Ending War: Colonial Processes of Pacification and the Elimination of Warfare in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea

Dissertation of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Lucerne

handed in by: Tobias Schwörer

Accepted on March 21st, 2016 on request by: Prof. Dr. Jürg Helbling, First Supervisor Prof. Dr. Paul “Jim” Roscoe, Second Supervisor

Lucerne, 2020

DOI: Lucerne Open Repository [LORY]: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3716138 This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Ending War iii

Abstract Pacification denotes a process whereby a state attends to extend its monopoly of violence onto politically autonomous groups outside its sphere of control and thereby curtails any further collective violence between those groups and armed resistance against the imposition of state control. In this thesis, I look at colonial processes of pacification in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea and establish the causal mechanisms that lead to the elimination of indigenous warfare between the late 1940s and the mid-1960s. I not only document and analyse these processes in detail, but also develop a methodological and analytical toolkit to compare processes of pacification in general, and an encompassing theoretical framework to explain the gradual but ultimately successful transition to a colonially induced peace. Using a combination of documentary and archival sources from the colonial administration, published ethnographic information and own fieldwork data, oral history interviews with villagers in the Eastern Highlands as well as former colonial officers, I trace in detail the complex circumstances and preconditions of the processes of pacification. The thesis focuses on four communities in three ethnic groups in the Okapa and Obura- Wonenara Districts of the Eastern Highlands Province in Papua New Guinea, namely Purosa among the Fore, Amaira among the Auyana, and Bibeori and Obura among the Southern Tairora. All of these communities were first contacted between 1947 and 1949 by government patrols of the Australian administration. The ensuing process of pacification has been far from uniform, however. While indigenous warfare ceased quickly among the Fore and Auyana, it persisted for a much more extended period among the Southern Tairora. These temporal variations and the differing outcomes form an ideal setting to compare different trajectories of pacification and extract general features conducive to the elimination of warfare. In comparing the four case studies I show that there are three decisive conditions for pacification: 1) a strategy of repression that punishes groups still engaged in warfare; 2) a strategy of incentives that rewards groups willing to cease war; and 3) the establishment of judicial institutions that enable the peaceful settlement of conflicts between pacified groups. These strategies would ultimately reverse the incentive structures to pursue warfare as a form of retaliation, and over time guarantee lasting peace. While the Australian administration employed all of these strategies to varying degrees, it was the perspective and agency of the local population that made the difference. Pre-contact conditions, such as modalities and intensity of warfare, patterns of leadership and alliance, as well as traditional institutions of peace-making, also shaped the process of pacification. Political decision-making within local groups led to different strategies of interaction with the colonial agents, ranging from violent resistance to avid acceptance of the proclaimed ban of warfare. Only when the villagers perceived repression as systematic and impartial, only when they welcomed selective rewards and only after they widely accepted alternative institutions of conflict settlement, did they stop waging war. And it was in areas where local leaders started to settle conflicts on their own in courts styled after the courts of the Australian administration that an initial end of warfare turned into a lasting peace. All of this demonstrates that it is crucial to investigate local cultural understandings and epistemologies in processes of pacification, as it is the culturally patterned agency of indigenous actors that determines not only resistance to the imposition of state control, but also the sometimes quick, sometimes delayed cessation of warfare.

Table of Contents

ABSTRACT ...... III

TABLE OF CONTENTS ...... V

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: ...... XII

1 INTRODUCTION ...... 1 1.1 PROCESSES OF PACIFICATION ...... 1

1.1.1 A DEFINITION OF PACIFICATION ...... 2 1.1.2 MOTIVATION, AIMS AND APPROACH OF THIS STUDY ...... 4 1.1.3 RESEARCH QUESTIONS ...... 7 1.2 THE UPPER LAMARI VALLEY ...... 9

1.2.1 PACIFICATION IN THE UPPER LAMARI VALLEY ...... 11 1.2.2 CHOICE OF RESEARCH SITES ...... 13 1.3 METHODOLOGY ...... 15

1.3.1 LITERATURE AND ARCHIVAL RESEARCH ...... 16 1.3.2 FIELDWORK AND ORAL HISTORY INTERVIEWS ...... 19 1.4 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS ...... 21

2 THEORIES OF WAR AND PACIFICATION ...... 23 2.1 THEORIES OF NON-STATE WARFARE ...... 24

2.1.1 WAR AND CULTURE ...... 25 2.1.2 WAR AND ECONOMY ...... 25 2.1.3 WAR AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE ...... 26 2.1.4 WAR AND HISTORY ...... 26 2.1.5 WAR AND POLITICS ...... 26 2.1.6 CAVEATS ...... 28 2.2 A THEORY OF PACIFICATION ...... 29

3 CULTURE AND SOCIETY ...... 33 3.1 SOCIAL, POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF THE INDIGENOUS SOCIETY ...... 33

3.1.1 SOCIAL STRUCTURE ...... 34 3.1.2 POLITICAL LEADERSHIP ...... 38 3.1.3 MODES OF PRODUCTION ...... 39 3.1.4 RELATIONS BETWEEN LOCAL GROUPS ...... 42 3.2 ASPECTS OF TRADITIONAL WARFARE ...... 43

3.2.1 WARRING GROUPS ...... 43 vi Ending War

3.2.2 EXISTENCE AND STABILITY OF ALLIANCES ...... 45 3.2.3 TRIGGERS FOR WAR ...... 47 3.2.4 WEAPONS ...... 49 3.2.5 FORMS OF WARFARE ...... 51 3.2.6 INTENSITY OF WARFARE ...... 55 3.2.7 SIGNIFICANCE OF WARFARE IN SOCIETY ...... 56 3.2.8 EFFECTS OF WARFARE ON SOCIETY ...... 57 3.2.9 EXPLANATIONS FOR WARFARE ...... 58 3.3 TRADITIONAL INSTITUTIONS OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION ...... 59

3.3.1 CONFLICT RESOLUTION WITHIN LOCAL GROUPS ...... 59 3.3.2 CONFLICT RESOLUTION BETWEEN LOCAL GROUPS ...... 60

4 COLONIAL NEW GUINEA ...... 65 4.1 ADMINISTRATIVE STRUCTURE OF COLONIAL PAPUA AND NEW GUINEA ...... 65

4.1.1 COLONIAL STATUS OF PAPUA AND NEW GUINEA ...... 65 4.1.2 AIMS OF THE COLONIAL GOVERNMENT ...... 66 4.1.3 STRUCTURE OF THE TERRITORIAL ADMINISTRATION ...... 67 4.1.4 CO-OPTATION OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE ...... 69 4.2 STRATEGIES OF PACIFICATION ...... 70

4.3 MAIN AGENTS OF PACIFICATION ...... 72

4.3.1 KIAPS ...... 72 4.3.2 POLICEMEN ...... 74 4.3.3 MISSIONARIES AND EVANGELISTS ...... 77 4.3.4 GOLD PROSPECTORS ...... 79 4.3.5 AID POST ORDERLIES ...... 80 4.4 MODALITIES OF PACIFICATION ...... 81

4.4.1 USE OF LETHAL FORCE ...... 82 4.4.2 DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY ...... 85 4.4.3 ARREST AND INCARCERATION ...... 87 4.4.4 INDIRECT AND SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE ...... 90 4.4.5 JUDICIAL INSTITUTIONS AND MEDIATION ...... 92 4.4.6 REWARDING OF PEACEFUL GROUPS ...... 94 4.4.7 CO-OPTATION OF LEADERS ...... 96 4.4.8 PROPAGATION OF THE MESSAGE OF PEACE ...... 102 4.4.9 DIVIDENDS OF PEACE ...... 104 4.4.10 COLONIAL BURDENS ...... 109

Contents vii

5 CASE STUDY PUROSA – THE RED FLAG OF PEACE ...... 113 5.1 A HISTORY OF WARFARE AND SHIFTING ALLIANCES ...... 113

5.1.1 EARLY WARS AGAINST IVAKI AND TAKAI IN THE 1930S ...... 114 5.1.2 THE ROUTING OF THE WANITABE ...... 115 5.1.3 THE ROUTING OF THE WENERU ...... 117 5.1.4 THE KETABE – MUGAYAMUTI CONFLICTS ...... 118 5.1.5 THE KAPAGORI – EVABINDI WAR ...... 119 5.1.6 THE ROUTING OF THE MANYA CLAN OF WENERU ...... 120 5.1.7 THE ROUTING OF THE WANITABE CLAN OF IVINGOI ...... 121 5.1.8 THE LAST WAR ...... 122 5.1.9 WAR-RELATED MORTALITY ...... 123 5.2 EARLY CONTACT ...... 126

5.2.1 WESTERN GOODS AND THEIR IMPACT ...... 126 5.2.2 AEROPLANE SIGHTINGS ...... 127 5.2.3 FIRST CONTACT ...... 128 5.2.4 WORLD WAR II AND THE JAPANESE ...... 130 5.2.5 EPIDEMICS ...... 131 5.3 NEW IDEAS AND INNOVATIONS ...... 132

5.3.1 CARGO CULTS ...... 132 5.3.2 CONNECTIONS TO THE NORTH FORE ...... 133 5.3.3 FIRST VISITS TO KAINANTU ...... 134 5.3.4 ENDING WARFARE ONCE AND FOR ALL ...... 135 5.4 KIAP PATROLS ...... 136

5.4.1 HARSHNESS OF KIAPS AND POLICE ...... 139 5.4.2 INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION ...... 140 5.5 CO-OPTATION OF LEADERS ...... 142

5.5.1 APPOINTING LULUAI AND TULTUL ...... 143 5.5.2 LOCAL VILLAGE COURTS ...... 145 5.5.3 ROLE OF VILLAGE OFFICIALS IN PREVENTING RESURGENCE OF VIOLENCE ...... 147 5.5.4 ACCEPTANCE OF KIAP JUSTICE ...... 148 5.5.5 TYPE OF LEADERSHIP IN THE FORE AREA ...... 149 5.6 CONTINUING PREOCCUPATION WITH MONO’ANA ...... 151

5.6.1 BUILDING ROADS ...... 151 5.6.2 THE ENTRANCE OF THE MISSIONARIES ...... 153 5.6.3 COFFEE GROWING AS THE PROMISED GOOD ...... 154 5.6.4 CONTINUING CARGO CULTS ...... 156

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5.7 CONTEMPORARY SITUATION ...... 156

5.8 CONCLUSION PUROSA CASE STUDY ...... 158

6 CASE STUDY AMAIRA – THE SONG OF MOTAME AND KIFINGKU ...... 159 6.1 A HISTORY OF A COMMUNITY ON THE MOVE ...... 160

6.1.1 EARLY MOVEMENTS ...... 160 6.1.2 THE ORIGIN OF THE AMAIRA – AVIA CONFLICT ...... 161 6.1.3 REFUGEES AMONG THE TAIRORA ...... 162 6.1.4 THE NANGKONA WAR AND THE ROUTING OF AMAIRA ...... 163 6.1.5 THE WAR WITH NOREI’ERANDA ...... 164 6.1.6 AMAIRA ENCIRCLED ...... 166 6.1.7 DEATH TOLL ...... 167 6.2 ENTER THE POLICE ...... 168

6.2.1 INDIRECT AND FIRST CONTACT ...... 168 6.2.2 RUMOURS ABOUT THE POLICE ...... 170 6.2.3 THE FIRST GOVERNMENT PATROLS ...... 172 6.2.4 ENFORCED PEACE-MAKING ...... 173 6.2.5 BUILDING OF ROADS ...... 176 6.2.6 PEACE CEREMONIES ...... 177 6.3 CO-OPTATION OF TRADITIONAL LEADERS ...... 178

6.3.1 LULUAI AND TULTULS IN THE POLICE REGIME ...... 179 6.3.2 VILLAGE OFFICIALS AND THEIR COURTS ...... 180 6.4 STABILIZATION OF PACIFICATION ...... 182

6.4.1 ARRIVAL OF THE MISSION ...... 182 6.4.2 ABANDONING MEN’S HOUSES AND INITIATION RITUALS ...... 183 6.4.3 LURE OF THE LITTLE BIG CITY ...... 184 6.4.4 PLANTATION LABOUR AND COFFEE ...... 184 6.4.5 MARRIAGE RELATIONS ...... 186 6.5 CONTINUING TENSIONS ...... 186

6.5.1 CARGO CULTS ...... 187 6.5.2 SORCERY ...... 188 6.5.3 CONTINUED SUSPICIONS AND VIOLENCE ...... 191 6.5.4 FOOTBALL ...... 191 6.5.5 SING-SINGS ...... 192 6.6 THE PERSISTENCE OF PEACE AND THE CONTEMPORARY SITUATION ...... 193

6.7 CONCLUSION AMAIRA CASE STUDY ...... 195 Contents ix

7 CASE STUDY OBURA – THE LEGACY OF TETENDAU’S DEATH ...... 197 7.1 A SHORT HISTORY OF PRECOLONIAL WARFARE ...... 197

7.1.1 THE FIRST WAR AMONG THE OBURA COMMUNITIES ...... 199 7.1.2 THE SAMURA – BIBEORI WAR ...... 201 7.1.3 WAR CASUALTIES ...... 203 7.2 FIRST CONTACT ...... 204

7.2.1 TRADE AND THE ARRIVAL OF STEEL TOOLS AND NEW CROPS ...... 204 7.2.2 THE FIRST GOLD PROSPECTORS ...... 205 7.2.3 POLICE AND DEADLY VIOLENCE ...... 207 7.2.4 EFFECTS OF POLICE VIOLENCE ...... 209 7.2.5 PEACEFUL CONTACT WITH THE FIRST PATROLS ...... 210 7.3 CONTINUATION OF WARFARE AND GOVERNMENT RETALIATION ...... 212

7.3.1 WAR AGAINST ASARA ...... 212 7.3.2 ATTACK ON THE PATROL ...... 215 7.3.3 GOVERNMENT RETALIATION ...... 218 7.3.4 STUDY TOUR FOR VILLAGERS ...... 221 7.3.5 WAR AGAINST MOTOKARA ...... 222 7.3.6 PRISON SENTENCES ...... 224 7.3.7 RECRUITMENT OF WORKERS ...... 225 7.4 WAR-CENTRED LEADERSHIP ...... 226

7.4.1 TYPE OF LEADERSHIP IN THE TAIRORA AREA ...... 226 7.4.2 INVOLVEMENT OF LULUAIS IN CONTINUING WARFARE ...... 227 7.4.3 PROBLEMS WITH VILLAGE OFFICIALS IN NEIGHBOURING AREAS ...... 229 7.5 EVENTUAL PACIFICATION ...... 230

7.5.1 THE KILLING OF THE CHIMBU ...... 230 7.5.2 COURT CASE IN KAINANTU ...... 232 7.5.3 SETTING UP THE PATROL POST ...... 232 7.5.4 CONFLICTS BETWEEN POLICE AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES ...... 234 7.5.5 EFFECTIVE QUELLING OF FURTHER CONFLICTS ...... 236 7.5.6 PACIFICATION IN THE REST OF THE SOUTHERN TAIRORA ...... 238 7.5.7 ARRIVAL OF THE MISSION ...... 239 7.6 SORCERY AND THE RETURN OF LARGE-SCALE WARFARE ...... 241

7.7 CONCLUSION CASE STUDY OBURA ...... 243

8 CASE STUDY BIBEORI – THE SEVEN DAY VILLAGE ...... 245 8.1 A HISTORY OF A RECENTLY ESTABLISHED COMMUNITY ...... 246

8.1.1 ORIGIN OF THE LOCAL GROUP BIBEORI ...... 246 x Ending War

8.1.2 BIBEORI IN EXILE ...... 248 8.1.3 WAR CASUALTIES ...... 249 8.2 PEACEFUL FIRST CONTACT ...... 251

8.2.1 FIRST CONTACT ...... 251 8.2.2 THE FIRST POST-WAR PATROLS ...... 252 8.2.3 FRIENDLY WELCOME FOR THE MISSIONARIES AND EVANGELISTS ...... 254 8.2.4 REPUTATION AS A GOVERNMENT-FRIENDLY VILLAGE ...... 256 8.3 FOOTBALL AS A MEANS OF CONFLICT SETTLEMENT AND ITS FAILURE ...... 256

8.3.1 THE INTRODUCTION OF FOOTBALL IN THE EASTERN HIGHLANDS ...... 256 8.3.2 FOOTBALL AS A MEANS OF CONFLICT SETTLEMENT ...... 258 8.3.3 THE ESCALATION FROM FOOTBALL TO WARFARE ...... 260 8.4 GENERAL INSTABILITY IN THE AREA ...... 261

8.4.1 FIRST ATTACK ON PATROL ...... 261 8.4.2 MANIPULATION OF THE PATROL ...... 263 8.4.3 ATTACKS BY HIMARATA ...... 266 8.4.4 THE TAURIENA – KOMBORA WAR ...... 267 8.5 CONCLUSION BIBEORI CASE STUDY ...... 269

9 CONCLUSION ...... 271 9.1 STRATEGIES OF PACIFICATION ...... 271

9.2 STRATEGIES OF THE LOCAL GROUPS ...... 275

9.3 PRE-CONTACT CONDITIONS ...... 277

9.3.1 INTENSITY OF WARFARE AND STRATEGIC SITUATION AT FIRST CONTACT ...... 277 9.3.2 FORMS OF ALLIANCE AND LEADERSHIP ...... 279 9.4 INFORMATION AND INTERCULTURAL ENCOUNTERS ...... 280

9.5 TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL ASPECTS OF PACIFICATION ...... 281

9.6 SELF-PROPELLING DYNAMIC OF PEACE AND ITS DIVIDENDS ...... 282

9.7 TRANSFORMATIONS OF VIOLENCE AND SUSTAINABILITY OF PACIFICATION ...... 284

9.8 A THEORY OF PACIFICATION ...... 284

10 BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 287 10.1 ARCHIVAL SOURCES ...... 287

10.2 LITERATURE ...... 287

Contents xi

LIST OF MAPS MAP 1: RESEARCH AREA WITH FIELDSITES AND GOVERNMENT PATROL POSTS ...... 14

MAP 2: PUROSA COMMUNITIES AND NEIGHBOURING LOCAL GROUPS ...... 114 MAP 3: AMAIRA HAMLETS AND NEIGHBOURING LOCAL GROUPS ...... 160 MAP 4: OBURA COMMUNITIES AND NEIGHBOURING LOCAL GROUPS ...... 198 MAP 5: BIBEORI AND NEIGHBOURING COMMUNITIES ...... 247

ABBREVIATIONS ADO Assistant District Officer APO Aid Post Orderly ANGAU Australia New Guinea Administrative Unit CPO Cadet Patrol Officer DO District Officer DDS&NA Department of District Services & Native Affairs PO Patrol Officer SDA Seventh Day Adventists

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Acknowledgements: This thesis was defended on the 21st of March, 2016 at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Lucerne. It won the Dissertation Award for best dissertation in the humanities and social sciences for the year 2016. It has been minimally amended and updated for this publication. This thesis would not have been realized without the help of many people, and I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to all of them. Essential funding for fieldwork and archival research was generously granted by the Swiss National Science Foundation (Early Scholar Mobility) and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Employment as a Research and Teaching Assistant in Social Anthropology at the University of Zurich and the University of Lucerne provided me with a livelihood. It also allowed me to interact with students in classes to develop some of the themes and ideas found in this dissertation. In Papua New Guinea, I am most grateful to the people of Amaira, Bibeori, Purosa and Obura for receiving me in their communities and allowing me to research their way of living and their history. I would like to especially thank all my host families who have so graciously offered me shelter, food and companionship: the Fera family in Amaira, the Tambendo family in Purosa, the Iso family in Bibeori, and the family of David Ikebala and Laurel Fera, who always opened their home in Goroka for me. I also thank the Obura mission station of the Evangelical Brotherhood Church for allowing me to stay at their guesthouse. This research would not have been possible without all my trusted translators and research assistants. A special thank you goes to Reuben Fera from Amaira, who accompanied me to all four field sites. He not only prepared my stays in the different villages in advance, but also helped train local translators and research assistants: Lester, Sisiy and Ellen in Amaira; Martin, Jocabeth, Doris, Daislyn, Jeslyn and Saeyn in Bibeori; Jim, Kasia, Luk, Kessy, Bernard and Betty in Purosa; and, Dean, Yoha, Bema, Naomi, Arnold and Noxi in Obura. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all my interlocutors in the Eastern Highlands communities. I am humbled by their openness to share with me their stories. I am thankful for the opportunity to learn about their fascinating lives and their experiences and views about the colonial processes of pacification. Theirs is a story worth sharing, and I hope that I have lived up to this task and their expectations. I am also grateful to all the former patrol officers who kindly agreed to meet me and talk about their experiences in the Eastern Highlands, foremost the late Barry Holloway, who introduced me to the world of expatriates in Papua New Guinea. It was enriching to talk with each of them about their particular experiences as we also exchanged reports about the many places that we have visited and where we have stayed 40 to 50 years apart. I would like to acknowledge the exemplary support of the Papua New Guinea Institute for Medical Research (PNG IMR) under the directorship, first of John Reeder, and then of Peter Siba. They allowed me to use their facilities and guesthouse as a base from which to organize my field stays and offered invaluable logistical support. I especially thank Jerome Whitfield and the staff of the Kuru Research Unit at the PNG IMR for their assistance and facilitating contacts for my first field site. David Ikebala, also of the Kuru Research Unit, led me on my Acknowledgements xiii first patrol through the research area, and taught me the ropes of ‘patrolling’. I am also thankful to the Melanesian Institute with all the staff and their director Hermann Spingler; the Evangelical Brotherhood Church and the Swiss Evangelical Brotherhood Mission in Goroka and Kainantu; and the Summer Institute of Linguistics in Ukarumpa. Nick and Chris Colbran of Colbran Coffeelands have always offered emergency assistance and a welcome stopover between field sites. I would like to thank my colleagues at the University of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby, especially Linus Digim’Rina, Andrew Motu and the late August Kituai, who listened to my initial ideas and gave many helpful tips and hints in pursuing research in the Eastern Highlands. Many thanks also to Jim Robbins and the staff from the National Research Institute (NRI) for their welcome and invaluable assistance in organizing the research visas. I am grateful to the Australian National University and the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies for hosting me during archival research in Canberra and would like to especially thank the late Hank Nelson for his interest and encouragement. The staff at the National Archives of Australia and the Papua New Guinea National Archive have been extremely helpful in locating archival material for my dissertation. Back in Switzerland, I would like to thank first of all my mentor and advisor, Jürg Helbling. His teaching and scholarship on non-state warfare have been the inspiration for this dissertation. I am eternally grateful for his encouragement and support throughout the many years of working together with him. Danilo Geiger also played an influential role in steering me towards the topic early on. I would also like to thank my second reviewer, Jim Roscoe, for his enthusiasm and encouragement after reading an early chapter. I am indebted to all colleagues who discussed parts of the chapters in this dissertation when I held presentations at the Departments of Anthropology at the Universities of Zurich, Basel, and Lucerne; at the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation in Marseille; at the Research School for Pacific and Asian Studies at the Australian National University; and at the conferences of the Swiss Anthropological Association and the Association of Social Anthropology in Oceania. The cordial exchanges at these meetings have shown me the joys and challenges of scholarship. Lastly, I thank my family and all my friends, many of them outside of academia, for their appreciation, encouragement and support through the ups and downs of this academic project. Most important of all, I thank Doris Bacalzo, companion in life and fellow researcher, for accompanying me to the field, trekking along with me in the rugged mountains of the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, and for keeping me sane and organized in the many months of writing this dissertation. Her presence has made this whole journey lighter.

1 Introduction

1.1 Processes of Pacification Can lasting peace be established in societies that are intrinsically tied to the pursuit of warfare? Is it possible to stop an endless cycle of revenge and counter-revenge between communities that have been at war for generations? Is even conceivable to eliminate warfare once and for all? And if so, what are the conditions under which political leaders and their followers give up violence as a legitimate tool of conflict settlement? This PhD thesis investigates these questions by analysing a rather spectacular historical transformation in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, where over the course of a few years the members of stateless and warlike societies have given up collective violence in the form of warfare. The people did not attain this end of war exclusively by themselves. They were caught up in a situation in which larger forces impinged on them, larger forces in the form of a colonial state extending its control over the area. They were caught up in what I would like to call ‘processes of pacification’. The extent, development and trajectory of these processes of pacification are at the heart of this thesis. This thesis focuses on four communities in three neighbouring and culturally closely related ethnic groups situated in the Upper Lamari Valley in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea. These are namely the Southern Tairora communities of Bibeori and Obura, the Auyana community of Amaira and the Fore community of Purosa.1 Between 1947 and 1949, all of these communities and ethnic groups were visited by exploratory patrols of the Australian colonial administration. The ensuing processes of pacification, however, were far from uniform. Indigenous warfare ceased in the Fore and Auyana areas within one to five years after first contact. In the Southern Tairora area, in contrast, fights between communities flared up repeatedly over almost twenty years despite regular patrolling by government forces and surprised the colonial administration time and again. Even within the Southern Tairora area, significant differences between single local groups or villages abound. Some communities were noted for always accommodating government patrols, while members of other villages fled their settlements or violently resisted and attacked the approaching patrols. These striking differences within a homogenous cultural field are perplexing and await explanations. Why were certain areas within the Upper Lamari Valley pacified within a few years, while others resisted much longer? What were the enabling conditions that put a quick and lasting end to warfare in one place, and what factors explain the delay or failure to establish durable peace elsewhere? This study is concerned with documenting, analysing and explaining these processes of pacification in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. It follows the trajectory of these processes in several locations in detail and offers an analysis of the region’s history, but also contributes to anthropological theory-building by proposing a methodological tool kit for

1 A detailed map of all place names mentioned in this dissertation is available as a zoomable Google map under the following link: http://bit.ly/endingwar 2 Ending War documenting and comparing such processes of pacification, and by extracting general features to formulate and test an encompassing theory of pacification.

1.1.1 A Definition of Pacification For this study, pacification can be defined as a process in which a state extends a monopoly of violence to politically autonomous communities hitherto outside its sphere of control, and thereby curtails both organized violence between those communities and resistance against the imposition of state control. Or, in the words of Margaret Rodman: ... pacification is a critical period in the encapsulation of a native people in which a group’s use of armed force is constrained to comply with the actual or presumed demands of an encapsulating power. (Rodman 1983:1)

The term pacification has a long history as a legitimizing by-product of colonial conquest and imperial expansion. Colonial states of the 19th and early 20th century legitimized these conquests through the term pacification as a moral obligation to get rid of so-called ‘barbarian customs’ – among them war, headhunting, cannibalism and sorcery. The infamous poem ‘White Man’s Burden’ by Rudyard Kipling calls them ‘the savage wars of peace’. Pacification was thus always considered a paradox: in order to ‘civilize’ indigenous people, and to administer them for ‘their own good’, it was necessary to first militarily subdue them, to turn them into colonial subjects. This approach was mainly due to the assumption that indigenous people only understood and respected a language of force (El Méchat 2014b:7). One should not be deceived by these lofty goals of pacification, however, and also look at the more concrete and tangible aims. Often, the pacification and subjugation of an indigenous population was just a precondition to control its labour-power and to take ownership of land and other resources (Bodley 1983, 1994). The term pacification is in this regard just a euphemism that attempts to veil the brutal use of lethal violence by agents of the colonial state. One of the most notorious of these cases was the war of extermination waged against the Herero and the Nama in German South-West Africa from 1904 to 1908 (Gewald 1999; Trotha 1999a, 2003). Such wars of extermination, however, were not the rule, but rather the exception. Even though “there is no state-building conquest without wars of pacification, … wars of pacification are generally limited, because they aimed at subjugation and not at mass killings or even annihilation of the conquered” (Trotha 1999b:45-46). Furthermore, state agents were not always superior in terms of numbers, firepower, tactics or material resources and, therefore, not able to exclusively rely on their military force alone. Indigenous groups often had a lot of leeway to pursue their strategies, to decide whether to accept the state’s offer of general peace in exchange for their autonomy or to resist (sometimes successfully) its expansion. In such situations, the state had to use less repressive modes of pacification and make concessions to these groups, or had to ally itself with some indigenous groups against others, or had to establish a form of indirect rule, in order to be able to enforce its control. At the same time, the state has to be seen not as a monolithic agent, as it is often conceived (cp. Schlichte 2005), but composed of various actors acting on behalf of the state, like members of the military or police forces, politicians, judges and civil servants, but sometimes also indigenous auxiliaries, allies and mercenaries as well as co-opted indigenous leaders. These actors, albeit representatives (or allies) of the state acting within a framework of ideologies and Introduction 3 legal understandings formed by state institutions, have their own motives, interests, perceptions, strategies and operational resources, as well as their own potentialities of violence and capabilities to reward. They shape the process of pacification to a considerable extent, boost or hinder the ability of the state to enforce its monopoly of violence and law, and significantly influence the reaction of the other actors involved in the process (Ferguson/Whitehead 1992a; Nugent 2006). Hence, I propose that pacification as a process that leads to an end of warfare can not be conceptualized as a purely unilateral imposition of state control, as it is often understood in the relevant literature (cp. El Méchat 2014b), but as the result of a complex temporal and spatial interaction between various actors, each with their own motives, interests, perceptions, strategies and operational resources. These actors can be differentiated as: (a) a range of actors representing the state (such as policemen, soldiers, judges and officials) and generally striving to impose the state’s control by punishing still bellicose local groups, by rewarding and protecting those groups willing to lay down their arms, and eventually by establishing judicial institutions to facilitate peaceful conflict settlements between local groups, (b) ‘private’ actors (such as missionaries and settlers) that may play a supportive or obstructive role in the process, and (c) members of politically autonomous local groups (villages) and their leaders who either accept state control and bring warfare to an end or resist and continue to fight each other and the representatives of the state. By considering indigenous people as actors in their own right, this approach invalidates depictions of them as mere passive victims of pacification. It will instead portray the range of options and strategies at their disposal to engage the encompassing state. Processes of pacification take place within a more inclusive process of colonial expansion and integration of indigenous people into a state. Within this more extensive process, different phases of interaction between the state and indigenous populations can be discerned, pacification being one of them. Four distinct phases can be distinguished: 1) indirect contact, 2) direct contact, 3) enforcement of pacification and 4) the transition to regular administration. This delineation into four phases also has a counterpart in the colonial terminology of ‘exploration, pacification, and administration’ and Ferguson and Whitehead’s stages of indirect contact, direct contact, encapsulation and incorporation (1992a:7). The phase of first contact has received a lot of attention in the last few decades, particularly in Papua New Guinea (see Bell 2013; Connolly/Anderson 1987; Gammage 1998; Schieffelin/Crittenden 1991), whereas the preceding and following phases of indirect contact and the enforcement of pacification remain somewhat neglected so far. There exists, of course, an inevitable overlap between those phases, particularly in New Guinea: patrols sent out to investigate on-going conflicts (a characteristic of the third phase) would sometimes also happen to make first contact, while after the transition to regular administration, patrols to quell a resurgence of warfare might again be necessary. In longitudinal sequence, the process of pacification can nevertheless be defined as starting with first contact between state actors and indigenous groups and ending with the cessation of warfare between local groups and armed resistance against the state. However, pacification is neither a linear nor irreversible process. After pacification, local groups have often resumed (and are still resuming) warfare to settle their conflicts with arms after postcolonial states have lost control over marginal regions of their territories, as various current examples in East Africa, South-East Asia and of course Papua New Guinea show.

4 Ending War

1.1.2 Motivation, Aims and Approach of this Study What is now my motivation to look at such processes of colonial conquest and subjugation? I would like to argue, that any process of pacification constitutes an important and decisive event in the history of the people concerned, and merits special attention especially where feuding and warfare formed an integral part of indigenous social life and was deeply embedded in local cultural norms and values. The reasons and particular circumstances, under which members of such a society agree to lay down their weapons and refrain from pursuing further acts of collective violence, should arouse interest in any social scientist intrigued with questions about war and peace. Furthermore, I would like to show that this research into historical processes of pacification, into the processes and reasons responsible for the gradual and frequently successful transition to peace during the colonial period in Papua New Guinea, also results in conclusions that are relevant for conflict and peace studies in general and for the development of approaches on how to prevent contemporary collective violence in particular. Considering the fact that local level collective violence between and within ethnic groups as well as interventions by the state into these conflicts continue today, a study into the processes and reasons responsible for the gradual but often decisive ending of war during the colonial period may offer a different perspective from which to assess the multi-dimensional complexity of these conflicts. The differences between the colonial and the contemporary period are multiple (just to give an example, the military edge that state agents enjoyed over indigenous warriors is irretrievably lost with the use of high-powered automatic rifles and shotguns by indigenous groups in contemporary ‘tribal fighting’). Nevertheless, I suggest that by looking at the strategies of the Australian colonial administration and by evaluating the impact of these state policies on local communities, some lessons (negative as well as positive) may be drawn for critically understanding and transforming these conflicts by taking into account the roles, perspectives and strategies of the various actors. Especially relevant for the contemporary situation, where states often do not have the resources to police frontier areas, might be examples of pacification achieved primarily by non-violent strategies and the empowerment of local leaders to settle conflicts themselves. The case of the Enga province in Papua New Guinea is a prime example, where the strengthening of indigenous village courts significantly contributed to halting widespread contemporary warfare (Wiessner/Pupu 2012). At the same time, colonial processes of pacification are interesting from a theoretical perspective. Pacification processes can be considered convenient laboratories for research into the causes of warfare in stateless societies in general. Analysing the factors that led the members of such communities to forfeit warfare as a valid option in their conflict behaviour might present us with valuable clues and insights into the causes that were responsible for endemic warfare before pacification in the first place. At the same time, there is currently no coherent and encompassing theory explaining such processes of pacification. Therefore, this thesis contributes towards a theory of pacification by examining existing assumptions regarding the determinants for sustainable pacification and offering additional enabling or disabling conditions for the elimination of warfare by analysing the historical micro-processes involving conglomerates of different actors with their diverging interests, strategies and resources, as well as their own perceptions and interpretations of the events. Such a theory strengthens the case of anthropology, with its distinctively holistic, multi- and transdisciplinary approach, as a Introduction 5 privileged discipline with the right tools for critical analysis towards a better understanding of small-scale armed conflicts and for the development of viable models for their mitigation and sustainable transformation. It is rather remarkable that there are so little systematic analysis and theoretical reflections of this critical period in the history of the contact between indigenous people and states by anthropologists. This lacuna is probably the result of a common misconception, namely that pacification was an inevitable result, almost a by-product, of the expansion of colonial states. This all too teleological view on pacification assumes that the pacification of indigenous people, especially during the heyday of European colonialism and imperialism, was a foregone conclusion, a logical result of the clash between an expanding state and a local population, and the formidable power differential existing between them. Pacification is thus often misconstrued as nothing but the use of brutal force by a state against communities who either succumb to its overwhelming military power or resist with the risk of being heavily decimated or even exterminated. This view accords too much weight to a supposed military and logistical superiority of an encapsulating power, however, and thereby wholly overshadows the agency of indigenous actors not only in contributing to or resisting this process but also in driving it according to their terms. It disregards, in fact, the manifold possibilities of indigenous actors and reduces them to the status of passive victims, thus victimizing them once again, instead of taking their diverse interests, strategies and cultural perceptions seriously. In the end, it remains challenging to explain differences in the trajectory of processes of pacification with diverging levels of state violence alone. Even in instances of complete domination, indigenous actors still had a multitude of strategies at their disposal for interacting with the agents of the state, ranging from active or passive resistance to full cooperation. It is to these micro-dynamics in the process of pacification that this thesis turns. Understanding and valuing the perceptions and actions of the supposedly ‘weaker’ part in this interaction will result in a better understanding of power relations in general and colonial processes of pacification in particular. That indigenous people are historical subjects in their own right and that their actions have the potential to shape their own fate has become popular in anthropology only since the 1980s, with works by Eric Wolf (1982) and Marshall Sahlins (1981). It was Marshall Sahlins (1981, 1985, 1995) who developed a concept of the ‘structure of conjuncture’ by analysing the cultural meaning behind the meeting between Captain James Cook and the Hawaiian chiefs and commoners, and thereby demonstrated what can be gained by investigating the perceptions, motives and interests of indigenous actors. He convincingly establishes against criticism by Obeyesekere (1992), that Captain Cook was seen as a reincarnation of the Hawaiian god of war Lono, as his arrival coincided with the annual festival devoted to that god, and that his killing upon his return at an inauspicious time was, in fact, deicide. Sahlins thus argues that perceptions and local value systems matter, and that the process of contact, colonialism and pacification cannot be understood without taking the different epistemological and ontological background of the people on both sides of this process into account. His argument is crucial for this thesis, as it will be necessary to demonstrate that indigenous people are not just puppets, but actors in their own right, that determine to a considerable extent the process and trajectory of the process of pacification with their own motives and interests, which might diverge considerably, but might also run parallel to the interests of the encapsulating power.

6 Ending War

Sahlins’ work has led to a flurry of similar works on Papua New Guinea, not surprisingly also focusing on the aspect of first contact, a moment that widely captured the popular (and academic) imagination (Connolly/Anderson 1987; Gammage 1998; Schieffelin/Crittenden 1991). Only later would research shift towards perceptions and cultural interpretations during later phases of colonialism (Brown 1995; Clark 2000). A genuine anthropology of colonialism in Papua New Guinea is thus slowly taking shape – following Thomas’ (1994) acclaimed work on the Pacific Islands – among others with the books by Errington/Gewertz (1995) and the collection by McPherson (2001a), which look at the colonial encounter from a distinctively anthropological viewpoint. An essential aspect of this preoccupation with the colonial encounter has been its scepticism with regards to the possibility of writing ‘objective history’. Much recent scholarship has contended that any serious academic work should be prepared instead to record multiple histories and discourses which are constantly recreated montages of varying complexity, as exemplified in the works of Neumann (1992), Clark (2000) and Scaglion (2001). This thesis follows this lead by presenting the micro-histories of selected communities and their interaction with representatives of the state from different viewpoints, taking care to contextualize and to explain the juxtaposed narratives stemming from different informants and sources. To exemplify the montage-like character of the use of quotes from various sources, I was inspired by post-modern anthropologists such as Anna Tsing (1993, 2005) to use different fonts to designate the different types of sources. For oral accounts, I use two different sans-serif fonts, Calibri for quotes by New Guinea villagers and Century Gothic for quotes by former patrol officers. For written documents, I use two different serif fonts, American typewriter for patrol reports and other colonial documents (thus recreating the feel and visual impact of these type-written documents) and Bookman Old Style for secondary sources. My argument remains in Times New Roman throughout the text. It is my goal in this thesis to record the ‘indigenous articulations’ of colonial history, the perceptions and interpretations of indigenous witnesses and participants who experienced the transition from traditional warfare to colonially induced peace and – in some communities at least – back to ‘tribal fighting’ today. At the same time, I intend to arrive at a theoretically grounded understanding of processes of pacification through a controlled comparison of the history of these different communities. The problem with comparing processes of pacification is evident: historical and cultural circumstances are crucial for the outcome of each selected case of pacification, and it can be challenging to extrapolate general factors that are responsible for variations in duration. Out of this dilemma, I have developed a research approach that intends to look at variations in pacification processes in a culturally rather homogenous setting, where the context and the circumstances of pacification are relatively uniform, but where differences in duration and trajectory occurred. For this reason, I have decided to undertake comparative field research in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea and look at these processes of pacification from the viewpoint of four different communities located in the Upper Lamari Valley. The Highlands of Papua New Guinea are ideally suited to an analysis of processes of pacification because said processes took place comparatively recently. Most of the Highlands Introduction 7 only came into contact with representatives of the state since the 1930s, some parts only after World War II, and the ensuing processes of pacification in some cases only came to an end in the 1960s. This comparatively late onset of pacification guarantees ideal conditions for a rigorous ethnohistorical analysis of these processes. At the same time, there are sufficient documentary sources of high quality from the colonial administration, and a wealth of ethnographic data on pre-colonial warfare collected by ethnographers shortly after warfare had ended or sometimes while it still continued. Furthermore, people who experienced the transition from pre-colonial warfare to a colonially induced peace are still alive and can be interviewed about their experiences and perceptions. The case of the Eastern Highlands is of additional interest because many but not all areas have experienced a resurgence of armed conflicts and inter-village warfare in the 1980s and 1990s, after a lengthy period of peace. Comparing processes of pacification in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea with other cases from all around the world shows, that these processes in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea are exceptional cases in many respects. The control over the process of pacification, especially after World War II, was mainly in the hands of the government agents commissioned and authorized to use force. This situation stands in considerable contrast to other areas around the world, where para-state or non-state actors often had a significant influence on the process of pacification long before official representatives of the colonial or post-colonial state arrived on the scene, resulting in entirely different aims and strategies of pacification. Groups in the Amazon River Basin are a case in point, as they were often first contacted and sometimes pacified by missionaries, traders or rubber tappers, like the Jivaro (Taylor 1981) or the Waorani (Robarchek/Robarchek 1998). Missionaries, traders and labour recruiters also significantly affected insular Melanesia, long before these areas were even claimed by European colonial powers (Boutilier 1983; White 1983; 1991; Zelenietz 1983). Another contrast is that the use of force in the Highlands of New Guinea was limited when compared with other processes of pacification, in which indigenous societies were confronted by sizeable colonial armies equipped with field artillery and early machine guns, like the Herero in German South-West Africa (Gewald 1999), the Prairie Indians in the United States (Robinson 1995), the Lobi in French Burkina Faso (Kambou-Ferrand 1993a, 1993b) or the Naga in British Northeast India (Ao 1993; Gundevia 1975; Yonuo 1974). And lastly, the final goal of pacification, the elimination of warfare, was achieved within a relatively short timeframe in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea (2 to 15 years in the communities I researched in the Lamari Valley), at least in comparison to the already mentioned Naga, but also to the Iban in Sarawak (Wagner 1972; Pringle 1970; Wadley 2004) or the Ilongot in the Philippines (Scott 1975, 1998; Rosaldo 1980; Wenk 2003), where the process of pacification would stretch out for decades if not centuries.

