornament, explained the order in which they are placed on the head, summing up with “the last feather you put on and then you start dancing; an engine key”. Andrew elaborated that if you have no hair in which to fix the comb “like me” then you can use a string band instead of a comb, attach the feather arrangement to the string, and tie the arrangement around your head. Both men still possess and use these items (TSAM3 2012). When Kenneth identified a specific gope board as being of Kerewo origin (Fig. 6.13), he told us which colours would have once been present in the areas where the paint had rubbed off. He stated that it was men such as he and Andrew who would be responsible for carving the boards and that they both retained some knowledge of their clan design (TSAM4 2012).

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Fig. 6.13 Kenneth Korokai with a Kerewo gope board, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012

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Towards the end of their inspection of the collection, Kenneth and Andrew spent some time with a tray of leg ornaments that they recognised as originating from Goaribari Island (upon closer examination, the museum label confirmed that they were, indeed, collected by Frank Hurley and Allan McCulloch on Goaribari Island) (Fig. 6.14). Kenneth revealed that they had lost the knowledge to produce these very finely woven items, and that the items they still possess and use were made by their grandfathers and were retained as heirlooms in their families. As was the case with other practices that have ceased, Kenneth attributed their loss to the cessation of various forms of relational knowledge construction, through complementary ritual and everyday practice: “when a man is sitting in a house, they tell stories; they tell stories, but their hands are working on this [as] part of their sitting ceremonies … they don’t just waste time just by telling stories”. The longhouse, as the site of knowledge production, has fallen away, resulting in a very small and ever-diminishing number of people possessing the necessary expertise to re-establish the system and its processes: “the father is not really active in getting across the knowledge to the son, so this is how it breaks down. To build our longhouses, inside it is complicated; the knowledge of the artefacts inside is very complicated. Recently we got one [longhouse]; it was built by us, the young people, and it was supervised by a couple of old men, so they gave us the knowledge and instructions, what to do, how to design it” (TSAM5 2012). Thoughts on Material Repatriation During the 2012 visit to the Australian Museum, Yvonne CarilloHuffman assisted Kenneth and Andrew in examining, collected from the western Gulf region in the first half of the twentieth century, by a range of collectors. The encounter with the human skulls was emotional and joyful, and from our point of view it might be described as taking place in animated Kerewo. Kenneth and Andrew later explained that they were speaking to their ancestors and telling them who they were and where they came from, and apologising for leaving them alone for so long. After this dialogue, they invited us into the secure storage facility where we were informed that we had already been introduced to the ancestors and that Kenneth and Andrew’s protection, as Kerewo people, would be extended to us. As a result of that ceremony, they assured us, it was safe and appropriate for us to be in the presence of their ancestors and to handle

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Fig. 6.14 Kenneth Korokai and Andrew Diari inspecting the leg ornaments collected by Frank Hurley and Allan McCulloch, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2012

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their remains, which they encouraged us to do (Lee 2012 fieldnotes, 12 September). During this encounter, the question of the repatriation of human remains was raised. Kenneth indicated that it would be something worthwhile for the Kerewo and Urama community and their clan leaders to discuss. We know that Frank Hurley himself was unable to obtain skulls from Goaribari Island, despite attempts to do so, which included “persuasions & threats” (Hurley 1923, 3 January).4 On Urama Island he was more successful (refer to Chapter 3). While the Kerewo men did not comment extensively upon the notion of repatriation of human remains at the time, they did express opinions regarding the other material culture items that they had viewed in the museum collection. In February 2012, prior to his visit to Australia, Kenneth had raised the question of the future of Hurley’s collection. At the time he was uncertain whether the cultural objects belonged in the Kerewo community, with the National Museum and Art Gallery of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby, or with the Australian Museum in Sydney, where they could direct their children to visit if they wanted “to follow up with the traditional history”. He reflected that his own awareness of cultural loss was growing, particularly through this visual exchange project: “now what I experienced through the photos, it gives me the bright idea of what I’m going to lose very soon”. He said that he felt encouraged to engage with the younger generations by telling them stories about longhouses, the importance of carvings, and how people defended their land and rivers. He retained some concerns, however, regarding material repatriation back to communities, which were related to the communities’ ability to appropriately care for the items. He wondered whether “we are well prepared in looking after our tradition[al] … carving and all those things in our own areas” (TS1 2012). During their Australian visit, and prior to going to the museum, both Kerewo men expressed the opinion that well-resourced museums were best placed to look after their material culture items. Kenneth made a comparison between himself, who is “just getting the knowledge of our ancestor remains”, and his children who are receiving a different kind of education and will have a different type of knowledge: so “if they see a 4 It seems, however, that someone was able to collect skulls from Goaribari for in 1977 the Prime Minister Michael Somare gifted a set to the Queen during her royal visit. The gift was made without consultation with the National Museum and violated the National Cultural Property Ordinance causing media controversy (“Skull Gifts Are Illegal” 1977).

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document, they are automatically aware, ‘there is our tradition, cultural artefacts, ancestral remains’; they will always have a special trips to come view them here [the Australian Museum]” (TS3 2012). The visit to the Museum appeared to reinforce this view (see Basu 2011). The collections officer Yvonne Carillo-Huffman was welcoming and very respectful of their standing as Kerewo leaders. She was clearly excited, as indeed we were, at the prospect of reuniting them with their cultural heritage, and they were given personal assistance in handling any of the items they chose to examine. We believe the fact that the items were not on public display, and yet were still made available to Kenneth and Andrew who were recognised as having a special right of access, was a factor in their positive response to the museum. This was especially true in relation to the human remains, which were locked in a secure bio-hazard facility on a higher floor. Only the Kerewo men were permitted access to this facility until they, themselves, invited us in, and the museum staff largely remained outside this room during the visit. We could not help but reflect upon the different circumstances between this careful, secure, restricted custody of cultural heritage and Hurley’s own disrespectful trespass and interference within the “Holy of Holies” in Kaimari Village, notwithstanding the fact that parts of the collection existed because of this trespass. When we discussed the topic of material repatriation, both Andrew and Kenneth, at the time, endorsed the Museum as the best place to keep these items.5 They pointed out, with strong feeling, that they did not receive the same formality of recognition, or access to Kerewo artefacts within the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery, in their own country. The comparison of course was not entirely fair, as the circumstances of our visit to the Australian Museum were brokered by senior academics with recognisable and verifiable institutional positions. It should be noted, however, that obtaining entry visas into Australia for the Kerewo men had proved a protracted and difficult task, even with university support. With the endorsement of the museum’s collection officer, we raised the question of the repatriation of human remains, sourced from the Urama region, with Henry Geii during our field trip to the island in November of 2016. We asked Henry if we could talk to him and all the leaders about 5 We note, however, that at the time of publishing, Kenneth is mobilising resources within his own community to build a keeping-place for heirloom items they currently possess, and for any that the community may acquire in the future.

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the matter and he agreed that it was something worth discussing, making it very clear that he felt that those remains should receive a “proper burial” (this phrase was used five times in a six-minute conversation). In stressing this point, Henry acknowledged his strong ties to Christianity, in addition to his ongoing identity as a customary Urama man. He situated the need for the internment of the remains within a plural context: “well in fact they have to go back to the areas where they belong, to give them … a proper burial… When we believe in the local custom, we have to believe in the almighty God also. Everything is still the same … Christian beliefs and then custom[ary] beliefs, but everybody need[s] a proper burial” (TS7 2016). We discussed, in more detail, the National Museum and Art Gallery’s oversight of national cultural property with members of the community who were interested or entitled to be present. Cultural heritage legislation in Papua New Guinea ensures that the Trustees of the National Museum and Art Gallery would be the initial recipients of any repatriated materials, rather than the source communities themselves. In cases where the provenance of the items is unknown or disputed, the museum would retain custodianship, as recently occurred with some remains repatriated from Sydney University’s Macleay Museum (“Recent Repatriation News” 2012). On that day in Kinomere Village, there was acknowledgement that their “forefathers’ cannibalism practice” took the skulls of people from other villages as trophies. After a period of internal discussion, during which they concluded that this practice made repatriation to the precise source communities problematic, Henry reported back to us that “we can say that we agree, that is what they have to repatriate [human skulls] … back to the [National] museum so they can keep it there” (TS6 2016). Later in the same meeting, following a discussion of Hurley’s diary accounts of the methods he used in collecting from Urama (see Chapter 3), the conversation turned to the general repatriation of material culture items other than human remains. Henry maintained that, unlike the human skulls, some other items could be provenanced to specific communities and should be returned to the Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery, rather than remaining in the Australian Museum. The people could then “petition the National Museum” for their return to the communities. For someone like himself, this was exceedingly important, having grown up in the city and consequently having lost connection with his clan’s particular ancestral designs (TS4 2016). Henry held similar concerns to those of the Kerewo elders

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regarding the younger people of the community: “what interests us are the artefacts, because … these people made the artefacts … now this time, a new generation coming up, they don’t know what their pattern is; they don’t know what sort of pattern to do for their original clan” (TS6 2016). Henry also expressed a view that there was a moral deficit inherent in the gap between the prices Hurley paid for items, and their true value. Even where the prices were considered commensurate with the values of the time, there remained a view that the price paid for items was insufficient: “When the time he came around, maybe who knows, this axe was [worth] maybe fifty cents … just about one shilling or two shilling or twenty cents or ten cents … and then maybe he came around with bully tactics”. He viewed the prices paid as nominal, and the items bought as practically given away: “He came and bullied the people and … chased the people away; but he gave them tobacco … for ‘give me this as a present’”. Again, he rounded out this narrative with reference to the inherent and lasting inequity of the exceedingly cheap prices paid for their resources, when “a basket full of [crab] is twenty cents … and this barramundi for five toeas a kilo” (TS4 2016; cf. Specht 2003, 23). In addition to recalling Hurley’s tactics, this specific example perhaps recalls the time when a rare source of official currency was provided by the sale of fish to the Department of Primary Industry (Frankel and Vanderwal 1982, 88).

“Pearls and Savages, Geez What a Title”: Attitudes Towards the Man, the Photographs, and the Film In our interactions with the Kerewo and Urama communities, we prefaced each viewing of Frank Hurley’s images and film with some context. While we outlined this context as impartially as possible, we did invoke some particularities of the colonial setting; these were contained either directly or indirectly in information regarding where Hurley came from, where he visited, methods used to obtain some of the images and the cultural items that he collected, in what form and to where the material was distributed, and where the collected cultural items were currently housed. As noted previously, the Kerewo people generally tended to express their gratitude to Hurley for the fact that he preserved the receding memory of their ancestors’ traditional culture. The Kerewo leaders recounted various acts or intended acts of memorialisation, through which they sought to address the perceived loss of culture. Kenneth advised us that he is “planning to put up an ancestral memory site … to reflect our traditional

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culture … I’m trying to put up a longhouse there, to bring back into our tradition, so that can be kept there and that will very much educate our young people by looking at [it]”. It is in respect to this proposed memorial longhouse that he expresses his gratitude to Frank Hurley: … I now realise the importance of this project. It’s very helpful for me and my children and then I’m just feeling like I must now stand up again and try to do more encouragement back to the younger generation, telling them more stories about all these ancestor days; how they lived in longhouses, how important the carvings was … how they defend the land, river systems and how they look after themselves within the clans. It’s a big story for us, but from my own feelings it’s about to disappear from us because of the modern culture. Nobody’s there standing up on the back of our culture to advise the new generation about the importance of our culture. I really think this opportunity, also the photos that I have seen last night, it’s giving me more bright ideas [about] what I can contribute on top of this and then save this culture of ours and our tradition for the next generation. (TS3 2012)

Kenneth derives motivation from both the Moving Pictures project and Frank Hurley’s photographs and film, and sees a use for them in support of his own attempts to fulfil his responsibilities to pass on his knowledge of Kerewo cultural heritage to his sons. He opines that “Hurley helped us very much” and repeats these sentiments on several subsequent occasions (Lamb 2012 fieldnotes, 9 February). While visiting the Australian Museum’s Pacific Collection in September of 2012, conversation with the Kerewo men turned to what kind of permissions might be required to enter a longhouse, apropos of the fact that some of the items that Hurley collected had come from the Otoia longhouse itself. Kenneth confirmed that entry is “very strict” and that we “don’t know the actual tactic that Frank Hurley used” to gain entry. However, when we briefly outlined some of the deceptive and disrespectful methods that Hurley used to gain entry to the “Holy of Holies” in Kaimari Village, the Kerewo men presented an alternative account for his longhouse entry in the Kerewo region that minimised the likelihood of those methods being used on Goaribari Island. They believe that he would have originally been granted an invitation to enter the longhouse by a particular clan, who would have also given him access to some

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smaller items for his collection.6 Kenneth believed that Hurley’s presence in the longhouse would not have been challenged, because he would have been “protected by that clan, like our coming here, like Bryce and Chris coming with us [to Goare] … we hardly [say] ‘who you, where you come from, for what reason?’ It’s a similar exercise that if Frank Hurley was already in relations with the clan and that clan was already protecting him from the other neighbouring clans … it’s a communication flow”. They indicated that if there were objections to Hurley’s presence in the longhouse, they would have been resolved in a similar manner to the way in which they, Kenneth and Andrew, were validated at the museum. Referencing his own museum visitor pass, Kenneth said by way of an example: "’Ok so let’s see the papers’”; in other words, tell us how you belong to this place (TSAM5 2012). Overall, there was a marked reluctance among the Kerewo people, with whom we worked, to enter into any pejorative dialogue about Hurley’s presence among them. Reactions to Hurley and his photographs were more diverse among the Urama people. In 2013, they also welcomed the photographs as an opportunity to preserve (or re-acquaint ) themselves and their children with their cultural heritage: “we are very happy because today’s children don’t know … we are glad to Hurley who came here. He did something really good … we are thankful that we are still carrying on our history through him”. In relation to the children, they opined that “when you brought these pictures, like they are coming up ‘who’s this and who’s this’ but this is good; we are thankful that Hurley did something very great for our village” (TS2 2013) (see Fig. 6.15). Gratitude was specifically expressed for Hurley’s presence in the village of Kinomere because, as the origin place for many other villages across Urama Island, it is a place of great importance. The Urama people’s reactions to Frank Hurley, his photographs and the film Pearls and Savages in 2016, however, were markedly different. Of central concern on this visit were the errors of documentation and description, both in Hurley’s own captions on his photographs, and in the Australian Museum’s labelling of some items in the Hurley collection, as well as a general lack of precision with respect to their cultural heritage demonstrated in the film. Discussions around precision began early in 6 Andrew Diari noted, however, that Hurley would not have been permitted to acquire more important items such as agiba or gope boards, which he did end up obtaining somehow.

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Fig. 6.15 Several generations examining Hurley’s photographs in Kinomere Village, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2016

the 2016 visit, generated by a conversation, about the hiri trade, that was initiated when our colleague Bryce Barker produced the edited book Archaeology of a Coastal Exchange System by David Frankel and James Rhoads (1994), both of whom have had a long involvement in the region (Fig. 6.16). The hiri trade is generally thought to have terminated at Vaimuru (Chester 1878, 9) at the mouth of Port Romilly (Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1892–1893, sketch maps; Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1925–1926, sketch maps; cf. David et al. 2010, 51; cf. Skelly and David 2017, 14), with any movement of pots further west effected by indirect trade, necessitated by dangers posed by the ritual head-hunting of the western Gulf peoples (Barker et al. 2012). However, there are references in the patrol reports from the end of WWII, of people from Kinomere renewing a pre-war practice of exchanging canoes for hiri pots with Orokolo people to the east (Patrol Reports, Kikori Station 1944– 1945, no. 11, 1). Henry Geii (Lamb 2016 fieldnotes, 19 November) asserted that the hiri did come as far as Urama Island, possibly after the government quashed ritual head-hunting (see also Frankel and Vanderwal 1982, 90). That sago bundles from Urama Island being traded for pots is not accurately reflected in the record of the hiri trade (TS1 2016), was a source of frustration for Henry: “when I see these things, they only talk

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about ‘the Gulf Tradition’; it’s not right. Gulf is Gulf, but we have to be more precise. What part of the Gulf … where’d they get the sago?”. Regarding Hurley’s photographs, a lack of precision was identified in the labelling which was undertaken either by Hurley, or by the Australian Museum using Hurley’s notes and diary as a guide. Consequently, after the group viewing on 20 February 2016, three of the Urama community leaders gave us a hand-written sheet of annotations pertaining to the captions of nineteen photographs (see Figs. 6.17 and 6.18). Of the 30 Hurley photographs featuring Urama Island, the captions of seven were confirmed as entire and accurate; captions on nine were corrected; two photographs had additional information added to their captions; and one had a correction and additional information added to the caption. There were eleven photographs that were not commented upon at all. Significantly to the people of Kinomere Village, six of the corrections to photograph captions involved changing the placename from Tovei Village to Kinomere Village. Hurley appeared to take no great care with precision in this regard, and noted in his diary that Tovei was “practically Kinomere extended … & needs no further description” (Hurley 1922– 1923, 6 January). In the final meeting with the community of Kinomere Village, Henry Geii reinforced the importance of taking the community’s

Fig. 6.16 Initiating discussion about the hiri trade, in the Kinomere Village aid post, photograph: Lara Lamb, 2016

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corrections and annotations back to the Australian Museum for incorporation into the catalogue descriptions. He also stressed the importance of receiving a corrected version of the photographs back into the community: “importantly, we need the booklet because when a new generation comes up, they forget about the genealogy, forget about arts and everything. They become nobody; they maybe a foreigner to the old country … we have to preserve something” (TS6 2016). The request made it clear that our hardcover books of photographs, with corrections, were welcomed as an educational resource for the next generation. The screening of the reconstructed film Pearls and Savages generated a very heated response from Henry Geii, speaking once again on behalf of the community. He found Pearls and Savages “clearly insulting” and “a mockery” (Lamb 2016 fieldnotes, 20 November). The impression of ridicule may also have been influenced by the marionette-like movements of the subjects, caused by the frame rate of the silent film, as well as

Fig. 6.17 A hand-written sheet of corrections, made by Kinomere community leaders, to the captions of nineteen of Hurley’s photographs, photograph: Lara Lamb, 2016

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Fig. 6.18 Natives before the Dubu Daima of Tovei village, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, AMS320/V04777. This photograph was corrected to “identify, Kinomere village, not Tovei” (refer to Fig. 6.17)

the dated sound registers of the accompanying soundtrack Pearls and Savages : A Cycle of Papuan Melodies, composed in 1921 by Emanuel Aarons to accompany the film.7 One sequence in the film, where Hurley organised approximately 40 canoes to circle the flying boat, was preceded by a text panel announcing that “the natives regard the flying men as gods come from the skies”. During this sequence Henry observed that it reminded him of another film that opened with what is perceived by Kalahari Desert tribespeople to be a gift from the gods, a coco-cola “bottle falling from the plane. The title’s Gods Must be Crazy; this is similar to 7 See Emanuel Aarons, 1921. Pearls &Savages; a cycle of Papuan melodies, ‘Discovered’ by Frank Hurley, WH Paling & Co. Ltd., Sydney. Also, Don Niles claims that Aaron’s score represents an instance of cultural theft because it was based upon “piano and voice arrangements of music recorded in Papua New Guinea by … Hurley” (Niles 2013, 117).

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that one”. He also noted Hurley’s lack of taxonomic precision during a sequence that suggests the decorated skulls from another part of Papua were actually from the Gulf: “this one is from the west, they mixed it”. During a dance sequence, Henry sent a question out to the audience at large, and a woman replied “keveke”, which is the name of a variety of ceremonial board/dance. This brief incident is connected to a moment earlier in the day when, as we were looking over the photographs, Henry raised a question about the accuracy of what Hurley had called the “kaivakuku” ceremony (Lamb 2016 fieldnotes, 20 November). At the time, this was corrected to keveke by the group of three men who were making annotations and corrections to the book of photos. In the public setting after the film viewing, Henry was very vocal about his displeasure with the film, and with Hurley himself. He saw Pearls and Savages as misrepresenting the people, not only through poor sequencing and various errors of ascription and association, but in terms of some other fundamental elements: “you can tell people to act like a cowboy … and take pictures… The same thing happened to those two people dancing … you cannot force a people … for the sake of [a] movie [see Fig. 6.19] … Another thing is ‘worshipping witchcraft’ … I’m a sorcerer, you’re a sorcerer, everybody’s a sorcerer. It’s a customary thing”. He goes on to address the title of the film: “I see this Pearls and Savages ; that[s]’ primitive; primitive Pearls and Savages . So, this is not right. This is really insulting, defaming, defaming the people; and he talk[s] about uncivilised … we live in our own cultural way of life”. He went on to reference Hurley’s general methods, both in making the film and collecting cultural items as “forcing at the barrel of a gun, a person, so that he can surrender himself … how can we preserve our culture because most of these important things … were taken away” (TS4 2016). For the people of Kinomere Village, the inaccuracies found in Hurley’s captions to both his photographs and his film, and the errors on some of the labels in the Australian Museum, undermined the museum’s credibility as preservers of the material culture of Gulf peoples. The inaccuracies unsettled colonial claims that scientific collection was for a universal good undertaken by a disinterested higher authority, which could preserve a “lost” or changing culture for all time. On the other hand, the financial and technological resources of the Australian Museum impressed the Kerewo leaders, as did the sincerity and warmth of their welcome by Yvonne Carillo-Huffman, and the respect and rigour with which the museum curated their culture. The Uramans did not have the

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Fig. 6.19 Two witch doctors going through their ceremonies, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the Australian Museum, V4774. The people of Kinomere Village recaptioned this photograph as “Kinomere Warriors Act”

experience of the same excursion, and the errors of identification and the colonial tropes that labelled Papuan culture in general, and Uraman heritage in particular, were a point of upset for them. Both peoples recognised that there was value in the preservation of cultural items by collectors and museums, but that without ongoing engagement with source communities, that value was unlikely to be realised both for future Papua New Guineans and for those other various publics whose privilege grants them greater access.

References Annual Report on British New Guinea, 1892–1893. Government Printer (Brisbane). http://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-84336012. Accessed 28 February, 2017.

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Barker, Bryce, Lara Lamb, Bruno David, Kenneth Korokai, Alois Kuaso, and Joanne Bowman. 2012. “Otoia, Ancestral Village of the Kerewo: Modelling the Historical Emergence of Kerewo Regional Polities on the Island of Goaribari, South Coast of Mainland Papua New Guinea.” In Peopled Landscapes: Archaeological and Biographic Approaches to Landscapes, ed. Simon G. Haberle and Bruno David, 157–176. Canberra: ANU E Press. Basu, Paul. 2011. “Object Diasporas, Resourcing Communities: Sierra Leonean Collections in the Global Museumscape.” Museum Anthropology 34 (1): 28– 42. Beaver, Wilfred N. 1916. “A Further Note on the Use of the Wooden Trumpet in Papua.” Man 16: 23–25. https://doi.org/10.2307/2787630. Bell, Joshua A. 2003. “Looking to See: Reflections on Visual Repatriation in the Purari Delta, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea.” In Museums and Source Communities, ed. Laura Peers and Alison Brown, 111–122. London: Routledge. ———. 2008. “Promiscuous Things: Perspectives on Cultural Property through Photographs in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” International Journal of Cultural Property 15 (2): 123–139. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0940739108080107. ———. 2009. “Documenting Discontent: Struggles for Recognition in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 20 (1): 28–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1757-6547.2009.00002.x. ———. 2011. “Transforming Basketry Traditions in the Purari Delta.” In Basketry Making Human Nature, edited by Sandy Heslop, 38–43. Norwich: Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts. ———. 2015a. “The Structural Violence of Resource Extraction in the Purari Delta.” In Tropical Forests of Oceania: Anthropological Perspectives, edited by Joshua Bell, Paige West and Colin Filer, 127–154. Canberra: The Australian University Press. ———. 2015b. “The Veracity of Form: Transforming Knowledges and Their Forms in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” In Museum as Process: Translating Local and Global Knowledges, edited by R. Silverman, 105–122. New York: Routledge. Bergson, Henri. 1983. Creative Evolution. Translated by Authur Mitchell. Lanham: University Press of America. BonJour, Laurence. 2003. “A Version of Internalist Foundationalism.” In Epistemic Justification: Internalism Vs. Externalism, Foundations Vs. Virtues, edited by Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa, 240. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Brewer, Bill. 2011. Perception and Its Objects. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Chester, H. 1878. Narrative of Expedition to New Guinea. Brisbane: Government Printer.

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Chinnery, EW Pearson. 1917. “Further Notes on the Use of the Wooden Kipi Trumpet and Conch Shell by the Natives of Papua.” Man 17: 73–77. https:// doi.org/10.2307/2787255. David, Bruno, Jean-Michel Geneste, Ken Aplin, Jean-Jacques Delannoy, Nick Araho, Chris Clarkson, Kate Connell, Simon Haberle, Bryce Barker, Lara Lamb, John Stanisic, Andrew Fairbairn, Robert Skelly, and Cassandra Rowe. 2010. “The Emo Site (Oac), Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea: Resolving Long-Standing Questions of Antiquity and Implications for the History of the Ancestral Hiri Maritime Trade.” Australian Archaeology 70: 39–54. https:// doi.org/10.1080/03122417.2010.11681910. Di Rosa, Dario. 2018. “Frustrated Modernity: Kerewo Histories and Historical Consciousness, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea.” PhD, Australian National University, Canberra. Edwards, Elizabeth. 2006. “Photographs and the Sound of History.” Visual Anthropology Review 21 (1–2): 27–46. https://doi.org/10.1525/var.2005. 21.1-2.27. Frankel, David, and James W Rhoads, eds. 1994. Archaeology of a Coastal Exchange System: Sites and Ceramics of the Papuan Gulf : Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies, the Australian National University. Frankel, David, and Ron Vanderwal. 1982. “Prehistoric Research at Kinomere Village, Papua New Guinea, 1981: Preliminary Field Report.” Australian Archaeology (14): 86–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/03122417.1982.120 92842. Geismar, Haidy. 2009. “Stone Men of Malekula on Malakula: An Ethnography of an Ethnography.” Ethnos 74 (2): 199–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/001 41840902940468. Gillies, Donald. 1998. “Confirmation Theory.” In Quantified Representation of Uncertainty and Imprecision, ed. Philippe Smets, 135–167. Boston: Kluwer Adademic Publishers. Halvaksz, Jamon. 2010. “The Photographic Assemblage: Duration, History and Photography in Papua New Guinea.” History and Anthropology 21 (4): 411– 429. https://doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2010.521556. Hassall, Graham. 1991. “The Failure of the Tommy Kabu Movement: A Reassessment of the Evidence.” Pacific Studies 14 (2): 29–51. Hurley, Frank. 1922–1923. Diary No. 3, 4 December 1922–12 January 1923. Papers of Frank Hurley. National Library of Australia, MS 883. ———. 1923. Diary No. 3, 4 December–12 January 1923. Papers of Frank Hurley. National Library of Australia, MS 883. ———. 1924. Pearls and Savages: Adventures in the Air, on Land and Sea--in New Guinea. London: G.P. Putnam’s Sons. Landtman, Gunnar. 1927. The Kiwai Papuans of British New Guinea. London: Macmillan.

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Maher, Robert F. 1958. “Tommy Kabu Movement of the Purari Delta.” Oceania 29 (2): 75–90. Niles, Don. 2013. “Stealing Music from/in Papua New Guinea.” In Protection of Intellectual, Biological and Cultural Property in Papua New Guinea, edited by Kathy Whimp and Mark Busse, 116-124. Canberra: ANU Press. Papua: Annual Report for the Year 1925–1926. Government Printer for the State of Victoria (Melbourne). Patrol Reports, Kikori Station. 1944–1945. National Archives of Papua New Guinea. https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/object/bb2629662k. Accessed 20 February 2015. “Recent Repatriation News.” 2012. Last Modified 29 June 2015. http://sydney. edu.au/museums/research/repatriation.shtml. Accessed 26 October 2018. Russell, Bertrand. 1910. “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 11: 108–128. Skelly, Robert John, and Bruno David. 2017. Hiri: Archaeology of Long-Distance Maritime Trade Along the South Coast of Papua New Guinea. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. “Skull Gifts Are Illegal.” 1977. Papua New Guinea Post-Courier, 2 December, 1977. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/250324128. Accessed 15 August 2018. Specht, Jim. 2003. “When the Cause of ‘Science’ Is Not Enough: Frank Hurley in Papua.” The Sixth Museum of Antiquities Maurice Kelly Lecture, Armidale. Vanderwal, R. 2005. Frank Hurley in the Gulf of Papua: Photographs of the 1921–1923 Expeditions. Unpublished Manuscript.