1.1.3 Research Questions The pacification process in the Upper Lamari Valley in the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea took between two and almost twenty years from the time of first contact until the last recorded instance of indigenous warfare or resistance to state agents. The general objective of this thesis is to account for these temporal variations and different outcomes of the pacification process in the case of three neighbouring ethnic groups (Fore, Auyana, Southern

8 Ending War

Tairora) by assessing the relevance of different preconditions and factors facilitating or impeding the elimination of traditional warfare. Why were certain areas within the Lamari Valley pacified within a couple of years, while others were able to resist the domination of the colonial state and the attempts to eliminate indigenous warfare much longer? What are the causal mechanisms that could explain these differences in the speed and trajectory of the process of pacification? What is the relevance of exogenous versus endogenous factors? Can the end of traditional warfare be better explained with the policies of the pacifying state, or through the interest, strategies and perceptions of the indigenous actors? Or, both, as mutually constitutive, through the process of intercultural interaction at play? In particular, I will focus in this thesis on the forms, conduits and results of intercultural interactions between representatives of the colonial administration (mainly colonial officers and indigenous police troops), other agents of the state (missionaries and indigenous evangelists), and the inhabitants of the Upper Lamari Valley. I will reconstruct the strategies and methods of pacification used by the colonial administration, pinpoint the circumstances under which these were employed, and identify the consequences and impacts of these strategies on the local population. At the same time, I will take into account the emic perceptions and interpretations of this momentous state intervention into hitherto autonomous collective lives. In the course of the study, I examine the indigenous reactions and interaction strategies adopted towards those who came to impose peace and subdue these formerly sovereign communities. I also explore pre-existing and emerging variations in political dynamics, methods of conflict settlement and patterns of warfare between the three ethnic groups, while evaluating the group-specific social, political and cultural norms that may have influenced different behavioural responses to pacification. A particular emphasis will be put on formal and informal judicial institutions and the question of why they have successfully prevented inter-group violence in the Fore and Auyana area, while consistently failing among the Southern Tairora. In the form of a regional micro-variation study, all these factors will be analysed and compared to arrive at a contextualized understanding of the processes leading to such diverse outcomes. First, I would like to argue that the transition to peace could only be realized if the incentive structures for warfare are fundamentally reversed. Together with Jürg Helbling (Helbling/Schwoerer forthcoming), I have identified three strategies by the pacifying state that are important for this transformation to take hold: 1. Efficient and selective punishment of bellicose groups and individuals through repression or economic sanctions; 2. Selective rewards given to groups and individuals willing to abandon warfare, either in the form of access to coveted goods, trade, devolution of power, or in the form of protection from their still bellicose enemies; 3. The establishing of new institutions for peaceful conflict settlement. The first two strategies could potentially reverse the incentive structures for warfare. With repression, continuing to respond to conflicts with violence suddenly becomes much more costly, while rewards for peaceful behaviour make the latter much more advantageous. As conflicts will nevertheless still arise, the third strategy is crucial: conflicts between pacified Introduction 9 groups will have to be settled either through recourse to indigenous conflict settlement practices, which might be strengthened by the state, or the introduction of colonial courts that need to gain widespread acceptance (or a combination of both). Second, while being confronted with these strategies, I further argue that it is then vital to analyse the reactions and strategies of the local population in interaction with agents of the state. For the local communities, the question posed was never just one of pure subjugation or radical resistance, but encompassed more ambiguous strategies as well, like passive resistance, appeasement or attempts at manipulation. Decisions for one or the other option could readily change again as soon as circumstances changed. Erstwhile acceptance and welcoming of patrols would foretell nothing about later interactions between local groups and actors of the state. Those decisions were up to a certain extent predetermined by several factors, among them the information available to the communities in question, their perception of the agents of state and their aims, the specific political field consisting of allies and enemies in which those communities were situated, the coherence and internal dynamics of such communities, as well as patterns and intensity of warfare at the time of contact. This study covers a wide range of possible indicators and related variables pertaining to the political, social and cultural realities at the time of first contact and throughout the colonial and postcolonial period. By gathering and assessing historically verifiable facts as well as narratives, discourses and individual retrospective interpretations of the process of pacification, I will not only describe in detail characteristic traits of pacification processes from different perspectives but also compare the various historical events and experiences in the selected research areas.

1.2 The Upper Lamari Valley The research area that I have chosen for my study encompasses almost the whole drainage basin of the Upper Lamari Valley and is situated in the Okapa and Obura-Wonenara districts in the Eastern Highlands province in Papua New Guinea. During colonial time, it formed part of the Kainantu Sub-district in the Eastern Highlands District of the UN Trust Territory of New Guinea, administered by Australia. The area contains the four ethnic groups of the Fore, Auyana, Awa and Southern Tairora. All these groups only came under government control after World War II, although there was some initial contact in the 1930s. This means that I could speak with eyewitnesses who were born and grew up in pre-colonial times, even participated in pre-colonial warfare, and then experienced the transition to colonially induced peace. The Upper Lamari Valley was specifically chosen, because it exhibits striking local variations in the pace and trajectory of the pacification process, making it a natural laboratory setting for research into the causes that facilitated or impeded the elimination of traditional warfare. In addition, extensive archival records by the Australian colonial administration as well as detailed ethnographic information exist on the ethnic groups in question, particularly on their patterns of pre-colonial warfare. The focus of this study is on the period between first contacts in the 1930s and the year 1964/65, even though there will be references to events before and after these dates. The years of 1964 and 1965 mark in many ways the end of an epoch. In 1965, the last region in the Eastern Highlands was officially declared pacified. And the year before, in 1964, the first general

10 Ending War elections for a parliament took place throughout the country, marking an important milestone in the progress towards eventual decolonization and independence. Administrative changes also took place in 1964, and the style of the patrol reports, the most crucial documentary sources, shifted considerably, as the focus was now suddenly on political development, and no longer the introduction and implementation of law and order. The years of 1964/65 thus signify a break in the political reality that corresponds to a shift in tone in the documentary sources. Westermark (2001) also noted this fact in his study on the occurrence of anthropological reporting in patrol reports, as he realized the complete absence of explicitly anthropological accounts from 1965 onwards. The terrain in the Upper Lamari Valley is rather steep and mountainous, dissected by numerous streams and dominated in the south by the Lamari River Gorge. The zone of settlement lies between 1300 and 2200 meters above sea level, and villages were generally situated at the intersection of lower range grassland and montane rain forests in the higher ranges. In pre- colonial times, many settlements were located on spurs and hillocks or other easily defensible positions. The people in this area lived in communities or local groups, usually consisting of several settlements within shouting distance of each other. These settlements included at least one collective men’s house and several individual women’s houses, all surrounded by a stockade or bamboo thickets. In pre-colonial times, a local group typically numbered around 150 to 250 inhabitants. The local group was the most important social and political unit in the Eastern Highlands. Co-residence and ownership of a common territory was the underlying principle of social organization and of even greater weight than kinship, even though the inhabitants often employed genealogical terms in explaining the structure of their community. Agnatic kinship in a local group was often more an ideology, a symbol for the coherence of the local group, rather than a genealogical fact (Lindenbaum 1979:42). These groups were horticulturalists, subsisting on the staple food of mainly sweet potato, but also yams and taro. Gardens were established both in the forest and in grassland through slash and burn agriculture, used for a few years and then left fallow. Pigs were raised for social events, but not to the extent known in the Western Highlands. The social hierarchy was based on Maurice Godelier’s ‘Great Man’ type (Godelier 1982; Godelier/Strathern 1991) rather than the ‘Big Man’ type more prevalent in the Western Highlands: positions of status and authority could be achieved through superior capabilities and talents in warfare, sorcery and diplomacy. These local groups in pre-colonial times were all enmeshed in an intense and often-changing dynamic of alliance, enmity and warfare. Warfare between local groups was relatively frequent and hardly a year went by without armed clashes. War was always considered a retaliatory action for a whole range of grievances incurred from the theft of pigs or the abduction of women to the death of co-villagers that were attributed to sorcery emanating from other local groups. Warfare either took the form of ambushes, surprise raids and hit-and-run attacks or then open field battles. Open field battles were a somewhat ritualised form of war, in which both sides met on a battlefield in loosely organized lines and shot arrows at each other over a certain distance. It was thus possible to assess the strength and determination of the enemy. Open field battles generally did not lead to heavy casualties, as most warriors used shields, and could deflect or dodge arrows. These battles can be contrasted with stealthy raids against villages, often at the crack of dawn, in which higher numbers of casualties were the outcome (Helbling 2006a:143-149). Introduction 11

The war intensity was considerable. Research conducted by David Hayano among the Awa shows that about 30% of all male deaths and 16% of all female deaths were due to warfare, which adds up to 25% of all deaths during the 50 years preceding pacification (Hayano 1974a:287). Similar numbers hold for the Usurufa immediately to the north of the North Fore, where 32% of all men and 12% of all women fell victim to war (Berndt 1971:397-399). Those numbers are about average for war-related deaths among non-state societies.

1.2.1 Pacification in the Upper Lamari Valley This intensive pre-colonial warfare ended with the imposition of government control after World War II, in some areas suddenly, in others more gradually. The approach of the Australian government in achieving this transition to peace was relatively uniform. Under the trusteeship agreement with the United Nations, the Australian government was committed to the social, economic and political development of the Territory of New Guinea, and the extension of control was seen as a necessary prerequisite to these aims (Griffin et al. 1979:104-105). Australian patrol officers, the so-called kiaps, were charged with implementing the extension of control. They were stationed on government patrol posts established in central locations and supplied by air. From this base, they conducted patrols accompanied by a detachment of the New Guinean constabulary and by local cargo carriers. These patrols went from village to village, in order to establish contact with the people. In subsequent visits, these patrols then explained and later also enforced government rules regarding the ban on warfare and violence. Kiaps on their patrols conducted a yearly census, appointed village officials, settled disputes and complaints, and encouraged people to build bridle paths and roads and later to plant cash crops (Griffin et al. 1979:118). In the Kainantu Sub-district, several ambitious exploratory patrols were sent into the hitherto unexplored Lamari River area between 1947 and 1950. Within three years, most villages in the research area had been contacted by these patrols. The initial contact with these patrols was peaceful almost everywhere: the patrols were well received, even given food and presents after the first surprise and reluctance were overcome. This provides us with a common baseline. However, the subsequent process of pacification, in which the colonial administration tried to end warfare, proved to be far from uniform. In the areas of the Fore and the Auyana, pacification was accomplished with the most remarkable speed – among the North Fore within a year or two from the time of first contact. Even the kiaps were pleasantly surprised if not baffled and could hardly explain their success, as a patrol report from May 1951 shows, which reports of: … the extraordinary ease with which these people have been brought under something approaching real control. This was only the third regular Patrol to visit this area since Mr. Toogood’s 1949 patrol, yet tribal fighting has virtually ceased, there are Rest Houses in all major villages, bridal paths, well graded and

12 Ending War

constructed, link all villages, and many of the people have settled in clean, large, well laid out villages. (Kainantu PR 1950/51/8) 2

In the Auyana area, there is a similar, if not more striking pattern: the first patrol in 1949 appeared in the area right when a war between villages was on the brink of escalation. Sterling Robbins, who in his book describes this war in all its details over ten pages, ends his account with the curt statement: “the next day, the first Australian patrol came into the area, and there has been no further fighting” (Robbins 1982:204). Three years later, in 1952 one single outbreak of hostilities was reported, but quickly suppressed, and by 1954 at the latest, the whole area was declared pacified by the kiaps. In the South Fore area, the picture is similar. First patrols reached the area in 1949, but government patrols only sporadically visited it until 1954 when more regular patrolling started with the establishment of a patrol post at Okapa. The last instance of warfare was recorded in 1952, and by 1955 the progress in the area was considered extremely satisfying. This remarkably fast pacification in the areas of the Auyana and the Fore contrasts markedly with the situation in the region immediately to the south and west, where the Awa and Southern Tairora live. Pacification was a slow process in this area and took between ten and up to almost twenty years from the time of first contact. It was characterised by numerous setbacks. More than once, the kiaps were convinced to have a particular area under control only to be surprised again by a sudden outbreak of violence between villages or even attacks against patrols. In 1952 the area around Obura was officially declared pacified. The next year, however, the whole area was in turmoil, and patrols were attacked. The same thing happened again in 1956 and 1957, and patrols were rather ineffective since villagers would stop hostilities while a patrol was in the area, only to revert to warfare once the patrol left. Only after the establishment of a patrol post right in the middle in Obura in 1963 did warfare slowly recede. The last instance of all-out war took place in 1965, at a time when the whole Eastern Highlands District was already considered pacified. Even afterwards, it was only the permanent stationing of police in the area that prevented the escalation of brawls and scuffles to all-out warfare. The Southern Tairora, furthermore, were among the first to revert to inter-village warfare in the Eastern Highlands when state control started to deteriorate, with first conflicts soon surfacing after independence. At the same time, the South Fore around Purosa, where I have conducted fieldwork, have so far not yet experienced any new collective armed conflicts at all. Those differences are perplexing and were so as well for the kiaps. It is well worth citing a patrol report from 1954 to get a feeling for those marked variations: The native situation in the FORE area is good. The people have made amazing progress considering the time that has elapsed since they were first contacted. The extension of Administration influence has been free of incident yet tribal fighting has died out, the authority of the Administration is accepted and the people are intent on co-operating with us. ... Immediately one crosses the Lamari River a change

2 References to patrol reports are made by listing the outstation, the year, and the patrol report number: in this case Kainantu Patrol Report No. 8 of 1950/51. All cited patrol reports are from the Eastern Highlands District, with the exception of one patrol report (Kikori PR 1944/45/4) from the Gulf District. Introduction 13

in attitude is noticed. The people are truculent and churlish - no women are seen. At IAKEA [Ilakia], first visited in 1949, on the right bank of the LAMARI one strikes a similar attitude - an attitude of pride and arrogance and non-co-operation - a refusal to accept anything but their own supremacy. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/8)

Kiaps usually explained the variations in the process of pacification with perceived temperamental or cultural differences between the various language groups, as can also be seen from the following assessment by Kiap Peter Broadhurst in 1963: It is interesting to note that the AUYANA villages received initial Administration contact after the Southern TAIRORA areas, notably the OBURA area. There is a marked difference in temperament between the TAIRORA and AUYANA people and despite the lesser degree of contact the AUYANA people are more advanced and much more responsive than the SOUTHERN TAIRORA people. (Okapa PR 1963/64/3)

1.2.2 Choice of Research Sites The selection of research sites was undertaken with a view to document several different trajectories of pacification and to include a wide range of different variables that might have contributed or impeded the process of pacification, in order to be able to conduct a valid analytic comparison between these case studies. In preparation for the choice of research sites, I have made a selection of possible areas of interest, based on the reading of patrol reports for the area. I thus knew in advance which villages would be of considerable importance, either because they were particularly quick or even enthusiastic in cooperating with colonial officers, or because they were described as uncooperative and also attacked patrols. In order to choose the particular villages where I would be based, and which now form the main focus of my dissertation, I have conducted several patrols on foot throughout the valleys of the Lamari River and its tributaries in August 2004 and between December 2005 and January 2006. This patrolling had the added benefit that I often retraced the usual patrol routes of the colonial patrols, following wherever possible the bridle tracks built during the colonial time, and thus gained an appreciation of the sometimes-arduous walking involved to get from one village to the next. It also gave me an impression of the geographical and topographical layout of the settlements in the area and allowed a deeper understanding of historical events and connections. As history and the narration of history are always emplaced in specific locations, knowing the place names and their location on the ground facilitates the appreciation of history. I have undertaken these patrols with some known and trusted informants and usually made sure to include people with kin connections to the areas to be visited. I usually spent one night in each village (thus again recreating the typical rhythm of a colonial census patrol), leaving in the early morning, and arriving at the next village in the morning or around mid-day. I then explained the reason for my visit, spoke with village officials and in the late afternoon or evening conducted a two or three hour-long interview with one or several older men that were pointed out by locals to be the most knowledgeable about the period in question. I thus have interview data not only from the four communities that I chose in the end but from many local groups over a vast swath of the area.

Introduction 15

Warfare between them and their neighbours was a recurrent event until the establishment of a permanent government station in the area at Obura in 1963. While Bibeori willingly collaborated with mission evangelists, Obura actively resisted the intrusion of the government, even attacking a government patrol. Obura is also an especially compelling case because of their early negative experiences with the state, when a policeman massacred thirteen people in a raid on a men’s house before the first regular exploratory patrol, which led to a significant shift in the power relation in the area, destabilising it for several years to come. The four fieldwork sites encompass both small and large communities, which allows for a sliding focus. Bibeori and Amaira are local groups that have retained much of their cohesion. Bibeori is a rather compact village even today, with hamlets within easy walking distance on the Northern slopes of the Lamari River. Amaira was once also a rather compact local group situated on the Ramu-Purari divide, but now is more spread out, with four settlement clusters each containing several hamlets one to three hours walking distance apart. In these two case studies, I mostly follow the history of these two local groups. Purosa and Obura are names for larger collectivities made up of several individually named local groups. Purosa is the name that six local groups (Kaugoti, Mugayamuti, Ai, Weneru, Ketabe, Takai-Purosa) on the eastern side of the Kaza Valley use to refer to themselves, and which had been adopted by the colonial government to refer to this area. I have conducted research in all six local groups, as they are situated within two hours walking distance from each other. Obura is the name of an older original community that had long split into four local groups (Samura, Sonura, Kuaranumbura, Mussaori) by the time of first contact. The colonial government again adopted the name to refer to all four communities and contributed to a clustering of these local groups around the former patrol post and airstrip in the centre of the Lamari Valley. As all Obura communities are within two hours walking distance, I have again used a more regional focus in my research. Three of the four communities (Obura, Bibeori, Amaira and with them their entire respective region) later witnessed the resumption of warfare with other communities after Papua New Guinea gained independence in 1975, only Purosa and some other South Fore villages have remained peaceful until today. Bibeori has already experienced warfare again in the late 1970s, Obura and Amaira between the early 1980s until the early to mid-1990s. In the majority of cases, sorcery accusations were the trigger that led to the resurgence of warfare (Schwoerer 2017), and with the weakened government power, there was no authority to stop the escalation, with the result that most wars lasted for several years before leading to a stalemate of exhaustion.

1.3 Methodology The methodological approach of this thesis is transdisciplinary, drawing on research techniques from social anthropology as well as history. In order to find enabling and impeding conditions for the elimination of warfare, and to understand micro-variations in the trajectory and outcome of pacification processes within the Upper Lamari Valley, it was necessary to gather both historical and ethnological data through a variety of methods ranging from literature and archival research, anthropological fieldwork including census data, to oral history interviews with inhabitants of the research area in the Eastern Highlands and with former colonial officers, policemen, and mission evangelists stationed in the area during the period of pacification. I

16 Ending War have then analysed these data using a comparative approach by contrasting the different regions of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

1.3.1 Literature and Archival Research Archival research has been carried out to locate and study primary sources of the Australian colonial administration, especially reports, letters and diaries written by colonial officers stationed in the region. In addition to reviewing patrol reports available on microfiche (Papua New Guinea Patrol Reports 1912-1976), I went to the National Archives of Australia in October 2004 and the National Archives of Papua New Guinea in July 2006 to trace in further detail the history of pacification from the viewpoint of the representatives of the state. To supplement those written testimonies, oral history interviews were undertaken with former colonial officers, policemen and mission evangelists that once were stationed in the area. From late January to early March 2007, I have conducted interviews in Port Moresby and throughout Australia with thirteen former patrol officers that were once stationed in the research area to gain an appreciation of the ‘culture of colonialism’ and to enliven and contextualize the patrol reports written by those officials. Secondary sources consist of ethnographic articles and books that give a background description of the various groups before and during the colonial period. The ethnic groups in the Upper Lamari area have been the focus of intensive fieldwork, and the richness of data allows for well-substantiated comparisons. Ethnographers between the 1950s and 1970s – the era of ‘classical’ Highlands Ethnography – wrote ethnographies about most groups of the Eastern Highlands. Monographs and dissertations thus exist for all groups in the study area and in neighbouring regions: for the Gadsup (Du Toit 1975), the Tairora (Mayer 1987, Johnson 1980; Watson 1983), the Auyana (Robbins 1982), the Awa (Boyd 1975; Hayano 1972), the Kamano and Usurufa (Berndt 1962) and the Fore (Berndt 1962; Lindenbaum 1979; Sorenson 1976). It is of advantage that extensive information exists on pre-colonial warfare in Papua New Guinea in general (for an overview see Knauft 1990) and in the research area in particular, which enables this research to draw a relatively clear picture of the situation before pacification. Richly detailed accounts of pre-colonial warfare in the research area (Berndt 1962, 1964, 1971; Hayano 1972, 1974a; Robbins 1982) are invaluable in assessing micro-variations between ethnic groups and are complemented by my own data on pre-colonial warfare. This information on warfare is insofar remarkable, as anthropologists were able to conduct research in areas where the process of pacification was only recently completed or still underway, and the memories of informants therefore still fresh. In contrast, information on the process of pacification is relatively rare and has to be gleaned from perusing all kinds of publications, as it is often hidden among other topics. It is remarkable to note that some anthropologists have spent a lot of time and effort in reconstructing the warlike state before pacification, but hardly investigate let alone mention in more than a few passing sentences what led to the end of it. Social and cultural changes resulting from incorporation in a capitalistic economy and a parliamentary democracy are well-documented for the Eastern Highlands (Berndt 1953, 1962; Brown 1973; Dickerson-Putman 1986; Finney 1973; Grossman 1984; Salisbury 1962; Sorenson 1972; Watson 1965), but few works have concentrated on one of the most fundamental instances of social change: the elimination of traditional warfare. One exception Introduction 17 is the ethnohistorical work by Radford (1977a, b, 1987), which presents a detailed history of the period of first contact in the Kainantu region before World War II. Information on the historical context, the structure and policy of the colonial state, the administrative processes and the extension of control was gathered from historical monographs on the colonial history of Papua New Guinea, most of them also focussing on the interaction between colonizers and colonized (Downs 1980; Griffin et al. 1979; Hudson 1971, 1975; Kituai 1998; Legge 1956; Nelson 1982; Rowley 1966; Sinclair 1981; West 1978). Some former colonial officers (e.g., Downs 1980; Sinclair 1981) contributed books on the administration of Papua New Guinea based on their personal experience, offering a glimpse into the cultural mindset of those involved in the colonial endeavour and an inside view of the structure of the colonial state and its strategies of pacification. Invaluable are studies dealing with the role of the police during the colonial period (Gammage 1996; Kituai 1998). The primary historical sources for the analysis of the process of pacification are the patrol reports of the Australian patrol officers charged with pacification. They were the main agents of pacification and generally astute observers as well. These patrol reports are the most direct written testimonies about events during the phase of pacification. With a highly critical reading of those reports, it is possible to extract a plethora of information not only on the tactics and strategies of the colonial administration but also on some of the most immediate reactions of the indigenous actors. This has been recognized by various social scientists lately, and patrol reports receive increased attention and are analysed in a variety of contexts, contributing to and enriching anthropological research (Clark 2000; Errington/Gewertz 1995; Görlich 1999; Schieffelin/Crittenden 1991; Westermark 2001). For this thesis, over 700 patrol reports from the Eastern Highlands between the Second World War and 1975 have been reviewed and analysed to achieve a complete overview of the trajectory of pacification in the Kainantu Sub- district. These patrol reports have been filmed and transferred onto microfiche by the National Archives of Papua New Guinea with support from the University of California. They can thus be accessed in some libraries – in my case the University Library of Frankfurt and the Library of the Australian National University. In the meantime, these microfiches have been digitized and can be accessed online.3 Certain years are not complete, and some reports are missing, however. My investigations at the National Archives of Papua New Guinea have failed to turn up any of these missing reports. They do not exist in the files with all the other patrol reports and could thus not have been filmed. The fact that other reports sometimes mention these lost reports gives some indication about their content, and it seems that while some reports must have simply been misfiled or lost in the bureaucracy, other more sensitive reports about attacks on patrols and retributive action by patrol officers might have been classified and then filed elsewhere. I was unable to locate them in the archives using the existing finding aids, and they are thus either lost or then ‘made to disappear’ on purpose, probably during the final years of the colonial administration.4

3 In the Library Digital Collections of UC San Diego: https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/collection/bb30391860

4 One example would be Kainantu PR 1957/58/2. This patrol was attacked by people from Nabera hamlet near Bibeori, and the police shot and wounded at least three men. A special report on the attack was found in the holdings of the National Archives of Australia (NAA: A452, 1957/2457).

18 Ending War

Patrol reports are typewritten documents that had to be submitted by a patrol officer after each patrol in quadruplicate. They had to be forwarded to the district and central headquarters and thus served as instruments of control and basis of information for further administrative and policy decisions. One copy also remained on the respective patrol post and served as a source of information for the successors of the original authors. These reports were often read thoroughly, as some former kiaps attested. The form of these reports was reasonably standardized. On a cover sheet, the patrol officer first noted the most critical information regarding duration, the area visited, the aims and the personnel of the patrol. This first page was followed by a diary, which summarized the most important events for each day (or at least noted which villages the author visited). The central part of the report then consisted of information on the crucial administrative affairs, following a general pattern and with fairly standardized headings. After a short introduction on the aims of the patrol, a chapter on ‘native situation’ or ‘native affairs’ first gave an overview of the situation and mentioned problems encountered on patrol, followed by further chapters on various topics of concern to the administration, such as ‘law and order’, ‘village officials’, ‘sanitation and housing’, ‘health’, ‘mission influence’, ‘roads and bridges’, ‘agriculture and livestock’, sometimes even a chapter on ‘anthropology’ (cp. Westermark 2001). Sometimes census sheets, sketches, maps and photographs were attached to the reports. While the structure was reasonably standardized, there was nevertheless heterogeneity in substance. Some reports are minutely detailed, with numerous pages dedicated not only to the events and the general state of affairs but filled with personal reflections, suggestions and recommendations on how to improve administration. In contrast, other reports are sparse in comparison, noting barely more than the name of villages visited and a few meagre summarizations of the essential points. There are also differences in how much space was allocated to the different chapters, as well as in style and accuracy of the statements. Methodologically, these sources have to be critically reviewed and put into their historical context. They are best suited to establish a sequence of significant events and to analyse some of the strategies and tactics used by the agents of the state. Some of the immediate reaction of the local population can also be glimpsed through these reports, albeit filtered by the interpretations and the assumptions that the kiaps made on why people acted as they did. Patrol reports were also helpful in eliciting stories from the local people, by referring to a specific event that was described in these reports. But clearly, there is also a danger of relying too much on these reports, as without a critical distance one could easily take on the perspective of the state. There has to be an awareness of what might have been left out of the reports, as kiaps were often at the forefront of events. It would be uncritical, for example, to evaluate the influence of violence on the trajectory of pacification by relying exclusively on these reports or by weighing their testimony higher than oral statements by the local villagers, as acts of violence are rarely documented in these reports. It has to be further noted that patrol officers had a significant interest in portraying themselves in the best light towards their superiors, and thus underreported general problems or their own administrative mistakes. Hardly any criticism of the administration shows up in these reports, and errors and questionable decisions were often overlooked. This self-censorship was entrenched on all levels, and one of the former kiaps I interviewed said that a patrol report he wrote was rejected and sent back to him by his Introduction 19 immediate superior with the request to omit the fact that he had fired some warning shots into the air, as this might lead to questions and investigations higher up in the administration.

1.3.2 Fieldwork and Oral History Interviews I carried out field research while living and working with my research partner, Doris Bacalzo, in four different villages in the Okapa and Obura-Wonenara districts of the Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea: in Amaira among the ethnolinguistic group of the Auyana (January-March 2006); in Bibeori (April-June 2006) and Obura (November 2006-January 2007) among the Southern Tairora; and in Purosa among the South Fore (August-October 2006). The aim of field research was to gain an accurate understanding of political, social and cultural realities in the Eastern Highlands and elicit indigenous perceptions of the pacification process. Methods of inquiry included participant observation, explorative and semi-structured oral history as well as life history interviews (Beer 2003; Bernard 2002; Davies 1999; Dunaway/Baum 1996; Perks/Thomson 1998; Thompson 2000; Yow 1994). These interviews were mainly conducted with interview partners old enough to have lived during the colonial era, or in some rare cases with their descendants. These mostly older men and women I interviewed had experienced the pre-colonial fighting as actors or eyewitnesses, and generally had a good recollection of those events, the subsequent colonial period and the interactions between the local village groups and with representatives of the colonial state. This study explicitly included the women’s perspective and explored the role of women and their impact on the process of pacification or conflict-prevention. The interview partners were asked to recount their experiences in traditional warfare, describe the alliances and political constellations between the communities and present the social structure, leadership style and decision-making processes in their communities. They were then questioned on the colonial period and their perceptions, reactions to and interactions with various representatives of the state and on the process of pacification that ensued. The approach in the interviews was first to conduct several individual interviews with a few key informants to establish a preliminary chronology that would make it possible to locate particular stories in a historical continuum. Extremely fruitful was the use of knowledge gained from documentary evidence (i.e. the patrol reports) to elicit stories about interaction with colonial officers that would otherwise be difficult to access. Like others before me, I encountered the problem that while some Highlanders have been accustomed to a linear understanding of time, this was not always the case. Storytelling is a more organic art form in the Highlands, with events often seamlessly flowing into others that happened years if not decades later, usually because of similarities or causal connections. This form of storytelling is insightful, as it shows the emic emphasis on links that matter for the individuals interviewed. During the interview, such open storytelling was encouraged, and clarifying questions were asked after the interviewee had concluded their particular story. Sometimes, interviews were conducted with two or more interview partners. This was useful in that they could support each other in remembering certain events and adding additional information that might not be elicited in individual interviews. Towards the end of a fieldwork stay in the village, interviews concentrated on filling in gaps or clarifying specific stories that

20 Ending War had multiple variants. Sometimes, a group interview with some of the most knowledgeable informants was arranged to establish a coherent timeline, so for example in Purosa, where the sequence of wars before pacification was more complicated than elsewhere, with wars often taking place simultaneously. These group interviews were conducted in the knowledge that multiple versions of the same story do reflect individual viewpoints and not only weak remembrance of events in the past. The dynamic in the group could furthermore also sway the content in a particular direction. It was nevertheless seen as a useful method in gaining a coherent chronology that people could agree on. Interviews were conducted in Tok Pisin (the lingua franca) as well as in the local language, the latter with the help of locally selected and trained translators. The translation was necessary as most older people, even though most of them understood Tok Pisin, were more comfortable in narrating their experiences in their own language. Translators were chosen based on educational background, assertiveness and language capacity. They were instructed beforehand of the goals of the research, and it was pointed out to them what the critical aspects were. They were asked to translate as close to the original as possible, and that they could ask questions themselves if they are unsure about certain aspects of the story. Through the interpreters, the interviewees were asked to tell stories with pauses in between, so that the translators could translate sequences at a time, and then to continue. In each village, two translators (one male, one female) were selected and trained. In the first few interviews, both translators were present and encouraged to check each other and to add information that might have been lost in translation. In further meetings, and especially with women, only the translator of the same sex then translated the interviews. While Doris was present in some interviews with men and I was present in some interviews with women, we also held individual interviews with informants of the same sex to access information that might not be shared in a setting where people of the opposite sex were present, as gender separation is a dominant feature of Highlands culture. Interviews with women were conducted in all villages, albeit in Purosa it was difficult to find older women, as kuru (a deadly spongiform encephalopathy endemic to the Fore that was disproportionally affecting women) had taken a toll on women born just before and after initial contact. A total of 202 interviews were recorded and most of them were transcribed and translated into English. The information gathered during those interview sessions was coded and processed with computer-based software for qualitative data analysis (Fielding/Lee 1998). The data has continuously been crosschecked with other informants as well as with archival materials, especially patrol reports, to arrive at a polyphonic history of the colonial encounter. Through this juxtaposition of oral history and written records, it was possible to access different voices and different positions of the same historical experience, to unearth multiple histories and discourses in order to properly contextualize the process of pacification. I have decided to emphasize the different viewpoints and the differences in sources, both oral and documentary, by using different fonts for the various types of sources, as I already explained. In addition to these interviews, a detailed village census was conducted in all four villages with the help of locally hired and trained research assistants. The census recorded general genealogical information, in order to generate a genealogical setup of the communities. It focused specifically on the cause of death in the preceding generations to collect a detailed Introduction 21 account of all deaths attributed to warfare and thereby arrive at a reliable and comparable figure for casualty rates.

1.4 Structure of the Thesis The argument of the thesis rests on the four case studies presented in chapters 5 to 8. To allow the reader to form a coherent picture about the situation and the processes in the Eastern Highlands, it was deemed advisable to first present in chapters 3 and 4 some more general information, on the one hand on the cultural and social make-up of the ethnic groups and the communities under study, especially on the type and intensity of warfare before the onset of pacification, and on other hand on the structure and the strategies of the pacifying state. These introductory chapters 3 and 4 are more concerned with generalizations and commonalities between all four case studies. They are based on a mix of primary sources, secondary literature and own fieldwork data. In chapters 5 to 8, I then present the process of pacification for each field site and point out the differences between the case studies. I start each of these case studies with the particular history of pre-colonial warfare to situate the different communities in a political landscape at the beginning of the process of pacification. I then present selected aspects of pre-colonial and colonial events and processes that significantly shaped the trajectory of pacification in each case. I have taken care to avoid repetitions between the four case studies when it comes to experiences common to all groups, except where it was necessary for the sake of contrast or to illustrate subtle differences. In the final chapter, I present the main argument of the thesis in a coherent form. But first, in Chapter 2, I will elaborate on the theoretical aspects of pacification, and present variables and hypotheses that will be tested in the four case studies.

2 Theories of War and Pacification Looking at the history of academic preoccupations with processes of pacification, one cannot fail to realize that there is a striking dearth of theoretical reflection on this fundamental process in the history of many indigenous people. What might account for this lack of theoretical interest is the often unreflected assumption by some scholars that pacification is nothing more than the brutal subjugation of indigenous people by overwhelming force, and that there is, therefore, no further need for reflection on the reasons and motives that individuals and groups – and as a consequence whole societies – might have to give up such a fundamental part of their culture and their way of life. Others are under the impression that the available material on processes of pacification is just not diverse and detailed enough to enable more generalizing reflections. Koch, in his epilogue to the anthology on pacification in Melanesia, stated this quite explicitly: We cannot, at this time, develop a theory of pacification, not only because we still lack a general theory of warfare that could serve as a guiding conceptual model but also because there exist few detailed studies of the process of pacification... (Koch 1983:200)

Today, more than thirty years after this remark, there still is no general theory on processes of pacification. This probably has more to do with the fact that generalizing theories have come under scrutiny from post-modernist anthropologists, than with a lack of available detailed studies on processes of pacification that have appeared since then. The term pacification, however, has seen a curious renewal of interest after 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and this necessitates some delineation. After the American defeat in the Vietnam War, in which the term pacification had been used extensively for counter-insurgency measures, the concept of pacification has almost disappeared from public discourse and has been relegated to academic discussions on mostly colonial processes. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have again spurred an interest not only among the military hierarchy into how to combat rising insurrections and insecurity in these countries but also among historians and anthropologists either supporting or criticizing these interventions. Faced with the problems of counter- insurgency in societies often classified as ‘tribal’, there had been a growing interest into earlier phases of colonial pacification in the same areas in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and the term and concepts of pacification have gained new relevance and traction (Finch 2013; Gonzales 2009; Hughes 2019; El Méchat 2014a; Tripodi 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011). These studies have contributed new understandings to the term pacification, but again have mainly dealt with specificities and shied away from theoretical reflection. The only solution to this dilemma would be to develop a theory of pacification from scratch and to test it on the data and material collected for this dissertation. As Koch (1983:200) already mentioned, the most efficient approach to develop such a theory would be to study various theoretical explanations for warfare, in order to isolate those aspects deemed responsible for the outbreak of wars. The general idea would then be that if the agents of the state succeed in eliminating the aspects responsible for warfare in the first place, this will lead to an effective and sustainable pacification.

24 Ending War

The theoretical analysis of processes of pacification and theories of war thus correspond with each other, as the elimination of certain factors deemed causative for warfare or the introduction of a functional equivalent for them through pacification might strengthen or the case for a particular theory. By looking at theories of warfare, it should be possible to ascertain a series of variables (considered causative for warfare) that are also important for pacification, as their elimination by the state might be a necessary precondition for pacification. The problem would consist in establishing a causal connection between these variables and pacification, as the disappearance of a certain variable could also be a result of pacification and not its cause. Testing theories of pacification that are based on theories of warfare must furthermore be done on three methodological levels: on a systemic level, to analyse how whole societies react and change under the influence of the colonial state, then on a level of collective actors, how social groups respond to strategies of pacification with their behaviour ranging from resistance to active welcoming, and on a level of individual actors, which might be offering emic explanations as to why they ceased further warfare. In this chapter, I would thus like to present some of the most current and most controversially discussed theories of non-state warfare and to come up with causative factors that a particular theory would hold responsible for pacification. I will not conduct a general overview of all theories of non-state warfare,5 as some theories do not adequately address the fact that warfare has to be seen as separate from the propensity of humans to use violence, nor will I comment on the validity of specific theories from the onset, but give a neutral description of the theoretical precepts and come up with possible changes to the situation that might enable pacification to proceed.

2.1 Theories of Non-State Warfare Warfare can be defined as a planned and organized armed conflict between autonomous political units. In the context of non-state societies, these units are mostly local groups (Helbling 2006a:34f.). Armed violence between members of the same political unit can occur, but as conflicts within a local group are either settled through a variety of institutions or then lead to a splitting of the group into two separate political units if these institutions fail, they do not in itself constitute an act of warfare. There has to be a further distinction between warfare and feud. The latter can be defined as armed violence between individuals or families, but not local groups, with the aim to take revenge for an earlier killing. Violence in feuds is governed by lex talionis, is restricted to the kin involved in the conflict, and can be substituted by compensation payments. The separation between feud and warfare can be fuzzy at times, as feuds between individuals or families can escalate to warfare between different local groups. Still, the distinction is theoretically necessary, as some hunter and gatherers, for example, do sometimes engage in feuds, but do not wage warfare (Helbling 2006a:40-45). This distinction also means that biological, socio-biological or psychological explanations for warfare will not be considered relevant for this study, as they only explain an undisputed potential of individuals for violence and aggressive behaviour, but not the circumstances under which this potential

5 An overview over different theories of non-state warfare is offered for example by Helbling (2006a), Orywal (1996), and specific for New Guinea by Hanser (1985) and Knauft (1990). Theories of War and Pacification 25 leads to wars between political units (Helbling 1999:12). The following five theories of warfare, on the other hand, clearly explain why wars break out between political units (Helbling 2006b).