CHAPTER 7

Decolonial Aspiration, Postcolonial Agency, and the Uses of Heritage

The themes that emerged from our return of Hurley’s photographs and film are organised and cued by a wider sense of the impact of colonisation on Gulf peoples. A pressing issue is the failure of colonial and postcolonial agencies to deliver on the promises of initially colonial, and then subsequently postcolonial, modernity. These promises included an improvement in the quality and standard of life that would be characterised by independence, mobility, prosperity, and government and church services in respect to health and education. In this chapter, we look at the ways in which contemporary people have drawn upon a combination of contemporary and historical sources of information, to develop a view of the failure of their government and transnational resource industries to provide them with access to a modern society and economy; access which might offer them opportunity, prosperity, and well-being. The use of Hurley’s photographs is a small component of a complex assembly of sources which are used to reimagine identity that is worthy and capable of modern agency. The chapter shows how the issues that arise from cultural exchange resonate with a wider colonial and postcolonial history, and illustrates why we consider that wider history to be such a vital component of any program of visual exchange. During our 2016 fieldwork at Kinomere Village we were accommodated in an unused and unresourced “aid post”. As he settled us into the building, Henry Geii, in reflecting upon its history, was compelled to © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Lamb and C. Lee, Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15579-6_7

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discuss the lack of government services on the island. He advised us that these services (particularly the teachers and medical specialists necessary for education and health) were gathered in Kivaumai, a Urama village 8.3 km to the southeast in a direct line, and approximately 16 km by water. Consequently, as Henry stated, one had to be particularly careful at Kinomere “because we don’t have medicos, you look after yourself; when we go fishing, maybe you go chopping firewood, take care of yourself” (TS1 2016). The attraction of Kivaumai, according to Henry, was “the environment” where you can “do whatever you want to: drinking, play music, socialising” (TS1 2016). These observations led to a discussion about the comparative virtues of rural village life when likened to more urban settings such as Port Moresby. Henry Geii was educated in Port Moresby, and, having experienced both settings, felt compelled to advocate for Kinomere and to encourage people back to the region when he could: “You stay in Moresby, you feel lonely; you feel this is not your village. You cannot get free sago, free fish. This is where the educated elites go … you village people, you have to go back; you got everything there, free of charge”. He used the term “second class” to refer to their children in the city who, in his opinion, with an education and a job will still not have a good life in Port Moresby (TS2 2016). Both Kenneth Korokai and Henry Geii relate stories about people who have been absent from their villages, only to come back and feel like they did not belong. With reference to a serviceman of his acquaintance, Kenneth told us that “when he’s coming home … he’s become like a foreigner; he has family in the community, in the village, you know he feels like [Henry interjects: “he’s nobody”] he’s nobody”. After a lifetime of working in the city, and upon retirement, a person might feel like “he doesn’t belong to the clan anymore”. Henry felt that it would take someone visiting regularly, for example “every Christmas they have to take their children back home”, to mitigate the kind of alienation to which Kenneth was referring (TS2 2016). In the evening following our emotional screening of the reconstructed film Pearls and Savages in Kinomere Village, we sat with Kenneth Korokai in the aid post and watched an altogether different film, a two-part BBC television series entitled Blood and Oil , on his laptop. The series, which

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was written by Guy Hibbert1 and directed by David Attwood, was broadcast on 29 and 30 March, 2010 on BBC HD and BBC 2. In the program, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) kidnaps four oil workers, working for the fictional Oil Company Krielson International. The company engages a third party, the aspiring Nigerian politician Keme Tobodo (played by David Oyelowo), to broker the payment of a ransom and the release of the hostages. This cycle of abduction, ransom, and release is well established in the country and all parties expect the safe return of the foreign nationals. Both the militants and the oil workers are betrayed, however, when company representatives conspire with government forces to ambush the intermediaries and execute the hostages. Their intention is to blame the atrocity on the MEND, and use their subsequent notoriety to justify a violent repression of all opposition in the delta. The narrative goes on to expose generational corruption at all levels of the government’s involvement with the resource company, and other local commercial and political interests who engage in bunkering (the illegal tapping of oil pipelines), the proceeds of which they sell to the Russian Mafia as a way of leveraging their own portion of the spoils on offer. Blood and Oil is set sometime after the controversial involvement of the Shell Oil Company with the Nigerian Government and their military forces in the Niger Delta, during the military dictatorship of General Sani Abacha in the 1990s (1993–98). According to Rosenau et al. (2009, 13– 14): Accusations that Shell Nigeria was complicit in government corruption and human rights abuses harmed the company’s reputation inside the country and abroad. The government’s execution in 1995 of Ken Saro-Wiwa, a prominent author, political activist, and outspoken Shell critic from the oil-rich Ogoni region, badly tarnished the company’s image. Shell Nigeria was depicted by its many critics as an environmental, social, economic, and political outlaw, as a “Gulliver on the rampage, waging an ecological war wherever it sets down its oil rig” and as an “enemy of the Nigerian people”.

1 Other screen credits include Eye in the Sky (Hood 2015), A United Kingdom (Asante 2016), and Five Minutes of Heaven (Hirschbiegel 2009).

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The reputation damage to the company led to a change of policy in which Shell putatively traded the methods of “divide and rule” in cooperation with a brutal dictatorship, for one of winning “hearts and minds” by “investing in the community; supporting micro-enterprises; and providing health care, education, and agricultural services” (Rosenau et al. 2009, 15). One of the key difficulties faced by the resource company in Nigeria, however, was the abject failure of a corrupt and incompetent state to provide adequate services and opportunities for the peoples of the region. The result of that lack of state investment is resentment, division, competition, unrest, corruption, and violence, which the transnational company is unable to satisfactorily address (Rosenau et al. 2009, 16). Blood and Oil avoids direct identification of its narrative with the events of the 1990s by obliquely referring to those events as a confrontation from the past, which had been successfully dealt with by the ground-up political activism of the Ogoni peoples. Hibbert, the series’ British screenwriter, provides a specifically non-violent political alternative to the ongoing corruption in the region via a bottom up, communitybased program of peaceful political action as espoused by politician Keme Tobodo. The key oration in the film is long, but it conveys a sense of rhetorical suasion that was palpable when we viewed it in the aid post on Urama Island. It also conveys a sense that the BBC production was actually representing the historical conflict in the Niger Delta: I know what you are thinking. Another politician come to our village. Another man come to talk to us and then to steal from us. I know it. But this is different. This is different. When corruption becomes so deep in a society, when it is practised by every politician, every government official and every village chief, when it is the heartbeat of every business deal, what then happens to us? What do you think happened when greed chopped the soul out of our country eh? We have all the riches of the world right here under our feet. Right here! Look how poor we are. We haven’t even got our own water. This is what happens when corruption seeps into the very soul of a country. There comes a moment in history when a government is so painful to its people, so hurtful to the very soul of its people, that it reaches its moment of destiny and from every village a cry goes up. And I hear it all. Where is the person who will take us out of this politics of violence and corruption? Where is the person who will rise up at this moment of destiny and take us into a situation in which the riches under our feet become the riches in our hands? Where is the person they ask who will put those riches into the hands of our children? Who will give us

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schools and water and hospitals and electricity? Where is the person who can take us to this place? This is why I am asking you to join with me today. But I am not offering you a gun. I am not offering you ammunition. I am not offering you a chance for revenge or a way to get rid of your hurt or your anger or your frustration. No if you want that then go and join the militants in the creeks. Revenge is not in my language. What I offer to you is dignity and pride in yourself as good people. Join with me today and you will be joining men and women who are strong enough and proud enough to carry respect and to demand respect for the other. For the Other! Join with me today and you will carry those principles with confidence and pride and everyone in every village will see you are so strong that they will want to be a part of you and a part of this movement, and then we will all change our land together. The Oguni’s took on Shell, and the military, and they won. It took 14 years and lives were lost but they won! And now they are taking on this government for the rights to their oil and they will win again. If you are prepared for this then join with us today and we will win! (Attwood 2010)

The foreign oil company depicted in the television series failed to offer the services that its own PR consultants claimed would benefit the local community. The corruption of the Nigerian Government, as it is represented in the production, likewise failed to facilitate the provision of basic services in health and education, and support for economic development. These representations resonated powerfully within our small group, and Kenneth Korokai drew strong parallels with the situation of the western Gulf peoples in Papua New Guinea. There, neither the government nor the multinational resource companies active in the area were able to satisfactorily deliver the (post)colonial promises of modern prosperity to the Kerewo and Urama people (Lee 2016 fieldnotes, 20 November). Blood and Oil includes a scene where Tobodo walks Alice Omuka (played by Naomie Harris), a PR representative of Krielson International, through a derelict medical centre. It was the same centre that adorned the cover of the glossy brochures Alice displayed at her press conferences as proof that the company was investing in the well-being of the local community. Tobodo tells her that the company built the medical facility “as part of a deal so that pipelines could be built across their lands and in their creeks” (1:07:40). The statement did not go unnoticed by Kenneth Korokai, whose people continue to wait for compensation through the Mineral Resource Development Corporation

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(MRDC), from PNG Liquid National Gas (LNG), who laid their oil/gas pipeline through the traditional territory of the Kerewo. “As you can see”, Tobodo continues, “it has never been used except for the front of your brochure. Not a single person has been treated here. The money your company paid to supply the medicines, the doctor, the furniture, it never arrived” (1:08). Tobodo explains to a bemused Omuka that once everyone involved in the transaction takes their cut of the funding, there is none at the end of the line to fund the facility. “All they have in exchange for the pollution of their creeks is this useless building” (1:08:20). As we sat around the small, illuminated screen of Kenneth’s laptop, Henry’s criticism of the lack of education and health services were brought to the front of mind (TS1 2016). Here we sat, in an unlit, unfurnished, western style “aid post” constructed at the behest of the government for the purpose of housing a medical clinic for the community; an aid post that was perpetually unsupplied and unstaffed. From the window of the aid post, we could look across a field to the disused and derelict Kinomere schoolhouse. It was marked by a dilapidated sign, hanging awry because one of the posts supporting it had rotted away, although someone repaired the post following our arrival so that it stood correctly. The sign read “Welcome to Kinomere Primary School Striving for our Future” (Fig. 7.1). As with all health services, the closest functioning school is at Kivaumai Village, some 16 km by canoe. At the close of our photo elicitation session with the community earlier that afternoon, a young man had brought forward a note regarding this state of affairs that read: I am young man which need to raised my question. When Frank Hurley came here from our Ancient Days. He had been taken some photos for our Ancient Cultural Histories, with some Historical Artefacts and some human skulls. So when your official research team came and telling us that, Mr Frank Hurley’s picked up information were incorrect. Therefore you real need to find out the right and Actual facts of the fullest information of our Ancient Cultural Histories from us. So you already collected from us. But I real need your appreciations with some form of help to our primary school with LNG side project or from Aus-Aid-Dona Agencies with, buildings like 1 - Teachers houses 2 – classrooms 3 – Library Thankyou & need respond.

Our correspondent was not disposed to be drawn into conversation at that moment, and we had no opportunity to talk with him further

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Fig. 7.1 The schoolhouse of Kinomere Village, fallen into disrepair and disuse. The sign reads “Welcome; Kinomere Primary School Striving for Future”, photograph: Christopher Lee, 2016

other than to thank him for his letter. In his communication he segues from our project’s enquiry into Uraman and Kerewo cultural heritage, to the need for funds and community services that are lacking in the region (Fig. 7.1). His phrasing “so you already collected from us” positions us as yet another extractive entity, seeking to address an incomplete colonial narrative about the past, which had patently failed to address the Uraman people’s future. In exchange for the successful completion of that transaction with the past, he was seeking our assistance to facilitate the provision of services that might close the colonial and evangelical promise of modernity, offered as an incentive to accept foreign administration and Christian salvation. The critique of resource extraction by multinational companies in developing areas has, of course, led to significant changes in the selfrepresentation and community liaison of these companies. The vibrant web page and glossy PR publications of Exxon Mobil and PNG LG are exemplary in this respect. PNG LG is responsible for the 700-kmlong gas pipeline, connecting the gas fields in the southern Highlands to the LNG plant in Port Moresby via the Omati river, which runs through the Kerewo lands and past Goaribari Island. The project is

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managed by Exxon Mobil PNG Ltd., a subsidiary of Exxon Mobil, but it also involves Oil Search Ltd., Kumul Petroleum Holdings Ltd. (PNG Government), Santos Ltd., and the JX Nippon Oil and Gas Exploration Corporation, as participating partners. The Mining Resources Development Company Ltd. (MRDC), which manages landowner interest in mining and petroleum projects in PNG, is also listed as a 2.8% participant. Under the heading of Community, the project’s web page addresses the issues that emerged from our discussions with the leadership of the Uramans and the Kerewo: We understand the importance of working with the community, particularly within our Project footprint. We engage with communities to develop relationships and create opportunities for future generations. These relationships are vital to the success of PNG LNG. Our approach to long-term capacity building has seen communities become more self-sustaining and share their knowledge and success with others. We strive to maintain the support of our neighbours and the wider community so benefits associated with PNG LNG can be enjoyed by the people of PNG. ("Community")

Their “strategic community investment” reports a commitment to empowering women, protecting the environment, education, community health, livelihood support, and community investment. Oil Search likewise invests in Community Development Initiatives (CDI), which is an NGO that promotes sustainable livelihood, public health and training, and education. Oil Search has been active in exploration in PNG since the 1920s and took over the operation of the Hides Gas-to-Electricity Project in 1998, as well as Papua New Guinea’s oil-producing fields in 2003. It holds a 29% interest in the PNG LNG Project, which exports to major markets in Asia. Although none of the funding for our Moving Pictures project was provided by resource companies, our early field trips were facilitated by CDI, which enabled us to use the transport infrastructure of Oil Search and CDI accommodations in Moro and Kikori. Use of this infrastructure was necessary because of the serial failure of the government to upgrade the Kikori airstrip to a standard that was safe for aircraft; a failure that was subsequently corrected by the efforts of local people themselves. The 2019 Annual PNG LNG Environmental and Social Report (2020) celebrated a decade of “social and economic growth” in the country by espousing its record on the environment, its development of the Papuan

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workforce, support for PNG businesses, and its community development. The plant has produced 43 million tonnes of liquid natural gas and invested 19 billion dollars in related facilities in the Southern Highlands, the Western and Gulf Provinces, and Port Moresby. It reports 2400 regulatory obligations and 1496 licences, permits, and certificates as part of a Production, Environmental and Social Management Plan that is based, in part, upon the International Finance Corporation’s Performance Standards. The social management part of this plan targets seven themes: community development support, community health, safety and security; labour and working conditions; land access, resettlement and livelihood restoration; procurement and supply training and vocational education; and stakeholder engagement (PNG LNG Environmental and Social Report 2019, 5). The report highlights 3.8 billion kina spent on “Papua New Guinean services”, 8500 training days for PNG businesses, support for 20,000 PNG entrepreneurs, and the engagement of more than 280 local businesses owned by landowners and non-land owners. It has also invested 17 million kina in community livelihood improvement projects, and 2.5 million kina in health care facilities. The company’s community investments target areas impacted by PNG LNG, and it reports working closely with provincial and local area governments and development partners, as well as on broader-scale capacity building programs at the national level (PNG LNG Environmental and Social Report 2019, 9). It is outside the scope of our project to assess the effectiveness of the resource sector’s efforts to encourage sustainable development in the region. It is clear, however, that these efforts create winners and losers, and influence the ways in which the Gulf peoples seek to leverage their heritage in order to gain access to the opportunities provided by these resource projects. Joshua Bell has shown how visual return2 to the Purari River Delta has been politicised by the perception that historical photographs might be used as support for claims to land and resources; claims that entitle individuals to compensation from the resource companies (Bell 2016). The Oil and Gas Act of 1998 made resource companies, who were seeking resource exploration permits, responsible for social mapping and landowner identification studies, and for compensating interested parties (“Oil and Gas Act” 1998, Sects. 47 and 110–122). 2 Visual return is also Joshua Bell’s preferred terminology (2022, pers. comm., 23 June).

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Reports on a new development proposal in the Purari River Delta, by the French Company TOTAL, suggest that this process was rushed and poorly executed in the case of the PNG LNG project (“Government Will Not Repeat Mistake with Papua LNG” 2018). The Prime Minister, Peter O’Neill, was quoted espousing the lessons the government had learnt from the mistakes of the past: I certainly do not want to make the mistakes of the first LNG, where land owners were not properly identified now we are having a difficult process of clan vetting as all sorts of clans are popping up and it can be a cumbersome and difficult exercise. (O’Neill qtd. in “Government Will Not Repeat Mistake with Papua LNG” 2018)

The Prime Minister indicated his intention to make it mandatory that resource companies consult with provincial governments and landowners when undertaking landowner identification studies. O’ Neill’s decision to sign an agreement with the French Company TOTAL for LNG development in the Gulf, in the context of these historical failures, helped bring down his government (e.g., Grigg et al. 2019). When James Marape succeeded him in 2019, one of his promises to the people of the Gulf was that he would rectify O’Neill’s failure to ensure that the Oil and Gas Act was honoured (Fox 2019a). Economists Martin Davies and Marcel Schroder subsequently found that PNG received less revenue from its resource agreements than other developing nations, and that revenue is slow to flow because developers insist that their investment is repaid prior to the flow of revenues to the government (Fox 2019b). Uraman understandings of the failure of the promise of modernity identified the failure of Papua New Guinea leadership as a significant issue. The Paramount Chief of Urama Island, Henry Geii, felt himself to be an effective leader because he appreciated the virtues of village life. His observations on the qualities and values necessary for effective village leadership included a comparison with the record of metropolitan politicians, whom he felt failed to ensure services in the region. To be an effective leader, he told us, was to really know and understand the people you lead, and those who live in Port Moresby do not possess this specific awareness of local culture: When people talk about leaders, I say ‘leader, I don’t believe in leaders’. Leaders have to prove themselves, have to go back to live with the people;

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how your people live, you struggle with your people, you know their life, how they live … Plenty of children all brought up in the city and they went to school … to get their education. You think they education help their people? No. This person will never go back to the village. If you tell the brother you’re going to drag the fishing net … he gets tired, give up. After one or two days, he’s gone back to the city. (TS2 2016)

He indicates that if opportunities and services are not available in the regions, then the population will continue to drift to the cities, and the villages will continue to suffer as a result. Henry opines that there is a lot of money available in Port Moresby to “beautify the city” with shopping precincts and four-lane highways, but there is no complementary interest in maintaining their “own backyard” through development and services. The lack of a school in Kinomere Village is again upheld as an issue in question. Of the two government schools established on Urama Island, only Kivaumai School (opened in the 1970s) continues to operate, with the Kinomere school having been shut down for some time when we first visited in 2013. To attend high school, children need to go to Kikori, Baimuru, or elsewhere, and whether or not they do so is dependent on whether the family can afford the school fees. By the time students attend university, fees are partially subsidised by the government, but throughout their schooling (years 1–12) the family is solely responsible for tuition fees, resulting in periodic attendance and low rates of matriculation. In a further demonstration of disenchantment with the lack of resources and services in the region, Kenneth relates how he conducts his “church patrols” from the Turama River in the west, to Baimaru in the east, with the scant resources available to him. Out of 2550 kina (approx. $720 USD): “two thousand four hundred will go to the fuel drums and the one fifty kina will be for food for the patrol, but I can still cover the entire area … just doing the comparison with the government agency; so the church can run its activities with this amount of money, while government spends millions of kina” (TS2 2016). The comparison of the Church, which provides services, with the government that does not, is a familiar one (Di Rosa 2018, 239). The colonial history of Papua New Guinea is characterised by competition between the churches and the government to provide modern services sufficient to “convert” or enlist the allegiance of the Papuans (see Chapter 2). The emergence of Seventh Day Adventist influence in the region was putatively achieved as a consequence of the

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London Missionary Society being unable to maintain its representatives and their services across the Gulf. A grievance related to the government services deficit was that the money they are entitled to, as compensation for the use of their lands by the gas and oil companies, is not paid reliably or in a timely way. The Oil and Gas Act 1998 specifies that compensation must be paid for “the deprivation of the use and enjoyment of the surface or of any part of it or of any rights customarily associated with it” (“Oil and Gas Act” 1998, Sect. 118.2a), to the “lawful owners and rightful occupiers of, and any person interested in, any private land…” (“Oil and Gas Act” 1998, Sect. 118.1). Compensation is also due for “damage” (or “any improvements”) to “the surface of the land” including to “trees, fish or animals” (“Oil and Gas Act” 1998, Sect. 118 2 b). As of 2018, the Kerewo Incorporated Land Groups (ILGs) had not yet received their first royalty payment from the multinational PNG Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) Project (Di Rosa 2018, 250) and when payments were made late in 2020, the lawful landowners identified by the government were internally disputed, and the government and its public servants were criticised (K Korokai 2021, pers. comm., 10 Feb). As of 2021, some ILGs had been compensated but not others, leading to disputes over the government’s interpretation of which clan merited which payment (Korokai 2021, pers. comm., 10 Feb; see also Bell 2006c, 2009, 2015). “Government agents” are mistrusted for not following agreements that are put in place between the landowners, the developer, and the state. Kenneth tells us that “they set a timeline of benefits … it’s agreed, but the state doesn’t follow that agreement” TS2 (2016). This feeds resentment and mistrust of both developers and the government, which manifests as an abiding fear that should resource on their land be discovered, they will be extracted and the landowners will continue to receive no compensation. Henry outlines these fears: I read it in a paper, they discovered diamonds; PNG oil, gas, oil, copper, but the people are scared, you know, cause I can expose this and tell the government, but the government will not take care of me. They will join force with the developer. Whatever decision they make, I’m just nobody … the landowners are waiting, how long they gonna wait? This is a country, not just a business group for one clan, one supermarket where they [landowners] still waiting for … you to come back and pay them their outstanding dues. (TS2 2016)

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Resource royalties are paid to the Mineral Resource Development Corporation (MRDC) as a major trustee of the landowners, who themselves are organised into ILGs. These entities were legislated in 1974, their purpose being to distribute money to landowners for resources obtained from their land. ILGs represent the “entification” of clans from what were once contingent kin groups (Ernst 1999), which favours an enduring essentialist “authenticity” in the process of conceptualising landowning units. This is a direct result of the “state’s own ideas of what customary tenure looks like … the idea that land is traditionally held by [fixed] descent groups identifiable as clans” (Jorgensen 2007, 60). Thus, the customary “networks of social reciprocity which dissected and shaped these localised political boundaries” (Filer 2007, 138) are overwritten by the relationship between PNG LNG and landowners, which fragments the fluid, pre-existing social and political relationships within and between groups (Bell 2006a, 2009; Gilberthorpe 2007; Weiner 2007). Furthermore, as each ILG who can demonstrate land ownership will receive the same amount of royalties as any other, regardless of their population size (Weiner 2007, 121), the arrangement is open to confusion, frustration, and dispute, not just on the question of ILG membership, but also on those ILGs’ rights to land (Bell 2006a, 196–197). We were informed that “the actual process of demanding land rights and of these things, it’s a very long process. Sometimes we don’t know the truth of your own; you might just speak what you can speak and then sometimes [you can] put in the wrong statement [even though] you are the true landowner” (TS2 2016), resulting in forfeiting land ownership to someone else. Conciliatory processes are sometimes implemented by prospective ILG members, the nature of which demonstrate a thorough comprehension and command of the disconnect between localised social and political affiliations and processes that go into forming ILGs: “one wants to be the landowner, the other one wants to be the landowner so … we had a meeting where we tried to convince them that they can … just reach an … understanding so that we can have some money” (TS2 2016). The fact that ILGs were able to claim royalties for pipelines that pass through and under the river was raised during a lengthy conversation between the Kinomere men. What we might have assumed as arising from clan-based water rights was, by them, understood to be the rights afforded by land erosion and loss of territory; an understanding that derives directly from the language of the Oil and Gas Act 1998. Henry relayed to us that people were still able to claim royalties for land that had

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been lost by the river forcing them to move “further up the island” by some several hundred meters, provided that they “know the [old] village … and where and how they lived, what’s the distance from the mainland to the [old] shore” (TS4 2016). In Joshua Bell’s analysis of heirloom items (eve uku) and ILG forms in the Purari Delta, he examines how they each enable a form of social and political control over people, objects, ancestors, and the environment and its resources (Bell 2009); further, how some heirloom items are evocative of an ancestral past to which people must return in order to secure access to royalties (Bell 2009, 36). While we encountered instances of heirlooms being utilised to establish authority, and of photographs eliciting intersecting (often nostalgic) histories, we met with little to link heirlooms, including photographs, explicitly to negotiations with multinational companies. Nevertheless, previous archaeological research project returns (e.g., from Barker et al. 2012, 2015, 2016), such as community reports, and written oral and genealogical histories, have been incorporated into these processes (see also Bell 2016). This underlines the importance of village access to the colonial administrative archive and to the work of specialists accessing that archive, as well as to their own traditional cultural property. Gulf peoples are seeking the promises of modernity, and while they understand that recovering their heritage is an enabling part of that process, it is a politically fraught, intergenerational, and cross-clan process of negotiation. They are not seeking a return to the past, or their confinement within a village way of life (Bell 2006b, 2015). Rather, they seek access to a prosperous future in which they are participating agents in development, and recognised custodians of their heritage. In his doctoral study, Di Rosa argues that Kerewo historical consciousness conceives “modernity as “a moral state withheld from [them] in the absence of a reconciliation with their past” (2018, iii). He develops this argument by examining the ways in which the Kerewo have dealt with the failure of the colonial promise of modernity; a promise that he argues they understand principally through the lens of their conversion to Christianity (2018, 5). According to Di Rosa (2018) the Kerewo attribute the lack of development in Kikori, and the lack of prosperity associated with it, to a curse brought upon them by the behaviours and actions of their forebears. The conversion of the Kerewo to Protestant Christianity, and the associated discontinuation of head-hunting and cannibalism, are bound up in a missionary and colonial promise that these conversions would enable

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their transition to the material benefits of modernity. The historical shift from raiding to working is understood in Protestant terms as a conversion that Christianises and “civilises” the people, who may then consider themselves entitled to spiritual salvation, government support, and the material rewards of a productive modernity. Di Rosa (2018) describes the Kerewo’s perceived failure to secure these expected benefits as a condition of “frustrated modernity”; a concept that he draws from James Ferguson’s Expectations of Modernity (1999). This condition of frustrated modernity is attributed by various contemporary groupings of Gulf peoples in general, and the Kerewo in particular, to differing combinations of the curse that is associated with the killing of religious men, and the failure of the administration and the post-independence national government to deliver commercial opportunities and community services, in return for their transition to modern postcolonial Christian citizens (TS4 2016; Di Rosa 2018). Proposals from within the community for a reconciliation process to address these issues and atone for their forebears’ transgressions were motivated by a desire to lift the curse and clear the way for prosperity (Di Rosa 2018, 244–246). In the new millennium, that prosperity is now specifically identified as the payment of outstanding royalties owed by the oil and gas developments in the Gulf. The moral claim upon this prosperity is founded on the belief that the Kerewo played a pioneering role in bringing Christianity to the region, and a significant role in helping the Allies to win the Second World War (Di Rosa 2018, 123–138, 171). The successful organisation of such a reconciliation process, however, is understood to require the cooperation of the government and the descendants of the injured parties, and the only agency deemed to possess the means to contact and coordinate these agencies is the Uniting Church (TS1 2010; TS3 2016). The Apostolic and Uniting Churches and the Seventh Day Adventists now demarcate different groups within the Kerewo community itself. There is also a considerable grouping that insists on the need to recognise and reconcile the violent misdeeds perpetrated by the colonial administration when it retaliated for the killing of the two LMS missionaries. According to Di Rosa, the contemporary Kerewo community is “fractured along political, geographical, and denominational lines when it comes to the … event of Chalmers’ death” (Di Rosa 2018, 218), and the forms by which a reconciliation of all parties, and a removal of the curse might be managed, is further divisive.