2.1.1 War and Culture A culturalist theory of warfare explains war with norms, values and cognitive models that encourage violent behaviour against outsiders, prescribe an obligation of revenge and reward success in warfare with prestige. These values and norms are reproduced through socialization and martial institutions and thus create a climate for recurring acts of warfare in each generation (Goldschmidt 1986, 1997; Orywal 1996; Robarchek 1989; Robarchek/ Robarchek 1992, 1998; Ross 1992, 1993). To achieve pacification, according to this theory, it would be necessary that the norms and values change quite drastically, with peaceful behaviour becoming more valorised than violent behaviour. This might either be a gradual change over generations, or a sudden conversion of the whole society. The impact of certain types of Christianity that focus on non-violence and forgiveness is clearly one possible avenue for achieving this sudden conversion (see Lohmann 2014b for an interesting account of pacification among the Asabano achieved in this way). Practices of socialization that encourage martial behaviour – in the example of Highlands Papua New Guinea, the men’s houses and the initiation rituals – would have to be abolished as well. This line of reasoning has been used by Knauft (1993:221-223) to explain differences between the Highlands and the Gulf Coast in Papua New Guinea regarding the sustainability of pacification. Another decisive precondition for pacification would be alternative and equivalent methods of selecting leaders and rewarding men with status, which before pacification was mainly determined by assertiveness, strength and success in warfare. The typical war leaders will invariably have to give way to a different type of leadership based on non-violent criteria, especially leaders that are successful in peacefully mediating conflicts. The culturalist theory of warfare is one of the few hypotheses that have been put forward to explain a specific case of pacification, namely the pacification of the Waorani in the Ecuadorian Amazon, who according to Robarchek/Robarchek (1992, 1996) have given up warfare after female missionaries have provided them with new cultural knowledge and a new perception of reality.

2.1.2 War and Economy An economic-ecological theory of warfare explains wars with the competition for important resources and/or population growth, which adds pressure to a dwindling resource base. War becomes a means to secure vital and scarce resources (mostly arable land, but also stocks of game, imported trade goods or even women) to the detriment of other groups, by chasing them away or annihilating them (Chagnon 1983, 1988; Ferguson 1989; Harris 1977, 1984; Meggitt 1977; Rappaport 1984; Vayda 1961, 1976). Ember and Ember (1994:194-96) have noticed that scarcity does not necessarily have to exist for this effect to take place, the fear of future scarcity or an unpredictable resource base could already be a major motive for going to war. According to this theory, pacification could be achieved by lessening population pressure, either through an intensification of agriculture, accessing alternative resources or establishing other economic sectors besides agriculture, and through the strengthening of distributive mechanisms. A decrease of population growth, resettlement programs or the possibility of work migration would also have a positive effect on the process of pacification, as this would lower the number of resource users and thus lessen population pressure. Another aspect could be judicial

26 Ending War institutions that deal with conflicts over resources effectively and efficiently and could quell any further violent conflict based on these resources, or institutions that allow for a more equitable and equal distribution of resources based on current needs. Gordon and Meggitt (1985) for example use this approach in explaining first the success of the colonial administration in curtailing land conflicts among the Enga in Papua New Guinea, and then the resurgence of warfare after the justice system had become less efficient.

2.1.3 War and Social Structure Another theory explains warfare with aspects of social structure, namely the existence of fraternal interest groups that create a system of antagonistic, politically autonomous local groups with strong internal solidarity, and a corresponding lack of cross-cutting ties that could foster and enable peaceful conflict settlement when individuals are caught in a dilemma of conflicting loyalties (Murphy 1957; Otterbein 1968, 1994, 1997; Otterbein/Otterbein 1965). Pacification processes would have to weaken these fraternal interest groups and introduce gradual changes in the social structure, for example through changing rules of postmarital residence or the increasing importance of affinal relations between local groups. An increase in freedom of movement and diversification of peaceful economic and political relations between local groups could also soften the climate of constant mistrust and have a positive effect on crosscutting loyalties. More general awareness of wider political interests through the opening up of the small-scale political spheres through contact with and inclusion in regional and national structures might also create new loyalties between erstwhile enemies. However, it would have to be made sure that this would not create new conflicts between more encompassing groups.

2.1.4 War and History A theory based on colonial history sees the documented extent of warfare in non-state societies less as an autochthonous phenomenon, but as the result of the expansion of colonial states. Wars in this view are the result of competition over positions in the trade networks radiating out from state centres. They can be exacerbated by introduced inequality and imbalances between local groups, caused by epidemics, the one-sided supply of more efficient weapons and/or the complete reorganization and reorientation of indigenous society and culture (Ferguson 1990, 1992; Ferguson/Whitehead 1992b). This theory already points out some important aspects for a theory of pacification. The influence of the state in the early phases of colonial expansion exacerbates warfare in non-state societies to almost genocidal levels, and this could lead to whole populations becoming tired of war, welcoming protection by the state and actively collaborating in ending warfare once and for all.

2.1.5 War and Politics A political theory finally explains war through the lack of a superordinate third-party authority that would have the power to settle conflicts between local groups peacefully (Koch 1974, 1983). According to the theory elaborated by Helbling (2006a, b), political autonomy and territorial immobility of local groups are the two central preconditions for the emergence of a warlike form of strategic interaction between local groups. Without the existence of a superordinate authority that could sanction and enforce bilateral agreements between such Theories of War and Pacification 27 groups to peacefully settle emerging conflicts, the involved groups can never be sure that the other group is indeed honouring such an agreement. Using concepts from game theory, this situation can be described as a prisoner’s dilemma, in which a peaceful strategy (cooperation) cannot assert itself because it is too risky. A unilateral strategy of peace can be interpreted by other groups as a sign of weakness and encourage them to attack. A strategy of confrontation, on the other hand, might not only bring advantages (if the other groups are caught unaware and can be annihilated, or dispersed and looted) but also helps to reduce the risk of an attack through deterrence and contributes to preventing massive losses through constant readiness against surprise attacks. The groups are caught in a perpetual security dilemma: unable to trust each other and fearing the other side’s aggressive potential, they have to immediately address each perceived slight by forceful means to uphold a reputation of strength and retaliation for the sake of deterrence. At the same time, groups cannot move away from conflicts because they are tied to locally concentrated resources. Moving away from conflicts would mean that they would lose their land and their harvest, in effect risking starvation. These structural preconditions, namely the lack of a superordinate authority and high opportunity costs in case of movement, explain why wars may break out at any time. It does not explain, however, why some conflicts lead to war, and some do not. It can be argued that a local group will hardly start a specific war if it cannot expect to improve its situation or at least avoid deterioration of its current position. A stronger group, at the same time, might be tempted (as long as they are still stronger) to attack a (still) weaker local group before it is too late. The relations of force between local groups are constantly fluctuating through a change of group size (by group splitting or by immigration) or through a shift in alliance relations (i.e., loss of allies or recruitment of new ones), making this a dangerous guessing game. Therefore according to Helbling (2006a, 2006b:126-127) when success is foreseeable or when worse outcomes have to be averted, local groups will attack other groups in opportune moments to decimate or rout the enemy, or at least to weaken them, and thus lessen the risk of being itself attacked in inopportune moments. And while I have been describing local groups as collective actors, it has to be emphasized that wars ultimately are the result of decisions taken by men as members of a local group. The decision to start a fight or not is reached through a delicate process of negotiation between all (male) members of the local group. Since local groups are composed of members of different kin groups, different age levels and with differing political influence, their interests do not always overlap, and there could be ‘hawks’ clamouring for retaliation and ‘doves’ trying to avert open hostilities (Helbling 2006a:532-537). As success and prowess in warfare was one of the primary qualifications for political status in the Eastern Highlands (Glasse/Lindenbaum 1971:372), there were ample incentives to start wars for reasons of political gain, especially for young men aspiring to become leaders (see Wiessner 2010 for a similar case among the Enga), but also for already established leaders trying to defend or bolster their status. This political theory of warfare can most elegantly be put to the test by looking at the perception of the indigenous population of the process of pacification. According to this theory of warfare, pacification would be the more or less reluctant acceptance of an offer by the state to overcome the prisoner’s and security dilemma and break the circle of violence through taking recourse to a powerful authority with sanctioning mechanisms. The question arises then, whether the indigenous population perceives the results of pacification as a deliverance from the constant

28 Ending War threat of violence and a gain in security, like predicted, or instead as a loss of autonomy and a culturally valuable way of life. And on the level of actual practice, whether and why they resisted or even assisted in the elimination of warfare. Helbling’s theory (2006a) in particular is well suited for a general theory of pacification, firstly because it does not exclude other aspects like resource scarcity or aggressive values, and secondly, because it focuses on indigenous actors – be it individual or collective actors in the form of clans or local groups – and attempts to analyse their decision-making processes. This leads to a hypothesis that local groups, when confronted with an expanding state, have two contrary options: either to continue with warfare or to accept pacification. The essential precondition for pacification would thus be the ability to project state power on a local level. As I will show in the next chapter, this does not only mean capacities for repression, but also capabilities for selectively reward, support and protect peaceful groups, by granting them preferential access to goods of high value, by militarily protecting them from still aggressive groups, or by co-opting traditional leaders.

2.1.6 Caveats I have already mentioned that processes of pacification can be analysed to gather clues for the reasons for endemic warfare that existed before. There are methodological and analytic problems in doing so, however. Pacification often went hand in hand with a rapid and fundamental social and cultural change, especially in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. There is the central question then, whether pacification can be analysed separately from this more general social change. Are there motives of the social actors for giving up warfare that can be isolated from the more encompassing context of modernisation, and which can present clues to pre-colonial traditional warfare, or is it not rather the case that modernisation and the hopes and aspirations created through such processes are a fundamental part of the acceptance of pacification? Peace might have to be seen as part of a new existence, part of a total package, which encompassed various aspects besides pacification. The attempts to distil specific reasons for giving up warfare that have a causal connection to the reason for pre-colonial warfare can thus be a logical fallacy. They will need an exact contextualization of the processes of pacification and a detailed depiction of all other changes connected to colonialism and modernisation. Emic statements are fundamental for analysing and evaluating indigenous motives for the acceptance of pacification. These statements create methodological challenges in their own right, as they have to be put into a social context. It has to be clear, who makes such a statement on pacification and peacefulness, at which point in time, and which interests of which social group are put forward. Indigenous groups are heterogeneous, and different individuals with differing interests will also offer different evaluations on such fundamental changes as pacification. The historical context, in which such statements are recorded are likewise crucial: During her first stays among the Chimbu in Papua New Guinea in the 1960s, for example, Paula Brown (1995:126) never heard any kind of complaint about the enforcement of pacification; on the contrary, everybody showed gratitude towards the colonial administration and the Christian missions for ending war and for interacting with and helping the local population. In interviews conducted during the 1980s in now independent Papua New Guinea, however, she collected numerous stories by older but also younger Chimbu, who heard these stories from their elders, Theories of War and Pacification 29 telling of the brutality and harshness that the Australian colonial administration employed to guarantee peace.

2.2 A Theory of Pacification Anthropologists and historians alike have hardly taken notice of the rich but disparate ethnographic and historical information on processes leading to the ending of warfare in formerly stateless societies. There are a few notable exceptions, such as the edited volumes by Rodman (1983) and El Méchat (2014a) and the special issue of the journal Anthropologica edited by Lohmann (2014a), that have attempted to analyse, compare and theoretically reflect on these processes of pacification. What Rodman (1983:17) deplored more than 20 years ago in her introduction to her anthology devoted to pacification in Melanesia, however, that “the anthropological material dealing with pacification is notable more for quantity of description than for examination of the reasons underlying observed events,” still rings true today. It was always the ethnographical and historical description and not the search for underlying reasons, which stood at the centre of pacification studies. There are a number of excellent ethnographical monographs depicting processes of pacification in meticulous detail, for example, by Ferguson (1995) on the Yanomami in Brazil and Venezuela, by Yost (1981) and Robarchek/Robarchek (1996, 1998) on the Waorani in Ecuador, by Scott (1975, 1998), Rosaldo (1980) and Fry (1983) on the Ilongot in the Philippines, by Pringle (1970) and Wagner (1972) on the Iban on Sarawak, by Johnson (1981, 1982, 1986), Kelly (1985) and Hutchinson (1996) on the Nuer in Sudan, by Keesing (1992) on the Kwaio on Malaita, or in Papua New Guinea by Wiessner/Tumu (1998) and Gordon/Meggitt (1985) on the Mai-Enga, by Clark (2000) and Strathern (1984) on the Wiru, the latter also on the Melpa, Brown (1995) on the Chimbu, Schieffelin (1995) on the Bosavi and Görlich (1999) on the Kobon, as well as Radford (1987) on groups in the Kainantu area. Those studies provide a starting point for this thesis by evoking a broad range of possible causal relations between the different variables in the pacification process. They have further shown that an explanation of the successful elimination of traditional warfare can only be attempted by considering not solely levels of force and repression by the state, but also the interests, strategies and cultural perceptions of the people concerned. However, most of those studies are rather descriptive and lack a comparative or theoretical outlook; or are then concerned with different theoretical arguments and only touch upon the process of pacification very lightly. None of them attempts to give a systematic and multi-dimensional explanation for the end of warfare. All of them focus on one specific locality or ethnic group, or, like Strathern (1984), compare two groups who came under government control at different times and under different circumstances. My approach is therefore unique insofar as it attempts to compare and explain divergent processes of pacification that unfold during the same period and are initiated by the same colonial government in closely related cultural areas. I have conducted a thorough review of all these case studies, and based on this review and the general theory of non-state warfare by Helbling (2006a), it becomes clear that for processes of pacification to be successful, they need to be able to overcome the security dilemma in which local groups are caught up in, and influence local incentive structures in such a way that warfare is no longer seen as a valid option when conflicts arise. Helbling (2006b) has formulated this interrelation in the following theory of pacification, which forms the cornerstone of this thesis:

30 Ending War

A general peace can be achieved in a region if the state (or another superordinate instance) systematically punishes a unilateral confrontational strategy (selective repression), efficiently rewards a peaceful strategy (selective reward) and establishes alternative institutions for the peaceful settlement of conflicts. (Helbling 2006b:129)

These three general strategies to achieve pacification (repression, rewards, and judicial institutions) can be further delineated and specified (see also Helbling/Schwoerer forthcoming): 1. Repression: Representatives of the state use various forms of repression to force groups that continue to use autonomous violence to settle their conflicts peacefully. They punish groups unwilling to submit to the authority of the state and retaliate against groups that attack representatives of the state or other groups under the state’s protection. The state can use repression differently, however: in the form of systematic, swift and consistent punishment of bellicose groups or in the form of sporadic and unsystematic punitive expeditions that might even hit the wrong targets. The choice between these two forms often depends on the available means (i.e., troops, money, administrative posts) and the intent and determination of the state to control the area. A preference for military means to subdue recalcitrant communities is much more apparent in earlier periods of colonial expansion and imperialism, especially wherever pacification was in the hands of the military. Repression can also be biased to the disadvantage of certain indigenous groups, or it can be employed impartially. Biased repression occurs mainly in cases where the state resorts to the use of indigenous allies and auxiliaries traditionally at odds with the groups to be pacified. Those allies easily manipulate state agents in their own interest and might provoke additional violent conflicts. Impartial repression, on the other hand, takes place where the state is taking recourse to uniform and transparent rules of law and where it treats all groups equally. Another distinction can be made between moderate and excessive repression. Moderate violence is contented with the punishment of individual culprits through the confiscation of property, fines, prison sentences or trade embargoes. In contrast, excessive violence includes massacres, the destruction of houses, fields, gardens and granaries and the killing of domestic animals. But state actors do not only use repressive tactics. 2. Rewards: Representatives of the state also selectively reward groups willing to lay down their arms and to remain peaceful by providing them and especially their leaders with highly favoured prestige goods. Furthermore, they extend appointments and positions in the state’s administration, jobs and trade opportunities. An important precondition for such a strategy of selective rewards is that the state can control an indigenous population’s access to such highly favoured goods. Again, it is important to distinguish selective rewards (goods and appointments) and indiscriminate rewards (such as trade opportunities), which differ in their degree of influencing the behaviour of the beneficiaries. The fact that many pacifying states use such non-violent tactics challenges the prevailing perspective of pacification that focuses on the authoritative and repressive aspects of the state monopoly of violence. These potential benefits for local groups have to be seen in contrast to the disadvantages that might coincide with pacification, especially the burdens of colonialism such as the loss of autonomy, taxes and forced labour. It is the balance between perceived advantages and disadvantages for local groups that significantly affects their reactions to the rewards offered by state actors. Theories of War and Pacification 31

3. Judicial Institutions. A third strategy of the state is the establishment of judicial institutions that enable peaceful settlements of conflicts between the pacified local groups. According to Koch (1983: 205), “pacification without establishing institutions for the settlement of disputes makes an imposed peace a treacherous truce at best.” For such institutions to be successful in the long term, it is vital that the state empowers legitimate institutions and personnel that are accepted by the local people. As Koch (1983: 206) states: “to be workable and reliable and thus effective, jural institutions regardless of the degree of their formal elaboration require, first, the involvement of third parties cognizant of customary law and, second, an active participation in the proceedings by the litigants.” To allow for extensive participation, the state, instead of or in addition to establishing its own institutions, also has the option to modify and support the operation of autochthonous judicial institutions on the local and regional level and thus allow forms of legal pluralism (Gordon/Meggitt 1985; Koch 1983:206). This strategy depends on the ability of the state to co-opt legitimate indigenous leaders and to entrust them with tasks in the colonial administration on the local level, i.e. local jurisdiction, enforcement of state law and representation of the local community vis-à-vis the state. These three strategies were always contingent on the strategies of the indigenous groups as well. A repressive approach of the state is sometimes the reaction to armed resistance by indigenous groups, just as the handing out of selective rewards is dependent on indigenous groups to welcome and collaborate with representatives of the state. This means that processes of pacification are not only dependent on the deliberate choice and the self-image of the pacifying state but also just as much, if not more, on differences between the indigenous groups and their environment. Therefore, it becomes imperative to investigate the reasons and possibilities for resistance on the side of the indigenous groups, and to ascertain the cause for collaboration and cooperation. Religious beliefs, indigenous cosmologies and local lifeworlds often sustain long-standing resistance against colonial intrusion but can also facilitate the spread of government control.

3 Culture and Society This chapter aims to give an account of pre-colonial society and culture in the research area. I will pay special attention to aspects that exhibit notable differences between the three ethnic groups of the Fore, Auyana and Southern Tairora, as they could be significant in accounting for the different trajectory of pacification processes. While such differences exist, they are often more differences of scale or emphasis than categorical differences, as these different ethnic groups have always interacted and influenced each other. The large-scale microevolution project organized by the University of Washington (Watson 1963) is pertinent in this regard. The researchers engaged in this project attempted to analyse and categorize differences between four ethnic groups within the Kainantu Sub-district (the Gadsup, Tairora, Auyana and Awa) and over the course of the project realized that their original working hypothesis – that these four groups evolved independently from each other out of a common base population, and then diversified based on different environmental factors – was untenable. As these groups constantly interacted with each other and exchanged cultural traits, it was not the single ethnic groups as such that evolved and diversified, but the region as a whole (Welsch 1996:152f.).

3.1 Social, Political and Economic Structure of the Indigenous Society The Kainantu Sub-district is an area of about 3000 km2 of mostly hilly and mountainous character between 1075 and 3550 meters above sea level. It is characterized in the north by the rolling hills of the Ramu River basin and in the south by the more rugged catchment area of the Lamari River. The Kratke mountain range running east to west separates the northern part from the actual fieldwork area in the south. It constitutes not only a topographical boundary but also a boundary of colonial influence, as the Australian administration already controlled the northern part before World War II. These two river valleys are the first in a row of long, mostly east-west oriented valleys forming the densely populated Papua New Guinea Highlands. The Kainantu Sub-district is hemmed in in the north by the Bismarck-Range, and in the east by the sudden drop of the Markham Falls down to the Markham Valley thousand meters below. In the southeast, the range between the Lamari and Aziana River separates the Highlands proper from the Highland fringe populated by the Anga. In the southwest, a row of increasingly smaller unpopulated hills separates the Fore from the Papuan communities several days walk away further south. The zone of settlement generally lies between 1250 and 2200m. Above 2300m the climatic conditions no longer permit the planting of sweet potatoes and other food, while malaria is a limiting factor below 1250m. The capital of the sub-district, Kainantu, lies on 1500m, the climate is temperate, with an average temperature of 22° to 25°C in summer, and 12° to 15°C in winter. There is a perceptible difference between two seasons: a warmer and slightly wetter season between October and April, and a colder and drier period with some nights of frost between May and September. Most of the yearly precipitation of 2000-2500 mm is between December and March, often in the form of tropical downpours, but hardly a month passes without rain (Pataki-Schweizer 1980:18-22; Radford 1987:6f.). At the beginning of the 1960s, the research area had a population of about 58'000 people. The Kamano and Fore were the numerically largest groups with 12'000 people each, followed by the Tairora with 10'000, the Agarabi with 9'000, the Gadsup with 7'000, the Auyana with 4'500, 34 Ending War the Awa with 1'500 and the Usurufa and Oiyana with nearly 1'000 people each (Bennet 1962:29; Berndt 1971:381f.; Feil 1987:42; Pataki-Schweizer 1980:145). Those numbers, however, do not correspond to the actual numbers of inhabitants in pre-colonial times, since high population increase occurred after pacification (Westermark 1981:96). An estimated 250 local groups, with an average people-to-land ratio of 19 persons/km2, inhabited this area. A conspicuous north- to-south gradient can be observed, with population densities falling from 40 pers./km2 among the Gadsup in the north, to 26 pers./km2 among the Kamano, 24 pers./km2 among the Auyana, 21pers./km2 among the North Fore, 18 pers./km2 among the Southern Tairora, 10 pers./km2 among the South Fore and down to 8.5 pers./km2 among the Awa (Lindenbaum 1975:68; Pataki-Schweizer 1980:137). Each local group consisted of one village or several settlements (or hamlets) erected within shouting distance of each other, linked with foot tracks and always at a marked distance from settlements of other local groups. Most of these settlements were situated on small hills, ridges or similar easily defendable places. They consisted of at least one men’s house and several women’s houses, all together surrounded by a wooden palisade and gardens for subsistence agriculture. Sometimes an inner palisade surrounded the men’s house again, or the stockade around the men’s house was the sole defensive structure. The average size of a settlement among the Gadsup, Tairora, Auyana and Awa in the years 1962/63 was 240 people (with a standard deviation of 113), and each local group controlled a territory with an average size of 12.6 km2 (with a standard deviation of 8.5). The size of these local groups markedly decreased from north to south, from an average of 309 pers./village among the Gadsup, to 248 pers./village among the Auyana, 226 pers./village among the Tairora, 180 pers./village among the Fore, and down to 172 pers./village among the Awa (Glasse/Lindenbaum 1971:362; Pataki-Schweizer 1980:45, 66f., 91, 108, 137). This difference between the ethnic groups can only partially be attributed to the more recent pacification and the lower degree of acculturation of the more southern groups. The villages in the south were not only smaller, but they also consisted of a larger number of component settlements, due to the rugged terrain, so that even fewer people inhabited a single hamlet. Whereas an average of 125 people cohabited in a single settlement among the Gadsup, the number drops to 85 people among the Southern Tairora and 39 people among the Auyana (Pataki-Schweizer 1980:111f.). The size of the territory controlled by a local group also varied, from 8 km2 among the Gadsup, 10 km2 among the Auyana, 13 km2 among the Southern Tairora, 16 km2 among the Northern Tairora, to 20 km2 among the Awa (Pataki- Schweizer 1980:137).

3.1.1 Social Structure There has been a long and controversial debate regarding the characteristics of social groups in the New Guinea Highlands. It started when anthropologists schooled in the British structure- functionalist tradition encountered communities that did not seem to fit the established anthropological dogma that non-state societies were organized around corporate, lineage-based groups. Criteria for recruitment and membership in such groups in the Highlands were not readily observable or did not correspond to the then-current theory of unilineal descent. This challenging context led to the creation of a multiplicity of new terms in an attempt to describe the various levels of social groups encountered, and social structure was often designated as ‘flexible’ or ‘loose’ (Watson 1970:109f.), open towards people that did not fit the criteria of Culture and Society 35 membership postulated by anthropologists. Some even questioned whether identifiable and bounded social groups actually exist in the New Guinea Highlands (Wagner 1974). Already in 1962, Barnes warned, that it would be a fallacy to attempt to press Highland New Guinea social structure into simplistic ‘African models’ developed by Radcliffe-Brown (1950) with their high emphasis on agnatic descent as the sole criterion for recruitment of individuals to social groups. Other criteria for membership could be just as critical: Clearly, genealogical connexion of some sort is one criterion for membership of many social groups. But it may not be the only criterion; birth, or residence, or a parent’s former residence, or utilization of garden land, or participation in exchange and feasting activities, or in house-building or raiding, may be other relevant criteria for group membership. (Barnes 1990:47)

The problem of criteria for membership in describing social structure in the New Guinea Highlands has thus been partly brought about by the import of ill-fitting models, but it has also been compounded by the existence of a difference between an emic ideology of belonging and observable reality. The people of a population cluster in the study area would insist on describing their composition based on a dogma of agnatic descent and would present themselves as a biologically or then at least sociologically (through adoption) related group (Robbins 1982:108-110; Watson 1983:253f.). Closer investigations by anthropologists invariably revealed a large number of non-agnates living in local groups – almost 30% among the Auyana (Robbins 1982:119) – and a constant flow of individuals between social groups. Watson (1970, 1983) postulated this as one of the distinctive characteristics of Highland societies, and he proposed a concept of social organization as ‘organized flow’. Descent and residence were thus not correlated, as Brown (1962) had already shown for the Simbu in the Central Highlands. Langness (1964), who did fieldwork among the Benabena in the Eastern Highlands, was one of the first to note that: … the simple fact of residence in a Korofeigu group can and does determine kinship. People do not, necessarily, reside where they do because they are kinsmen, rather, they become kinsmen because they reside there. (Langness 1964:50)

Biological agnatic descent was thus used as a symbol for the unity and common identity of a group of individuals who share common residency and support each other, a symbol that did not necessarily reflect genealogical reality (Lindenbaum 1979:42). It is the behaviour that co- residents of a local group exhibit towards each other, behaviour that characterizes nurturing and protective qualities, which turn them into kin. In situations where there is a high influx of new individuals and groups, mostly due to the vagaries of warfare, it made sense for Highland groups to be open towards incorporating these immigrants, especially when they had among them a fresh supply of marriageable women. The local group can be considered the most important social and political unit in the Eastern Highlands. As had been argued above, co-residence and the possession of a common territory was the underlying principle of social organization and of even greater weight than kinship, even though the inhabitants often employed genealogical terms in explaining the structure of

36 Ending War their community. I therefore consciously use the term local group6 to refer to this socio-political unit to emphasize the importance of co-residence and defence of a common territory over descent as the central organizing principle. A local group can be defined as the largest socio- political and economic unit of importance and relative permanence, and it usually is readily observable in the landscape. It is perceived by its inhabitants as a unit, has its own name, defends a common territory and is politically and economically completely autonomous (Du Toit 1975:31; Robbins 1982:71-83; Watson 1992:169). The local group was not the largest socio-political unit everywhere in the Eastern Highlands, however. Regional groups,7 comprising a few local groups (but sometimes also only one), existed among the Agarabi, the Gadsup and Northern Tairora. They were also perceived as a unit, had a common name and possessed a commonly defended territory. This regional group was the most extensive unit within which warfare was nominally restricted. But such a regional group was always less important than the local group, its membership was fluctuating, and collaboration between its component units not always forthcoming, especially in offensive warfare (Watson 1983:223; Westermark 1981:89f.). The other ethnic groups either did not know such regional units above the level of local groups, like the Awa, or the regional group would lead just a shadowy existence of only ritual importance, like among the Fore (Hayano 1972:46; Lindenbaum 1979:39f.) and the Southern Tairora, where the local groups within such a regional group also waged war with each other. As had been shown above, local groups usually encompass more than one settlement or hamlet. The Australian colonial administration partially used these local groups as administrative census units, although there is considerable slippage in the application of this concept. Sometimes, single settlements of one local group were designated as multiple census units, while elsewhere different local groups were grouped into one administrative unit, which could lead to considerable confusion and sometimes strife (Du Toit 1975:39; Sorenson 1972:364f.). In some areas, government agents urged people to consolidate their dispersed hamlets of one official census unit into one larger, unified settlement. This meant that the residential situation at the time of the first ethnographic description no longer accorded with the reality before pacification, which made it difficult to gain information about pre-colonial settlement structures. This is exemplified in the example of the Agarabi villages of Aiamontina, Punano Nr.1 and Unanto, which emerged as administrative villages out of a mass of dispersed hamlets. Inhabitants of one village would consider themselves also belonging to the other two villages, which later led to considerable difficulties when colonial officers attempted to delineate boundaries between these units, as one particular piece of land could be used by people from all three villages (Kainantu PR 1952/53/7). The colonial emphasis on the village as an

6 A problem for any comparison of groups in the Eastern Highland is the fact that different ethnographers have given social units a number of different names. What I will henceforth describe as a local group together with Watson (1983), has also been designated as a ‘village’ (Du Toit 1975; Mandeville 1979), ‘sovereignty’ (Boyd 1975; Hayano 1972; Robbins 1982), ‘phratry’ (Newman 1981), ‘district’ (Berndt 1962), ‘parish’ (Lindenbaum 1979), ‘population cluster’ (Sorenson 1976) and ‘bounded complex’ (Pataki-Schweizer 1980).

7 Regional groups have been either called ‘phratry’ (Glasse/Lindenbaum 1971; Watson 1983; Westermark 1981) or ‘district’ (Du Toit 1975; Lindenbaum 1979). Culture and Society 37 administrative unit undoubtedly strengthened the feeling of belonging of an existing or newly created local group. Still, local groups already existed in pre-contact times and were not complete colonial interventions as has been asserted elsewhere (Barker 1996). With population growth, a lot of these colonial units have by now given way again to the earlier local groups. Mayer (1987) for example consistently writes of the Yonura local group in the Obura area, reflecting local usage at the time, as the three local groups of Samura, Sonura and Mussaori had not only been administratively unified but also physically consolidated into one ‘village’ after 1963. During my fieldwork a generation later, people again exclusively referred to the pre- colonial units of Samura, Sonura and Mussaori in presenting themselves to me, as these local groups have again physically moved away from each other. Apart from the hamlet settlements as residential units of a local group, there exist other, more genealogically defined units. The smallest of these corporate units apart from the family was the lineage8, a genealogical unit whose members shared a known (and usually male) ancestor. Genealogies were never totally exact, however, because genealogical knowledge was relatively shallow, not extending over more than five or six generations, and could vary enormously between individuals of different age and political ambition (Berndt 1971:386; Du Toit 1975:65). These lineages were relatively small. Among the Fore that Lindenbaum (1979:40) studied in Wanitabe, lineages encompassed between 71 and 4 individuals, with a mean of 39. Male members of the same lineage would typically live together in a settlement and share a men’s house, help each other with strenuous tasks, perform ceremonies and arrange marriages together (Berndt 1971:386f.; Leininger 1966:103f.). Several such lineages taken together formed a clan9, a unit that asserts descent from a common ancestor, without being able to trace all genealogical linkages. The clan was the most important corporate unit within a local group, especially regarding warfare and religious ceremonies. Clan members marry exogamously, but this general rule was usually not upheld when it came to clan members that were newly incorporated into the clan after they had been routed from their original local group through warfare (Glasse/Lindenbaum 1971:368). Among the Kamano, Usurufa, Awa and Auyana, the members of a clan tended to live together in a settlement. In contrast, among the Fore its membership was distributed over several settlements within a local group and among the Agarabi, Gadsup and Tairora even over different local groups within a regional group. Several clans taken together could form phratries, the largest genealogically defined unit (Berndt 1971:387; Du Toit 1975:57; Fortune 1947b:244; Hayano 1972:150; Westermark 1981:90). As a summary, it can be said that communities in the Eastern Highlands consist on the one hand of territorially defined units, from the women’s house to the men’s house, the settlement and the local group to the regional group, and on the other hand of units defined by kinship, from the family to the lineage, the clan and the phratry. The territorial and kin categories do not necessarily overlap, as has been shown. Members of a settlement are not just all members of

8 Boyd (1975), Hayano (1972) and Robbins (1982) und use the term ‘sub-pooling unit’.

9 The term ‘clan’ is used by Berndt (1962), Du Toit (1975), Leininger (1966), and Newman (1981), while others prefer the terms ‘sib’ (Watson 1983), ‘pooling unit’ (Boyd 1975; Hayano 1972; Robbins 1982) and ‘line’ (Lindenbaum 1979).

38 Ending War the same clan, and while men of the same lineage often co-reside in one men’s house, that same men’s house also contains men from other lineages. The flow and migrations of individuals and groups in the Eastern Highlands are too frequent and on too large a scale that it would be possible to generate easily and clearly distinguishable social units (Watson 1983:206). Territorial and kin units were furthermore in constant flux and subject to fission and fusion. There are indications that a local group in pre-colonial times hardly encompassed more than 300 individuals. If a local group reached that upper limit, increasing conflicts among the population often lead to a split, and part of the group would move elsewhere and found a new local group. This new local group could keep close relations with the original group for quite some time, but further fission and fusion often led to the emergence of two regional groups (Du Toit 1975:38-40; Watson 1983:242-247). The endemic warfare was the driver behind most of the formation of new units and the dissolution of old ones. Settlements of a local group would support each other against common enemies and would refrain from violence among them. A local group only continued to exist as long as all component groups had a collective will in maintaining this political unity, however. Especially after military defeats and losses, a local group could slowly or suddenly dissolve, either losing individual members tired of fighting or then be routed entirely, with surviving lineages each fleeing to different neighbouring local groups where they have kin. After a while, and when circumstances were more advantageous, these units might reunite again as a local group and return to their original territory (Berndt 1971:387f., 410f.). An individual thus moves in an ego-centred network of kin and friendship relations. The most important social ties were with kin, affines and friends living in the same local group, then with other members of the local group, and only afterwards with kin and friends outside one’s local group. Affines were part of one’s interest group, as they constitute an essential base for politically ambitious men. Relations with immediate affines were generally closer than with more distantly related consanguine kin, especially if the latter were members of other local groups (Du Toit 1964:90-92, 1975:59-61). Close, kin-like relations were also maintained with classificatory kin, age mates and namesakes, and among the Fore, it was possible to create kin- like relationships through the exchange of wealth (Glasse 1969:30-34; Lindenbaum/Glasse 1969; Lindenbaum 1979:46-50). The kinship system was thus flexible, descent and belonging could be manipulated and reformulated depending on the current political circumstances. These relations were always in flux, and the system was open for changes. People often left a local group as individuals or en bloc, moved to another settlement where they already had kin or friends, and where they were quickly integrated (Watson 1983:9f.). It can be concluded, that from an individual’s point of view, all those people were considered kin that behaved towards him or her in a positive and reciprocal manner, regardless of genealogical connection (Glasse 1969:37).

3.1.2 Political Leadership There are slight differences in the type of political leadership between the groups under study, which I will expound upon further in the case studies. Suffice it to say that social hierarchies in the Eastern Highlands generally followed Feil’s (1987:89-111) so-called ‘despotic’ type, war leaders that enjoyed a certain degree of authority due to their use of violence and intimidation. Positions of status and authority in the Eastern Highlands could only be achieved through Culture and Society 39 superior capabilities and talents in warfare, sorcery and diplomacy, in contrast to the ‘Big Man’ more prevalent in the Western Highlands, whose authority rested on the skilful accumulation and redistribution of status goods. While the Auyana and Southern Tairora fit this description, and while war leaders were clearly also a feature among the Fore, the latter also had other leaders whose influence was more based on wealth and the distribution of wealth than on their prowess in warfare, as will be demonstrated in Chapter 5. The number of leaders within a group was not limited, but usually, one or two clearly designated leaders occupied rather stable positions at the top, while the ranking among other aspiring leaders was hotly contested. But even the status of these designated leaders at the top fluctuated with their fortunes in war and decreased with old age and waning strength (Berndt 1971:390; Hawkes 1978; Hayano 1972:216-218; 1974b). Sometimes especially powerful individuals succeeded in expanding their influence beyond their local groups and created a fragile web of alliance and personal following between several local groups. Such generally aggressive men were feared even within their own local group, and they could at times transgress social norms, as the examples of Matoto from Abiera (Watson 1971) and Pupuna from Akuna (Leininger 1966: 89) show. Such ferocious warriors and despotic leaders were tolerated, as their political alliances and warlike reputation benefited all members of the local group. But even those so- called despotic war leaders didn’t have actual power of command over all of their followers and were not immune to attacks and betrayal (Watson 1971:273f.). Such leaders could only give direct orders to lower-status men, who were afraid to be physically challenged or humiliated by the leader (Hayano 1972:213). Despotism thus had its limits, and Roscoe (2000:92) points out that “the most successful leaders were not the truly despotic but the judiciously despotic, men who combined intimidation with circumspection, who knew the extent to which force could be used before it became counter-productive.” As the men’s house was the focal point of politics, and all affairs of a local group would be discussed within its walls, a despotic leader could make his influence felt and could not be ignored, however. It seems only logical, for example, that the coordination of the daily walk to the gardens and back was in the hands of experienced war leaders due to the constant danger of enemy attacks (Watson 1971:250f.).

3.1.3 Modes of Production All inhabitants of the Eastern Highlands were sedentary horticulturists and pig farmers, with only slight differences in techniques and intensity of production. The staple food was sweet potato, which was planted together with tubers like yams, taro and kudzu, and other crops like winged beans, pitpit, sugar cane, bananas and several kinds of leafy greens in perennial gardens. Sweet potatoes were introduced to the New Guinea Highlands in the 16th or 17th century, and spread quickly, achieving a predominance of almost 90% of all foodstuff consumed (Watson 1967:82f.; 1983:32-39). Only the Awa in the far south of the Kainantu Sub-district planted more yams and taro than sweet potatoes, which were still considered to be mainly pig fodder (Boyd 1975:99f.). A few new plants introduced to the Pacific area by Europeans predate the arrival of the first Europeans in the Highlands, among them tobacco, maize, squash or pumpkin, different types of beans and cassava. Outside of the gardens, some other plant species were planted systematically, especially fast-growing casuarina trees for construction material and firewood, but also bamboo, cordyline plants or reed canes. Wild areca palms and pandanus trees

40 Ending War were claimed by individuals, their products harvested, and on occasion, such trees were even purposefully planted or transplanted (Watson 1983:30-36). Gardens were established in forests or grassland using slash-and-burn techniques and occupied for six to ten years until productivity decreased, after which they were left to lie fallow and converted back into grassland or secondary bush. Often, gardens were abandoned before their productivity fell, due to warfare or a move of hamlets away from these specific gardens. Robbins (1982:61) reports that gardens could be continuously planted between eight and thirteen years, in a few exceptional cases even sixteen to twenty years, while Du Toit (1975:168) reports for the Gadsup a typical cycle of six to eight years. Robbins (1982:61) further estimates that a garden would have to lie fallow for at least fifteen years to restore it to full productivity. Establishing new gardens was men’s work and usually accomplished by small working groups or related men. If gardens were made in grassland, the high grass was first cut or set on fire. If they were established in primary or secondary forests, the first step was to cut down the undergrowth and smaller trees, and to chop off branches of large trees or to ringbark them. Next, the whole area had to be fenced to protect the garden from the deprivations of wild and domestic pigs. Drainage trenches had to be dug, as sweet potatoes grow better in dry soil. After fencing and trenching, the garden becomes the domain of women, who do most of the tilling and planting with their digging sticks. Only a few crops, mainly yams, sugarcane and banana, are planted and harvested primarily by men. After having established new gardens, men busy themselves by taking care of the dispersed tree crops, going hunting for game and by guarding and protecting the women working in the gardens from potential attacks (Robbins 1982:52-61; Watson 1983:31-39, 47). The Awa and some Southern Tairora groups to the south of the Lamari river constructed irrigation systems from hollow bamboo tubes, which brought water from creeks to taro gardens over distances of several hundred meters, as taro could only grow in slightly swampy soil (Boyd 1975:100). The first colonial officers reaching these areas were rather impressed by this feat of hydrology and reported about it several times in their patrol reports: A most interesting feature of native agricultural methods in these taro areas is the system of irrigation. ... This consists of long lines of bamboo pipe lines which bring the water down, from high up on mountain sides, in easy gradients to the garden. These pipelines criss-cross the slopes and lead over spurs in all directions, sometimes in double lines and up to half a mile in length, with the bamboo pipes supported on stakes. The narrow end of one fits into the larger end of the next and the gradient is so gradual that there is no powerful force of water so that it is very rare to see leaks at the joints and a full pipe is brought to the garden. (Kainantu PR 1949/50/2)

Land suitable to the establishment of new gardens was freely available to any member or accepted co-resident of the local group that controlled the territory. Ownership over land under cultivation and then left fallow was regulated through long-term usufruct rights, as the preparation of a new garden involved a significant investment of labour. If someone else wanted to establish a garden on the same lot, the previous owner had to be consulted. Sons could thus press claims on old gardens that their fathers had established. However, conflicts over garden Culture and Society 41 land did not often occur, as most local groups had ample land suitable for gardening, and rights to land would eventually lapse after more extended fallow periods (Du Toit 1975:167f.; Robbins 1982:56f.; Watson 1983:44f.). Apart from horticulture, the raising of pigs was the most important and most prestigious economic activity. Pigs were the universal and one of the most valuable commodities of exchange in the traditional system of gift exchange in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Pigs were given away to strengthen social and ritual relationships and to gain renown and prestige. Pigs, for the most part, roamed around freely foraging for food during the day but were also fed with scraps and cooked or uncooked sweet potatoes on a daily or almost daily basis, usually in the evening, so that they would remain domesticated and not run away. This feeding constituted a significant part of their diet and keeping several pigs required significant yields from several gardens. At night, the pigs were kept in the women’s houses, and people at times formed close bonds with these animals (Boyd 1984:28-35; Watson 1983:49-54). The intensity of pig husbandry could vary considerably within as well as between local groups. Among the Northern Tairora, local groups in a grassland setting seemed to have higher pig populations as villages situated near forests. The grassland village of Abiera had a total of 450 pigs (2.4/inhabitants), while the similarly-sized village of Batainabura located near forests only held 121 pigs (0.65/inhabitant) (Watson 1983:52). There might be an additional north-to-south gradient, as the Awa village of Ilakiah only kept a total of 0.41 pigs per inhabitant, according to Boyd (1975:101). Hunting, trapping, and gathering of forest products were additional means of production. These were not necessary for survival but were seen as enjoyable and exciting activities, offering a diversion from garden work and providing luxury items rich in protein. Hunting was a quintessentially male activity that brought them into contact with the wild and the supernatural, and the forest and forest products, especially game, had a ritual significance that far surpassed their caloric value. Hunting was a frequent topic of discussion, and good hunters could gain particular renown. Cassowaries and wild pigs were the most prized game animals, but men also hunted and trapped all kinds of marsupials, birds, in some areas even snakes, they trapped eel in creeks and collected the large eggs of megapodes. Women and children hunted and caught for rats and other small rodents, and collected grubs, larvae and some larger insects (Robbins 1982:65f.; Watson 1983:57-60). Vital resources, such as land for gardens and water, were available in abundance for all groups. Wood for building and heating purposes could be a scarce resource for some groups among the Northern Tairora situated in the grasslands. Still, they did not feel disadvantaged compared to other groups close to stands of old-growth forest, because this lack was in their eyes compensated by the higher yield of their gardens and correspondingly larger pig herds (Watson 1983:8, 17). In the still more densely wooded areas of the Fore and the Auyana, this problem was non-existent. In the wide-open valley of the Lamari River, communities were situated along the upper slopes, each with access to the forest higher up. The only scarce vital resource, therefore, was not land or goods, but people. In an environment fraught with warfare, the main emphasis lay on uniting within a group as many men capable of wielding weapons and women producing food as possible (Lindenbaum 1971:278; Westermark 1981:96).