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In 2010 there was a feeling among our contacts in Kerewo leadership that the prevailing reconciliation plan, which was implemented by the Uniting Church and coordinated by another Kerewo representative, was ineffectual and underdeveloped. The people of Goaribari Island saw room for their own reconciliation and memorialisation plan to be developed, alongside that of the Uniting Church. Kenneth explained: I said we’ll start off, we’ll start off by ourselves, and then we’ll come to the stage and we’ll ask Uniting Church ‘will you give him the space where he will fit in his programs?’ so that we can conduct the big reconciliation because the archaeology work is now part of this site, so it’s gonna be big ceremony for archaeology; you … can be part of the program by our invitation … our team, archaeology team, and then London Missionary Society, their team. What we are planning is something big but we are starting small; we are starting small. So time by time we are gonna go step by step. (TS1 2010)

Kenneth felt that the Kerewo were sidelined by the Uniting Church’s reconciliation plans because it utilised them simply as “workers”, who could be tasked with clearing the ceremonial site time after time, as successive plans failed to eventuate or were postponed (TS1 2010). His statement also suggests that perhaps the work of the archaeological team on Goaribari Island in the 2000s offered a source of influence that might persuade the Church to give the Goaribari people a more significant role in the process. Kenneth’s dissatisfaction was repeated in 2016 when he again lamented the lack of consultation in respect to the process of reconciliation. “They [the United Church] are speaking from what they have [in] plan for Kerewos”, he opined, but “we Kerewos, we haven’t developed one of those plans ourselves”. The Uniting Church plan appeared to have been presented as a foregone conclusion and a single event, while a more stepped-out, consultative process, and a sequenced event that expanded the participation of key stakeholders, would allow for true Kerewo involvement and a greater chance of a successful execution of the plan: “they are just putting all these plans up but they are … saying everything at the same time; they are not specifying their plan so far, in different stages” (TS3 2016; see Di Rosa 2018, 218). Kenneth considered a profound miscommunication between the Kerewo and Chalmers’ English descendants (and possibly the world at

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large) as a fundamental roadblock to reconciliation. That miscommunication he attributed to ongoing ignorance and ethnocentrism, which failed to recognise the Christian modernity of the Kerewo: how we can come up ourselves, expressing ourselves, introducing ourselves that this incident happened when our ancestors was ... [ritual head-hunters] but our grannies [descendants] us, we are living in peace. But because of the language is not spoken clearly and then the grannies [descendants] of James Chalmers is still wondering; they can either come to see the site but they has the fear of cannibals, otherwise they might be killed too. Because there was a message between us and them, which is not clear yet … The English saying that “I wanna bring light to Goare”. That’s one of the preacher’s interpretation, and I said when you really look inside to the language that you’re speaking [emphasis added], you still regard us in that voice, that we are cannibals. But the fact is, the tribesmen of Kerewo here in this Otoia Island or Goaribari Island, they have received the message [from God] and we, the grannies [descendants] of those who killed James Chalmers, we are missionaries today, and we are well educated today. (TS1 2010)

The differences between the various parties, and the problems associated with the persisting caricatures that code populist representations of First Peoples by international media organisations (see Gordon et al. 2013; Kuklick 2013), were apparent when a BBC2 film crew appeared in the Gulf in 2001 with one of Chalmers’ descendants. The crew were filming an episode of The People Detective series that looks at the lives of remarkable historical figures from the perspective of a descendant. On this occasion they enabled Charlotte Sainsbury, a china restorer from Wiltshire in England, to return to the place where her distant relative met his sensational demise. The producers clearly failed to anticipate the complex local contexts that would determine their reception, and Ms Sainsbury herself, it seems, was “kept in the dark about a lot of the history of her relatives to stress the surprise element of the programme” (“Eaten Missionary Still Flavour of the Month” 2001). The BBC sought to orchestrate a dramatic contrast between Ms Sainsbury’s modest middle-class Englishness and the exotic alterity of the former head-hunters of the region, reminiscent of Hurley’s own 1920s media-driven desire to orchestrate as dramatic a contrast as he could between the “primitive” and the “modern”. The popular press reviews of the program, which was broadcast on BBC2 on 13 April 2001, reprised many of the tropes that were features of

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Hurley’s own journalism. Henrika Kuklick argues that these tropes from the first contact era of expeditionary anthropology in the 1920s, continue to powerfully animate popular media representations well into the twentyfirst century (Kuklick 2013). The press titles on this occasion included such audacities as “Eaten Missionary Still Flavour of the Month” (2001), “Missionary Questions Eat Away at Descendant” (2001) and “If You Can’t Eat ‘Em, Join ‘Em” (2001). According to the latter, the villagers at Ero “offered Charlotte all they possessed” and proclaimed “You are standing on his place. The land here belongs to him and the people. You are now standing on your own land. Your coming here is very important to us. Because of his coming, we are civilised”. Ero Village, where this encounter allegedly occurred, is in the Aird Hills and is the home of an historical migrant Kerewo community, who moved to the lands of the Porome peoples after the Second World War, in order to seek the services provided by the resident LMS missionary (Di Rosa 2018, 135–137). The BBC party was refused permission to visit Goaribari Island in traditional Kerewo territory where the killings actually occurred. The Gazette and Herald claimed that “the closer she came to the place where her ancestor died, the more opposition the group encountered”. The article expressed Ms Sainsbury’s own frustration that the host, Daru Rooke, prevented her from asking more questions. She also wanted to claim items belonging to Chalmers that the Kerewo could not give her in the presence of the disingenuous, ill-informed, and ill-prepared crew from the BBC (“Missionary Questions Eat Away at Descendant” 2001). Ms Sainsbury herself explained the basis for the crew’s difficulties: It was when we wanted to travel to the island where he died that it all started getting very political. The tribe who killed him is still vilified for it and there was a terrible massacre of them at the time. They were very nearly wiped out. It is still a very sensitive issue and there were questions in the island’s parliament about our arrival and whether we should be allowed to continue. (“Eaten Missionary Still Flavour of the Month” 2001)

Ultimately, Ms Sainsbury and the film crew received a delegation in Port Moresby that asked her “to pay for all the troubles that my ancestor had brought them. I spent the whole time apologising. It was all very emotional” (“Eaten Missionary Still Flavour of the Month” 2001). None of the reviews or responses to the episode discern the unease of Kerewo at

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the unannounced arrival of Chalmers’ descendant. The spokesman at Ero Village makes it clear that although Sainsbury’s presence had been sought, her arrival had not been expected (Di Rosa 2018, 216). A similar response is recorded from a woman who opposed the crew’s passage to Goaribari Island (Di Rosa 2018, 217). According to Di Rosa, who analyses the incident and its repercussions at length, “the coming of Chalmers’ descendant to Dopima might have triggered a series of political grievances that would have undermined the efficacy of a supposedly mutual apology” (Di Rosa 2018, 218). Internal disputes arose as a result of insufficient consultation regarding the visit, and the lack of cooperation reinforced the view of outsiders that the Kerewo are an inhospitable and unwelcoming people (Di Rosa 2018, 217). Kenneth refutes this view and invokes the entangled histories of the contemporary Kerewo, ancestral Kerewo, and James Chalmers himself. He points out that James Chalmers was also poorly equipped, possessed no real understanding of the context he was walking into, and that his mission was therefore bound to fail. He understands that the BBC crew of 2000 was repeating the errors of British colonialism. Nevertheless, as a Christian, Kenneth identifies with the inspiration that drove Chalmers to follow his calling as a spiritual man. He balances this with the fact that Chalmers was under the instruction of the church, and that the church gave insufficient attention to the practical dangers he would encounter. Notable among these dangers was the fact that his reason for being there, and the message he brought with him, simply would not be “understood”. This complex processing of knowledge and history is drawn from multiple sources and different authorities, and presented by a single modern man, a citizen of Papua New Guinea and a representative of the Church, who is consciously seeking to fulfil his responsibilities as a leader among his people: I am a missionary which I serve for twenty years of my life and then I understand the whole system of the Christianity that why James Chalmers was killed [emphasis added]. So I told the community, James Chalmers is a servant of God who has been commissioned to go and preach the gospel throughout the world; so ‘the world’ means any land he can step in; but when this commission, that task was given, he was not [alerted to the fact] that ‘you go and you will die there’ but he was given the commission ‘go and preach the gospel’. So while you are going, accidentally death can be there; accidentally hunger can be there; suffering can be there. But the

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only task that was given him ‘go preach the gospel’. So this was the task given to him. He came to preach the gospel. No matter [that] the gospel that he would be preaching will be understood or not understood. But it is the work of God, so spiritually translate in the knowledge, it’s the work of the spirit. (TS1 2010)

It is this complex processing of different world views, drawn from an array of sources, that informs Kenneth’s comprehension of the situation and motivates his call to his people for action. The combination of knowledge, experience, acquaintance, possession, and kinship forms the basis of his claim as a key stakeholder who must be recognised and enfranchised as an agent in the reconciliation process, the payment of royalties, and the delivery of modern prosperity to his people. His own narrative incorporates the strong sense that reconciliation needs to be something in which all parties are collaboratively involved, and an important component of this perspective is a rejection of the view held by some of the stakeholders that the Kerewo people, alone, hold any accountability for the series of events around Chalmer’s death. As Kenneth understands it, this position does not accurately reflect the nature of the historic event, when many more Kerewo people were killed by the punitive expeditions. To be attentive to “one side of it, while putting other side down … is not right” (TS3 2016; see also Di Rosa 2018, 227). Kenneth believes that the process has a moral imperative to acknowledge loss on all sides, and in that light, he reportedly issued a challenge to the Uniting Church coordinator, Elijah Eu’u: “‘how will you help us to forgive one another? How will I say sorry to Kiwaians? how will I say sorry to the grannies [descendants] of James Chalmers? and how will they say sorry to us? So what’s the plan of yours … what’s the whole plan of yours? Can you brief me the whole idea of what you are planning for this, because you need the reconciliation’” (TS1 2010). The problem with the Uniting Church plan is that “by the talking here … James Chalmers was more important than the Kerewos, so that puts me down and I try to come and intervene, myself” (TS3 2016). Part of Kenneth’s intervention in this destructive narrative is the mobilisation of Hurley’s photographs, to stimulate what Keme Tobodo in Blood and Oil calls a “dignity and pride in yourself as good people”. On 8th of April 2015, the anniversary of Chalmers’ and Tomkins’ death, the Uniting Church held an inaugural (Di Rosa 2018, 242) commemoration. On the 2016 anniversary, in an effort to persuade people that the Kerewo are

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also worthy of consideration in the reconciliation process, Kenneth shared with his people the A4 binder of Hurley Photographs that we brought to him and his community on Goaribari Island, in 2012 (e.g., see Fig. 7.2). His objective was to demonstrate to his community the character and nature of their ancestors; to facilitate remembrance of them as proud Kerewo warriors who died in the punitive aftermath of Chalmers’ and Tomkins’ killing; and to bring some balance to the question of culpability. On a stage, in front of the Delta Store in Kikori, he gathered his people around him to look at the photographs and to memorialise the warriors who were killed in the punitive expeditions of May 1901 and March 1904, “…physically proving them from the photos”. Kenneth acknowledges that not everyone is in concert with him and he spoke to us of a divided Goare, consisting of “James Chalmers’ relatives” on one side and Kerewo men on the other. He professed that those who would not acknowledge that the Kerewo also had rights to an apology were “not Kerewos any longer”; that to advocate for shared culpability was to be Kerewo (TS3 2016). In this sense, the photographs of Kerewo people that Kenneth presented to the community had great relational utility. They mediated his negotiations, both as evidence of Kerewo eminence and as conduits of that eminence; eminence that arose out of the photographs, to imbue the rest of the community with the qualities of true Kerewo people. On that day, Kenneth encouraged his people to be Kerewo, as he was, and to support the notion of shared accountability; for “here I can speak without fear because I understand my people and I understand myself as a Kerewo man” (TS3 2016). The returned photographs represented one of a number of different sources that were available to him. He also draws upon the information contained in community reports provided by earlier archaeological work on Goaribari Island; his understanding of Christianity as a pastor in the Church; his familiarity with contemporary news stories from the PNG media reporting the problems with government incompetence and corruption, resource development and community compensation; as well as popular, serendipitous media productions such as Blood and Oil as they come to hand. He draws from this combination of contemporary and historical sources to argue that he and the Kerewo are a modern Christian people, with proud traditional roots, and that anyone who respects that will recognise that they are also due reconciliation for the colonial treatment of their forebears. He relates that reconciliation and recognition to the complex process of enabling

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Fig. 7.2 This photograph is mislabelled A canoe with its compliment of warriors, Lake Murray, Papua New Guinea, 1921, photograph: Frank Hurley. Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-151336471, PIC/14197/132 LOC Drawer PIC/14197. The photograph was taken at Kerewa, on Goaribari Island as evidenced by the skulls impaled on posts (far left) and the adornment of the Kerewo warriors in the canoe (see also Fig. 3.6)

contemporary Kerewo peoples to assert their own agency as modern, Christian, Papua New Guinea citizens in search of social, cultural, and economic justice from the Church, the national government, and the multinational corporations who exploit their resources.

References Asante, Amma, director. 2016. A United Kingdom. BBC Films. Attwood, David, director. 2010. Blood and Oil. BBC Films. Barker, Bryce, Lara Lamb, Bruno David, Kenneth Korokai, Alois Kuaso, and Joanne Bowman. 2012. “Otoia, Ancestral Village of the Kerewo: Modelling the Historical Emergence of Kerewo Regional Polities on the Island of

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Goaribari, South Coast of Mainland Papua New Guinea.” In Peopled Landscapes: Archaeological and Biographic Approaches to Landscapes, ed. Simon G. Haberle and Bruno David, 157–176. Canberra: ANU E Press. Barker, Bryce, Lara Lamb, Bruno David, Robert Skelly, and Kenneth Korokai. 2015. “Dating of in situ Longhouse (Dubu Daima) Posts in the Kikori River Delta: Refining Chronologies of Island Village Occupation in the Lower Kikori River Delta, Papua New Guinea.” Quaternary International 385: 27–38. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.04.003. Barker, Bryce, Lara Lamb, and Tiina Manne. 2016. “Baikaboria Ossuary and the Origins of the Kesele Clan, Upper Kikori River, Papua New Guinea.” Journal of Pacific Archaeology 7 (1): 89–105. Bell, Joshua A. 2006a. “Intersecting Histories: Materiality and Social Transformation in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” PhD, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford. ———. 2006b. “Losing the Forest but Not the Stories in the Trees: Contemporary Understandings of Fe Williams’s 1922 Photographs of the Purari Delta.” The Journal of Pacific History 41 (2): 191–206. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 00223340600826094. ———. 2006c. “Marijuana, Guns, Crocodiles and Submarines: Economies of Desire in the Purari Delta.” Oceania 76 (3): 220–234. https://doi.org/10. 1002/j.1834-4461.2006.tb03052.x. ———. 2009. “Documenting Discontent: Struggles for Recognition in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 20 (1): 28–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1757-6547.2009.00002.x. Bell, Joshua A. 2015. “The Veracity of Form: Transforming Knowledges and Their Forms in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” In Museum as Process: Translating Local and Global Knowledges, ed. R. Silverman, 105–122. New York: Routledge. ———. 2016. “Dystopian Realities and Archival Dreams in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” Social Anthropology 24 (1): 20–35. https://doi.org/10. 1111/1469-8676.12285. “Community.” Accessed 26 February. https://www.pnglng.com/Community. Di Rosa, Dario. 2018. “Frustrated Modernity: Kerewo Histories and Historical Consciousness, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea.” PhD, Australian National University, Canberra. “Eaten Missionary Still Flavour of the Month.” 2001. Gazette and Herald, 19th April, 2001. https://www.gazetteandherald.co.uk/news/7382663.eaten-mis sionary-still-flavour-of-the-month/. Ernst, Thomas M. 1999. “Land, Stories, and Resources: Discourse and Entification in Onabasulu Modernity.” American Anthropologist 101 (1): 88–97. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1999.101.1.88.