42 Ending War

No local group was completely self-sufficient to cover all their needs, however, and this led to trade for scarcer resources like salt, stone adzes, shells, decorative feathers, hardwood for producing bows and arrowheads, wooden bowls and clay pots (Watson 1983:8). Some of these goods, especially shells and stone adze heads, were traded over long distances from their point of origin, in stages from local groups to the next. Trade was deeply connected to ceremonial and socio-political relations between individuals of different local groups (Du Toit 1975:195). A few Western goods, like textiles and steel axes and knives, also increasingly found their way into yet uncontacted areas through these trade relations. These rare goods reached the area either from the east, from the Markham Valley, or then from the south, from the Gulf Coast on the same routes that were used to bring shell valuables into the Highlands. After the discovery of the Highlands, the flow of goods increased, and in some areas changed directions, as the newly established government and mission stations near Kainantu were new sources for such goods trickling into unexplored regions to the south (Berndt 1952/53:51, 55).

3.1.4 Relations between Local Groups Local groups in the Eastern Highlands were situated in a small-scale, spatially limited social context. Most contacts with other local groups were restricted to immediate neighbours, preferred partners for alliance and marriage relations. In contrast, communities further away were seldom visited, and then mostly for trade purposes (Hayano 1972:133-144). Contacts with local groups that were situated more than a day’s walk away hardly existed, and information about such groups was vague and usually acquired second-hand from communities in between (Watson/Watson 1972; Newman 1972). Relations between local groups in the immediate vicinity were diverse, fluid, ever-changing, and ranged from enmity and warfare to friendship, including marriage arrangements and gift-exchange. Since the rule of exogamy only pertained to the clan, marriages could be arranged both within and between local groups, but marriages within the local group were preferred in order to strengthen the cohesion of the group (Du Toit 1975:252-256; Hayano 1974a:284f.). Among the Awa in Tauna, 56% of all marriages took place within the local group (Hayano 1974a:284) and in Ilakiah 82% (Newman 1981:110). Among the Northern Tairora investigated by Watson (1983:196) 58% of all marriages in Abiera and 81% of all marriages in Batainabura took place within the local group. Village endogamy even increased after pacification, soaring from 30% of all marriages to 74% among the Fore community of Wanitabe, where Lindenbaum (1979:43) conducted her research. Marriages outside the local group were usually conducted with adjacent local groups, and bride-price payments, as well as gift-exchanges between affinal relatives, were an essential arena for aspiring men to create new personal bonds of alliance and friendship (Du Toit 1975:252-256; Hayano 1974a:284f.). Marriage has to be understood as a reciprocal exchange of persons and goods between two kin groups. The group of the groom would offer prestations (or in some cases another marriage partner) in exchange for the bride, or more precisely, for certain marital rights of the groom over the bride. The groups involved in these exchanges are loosely defined interest groups of kin and members of the same local group, which have close social bonds to the groom or the bride, or their parents, and who contribute to the bride price and would also receive parts of the exchange prestations (Du Toit 1975:249). Direct exchange of women between local groups also occurred, mostly if the groups in question were not on good terms with each other, which might Culture and Society 43 make the exchange of goods difficult (Hayano 1974a:288). Bride price payments consisted of a range of important and valuable products, at least one pig but usually more, garden vegetables, items of clothing, weapons, stone adzes, shell valuables, decorative feathers and so on (Du Toit 1975:266; Robbins 1982:90). Affinal relations were not limited to the payment of bride price. Continuing exchange of prestations over the years was usual and expected. This exchange was usually non-reciprocal, and more goods flowed from the kin group of the husband to the group of the wife than vice versa (Hayano 1972:181f.). Such prestations between members of different local groups were characterized by a degree of formality not present in those between kind groups. They were consciously staged as a public event with the aim to strengthen personal bonds (Hayano 1974a:285). Marriage and affinal relations did not automatically lead to military alliances between local groups, as marriage was only seen as a personal bond between the directly involved groups. Such personal bonds of friendship were important for direct exchanges of rare and coveted goods, however, which were passed on from one local group to the other over short distances. Most men limited their trade excursions to other local groups nearby, not more than a day’s walk distance (Watson 1981:151). In some communities situated near extensive tracts of uninhabited areas, like among the South Fore, some trade expeditions could take two or three days to reach the next communities in the south, but these were exceptions. All these individual trade relations formed an extended trade network, which connected all local groups within the Highlands and with other groups on the Highland fringe and the coast over sometimes vast distances. Luxury and status goods like shells, feathers and furs thus found their way into the Highlands and were exchanged for pigs or stone adzes (Hayano 1972:141-143; Lindenbaum 1975:73, 1979:140).

3.2 Aspects of Traditional Warfare

3.2.1 Warring Groups Traditional warfare in the Highlands was a complex interaction between different units of combatants. According to informants, war was always perceived as an interaction between different local groups, even if only a few of its constituent segments actively participated. As soon as a member of a local group was attacked from outside, the local group mobilized as a unit and fought the aggressor. The local group can, therefore, be considered the unit of defensive warfare, even though it was not a permanently stable unit and the decision for collective defence always rested with its constituent members (Berndt 1971:392f.; Glasse/Lindenbaum 1971:365- 368; Hayano 1972:65-71; Robbins 1982:75-78). Since warfare was often conducted in the form of secret raids rather than pitched battles, only a small number of men were needed for revenge. It was thus usually the clan segment or the settlement of the victim of aggression that took the initiative and retaliated against the aggressor. The localized clan segment can, therefore, be considered the tactical unit of offensive warfare. As long as the local group as such was not threatened, each hamlet or clan section decided by itself whether to participate in a retaliatory attack or not. The local groups were still considered the main contestants in warfare, however. This makes sense, not only because war between lesser units could rapidly escalate and quickly involve whole local groups, but also

44 Ending War because the local group was considered as a corporate group, in which each individual could be held responsible and killed for the wrongs committed by another member of the same local group (Glasse/Lindenbaum 1971:368; Hayano 1972:64; Lindenbaum 1979:40; Robbins 1982:75-79, 194-204). War was generally waged between neighbouring local groups and never over longer distances. Most of the friendly, allied or enemy local groups were located within a day’s walk, immediately adjacent local groups could be reached in less than one or two hours. Geographical distance thereby was no indicator for any specific form of interaction, neighbouring local groups could be on friendly or hostile terms, and the situation was bound to change almost overnight (Berndt 1971:393; Watson 1990:20). Among the Tauna Awa, 85% of all war deaths resulted from conflicts with the three immediate neighbours, the rest with other local groups in the nearer area (Hayano 1974a:287). The more centrally located Usurufa in Kogu incurred 66% of all war casualties from the four directly adjacent neighbours. They also obtained 41% of all marriage partners from these four groups (Berndt 1971:402). The continuously changing network of alliance and enmity meant that an individual might suddenly see the once-friendly local group with which he is connected through affinal ties become a deadly enemy. Marriage relations between long-standing enemies were not the norm, however. The arranging and negotiating of such a marriage would be too difficult, and the payment of bride price – let along further affinal reciprocity – could not be conducted in safety (Watson 1983:213). In many groups, as amongst the Auyana, women would at times elope with a man from an enemy group. No bride price would be paid in such instances, as enmity prohibited the establishment of normal affinal relations. Men could thus get wives ‘for free’ if they successfully attracted a woman from an enemy group. The Tairora even had an elaborate ritual with which they attempted to attract such women by magical means (see Watson 1983:213). Only a few women risked such an elopement, however, as it meant that all contact with their natal families would be cut off, and as their husband might very well fight against their kin if warfare was on-going. Participation in any type of offensive action was the decision of each individual. In any group, there were always people that were somehow related to the enemy group or had good friends on the other side. It did not necessarily mean that wars between such groups would not break out, but members of one group related to the other group might abstain from joining the battle. As some men were always left behind to guard the village from a surprise attack, there was no stigma associated with such inaction. And if they joined a battle, they would make sure not to shoot towards their relatives, direct in-laws or friends. If someone came upon an in-law or friend by surprise (for example on a hit-and-run attack), he would shoot into the air, tell him to flee, and only raise the alarm after he was able to escape. Men at times even tried to warn their relatives when they saw them walking into an ambush, by tapping the arrow against the bow, thus spoiling the effect of surprise, or only shooting them in the extremities and not at the torso. Men who had relatives in an enemy group were at times also able to even visit them during the period of fighting. As Tambendo Te’u explained about a fight between Ketabe (where he resided at the time) and Mugayamuti: During the night, I used to go and visited the Mugayamuti, but during the day I shot arrows at them, lest the Ketabe suspected me of being a traitor and kill me. So I just shot a few arrows. During the night, I didn’t kill them, but went over there and told stories. (Tambendo Te’u) Culture and Society 45

In his case, establishing a friendship with enemies was his life insurance, as at one time he was caught in an ambush, but was warned and only shot in the legs and not the torso by people who knew him. Warfare within local groups was banned, and conflicts between members of the same local group were usually settled amicably. If disputes between individuals or clans within a local group turned to violence, the type of violence was generally restricted, in that sticks and stones were used instead of bows and arrows (Du Toit 1975:86f.; Glasse/Lindenbaum 1971:365; Hayano 1972:53f.). If conflicts within local groups escalated to all-out war, this usually led to a split of the group and marked the beginning of warfare between two now independent units. If someone killed a member of the same clan or the same local group, this was heavily sanctioned. The killer was not necessarily killed himself, however, as the cohesion of the local group was paramount. Among the Gadsup, arrows were shot at the extremities of the killer, who was allowed to defend himself with a shield (Du Toit 1975:86f.). Among the Awa, the killer would often flee to a neighbouring local group, and he had to pay compensation in shells before being allowed back (Hayano 1972:54f.). There were differences in the occurrence of such internal killings. In one local group of the Auyana, only three people were killed within the 30 years before pacification, while in a local group of the Awa about 13 people died from internal conflicts during the same time, which is an indication that the cohesion of local groups could vary considerably, and was generally lower among the Awa than among the Auyana (Hayano 1972:54).

3.2.2 Existence and Stability of Alliances The extent and durability of alliances differed quite significantly between the groups under research. These differences not only extended to the number of allies participating in a given conflict, but also to the formation of alliances, their maintenance and their durability. These differences might have had some impact on the willingness to give up warfare, as will be explained in the chapters to come. As a general rule, alliances were not necessarily governed by any specific geographical or social considerations. All local groups in the Eastern Highlands were situated in a complex albeit rather small-scale and circumscribed political and social environment. The geographical closeness between local groups was no indicator for any specific form of relationship, be it as allies or enemies. Neighbouring local groups could be on friendly or hostile terms, and these terms could change over time. Close friendships could turn sour almost overnight, and enmity could be replaced by indifference or alliance over time (Berndt 1971:393). Warfare was generally waged over short distances, most commonly between adjacent local groups, and alliances were likewise restricted to local groups not more than one day’s travel apart (Watson 1990:20). Permanent alliances were rare, just as there was hardly any permanently sustained enmity between two specific local groups over several generations. Each local group could always count upon specific people from neighbouring groups to come to aid in a particular conflict, mostly from those groups with which friendly relations are entertained, and who were thus considered potential allies. Such interactions of alliance usually did not take place on the level of whole local groups (even if informants often stated that such and such group came to their

46 Ending War aid), but instead on the level of the clan. Each clan, and sometimes each lineage, or only a few men within a lineage, autonomously decided whether to assist other local groups in warfare or not. Kin relations between the local group seeking support and the different clans of the allied local group mostly determined, whether a request for assistance was granted or not. Usually, only a few lineages would join an allied local group in a fight, usually the ones most closely related. Different segments of one local group could thus even find themselves as allies on different sides in a conflict, although this seldom happened and invariably led to a split of the group. Actual military support was only provided if an agreement had been reached and sometimes even only after payment had been received beforehand. The fulfilment of this agreement was again subject to political consideration, which led to a situation of permanent uncertainty regarding the intentions of allied as well as enemy groups. Alliances and enmities were thus fluctuating over time. They could be redefined within a short time frame of a few weeks, depending on the balance of forces and in connection with wider networks of enmity and alliance. This also meant that no group could gain a permanent superiority or security from attacks through fixed alliances. The political environment was shaped by insecurity and mistrust, and even betrayal by one’s own allies was a constant threat since they could be enticed by the enemy to show up late or not at all on the battlefield, switch sides in the middle of the fight or lead their allies into an ambush (Berndt 1971:393; Fortune 1947b:248; Glasse/Lindenbaum 1971:365-367; Hayano 1972:64, 209; Robbins 1982:78f.; Watson 1971:238; 1983:210-213). An alliance was seen as a contract that made a warring local group liable for eventual damage and losses to their allies and obligated them to take revenge if one of their allies was killed. If one of the allies, on the other hand, succeeded in killing an enemy, he was entitled to receive extra payments in the form of pigs, feathers and shell valuables at a feast after the conclusion of the war. If these mutual obligations were not honoured, the relations of alliance might turn sour quickly, followed by conflicts and war between erstwhile allies (Glasse/Lindenbaum 1971:367; Hayano 1972:62-64). Among the Southern Tairora, where alliances encompass only a few villages, this obligation to avenge allies was more muted. While they still received payment for help, there was no compensation for any fallen ally as among the other groups (Mayer 1987:74). As has been mentioned before, local groups were no permanent units, and the balance of powers between local groups could tilt quickly through military success or defeat, or the gain or loss of allies. As soon as losses become significant, especially with the death of renowned war leaders, a local group could dissolve into its units, which sought refuge among consanguineal or affinal kin. Alternatively, local groups could also move to entirely new territories if there was enough free land. Such refugee populations were present as incorporated clans in almost all local groups, demonstrating the frequency of such events. Refugee populations were freely welcomed and incorporated even if no significant relations existed before, as they were always a welcome addition to fighting power, and a source of potential spouses (Watson 1983:209f., 223-226). Only among the Fore would groups on friendly terms regularly invite each other to feast, and the hosts would prepare special food items (pork, but also taro, yams or winged beans) for their guests to consume on the spot or to take home with them. Marriage ceremonies, initiations and mortuary rituals were always opportunities for feasting, and members of other groups were Culture and Society 47 regularly invited to attend the festivities. The largest feasts were arranged to strengthen alliance relations between different local groups for purposes of marriage, trade or warfare. Both sides would dress up in their finery and fully armed with shields, bows and arrows, and sing and dance to demonstrate their aggressiveness and martial prowess. Among the Fore, up to a hundred pigs could be slaughtered for the most important feasts cementing alliances (Sorenson 1972:360f.; 1976:63-68). This is in stark contrast to the Tairora, where Watson (1983:52) mentions that a pig festival in which five or ten pigs were slaughtered was already considered an extraordinary event. These feasts were particularly important if one group suffered from a shortage of a particular crop (winged beans are often mentioned) and could thus complement their diet when being invited by a friendly group with adequate resources. The hosted group would at a later point in time ask the hosting group to come and offer them different foodstuffs in a feast (for example taro). Through this system of intergroup exchange, village leaders strategically funnelled agricultural surplus into alliance relations with friendly groups and thus increased their political clout. Among the Fore, alliances encompassed more groups, and also groups from further afield, than among both the Auyana and Southern Tairora, where only one to three other neighbouring groups would provide a few warriors. Fore allies from further away usually slept in the men’s houses of the main hamlets involved in the fight. They at times left again, after the fighting had slowed down or when they had to attend to other duties, sometimes arranging a time when they would return to restart the fight. Among the Auyana, a few alliances remained remarkably stable over several generations, as the example between Amaira and Sinkura or Amaira and Tondona shows. In such alliances, the allies did not have to be incited with payments to furnish help, but help was forthcoming on its own. However, it was clear that allies expected to be compensated for their support and eventual losses during peace feasts. It did not mean that such alliances could never break apart. The alliance between Amaira and Avia clearly shows, that even when long-term alliance relations existed, an alliance could turn into a severe long-standing enmity in an instant. In most alliances, not all people went to help the ally, as their village also had to be guarded against surprise attacks. It was usually the younger men that were most eager to participate in fighting that answered calls of an alliance, together with some renowned war leaders, while the more seasoned warriors mostly stayed behind. It was mainly up to the war leaders, but also the individuals concerned, to make the decision who would go or not.

3.2.3 Triggers for War War was always considered a form of retaliation for earlier wrongs suffered, and hostilities or wars were therefore never started or initiated by a local group for a specific purpose other than revenge (Du Toit 1975:77f.). There was certainly no lack of reasons for such retaliation, however. Killings or deaths attributed to sorcery were often the main reason for acts of vengeance but also conflicts between local groups over the rights over women or about the killing of runaway pigs. Incidents such as the theft of pigs or the rape of women were seldom provoked, however, and if they did occur, it was mostly troublemakers of low status, so-called ‘rubbish men’, that instigated them (Hayano 1972:214f.). Troublemakers could be a real burden to local groups, since one man or a small group of men could always start conflicts or escalate

48 Ending War already existing conflicts and drag whole local groups into wars they would not want to fight. But once the enemy attacked in retaliation to the provocation, the other group members had no other choice than to defend each other: Some people always got angry quickly and tried to entice others to fight. The others of the village would try to control him, but he was quick to grab his weapons and shoot arrows and start a fight with the enemy. And then when the enemy came, regardless of whether the others were angry at him or tired, they still had to defend themselves. (Tuva Kayara)

Sorcery was undoubtedly the most frequent cause for violent retaliation. If a person died under suspicious circumstances, meaning that he or she showed a range of symptoms attributed to sorcery, for example loss of flesh, swelling or sudden collapsing, a detection ritual was arranged. Among the Fore, people would first hunt and kill several possums in the forest, then place them in a section of bamboo for cooking together with tree bark, bespeak each of them with the name of a suspected sorcerer and roast them over a small fire. If the liver of a possum in one of the bamboo containers was not thoroughly cooked, this was a clear indication of guilt (see also Lindenbaum 1979:69-71). The Auyana and Tairora used a certain kind of native vegetable (Rungia klossii – hondi in Tairora) that was similarly put into sections of bamboo, then put into the fire. If the vegetable exploded out of the bamboo when the name of a particular village or hamlet was called out, this was again sure proof of their guilt. Alternatively, sweet potatoes would be wrapped in leaves, marked with the names of suspected villages and steamed in an earth oven. If the sweet potato was not cooked thoroughly, this was also an indication of guilt. A more forthright detection ritual involved the dead body itself. During the mourning rituals, one end of a long dry bamboo tube (tara in Tairora) was put through an opening in the roof, and the other end placed on top of the dead person’s flat hand. Another man then put his hand underneath the dead man’s hand, on top of a fighting shield laid onto the dead body. When both hands started to shake violently, knocking onto the shield (sometimes even splitting it), this was again a clear indication that sorcery had been performed on the dead body. As most deaths from illness – except for the very old and infirm – was usually attributed to sorcery by an enemy group, a vicious circle of retaliatory warfare soon evolved, since killing somebody as payback for sorcery deaths would instantly trigger a retaliatory response as well (Du Toit 1975:78). Retaliatory violence was always impersonal, because even if a murderer or sorcerer was known by name, his whole local group was held responsible, and any member of the killer’s local group was considered a legitimate target for retaliation (Hayano 1972:200). The actual goal of warfare was the decimation or even extermination of enemies, in order to gain decisive military supremacy. Material gains, like loot in the form of pigs or women or the conquest and occupation of land, were never the immediate goals of warfare, only positive side effects and means to weaken the enemy group (Du Toit 1975:85; Watson 1983:148). Among the Fore, people hardly ever looted pigs or garden produce, because they were afraid the enemy could have ensorceled these foodstuffs. Abandoned land was hardly ever occupied, and after some time the displaced group might even be invited back by its former enemies so that normal relations could be re-established (Berndt 1971:410). The need for revenge that governed this exchange of violent acts was deeply enshrined in the culture of the people in the research area, and symbolic actions to celebrate successful revenge Culture and Society 49 were common. The Fore and Auyana planted a tanket plant (cordyline) on the grave of the victim of aggression after revenge had been enacted. The Tairora set alight the dry grass on the mountain associated with the clan that successfully retaliated in revenge.

3.2.4 Weapons The primary weapon of all groups in the Eastern Highlands was the bow and arrow. Any time a man would go outside of his hamlet, he carried a bow and arrows. The bow was carved from the hard wood of a variety of black palm and could reach almost two meters in length. Bows for warfare were usually longer than those used exclusively for hunting. All bows were shaped to a point at both ends so that they could also be used as emergency thrusting spears for hand- to-hand combat by unstringing the bowstring made from a flat strip of bamboo. Such hand-to- hand combat was rare, however, and in most cases, the bows were used to shoot arrows over distances, from close range to about two hundred meters (Robbins 1982:184; Hayano 1990:47). Arrows existed for various purposes. The Gadsup had 35 differently named types of arrows, ranging from hunting arrows for big game, small game, and birds to war arrows. The arrow shaft was made from a kind of slender reed of the same family as bamboo. The arrow points for war arrows were carved from the same hardwood as the bow and measured between 25 and 50 centimetres in length. Some arrows were smooth, while others were intricately carved with numerous smaller or larger barbs. The arrow point was then hafted to the shaft with an intricate binding of fibre or sometimes yellow orchid stems. The whole arrow, including shaft, measured between 1.20m and 1.30m and was accurately balanced. In the hand of a skilled bowman, they were accurate also over long distances without any stabilizing mechanisms like fledges. They also did not have nocks, as the bowstring was a flat strip of bamboo, and the bottom of the shaft was held flat onto the bowstring with the fingers of the drawing hand. Heavier arrows were used for short distances, for example in ambush. Each warrior would take about 25-30 different arrows with him into battle, holding them in a little net bag fastened to the inside of his shield. When he had shot all arrows, he could collect some of the arrows launched by the enemy or would retire to the back of the battle lines to resupply with new arrows (Bush 1985; Du Toit 1975:78f.; Skinner 2000). If someone got hit by an arrow, the arrow had to be extracted using a stone or bamboo knife, first carefully cutting open the flesh around the entry point and then pulling the arrowhead out with the fingers. As some arrows had barbs up to five centimetres long, some arrows could not be extracted that way but had to be forced through the body, often with deadly consequences (Du Toit 1975:79). If the operation was successful, the wound was treated with special medicines. Among the Fore, a type of short fat sweet bananas called kamai were singed in a fire, then the burnt part of the banana peel was grated off and rubbed into the wound to stop the blood flow and to propagate healing. When the wound started to heal up, pig fat was rubbed continuously into the wound. In the Northern Tairora community of Norei’eranda, the wounded person was given a rat cooked with the fur in a bamboo tube to eat, in the belief that the fur of the rat would prevent the wound from becoming deeper. If a person was hit in the extremities, they had a good chance of survival. But if an arrow hit the chest or belly and damaged internal organs, there was often not much that could be done, although there were a few people who also survived such a severe injury. Another dangerous place to get hit by an arrow was a joint,

50 Ending War especially the knee or the ankle, as splinters lodged in these places could fester and the joints would swell up. Shields were also standard equipment for most warriors. These shields were rectangular planks of hardwood, measuring 1 to 1.5m in length and 60 to 90 centimetres in width, sufficiently thick so that arrows could not penetrate. Shields were tailor-made according to the size of the carrier so that almost all of the body would be covered. The shield was carried by a short piece of rope that was pulled through two holes in the shield and knotted on the outside. The shield could be carried on the left or right shoulder (on the shoulder of the arm holding the bow), or on the back, and swung to the front if an arrow approached (Robbins 1982:184). On the inside of the shield, a small net bag was attached to hold the arrows and a few spare bowstrings. The shield was decorated with patterns made with ochre according to the whims of the owner. On the top, cassowary, cockatoo, parrot or bird of paradise feathers would be fastened so that they swayed in the wind and whipped up and down with the movement of the shield-bearer. The constant state of warfare is also evident in the architectural features of the villages. Hamlets and villages were usually built on strategic and commanding positions on spurs and ridges, which could be more easily defended, and from which approaching enemies could be spotted far in advance. Whole hamlets, or at least the men’s house area, were surrounded by a heavily fortified stockade, three to four meters high. Tree trunks were split and then lowered into deep holes so that the enemy could not pull them out again. These slabs were then tied together at the top with lianas. On the outside of the palisade, people often planted dense stands of a thick kind of reed, which were hard to penetrate and would alert the inhabitants through the rustling if the enemy tried to cut its way through it (Hayano 1972:150; Watson 1983:65). A gate of thick horizontal wooden slabs that were anchored between sturdy posts barred the entrance into and out of the hamlet and was closed every night. In the morning, the men would first remove the topmost slab and spy through it for the presence of enemies, before removing the rest of the slabs. One of the earliest patrol officers in the area described these stockades in the Fore area in the following way: Most of the villages are surrounded by a stockade type of fence, ten feet high with small lookout platforms seven or eight feet from the ground built on the outside of the fence at the best vantage spots, small trapdoors allow the person detailed as lookout to return inside the stockade. At the more vulnerably points around the village the fence is reinforced by two further similar fences positioned some twenty feet behind the other. On the inside of these secondary fences small platforms are arranged four or five feet from the ground, from which archers can fire through suitably arranged openings in almost any direction. (Kainantu PR 1949/50/1)

The men’s house contained additional defensive measures. The walls were usually built from solid wooden slabs that could not be penetrated by arrows from the outside. The war shields were stored against the inside walls of the men’s house at night, further protecting the inhabitants. Entrances were small and could be quickly blocked. Some men’s houses were built with an interior wall protecting the entrance, and with two short passages leading from this antechamber to the central interior, following the outside wall, intended to confuse attackers and aid defenders. Most men’s houses also contained an escape hatch, in that one part of the Culture and Society 51 wall would not be covered by wooden slabs but only by a bark cover, which could be removed quickly in an emergency (Radford 1987:11; Robbins 1982:188).

3.2.5 Forms of Warfare Warfare in the Eastern Highlands can be considered an unrestricted form of warfare since no rules of conduct existed. War was not openly or formally declared and could start without any previous warning. Each member of an enemy group – male, female, old or young – was considered a legitimate target and the number of killings was unrestricted. Although war parties usually triumphantly retreated after a successful kill, there were no sanctions applied to the breaking of this informal rule, and only the threat of high casualties on the attacker’s side prevented massacres (Berndt 1962:240). Among the Fore, sometimes older men were spared on the battlefield, by giving them aninda (a type of vegetable) as a sign that they were too old to revenge themselves. Older women likewise would be spared, as well as very young children (babies and toddlers). This rule was not always adhered to, but whenever it was broken, there was an uproar about it, and a war erupted or intensified because of it. Warfare either took the form of ambushes, surprise raids and hit-and-run attacks or then open field battles. In its simplest form, war could take the form of an argument between two sides at a meeting (for example during mortuary feasts). Verbal arguments could always escalate to a general all- out fight, with both sides grabbing their weapons, firing arrows at each other and at the same time attempting to get to relative safety. This initial clash was often the start for more extensive operations, leading to different forms of warfare, like open field battles or ambushes (Robbins 1982:185). Open field battles were a somewhat ritualized form of warfare to assess the strengths and determination of an enemy. It was often employed between groups who had an interest in staying on friendly terms in spite of an existing conflict. Such a battle started with one group advancing onto the other groups’ territory and shouting challenges, abuse and insults directed at the enemy group. The defenders would rush out and take up positions at a suitable spot outside the village. Usually, both sides would try to take up positions atop ridges at least 500 meters apart, together with their allies. Among the Fore, there were designated battlefields between villages on which both sides would line up, elsewhere battlegrounds changed, depending on how far the attackers advanced. The warriors from both sides then faced each other off in long, loosely stretched-out lines. Among the Fore and Auyana, armed men carrying large wooden shields formed the first line. Following a little behind them were men without shields, holding only bows and arrows. Among the Tairora, all men would carry shields into battle. These lines were not well organized but consisted of several clumps of two or three men, who fought together as a unit, arranged next to each other. The lines from both sides engaged each other first over a certain distance, and then manoeuvred back and forth along with the intensity of the fight. At times, they could only be twenty yards apart, shooting arrows over a relatively short distance, before retiring back again. The shield bearers in the front line were usually paired so that a man carrying his shield over his right shoulder cooperated with a man carrying his shield over his left shoulder, both covering each other. The one with the shield on the left shoulder would shoot to the right, the one with the shield on the right shoulder to the left. Arrows were exchanged with a similar team

52 Ending War precisely opposite, as turning to shoot at other teams down the line might open up the cover for enemy arrows. The men in the back lines without shields covered the flanks and watched out that there would be no breaks in the front line, firing to the sides and over the shield bearers. They also had to watch out that nobody could approach the shield bearers in an attempt to pull down their shields. And when the shield men needed to rest and put down their heavy shields to catch their breath behind them, it was up to the men without shields in the back to keep shooting. When arrows were released, warriors uttered their characteristic personalized war cries, usually referring to their name or their father’s name, the name of their clan or their clan’s territory, thus trying to gain in importance if their arrow would find its mark. Although there was not much cooperation between the different teams, they attempted to keep an unbroken line of battle, so that nobody would be left suddenly isolated, and so that exhausted warriors could retire behind the lines. At the same time, warriors attempted to cut off single enemies or smaller enemy groups from the main battle line, so that they could be encircled and attacked from several sides. There was no principal leader that would coordinate such movements, but older and more renowned warriors could sometimes influence others. The fighting usually took the larger part of a day, always interrupted by regular breaks, during which both sides would retreat before starting the battle again. A large part of the action did not necessarily consist of fighting, but manoeuvring, singing war chants, shouting abuse at the enemy and dancing back and forth. Among the Awa at least, this type of open battle was not considered ‘real fighting’ but more an opportunity to assess the fighting strength of the enemies and to hurl abuse at them. Fighting ceased in the late afternoon and started again the next day. Heavy rain usually interrupted the battle, as the bowstring became slippery, and it was more challenging to shoot accurately. The Tairora sometimes used ash to rub on their hands to make the bowstring and arrows less slippery during a drizzle, but even then people usually returned home when it started to rain heavily. At night, the fighters retired to their stockaded hamlets and stationed guards all night in shifts to watch out against night raids. Wars could last for months on end, with respites of several weeks in between (Fortune 1947a:109, 1947b:246; Hayano 1972:192-195; Robbins 1982:185-188). This form of warfare did not cause a lot of casualties, however, since the distance between the rows of fighters limited the accuracy of the arrows, and they could be dodged or deflected with a shield (Hayano 1972:192-194; Robbins 1982:185-188). When a man was wounded and fell, he had to be covered quickly by other men with their shields; otherwise, the enemy would finish him off. His comrades then helped him back to safety at the back of the battlefield, where the women then took over and carried the wounded man back to the hamlet and close to the men’s house. If a man was killed on the field of battle, the side that was successful in killing him often retreated jubilantly, dancing and singing about their success. If it was possible, the arrows that killed the man were pulled out from the body, and the bloody arrows were waved in the air triumphantly. Upon return to the village, a feast was prepared for the successful killers, and often a pig or two was slaughtered to reward them (among the Auyana). Women who had relatives on both sides would usually retrieve the body of those killed, as they would not be attacked from the other side. Women in generally either remained in the settlements during open battles or positioned themselves on a ridge or hill in the back of the battlefield, observing their men and at times alerting them when the enemy tried to encircle them or attack from the flank. They had to be Culture and Society 53 always prepared to evacuate the village at a moment’s notice together with their children and pigs if the battle line of the men was overrun. Women also helped in bringing new arrows, bows and bowstrings to the front line, and both women and children would collect enemy arrows stuck in the ground. For young boys, this was a way to get acquainted with the fighting on the battlefield and to learn evasive skills. Sometimes these open field battles could turn into a rout. This happened when one side was numerically superior, either because they attracted many more allies than the other side, or because the allies on the other side did not show up on the battlefield. Sometimes, good manoeuvring on the battlefield also could end in a rout. The enemy defensive line then gave way and was overrun, and the defenders turned and fled, either towards their hamlets or into the forest. The attackers pursued the enemy and tried to shoot down as many as possible. They entered the village, razed and torched the houses, destroyed gardens by digging up tubers and cutting down banana trees and sugar cane, and looted pigs and valuables that were not already evacuated in advance. Open field battles, of course, presupposed the existence of open grassland, on which such battles could be waged. The village of Amaira, for example, did not engage in open battles with their enemies in Avia, since the terrain between the two villages consisted of heavily wooded and rugged terrain. With the enemies in the other direction, Norei’eranda, open battles were possible, even though there still were large contiguous tracts of forest between the two villages. When Amaira intended to challenge Norei’eranda, they first went down into the broad open grassland valley of the Tairora through the territory of their allies Tondona, in order to approach Norei’eranda from the side over grassy terrain. All groups in the area used open battles against at least some enemies. Even further south, among the Baruya around Wonenara, they were a regular occurrence. Patrol Officer Gordon Linsley gives an apt description of such an open battle that he witnessed from a safe distance through his binoculars: Tribal fighting is something of an individual affair. There is no solid grouping or opposing sides, nor any violent clash of massed fighting men. Each side is strung out in a sort of skirmishing order, loosely grouped into an advanced spearhead of their best bowmen, the bulk of the fighting men two or three hundred yards behind them, - but again not solidly grouped, but strung out - and a reserve well back on some dominating ridge or rise which forms their base of operations. Practically all the active fighting is done by the advanced guard of perhaps a dozen, who manoeuvre against their enemy until either side gives ground and retreats to ist vantage point. Usually, when this has been done, the attackers lose their advantage, and the defenders then advance and become the attackers, and so it sways back and forth along a ridge or across a grass plain. The middle and reserve groups mainly lend moral support, with yodels, war-cries, and twirling war dances. It is amusing to watch individual small groups of them suddenly break into a circular, bobbing dance, resembling nothing so much as Western Queensland Brolgas tripping around a current bush. All these yodels, cries and dances are a combination of insult, provocation and defiance, a means of sustaining courage and an exhibition of warrior valour. A tribal fight has far more time and energy devoted to this kind of thing than to the actual fighting, and it is not surprising that deaths are rare and

54 Ending War

that a whole day’s skirmishing usually results in nothing worse than one or two slight wounds. (Kainantu PR 1951/52/6)

A second and much more lethal form of warfare were stealthy raids, conducted against enemy settlements mostly at the crack of dawn, or hit-and-run attacks and ambushes of just a few fighters against enemy men, women or children in their gardens or on foot-tracks. It was these types of warfare that were responsible for the majority of casualties. Raids on settlements often took place at dawn, when the inhabitants were still drowsy from sleep and thus an easier target. Dawn raids often relied on bribing disgruntled villagers or own relatives living in the settlement to be attacked to open the locked gates during the night. As reed thickets and palisades surrounded most hamlets, it was otherwise difficult to get large numbers of warriors inside the settlement without raising alarm. Sometimes, an attempt was made to uproot the palisade; at other times, the stockade was scaled with the help of tree trunks. Once inside, the men would encircle the men’s house and wait for the first men to come out at dawn and shoot them. In a few accounts, the men’s house was also set on fire, and everybody trying to get out of the house was shot. Settlements were guarded all night during periods of open hostility, and there was always the danger that the attacking party could be detected early and then find themselves at night in unfamiliar territory, which gave the defenders an advantage, since they knew every little track and could set after the fleeing attackers. The pursuers, on the other hand, also had to be cautious, as the fleeing war party could only be an advance guard, attempting to lure the pursuers into an ambush, where a much larger group would lie in wait hidden on one or both sides of the track. Once the pursuers were level with the ambush, the trap was sprung, and the pursuers shot at from the side. The other technique, hit-and-run attacks, were conducted usually during daytime by just a few men, ten to twelve at most. They snuck close to the gardens or settlements of the enemy and tried to ambush anyone that might be working in the garden or using a footpath, including women and children. The victim was usually tackled and held down to prevent escape while others shot arrows into him or her. Sometimes the attacking party would be divided into two groups, one that attacked from the front or from above and would drive the surprised enemy towards a second group laying in wait further below, cutting off the enemy escape route. As soon as the warriors were able to kill someone or were detected by a more significant force, they beat a hasty retreat following a designated trail. More fighters would have stationed themselves some distance back along the path, and on smaller paths intersecting with the main retreat route. Their job was to make sure that the retreat could not be cut off with the enemy flanking them. As soon as the killing team reached the first team along the route, the first team would fight in a delaying action, giving the killing team time to retreat further along the trail. The delaying team would then later also withdraw until they came upon other teams stationed further back, thus working in a relay in ensuring a coordinating retreat. At times, the delaying teams would also attempt to set up an ambush to kill any enemies pursuing the killers. These delaying teams had a dangerous task as well because if they were detected in advance, they could be suddenly overwhelmed or encircled by a much greater force of defenders. Such tactics of stealth could be employed during open field battles as well, with a handful of warriors trying to catch the unsuspecting enemy from the side or from behind. The paths to and from the battlefield also had to be navigated cautiously, as enemies might lay in ambush. Culture and Society 55

Among the Fore, tactics on the battlefield proper included circling manoeuvres, in which a large body of warriors stayed hidden and tried to sneak around the enemy and attack him from the flank or the rear. Such massed battlefield tactics were only rarely employed, however. In all these stealthy tactics, warriors usually left their shields behind for speed and better manoeuvrability but were at risk to be caught unaware and overwhelmed or cut off by a much larger force. Such stealth tactics were not employed as a first reaction against a perceived wrong (except against sworn enemies), but form part of the tactics of a secondary level of escalation after initial field battles. Especially if a party suffered several casualties during open field battles, such stealth tactics were employed, because only they could with at least some certainty promise results and bring about adequate revenge (Du Toit 1975:83f.; Robbins 1982:185-187; Watson 1983:64). Tambendo Te’u of Purosa even went so far as to say that there was a law that ambushes and other stealth tactics were only allowed after one side incurred casualties in open battle that they could not avenge by any other means. If there had been no casualties yet in open field battles, both sides were rather unconcerned about potential stealth tactics. They could thus suddenly be caught unaware by one side that had incurred casualties but did not divulge this fact to the other side. An excellent example of such a situation is the conflict between Obura and Asara that will be chronicled in depth in Chapter 8.

3.2.6 Intensity of Warfare The intensity of warfare can be measured in two different ways: one would be to look at how often wars break out and how long they last. A study of warfare by Robbins (1982:193-213) over a 25-year-history between 1924 and 1949 among the Auyana shows that the local group where he did research was at war during about one-eighth of the time, with single wars lasting from usually just a few days to several months with frequent fights. Not a single year went by without severe conflicts. I also asked informants from the Auyana, Fore and Southern Tairora on the frequency of wars, and they agreed that there was hardly a year without some sort of altercation. The intensity of fighting could vary considerably, however, and even if there was a period of intensive warfare, this did not necessarily mean that people would go to battle every day. Usually, two or three days of fighting were interrupted by periods of a few days, in which both sides rested, worked in their gardens and posted lookouts to observe potential enemy movement. The other ways of determining the intensity of warfare would be to look at casualty rates. Information on casualty rates is rare and not available for all the ethnic groups, even though all anthropologists that visited the area considered the intensity of warfare as being very high. Robbins (1982:210-213) in his study on the Auyana in Asempa counted 21 people of about 200 inhabitants who lost their lives in wars. The resulting mortality rate of 4.2 deaths per 1000 inhabitants per year is rather low compared to other groups in the Eastern Highlands and has to be considered as an unusual case, due to this particular local groups’ success in warfare and the fact that they were never routed during all those years. Among the Awa, the mortality rate is higher. In the 50 years preceding pacification from 1900 to 1950, 53 people lost their lives in a local group that counted an average of 150-170 inhabitants, which corresponds to 6.2-7 deaths per 1000 inhabitants per year. 30% of all male

56 Ending War deaths and 16% of all female deaths were due to warfare, which adds up to 25% of all deaths during the 50 years preceding pacification (Hayano 1974a:287). Similar numbers hold for the Usurufa, where 32% of all men and 12% of all women fell victim to war (Berndt 1971:397- 399). Among the Kamano, the intensity of warfare seemed to be even higher. According to the anthropologist Reo Fortune, who spent several months in the area at a time when traditional warfare was still in full swing, almost half of all deaths were caused by violence, and all but one of the 36 villages in the area were routed several times, its inhabitants having to flee and rebuild the village somewhere else (McLean 1992:43f., 54). Johannes (1976:85) among the Benabena estimated a similar mortality rate from warfare of at least 30% of the population based on collected genealogies of the parent generation, and remarked, that this mortality rate increased to 40-60% in the case of a village that was defeated repeatedly just before pacification. Casualty rates could be staggering in the case of a rout, as some examples from the Gadsup demonstrate. A single attack in a conflict between the local groups or Merir and Kambaira near Wampur caused 16 deaths. And 22 people died when warriors from Pundibassa in 1928 attacked a weakened Binumarien and drove them off completely. Because the people of Binumarien had to seek refuge in the malaria-ridden lowlands, the death toll later rose considerably through hunger and malaria to almost 100 people, nearly eradicating this group (Radford 1987:79-83, 93f.). Such total routs of local groups, in which a local group as a unit had to flee and seek refuge among neighbouring friendly groups took place about every 25 to 50 years among the Tairora. Such refugee groups could be completely integrated into the host group, forming a new clan (Watson 1970:112f.). According to Reo Fortune, of the 36 Kamano villages in his research area, only a single one was never wholly defeated and routed as far as people remembered. Most villages were routed even multiple times and then reconstituted themselves at a different place (McLean 1992:43f.). The Auyana local group in which Sterling Robbins did his research hosted five different routed local groups or parts thereof on their territory for at least a year during the 25 years under study. Seven other local groups or substantial portions thereof were hosted for just a few weeks as refugees before they would move on or back to their territory (Robbins 1982:213f.).

3.2.7 Significance of Warfare in Society Young men were indoctrinated into warfare during initiations. Most of the teachings during initiations focused on how to behave appropriately, on how to be a successful gardener, to plant enough food for themselves, and to respect elders and follow social rules. Boys did not need a lot of instructions regarding the use of bows and arrows, as they used little bamboo arrows for hunting lizards, rats and other small animals from an early age. But they were given specific instructions on how to handle the big and heavy war shields, how to position themselves in warfare and how to run with these cumbersome shields. Instructions were given on how to avoid being hit by arrows by turning the body instinctively sideways when hearing the twang of a bowstring, and how to dodge arrows in open battles. Men were singing songs, in which these instructions were repeated over and over again. The initiation rituals were often ordeals involving pain, hunger and thirst, in order to strengthen the physical constitution and resistance against pain. Nettles and sharp-edged grass blades would be inserted into the noses of the boys to induce bleeding, or long vines would be Culture and Society 57 swallowed and pulled out again to remove all stomach content through vomiting (see also Berndt 1965:91; Hays/Hays 1982; Newman/Boyd 1982). After the first stage of initiation, at about 10 to 12 years of age, boys would help carry arrows to the battlefield to get used to warfare. They were encouraged to get close to the battle so that they would learn how to avoid arrows. They were also instructed to shoot at dead or wounded enemies lying on the ground, in order to overcome their inhibitions to kill. After the second stage of initiation, at 15 or 16 years of age, the young men then actively participated in warfare as warriors (see also Robbins 1982:190; Watson 1964:148). Before going to war, men had to be ritually prepared for battle. Among the Auyana, all men went down to creeks, where they shoved sharp-edged grass blades up their noses to bleed out ‘bad blood’. They then washed and listened to the leaders explaining the tactics for today’s battle or ambush. The men’s house was also the central stage for any ritual preparations for war. People ate special foods to make them ‘hot’ for war, especially ginger and tree bark, which the Auyana spat onto roasted cooking bananas. Before going to battle, men would hold all their arrows together, spit ginger on them and call upon all big birds and mountains to help them in the fight. Arrows that were ritually treated were understood to be more precise and deadly. Men also had protective amulets: certain kinds of tree barks were carried in a tiny net bag over the shoulder so that arrows would miss the body. The Tairora held similar rituals, in which the smoke of a torch made from grass and leaves was directed over the bows and arrows to ‘strengthen’ them for war. Tree bark was also used as a protective amulet hung around the neck, preventing arrows from finding their targets. And during the war, men had to completely abstain from all contact with women, sexual or otherwise, and had to cook their own food. Certain foods that were deemed to have cooling properties, like sugarcane and bananas, were to be avoided altogether. Warfare had an extraordinarily high status among all societies in the Eastern Highlands and dominated all aspects of life. The Awa mentioned that in pre-colonial times everything was much ‘hotter’, the men, the ground, even water (Hayano 1972:190). All groups and especially the men had an interest in being able to wage war aggressively and offensively to survive in a hostile environment. Male aggressiveness was cherished as a virtue on the battlefield, and socialization of children was geared towards that goal. Aggressiveness in toddlers and young children was seen as natural, and physical aggression by children against adults or older children was tolerated and never punished, aggressive acts against age mates were usually distracted. Boys from the age of seven started to roam the surroundings of the hamlets in peer groups, training in the use of bows and arrows, hunting small game and gathering wild fruits and plants, and spending their time with boisterous physical play, including little war games, in which they shoot pitpit grass stems at each other (Sorenson 1976:180, 191-197).

3.2.8 Effects of Warfare on Society All groups in the Eastern Highlands were shaped and, in a sense, also limited to a considerable degree by the permanent danger of escalation of conflicts to warfare. War uses up significant amounts of resources that could have been used more constructively in other ways. James Watson (1983:71-73) almost felt compelled to explain the plainness of Tairora material culture, the sparseness of embellishments of tools and buildings and the general lack of artistic expression, especially in contrast to coastal groups in New Guinea famed for their carved posts

58 Ending War and elaborate ceremonial paraphernalia, by pointing out that Highland societies had to put all their energy into defence and warfare. They were highly productive societies, keeping up intensive pig husbandry to generate and strengthen alliances, and had to invest a lot of energy into fencing gardens. Defensive considerations also determined the localities of their settlements, which were then situated often a long way from available water, forest resources and garden land, increasing expenditure of labour. The building of sturdy houses against the cold climate and especially the construction of sometimes massive palisades for defensive reasons required further effort. And finally, male labour often had to be diverted to guard duties instead of directly productive work. The direct effects of warfare were even more severe and debilitating. Deaths and disability, destroyed gardens, burnt houses, devastated fences, pigs stolen or killed, all this meant immediate and often complete destruction of expended labour. A change in the fortunes of war could mean a total loss of years of work, and a group that had to abandon their settlement and their territory was in danger of starvation (Watson 1983:71- 73). Warfare also shaped the culture, the mentality, and the psychological make-up of people to a considerable degree. People frequently told me that they were afraid of going to war, fretting about getting shot on the battlefield, being surrounded by enemies or getting caught in an ambush. They had bad dreams, restless sleep, fell into a deep personal crisis if one of their loved ones was killed. Others were less concerned about their mortality, and some apparently enjoyed the excitement and bloodthirst associated with war, telling me how they revelled in killing enemies. Some even compared it to sports games, as there was the same kind of excitement and camaraderie associated with it (and of course the same type of peer pressure to participate).

3.2.9 Explanations for Warfare Watson (1983) sees the main reason for traditional warfare in the specific political environment in the Eastern Highlands, characterized by numerous small groups with their small-scale political order and without possibility to expand their polities. A socio-political environment with many small groups resembling each other in their exchange capabilities is naturally turbulent. Whereas local groups do need other groups as partners or military allies, they do not need a specific group, as their capabilities are interchangeable. As he explains: When independent proximate peoples can serve each other in no way that is unique as well as positive, yet are capable of harm and will actually find advantage in inflicting harm, there warfare is endemic. ... Lacking the means to be uniquely useful to every other group within effective range, each will always find good and sufficient reasons to be actively hostile to some of those groups. Some but not all groups have more to gain from each other’s enmity than from friendship, for in fact friendship between some groups requires hostility to others. ... The friendship of some thus feeds on the enmity of others - a fateful momentum stopped or slowed only by the evolution of wider polities or by the intervention of a powerful third party bent on hegemony. (Watson 1983:332f.)

Those turbulences intensified with the introduction of the sweet potato into the Highlands in the 18th century, since it was an excellent pig fodder compared to other tubers. The intensification of sweet potato production raised the demand on female labour, at the same time as bride prices skyrocketed through inflation because pigs as the main exchange commodity Culture and Society 59 multiplied. This development not only led to an intensification of exchange between groups but of rivalry and competition as well (Watson 1977; Watson 1983:330-333).

3.3 Traditional Institutions of Conflict Resolution

3.3.1 Conflict Resolution within Local Groups Existing social relations between the disputing parties determined conflict resolution within local groups. If they were closely related, the likelihood of a quick settlement was high. It was the responsibility of the aggrieved person to pursue their grievances and bring them to public attention, together with relatives and friends. The first reaction to a perceived slight was often a verbal argument just between the main opponents. This quarrel might quickly escalate to physical violence, involving not only fists but also other weapons, ranging from sticks and stones to bow and arrow. As soon as the verbal argument escalated, other members of the local group, and especially the leaders, would generally intervene and attempt to mediate, so that further escalation to physical violence between larger groups of people were the exception (Fortune 1947b:244f.; Hayano 1972:54; Westermark 1996:305). Nevertheless, conflicts between individuals within groups first had to escalate to violence to become considered a public affair. In most cases, antagonists used fists or sticks and stones to fight with each other, with other lineage members either joining or trying to calm things down. The leaders attempted to calm these brawls and told people that it was enough and that they should settle the conflict peacefully. Afterwards, both protagonists and their supporters brought garden vegetables, sweet potatoes and one or two pigs each, exchanged these, and then cooked them all together in a big earth oven. The food was then shared, and people embraced each other to show that the conflict was indeed over and to re-establish friendly relations. If there was a conflict within a family that resulted in violence, nobody was supposed to support the protagonists, but all other village members quickly intervened and stopped the fighting. Here too, an exchange of pigs or valuables was the preferred option to re-establish normal relations. Leaders thus had a certain measure of influence that they could use to settle conflicts between individuals, especially of their own lineage or clan, but also between unrelated members of the same local group. There were no disputes about land, but pig theft and adultery occurred quite regularly. Pig theft was dealt with by compensation. It was the lineage leaders who were able to bear pressure on people suspected of pig theft, and they told them to settle the conflict through compensation with a pig of equal size. If it was clear who took the pig within a village, it could even be the leader of the lineage who gave one of his pigs for compensation to atone for the theft of one of his lineage members. If men would not heed the advice of their leaders, and if compensation was not forthcoming after a certain period, people could get angry and start a brawl with the accused pig thief. Other offences, for example adultery, were settled wholly on an interpersonal level, albeit customarily with bows and arrows. Typically, the cuckolded husband would shoot an arrow into the leg of the adulterer or the wife. He was only allowed to target the legs, and special arrows (usually bird arrows) were used that did not penetrate too far and thus caused less dangerous wounds. This infliction of bodily harm was seen as a legitimate act of self- administered justice and seldom escalated into more significant conflicts, as other members of the local group usually sided with the aggrieved husband (Hayano 1972:102f.; Skinner 2000).

60 Ending War

In the few cases were conflicts within a local group escalated and resulted in severe injuries or even death, this more often than not led to an immediate ceasefire, as such a situation had the potential to split the group permanently. Both sides subsequently arranged a collective feast and exchanged pork. In case of deaths, customary payment of compensation in the form of shell valuables is attested for the Awa and the Kamano. Further acts of revenge within the local group were no longer seen as acceptable after that and apparently did not take place (Fortune 1947b:244; Hayano 1972:54-57).

3.3.2 Conflict Resolution between Local Groups If a person was wronged by a member of a different local group, it was much more difficult to resolve such a conflict from the onset and prevent it from escalating. Failing to react to a clear wrong was not seen as a valid option, as the person wronged and his whole local group would have lost status and renown. Payment of compensation could in theory avert violent conflicts, but this was hardly possible between local groups, as the accused party often denied any wrongdoing or simply refused to pay (Hayano 1972:188f.). There were instances in which parties from two local groups came together to attempt to solve conflicts by discussion, but this often escalated instead of resolving the conflict, leading to physical violence and subsequent open warfare between the two groups. Such escalation could be slow in coming. An aggrieved person and his interest group could also decide not to confront the other side directly but to seek satisfaction and revenge by stealing pigs or destroying gardens of the other party. This would then result in retaliatory action from the other side, and such small-scale raids would over time develop into all-out conflicts, involving most if not all sections of both local groups in question. A small dispute between persons and their solidarity groups could thus quickly escalate to warfare. Since not all members of the local group were initially involved in such retaliatory action, this also meant that uninvolved members could attempt to mediate or to put pressure on the disputing party to limit their actions. If such attempts failed, and the escalation continued, all sections of the local group – even the erstwhile mediators – would show solidarity with their side and face the enemy local group in battle (Hayano 1972:189; Robbins 1982:78, 199). Once escalation had reached a threshold to open warfare, peace negotiations were much more difficult to initiate. Between local groups that continued to be interested in peaceful relations, this was still possible if no deaths, or only a limited number of deaths, had occurred. Between traditional enemies, however, mediation was almost impossible at the beginning of a conflict, and only after a long time of open warfare, when both sides were exhausted, and if the number of victims was somewhat equal, could negotiations start to formally end a state of warfare through shared feasts and rituals. It is in the area of feasts and ceremonies to end wars and resolve conflicts that there are the most significant differences between the different research areas. The scale and complexity of these feasts were significantly larger among the Fore than either among the Auyana or Tairora. When war broke out among the Fore, both sides agreed from the beginning on two men on both sides to serve as institutionalized go-betweens, called pako. The pako were usually older men who had relatives on both sides and were relatively safe to carry messages back and forth. They were not to be killed, and this was widely observed. There was only one case in which two of Culture and Society 61 these pako were killed in a war between the Purosa and Ivaki villages. Older women with kin connections with the enemy were also quite free to visit. It was important to pick men as pako that had a reputation for honesty, as their primary duty was to report almost every day on how many people were killed on the spot or later succumbed to their injuries, to keep a running tally of the casualties. Nevertheless, it was often the case that death from an injury was kept secret from the enemy, at least until revenge was enacted and an enemy killed in return. If the leaders on one or both sides planned peace overtures, usually when both sides had a similar number of casualties, or when both sides were exhausted, these messengers or women would be sent to bring a daka (betel pepper) leaf to the leaders of the enemy side. Women were given daka leaves, and they would sing and dance over the battlefield, sweeping the ground with them, and depositing them in the middle. If both sides agreed that the fighting should cease, they planned to hold a so-called uva (= sugar cane) ceremony a few days later. On the morning of that day, the go-betweens would plant daka vines on the main field on which the fighting took place, and then both sides would assemble in lines. Warriors on both sides carried their decorated fighting shields and weapons and would gather on both sides of the battlefield, singing all the while. Then the older, influential women would go first towards the middle, carrying sugar cane and daka leaves. They would stop at a short distance from each other and deposit the sugar cane onto a bed of daka leaves. The influential war leaders, an equal number from both sides, then followed and met in the middle, holding a length of sugar cane, cutting it with a stone axe in half and chewing it together (for a similar ceremony among the North Fore see Berndt 1961:235f., for the Agarabi, see Aitchison 1936). The sugar cane was deemed to hold cooling qualities, and thus the war was metaphorically ‘cooled down’. Water in long bamboo tubes was also poured out over the battlefield for the same purpose. The reason given that older women would go first was that if the younger men met, they would start the fighting anew. A peace ceremony is therefore still a tense situation, and sometimes only a little incident was enough to start the fight anew. During one such ceremony, a bowstring broke, which led the other side to believe that an arrow was fired at them, and they then shot arrows back, and the fighting erupted again, with added casualties. Only after the older women and the leaders sat together and chewed sugar cane were the bulk of the warriors allowed to join and chew sugar cane as well. Men from both sides hugged each other and cried together. Afterwards, the sugar cane skin was all heaped up in a mound, to signify that both groups were at peace, and leaders of both sides held speeches, agreeing that the fighting was over and that both sides would no longer escalate conflicts but concentrate their efforts on raising pigs to compensate their allies. This promise then introduced a long period in which there was peace, as everybody was raising pigs for the feast. Anywhere from two to five years after this ceremony, when sufficient pigs were raised for slaughter, both sides would meet again at a prearranged time on the former battlefield for another ceremony that was called quamayaga (quama = arrow fight, yaga = pig). On both sides, the men of the main lineages involved in the war would contribute one or two pigs each, the leaders from five to sometimes ten pigs. The men responsible for the escalation of the war also contributed more significant amounts, five or six pigs, which resulted in a total of fifty or sixty pigs according to my informants. According to Sorenson (1976:68), even up to a hundred pigs

62 Ending War could be slaughtered during these peace rituals. The pork was cooked in earth ovens, and part of it was distributed to the allies that assisted the main protagonists in the war, with exceptionally generous portions going to the relatives of men from allied groups killed in the fighting and to men who excelled in combat and were responsible for killing an enemy. A similar portion of pork was also exchanged with the enemy, thus cementing the peace. This was no compensation in the sense that the relatives of an enemy killed would receive specific portions of pork, or that the side with more kills would have to prepare more pork for exchange, but just a gift of goodwill to show that one was serious about the peace. The portions for the enemy side were also not distributed individually but heaped on a big pile and then handed over to their leaders to distribute. Among the Auyana, wars were settled similarly, with slight differences. There were no institutionalized go-betweens as among the Fore. Women of the enemy group who married into the local group were used as message-carriers and conveyed to the other side the intention of stopping the war. They held broken tanked (cordyline) leaves or daka leaves to show the seriousness of the intention. After these women were sent back and forth, a ceremony would be arranged the next morning. Both sides brought sweet potatoes, cooked them in an earth oven, and then they broke them apart, giving half to the enemy and eating the other half. A second ceremony took place a bit later (but not years later as among the Fore), in which a token number of pigs were slaughtered, cooked with sweet potatoes and edible ferns, and given to the allies who came to help or supplied them with arrows and bowstrings. Again, generous portions were given to the ones successful in shooting an enemy. Then the men would take their shields and weapons, and dance and sing towards the enemy side, and then again break apart sweet potatoes and give one half to the former enemy, and exchange a few bites of pork and pork grease wrapped in watercress and edible ferns, handing them to the former enemy to take a bite. The number of pigs slaughtered and exchanged was significantly lower than among the Fore, usually only a handful (2-3 pigs, 1 per dead ally). The scope of the Southern Tairora peace rituals was similarly subdued to the Auyana. In addition, they were only seldom performed, as it was said that it might even exacerbate tensions. Mayer (1987:76) reports that people in her time only recalled four peace ceremonies. During my own investigations into wars, people mentioned only three occasions when wars ended with a peace ceremony. Women and men with connections to both sides were used as go-betweens to carry messages of peace. The ceremony to end a war here was called kovu, after a particular type of leafy vegetable that was at the centre of the ritual. The ceremony started with older women with connections to both sides waving banana, cordyline and kovu leaves dancing towards each other, and then putting down the leaves to form a bed for the food to be put on it later. Both sides then danced towards each other in their finery and with decorated weapons and shields. There was a certain wariness accompanying this display of martial prowess, as both sides feared that peace overtures might just be a trick. If one side had incurred more deaths than they had successfully avenged, they would rub their faces with coal and ash, to demonstrate their mourning for their fallen warriors, while the other side that killed more enemies came to the ceremony with clean faces. The Tairora – in contrast to the other groups in this study – had a tradition of giving compensation payments to the enemy, consisting of one kiau shell for each person killed. The shell would be tied to the tip of a bow, and a group of men offered these shells to the enemy from behind a tightly-packed phalanx of shields. The other side likewise Culture and Society 63 put all their shields tightly together and attempted to hook the shell with their bows and offering shells of their own in return. One kiau shell was a significant local shell valuable, and one shell was also always part of a pride price or mortuary payment. Afterwards, both sides then heaped some cooked food onto the bed of banana leaves, consisting of bananas, tubers and pork from two or three pigs killed for the occasion. The leaders from both sides then spat chewed tree bark and kovu leaves onto the meat. The food was shared, and both sides would retire back with their portions and eat them. Mayer (1987:76) reports that the meat was often thrown away for fear it was poisoned, but I was unable to confirm this. After all the food was consumed, both sides would approach each other again, embrace each other, light each other’s bamboo pipes and smoke tobacco together. Sometimes, the smoking of tobacco took place on a second day. The scope of these ceremonies was similar to the Auyana in that only two or three pigs per side were killed, sometimes even less. Some wars even ended without any sharing of food, only the payment of shells and the smoking of tobacco. Feasts to reward allies usually took place several months if not years later. The allies were then invited and rewarded with pork and other food. The numbers of pigs killed for these occasions ranged anywhere from one to two pigs to a maximum of five to six pigs, depending on how many of the allies were injured or even killed. While this number of pigs is more substantial than among the Auyana, it is again significantly less than among the Fore.

4 Colonial New Guinea In this chapter, I intend to give an overview of the colonial structure and the basic strategies that agents of pacification used in the case of New Guinea.

4.1 Administrative Structure of Colonial Papua and New Guinea

4.1.1 Colonial Status of Papua and New Guinea The German Empire officially annexed the northeastern coast of New Guinea in December 1884, just one month after Great Britain – under pressure from the Australian colonies that feared foreign intervention close to their shores – had declared a protectorate over the southeastern coast of New Guinea (Legge 1956:27f.). The British protectorate was transformed into the Crown Colony of British New Guinea in 1888, and administration of what was renamed Territory of Papua in 1906 was handed over to the new Australian Commonwealth in 1902 (Joyce 1971). German New Guinea was at first administered by the German New Guinea Company, which invested heavily in plantations but incurred considerable losses. The company handed the administration to the German government in 1899, and the territory became an imperial colony administered by government officials. During the First World War, German New Guinea was quickly seized by Australian troops. After the war, the former German colony became a ‘C’ class mandate of the League of Nations, administered by Australia. Australia now had to submit yearly reports to the League of Nations but could otherwise govern New Guinea as part of the Australian Commonwealth. It was during this period that the northern areas of the Eastern Highlands came under partial government control with the gradual exploration of the interior (Griffin et al. 1979:34-52). World War II reached New Guinea on January 4th, 1942, when Japanese bombs fell on Rabaul, less than a month after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour on December 7th, 1941. Japanese troops landed on New Britain near Rabaul on January 23rd, 1942, and quickly overwhelmed fleeting Australian resistance. Within weeks, Japanese forces had occupied the major islands and the coastal area around Lae and Salamaua (Griffin et al. 1979:73-75). The Japanese advance could only be stopped in the Battle of the Coral Sea in May 1942 and on the Kokoda trail in September 1942, and the Australian and U.S. troops then captured Lae and attacked the Japanese on Bougainville. Until Japan’s capitulation on August 15th, 1945 the Japanese were slowly pushed back but continued to occupy parts of Bougainville, New Britain, New Ireland and areas inland from Wewak (Griffin et al. 1979:75-80). Shortly after the outbreak of war, the two separate administrative units for Papua and for New Guinea were put under military command and merged to form the Australian New Guinea Administration Unit (ANGAU). This administrative union of both territories continued after World War II when the administration was handed back to civil authorities, and Port Moresby remained headquarters for the combined administration (Griffin et al. 1979:87f.). In December 1946, Australia signed the United Nations Trusteeship Agreement for the Territory of New Guinea, while the Territory of Papua formally remained a Crown possession. Both were administered jointly as the Territory of Papua and New Guinea from 1949 onwards. With the trusteeship, Australia agreed to the obligation to develop New Guinea politically and 66 Ending War economically towards self-government and eventual independence. The Trusteeship Council of the UN controlled these obligations, and Australia had to send in yearly reports about the progress achieved. The UN sent a delegation every three years to travel to the trust territory on a fact-finding mission to check the progress and to submit suggestions of improvement (Downs 1980:4-6; Griffin et al. 1979:104). New Guinea remained as a trust territory under Australian administration until December 1st, 1973, when it was granted self-government together with the Territory of Papua, and finally formal independence on September 15th, 1975 as the new nation of Papua New Guinea.

4.1.2 Aims of the Colonial Government Before WWII, New Guinea was a colony in the stricter sense of the term. As a class ‘C’ mandated territory, New Guinea was regarded as an integral portion of Australian territory and had to serve Australian strategic and economic interests. The mandate required that Australia observed a responsibility for the well-being and development of the indigenous population. Still, this clause did not cause much concern in Australia, and except for the prohibition of forced labour, not much was done in this regard. The main interest of Australia was to prevent immigration of foreigners, regardless of whether Europeans or Asians, and a gradual economic development that would mostly benefit Australian expatriate planters. Investments into necessary infrastructure for economic growth and into administrative personnel to explore and control the whole territory were severely hampered due to the strict requirement that the territory should be self-sufficient (Radi 1971:74-81). Only the increase in revenue in the form of gold royalties and other mining revenues after the discovery of goldfields in Morobe in 1926 led to an extension of the administration and infrastructure from about 1934/35 onwards (O’Faircheallaigh 1989:345f.). The Second World War brought with it a paradigm shift regarding the continuing existence of colonies. New Guinea suddenly received considerable attention in Australia due to the events of the war. The support of the indigenous people in the war effort and their helpfulness towards Australian military personnel were glorified, and this led to a feeling of gratitude towards the inhabitants of New Guinea. At the same time, the public realized that the territory had previously been severely neglected. This feeling of appreciation translated into a program of the Australian government that was already developed during the war, which would guarantee Papua New Guineans better health, better education, a larger share of the resources of the country, and an eventual right to political participation. The principle of self-sufficiency of the colonies was abandoned, and the Australian Labour Government under the Minister of External Territories, E. J. Ward, started to invest considerable sums into the economic and political development of the country. Between 1945 and 1950 alone, the Australian government supported the Territory of Papua and New Guinea with subsidies of £13 Mio.10 – a striking difference to the £212'500 spent on Papua and New Guinea in the years 1936-41 (Griffin et al. 1979:91, 100; Roe 1971:146).

10 All monetary values are given in Australian Pounds, Shillings and Pence, and after the conversion to decimal currency in 1966 in Australian Dollars and Cents. Colonial New Guinea 67

The signing of the United Nations Trusteeship Agreement officially recognized this development program. The first administrator after World War II, J. K. Murray, wanted to reverse the pre-war economic priorities by putting Papua New Guineans first and expatriates second. One of the first measures was a change to the Native Labour Ordinance, tripling the minimum wage from 5 to 15 shillings a month. All previous labour contracts were cancelled immediately, which lead to a mass exodus of labourers from plantations and brought the economy to a standstill for a few months (Griffin et al. 1979:102-105). The change in government with the defeat of the Labour government in Australia in December 1949 brought no changes, but a continuation of the previous policies of development, to the disappointment of the private sector (Downs 1980:69-72). Minister (later Sir) Paul Hasluck (1951-1963) gave priorities to health and sanitation, education – especially universal literacy - and agriculture. Political development was a lower priority. The basic policy was one of uniform development of all areas to prevent that a minority group could progress so rapidly in economic and political aspects that they could dominate and suppress a less advanced majority. This meant that all areas had to be brought under control as soon as possible, and that priority was given to uncontrolled areas. In contrast, more sophisticated areas were held back (Downs 1980:98-101).

4.1.3 Structure of the Territorial Administration An administrator in Port Moresby, who in turn was accountable to the Minister for External Territories in Canberra, directed the whole administration of the territories of Papua and New Guinea. The administration consisted of several departments dedicated to different issues, like the Departments of Health, Education, Crown Law, Treasury, Customs and Marine, Lands Surveys and Mines, Forests, Agriculture, Works, and the Department of District Services and Native Affairs (Downs 1980:86f.). The Department of District Services and Native Affairs (DDS&NA) was in charge of field administration in the initially 15 and at independence 20 districts of the territory. These districts were under the control of District Officers (DO) of the DDS&NA, which as representatives of the administrators were responsible for the overall administration and the coordination of activities by the other departments (Sinclair 1981:23). Districts were themselves subdivided into sub-districts under the control of Assistant District Officers (ADO). Each of these sub-districts contained a government post with a sub-district headquarter (in the Kainantu Sub-district it was located in Kainantu) and several outlying patrol posts, on which Patrol Officers (PO) were stationed together with a detachment of police, and from where they would conduct patrols as the primary method for contacting and administrating the local population. Patrol officers of the DDS&NA – in New Guinea generally known under the Tok Pisin term ‘kiap’ – were charged with extending control and pacifying the local population, but also had a diversity of additional administrative tasks to fulfil. On many patrol posts, where other departments did not have any personnel of their own, the kiaps had to take care of the functions of these departments as well. They had to write monthly and quarterly reports to all kinds of different departments: financial returns to the treasury, post office and savings bank returns, meteorological reports, labour reports, police reports, goal reports, even livestock reports to the Department of Agriculture or volcanological reports to the Government Volcanologist. The amount of paperwork required at times collided with their duties of field administration

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(Sinclair 1981:65) This was a topic often addressed in cover letters of patrol reports, in which an ADO or DO would complain to his superiors about the increasing bureaucratic requirements: Many officers are spending too much time on routine clerical work and typing, and this is dampening their enthusiasm and stifling their initiative. (Kainantu PR 1955/56/2)

Other departments increasingly sent their own officials to the Highlands districts in the 1950s. The Health Department expanded rapidly in the 1950s, building up a network of aid posts staffed with locally trained Native Medical Assistants and Aid Post Orderlies (APO). Medical patrols, either accompanying kiaps or on their own, carried health services to remote communities, and mass vaccinations and malaria control programs had a significant effect on the health of Papua New Guineans (Griffin et al. 1979:125). Large-scale vaccination programs were particularly successful in the Highlands, and for six months in 1950 alone, 95’000 Highlanders were vaccinated against tuberculosis (Downs 1980:47). The Department of Education sent some teachers to open government schools in the larger towns in the Highlands, mostly for the children of expatriates. Still, lack of finances meant that Christian missions largely outspent the administration when it came to education (Downs 1980:50). The Department of Agriculture also sent officers to the Eastern Highlands. The Agricultural Research Station at Aiyura experimented with a whole range of new crops and was instrumental in spreading information on cash crops and about reforestation (Griffin et al. 1979:108). Representatives of this department often accompanied kiaps on patrol, and also visited villages in controlled areas alone, to instruct the people in new agricultural techniques. It was through the didiman (the Tok Pisin term for Agricultural Extension Officers) that coffee was introduced on a grand scale in the mid-1950s and 1960s. The extension of administration by the different departments at times led to conflicts with the district officers because the department heads in Port Moresby often communicated directly with their representatives in the district without informing the district officer, and the personnel of these departments in the district sometimes ignored the district officer and communicated directly with their headquarters. These difficulties led to a series of reorganisations, not all of which increased administrative efficiency. In 1951, the position of District Officer was renamed to District Commissioner, and its authority strengthened. With the reorganisation of the DDS&NA into the Department of Native Affairs (DNA) in 1955, the position of District Commissioner was put into the newly created Department of the Administrator. This move was to free the district commissioner from ‘native affairs’ so that he could better concentrate on the overall administration of the district. But this reorganization also introduced some bureaucratic absurdities, as an assistant district officer, for example, was now responsible to the senior officer of the Department of Native Affairs (the title District Officer was reintroduced for this position) in all matters regarding ‘native affairs’, and to the district commissioner for all the rest. This sometimes led to constant in-fighting between the district commissioner, the technical departments and the Department of Native Affairs (Downs 1980:117f.; Sinclair 1981:181f., 225). The administration was reorganized again in 1964. The Department of Native Affairs was abolished, and all functions and personnel were transferred into the new Department of District Administration. Reintegrating the district commissioner into this department as head of each district strengthened the chain of command. The new Department of District Administration Colonial New Guinea 69 had a more clear-cut coordinating role and received the specific task of promoting political awareness among the local population to prepare them for eventual independence (Sinclair 1981:227). A Legislative Council to introduce political participation was first formed in 1951, presided over by the Administrator, and consisting of sixteen members from the public service, nine non- official members from the white business community and three Papua New Guinean members appointed by the government. The administration prepared the legislative program, and they also had the majority to ensure it will pass. The Council was enlarged in 1961, with non-official members now in the majority, among them seven indigenous representatives. Pressure from the United Nations led to first general elections for a House of Assembly with 64 members in 1964, for the first time assuring a majority for the indigenous population. But the Papua New Guinean members were mostly uneducated, and official and white members continued to dominate the House. It was only with the formation of the Pangu Pati (Papua and New Guinea Union Party) in 1967 and the elections in 1968 and 1972 that the political development in Papua New Guinea gathered speed towards eventual self-government and independence (Griffin et al. 1979:131- 136).

4.1.4 Co-optation of Indigenous People The need for large numbers of personnel to administer the local population dictated that the Australian colonial administration was dependent on the cooperation of indigenous people on the lower levels of administration. In British New Guinea, the administration first attempted to transfer the system of indirect rule already successfully established in Fiji to New Guinea. They soon found out that in most parts of Papua there was no indigenous authority, such as the chiefs in Fiji, that had sufficient control over the population, and that could be co-opted into a European-led administration (Joyce 1971:18). The administration under MacGregor realized that they had to establish their own government officials and started to appoint a Village Constable in each village, selecting any man deemed suitable to the job. The Village Constable had no leadership function and no legitimate role in the indigenous system. He was just a servant of the government, and his only legal power lay in arresting those that broke laws or regulations (Wolfers 1975:19f.). This system was changed towards a more indirect rule in 1923, through the addition of the position of the Village Councillor, who was intended to represent the village. Village Councillors were tasked with making suggestions to the government on how to improve village life. They should, therefore, be selected by the villagers themselves according to a more traditional basis of legitimacy (Legge 1956:137f.). In German New Guinea, the German colonial administration appointed influential local leaders as luluai (village head) and gave them administrative and judicial powers. They had the authority to mediate local disputes and settle local court cases. They were assisted by a Pidgin- speaking tultul, who could translate between the colonial officials and the luluai. The Australians who took over the administration after 1914 kept the system, but redefined the role of the luluai, downgrading it from recognized village leader to servant of the government that had to promptly report any breach of peace, albeit still with powers of adjudication in minor matters (Wolfers 1975:68).

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The system of village officials was kept after World War II, only slowly being replaced from 1950 onwards by a system of Local Government Councils in the areas where European influence was already long-established, to introduce the local population gradually to participation in democratic politics. The people within each council ward could elect their own councillor to represent them in the Council. The Local Government Council had the power to impose taxes, to go into business, and to independently finance their own development and infrastructure projects (Hudson/Daven 1971:156). The first Local Government Council in the Eastern Highlands was formed among the Agarabi in 1960. As the number of councillors was purposely held small to ensure the functioning of the council, this meant that a councillor had to represent all settlements within his council ward, many of which in former times used to have their own village officials (tultuls). This led to some difficulties, and as a remedial measure the kiaps introduced additional ‘Village Committees’, whose members (generally called komiti in Tok Pisin) acted as representatives of the individual hamlets and were to support the councillor in the administration of the council ward (Westermark 1996:303f.). The integration of indigenous people into administration did not only occur on the local level but increasingly on the medium and upper levels of administration as well. The aim of the trusteeship was independence, and that meant it was necessary to eventually replace expatriate public servants by local counterparts. This development occurred relatively late, however, and until 1958 locals could not become administrators, but were only employed in auxiliary roles. Indigenous people were allowed access to higher positions starting in 1959, and a program to recruit and train indigenous kiaps and other department officers was slowly put into place. By 1968, over two-thirds of all public servants were Papua New Guineans. However, in the higher levels, there was still a marked imbalance, with no indigenous district officers and only 12 out of 141 assistant district officers (Hudson/Daven 1971:154).

4.2 Strategies of Pacification The trusteeship agreement of the UN explicitly stated that the pacification of the whole Territory of New Guinea was one of the obligations of the Australian administration. After all, measures that would improve the well-being of the indigenous population could only be introduced after control had been established, and law and order prevailed. Russia and the Communist Bloc countries repeatedly attacked Australia in the United Nations Trusteeship Council for the delay in bringing all areas under control because they saw this as an excuse to slow down political development with the aim to keep the colony as long as possible (Sinclair 1981:147). One of the main goals of the Australian administration was to keep control over the process of pacification within the hands of the patrol officers. Access to uncontrolled areas for other than government personnel was strictly regulated. Already in 1925, the regulations of the Uncontrolled Areas Ordinance made it a requirement to apply for a permit to enter these areas. This permit was only handed out if the applicant had sufficient experience, was accompanied by at least ten ‘native labourers’, carried at least four ‘approved firearms with sufficient ammunition’, put down a bond of £250 and had all of the expedition members vaccinated against typhoid (Radford 1987:103). This strictly regulated access was tightened again in 1935 after two Catholic missionaries were killed in the Chimbu area, and after the massacres perpetrated by the German prospector Ludwig Schmidt in the Sepik region (Radford 1977a:46). Colonial New Guinea 71

All of the Highlands remained restricted and closed off to white settlers until May 1952. Almost all of the 357 whites in the Central Highlands District in mid-1951 were Administration officers, missionaries or commercial pilots and their families (Sinclair 1981:255). Pacification was undertaken in stages. The whole territory was divided into five categories of control: ‘complete government control’, ‘areas under government influence’, ‘areas under partial government influence’, ‘areas penetrated by patrol only’, and ‘unexplored’ (Radford 1987:146). The kiaps attempted to extend control from already controlled areas gradually. The administration set up a string of patrol posts throughout the length of the Highlands, all supplied by aeroplane, serving as base camps for the kiaps and their indigenous police force. From these patrol posts, the kiap and typically six to eight police then patrolled from village to village to contact the population and distribute gifts, and in subsequent visits explain and enforce government rules and regulations regarding warfare, violence, hygiene and so forth. Patrols were sent out from these posts regularly, to enforce the ban on warfare, but also to settle disputes, conduct a census, appoint luluai and tultuls, improve health, and to encourage road- building and the planting of cash crops. When a kiap was on patrol, a senior policeman was usually left in charge of the patrol post if there were no other officers stationed there (Griffin et al. 1979:118; West 1978:220f.). Patrols as primary methods of pacification had a long tradition and were already used extensively in British New Guinea from 1888 onwards (Legge 1956:67). Kiap James L. Taylor introduced a system of police posts to the Highland between 1934-1936. A single policeman staffed each police post and was tasked with spreading and enforcing administration rules and building a network of bridle tracks and rest houses (Gammage 1996:173). This system was continued after the war in the Eastern Highlands until the end of 1952 when these police posts were disbanded, and pacification efforts continued exclusively with patrols sent out from patrol posts. This change of strategy called for the establishment of further patrol posts staffed by colonial officers and a detachment of police to be able to intervene within a reasonable time in on-going conflicts. A first patrol post was opened in 1951 in Kumiava near Tarabo and then transferred to Okapa in June 1954. Further patrol posts were founded in Wonenara in 1960 and Obura in 1963. This system led to a rapid extension of control, although it consistently lagged behind the overly ambitious goals of the Australian administration. When the new Minister for External Territories, Paul Hasluck, took over in 1951 from his predecessor Percy Spender, he affirmed Spender’s earlier goal to bring all areas under administrative control by 1954-1955 (Downs 1980:98). This target did not seem too unrealistic for the Kainantu Sub-district, as there was a rapid expansion of control southwards into Fore and Tairora territory between 1947 and 1951. ADO Gerry W. Toogood, in his report in 1950, sounded very optimistic: I feel sure that in a very short time it will be possible to remove the entire Kainantu Sub-District from the list of ‘Uncontrolled Areas’, particularly if it is possible to adopt the recommendation to establish a Police Post somewhere near the Papuan Border. (Kainantu PR 1949/50/5)

The early 1950s thus saw a large number of exploratory patrols, followed by pacification patrols to establish control over the explored areas. In 1953, a decision was taken to conduct systematic aerial reconnaissance flights over previously unexplored territory, with the aim to locate the remaining isolated pockets of population not yet reached by foot patrol. In the end, the target

72 Ending War proved too ambitious. The area not under full control in the whole territory was nevertheless almost halved between the years of 1950 to 1955 (Sinclair 1981:73f., 107). The plan, in the end, failed not only due to a lack of personnel and finances but also because it encountered considerable resistance within the administration. Kiaps preferred a more gradual expansion of influence. They resisted any undue haste in pacifying new areas, knowing full well from experience that this could only lead to resistance in the local population (Downs 1980:99).