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Ferguson, James. 1999. Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Vol. 57. Perspectives on Southern Africa. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Filer, Colin. 2007. “Local Custom and the Art of Land Group Boundary Maintenance in Papua New Guinea.” In Customary Land Tenure and Registration in Australia and Papua New Guinea: Anthropological Perspectives, ed. James Weiner and Katie Glaskin, 135–173. Canberra: ANU E Press. Fox, Liam. 2019a. “Gulf Landowners Welcome PNG PM’s Stand on Resource Laws.” Radio New Zealand. Accessed 27 February. https://www.rnz.co. nz/international/pacific-news/391273/gulf-landowners-welcome-png-pm-sstand-on-resource-laws. ———. 2019b. “Researchers Investigate PNG Government’s Share of Revenue from Resource Projects.” ABC Radio. Accessed 27 February. https://www. abc.net.au/radio-australia/programs/pacificbeat/does-png-get-a-fair-shareof-resource-revenue/11364908. Gilberthorpe, Emma. 2007. “Fasu Solidarity: A Case Study of Kin Networks, Land Tenure, and Oil Extraction in Kutubu, Papua New Guinea.” American Anthropologist 109 (1): 101–112. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.2007. 109.1.101. Gordon, Robert, Alison K Brown, and Joshua Bell. 2013. “Expeditions, Their Films and Histories: An Introduction.” In Recreating First Contact: Expeditions, Anthropology, and Popular Culture, edited by Joshua A Bell, Alison K Brown and Robert J Gordon, 1–30. Washington, D. C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. “Government Will Not Repeat Mistake with Papua LNG.” 2018. Post Courier, 30 May, 2018. Grigg, Angus, Lisa Murray, and Jonathan Shapiro. 2019. “Revealed: PNG PM Peter O’Neill’s ‘Very Bad’ Oil Search Deal.” Financial Review, 24 May, 2019. Hirschbiegel, Oliver, director. 2009. Five Minutes of Heaven. BBC Films. Hood, Gavin, director. 2015. Eye in the Sky. Entertainment One. Jorgensen, Dan. 2007. “Clan-Finding, Clan-Making and the Politics of Identity in a Papua New Guinea Mining Project.” In Customary Land Tenure and Registration in Australia and Papua New Guinea: Anthropological Perspectives, ed. James Weiner and Katie Glaskin, 57–72. Canberra: ANU E Press. Kuklick, Henrika. 2013. “Afterword.” In Recreating First Contact: Expeditions, Anthropology, and Popular Culture, edited by Joshua A Bell, Alison K Brown and Robert J Gordon, 231-240. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. “Missionary Questions Eat Away at Descendant.” 2001. Gazette and Herald, 26th April, 2001. Accessed 15 November, 2018. https://www.gazetteandhe rald.co.uk/news/7382204.missionary-questions-eat-away-at-descendant/.

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“Oil and Gas Act.” 1998. Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute. Accessed 2 March, 2022. http://www.paclii.org/pg/legis/consol_act/oaga199894/. PNG LNG Environmental and Social Report. 2019. Accessed 15 November, https://pnglng.com/Environment/Environmental-and-Social-Rep 2020. orts. Rosenau, William, Peter Chalk, Renny McPherson, Michelle Parker, and Austin Long. 2009. Corporations and Counterinsurgency. Santa Monica: Rand Corporation. Weiner, James. 2007. “The Foi Incorporated Land Group: Law and Custom in Group Definition and Collective Action in the Kutubu Oil Project Area, PNG.” In Customary Land Tenure and Registration in Australia and Papua New Guinea: Anthropological Perspectives, ed. James Weiner and Katie Glaskin, 117–134. Canberra: ANU E Press.

CHAPTER 8

Conclusion: Public Exchanges and the Decolonising Enfranchisement of Modern Citizens

It may be possible, from historical investigations of the provenance of colonial photographs, to establish an archival account of colonialism, and moving beyond that, even develop a wider sense of what Deborah Poole (1997) sees as the colonial visual economy. Such an account would discern the social, cultural, economic, and political paradigms that organise the colonial production and reception of these images. But it is axiomatic that neither the images themselves as objects extant in different material forms, nor the uses to which these forms might be put, are reducible to that archive or that account (Edwards 2012; Poole 1997). A reflexive decolonialising history or ethnography may therefore also require, as Edwards suggests of the museum, that we “let go of meanings so that photographs fulfil the potential of their infinite recodability” (2003, 97). Some of the important spaces in which such a recoding may take place are, of course, private and what occurs there is, by definition, not for public recollection. Other spaces may be conceived as a balance between the private and the public, where access and knowledge is restricted to familial, clan, gendered, village, and tribal groupings. There is a significance to these images, as adjudged by these various groupings of peoples, that remains theirs alone. But there are also significant recodings that occur through exchanges, which include but are not confined to our photo elicitation, that can empower First Peoples in their dealings with a variety of local, national, and international agencies. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Lamb and C. Lee, Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15579-6_8

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Notwithstanding our discussion in Chapter 5, repatriation of the photograph is often understood as a process of returning an image from public usage, to private interpretation or local consumption (Edwards 2003, 85). Ultimately, however, the trajectory of our study has moved outward from an ethnographic account of confidential, restricted, or autochthonous knowledge production, towards an imagining of the different kinds of public use, or iteration of cultural heritage, which might be made in the interests of collective action in a wider world. For, while membership of a family or kinship group might be understood in terms of restricted knowledge that is appropriate only within the boundaries marked by these associations, it can also be understood as a necessary foundation for participation as citizens in a local community, a province, a nation, or even in a more extended sense of pan-political agency in an era of globalisation. We have thus sought to document and help facilitate the use of a series of shared recodings that might offer additional resources for reimagining or reengaging a wider range of stakeholders. A reanimated sense of heritage, stimulated perhaps, in part, by the infinite recodability of photo elicitation, can be a resource for engaging with different networks of people brought into relation through different, though often overlapping, forms of the public sphere. Each form of public exchange represents a domain in which identity groups trade with other identity groups, including those associated with modern regional, national, and international institutions with an historical stake in colonialism. What happens in the exchange of meanings among these different agencies and their constituencies, constitutes a complex negotiation with peoples who are often in an historical position of disadvantage, and a reanimated sense of cultural heritage can be a factor in addressing that disadvantage. Photographs, regardless of the ways in which they have been framed in the colonial archive, remain alienable objects open to reclassification, redistribution, and rereading (Bell 2006; Edwards 2003; Kopytoff 1986). The mutable potential of the photograph implicates itself, and the objects, peoples, scenes, and events it depicts, in the representational work of colonialism and the systems of power through which it is organised (Brown and Peers 2006; Edwards 2003; Poignant and Poignant 1996). It also enables a return of the photograph to its source communities, where it can reanimate heritage, and complicate, refute, and revise colonial history. Our initial conception of this project sought to add an account of the reception of Hurley’s photographs by the contemporary peoples

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of Urama and Goaribari Islands, to established accounts of their reception in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia (see Dixon 2011; Dixon and Lee 2011; McGregor 2004). The photographs stimulated the recollection of traditional culture among the Kerewo and the Uraman peoples; but they also prompted questions and discussion about the motivations and actions of the colonial agents involved; those agents’ encounters with their forebears; the conditions under which intergenerational knowledge transfer had subsequently been interrupted; and the dissemination of their cultural heritage beyond their traditional lands and outside their controls. Where is this material? Who has access to it? And what are the uses to which it has been put? This emphasis on the alienation of their cultural property is indicative of an aspiration to take possession of a decolonial form of modern prosperity, which is interested in the place of their peoples in the larger forms of imagined community that are themselves constitutive of the forms of modernity promised by colonial agencies. Our objectives were thus reframed to include a new understanding of the nature of the exchanges that produced the photographs, and a determination to enquire into how those exchanges continue to affect Kerewo and Urama communities. As we saw in Chapters 2 and 3, tensions between various historical and colonial agents’ imperatives and interests lent a politicised charge to Hurley’s expeditions in the Gulf, and to the colonial and Australian response to those expeditions. When the lure of barter failed to persuade the Kerewo and Urama peoples to part with their cultural items or display their traditional ceremonies, Hurley resorted to deception and extortion. The colonial administration legislated what was able to be extorted from people, by whom, on whose authority, and in whose interests. Hurley, who used a variety of contradictory discourses of colonialism to process and account for his own collecting, fell afoul of these regulations. In rebuffing Hurley, the Kerewo and Urama people disrupted his colonial assumptions about the irresistible attraction of European items among Indigenous peoples. That assumption was structured by a binary distinction between the introduced and the local, which empowered foreign intervention (Flexner 2014) and was bound up with the prejudice that ‘less advanced’ cultures were inexorably drawn to, and subsumed by, the traits of ‘superior’ cultures (Torrence 2000). The demise of traditional village life and the interruption of the intergenerational transmission of traditional knowledge, however, proved a more complex social, cultural, and political process.

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Understanding visual exchange, as part of this ongoing process of historical exchange, raises the question of what role might recoded traditional cultural heritage and (de)colonial histories play in enabling postcolonial peoples to develop their own accounts of colonial administration and postcolonial governance, through which they might reimagine and renegotiate their social, cultural, and political contracts (see Bell 2006, 2008, 2009, 2015, 2016; Brown and Peers 2006). What emerged from our program of visual exchange is not limited to people’s desire to remember or reengage with traditional knowledge as prompted by the image. Rather, it extends outward as a desire to understand, in all its nuances, what happened in the past to which the image refers; and how those encounters, in which cultural exchange took place, were subsequently utilised. This study, therefore, aspires to contribute to the body of scholarship on visual ‘repatriation’ or exchange that is uniquely interested in postcolonial people’s access to a heritage that is not just available in the interesting mimetic details of the image, but also in and through its associations with a colonial archive, and its persistent entanglement with government and religious institutions, and a variety of resource extraction agencies. Currently, against significant odds, Kerewo and Urama community members are using archival materials to broker deals with various entities. Over the past decade, Kenneth Korokai and the Kerewo people have reimagined their role in the church-led process that seeks to reconcile the killing of missionary James Chalmers, by reinvigorating a sense of their own worth and pride in their ancestors, some of whom were responsible for that killing. Drawing upon his own role in the church, Kenneth is also able to assess and articulate the failing of the London Missionary Society when they sent an unprepared and somewhat hasty James Chalmers into the region. His community’s awareness and appreciation of that history can, and is being, informed by their use of Hurley’s images. It could be further assisted if they had access to various other aspects of the archive, such as ethnographic accounts, historic Annual Reports, patrol officer reports, and missionary accounts. Contemporary peoples lack consistent, reliable access to these materials, and they are usually denied information available in resource extraction consultancy reports that routinely use the scientific and colonial archive. Keepers of these cultural materials hold the information and resources that Kerewo and Urama peoples might use to affirm their agency, both as custodians of traditional knowledge and as enfranchised, decolonised, modern citizens of a globalised world.

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And so, we might conclude by taking up the Uraman people’s alarm over the dispersal of their material culture throughout the world, outside of their knowledge and control; and their fear that this exposes it to misappropriation, misrepresentation, and other injustices. Their reaction to Hurley’s film Pearls and Savages encapsulated this concern—that historical misrepresentations might continue to see the Urama people mocked as a comically antiquated people, sequestered in space and time, who lack the capacity for independent agency in a globalised world. One specific manifestation of that concern was an appeal to us to help correct the museum’s captions on Hurley’s photographs, and to ensure that where their cultural heritage is displayed, it is displayed accurately and respectfully. Both the Urama community at Kinomere, and the Kerewo leaders Kenneth Korokai and Andrew Dairi, were determined to provide us with corrections and additions to the captions of Hurley’s photographs, and to the labels in the Australian Museum catalogue of cultural items from the region. Issues of misappropriation, misrepresentation, and loss are cyclically exacerbated by the loss, reacquisition, and reapplication of knowledge between generations, which results in tensions between clans, generations, and faith communities, and various other forms of disenfranchisement. The formation of ILG entities, for example, is contingent on the government’s notion of land tenure, which can fragment and ossify the more fluid socio-political relationships within and between generations and groups (Bell 2009). Various community project returns, such as archaeological reports and written accounts of oral and genealogical histories, are also incorporated into negotiations around ILG membership. At the community level, schooling becomes the primary source of knowledge production. While this underlines the importance of access to the archive, it also represents a profound shift in the way knowledge is produced, circulated, and applied, dislocating quotidian iterative knowledge production as a central practice, which can lead to conflict and confusion as outlined in Chapters 6 and 7. The coordination of multiple methods of knowledge production within an accessible, iterative, durable, inclusive institution that enables intergenerational involvement, is difficult to imagine or resource. This is particularly so given the Kerewo and Uraman communities’ sense that they have been let down by the lack of government investment in education and infrastructure, and importantly, given their concern about the unbalanced benefits arising from the articulation of their autochthonous heritage with the national interest.

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This brings us back to our discussion of the language and legislation around repatriation in Chapter 5, and the ways in which that language understands the return of visual as well as material culture. Repatriation is a vital concept, because it responds to the often-urgent need for the return of heritage materials to source communities, as part of a framework that recognises their title to such materials. However, the language of institutions and legislation limits the term’s use to a category of physical, autochthonous objects that are unconditionally returned. We might even say that the concept risks being compromised if used in contexts where such unconditional return does not occur. In order to inform an accurate conceptualisation of the return of materials, in accordance with existing structures, we must understand whether the act of returning in fact invests in a process of exchange, whereby cultural heritage is brokered by a range of interested parties. Such brokerage, including the retention and distribution of various representations of cultural heritage contained in photographs, runs counter to the notion of an uncompromised return, and thus, counters the notion of repatriation. In any act of return, whether repatriation or exchange, we should also understand the wider services that must be provided, if such acts are to address the needs of the source communities as they exercise contemporary public agency. The inclusion of source community perspectives, and the adaptation of the protocols and practices of the archive to enfranchise other neglected, intercultural perspectives is, of course, a process that has been going on in postcolonial museums for the best part of half a century. And although there are common principles and best practice policies that have been developed to ensure “a shared vision of mutual benefit” (Tapsell 2003, 249), each source community has challenges that problematise that objective in different ways. Our work with two western Gulf communities raises its own specific issues in respect to that process; to reconceive the archive, and facilitate open access to it for the peoples with whom this study is concerned, remains a challenging proposition not easily or unproblematically solved by digitisation or internet access. The form in which the images circulate is as important a consideration as the architecture of the spaces in which that circulation takes place, and the protocols of the institutions that may seek to make them available as an iterative and durable resource. As part of a case for decentring the archive, Edwards pointed out that the photograph needs to be accessible within local communities if “Cultural knowledge and thus appropriate relationships with photographs [are to] become embedded within the

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relationship between space and social being” (Edwards 2003, 92). What is involved in the return of an entangled cultural heritage to its source peoples, and what needs to happen if it is again to become accessible as a source of heritage resilient enough for an ongoing intergenerational transfer of knowledge, remains a standing issue in respect to the Kerewo and Urama peoples (see Tapsell 2003). Any such processes would require the coordination of museums in separate countries, new systems and infrastructure, ongoing resourcing, and the commitment of source communities and other key stakeholders. Cooperative communication would require not just an exchange of the stories, images, and objects, but also a social exchange of the very literacies, skills, and knowledges that organise, contextualise, and reinterpret these cultural items. As an element of this process, we have sought to compile several diverse historical narratives involved in the exchanges that both prompted and ensued from the collection of material and visual artefacts in the Gulf of Papua. These narratives have different organising principles in terms of scope and the depth of time, and as a result, the historical object shifts along with the narrative trajectories of the accounts (Werner and Zimmermann 2006). The longer form of the monograph allows this layering of contexts and perspectives, with an eye to addressing the issues and questions that arise during the visual exchange process. A range of different though intersecting histories, stories, and mythologies are both constituted by and constitutive of the different dispositions that historical actors and their social, cultural, commercial, public, and administrative institutions bring to these exchanges. As such, they provide grounds for provisional responses to some of the issues raised by the source communities, as well as documenting a range of intersecting contexts in which community responses to our photo elicitation are resonant. The form of the study recognises the theoretical and methodological issues that arise from visual exchange, and those that emerge out of the reflexive loops in what Werner and Zimmermann (2006) call historie croisée (see also Edwards 2020). Our study bears out the view that colonial documents require representation through multiple agents and from different perspectives, and that the historical agents need to be understood as complex characters open to question, investigation, and reimagination. We demonstrate that historical figures were making choices that were, themselves, only made possible by existing cultural contexts. In trying to understand the resulting exchanges that took place, in terms of the possibilities that these cultural contexts enabled, we model a form of historical

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agency. That sense of agency is necessary if we are to work with contemporary stakeholders who, as agents cognisant of the unequal distribution of power that shapes their encounters, nevertheless remain committed to an ongoing process that seeks a sustainable form of modern prosperity.

References Bell, Joshua A. 2006. “Intersecting Histories: Materiality and Social Transformation in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” PhD, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford, Oxford. ———. 2008. “Promiscuous Things: Perspectives on Cultural Property Through Photographs in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” International Journal of Cultural Property 15 (2): 123–139. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0940739108080107. ———. 2009. “Documenting Discontent: Struggles for Recognition in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 20 (1): 28–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1757-6547.2009.00002.x. ———. 2015. “The Veracity of Form: Transforming Knowledges and Their Forms in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” In Museum as Process: Translating Local and Global Knowledges, edited by R. Silverman, 105–122. New York: Routledge. ———. 2016. “Dystopian Realities and Archival Dreams in the Purari Delta of Papua New Guinea.” Social Anthropology 24 (1): 20–35. https://doi.org/10. 1111/1469-8676.12285. Brown, Alison Kay, and Laura Peers. 2006. Pictures Bring Us Messages. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Dixon, Robert. 2011. Photography, Early Cinema and Colonial Modernity: Frank Hurley’s Synchronized Lecture Entertainments. London: Anthem Press. Dixon, Robert, and Christopher Lee, eds. 2011. The Diaries of Frank Hurley 1912–1941. London: Anthem Press. Edwards, Elizabeth. 2003. “Introduction: Talking Visual Histories.” In Museums and Source Communities, edited by Laura Peers and Alison K. Brown, 83–99. London: Routledge. ———. 2012. “Objects of Affect: Photography Beyond the Image.” Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 221–234. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-ant hro-092611-145708. ———. 2020. “Photography and the Business of Doing History.” In The Handbook of Photography Studies, 170–186. London: Routledge. Flexner, James L. 2014. “Historical Archaeology, Contact, and Colonialism in Oceania.” Journal of Archaeological Research 22 (1): 43–87. https://doi.org/ 10.1007/s10814-013-9067-z.

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Index

A Aarons, Emanuel, 229 Abacha, General Sani, 237 Aboro, 192 Aduru village, 91 Agiba boards, 138 Agiba Cult, 66 Aibau, Urau, 178 Aibigahe Village, 127 Aiedio Village, 127 Aimaha Village, 127 Aircraft aviation, 79, 81 Curtis Seagull , 79, 81, 82 Fleetwings , 79 seaplanes, 79 Aird Hills, 27, 29, 120, 151, 153, 252 Aird River, 29, 120, 123 Aitavai, Komu, 181 Alex, Cathy, 177, 179–181, 185 Alligator Island, 87 Amalgamated Wireless Australasia, 79 Amou Village, 127

Ancestors, 105, 128, 140, 145, 165, 191–194, 196, 197, 200, 218, 223, 248, 251, 255, 264 Anglican Board of Mission, 9 Anthropology, 2, 5–8, 18, 64, 121, 164, 183, 184, 252 Antiquities, 164 ANZAC War Memorial, 145 Apostolic Church, 249 Aramia (lugger), 94 Aramia River, 94 Aramia village, 94 Archive, 13, 19, 208, 248, 261, 264, 266 Ari-I Taimai, 142 Armed Constables (ACs), 53, 141 Armstrong, W.E., 6 Art galleries, 4 Arts, artefacts, 11–14, 18, 109, 117, 163, 164, 176, 201, 218, 221, 223, 267 Assistant Resident Magistrate, 53 Attwood, David, 237, 239 Aua-Mairau, 86, 110

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 L. Lamb and C. Lee, Repatriation, Exchange, and Colonial Legacies in the Gulf of Papua, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-15579-6

271

272

INDEX

Auma, Havia, 192 Aumo Inlet, 135 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) 1912–13, 7 Australian Commonwealth Government, 45 Australian Hookworm Campaign, 55 Australian Imperial Forces (AIF), 7 Australian Museum’s Pacific collection, 174, 224 Australian Museum, Sydney Museum, 79 Australian Navigation Act , 51 Australian Territory of Papua, 26 Auwonya, Samweel, 177, 179, 192, 196 B Bailala, 40 Baimaru, 138, 245 Bamu river, 94, 127, 128, 146 Baria-Poimo, 110 Bark belts, 122, 216 Barter, 82 Barton, F.R., 49, 50, 124 Baru River, 126 Beach, H.P., 94, 98, 108 Bean, C.E.W., 108 Beche-de-mer fishing, 10 Bell, Joshua, 15, 196, 243, 248 Bennett, James Gordon, 8, 11 Bevan, Theodore, 4, 29, 30, 48, 58, 120, 123, 124, 132 Bimaramio Village, 94 ‘Blackbirders’, 32, 42, 43 Blackwood, Captain F.P., 4, 27–29 Blood and Oil (2010), 236–239, 254, 255 Boore, Captain F.A., 29 Bormi, Village Constable, 103 British, Australian, New Zealand Antarctic Research Expeditions

(BANZARE) 1929–30 and 1930–31, 7 British Broadcasting Commission (BBC), 236, 238, 251–253 British New Guinea, 26, 29, 30, 41–44, 48, 49, 51, 57, 58, 77, 78, 120, 125, 130, 132, 134, 138 British Protectorate, 32 Bull-roarers, 109, 110 Burns Philp Co., 80

C Cambridge University, 58 Cannibals/cannibalism, 10, 62, 90, 107, 251 Canoes, 28, 29, 40, 56, 80, 90, 92, 93, 95, 120, 123, 124, 129, 131, 132, 142, 144, 212, 226, 229 Cape Possession, 2, 59 Cape York Peninsula, 128 Catholics/catholicism, 36, 37, 149 Ceremony, 65, 92, 93, 95, 102, 107, 175, 218, 230, 250 Chalmers, James, 4, 10, 32, 40, 128, 130, 132, 251, 253–255, 264 Chalmers, Jane, 32 Champion, Ivan, 131, 146 Children, youth, young people, 40, 42, 80, 84, 85, 98, 101, 124–126, 134, 135, 152, 153, 171–174, 177, 180, 182, 193, 197, 198, 200, 202, 203, 207–209, 218, 220, 224, 225, 236, 238, 245 Chinnery, E.W.P., 10, 58, 92, 211 Christian, 18, 36, 37, 62, 65, 148, 149, 222, 241, 249, 251, 253, 255, 256 Christianity, 32, 36, 62–65, 222, 248, 249, 253, 255

INDEX

Church, 2, 5, 19, 34–36, 38, 153, 154, 235, 245, 250, 253, 255, 256, 264 Cinematographer, 1, 7, 111 cine film, 10, 13, 167, 169 cinematography, 9, 166, 167, 205 Clans Adia’amudae, 136 Airavi, 137 Atenaramio, 136 Gaiabu, 137 Gibi, 136 Guei, 136 Hide’ere, 136 Karuramio, 136 Kibiri, 136 Kurami, 136 Neboru Neauri, 136 Oniamiodai, 137 Oumaudai, 137, 193 Pinei, 136 Cloudy Bay, 48 Coir, 101 Collecting, collections, 4–7, 9, 11–13, 77, 85, 95, 103, 105, 109, 112, 117, 119–121, 164, 171, 174, 180, 182, 208, 221, 222, 230, 263 Colonial Administration, 5, 10, 11, 12, 35–39, 41, 44, 49, 54, 56, 62, 66, 83, 107, 136, 148, 151, 164, 249, 263, 264 Colonial government, 5, 51 Colonialism, colonies, 1, 6, 12, 15, 16, 26, 28, 36, 66, 68, 117, 168, 253, 261–263 Colonial modernity, 5, 113, 125, 149, 153, 196, 199, 204 Community development Initiative (CDI), 177, 242 Constables, armed, 39, 51–53, 141 Constables, village, 38, 39, 83, 99

273

Copra, 51, 120, 148, 151 Cosmology, 80, 127, 137, 166, 192 Crown Lands Ordinance of 1890, The, 48 Cultural artefacts, 2, 163, 221 cultural items, 1, 4–6, 11, 12, 30, 63, 80, 85, 107, 111, 128, 153, 175, 192, 209, 223, 230, 231, 263, 265, 267 curios, 5, 30, 50, 108 Cultural heritage policy, 166 Cultural patrimony, 164, 167 Cultural preservation, 5 Custom, 5, 6, 13, 33, 46, 54, 57, 64, 65, 67, 83, 84, 103 D Dairi, Andrew, 174, 176, 200, 202, 213, 216, 265 Dairies, Hurley, 83 D’Albertis, Luigi, 4, 30, 120, 121, 123, 124 Dance, 83, 84, 94, 99, 101, 107, 138, 140, 230 Daru Island, 4, 38 Dauncey, H.M., 36, 133 Deakin, Alfred, 49 Dedele, 48 Delena, 36 Delta Division, 51, 53–55 Diari, Andrew, 145, 147 Dopima village, 38, 40, 121, 124, 128, 142, 153 Dorsey, George, 121 Dubumuba Village, 41, 127 Dubus, long-houses, 10, 40, 152, 153 E Ebi-ka-o village, 134 Education, 1, 13, 18, 29, 36, 47, 50, 65, 68, 126, 149, 153, 154, 220,

274

INDEX

235, 236, 238–240, 242, 243, 245, 265 Ela’o, headrest, 215 Elevara Village, 10 Era Bay, 126, 127, 132, 134, 135 Erub people, 129 Eureka, 80, 81, 87, 91, 94, 95, 97, 98, 107 Expeditionary anthropology, 7, 8, 18, 252 F Fathers, knowledge transfer, 263 Fenn, Edward, 153 Field Museum, The, 121 ‘First contact’, 8, 10, 11, 27, 32, 68, 78, 79, 87, 91, 105, 107, 125, 252 First World War, 7, 26, 47 Fly River, 2, 27, 30, 31, 37, 87, 91, 94, 107, 119, 120, 123, 128–130, 132, 144, 147, 168 G Gama River, 126 Garai, 193–195 Gardens, 34, 49, 95, 131, 136 Gegai, Sgt Katue, 141 Gegea, 193, 195 Geii, Henry, 132, 135, 137, 147, 153, 179, 180, 196, 201, 202, 221, 226–228, 235, 236, 244 Geru, Moro, 200 Gewo longhouse, 136, 197, 198, 203–205 Goare Village, 142, 171, 173, 175, 191, 192, 197, 199 Goaribari Expeditions, 39 Goaribari Island, 4, 11, 38–43, 52, 60, 61, 63, 94, 95, 97, 121, 123, 126–128, 130, 134, 135, 142,