4.3 Main Agents of Pacification

4.3.1 Kiaps The main agents of pacification in the Eastern Highlands were the officers of the Department of District Services and Native Affairs11, known mainly by their moniker ‘kiap’. These officers were responsible for control and administration of the whole territory and were charged with many different functions. They were the primary and often sole connection between the Australian colonial government and the local population and were stationed on patrol posts all over the territory. They were not necessarily the first whites that the villagers I talked with encountered (gold prospectors often preceded them), but the ones that visited most often and had the most significant role in the process of pacification, at least in the initial phases. Their task was specifically to explore uncontrolled areas, and to bring the population living in these areas under control by enforcing the state monopoly of violence. Kiaps had extensive administrative and police powers to regulate most aspects of local life, which were governed by an increasing number of regulations in the ‘Native Administration Ordinance.’ Kiaps were in charge of supervising whether these regulations were observed or not, and they could summon and try any person, regardless whether there had been a complaint or not. They had almost absolute authority and could sanction the disregarding of ‘lawful orders’ on the spot as prosecutor, judge and jury. They also had the right to intervene in any quarrels between people, to mediate or give and enforce a binding verdict. Rigorously and thoroughly applied, these regulations would have constituted an insufferable petty tyranny. It was thus dependent on the discretion and care of individual kiaps which paragraphs were enforced and which ones not (Radi 1971:98; Wolfers 1975:30f., 93f.). It would be a mistake to assume all kiaps behaved similarly and enforced the law to an equal degree. The statues regulating their conduct were the same, but kiaps had considerable leeway in interpreting them on their outposts. They had their own ideas and strategies, and these were often discussed and shared with colleagues. Some kiaps preferred very long and thorough patrols, while others returned to the comfort of their stations as quickly as possible. Kiaps had to write reports about their patrols in quadruplicate and forward these to their immediate superiors, from where they were then advanced to first the district headquarters and then to Port Moresby. All of these superiors could criticize aspects of the reports and suggest changes, and there was a regular back-and-forth of letters regarding some reports. District commissioners were also urged to visit outstations every three to four months (Sinclair 1981:107). Methods of control for superiors were necessarily limited, as communication was often difficult and slow,

11 Renamed 1955 into Department of Native Affairs and in 1964 into Department of District Administration. Colonial New Guinea 73 and kiaps thus had considerable freedom regarding their day-to-day running of the station and their comportment while on patrol. Most kiaps were recruited back in Australia as very young men, usually right after finishing secondary school or after just a few years of work experience. A desire for adventure, outdoor living and a certain colonial romanticism were the main driving force for most of these young men to apply for a position as a Cadet Patrol Officer (CPO). Some became acquainted with Papua New Guinea through the enthralling stories of kiaps on furlough visiting their hometown or school, or relatives or acquaintances that fought in Papua New Guinea during World War II. Others, like Jim Sinclair (1966:1), had read adventure literature or the biographies of some of the patrol officers on exploratory patrols, like Jack Hides or Ivan Champion, and decided that they too wanted a piece of this glamorous life. The requirements to be considered for a position in the colonial administration were relatively easy to fulfil. A cadet patrol officer had to be at least eighteen years of age, unmarried, of good character, health and fitness, and must have finished high school or completed the Australian junior certificate examination (Kituai 1998:26-29). These requirements were in stark contrast to other European colonial powers, where a university degree was often a prerequisite for entering colonial service (Rowley 1966:68). Cadets were sent to the Australian School of Pacific Administration in Sydney, where they received an orientation course lasting five and a half months in the subjects of law, colonial administration, comparative anthropology, geography, medicine and languages (Police Motu and Pidgin English, the colonial languages of communication in Papua and New Guinea). Afterwards, they were sent to Papua New Guinea for 21 months of training on the job on various outstations and at headquarters in Port Moresby under the direction of experienced patrol officers, before being promoted to the rank of Patrol Officer (Kituai 1998:29-32; Sinclair 1966:2f.; 1981:14-17). This education thus varied for each cadet and depended to a large extent on their superiors and where they were stationed. Cadets could already conduct routine patrols in controlled areas, in the Eastern Highlands typically first under the guidance of an experienced officer, but later also on their own. Constant lack of experienced officers sometimes even meant that cadets would be placed in control of their outstations, or that they were sent to supervise large construction projects, like the building of the Highlands Highway (Kainantu PR 1953/54/2; Sinclair 1966:3). Young patrol officers then served for four to five years on various patrol posts in Papua and New Guinea, gathering experience, before being sent again to the School of Pacific Administration to complete a two-year (from 1956 onwards one-year) degree in Pacific Administration. With this degree, it was then possible to advance in the administration and to be promoted to the ranks of Assistant District Officer, District Officer and District Commissioner (Sinclair 1966:3; 1981:103). Anthropology was one of the subjects studied, and this had a long tradition going back to the establishment of a cadet training program in 1925, which included two semesters of lectures in anthropology at Sydney University, first under the renowned professor A. R. Radcliffe-Brown, then Raymond Firth and later A. P. Elkin (Campbell 1998:81-85). Kiaps were never stationed long on the same posting. After every 21 months of service, they were due for three months of home leave. Afterwards, they were usually transferred to a different station, often in a completely different part of the territory. Only a few kiaps were

74 Ending War granted a request to be stationed again at the same post, usually to complete some project already in progress. These constant transfers meant that kiaps had to get accustomed first to local conditions and situations, and these could vary considerably in Papua and New Guinea. A kiap could be transferred from an island district that had a long history of contact straight to unexplored areas in the Highlands. A kiap was thus always dependent on written and unwritten instructions and directions of his predecessors, and some, although not all, would read patrol reports to get acquainted with the area. Some kiaps, however, defended their position that local peculiarities and cultural differences between the different groups were ultimately not important, as the administrations’ policies were to be applied uniformly all over the territory (Watson 1992:185). In the end, this constant turnover did not facilitate a coherent strategy of administration, as it was in no small degree dependent on the personality and initiative of the kiaps in question (Rowley 1966:82). The particular situation of kiaps being stationed far away from the centres of the expatriate population led to the development of a distinctive professional culture, a kiap culture, so to speak. Kiaps understood themselves as rugged individuals and practical men of action, always on patrol, solving problems on the spot, and taking recourse to all possible means at disposition. This ideology was on the on hand resting on the official instructions, but on the other on informal rules and guidelines of conduct, which were passed on by word of mouth. These rules could, at times, include a considerable use of force in achieving specific objectives and asserting kiap authority. An effective means of stopping wars in Chimbu and Enga, for example, consisted in seizing all pigs of the warring parties, and only return them after the fight leaders surrendered themselves (Gordon/Meggitt 1985:49-51). Kiap culture included a considerable dose of racism, and sometimes an astonishing ignorance regarding the structure of societies that they administered (Strathern 1992:261f.). Some kiaps saw this ignorance as a problem, and some in the higher levels of the administration attempted to correct it, as can be seen by the following excerpt from a letter of DO Harry West to all patrol officers under his command: The instruction that all Patrols are to record some worthwhile anthropological data is to be strictly observed. Please bring this to the notice of all Field Officers in your Sub-District. It is only through his own anthropological research that an officer can achieve some understanding of the native mind, and there is too great a tendency to neglect this important aspect of Native Administration. (cit. in: Kainantu PR 1955/56/7)

4.3.2 Policemen The Australian colonial administration from the beginning relied on locally recruited police forces to pacify the territory. Indigenous police were recruited in areas that had a long history of contact, mostly from the coastal regions and foothills of New Guinea. Some ethnic groups were particularly singled out because they had a reputation for producing exceptional and dependable soldiers. The Papua and New Guinea Constabulary thus became dominated by men from specific areas, men from Manus, Buka and from the Waria in Morobe. These armed police forces were the real basis for kiap power, and each patrol post had a detachment of at least a dozen policemen. The most important instrument of pacification, the patrol, consisted of a kiap and several policemen armed with rifles, to defend the patrol and to enforce law and order. The police were the closest aides and confidantes of the kiap, and many of them were extremely Colonial New Guinea 75 loyal, and some of them died in the course of duty (Gammage 1996:162f.). Most of the kiaps were full of praise for their reliable companions on patrols: Six members of the New Guinea Police Force accompanied the patrol and their behaviour was exemplary, they carried out their orders to the letter and maintained a high standard of discipline throughout. On several occasions when the patrol was threatened by hostile demonstrations the police kept their heads and contributed their full share in establishing friendly relations and breaking down animosity. Despite a number of awkward situations no shots were fired during the patrol. (Kainantu PR 1949/50/1)

Many police were not just loyal servants of the Europeans but also had their own goals and interests. Most joined the police forces because they sought wealth, power, status and security. They at times saw service in the police forces as a means for traditional aims, aspiring to become renowned and feared men in the eyes of the local societies they were charged with pacifying and administering. Some hoped to be able to kill with impunity (Gammage 1996:163). Not all were following directives of their European supervisors to the letter, and most had an only faint understanding of the laws that they were to enforce. They were not particularly educated, as they only received one year of basic training, enough to write down the names of the people they arrested. If the police were not competently led, they were capable of criminal acts. Rape, assault, excessive violence and extortions by indigenous police were a common enough occurrence also in the Eastern Highlands (Sinclair 1981:45). As mentioned above, the administration after WWII continued to use a system of autonomous police posts that was introduced by Kiap James L. Taylor in the Highlands. One or two police were stationed there and in charge of keeping law and order and building bridle tracks in the ambit of the police post. The police were given relatively free reign, and controls only took place during regular patrols. The police were instructed to bring lawbreakers and parties to a dispute to the kiap courts in Kainantu, but some policemen preferred to hold court without the knowledge of their superiors. They sentenced people to corporal punishment or forced labour and asserted their authority through the use of violence, sometimes by burning down houses (Berndt 1992b:83). Through this system of autonomous police posts and the patrols that they conducted on their own from these posts, the police in certain areas had a much more significant influence on the course of the process of pacification than the kiaps. The police were in constant contact with the local population, in contrast to kiaps, which stayed a few hours on their twice- annual patrols at best. The kiaps were aware of this and used the fact for the spread of pacification, but they were also at the same time sensitive to the danger inherent in that system. Cadet Patrol Officer Kevin I. Morgan, who undertook the only patrol found in the archives dedicated exclusively to supervising these police posts wrote: Police Posts form an important link between the Administration and the outlying native population. Patrols by European Officers achieve a lot but the constant contact with a Policeman brings more lasting results as he can spend longer in each place and spend the necessary time needed to coax the natives to try new methods for sanitation, etc. ... In general it can be said that Police Posts are an advantage but supervision must be made so that Policemen do not exceed their lawful powers and to ensure that at all times they are a good example to the local population. (Kainantu PR 1950/51/7)

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Some police were excellent examples to the local people, and as agents of pacification achieved considerable success and renown. Others used their position to their benefit and overstepped their authority. The local people soon attempted to curry the favour of these powerful men and tried to manipulate them in their interests by offering them pigs and other local valuables. Police were sought as allies, and as such never had any trouble finding women as wives and concubines. Police often ‘married’ local women and sometimes started to identify strongly with the groups their wife was from (Gammage 1996:168). Kiaps were at times wary of the police’s behaviour in this regard, and police that attracted particular attention from the kiap could quickly find themselves transferred elsewhere, as the following excerpt from a patrol report demonstrates: Const. Sekiw is a hard trier and, in the past, his work has been very useful. Of late he has become involved in local politics and women matters and he has been warned that this must cease or he will be withdrawn. (Kainantu PR 1947/48/5)

It was rather tricky for kiaps to make a distinction between unjust and efficient police – if there was a difference at all – and some of the policemen most frequently cited for their excellent behaviour and their efficiency were among those that contributed to excessive violence. The system of autonomous police posts was disbanded at the end of 1952, and all police posts closed, and the policemen were withdrawn to the patrol posts, where they were under constant supervision of kiaps. It is unclear what exactly led to this turn in strategy, but it might have had something to do with several incidents, in which police used excessive violence. The anthropologist Ronald Berndt, who conducted fieldwork in the North Fore in 1952, for example, wrote to the district officer in Kainantu that police had been torching houses in the area (Berndt 1992b: 83). Police continued to influence the process of pacification on patrols led by kiaps. Police did not change their areas of operation as often as kiaps and were often better acquainted with local politics than the kiaps. The police thus remained the same and created some sort of continuity in the eyes of the local population. Most informants I spoke with only remembered a few names of the kiaps that patrolled in their areas (ADO/DO West and PO Holloway were one of the few ones that were consistently remembered – the latter also because he later became the local Member for the House of Assembly) but could produce a whole string of names of the police they met again and again when a patrol passed through their village. Kiaps were thus up to a certain degree dependent on their experienced senior police, as they had the necessary knowledge of terrain and people, and often had the superior bush skills required to survive in uncontrolled areas. Police also could steer contacts between kiaps and the local population in a particular direction, as kiaps often asked them for their opinion when they had previous experience in the area. Many an inexperienced cadet learnt the ropes from their senior corporal or sergeant (Gammage 1996:162f.). The different kiaps varied in the degree they trusted their police. Some feared excesses and kept them on a tight leash, by keeping them always nearby on patrols, enforcing strict discipline and forbidding any use of violence. Often it was only the kiap who fired warning shots. This precaution seemed a solid strategy, as Kiap Ivan Champion already in 1938 wrote in a patrol report that an estimated 50% of all problems with the local population was due to excesses by the police. Other kiaps trusted their police to a high degree, by letting them carry out arrests on Colonial New Guinea 77 their own, or even splitting a patrol at times, leaving one part under the command of a corporal or sergeant (Gammage 1996:171). Some kiaps trusted their police to such an extent that they sent them often on independent patrols in pairs, to check on all the villages and report any conflict that might occur. They were armed with their guns and always carried 20 rounds of ammunition with them.

4.3.3 Missionaries and Evangelists German Lutheran missionaries from the Neuendettelsau mission were the first Europeans to enter the Eastern Highlands around Kainantu in the 1920s. They visited one village already in 1919, followed by several exploratory expeditions to different parts of the Eastern Highlands. A first mission station was founded in 1931 in Kambaidam among the Gadsup and in 1933 moved to Onerunka, southwest of Kainantu. To spread Christianity, missionaries used Christianized local evangelists, which the Lutherans recruited at first mainly around the Kate- speaking area of Sattelberg-Hube, and later also from within the Eastern Highlands. Missionaries of the Seventh Day Adventists (SDA) also established a mission station in the Eastern Highlands before World War II and started to send out local evangelists. Local evangelists were the spear tip of the white missionaries and were widely used, as they could establish more straightforward access to the Highlanders. They were the actual pioneers that entered uncontrolled areas, settled in villages, learnt the local language, participated in village activities and attempted to gain the trust of the people to spread their message. The few white missionaries were mainly stationed on their mission stations, from where they controlled the activities of the evangelists, visiting them more or less regularly and supporting them in advancing missionization (Mrossko 1986:190-199; Radford 1987:18-60). The goal of missionization was not geared towards the quick conversion of single individuals, but a long-term goal of conversion of whole communities or at least large parts of a community, in order not to undermine the connectedness of the society (Dickerson-Putman 1986:119f.; Smith 1981:23-26). Evangelists had an essential role in the process of pacification, as they operated as mediators between the different cultural spheres, supporting official representatives of the administration and deepening contact between villagers and the outside world (Radford 1977a:52). When evangelists arrived in a village, they would first establish themselves with a house and a garden, and then started to build a rudimentary church and school and to preach their particular version of Christianity. They preached against most aspects of traditional life they found morally wrong, traditional warfare being only one amongst many: The [Lutheran Mission] teachers are preaching against killing, sorcery, playing of the ceremonial flute, piercing of the internasal membrane, initiation, fighting, stealing, bride price, and the traditional method of the distribution of the property of a deceased man. It seems that Sing Sings are not condemned or interfered with. (Kainantu PR 1957/58/3)

The spread of the mission became more regulated after WWII, and, as a consequence, missionaries and evangelists visited most villages in the research area only some time after administration personnel had already contacted them. Evangelists were limited to only operate in areas declared as controlled by the administration and had to wait for an official derestriction

78 Ending War of uncontrolled areas. The kiaps, as a consequence, received persistent demands to derestrict certain areas, which were only rarely successful. Not all evangelists adhered to these statutes (Berndt 1965:100): At Kemiu [Kanite] it was learned however, that the S.D.A. Mission, contrary to Administration instructions, had sent Native Mission teachers to a number of the villages in that area and had established Churches at KEMIU, MOIFE and KAGU, all outside the area to which Missions have been granted permission to visit. (Kainantu PR 1949/50/1)

As soon as an area was derestricted, a scramble ensued between the different denominations over control of individual villages. As villages were usually evangelized and converted as units, this meant that those denominations that first established a foothold in a village could claim it as belonging to their sphere of influence. In certain areas, like among the Auyana, the evangelists only spent a few years in a village, converted the people en masse, and then left in a hurry to claim further areas. Such a form of missionization was not sustainable, and Robbins (1982:14), Smith (1981:113f.) and some passages in patrol reports mention that the newly converted were often left in a state of complete consternation: The policy seems to be to enter new country as soon as possible by using native evangelists after initial contact, then, after a short period of time (after the native co-operation has slackened off) to abandon the area and look for fresh pastures. This type of religious enlightenment seems to leave the yet primitive native 'up in the air' and completely confused. (Kainantu PR 1955/56/8)

The relations between kiaps and missionaries or evangelists could thus be rather frosty at times. One ex-kiap I interviewed was so thoroughly disgusted about this mad scramble for new territories and the ensuing petty infighting that he said to have completely lost faith in all forms of organized religion. And whereas some kiaps recognized some kind of regulating effect of the mission on formerly bellicose societies, others were deeply sceptical about their approach and the training of indigenous evangelists, which in their eyes was completely unsatisfactory. Kiaps were especially irked when evangelists started to compete with village officials over status and authority. They also criticised the practice that in order to be baptized, a polygamist had to divorce all his wives but one, which created a lot of social problems and unrest. Lutheran evangelists were especially singled out in patrol reports as uneducated, uninformed about basic religious tenets, and unhygienic. Criticism could be scathing at times: Native representatives of the Lutheran Mission were found in all major villages through the newly contacted areas between Suwaira and MOKE. For the most part they are a miserable, dirty and illiterate lot who know nothing about education or religion other than what they have picked up in a couple of years from a coastal native mission teacher in one of the more sophisticated Kainantu villages. They tend to give rise to a certain amount of uncertainty and anxiety in the native communities. They do not have large followings and the native appear to attend the brief morning and evening, and never changing ‘services’ on the off chance that some benefit may result and that no harm can be done anyway. (Kainantu PR 1952/53/8) Colonial New Guinea 79

Kiaps also disliked Lutheran evangelists because they hardly spoke Pidgin English and did not teach this administrative lingua franca in their schools. The church and educational language in the Lutheran Church in the Highlands was Kate, a language from the upland region around Finschhafen, where the first evangelists were recruited. The local population thus first had to learn Kate if they wanted to understand the teaching of the evangelists. One kiap quipped in his patrol report about this practice: The Lutheran mission does its teaching in KATE, a coastal language. This appears to be building up a religious hierarchy, speaking the religious language (i.e. KATE). I believe this is one of the things Martin Luther objected to during the Reformation. (Kainantu PR 1952/53/7)

Kiaps knew to differentiate, however. Adventist evangelists usually were better regarded in the patrol reports and were less criticised. They apparently were better educated, spoke and taught Pidgin English and emphasized cleanliness and hygiene, earning them extra points from the administration: [The Adventist Mission teachers] are much more highly trained than the Lutheran Mission teachers, all are literate in pidgin and are teaching elementary reading and writing. They pay considerable attention to hygiene and are playing a small part in the over-all raising of living standards. (Kainantu PR 1952/53/8)

Evangelists – much like policemen – were prone to using their position within the local society to gain wealth, power and influence. They profited from their close associations with whites and they were often regarded as powerful as policemen by the local population, which did not necessarily distinguish between the government and the mission (Lindenbaum 1979:83). As Berndt (1962:320f.) witnessed, evangelists were heavily involved in the nascent local justice system and had a high degree of authority. There are numerous cases mentioned in the patrol reports, in which evangelists openly abused their positions to pursue their own goals and desires, as in the following Southern Tairora communities: These [Lutheran] catechists have caused trouble at BAIRA, NUMBAIRA and ASARA due to their relationships with married women of the villages. (Obura PR 1963/64/2)

After one particularly bad incident in 1962, for example, the missionaries withdrew all evangelists operating among the Awa, because one evangelist from Tawaina had participated in an armed raid on the village of Ogarataba (Boyd 1975:51).

4.3.4 Gold Prospectors Gold prospectors also had an impact on the process of pacification, as they were often the first whites to visit the southern parts of the former Kainantu Sub-district in which I conducted fieldwork. First prospectors entered the Upper Ramu River around 1927, and in 1930 Ned Rowlands discovered gold in significant quantities in the Ornapinka Creek near Kainantu. There was no ensuing gold rush as at the Bulolo Creek in the Morobe District in the 1920s as access to the region was more of a problem, and relations with the local population was often described as difficult by the gold prospectors (Radford 1987:63-77). The exploratory patrols of these early prospectors were hardly documented – except those by the Leahy brothers

80 Ending War

(Connolly/Anderson 1987; Leahy/Jones 1991) – partially because secrecy was a precondition for securing claims. Only a few gold prospectors are known to have undertaken prospecting trips to the south of Kainantu, and they established first contact with the Auyana, Southern Tairora and Fore in the early to mid-1930s. Lance Peadon and Reg Dawes came as far as Nompia and rounded Mount Elandora. Bill Durcher, Bernard McGrath and Jack O’Neill spent thirteen days south of Kainantu. And a combined expedition by the prospector James Nason- Jones and Kiap Allart Nurton reached far into the Southern Tairora in the summer of 1933, only to turn back when faced with the formidable obstacle of Mount Piora (Radford 1987:106-108; NAA: A7034, 39). Gold Prospectors also reached the North Fore, where the Ashton brothers entered the area as the first whites in the second half of 1934 (Lindenbaum 1979:79). At the beginning of the Second World War two parties of prospectors, one with Ted Ubank and Ned Rowlands, and the other with Tom Fox escaped the Japanese invasion on the North Coast by hiking out towards the Papuan Coast through the Fore area (Kainantu PR 1947/48/5; 1950/51/8; NAA: AWM52, 1/10/1). Prospectors had no qualms in their interactions with the local population, and with some exceptions, they were quick to resort to guns when they encountered a precarious situation. As they often transported a large number of trade goods, they sometimes became a target for theft by the local population, which invariably led to conflicts when prospectors demanded the return of stolen goods. Heavily armed prospectors perpetrated many excesses before WWII. In some areas in the northern section of the Kainantu Sub-district, they thus had a considerable influence in the process of pacification when they early on broke armed resistance by the local population (Radford 1987:61-77).

4.3.5 Aid Post Orderlies To improve primary medical services, a network of aid posts was soon strung out over the Highlands after World War II, staffed by local aid post orderlies. The Department of Health trained these orderlies in simple bush medicine skills. They learnt how to dress wounds, how to diagnose the most common diseases, and how to give injections and administer medicines. As most of the men were illiterate, they received their instructions orally, and the students were taught to distinguish drugs by size, colour and taste, and to learn the administering doses by rote. Supplied with dressing materials and medicines, these aid post orderlies were then sent out to build an aid post at some central location, maintain their own subsistence gardens and to offer medical services and improve basic village hygiene. One of the most significant medical impacts of these orderlies was undoubtedly in the quick and almost complete eradication of yaws. The attendance of these aid posts differed significantly. In Purosa, the old APO Tarubi Taguse said that he did not need a lot of convincing for people to visit his aid post, as there were a lot of diseases that he could treat, especially yaws and tropical ulcers. Most notable was that Tarubi Taguse himself was from Purosa, so there was less a problem of suspicion, even though some people preferred to visit the local traditional healers. These local healers among the Purosa were known as bark men or bark women, as they chewed tree bark, spit it on meat and gave it to the patients. Other healers, especially with the increase of kuru, used small glass-tipped arrows or bottle shards to cut the patient to let out blood (see also Lindenbaum 1979:88, 93-95). In other areas, the location of these aid posts at times proved to be problematic, as old enmities often Colonial New Guinea 81 prevented people from accessing an aid post located on the territory of their former enemies, as they feared they might be attacked or ensorceled. The following excerpts from patrol reports covering the aid posts at Auyana (Asempa) and Baira make these concerns most evident: ...the old animosities between the people are still interfering with progress. This is mainly evident in the refusal of the surrounding groups to come to the Medical Aid Post for treatment. As this post is situated at AUIANA, hereditary enemies of the other groups, the people say that they are frightened to spend the length of time required for treatment on AUIANA ground. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/9)

In the North Lamari areas there is total opposition to taking sick people to the nearest Aid Post. ... Their reason for not seeking treatment is simple; if a person is sick he will either recover of die, if he dies it is better that he dies near his own land as his forefathers did, besides if a person dies away from his ground it is hard work carrying the body back to the village. There is also a superstition that people who go to hospital or an aid post will die there. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/4)

Because they were also stationed in uncontrolled territory, these indigenous aid post orderlies also contributed to pacification, as they were the only agents of the state permanently living among the local population, thus occupying an important mediating role. They sometimes had to cope with considerable adversity in not yet pacified areas, as can be seen by the following excerpt from a patrol report: The A.P.O.[Aid Post Orderly] a this post [Himarata], A.P.O. WAURE, a native of the KAMANO Census Division should be commended for his work here. The Aid Post buildings have been constructed by him as he receives no support from the locals. ... He has been forcibly warned to leave on several occasions with threats of violence and has had arrows fired at his house to add further warnings. To have remained at his post in the face of difficulties such as these stamps WAURE as one above the average. (Kainantu PR 1962/63/5)

Aid post orderlies, just like native evangelists, could gain considerable reputation among the local population through their connections to the administration. They sometimes also used this reputation and influence to contribute to pacification and the development of the local community. From interviews with an aid post orderly stationed in Baira and from the following excerpt from a patrol report it is evident that aid post orderlies often on their own or in collaboration with village officials attempted to stop an escalation of conflicts to warfare: The Avia people immediately took their bows and arrows and were about to kill the Nangona man, had not the Councillor, Committeeman and Aid Post Orderly shielded the man from the onslaught and saved him from being killed. (Okapa PR 1970/71/9)

4.4 Modalities of Pacification The official strategy of the administration already before World War II was one of ‘peaceful penetration’, which aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the population. A patrol contacting a village would typically distribute presents to show its peaceful intentions, but often give a demonstration of force as well, by shooting a volley at trees or through wooden shields. This ideal of peacefulness was not always wholly met, however, and the threat with and sometimes use of violence was an integral part of the pacification strategy, even if only used as

82 Ending War punishment against groups that did not abide by the proclaimed ban on warfare. The amount and manner of force used by kiaps varied and depended on their personalities: some preferred to negotiate a surrender of the instigators of the conflict, while others, especially in encounters before WWII, relied on dawn raids ‘to bring unruly natives under control’ (Radford 1987:126- 130). Such punitive expeditions were in principle only used as a last resort, when all other methods failed. Still, some kiaps also considered them the most efficient means of suppressing further conflicts (Watson 1992:177). Most of the patrol work was hardly ever a violent affair, however. Kiaps always took trade goods with them on their patrol, in order to establish peaceful relations with the local population through barter. Most of those goods, like beads, mirrors, shells, cloth, but also tobacco, salt and especially steel tools were highly coveted by Highlanders and they welcomed each patrol happily as a source of such goods, even tried to entice a passing patrol to visit their village. The kiaps were always eager to emphasize that the continued supply of such goods depended mainly on the future peaceful behaviour of the Highlanders (Radford 1987:17; 96-97). Missionaries and evangelists employed the same tactics, even more so since evangelists usually were unarmed. They distributed goods in exchange for food and shelter, and thus usually achieved good relations with their host villages (Radford 1987:30-31). I will in the course of this chapter give an overview of the different strategies that kiaps, police, and missionaries and evangelists employed in their attempts to pacify the people living in this part of the Eastern Highlands

4.4.1 Use of Lethal Force Lethal force as a modality of pacification was already frowned upon since the administration of Governor Herbert Murray before the Second World War (1908-1940). In a circular letter from 1909, he informed patrol officers that the use of firearms as a punitive measure was generally forbidden with only a few clearly defined exceptions (Griffin et al. 1979:26). After World War II, the use of firearms was even more tightly regulated and controlled. In the DDS&NA Circular Instructions No. 8-47/48 with the title ‘Firing on natives’, the legal use of weapons was limited to three clearly defined situations: a) in self-defence, but only when a patrol was under attack, and arrows had already been discharged, b) to prevent the escape of an arrested person or a person sought for arrest, and c) to overcome forcible resistance to arrest (Wolfers 1975:11f.). The doctrine of Murray was quoted at length in these instructions, and part of it read: Officers should never forget that it is the settled policy of the Government not to resort to force except in cases of necessity, when all other means have failed, and that it by no means follows that because an officer has a good defence on a charge of manslaughter that his conduct will, therefore, escape censure. (cit. in: Sinclair 1981:133)

Kiaps were generally proud of this tradition, and many made an effort to follow these instructions, not least of all because they could be disciplined if they were found to have acted brashly. After each incident in which guns were fired and locals wounded or killed, a police investigation was launched to check whether the use of firearms was justified. If this was not the case, a kiap could be committed for trial in the Supreme Court for assault or unlawful killing. Colonial New Guinea 83

There were a few well-publicized cases in which kiaps had to face trial, and some of them were convicted because of their excessive use of violence (Sinclair 1981:35, 42, 133-136, 155f.). It is clear that some acts of excessive use of force were never or only partially reported. For the area I studied, there were several incidents when kiaps and police used guns, killing people, destroying houses and gardens, and not all of them were adequately reported in patrol reports. This was especially the case right after World War II when the administration had to start again from scratch. With time, control over kiaps and police was tightened, and with the quick turnover of kiaps and a high work ethic of many of them, it would have been difficult to avoid the discovery of massacres by the next kiap. Most kiaps used a strategy of calculated restraint. They avoided situations that could lead to an armed clash with the local population, and only in a few cases did kiaps actively intervene in on-going wars, even though ending these wars was their primary task. They instead proposed to wait until the situation had calmed down to intervene at a later time: From my own experience in this area it is useless to go into a situation where a fight has just taken place. More can be accomplished when they have exhausted themselves and are not in an excited state. (PR Kainantu 1958/59/4)

I hope to return to the area shortly and will again endeavor to cease hostilities and try to instill some form of law and order into the place. Entering the area in the present state of constant feuding will achieve nothing as I cannot get near either party, and if this is pressed I have no doubt that they will not come quietly and will only bring about a clash between them and the patrol - solving nothing. It is a difficult situation and I think can only be overcome by slow and careful approaches. (Kainantu PR 1957/58/4)

Where firearms were used in self-defence, it was mostly to fire warning shots into the air or the ground. This was, in most cases, enough to rout any hostile warriors. Kiaps that did not trust their police often only handed out ammunition when there was clear danger and prohibited them from firing at their own will. In some cases, it was the kiap alone who used his gun, as in the following example, in which ADO Richard Ian Skinner (who was known to be carrying a sub- machine gun on patrol from his wartime experience as a coastwatcher and leader of a guerrilla force on New Britain) fired some warning shots: Suddenly, from a creek bed some distance from the village a large body of armed warriors, carrying shields, broke cover and advanced upon Ifusa. It was then learned that they were a body of Mawki men who had remained in hiding until the patrol had passed and were now rushing to attack Ifusa. To prevent the slaughter of the few Ifusa men visible I fired a few shots - nine in all - into the ground ahead of these attackers. In the soft garden land the shots kicked up dirt which deterred the attackers who did not press home the attack. I refused to let the police join in case there be ‘accidental’ deaths. (Kainantu PR 1947/48/5)

As in all other aspects, the actual use of firearms was heavily dependent on the kiap in charge, and it would be wrong to speak of a uniform strategy in the use of lethal force. Each kiap had his way of handling potentially dangerous situations, whether to avoid such situations in the first place or to use firearms. These personal strategies could differ considerably, as can be seen

84 Ending War by the comparison of the following excerpts from two patrol reports. In both cases a patrol attempted to arrest some men and encountered resistance: On arrival, was met by a hostile reception from the SUWAIRA fighting men and spent the two to three hours thwarting their attempts to manoevre into a position from which they could attack the patrol. ... thwarted in this, [they] resorted to shouts of insults, defiance, and requests to come out into the open and fight. (Kainantu PR 1948/49/7)

Myself and four police went towards the village [Tainoraba] to try and find the rest of the men whom were said to have been implicated. Many arrows landed in the vicinity of myself and the police as we neared the village. I ran towards the large group of shield carrying men. When about 50 yards from the village stockade, and there was no let-up in their fire, I felt that it would be foolhardy to proceed into more of a crossfire so I fired several shots over their heads. We continued through the stockade, and I dispatched the police after the fleeing men. (Kainantu PR 1960/61/9)

These two diametrically opposed approaches – restraint and conscious avoidance of a conflictive situation on the one hand, rather foolhardy direct assault and use of a firearm on the other – marks the two extremes of tactics used by kiaps. The use of guns during patrols led by kiaps was not a frequent event, however, and deaths or injuries by bullets even scarcer. In the patrol reports reviewed, I only found mention of three casualties among the local population due to gunshots, one by Cpl Nalakor in 1951 and one by Lance Corporal Pakau in 1952 while they were both stationed on the Moke Police Post in the Fore area (Kainantu PR 1950/51/8; 1952/53/6) and one caused by Lance Corporal Tokam when Patrol Officer Bill Brown had to defend his patrol against an attack by Mobutasa warriors (Kainantu PR 1953/54/8; NAA: A452, 1957/2457). There are likely to be a few more casualties, as some early patrol reports might not have been too specific on such details. ADO Skinner on his exploratory patrol in 1947, for example, mentions having to fire several shots when his patrol came under attack in the Kosena area but was unable to ascertain whether any casualties occurred (Kainantu PR 1947/48/5). And as already mentioned, several patrol reports have ‘gone missing’ or were classified and then disappeared. Situations in which kiaps used guns were rare, however, and excessive use of lethal force was more of a problem with the system of autonomous police posts in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Police stationed on these posts were unsupervised for most of the time, and they did take retaliatory action and led punitive expeditions against some villages. It is difficult to assess the total number of victims of police violence. Still, my investigations in the area have revealed at least 29 victims of police violence in four different incidents, some of which will be more closely documented in the following chapters. The total number of victims to direct state violence after World War II is likely to be higher. Still, it is clearly lower than what is known to have occurred in the process of pacification before the war in the northern part of the Kainantu Sub-district. Overall, there was a considerable reluctance to use lethal force by the overwhelming majority of kiaps from the late 1940s onwards, a stark difference to the situation in the 1930s, when dawn raids against recalcitrant villages were considered as generally accepted instruments of pacification, even if only used in Colonial New Guinea 85 the last resort.12 After the death of gold prospector Bernard McGrath in February 1934, a combined punitive expedition of gold prospectors and colonial police and kiaps even fought a pitched battle against a desperately resisting force of Kamano villagers from Finintegu accused of murdering McGrath. The official death toll after a day of fighting stood at 19 Kamano, but the villagers in later testimonials reported to have lost anywhere between 28, 39 and up to 72 lives, among them women and children (Connolly/Anderson 1987:188f.; Kituai 1998:9f.; Radford 1987:135f.). Loss of that many lives was dramatic to local groups barely encompassing 250-300 people and had an enormous psychological impact. The sensitive metaphor of James Watson (1992:177-179) seems adequate when he connects the history of pacification among the Agarabi with the tragic fate of a man whose arm was shattered by a bullet, and who had over twenty years become slowly but surely weakened by lead poisoning stemming from the dissolving bullet that had remained lodged in his body. Kiaps I spoke to often pointed out, that however deplorable these victims of state violence are, they pale against the potential victims by warfare over the same period if traditional wars would have continued.

4.4.2 Destruction of Property Except for some unauthorized actions by unsupervised policemen, guns were mainly used for self-defence, and not as a method of punishment against recalcitrant villages. This is different in the case of other, non-lethal, forms of violence. The destruction of property by torching houses, killing pigs and spoiling gardens was used as a form of punishment on several occasions, especially in the southeastern corner of the Kainantu Sub-district. Corporeal punishment by whipping people with bamboo sticks or hitting them with rifle butts also occurred on several occasions. These non-lethal forms of violence were also forbidden by standing instructions of the Department of Native Affairs, as expressed in a series of circulars that went out to all patrol posts (Sinclair 1981:198). The Departmental Handbook on General Field Administration that was first published and went into force in 1962 clearly stated: Under no circumstances will Native Affairs Patrols or field parties damage or destroy property, be it housing, livestock, personal possessions, cash crops or subsistence gardens. It has long been settled policy that our methods of extending and/or consolidating Administration influence do not include any such actions if only because they are administratively inept. The basis on which we extend and/or consolidate Administration influence is friendship, trust and confidence and those attitudes will not be instilled into the indigenous population by burning their houses, shooting their pigs or pulling out their food crops. (Department of Native Affairs 1962:78)

With such clear condemnation of the practice by the Department superiors, it is thus not surprising that none of the patrol reports mentions any such destruction. Oral history interviews, on the other hand, clearly point out notions in kiap culture that the destruction of property is a regrettable, but sometimes necessary form of punishment. Some kiaps, for example, mentioned

12 For example, the attack by Kiap Ian Mack on the Agarabi village of Aiamontina on the 11th of June, 1933, in which Mack and 8 inhabitants of Aiamontina lost their lives (Radford 1977b, McPherson 2001b).