147, 171, 173, 175, 192, 197, 199, 204, 208, 213, 215, 218, 220, 224, 241, 250–253, 255, 256 Gope tribe, 128 Gopi boards, 101 ‘Gormier’, Komei, 178, 193, 194, 196 Government anthropologist, 5, 6, 66 Gulf of Papua, 3, 11, 17, 27, 37, 53, 97, 267 H Haddon, Alfred C., 30 Haddon, Kathleen, 64, 196 Hanuabada Village, 10 Havia, Kemau, 192 Head-hunters, head-hunting, 10, 31, 36, 54, 59–63, 67, 90, 91, 107, 132, 133, 226, 248, 251 Health, 32, 38, 44, 53–57, 64, 140, 144, 149, 153, 154, 235, 236, 238–240, 242, 243 hygiene, 38, 53, 147, 151 well-being, 44, 46, 57, 64, 65, 145, 200, 235, 239 Heirloom objects, 211 Herbert, C.L., 134 Hill, A.J., 81 Hiri pots, 132, 226 Hiri trade, 132, 210, 226, 227 HMS Fly, 78 Holmes, J.H., 36 ‘Holy of Holies‘, Kaimari Village, 82–86, 110, 221, 224 Human remains, 11, 41, 88, 163–165, 175, 182, 220–222 Humphries, W. R., 142 Hurley, Frank, 1, 2, 7, 14, 17, 77, 79, 82, 86, 93, 97, 100, 102–106, 108, 110, 135, 139, 166, 171, 177, 193–195, 198,

INDEX

206, 208, 212, 213, 218–220, 223–225, 229, 231, 240, 256

I Igo, Vaieke (coxswain), 80 Imunu, 133, 140 Incorporated Land Groups (ILGs), 246 Independence, 4, 26, 27, 33, 35, 63, 148, 149, 203, 235, 249 Industry, 1, 7, 9, 46, 50, 148 Ini Island, 126 Intergenerational knowledge transmission, 192 Isego, Buara, 174 Ivianu village, 130 Iviriau, Pilita, 128 Iviri Inlet, 126

J Jukes, Joseph Beete, 4, 27, 28, 58, 61, 123, 128, 129

K Kabua, Anthony, 177 Kabu, Tom, 148 Kaea’a, 194 Kaiemunu, 83 kaiemunu, 83–85, 140 Kaimari Village, 10, 81, 107, 221, 224 Kairi people, 131, 142 "Kaiva KuKu” dance, 99 Katow Village, 120 Kemau Havia, 192 Kemeri, 41, 61 Kerema (place), 38, 40, 53, 122 Kerema (ship), 80 Kerewa, Kerowa, 95, 127, 142, 204, 256

275

Kerewo language, 2, 126 Kerewo leaders, 171, 174, 207, 208, 221, 223, 230 Kerewo peoples, 2, 40, 127, 256 Kikori government station, 4 Kikori Native Hospital, 151 Kikori River, 4, 16, 17, 28, 31, 39, 50, 53, 58, 61, 119–121, 123, 126, 131–133, 136, 170–172, 174, 213 Kikori station, 47 Kinomere village, 127, 229 Kivaumai village, 240 Kiwai, 2, 11, 12, 36, 37, 40, 41, 59, 122, 125, 126, 128–130, 133 Kiwai island, 36 Kiwai mission students, 11, 40 Knowledge, 5, 14, 17, 18, 28, 47, 51, 61, 83, 112, 136, 137, 148, 165, 167–170, 183, 184, 192, 197, 199–211, 216, 218, 220, 224, 242, 253, 254, 261–267 acquaintance, 52, 180, 203–205, 207, 209, 236, 254 description, 5, 18, 30, 57, 58, 61, 66, 99, 101, 121, 181, 183, 203–205, 207, 212, 225, 227 Komei, ‘Gormier’, 178, 193, 194, 196 Komobatis, camps, 56 Kopiravi, 83 Korokai, Kenneth, 140, 145, 147, 172, 174, 176, 179, 192, 197, 198, 200–203, 209, 213, 215, 217, 236, 239, 246, 264, 265 Kovio, 58 Kundus, drums, 199 L Labour, work, 1, 8–11, 13, 15–17, 31, 32, 34, 35, 41, 43–50, 53, 55–57, 61, 63–65, 67, 80, 81,

276

INDEX

83, 85, 92, 97, 107, 109, 111, 113, 131, 138, 140–142, 144, 145, 148, 150, 152, 153, 166, 170, 173, 179, 180, 191, 200, 201, 204, 205, 209, 243, 248, 250, 254, 255, 262, 268 Lakatois , 120 Lake Murray, 10, 12, 32, 78, 87, 89, 91, 94, 109, 125, 168, 256 Lambert, Sylvester M., 54–56 Landtman, Gunnar, 5, 27, 58, 122–125, 128, 129, 133, 134, 211 Lang, Andrew, 80, 81 Lawes, W.G., 31, 32 Laws, 44–46, 49, 78 legislation, 11, 43, 57, 78, 141, 164, 165, 222, 266 ordinance, 44, 47, 48, 51, 144, 164, 165 Leaders, leadership, 17, 36, 107, 169, 172, 177, 179, 180, 185, 196, 202, 220, 221, 227, 242, 244, 250 Le Hunte, Sir George, 40–42, 48, 60, 61, 130 Lewis, A.B., 5, 49, 57, 63, 65, 121–123 Local Level Government (LLG), 174 London Missionary Society (LMS), 4, 5, 10, 31, 33, 35–38, 50, 59–63, 65, 94, 107, 149, 151, 153, 246, 249, 250, 252, 264 Longhouses, 10, 40, 136–138, 207, 218, 220, 224 dubus , 10, 40 Gewo, 136 Ubu, 136 Urama, 137 M MacDhui, Megadu, 145

MacGregor, William, 5, 30, 47, 48, 51, 57–61, 78, 132, 134 Macleay Museum, 222 Maiaki Village, Mai-aki Village, 130 Mailaku, 193, 194, 196 Masks, 59, 83, 101, 102, 106, 107, 122 Material culture, 4, 5, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19, 30, 64, 65, 77, 85, 95, 107, 121, 138, 170, 175, 197, 201, 202, 206–208, 212, 220, 222, 230, 265, 266 McCulloch, Allan, 77–79, 81, 83, 84, 86, 88, 94, 101, 108–110, 213, 218, 219 McFarlane, Rev.Samuel, 31–33, 35, 37, 62 Mekemu, Malson, 177, 178, 211 Meri house, 210 Migration, 50, 126, 127, 136, 152, 153, 204, 210 Minanibai language, 134 Mineral Resource Development Corporation (MRDC), 240, 247 Missionaries, 4, 8, 10, 13, 18, 32–36, 38, 40, 41, 43, 44, 57, 59–63, 65, 80, 85, 132, 148, 149, 153, 249, 251 Missions, 25, 31, 38, 48, 149 Moatta village, 120 Modernity, 2, 6, 7, 16, 78, 86, 87, 117, 141, 149, 169, 203, 205, 235, 241, 244, 248, 249, 251, 263 Mooy-Hurley, Adelie, 171 Moroge Island, 128, 147 Mothers, 210 Motu Hiri, 126, 132 Motu Motu, 120 Murray, John Hubert, 5, 6, 10, 30, 32, 43, 45–47, 49, 50, 52, 53, 57–59, 64, 66, 67, 78, 80, 83,

INDEX

87, 90, 98, 108, 109, 121, 132, 142, 164, 165 Muscular Christianity, 32 Museums, 4, 13, 35, 111, 121, 169, 220, 266, 267 N Namai Village, 127 National Cultural Property Ordinance (1965), The, 165, 220 National Cultural Property (Preservation) Act, The, 165, 170 National Museum and Art Gallery of Papua New Guinea, 220 Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Regulations (NAGPRA), 163, 166 Native Labour Ordinance of 1900, 45 Native Labour Ordinance of 1907 , 45 Native Regulation No. 1, 51 Native regulations , 38, 152 Natives Removal Prohibition Ordinance of 1888, 44 Niue, 38, 61, 122 O Ohiabai-daimu, 134 Oigai, Makia, 177, 179, 192, 196 Oil and Gas Act of 1998, 243 Oil Search, 242 Oksiloff, Assenka, 113 Omaimere Village, 127 Omati River, 126, 133, 142 Oral history, 127, 136, 141 Ordinance No. I of 1890, 51 Ordinance No. V of 1889, 51 Otoia Village, 127, 136, 192, 203, 204, 224, 251 P Pai-a (Baiaa) Village, 126, 134

277

Pai-a Inlet, 134, 136 Papua Act of 1906, 49 Papua and New Guinea Act 1949, 26 Papuan Antiquities Act , 108 Papuan Antiquities Ordinance (1913), The, 164 Patrols, patrol officers, 38, 47, 52–54, 56, 78, 96, 130, 141, 150, 151, 245 Patten, William, 121, 123 Pearls and Savages (film) 1921, 1979, 11, 17, 93, 107, 111, 113, 171, 173, 177, 182, 192, 197, 203, 204, 213, 223, 225, 228–230, 236, 265 Photographer, 1, 7, 9, 11, 80, 92, 99, 101, 108, 111, 171, 208 photographs/photography, 1, 2, 8–10, 12–15, 17, 19, 25, 57, 64, 77, 78, 83, 84, 87, 88, 91, 92, 94, 102, 103, 108, 111, 113, 164, 166–169, 171–175, 177–182, 191, 193, 196–198, 205–214, 224–228, 230, 231, 235, 243, 248, 254, 255, 261–263, 265, 266 Photographic collection, 58, 180 Plantations, 25, 49–51, 55, 141, 200 PNG Liquid National Gas (LNG), 240 Porome people, 153, 252 Port Bevan, 98 Port Moresby, 9, 10, 31, 32, 36, 45, 47, 48, 58, 65, 79, 87, 88, 94, 107, 109, 120, 132, 141, 145, 148, 150, 153, 220, 236, 241, 243–245, 252 Port Romilly, 132, 226 Prison, 49, 51–53 Purari Delta, 2, 4, 7, 10, 12, 15, 39, 54, 56, 57, 82, 127, 131, 133,

278

INDEX

137, 138, 140, 150, 168, 196, 205, 210, 248 R de Rautenfeld, Paul, 58 Ravis, 82, 85, 99, 107 Recruitment, 32, 44, 47, 48, 50–52, 62, 142, 147 Religion, belief systems, 13, 63, 149 Rentoul, Alexander C., 107, 108 Repatriation, 2, 13–17, 19, 163, 164, 166, 167, 169, 170, 182, 201, 220–222, 262, 264, 266 Representation, 1, 2, 5, 7, 9, 13, 18, 57, 68, 77, 112, 113, 166, 167, 179, 183, 241, 267 Riley, Rev.E.B., 57, 63, 94, 107, 108, 133 Rivers, W.H.R., 64, 67 Robinson, C.S., 41–43, 142, 144, 147 Rooke, Daru, 252 Rosie Welt , 130 Rubber, 48, 49, 51, 109 Ryan, H.J., 134 S Sacred Heart Mission, 9, 37 Sago, 56, 61, 85, 120, 132, 133, 135, 136, 142, 148, 150, 152, 154, 206, 210–212, 215, 226, 227, 236 Saguane, 36, 38 Saibai island, 10 Sailors, seamen, 34, 45 Sainsbury, Charlotte, 251, 253 Salvage, 5, 84, 103 Samoan mission teachers, 35 Science, 1, 8, 9, 12, 13, 29, 31, 55, 63, 64, 68, 79, 91, 107, 112, 125, 165

Seaplanes, 79 Curtis Seagull, 79, 81, 82 Fleetwings, 79 Second World War, 7, 26, 141, 200, 249 Seventh Day Adventists (SDA), 51, 149, 249 Shell Oil Company, 237 Shipwreck, 119, 129, 130 Single men, bachelors, 40 Skull, head, 41, 59, 61, 91, 96, 98, 101, 103, 104, 106, 138, 197, 220, 222, 240, 256 Smith, Miles Staniforth, 49 Social structures, 13, 25 Sorcery, witchcraft, 35, 51, 98 South Sea Island teachers, 34 Stanley, Henry Morton, 9, 10, 131 Strong, W.M., 6, 55

T Taxation, 38, 50 The Gods Must be Crazy (film), 229 The People Detective, 251 Thomas, Lowell, 9 Tobacco, 33–35, 82, 84, 88, 94, 96, 98, 99, 106, 107, 131, 223 Tomkins, Oliver, 4, 38, 40, 41, 43, 52, 61, 90, 98, 254, 255 Torres Strait, trade, 7–9, 27, 31–33, 128, 129, 132 Tovei Village, 227 Trade, 2, 4, 26, 34–37, 41, 43, 61, 77, 91, 92, 94, 97, 106, 108, 118–123, 128, 131–133, 148, 150, 153, 226, 262 Tribes Ne’edai, 137 Obo Gaia’u, 137 Pinoi, 137 Porome, 50

INDEX

Tauadai, 137 Tugeri, 58 Túture, Triton shell trumpet, 211 U Ubua Village, 127 Ubu Gewo longhouse, 136 Uniting Church, 249, 250, 254 Upi-daimu, 134 Urama Island, 2, 10, 11, 52, 99, 102, 107, 126–128, 130–132, 134, 136–138, 140, 147, 153, 171, 177, 179, 192, 209, 210, 220, 225–227, 238, 245 V Vaimuru Village, 132, 226 Vanderwal, Ron, 127, 132, 133, 154, 192, 193, 223, 226 Venereal disease, 53–55, 151 Village constables, 38, 39, 83, 99, 144 Village councillors, 38 Village inspections, 38

279

Violence, 28, 35, 39, 58, 78, 119, 238 Visual exchange, 169, 170, 175, 197, 220, 235, 264, 267 Visual repatriation, 2, 14, 15, 19, 163, 196 Visual return, 169, 243

W Waoii, Awaho, 174, 175, 197, 208 Wardlaw Thompson, R., 37 Warriors, 98, 102, 105, 255, 256 Weapons, 28, 30, 59, 88, 90–92, 122, 123 White Woman’s Protection Ordinance 1926–34, 141 Williams, F.E., 6, 15, 57, 65, 66, 85, 127, 131, 133, 140 Witchcraft, sorcery, 51 Wives, 45, 47, 134 Women, 40, 42, 47, 84, 92–94, 98, 107, 124, 125, 134, 141, 144, 152, 153, 174, 178, 180–182, 209–211, 239, 242