86 Ending War that although they never personally ordered the torching of houses, other kiaps at times did resort to such punitive measures. John Fowke on his experience as a Cadet Patrol Officer in the more remote Southern Highlands for example mentioned:

I never burnt any houses. But I saw a lot of smoke. I saw a lot of smoke, and I don’t deny there were fires in that area. But I can say I never ever gave the order to any policeman to ever burn a house. And I don’t believe any policeman under my control in all the time I was there did any of that. (John Fowke)

This practice of burning houses was thrown into the spotlight when Patrol Officer Otto Alder was charged with malicious damage to property in 1962 after he had burnt down two men’s houses at Sebanumu and Iabwiara in the Wonenara area in May 1961. The incident started when men of Iabwiara murdered the luluai of Owenia and another man from Tainoraba who were on their way back home from the station in Wonenara. Alder went to investigate the murder with a contingent of police and was attacked when he climbed up towards the upper part of Sebanumu village. Alder fired several shots at the attackers, who then all fled. In retaliation and to prevent further fighting between Sebanumu, Iabwiara and Owenia, he burnt down the men’s houses of Sebanumu and the neighbouring hamlet of Iabwiara. When his attempts at contacting the villagers of Iabwiara and Sebanumu to continue his police investigations failed, he also ordered the flattening of garden fences the next day, so that people would be forced to come back or face the destruction of their gardens by pigs, without much success (NAA: A452, 1961/7747). Ex-Kiap Otto Alder explained to me, that what he did was established practice in such situations, and that he was only following the lead of a more senior kiap that had shown him the ropes as a young patrol officer. He also explained the psychological effect of burning a men’s house:

The focus of the fight is the men’s house. That’s where they bundle all the shields and arrows. If you want to put an end to it [the fight], you need to get rid of the offending men’s house. Because that’s the whole focus of their manhood. It is all replaceable, but it takes a lot of time, because they spend so much time sharpening their arrows, and all that. And some of those shields are also very old, and you can’t just replace them overnight. So it causes them huge disruption and they’d rather it didn’t happen. So when there were serious fight situations, it was one of the only real ways of asserting authority in a sort of non-lethal way. And it used to happen. Not routinely, but regularly where there’d been the need for it. You really only had to do it once, because it’s the sort of things that causes such disruptions, they don’t come back for seconds. (Otto Alder)

That then 23-year old Otto Alder was charged with malicious damage to property caused an uproar in the kiap community, and patrol officers throughout the territory quickly closed ranks and raised £1200 to contribute to his defence funds. Chief Justice Mann, in the end, exonerated him, by pointing out that the local population had rejected all government authority, and their actions constituted a riot, probably even an insurrection. In such a situation, it was thus the duty of the patrol officer to do everything in his power to restore peace and order. He further pointed out that the men’s houses Otto Alder ordered to be burnt constituted clear military objectives, and that he acted in a commendable manner and with restraint in an extraordinary situation (NAA: A452, 1961/7747; Sinclair 1981:198-200). Justice Mann ended his verdict with the following statement: Colonial New Guinea 87

My conclusion being that the accused acted correctly in performance of a duty imposed by law, it follows that the burning was not unlawful, but was justified and upon the decision made by the accused, authorized and required, by law. (NAA: A452, 1961/7747)

4.4.3 Arrest and Incarceration Kiaps tried to stop warfare not only by violent means but also resorted to police enforcement measures or then tried to prevent the escalation of conflicts into war through the implementation of alternative means of conflict resolution. The aim of each patrol sent out to investigate an occurrence of warfare was to determine the instigators and participants of the conflict and to arrest them on the charge of ‘riotous behaviour’. As collective punishment was forbidden according to standing instructions, kiaps upon reaching a conflict zone first had to establish who actively participated in the fighting. Some kiaps followed these guidelines to the letter and undertook lengthy enquiries, which were complicated even more by having to use interpreters: A full day was spent gathering evidence and it was possible to ascertain which men had been engaged on both occasions, which men had actually fired arrows and which men had scored hits on their opponents. These chiefly responsable were sentenced to terms of imprisonment up to six month while others received shorter terms and were put to work on the main road. (Kainantu PR 1946/47/2)

Kiaps were thereby dependent on local collaboration not only in getting informed that conflicts were taking place in the area but also in detecting the people who were responsible for and had actively participated in combat. Otherwise, they would have no information upon which to base their arrests, with the exception of the converse argument used by Kiap James Sinclair, that at least those wounded in battle must have participated, and could, therefore, be arrested (Sinclair 1981:97). This dependence of the colonial administration on local collaboration gave the local population, especially the luluai and tultul as contact persons for the kiap, ample scope for manipulation. It allowed them to more or less freely choose the identity of those to be arrested. At times, these leaders made false accusations or then presented scapegoats (usually younger unmarried men), which would be arrested an imprisoned instead of the more influential leaders, as Kiap R. Catherall found out when he arrested some men for their involvement in fighting in Konkonbira among the Southern Tairora: It is typical of these people that whilst the patrol was in the area, the arrested men stated emphatically that they were the only ones to fight but once they arrived at Wonenara they readily admitted that the brother of the KONKONBIRA Luluai had been their leader in the fight. On being asked why they and many others had lied before about this they stated that they were young unmarried men whereas the Luluai's brother was a married man with children and he therefore did not want to go to jail. (Wonenara PR 1963/64/1)

This collaboration was hardly ever forthcoming at the beginning of the process of pacification. Once it became clear that the patrols would try to arrest people if they had been involved in armed conflict, whole communities would violently resist such arrests or flee before an approaching patrol. The kiaps, in turn, had different strategies to forestall violence. In less- contacted areas, they often avoided a confrontation in order not to scare off communities and

88 Ending War lose contact. Instead, kiaps would issue strong warnings and declare the aims of the administration and the ban on violence again, in the hope this would have an effect over time: Similar incidents occurred at BAIRA No. 2 and ATIERA [Asara], where the people had been fighting with nearby groups some months previously and were scared that the patrol had arrived to extract retribution. However the assurance that the matter would be overlooked on this occasion enabled a satisfactory census to be taken. ... The fact was mentioned throughout, that the use of force to settle disputes was frowned upon by the Administration and that arbitration is to be preferred. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/4)

It was obvious that I could serve no useful purpose by staying any longer. During the fighting nobody had been killed, both sides seemed at fault and to make any arrests would only have made it difficult for the next patrol to contact these people. (Kainantu PR 1956/57/6)

In areas that already had a long history of contact, kiaps often put pressure onto the local population and the village officials to hand in the culprits. This tactic was sometimes successful, especially if a patrol remained in the area for several days, and thus started to be a burden on local food reserves: When it became evident that the patrol would remain until all involved had been apprehended, their discomfort at having a patrol in the area took precedence over their willingness to shield offenders, and a limited amount of assistance was received. (Wonenara PR 1963/64/14)

If no help was forthcoming, or if the kiap in charge chose a more direct approach, a patrol would attempt to apprehend the men responsible by sending policemen after them. This was not often successful, as the local villagers had the advantages of better knowledge of their terrain, greater speed and endurance as well as constant vigilance against approaching patrols on their side. A few times, patrols would split up to attempt to catch persons sought for arrest in a pincer movement and to cut off escape routes. This approach was not always to the liking of superiors, as this meant that a kiap was no longer in direct control of these independently operating police detachments. Most kiaps were aware of the consequences of an arrest of several people on the military situation of small local groups. As a rule, they avoided to arrest only men from one side to a conflict: My recommendation is that a patrol proceed to the area and after enquiry proceed around the circuit and arrest the natives, from all villages, engaged in the fighting. Arrests from one village alone will be insufficient as this will only disturb the balance of power. (Kainantu PR 1954/55/1)

Ten men of this village [Pinata] were arrested for their part in the fighting. In fact nearly every man of this village was involved some way in the fighting but it was considered unwise to arrest them all as it would leave the village unprotected. (Wonenara PR 1962/63/17) Colonial New Guinea 89

There are exceptions, however, and in some situations, kiaps arrested several people from one group, but none from the other, either because they fled or resisted arrest. Some kiaps did not always have the best grasp on the situation, as will be made clear in one instance in the Obura case study. Looking through patrol reports, one often gains the impression that some kiaps arrested whoever they could lay a hand on, under the pretext that in large-scale conflicts between villages all men are equally guilty of participating in a battle, as nobody would abstain. Other kiaps as a consequence had a hard time to get the message across that they would only arrest those guilty of starting a conflict and not the population as a whole: The basic problem is to impress upon the people that they must abide by the tenets of law and order and on the other hand try to convince them that only the people who break them need fear the Administration and not the population as a whole. […] The actions of the people of HABI'INA typifies the attitude of the TAIRORA group towards law and justice. Very few men were involved in the fighting but the population, almost to a man, deserted their houses and remained in the forest for the duration of the patrol's visit. (Wonenara PR 1962/63/14)

It was only towards the end of the pacification process that those responsible turned themselves in voluntarily or were forced to turn themselves in by their communities or their leaders, mostly because they realized that harsher consequences could fall on the village as a whole in case of non-compliance: The patrol visited the HIMARATA area twice and on each occasion an escapee was taken into custody. This is considered worthy of note for if the incident had occurred two years ago it would have been many months before the men could be again taken into custody. The fact that the escapees came forward voluntarily is considered indicative of the general change of attitude and settlement over the past two years and particularly over the past two months. (Kainantu PR 1962/63/17)

Those arrested because of ‘riotous behaviour’ were usually sentenced in a Court of Native Affairs on the spot or at the next patrol post to two to six months in prison. The convicts had to perform hard labour while imprisoned, either on road construction, logging, or general improvement work around the patrol post. A lot of prisoners from Purosa, for example, spent some time as prison labourers on the construction of the Kassam Pass road. Often quite a bit of pride mingled with their tales about the creation of this vital link between the Highlands and the coastal cities of Lae and Madang. On more extended patrols, those arrested could already serve part of their prison time as carriers in the patrol line, reverting in status to paid carriers once their sentence expired. In a few cases, when people were killed in the fighting, some men could be charged with murder in the Supreme Court and receive longer sentences of several years duration that they would have to serve in higher security prisons in faraway districts. The local population generally regarded a prison term as a harsh form of punishment, since one was not only denied regular association with one’s kin but also locked in a room together with strangers and even enemies (Watson 1964:166). The abnormal work rhythm from early in the morning until late at night with hardly a rest and the heavy workload was deemed something best to be avoided. This burden was only partially offset by the better nutrition of rice, meat and fish in prison. Over time, prison lost a bit of its scariness, and people no longer resisted arrest or even appeared before the kiap to get imprisoned voluntarily (Boyd 1975:50). There

90 Ending War was never any moral stigma attached to a prison stay in the views of the local population anyway, and the reputation of a person did not suffer if he had to spend some time in prison (Watson 1964:166). Most of the older men I interviewed had been imprisoned at least once in their lives. Apart from being a disciplinary measure, the prison was also a focal point of pacification. It was in jail that Highlanders for the first time came into intense contact with the ‘civilizing’ project of the colonial administration (Görlich 1999:158). They became acquainted with the extent and aims of the colonial presence, befriended policemen and learned a smattering of Pidgin English, often within only a few weeks, which rendered them valuable contact persons for kiaps upon their return to the village. In prison, men often also got to know other prisoners from other parts of the Eastern Highlands, and they could thus create extensive personal networks to be used for trade. The prisoners were often sent back with some goodwill-gifts such as a knife or a piece of calico and salt. Some former prisoners from more remote villages were even made village officials after being released, and some became quite efficient mediating agents of pacification themselves: At AREBUNKURA there was a good contact by the patrol following upon the return of two previous prisoners there by Mr. Alder some time prior to this patrol. They had assisted greatly in explaining Administration aims to their fellow villagers. (Kainantu PR 1961/62/1)

4.4.4 Indirect and Symbolic Violence Kiaps asserted their authority not only through the use of guns, the destruction of property or the arrest of warriors, but also through a wide range of symbolic actions that contained elements of force and coercion. These indirect and symbolic forms of violence had a corrosive effect on the local population and over time often broke their spirit of resistance. As Görlich (1999:158) has shown, kiaps soon realized the importance of rituals in the traditional society and used them to communicate their aims. Kiaps were clearly separated from the Highland population by their white skin and tall stature, but they increased this separation by several additional ritualistic means. The area around the patrol tents or rest houses was often closed off by a simple piece of string, and designated as a restricted area, that nobody could enter. Court procedure or census work was conducted with all necessary pomp and circumstance. The kiap would sit at a folding table in the shade of a tree, while the whole population of a village would have to line up in the glaring sun. Police, kiap and interpreters would use a harsh commanding tone. During the census, every head of a household had to answer when called up, step forward with his wife or wives and children, answer any questions posed through the interpreter and only then be given a chance to bring forth his grievances. The authority of the kiap was undisputed, and even luluai and tultul, often the most influential and respected men of the village, could be loudly harangued or even beaten in front of the village if they were not fulfilling their duties (Hayano 1990:37-39, 55-57; Sinclair 1981:50-53). Even the yearly census taking was seen as an ordeal, as one had to line up with the whole family in the scorching sun and wait until one’s name was called, as Aiyoma Amonandigi from Purosa recounted: Colonial New Guinea 91

During high noon, we were not able to sit in the shade. They lined us up in the sun, and we had to stand there until our name was called and we said yes, and only then could we go to our houses and rest. Those people whose name was not yet called were all scorched by the sun. (Ayioma Amonandigi)

Patrols by their nature were also characterized by a multiplicity of military and martial rituals, which were bound to impress the local population, among them the raising and lowering of the flag with all the police with rifles and fixed bayonets at attention. The demonstration of these rifles was an often-repeated ritual in less-contacted areas and potentially dangerous situations, as these excerpts from patrol reports testify: During the afternoon a rifle demonstration given, which gave visible results from the assembled watchers, particularly so when compared to the puniness of their own weapons. (Kainantu Special Report 1957-58/7)

These [enemy warriors] duly arrived and we quickly placed four heavy fence palings face to face and fired rifle bullets through them. I once again re-iterated our friendliness and our intentions but pointed out the possible results of an attack upon us. (Kainantu PR 1952/53/9)

... the escaped pig was brought into camp, and the owner received his tomahawk. He then asked us to shoot it, as he wanted his people to see the rifle. As the rifle report rang out, a number of natives dropped to the ground in fright. (Kainantu PR 1954/55/3)

The size of a patrol was another demonstration of power. In attempting to pacify the Southern Tairora in the early 1960s kiaps would send out massive patrols, or several patrols at the same time through the area to demonstrate their claim of superiority. In comparison to the small number of inhabitants of these villages, the patrol with up to 160 carriers to establish the patrol post in Wonenara must have seen as an overwhelming force. Kiaps also had the technological advantage, and sometimes used it for creating an intimidating effect, for example by supplying the patrol by aeroplanes: The show of strength by the patrol, the fact that a total of eleven police constables and a group of seventy odd carriers, from the Obura area, moved into the area had the desired effect. Several of the men apprehended told me that they had not anticipated such numbers, and they were impressed greatly when we appeared. (Obura PR 1963/64/5)

The presence of three patrols in the area impressed the people considerably, as did the air-drop near Konkonbira. (Wonenara PR 1963/64/11)

The building of a rest house was another symbolic act of establishing superiority. A rest house was a permanent reminder that the colonial administration could at any time interfere in the affairs of a village, as it served as a base camp for patrols. It is not surprising then, that if there was resistance against the colonial administration, the burning of rest houses was one of the clearest signs of expressing this. Kiaps were well aware of the effect a rest house had on the people, as can be seen by the following quote from a patrol report:

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Most of the day was spent constructing a palatial Rest House intended as a symbol of the permanence of the Administration. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/6)

A kiap had absolute authority over the indigenous population and could unilaterally intervene in all aspects of village life (Wolfers 1975:30). This authority was best emblematized by the practice to line up the whole village when a kiap visited, be it to conduct a census, a health inspection, or just to give information and instructions or to recruit carriers so that a patrol could move on. According to Rowley (1966:86), this was a big inconvenience, as any activity had to be interrupted, and villagers had to often walk long distances from their outlying hamlets to the central meeting place near the rest house of the main settlement.

4.4.5 Judicial Institutions and Mediation Kiaps did not only resort to violence or police measures to solve conflicts but also attempted to prevent the escalation of conflicts to armed violence by introducing alternative means of conflict settlement. The introduction of ‘law and order’ was the main focus of the administration. On their patrols, kiaps thus offered themselves as neutral and impartial mediators and exhorted villagers to bring grievances and conflicts to the government officers for adjudication. The colonial administration invested Kiaps with their own judicial powers. They could establish a Court of Native Affairs by proclamation at any time, acting as prosecutor and judge, giving a verdict and meting out the punishment at the same time (Downs 1980:148; Rowley 1966:76). Through this union of judicial and executive powers, kiaps could regulate conflicts very efficiently, either on the spot during patrols or at the patrol posts (Radford 1987:133). If a patrol came upon a dispute between two parties that had not yet escalated to armed violence, kiaps wherever possible tried to reach an informal settlement, often adhering to customary compensation payments (Rowley 1966:79): Several disputes, of a minor nature were brought before the Patrol and usually Native Custom was adhered to in reaching a decision satisfactory to both parties without resorting to Court action. (Kainantu PR 1954/55/8)

The Native Affairs Regulations covered practically all aspects of traditional life. They stipulated sanctions for all kinds of offences, from theft, assault or ‘riotous behaviour’ to the lack of maintenance on houses and roads to failing to appear for census or the prohibition to burn grassland without a permit (an irksome ban, as this was a traditional form of establishing gardens or hunting for small game). The regulations were adapted to customary norms of justice as they also covered offences such as sorcery or adultery. The kiap could punish a violation of these sometimes-petty regulations on patrol or at the patrol post with sentences up to six months incarceration or fines up to £3 or both. Only capital crimes like murder had to be brought before the Supreme Court, where a Supreme Court magistrate could hand out longer sentences or the death penalty, and where the rules of evidence were handled more strictly (Sinclair 1981:46f., 170). The offer of mediation by the kiaps was not always taken up. Especially in long-standing and intensively fought conflicts, the rift between groups was often too big. There was always one side that had more to lose from a cessation of violence, especially if they had taken more casualties and had not yet adequately avenged them. This issue was explicitly made clear to Colonial New Guinea 93

Patrol Officer Otto Alder, who attempted to settle a long-standing dispute between the Awa local groups of Amoraba and Tainoraba: Corporal and one Constable sent to a hill overlooking AMORABA village to tell those people, through the IAKIA [Ilakiah] interpreter, to come to TAINORABA to see if the long-standing dispute between these two villages could be settled. This party returned at 1300 and reported that the people, who are usually quite brave at a distance in this area, had started yelling abuse, saying that they did not want the dispute settled when they were still on the losing side and that we could get out. [...] The people of AMORABA are loathe to cease hostilities whilst they are behind in the number of people killed. (Kainantu PR 1960/61/10)

With the progress of the process of pacification, this initial reluctance gave way to appreciation. In areas within reasonable distance to a patrol post, this new way of settling conflicts before a kiap court was readily embraced. With possible sanctions in case of armed conflicts looming, more and more individuals and groups brought their conflicts to the next patrol post for mediation or adjudication: Disputes and complaints are readily brought to the station for hearing and settlement, and are of the type normally associated with settled groups. The AGARABI villages all lie in close proximity to the station, the furthest being no more than nine miles away in a direct line, and this facilitates the speedy hearing of disputes and complaints, thus ensuring that none are left to grow and increase animosity and lead to outbreaks of faction fighting. (Kainantu PR 1951/52/2)

The people are in the habit of referring complaints to Kainantu or to the policemen stationed at SONOFI and HAMARAGA who have instructions to refer them to an officer. In fact, instructions in this direction have been so closely adopted by these villages that even trivial matter which might be well adjusted in the village are frequently brought. (Kainantu PR 1947/48/5)

The quick accessibility of government personnel became an essential factor in the use of these new judicial institutions. There are several requests by the Fore and Auyana in the early 1950s to station a kiap in their midst, so that on-going conflicts could be settled and the escalation of new conflicts to warfare quickly averted by the intervention of a patrol: The people of the [Auyana] area expressed a desire that an Officer should be stationed somewhere near them. The main reason that they advance for this is the distance from the Government Station, and the time taken to get there, normally two to three days. (Kainantu PR 1952/53/5)

The FORE natives, themselves, realize the utter futility of inter-village fighting and everywhere asked for the establishment of a post. Individual villages are unwilling to abandon their defensive village sites for fear of attacks by a neighbour but they feel that if a European officer with a police detachment were in the area they could safely and thankfully give up their inter-village disputes and live in peace with their neighbours. (Kainantu PR 1951/52/8)

The opening of a new patrol post in an unsettled area often resulted in a quick improvement of the situation, and the number of conflicts settled by kiaps increased abruptly. Kiaps would

94 Ending War sometimes let their senior police sort out the easier court cases so that they could focus on the more difficult ones, where their full authority was needed. Regardless of who presided over these courts, they became readily accepted, as soon as they were within a reasonable distance. The Auyana, who were loath to bring conflicts to Kainantu due to the distance, quickly seized upon the opportunity when a patrol post was opened in nearby Moke (later renamed Okapa) among the Fore, and this had a significant effect on the progress of pacification: The people in the AUIANA area now take their complaints to the Patrol Post at Moke. ... Tribal fighting in the area has virtually ceased. (Kainantu PR 1955/56/3)

In areas far removed from government influence, where the kiaps did not yet have any influence as mediators, patrols could nevertheless have an important function in settling conflicts. A patrol could serve as a neutral venue, where both sides could meet and discuss an on-going conflict. Kiaps often attempted to bring leaders from both sides together to discuss and negotiate a settlement, and kept themselves mostly in the background, preferring that the leaders from both sides came up with their own solution. Quite often, this then led to a peace settlement in front of the kiap: ...in an attempt to reconcile the two places [Baira and Kawaina], natives from both places were gathered at BAIRA and, after much discussion, during which many charges of sorcery were made against the KAWAINA men, the gathering broke up quite amicably and when the patrol left BAIRA it was with the feeling that, by discussing the matter openly, the suspicions of the BAIRA natives had, to a large extent, been broken down and that there would be no further repercussions. (Kainantu PR 1952/53/2)

Using the arrival of the patrol, as an excuse, the fighting chief [from Owenia] and his followers gathered opposite the PINATA Tultul, who is the fighting leader of PINATA, and all together began to pull apart strips of vine at the same time telling each other what a good fellow the other was. This was a ceremony to end the fighting between both villages. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/4)

The threat of the police patrol in the background probably also played an influential role in pressuring both sides to find a solution. Confronted with the constant threat of arrest in case of armed conflicts, the local population in some areas started to develop their own institutions of peaceful conflict settlement ‘in the shadow of the Leviathan’ (Spittler 1980a; 1980b) so that they would no longer be bothered by a passing patrol. As will be shown in the case study of Purosa and Amaira, these indigenous forms of peaceful conflict settlement were crucial contributions to the spread of pacification.

4.4.6 Rewarding of Peaceful Groups Peaceful groups in principle could expect two types of rewards: protection from still bellicose neighbours on the one hand, and access to desired Western goods on the other. The offer of protection was often quickly postulated by kiaps but was more challenging to implement. The patrol posts were often too far away that effective protection could have been offered. Protection was thus more a guarantee of retaliation after an attack, with the hope that this would eventually be perceived as a deterrent and led to changes in the incentive structures Colonial New Guinea 95 for warfare and the behaviour of belligerent villages. Kiaps retaliated reasonably quickly after an attack on a village considered already to be under their protection, in order not to endanger the administrations’ authority, but also because they at times felt personally affronted (Rowley 1966:71; Sinclair 1966:78f.). This reaction is quite evident from the excerpt of a patrol report below, which responded to an attack by warriors from Mobutasa against the village of Ilesa, which had been under government control for several years already: Some slight loss of life and destruction of property has resulted and there has been a general unsettlement of the area and the people’s recently acquired faith in the Administration has been jeopardized. We have little or no control on the left bank of the Lamari River and OBUTASA [Mobuta] village has not been previously visited but the situation that existed, that is: people under our control and protection, living in fear of attack, could not and cannot be tolerated. Acting upon this premise the patrol visited OBUTASA [Mobuta] and six natives of that village were arrested on charges of riotous behaviour. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/8)

A much more concrete and immediate reward for peaceful groups was the access to Western goods that they received through patrols, government stations, missionaries and evangelists, but also through European settlers and trade stores. Kiaps always made sure that they carried enough trade goods when going on patrol. This had the double effect that provisions could be bought and did not have to be carried along and that trading desired goods could quickly establish friendly contact: It is most important that patrols should carry sufficient trade items, especially salt, to give sufficient pay to the people for their food. Much damage would be done to the contact with these people if payment were to be reduced for any reason. There is no doubt that in buying food from the people, and them being satisfied with the payment is an important initial step in good contact with the people. (Wonenara PR 1962/63/1)

Some patrols into uncontacted areas resembled general merchandise stores, as it was not yet clear which trade goods would turn out to be most desirable. Salt was one of the most desirable commodities among most groups, with the exception of the Baruya who produced their own traditional salt. Most informants recounted the familiar salt-in-the-hand story that initially convinced them to approach the first patrols and made them lose their timidity. It goes like this: one of the kiaps or police would pour some salt onto his outstretched hand, then dip a finger into the salt, lick the salt off the finger and make a face indicating pleasure. Then he would urge one of the local men to do the same, at which point the brave villager realized that the salt was ‘sweet’, calling out to all the others to come and try it as well. Vegetables and sweet potatoes were generally traded against salt and tobacco, while pigs were bought with axes and bush knives. Among the Southern Tairora and Awa, salt was so desirable that it trumped all other trade goods, as Kiap R. Catherall discovered on his patrol in 1962: The patrol carried an extensive range of trade items with which to buy food. Salt is by far the most popular item and is readily accepted in all the groups visited. Small knives, face paint (red), mirrors, beads (red), giri-giri shell, handkerchiefs and razor blades were accepted in small quantities but usually only after a bag of food belonging to them had been bought with salt. (Wonenara PR 1962/63/1)

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Steel in the form of axes and knives were especially coveted. The few specimens that reached the area even before the first patrols over traditional trade routes were closely guarded as symbols of status. The value of a single axe was equivalent to at least one pig. The desire for Western goods often surpassed the supply from patrols alone. In the latter phases of contact, people would often engage in labour migration to be able to afford these trade goods. In Ilakiah in 1968, for example, such a large number of men were absent as labourers that the subsistence economy could only be maintained by an enormous additional effort of the remaining men. It was only after all households possessed some of the basic articles (axe, knife, spade, cooking pots, items of clothing and blankets) that interest in migration labour slowly abated (Boyd 1975:272f.). It became evident quickly that this access to Western goods was only ensured if there were no conflicts with the kiaps, the most important source of supply for these goods in the early phases of pacification. This meant having to abide by the prohibition of violence and to give up warfare (Boyd 1975:35). Only with the extension of control was it possible to find other sources for these goods through missionaries and evangelists coming to live in the village, or through trade stores by first earning money working for European planters. Kiaps thus had efficient means of rewarding local groups for their cooperation because of the high demand for such goods in certain areas. As will be shown in the following chapters on the Fore and Auyana, this demand was so high that it sparked a frequent occurrence of cargo cults.

4.4.7 Co-optation of Leaders Since the number of colonial officers and native policemen was hardly sufficient to patrol let alone effectively control the whole area, indigenous contact persons and representatives of the government were needed. As had been mentioned, the Australians took over from the German colonial government in New Guinea a system of direct governance through village officials called luluai and tultul. In each village (or more precisely, in what kiaps considered to be a village), a village head (luluai) was appointed, as well as a deputy-cum-interpreter (tultul). The luluai acted as the local representative of the government, was responsible for upholding law and order, could adjudicate in minor matters and was charged with the duty of reporting any breach of the peace or other irregularity promptly to the administration (Wolfers 1975:68). He had the power to direct villagers to undertake any work deemed necessary by the government in aspects of housing, sanitation, and roads, and to disobey such an order could be punishable in a Court of Native Affairs. When kiaps first contacted a village, they usually lined up all the inhabitants and tried to identify the most influential man in the village to appoint him as luluai. Those newly appointed authority figures, especially the tultul, were not necessarily the real traditional leaders, since anyone going to some trouble helping the patrol and appearing industrious stood a good chance of being nominated, even more so if he spoke a few words of Pidgin English (Berndt 1971:414). The criteria for appointment were never unambiguous, although influence and a certain willingness to engage with the patrol officers were definitely an asset: An appendix of prospective village officials is attached to the report. These men are all unsophisticated and it will be some time before they will be capable of filling their positions efficiently. However they appear to be the most influential in their areas and also the most capable of absorbing new ideas. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/4) Colonial New Guinea 97

In some North Fore villages, the traditional leaders did not want to expose themselves through accepting the position of village officials. They preferred to have others act as front men that they could control and who would be punished if a kiap was unhappy with the work of these officials, a practice that was common in other parts of New Guinea as well (Sinclair 1981:36f.). The following excerpt from a patrol report on the North Fore gives eloquent testimony to this tendency: The majority of the Village Officials in the division are rather ineffectual and are either figureheads or at the best a poor representation of the authority vested in them by the government. The real power in the division lies in the older men and the village officials are often only a voice for them. (Okapa PR 1961/62/5)

Each official luluai and tultul received a brass badge as a symbol of his authority, to be worn on a string around the neck or the forehead, and sometimes also a hat. Former luluai and tultuls still proudly showed me their badges, worn smooth by the passing of time. The government never paid these village officials, a fact that still causes resentment among these older men and their descendants. They were exempted from paying tax (Wolfers 1975:91), however, and usually received a few gifts in the form of tobacco, coffee, salt, tin meat or matches from the kiap at each visit of the patrol (Kainantu PR 1951/52/7; Sinclair 1981:36). The luluai was also given a village book for safekeeping, in which a kiap would enter census data and notes for subsequent patrols. It is a shame that these books of high historical value have long since been discarded, and I was only able to find one village book in Purosa that was still kept by the son of a former luluai (who used it also as his notebook). These outward symbols of authority were widely respected, and some luluais undertook long journeys (even through enemy territory, which would have been impossible before pacification) by relying on the protection offered by the badge (Radford 1987:128). The badge was equated with authority to such a high degree, that a village official that had been appointed by a kiap but did not yet receive his badge was not recognized as such in the eyes of the local population: The absence of badges of office has a detrimental effect on the village official’s authority. Natives regard a Luluai or Tul Tul without badge as being an imposer and the issuing of badges will do much towards restoring their lost authority. (Kainantu PR 1950/51/4)

Unfortunately no LULUAI or TUL TUL badges are held at KAINANTU, or even, to my knowledge, available from any source. The provisional appointees always ask for them and in the people’s eyes a LULUAI or TUL TUL really is not so unless he has been given the badge. (Kainantu PR 1951/52/5)

Kiaps often took the luluai and tultul with them on patrol, to establish and consolidate friendly relations between these leaders and neighbouring villages, and to show them favours by taking them to the town of Kainantu and rewarding them with gifts. When pacification was slow in taking hold in the Southern Tairora areas of the Lamari Valley, some luluais were even sent to Goroka, Lae or even Port Moresby by plane, in order to impress them with the extent and superiority of the administration. It was hoped that these trips would convince the officials to cooperate and to spread the goals of the administration:

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A group of village officials from HIMARATA, ORAURA, KONKONBIRA and PINATA, were persuaded after a lot of talk, to accompany the patrol to KAINANTU and then to visit the coastal towns with the object of giving them some idea of the extent and size of the Administration. It is hoped that these will form the basis of good contact, on their return to their groups. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/4)

The old fight leader VETASA, who still holds much power in the village was contacted recently, after avoiding all previous administration contact. He was taken, at his own choosing, to Kainantu, where Mr. Thomas spent several weeks showing him around and also arranged trips for him to Lae and Goroka. I feel that due to these efforts the Administration has won a strong and influential ally. (Obura PR 1965/66/5)

The position of such luluais was not always pleasant; they could find themselves being held responsible for any infraction by the government and being despised by their villagers if they demanded too much from them. Nevertheless, the position was apparently in heavy demand. And to no surprise, since the prestige of such official representatives was high. Many ambitious men saw in this position an excellent way to strengthen their standing in traditional society with the assistance of the powerful kiaps. This desire for power was especially apparent in the many stories I collected in which people told me how they were originally selected as tultul or luluai, only to be passed over by some mistake or unfavourable circumstances. And Cadet Patrol Officer G. F. Carter gives the following report on the propensity of actual and potential leaders to aspire for a coveted position as village official: At a lot of the Rest Houses, I was fronted with a row of native people, some of them sporting that beloved and much sought-after decoration, the "Brass" or badge of Office. Also lined with these legitimate Luluai's and Tultul's were all the living previous Officials, even those who resumed the status of "native" and those, who for some small reason (in their own minds) such as Murder had been removed from Office. As well as the previous holders of the "brass" were "lined" natives who have been practising to salute, and now that they have become proficient, believe that they too deserve the medallion to hang about their person. (Kainantu PR 1959/60/6)

This quote also shows that most village officials had only a hazy idea about their intended role. Kiaps often did not take time to explain the duties and tasks of a luluai and had difficulties in conveying their intentions, not least of all because they depended on their translators to render abstract terms intelligible to the local population. Kiap J. A. Wiltshire was the only exception to this pattern as he held a basic orientation course among the Auyana, and despite being less than enthusiastic about its success, he recommended implementing similar lengthy instruction courses in other areas as well: All day spent on conducting a quick orientation course for village officials. Some 26 officials assembled and were given an explanation of the N.A.R.'s [Native Administration Regulations], had their duties and obligations explained to them as well as a rough outline of C.N.A. [Court of Native Affairs] court procedure. This was broken by periods of elementary drill administered by L/Cpl. TAIM. This 'school' took the best part of a day - but whether this will have any effect on those who attended Colonial New Guinea 99

is dubious - at any rate it does enlighten them on a lot of points particularly as to their obligations which they tend to forget. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/4)

The patrol reports often mention the quality of village officials. The kiaps’ assessment was based mostly on whether these village officials performed their duties and conformed to their expectations and less on how much authority they actually had among the population. It is nevertheless important to point out, that some village officials, based on their personality, were quite successful in creating new spheres of influence. In contrast, others remained leaders in their own right, but without exceptional qualities, as Patrol Officer W. J. G. Lamden remarks in his assessment of village officials among the Auyana and parts of the Southern Tairora: The village officials in the North Lamari are of an average ability. There are one or two who stand out from the rest. The two officials of MEI'AUNA and the Luluai of ARORA are all outstanding. The other officials of the area are carrying out their duties to the best of their ability but do not have the same control as those mentioned. (Kainantu PR 1956/57/1)

Some of these ‘outstanding’ luluais recognized that they could extend their authority even beyond their local group if they supported the administration in their endeavours to stop warfare. These luluais would become very active and extremely efficient actors of pacification, all the while following their own interests. Wherever a luluai realized this opportunity, his village could become a prime example of peacefulness in an otherwise troubled area (as the case of Luluai Toga of Mobutasa shows), or he could influence a whole region to keep the peace (as in the case of Luluai Tasina of Arora): The Mobuta people, reputed to be the most difficult group in the area are now well advanced and most co-operative. Much of the credit must be given to Luluai Toga, who is young, keen and eager to advance his people. He has also influence over the surrounding groups. During 1954 Toga was imprisoned for the part he played in the attack on a patrol and was sent to Goroka. Since his return he has been an excellent adherent of the Administration and its aims amongst his people. (Kainantu PR 1956/57/6)

Mention must be made of Luluai TASINA of ARORA. It is he only who keeps the AUIANA areas in some form of control. The good work he does is of high value, he is considered as the ultimate authority for the settling of complaints, ensures that all sick persons are sent to hospitals and apprehends law breakers where no other village official would (particularly in the TAUNA area). (Kainantu PR 1958/59/4)

Some especially clever luluais even discovered how to manipulate the colonial power to their advantage, as the example of Anarai’i from Punano among the Agarabi demonstrates. Already in 1933, he successfully rigged evidence to convince a punitive patrol under Kiap Ian Mack that his village was not responsible for the death of two men, but a neighbouring enemy village. After that, he maintained close relations with the patrol post in Kainantu and was appointed the first paramount luluai13 for all of the Agarabi. In a conflict with another enemy village, he even

13 A paramount luluai was head over a whole area, in this case all of the Agarabi villages. There was also a paramount luluai for all the Gadsup villages in the Kainantu Sub-district.

100 Ending War fabricated an attack on his person, reported it to the kiap and subsequently directed a punitive patrol, which was sent out to avenge the supposed attack on an official representative, resulting in the death of four villagers (Radford 1987:118-124). Kiaps never discovered his role in these events, and Anarai’i held an extremely prominent position for a long time even after World War II. Most kiaps had only praise for his authority and the role he played in the pacification of the area: With the coming of the white man, ANARAI, an outstanding warrior (and now Paramount Luluai), emerged as a natural leader, quickly threw in his lot with that of the Government, and for twenty years has been the Administration’s greatest ally and the most important personality in the development of the area. Although an old man now, he still exercises considerable authority throughout AGARABI (with Government backing) and was recently awarded the Loyal Service Medal for his long and faithful service. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/1)

There has been an argument between anthropologists regarding the type and extent of authority commanded by these village officials. Paula Brown (1963) in one of the first articles on the topic postulated that the introduction of village officials amounted to the creation of a new class of leaders, a sort of colonial satrapy, which is characterized by considerable qualitative difference to the traditional role of leaders. These new leaders wield unprecedented powers due to the support they receive from the administration. Their authority was unlimited, and they could maintain their position for longer than any of their pre-colonial predecessors, whose leadership was short-lived due to the constant competition for status among aspiring leaders. Brown’s prime example was Luluai and later Councillor Kondom, who emerged as the most dominant personality in all of the Chimbu area. Richard Salisbury (1964) objected to this view on two counts. He argued that despotic leaders already existed before pacification, as shown by the example of Kavagl among the Chimbu, who remained the undisputed leader of his group over twenty years due to his aggressive, dominant, and at times impulsive behaviour that transgressed social norms. Salisbury further argued that kiaps were well aware of the possibility of satrapy by the newly appointed luluais and that they often deposed luluais who became too overbearing. The villagers on their own soon discovered that they could engineer the dismissal of luluais by framing them for crimes they did not commit or by foot-dragging on any maintenance work ordered by the luluai, which made him appear ineffective. For the study area, there are apparent differences in the authority and the scope of the leadership of village officials. It is clear that despotic leaders already occurred pre-colonially among the Tairora, as had been shown by Watson’s (1971) portrayal of the almost legendary leader Matoto. Some village officials became more dominant than pre-colonial leaders, especially among the Auyana, where they closely cooperated with police and established a despotic regime, as will be demonstrated in the Amaira case study. Among the South Fore, the luluai and tultul also took on new roles and tasks and in their cooperation with police and kiaps were instrumental in shaping the quick progress of pacification, as will be shown in the Purosa case study. Among the Southern Tairora, however, there was no mention of significant differences in the scope and extent of the authority and influence between pre-colonial leaders and village officials. I will argue for the Obura case study that as these leaders already had a significant Colonial New Guinea 101 amount of power and authority derived from their standing within the community as undisputed war leaders, they were less dependent on the administration to support them, in contrast to the Purosa tultuls and luluais, and thus had less incentive to cooperate with kiap and police, contributing to the slower spread of pacification in the Southern Tairora case. Over time, the acceptance of even influential and respected village officials was bound to change, however. While they could still draw on their pre-colonial status as warriors during the early stages of colonial domination, this legitimation eventually disappeared. Younger men that had built up wealth and a bit of worldliness through migratory labour would often compete and rebel against official authority figures. This development eventually led to a generational change from the old war leaders to younger upstarts that were better acquainted with the workings of the colonial administration. In most of the villages I visited, this change in leadership took place with the introduction of the Local Government Council system in the mid- to late 1960s and the election of mostly younger councillors. The kiaps had noted the tendencies that village officials were losing influence already ten years earlier in some areas: A lot of fighting leaders have seen in the Luluais badge, an opportunity to continue their leadership in times of peace, and have made variously efficient Luluais depending on how they have used their authority. In most cases however, with cessation of inter-tribal hostilities, has come a falling off in the standing of the fighting leader and a consequent lack of control. (Kainantu PR 1956/57/4)

Most of the Village officials by virtue of their position and in several cases of their age; are restricted to their village and have little chance of visiting a large centre or working on a plantation,14 young men returning from work have a broader outlook on life and are not hampered to the same extent as the older men, by the traditional beliefs and as a consequence take little or no notice of the village official. (Okapa PR 1961/62/5)

The appointment of indigenous intermediaries and village leaders was nevertheless generally successful and contributed significantly to the progression of pacification. The rapid introduction and acceptance of colonial dominance would not have been possible without these indigenous authority figures. Some kiaps likewise showed surprise about the general acceptance of this direct rule via intermediaries, as can be seen by the following passage from a letter of the Director of the Department of Native Affairs, J. K. McCarthy, to District Officer E. Flower from the 10th of August, 1960: Realizing the complexity of communal indigenous life, it is surprising that such an alien concept as the Luluai system has been as acceptable as it has. Even if one of the local leaders is appointed, he is averse to initiating legal action against his fellows since he requires their co-operation in the successful prosecution of his daily life. Although it is pushing the analogy a little too far it is understandable that leaders in Australia would be cautious of accepting positions as the political instruments of an occupying power. (cit. in: Kainantu PR 1959/60/5)

14 Luluais and tultuls were officially prohibited from being recruited for migration labour (Wolfers 1975:80).

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4.4.8 Propagation of the Message of Peace Missionaries and evangelists also contributed to the pacification process in stabilizing initial renouncement of warfare by introducing a slow change of cultural perceptions. Their clear stance against killing and bloodshed was an important topic in their teaching and proselytizing. Radford (1987:37) describes how evangelists among the Kamano in the 1930s used dramatic methods to reach their goal, organizing big festivals, in which they preached against war and sorcery. They used illustrative plays to set the ‘evil ways’ of traditional warfare in stark contrast to a prosperous and peaceful future under the aegis of the mission. Such festivals regularly ended in the burning of all weapons and sorcery artefacts. The evangelists also adapted traditional forms of peace-making to propagate the end of warfare, planting traditional peace signs in the form of branches of a shrub. After 1936, a veritable peace movement spread throughout the district, originating among the Kamano of the Upper Dunantina River and extending to all the Kamano, Gadsup and Agarabi. Encouraged by the evangelists and the missionaries, the villagers began organizing big peace meetings, burning their weapons and pulling down defensive stockades and pledged obeisance to the ban of warfare and sorcery. Warriors from all over these areas gathered at the patrol post in Kainantu, burning their bows and arrows in front of the eyes of the government officers (Radford 1977a:40-54). After the war, missionaries and evangelists used similar methods to bring about an end of warfare and sorcery. Evangelist Hongenare in Obura, for example, had his whole congregation symbolically bury all their sorcery implements. When native evangelists were welcomed and accepted, they could gain significant influence. Catherine and Ronald Berndt, who undertook fieldwork with the North Fore, noted how evangelists were quite successful in introducing their own moral ideas loosely based on Christianity. These ideas did not necessarily correspond to those of their white superiors or the church in general, as most of the evangelists only had basic training and did not always have a good grasp on church doctrine. This resulted in an interesting dynamic that the evangelists attempted to introduce a new system that they hardly understood themselves (Berndt 1953:124f.; 1962:381f.). Evangelists were not accepted everywhere, however, and thus their stabilizing effect was limited to certain ‘hotspots,’ as will be demonstrated in the case of Bibeori. In other areas, mission influence was negligible, and anthropologists in the Auyana and Awa areas in the 1960s and 1970s reported that mission presence was limited (Boyd 1975:50f.; Hayano 1972:30; Robbins 1982:14). There are numerous stories of evangelists abandoning their villages after a few months, partially because they did not understand the language (Hayano 1972:30), partly because they were not accepted or even threatened by the local population: With the exception of AMAIRA and NOMPIA Mission influence has almost ceased in the [Northern Tairora] area, both the Lutheran and Seventh Day Adventist Missions having practically withdrawn from the locality. (Kainantu PR 1950/51/3)

A S.D.A. [Seventh Day Adventists] teacher used to be stationed at KAWAINA no 2 but after the natives decided that some of the pictures in his possession would make good decorations at native festivals, and forcibly removed them for this purpose, he decided to leave for other pastures. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/4) Colonial New Guinea 103

Kiaps also disseminated their own – more secular – version of the message of peace and non- violence. At official gatherings or in unofficial talks at night around a campfire, kiaps always repeated their credo that war and violence had to stop. Some kiaps did not let any opportunity pass by and used even threatening situations to their advantage, like Patrol Officer Otto Alder, who in the middle of a show of force by the local population of Owenia started to give them a long speech on the aims of the administration: The rest of the party, heavily armed, fanned out and surrounded myself and the police. ... The police were told to be alert... I took the opportunity, having so many people present, to give a long speech about the aims and methods of the Administration, after which the athmosphere changed completely. (Kainantu PR 1959/60/7)

The kiaps also gave this message of peace an additional emphasis by adapting traditional peace ceremonies (see Görlich 1999:158), especially after armed conflicts have occurred. Kiaps often organized so-called sing-sings, song and dance festivals, in which formerly enemy groups could celebrate a conclusion of peace. Other rituals, like the gun demonstrations, the razing of palisades or the public burning of weapons, were similarly used to demonstrate the imperative of ending all hostilities: To mark the restoration of relations a large feast and sing-sing was held at the camp site and YAGUSA natives mixed freely and without fear of hostility with the patrol police escort. (Kainantu PR 1952/53/6)

I therefore took all shields, clubs, bows and arrows from the houses and from the surrounding undergrowth and burned them in the middle of the Village, in full view of all present. I lectured the people at length and outlined my plan for a truce between AMORABA and TAINORABA which I intend to introduce. (Kainantu PR 1960/61/10)

Kiap D. I. Burnet even used modern technology to add authority to his words. On patrol to the Lamari and Aziana villages, he took with him a pocket slide viewer to illustrate his lectures on the aims of the administration. The impression he left among these at that time only rarely contacted villagers must have been overwhelming if his patrol diary is anything to go by: 21.2. TAINORABA: After dark I took L.L TOGA of MOBUTA down to the Men’s House and gave them all a talk about the Administration supported by an assortment of colour slides displayed on a pocket viewer. I explained about the forthcoming census and that I intended building a model Rest House.

23.2. OWENIA: I delivered the customary illustrated lecture that night and despite the fact that it was now being translated from Pidgin to Fore to AWA to ETAUTORUKE, the language spoken by the OWENIAs it seemed to go down quite well.

1.3. AUROGA: That evening I took some police and interpreters to the men’s house to tell them about the Administration and the forthcoming census. Little of talk seemed to seep through but the colour slides that accompanied brought gasps of admiration. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/6)

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The success of this propagation of peace through oral means alone was limited, however. As can be seen in the previous quote, kiaps had to rely on one if not several translators to bring their message across. A lot then depended on the quality of these translators, whether they were able to turn often abstract concepts into locally understandable terms and illustrations. In addition to these more practical problems, there was also an enormous cultural gap between kiaps and Highlanders. Most of these speeches were not fully understood, and there were considerable confusion and misunderstandings among the local population about what needed to be changed, as kiaps and missions at times had different expectations (Berndt 1992a:103). This propagation of a message of peace and non-violence by the mission and the administration should not be underestimated, however. Over time, it led to an inevitable change of values, and collective violence was not only given up but was also evaluated as morally wrong. By the time I undertook fieldwork, a lot of older men I had spoken to had internalized this dominant discourse of the mission and administration (Robbins 1982:189).

4.4.9 Dividends of Peace With the ending of warfare and the at least partial acceptance of the state monopoly of violence, the Highland communities could gain a multitude of benefits, which far surpassed the absence of negative consequences of warfare alone. These benefits, which I like to call peace dividends, as they only start to accrue some time after giving up war, facilitated the general acceptance of colonial domination. At the same time, they also led to a profound social change, which made recourse to traditional warfare seem less desirable. These benefits were not immediately recognized as such and became available at different times in different areas throughout the process of pacification. One of the first and most visible changes after pacification was certainly the enhanced mobility through guaranteed security from attacks. It became possible to travel further than ever before, also through the territory of former enemies. A multitude of new social contacts became possible. Physical and psychological barriers between villages, which previously isolated the local groups from each other, were now razed to the ground (Young 1977:173). To promote these changes, kiaps and police started to build bridle tracks and later roads over rough terrain with the sometimes voluntary but often forced labour of the local villagers. These tracks first and foremost served the administration’s ends, as they allowed kiaps and police to travel much quicker between villages, in the latter years also using motorbikes and jeeps. Still, they were also readily accepted by the local population. In the eyes of the local people, the ‘government road’ offered protection from physical or magical attacks, due to the close connection between the road and the state power. The isolation of local groups from each other was broken quicker by the arrival of a road than by any other measure, and the road became a symbol for all new ideas, goods, and people, which could now move unobstructed. Primarily young men used this opportunity, and they travelled to faraway places and towns (Sorenson 1972:366; Watson 1992:169). The building of roads did not occur everywhere at the same time, and that is one further reason for the differentiation in the trajectory of pacification, as will become evident in the following chapters. Another result of the increased security after pacification was a shifting of settlements away from the strategic and defensive locations on ridges and crests down into valleys, closer to the Colonial New Guinea 105 gardens, watercourses and roads. Groups that had been ousted by war could also return and settle on their traditional land. This coincided with the consolidation of several smaller hamlets to larger villages, sometimes spontaneously, but also at times under instructions from kiaps or police who expected easier control over the population through centralized villages (Berndt 1992a:103; Sorenson 1972:362-365). The North Fore were especially quick in shifting their villages, as can be seen from this patrol report written only two years after first contact: ...villages [have been] cleaned up and re-built, while several hamlets; the inhabitants of which had earlier broken away from their main groups and taken up scattered locations on strategic peaks because of inter-tribal warfare; have returned to their old sites, new villages having been built near the route of the first patrol. (Kainantu PR 1949/50/5)

With increasing population growth, this consolidation gave way again to a decentralization, with single houses or small hamlets being built closer to gardens to counteract longer walking times to outlying gardens and increasing conflicts due to larger pig populations (Boyd 1985b:132). This decentralization was again a development that was only possible due to the prevailing security from attacks after pacification: A lot of people have good houses in the main "house-line" but prefer to live in some little shanty in the bush closer to their gardens and pigs. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/3)

As the fighting in this area has now been stopped for sometime by the administration the people no longer feel the need to live in such large, protective villages and the people are now building small scattered hamlets of only two or three houses where brothers of close friends live with their families. (Okapa PR 1963/64/2)

Further changes in this regard were the slow neglect and eventual abandoning of men’s houses and the appearance of family houses, in which men and women cohabited, despite the traditionally strict gender separation. These new houses were often built according to new designs; square with woven bamboo blinds as walls and even raised floors made from wooden planks or bamboo matting. Some kiaps even encouraged the building of these houses, because they were easier to keep clean than traditional round huts with earthen floors: These villages, on their own initiative, have laid out new and existing sites to a definite plan of alignment, and the typical upland conical-shaped houses are being replaced by well-built rectangular, gabled houses. Many of these new houses have floors of timber and bamboo thatch. (Kainantu PR 1947/48/1)

This new building style was not necessarily an advantage. In the often-cold Highland nights, these houses were not properly insulated, and as they were more spacious and airier, it was more difficult to heat them than the traditional round huts with a central fire pit. This led to an increase in respiratory illnesses, and the Director of the Department of Native Affairs, J. K. McCarthy, explicitly prohibited any further kiap interference into the design of houses in a letter to District Officer W. E. Tomasetti from the 27th of July, 1962: Not only is Administrative interference with house styles inadvisable, but it is also expressly forbidden by Circular Instructions. ... It has been proved only too often that interference with traditional type buildings for the sake of hygiene has led to

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pneumonic outbreaks. It is hardly necessary to kill them in the process of keeping them clean. (cit. in: Okapa PR 1961/62/4)

The ending of war also improved the nutritional situation. Horticulture could now take place without disruption, as gardens no longer had to be given up or were destroyed because of war. This continuous agricultural production considerably reduced the occurrence of periodic famines (Berndt 1953:118). With the end of warfare, it was furthermore possible to now also cultivate the former no man’s land between villages, which was previously not used for security reasons. This led to an increase in productivity, as these areas in the middle of valleys often had a better soil quality: It was observed that the people are now moving some of their gardens down from the forest line, where they were previously located for protection against sudden attacks, to the more readily accessible and more fertile pitpit flats. It was confirmed that this is a recent development resulting from the more settled conditions now prevailing. Some of the country now being cultivated is the former ‘no man’s land’ between mutually hostile groups... (Kainantu PR 1953/54/5)

Steel tools, especially knives and axes, were also a considerable improvement over their former counterparts made from sharpened stone, lightening the workload particularly of men (Berndt 1953:118). Steel spades also eased women’s gardening work, especially in breaking up the topsoil in newly established gardens in the grassland (Sorenson 1972:367f.). This introduction of new tools, together with new gardening methods introduced by kiaps and missionaries led to a considerable increase in food security and a reduction particularly of child mortality (Lindenbaum 1979:76). The introduction of new tubers, vegetables and fruits, as well as new animals like poultry, sheep and goats, increased food diversity and lowered the danger of famines in case of crop failures and seasonal harvest fluctuation. Some vegetables, especially beans, cabbage and pumpkin squash, but also corn, reached parts of the Highlands over traditional trade routes even before first contact (Boyd 1975:54, 1981:77). Kiaps also often took vegetable seeds on patrols and distributed them generously: Seeds received regularly from the Agricultural Department are sent out to the Police on Patrol Posts, with instructions to distribute them, and the natives are beginning to reap benefit. (Kainantu PR 1951/52/5)

These new plants were not everywhere readily incorporated into the traditional diet. In Ilakiah, for example, most vegetable seeds distributed by patrols were rarely planted, and the resulting vegetables were never eaten, in fear that these strange plants of unknown origin would cause illness. Boyd (1975:54f.) also reported that while tomatoes grew around some Awa villages in 1960, they were mostly used to play football, while lemons served for arrow target practice. In Obura, the first cabbages were not consumed, but instead, the topmost flowering leaves, which were of an ashen-white colour, were rubbed onto the back of pigs to spur on their growth, similar to the traditional use of ash. A further dividend of peace was access to essential medical services. Already during WWII, the military administration conducted increased medical patrols in the Highlands; especially in order to stop the dysentery epidemic that was introduced by military personnel in 1943 (Downs 1980:6). After the War, the Department of Health assumed an important role in providing and Colonial New Guinea 107 extending health services. It trained a large number of indigenous aid post orderlies and medical assistants to diagnose and treat the most common diseases, like tuberculosis, pneumonia, malaria, dysentery, yaws and meningitis, and to give first aid in case of injuries. These were then sent to villages where they built their own aid posts. Until 1949 there were already 58 of these aid posts in the Highlands (Downs 1980:43-46; Griffin et al. 1979:125). Education as the second pillar in the development of the Highlands lagged far behind the success in Public Health. This was due to a lack of budgeting (it always seems more urgent to spend money for the sick than for the illiterate), but also with a policy of education that was not wholly adequate for the situation. As missionaries had already built up a rudimentary system of education before the war, the administration focused on improving the standard of mission- based education and on reconciling it with government policies, and failed to adequately train a sufficient number of indigenous teachers (Downs 1980:46, 49f.). The outcomes of this policy were predictable, and Assistant District Officer H. W. West in 1953 had this to say about the state of education in his sub-district: The need for concerted action, both by missions and the Administration, in the field of native education is everywhere apparent in this SD [Sub-District]. After twenty years of contact it is doubtful if 100 people who can read and write reasonably well in pidgin or their own language, can be found. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/1)

With pacification achieved, the main emphasis changed to the social, economic and political development of the population, as stipulated in the trusteeship agreement. Economically, the advancement of cash crop cultivation was the primary objective, especially coffee, which became the main source of revenue and the most important export good of the Eastern Highlands. Coffee was found to be ideally suited for the climatic conditions in the Highlands, and officers from the Department of Agriculture freely distributed seedlings and instructed the population in the proper cultivation of coffee plants. There were other attempts with cash crops before and afterwards: oranges, pineapples, passion fruit, manioc, potatoes, cabbage and other vegetables as well as cinchona trees, whose bark was used to produce quinine. They were all actively propagated for planting, but either failed or were soon declining in demand due to a glut in production. The Agarabi at first did not realize the earning potential of coffee and assumed this was just one more in a series of whimsical ideas of the didiman (the Agricultural Extension Officer) until some people earned more money from the sale of coffee than from any other village product (Watson 1992:180). The introduction of coffee started already in 1937 when an Agricultural Research Station opened in Aiyura, which among other crops also tested the planting of coffee. First trees were already planted in villages during World War II, and first coffee sales already took place in 1947. A boom in coffee then started from 1954 onwards, as people began to recognize the economic potential (Bourke 1986:101-103). Cadet Patrol Officer W. J. Hibberd thus reported in May 1954 on the situation in the Agarabi: Coffee is the big craze at the moment. Many have seen the financial results of coffee planted by Anarai, Paramount Luluai of the Agarabi group, and others have worked for European settlers who are planting it. They are beginning to realise that coffee will soon be to the Highland native what copra is to the Coastal native. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/10)

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Officers of the Department of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries started to regularly visit villages, established demonstration coffee plantings, in order to spread information on how to plant and take care of coffee trees, and freely gave away beans for planting to whoever asked (Sorenson 1972:370). By the early 1960s, there were already more than 3 million coffee trees in indigenous hands in all of the Eastern Highlands, and income from these trees amounted to $130'000 (Hudson/Daven 1971:159). Many young and ambitious men with some experience as workers on coffee plantations took up this opportunity. They founded their own smallholder plantations, soon earning hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars. Some reinvested their profits into other businesses and started trade stores and transport companies. They rose to prominence and wealth as a new class of entrepreneurs, but also used their reputation and influence in traditional ways and engaged in local politics. Because they simultaneously pursued modern capitalist and traditional political interests, Finney (1973: 70-122) speaks of them as ‘neo-traditional Great Men’, who equalized or surpassed the status and influence of precolonial war leaders. Already towards the end of the 1950s, a change of thinking occurred within the administration with a growing awareness that the coffee boom might create overproduction and a decline in prices. The Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries stopped actively propagating the planting of coffee in 1958 (Kainantu PR 1958/59/2). Coffee continued to reach new areas where it had not yet been planted by that time, only now through local intermediaries and returning labourers without the assistance of Agricultural officers. In more remote areas, the lack of road infrastructure made coffee production prohibitively onerous, as the dried beans would have to be carried on the backs of people for one or two days to the closest point of sale (Robbins 1982:15). The pacification of a region was also soon followed by the introduction of new forms of gainful employment to quench the desire for Western goods. The government station, the missions, the gold prospectors and the expatriate planters in the Highlands and on the coast, all needed labour. They first recruited local labour, but due to the often-high rate of absenteeism, they soon preferred to hire workers from further away and house them near the workplace. The administration explicitly attempted to recruit workers in the less-contacted area as a way to establish control and diffuse ideas of Western culture through returnees (Young 1977:178f.). Large building projects, like roads, especially the Highlands Highway, airstrips and new patrol posts, offered other opportunities to gain access to cash and Western goods (Boyd 1981:86). At the same time, such building projects were used as an excellent method of pacification, as it allowed formerly enemy groups to come together under the watchful eyes of the kiaps, as the two excerpts from patrol reports on the Fore and Southern Tairora show: Natives from as far south as IWARKI [Ivaki] were attracted by steel tomahawks and knives to work on the Moke motor road and the close association of natives from different groups in road camps has helped to dispel inherent distrust. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/5)

The situation in the area remains quiet and satisfactory due, as Mr. Bell states, to the frequency of patrols and also additionally to the free association of differing village groups engaged in the voluntary construction of Obura airstrip. The response Colonial New Guinea 109

to the call for voluntary labour to assist in the task of constructing the airstrip was enthusiastic and heartening. (Obura PR 1965/66/4)

Most of the Highlanders came in contact with the outside world and earned their first money through migratory labour. From 1950 onwards, the Highland Labour Scheme, a state-run migratory labour program, was hiring Highlanders for plantation work at the coast or on the New Guinea Islands for a period of 18 months to typically two years. The administration controlled recruiting and repatriation of these workers and made sure they were adequately housed, fed and had access to medical care. The workers were transported on chartered DC3 aeroplanes from the larger towns in the Highlands to the coast, sometimes landing straight on plantation airstrips (Ward 1990). In the first eight years alone, 559 Agarabi and 294 Gadsup signed up for contract labour. With the opening of the Highlands Highway in 1953 and its improvement in 1966, some Highlanders also could travel on their own to the coast and look for work (Westermark 1996:301f.). For most villagers in the study area, the Highlands Labour Scheme was the only chance to find work, earn cash, and buy the coveted Western goods. The demand for Western products was so high that in one village among the Awa in the early 1970s almost half of the adult male population over 17 was absent to earn cash through migratory labour, with corresponding implications on subsistence work and role allocation between the sexes (Hayano 1979; Boyd 1975, 1981). Monetization and the influx of Western goods after pacification introduced a growing dependence of the Highlanders from global market forces, and indirectly supported the state of peace, since a return to traditional warfare would only be possible by accepting grave material deprivations. For Hayano (1990:62), this was even the most important factor in the pacification process, more important than law and force: Since the first Australian patrols explored the Awa area in the early 1950s, money, first gradually and then fully, became incorporated into the village economy. This economic colonialism eventually meant the death of most traditional values and forms of wealth. Awa dependency on the local trade store, distant labor markets, and ultimately the international market had been made complete. It was not law and force that pacified the truculent tribesmen; it was tins of mackerel and gaudy trinkets. (Hayano 1990:62)

4.4.10 Colonial Burdens In presenting a peace dividend as a positive factor in strengthening pacification, I am not trying to discount the negative aspects of colonial domination. I will address these colonial burdens in this chapter and show how these negative aspects could, at times, inhibit not only the spread of pacification but also incite resistance against the imposition of colonial domination. One of the most immediate colonial burdens surely was road construction. In the Fore and Auyana areas, the local population was forced to participate in large-scale construction of walking tracks and roads immediately after first contact. This road-building was undertaken not only to be able to control these villages more effectively through better accessibility but also to divert the energy of the men away from warfare and towards another project. Forced labour was forbidden in New Guinea, and kiaps had no legal authority to force villagers to construct roads. There was an obligation to maintain existing roads, but only in certain circumstances.

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Since villagers did not know about this law and were not yet in a position to distinguish between a request and an order of the kiap, most roads in the 1950s were built without payment (Rowley 1966:87f.; Sinclair 1981:144, 207). In the Auyana and Fore areas, road building was mainly initiated and supervised by the police stationed on outlying police posts. One major aspect in assessing the competence of the police stationed on these posts was how far they could extend the road network, and police often used force to compel villagers to construct these tracks and roads. Cadet Patrol Officer Kevin I. Morgan on his inspection tour of police posts in the Kamano, North Fore, Auyana and Northern Tairora commented favourably on the performance of certain policemen by referring to road building: Perhaps the most spectacular improvement in this area has been the extension of serviceable roads. Constable Pokia has managed to persuade the natives to link all villages with good roads and furthermore he has taught them the advantages of having such roads. […] There has been a considerable improvement in roads and the bulk of the credit must go to the members of the Police Force stationed there. They have been active in visiting the villages and attempting to impress the people with the necessity for good roads, housing and sanitation. (Kainantu PR 1950/51/7)

The road network in the Highlands would not have grown as rapidly and extensively without this forced cooperation of the local population, as costs would have been prohibitively high. This can be demonstrated convincingly by looking at the 1960s, after the system of forced labour and the use of police in supervising roadwork was increasingly criticised and abolished. The local population was also increasingly less willing to build roads without compensation. The construction of new roads became more and more expensive, and despite the increasing use of construction machinery, it took longer to build them (Sinclair 1981:207-209). This stands in stark contrast to the 1950s when even car roads could be constructed with little expense and hundreds of helpers in record time: At the time of writing this report the motor road [from Kainantu] to Moke is trafficable. This thirty-five mile road was completed in eight months at very little cost to the Administration. The population of the country through which it passes is relatively dense and its construction was no hardship to the people. (Kainantu PR 1952/53/8)

Road-building was not perceived to be a burden everywhere, however. While most interlocutors in Amaira and Obura focussed on the compulsive aspect of having to build roads, some people of Purosa emphasized their willingness to construct these roads. In contrast, the people of Bibeori, where a road was only constructed in the 1970s, were already paid in cash for their participation in road building. Among the Fore in general, there was a sort of self-propelling dynamic in road building, as each local group competed with others to construct a better road. Villages without road access started to independently build roads in order not to be seen as backward and to be able to profit from economic development through the roads (Sorenson 1972:366). The desire for having their own road is also clearly evident in these excerpts from patrol reports: Throughout its [the Kainantu – Okapa road] length the natives were most co- operative in its construction and there was keen competition between villages to Colonial New Guinea 111

construct the best roadway. The people were most anxious to have a ‘big’ road to remove the stigma ‘bush kanaka.’ (Kainantu PR 1952/53/8)

There is a tendency throughout the District for natives on the road, that is those who come from villages through which the road passes, to consider themselves superior to those more remote. Consequently there is the tendency for natives living in places without road communications to commence, on their own initiative, road construction. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/3)

The continued maintenance of these roads, however, was everywhere mostly seen as a colonial burden. Heavy rainfall could wash away whole sections of the road and destroy bridges. The maintenance of roads – not only fixing damaged sections but also weeding and the cleaning of ditches – was a specific duty in the Native Affairs Regulations for all local groups that had originally built these roads. Maintenance work on roads had to be undertaken once a week on Monday. This public workday thus became a fixture in the newly introduced Western week, together with Saturday for Adventists and Sunday for Lutherans (Watson 1992:169). The building and maintenance of rest houses was also a colonial burden. Every village was expected to provide one or two houses for administrative purposes, to be used by the kiap and the police or other government agents on patrols. These houses had no other use for the local population and were thus often neglected, and sometimes even burnt down in conflicts with the government. Many kiaps, therefore, considered it a regular occurrence that rest houses had first to be repaired and cleaned before their arrival (Sinclair 1981:44). Some kiaps also ordered the rebuilding of local houses or wholly new villages, mostly on the grounds of hygiene. And the building of latrines was almost an obsession among kiaps. These were often only unwillingly built (with the exception of the Fore, where sorcery fears compelled people to build latrines already in precolonial times), as they were hardly used by the local population (Boyd 1985b:124; Wolfers 1975:94). Patrols were also burdens on the local subsistence base, as they expected to be fed. Patrols bought food in form of sweet potatoes, vegetables and pigs with salt and other goods, but villagers could be punished for failing to bring in sufficient foodstuffs, which could happen if a patrol did not pay enough last time (Boyd 1975:48). Carrying services for patrols were also expected from each village. In areas already considered under control, the kiaps no longer hired carriers for the whole patrol but recruited carriers in each community to bring the patrol gear packed in metal boxes to the next village. Carriers were paid a low wage, sixpence or a stick of tobacco per hour (Sinclair 1981:43), but it was backbreaking work, and in areas with long histories of contact, there were better opportunities to earn money. It was quite tricky to avoid this service, however, as Hayano (1990) depicted during his fieldwork stay among the Awa in the village of Tauna: At daylight [Kiaps] Taffy and Bob waited impatiently for the Tauna volunteers to lug their cargo to Ilasa [Ilesa], a village of Fore people, a day’s walk to the south over extremely rugged terrain. “Get up here, you bloody buggers! Hurry up!” Taffy yelled repeatedly. No one responded. Finally, Yagai, the policeman from Okapa, managed to round up a bone crew of ten men. Taffy instructed [committeeman] Ila to remember the names of all the men who hid from the patrol. These men, he threatened, would later be sent to jail. (Hayano 1990:57)

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Taxes were only introduced in most of the Highlands of New Guinea in 1958 when a head tax was imposed on all males above 18 years of age. This taxation was established to increase political responsibility of all citizens by linking social benefits to financial contributions, but also to do away with the injustice that areas with Local Government Councils already paid council taxes, while neighbouring areas did not have to pay any taxes (Downs 1980:138). The head tax was set according to the financial capability of a district but not higher than £2 (Sinclair 1981:185). In the Eastern Highlands, the head tax was at first only collected in areas with a long history of contact and was set at £1. Still, many older men and sometimes whole villages were exempted because they had no possibilities to earn money by planting cash crops or through migration labour. There was some passive resistance in some areas, but in others, taxes were paid willingly: Generally the collection of taxation was favourably regarded, there were no blatant attempts to avoid this and it was accepted in every [Agarabi] village as; "if you tell us that we are to pay one pound, we will do it. It is something new to us and we do not understand very well as yet but it is time we woke up." (Kainantu PR 1957/58/7)

On the whole, the attitude shown by the TAIRORA people to Taxation was quite willing and very unlike the passive resistance shown by the GADSUP and AGARABI peoples. I believe they are putting a lot of faith in the Administration to accept it the way they did and it is up to us to keep this faith in the fore by showing and giving them some of the benefits that can be received from Taxation. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/2)

With the introduction of Local Government Councils, taxes were also introduced in the southern parts of the sub-district. In these economically underdeveloped areas, taxes were a heavy burden and could eat up a significant portion of earnings from cash crops or migrant labour. When the head tax was raised from $2 in 1968 to $7 in 1972, this created considerable resentment among the inhabitants of Ilakiah (Boyd 1975:59).

5 Case Study Purosa – The Red Flag of Peace In late 1953 or 1954, a pig feast was underway in the Purosa area. It was organized to bolster the peace after a war between two broad alliances of Purosa and Ivaki local groups that lasted for several months and involved a network of alliances stretching beyond the Kaza Valley. Hostilities had already ceased in 1952, and it eventually turned out to be the last war in the greater Purosa area. During this feast, three men from the Purosa side who were renowned leaders, and already held government titles of village heads, fastened a red piece of cloth on a bow, held it aloft and told everyone present that the time of fighting had ceased once and for all. They announced that people from this time onward had to look up to this piece of red cloth, no longer fight in wars and that soon good things will come their way, novel and valuable things – or in the local language: mono’ana. This event was claimed by several informants to have effectively stopped warfare from ever recurring because everybody was keen to receive mono’ana. But what induced these men to act this way? And what is understood by this concept of mono’ana? And why did pacification take hold that quickly in the Purosa area?

5.1 A History of Warfare and Shifting Alliances I present in the following chapter an outline of warfare in the Purosa area, in order to give an impression of how wars were fought, which kind of alliances existed, and what the triggers and outcomes of this pre-colonial warfare were. I concentrate only on wars witnessed by my informants in their youth since it was impossible to construct a timeline of events that happened before my informants were born. They did tell me stories of wars they heard from their fathers, but they were not able to put them in any chronological order, nor were these stories very detailed. By collecting genealogies, it was possible to discover ancestors that died in fights with other groups, but no coherent picture could possibly evolve out of this endeavour, since I could only gather the names of men and women who had surviving descendants. Furthermore, not all informants for this genealogical census still remembered the cause of death for their more distant ancestors. Suffice it to say that the kinds of wars seemed relatively similar to the ones for which I have more detailed accounts from about the early 1930s onwards. What can generally be said about the period before 1930 was that wars were triggered by more or less the same reasons as afterwards and that the lines of enmity and alliance seemed to be somewhat similar, with two exceptions. It was noted that in their father’s generation, the Anga group residing at Dungkwi on the other side of the Lamari River also attacked the Purosa groups regularly. But the people of Mugayamuti were able to establish peace with them, and the Dungkwi have since then become their staunch allies. There also seems to have been an alliance between Mugayamuti and Ivaki in fights against Ketabe, which broke down out of unknown reasons around the time of the birth of many of my informants. 114 Ending War

Map 2: Current-day Purosa communities and neighbouring local groups (relief from Google Maps).

5.1.1 Early Wars against Ivaki and Takai in the 1930s The first war that my oldest informant, Movino Kamere, witnessed as a young boy towards the end of the 1920s was a rather large-scale conflict between a Ketabe-Ivingoi alliance and Ivaki. The trigger for this particular war was the death of a woman from the Wanitabe clan of Ivingoi, who attributed the cause of death to tokabu sorcery (a type of attack sorcery) performed by Ivaki. The Wanitabe clan of Ivingoi then rallied their in-laws, the Ketabe and Takai clans of the Ketabe local group. The latter did not need much convincing, as the death of a woman from the Takai clan was also associated with tokabu sorcery perpetrated by Ivaki. A broad alliance encompassing these two clans, the local group of Takai and most other local groups of Purosa then challenged the people of Ivaki, which were only supported by some men from Indamatasa. Most of the fighting took place at Irosi on the Purosa side of the valley. The fighting must have been rather fierce and lasted several weeks if not months, since Ketabe alone lost seven men in this particular war. At one point the Purosa warriors were finally able to overwhelm the enemy, advance to the other side of the valley and burn down the Ivaki settlements. The opponents fled over the wooded range and found refuge at Tavubindi, near present-day Orie. They remained at this place for what must have been several years before daring to come back, and their return sparked another short conflict before both sides agreed to end hostilities and let the rest of the Ivaki refugees return. A large pig-killing ceremony was held a few years later, to formally end the state of hostility, and the pork exchanged in this ceremony was used to initiate Movino Kamere and Wawari Tago, two of my oldest informants, who in the meantime have grown up and reached adolescence. Since initiation ceremonies required pork for give-aways, they were The Red Flag of Peace 115 often timed to coincide with such formal peace ceremonies, in order to make use of the massive amounts of pigs killed. Tambendo Te’u, another informant, who according to a census book for Ai village was born in 1928, witnessed his first war as a small boy at the hand of his mother in the early 1930s. Some men from Takai stole yams out of a garden planted by the Takai clan of the Ketabe local group. Since they did not heed a warning and continued to steal, the Ketabe men then killed one Takai man, and the conflict escalated to full-on war. As Movino Kamere told me, the people of Takai had a rather low regard for the Purosa groups. They insulted them by saying that the buttocks of the men of Purosa were all covered in sores and scabies, while the people from Ainai were known to be eating rotten wallabies. These slurs sufficiently enraged the Ainai people also to join the war on the side of the Purosa groups. The clans of Ketabe again attracted a large alliance of men from all Purosa groups including Ainai, but also some men from Kamira and the Wanitabe clan of Ivingoi, as well as some men from Ivaki, with which a preliminary peace was already established (but the formal pig-kill mentioned above was yet to be held). The Ketabe based their war strategy on a ruse. The main force, consisting of the Purosa groups, went up towards Takai and called the men out of their settlements for a fight. In the ensuing battle, the Purosa side slowly retreated further and further away from the main settlement. A smaller force of Ainai warriors in the meanwhile used forest cover to flank the battle area, reached the Takai hamlets from the back and torched all the houses. At the end of the day, the Takai then had to flee to a more defensible mountain spur and construct emergency shelters for the night. The next morning, the Purosa alliance again engaged the Takai, and they had to give ground and retreat to yet another mountain spur. On the third day, fighting was equally fierce, and the people of Takai found themselves at the edge of their territory. At this stage, the Takai local group disintegrated into its component units, and single clans and lineages sought refuge in a wide array of different South Fore local groups: Kume, Wanikanto, Wanitabe, Kasokana, Yagusa, and some even fled to the Gimi area. A few years later, some Takai lineages, most of which were related to the Purosa groups, were allowed to come back and reoccupy their territory after a peace ceremony was conducted, while others have remained and become integrated into the local groups with whom they sought refuge. As these two examples have shown, routing and dispersal of local groups was a rather common outcome of warfare, especially when broader alliances were pitted against single local groups that were not able to attract a significant number of allies.

5.1.2 The Routing of the Wanitabe The social landscape of the South Fore was thus in a state of permanent fluctuation, as some groups or parts thereof were chased away through warfare and fled elsewhere, sometimes to become assimilated there, sometimes to return as a local group to their original place of residence. The following sequence of wars, which started in the late 1930s is an especially good example for the splitting and reforming of local groups, as I will follow the fate of several clans, principal amongst them the Wanitabe and Maibasa clans, that at the end of the 1940s coalesced into the local group of Agakamatasa. It was the most extended sequence of wars for which I have a record, lasting about 5-8 years, leading to a minimum of 72 casualties on all sides, and resulting in a rearrangement of power among the Purosa groups. This sequence did not even start within the Purosa area but in neighbouring Awarosa. It all began with a split of the local

116 Ending War group of Awarosa because of sorcery accusations around 1935. The main protagonists in this conflict were members of the Maibasa clan, which accused other members of the same clan of causing 11 deaths through tokabu sorcery. This quarrel led to fighting and a split not only of the clan but the whole local group. The warriors of what continued to be known as Awarosa (a mix of Maibasa, Wanda, Takai, Ai, Ilesa and Abomatasa clans) successfully chased the suspected sorcerers away, and with them all the lineages and clans that were related to them through marriage and that tried to defend them. These refugees, themselves a mix of Maibasa, Wanda, Ai, Takai, Wanitabe and Manya clans, established shelters not far away from Awarosa at a place called Egiendi. But the remaining Awarosa attacked this new settlement as well, routed them and drove them further away, first towards Karepindi, and then to Karuwanipindi near present-day Agakamatasa. In one of these attacks on the settlements, the Awarosa people killed a young man from Weneru, who with his father was visiting his paternal aunt that was married to one of the refugees. The father and some of his relatives from Weneru then joined the refugees and defended them against the attacks by Awarosa, and to avenge the death of the young man. The father and one other Wanda man from Weneru were too eager in seeking revenge, however, and were killed on the battlefield. The refugees at that time decided that they would disperse and seek refuge with their respective clans in the local groups of the Purosa area. The main ‘culprits’ for the conflict, the Maibasa, sought shelter with their mother’s brothers, the Wanitabe clan in Piyawanupindi, near present-day Weneru. The Manya and the Wanitabe joined them there as well. The Ai sought refuge with the Ai in Kimaruti, and the Wanda went to their clan brothers in Mugayamuti. The Awarosa were not willing to end the conflict, and they allied themselves with the Ketabe local group. The Ketabe had earlier suspected the Wanitabe clan of Piyawanupindi of killing one of their men by sorcery (the same accusation was also levelled in the other direction against the Ketabe by the Wanitabe clan, indicating that there was considerable tension between these groups already). Apparently, there were some Ketabe pigs stolen by the Wanitabe clan as well. The Ketabe thus did not need a lot of convincing to join the fight against the Wanitabe clan at Piyawanupindi. Some warriors from Awarosa came to Ketabe and stayed at the men’s house there, leaving their wives and children back in Awarosa under the guard of the rest of the Awarosa men. The Ketabe local group at the time consisted of the Ketabe clan’s hamlet at Kapagori, one Takai clan’s hamlets at Kukumeagori (which in the 1950s separated from the Ketabe local group and became known under the name of Takai-Purosa), and one Takai clan’s hamlet at Evabindi near present-day Embogovindi (which in a latter fight split away to form the Ai local group together with the Ai clan at Kimaruti). Their target was the Wanitabe clan residing at the time at Piyawanupindi and forming one local group along with the Wanda clan at Weneru and the Ai clan at Kimaruti. The Ai and Wanda clans, however, split in the middle during this war because of conflicting loyalties. Te’u, an important leader of Ai clan, joined Ketabe in the fight against Wanitabe with his lineage and some other members of the Ai and Takai clans from Kimaruti, as they were closely related with the Ketabe on their maternal side. The fighting went on for quite a while, and more and more allies were called up on both sides. The large local group of Mugayamuti soon joined the Wanitabe. On the other side, the Ketabe received initial support from further apart: the Wanitabe clan of Ivingoi joined them as well as some men from the Kamira local group. After a while, Ketabe attracted other men from numerous groups from far beyond the Kaza Valley as allies: from the South Fore groups of The Red Flag of Peace 117

Ilesa, Amora, Yagusa, Aga, Kamata and Yasubi, but also from Ibusa and Moke in the North Fore and from the Awa village of Ilakiah. After the Ketabe succeeded in attracting such a large number of allies, they sent a message to the Wanda clan of Mugayamuti, the rest of the Ai and Takai clans at Kimaruti and the Wanda clan at Weneru, stating that their grudge was with the Wanitabe and Maibasa clans alone. Their only goal was to chase away the Wanitabe and Maibasa clans. Ketabe then advised all the other clans of Piyawanupindi and the rest of the allies to abandon their support for the Wanitabe and promised them that they could remain on their territory. One morning, the fighters of Wanitabe and Maibasa thus suddenly found themselves alone on the battlefield, deserted not only by their allies, but also by other segments of their local group, and facing an overwhelming enemy alliance. They had no choice but to flee, leaving their houses behind, which were then quickly torched by the Ketabe-Awarosa alliance. The Wanitabe first fled towards Kaugoti and were able to ambush some pursuers and kill one of them. From there, the Wanitabe were then finally chased over the Kaza River towards Ivaki, where they found refuge on the land of one of the Ivaki local groups. They established houses and gardens at a place called Kamatori. Ketabe continued to harass the refugees at Ivaki after they established gardens there, even attempting to attack the settlement at night. When the attackers came close, they did not realize that the first small house they were approaching was a pig’s house, and the pigs gave noise and alerted the Wanitabe. The Ketabe then aborted their attack, but some Wanitabe men were able to overtake them using a different path, block their retreat right around dawn, and kill one Ketabe man, Kamegu. Fighting continued intermittently, with ambushes and raids by both sides. Thus, for example, Wanitabe in concert with their new Ivaki allies succeeded in ambushing a Ketabe man, Mase, on his way to Takai to bring some food to his in-laws there. The conflict only ended after the Wanitabe arranged for one of their men to be killed in an ambush by the Ketabe. They singled out Au as the real troublemaker who was responsible for them having to flee and stay as refugees in Ivaki, and then sent word to the Ketabe, that they should come and kill this man at a specific time and place. This conflict changed the power structure in the Purosa area considerably, since the once quite large local group at Piyawanupindi was completely shattered. The Wanitabe and some other lineages loyal to them were chased away to Ivaki. The Ai and Takai clans at Kimaruti split during the conflict, some joining the Ketabe side, while others stayed behind. The Ai leader Te’u and some of his lineage left the Ketabe again in frustration and anger after two men of his lineage got killed in the war, and they decided to quit. They moved down to Ainai, where he and his lineage stayed for several years. The rest of the Ai and Takai clans that joined Ketabe stayed on and joined the Takai clan men’s house at Evabindi. The members of the Ai and Takai clans that remained loyal to the Wanitabe moved closer to Mugayamuti after Wanitabe was routed, some lineages of the Takai clan joining Mugayamuti for good. The only clan segments not affected by this large-scale dislocation were the Wanda, Manya and Takai clans at Weneru, the only hamlet left of the once sizeable local group.

5.1.3 The Routing of the Weneru The Wanitabe and Maibasa clans stayed a few years in exile. They then received an offer by their former allies, Mugayamuti, to come back and build a hamlet on their territory at Kavamuti. By attracting the Wanitabe and Maibasa refugees, the Mugayamuti successfully bolstered their

118 Ending War numbers. With the scales shifting in favour of Mugayamuti, a conflict between the Wanda clan of Mugayamuti and the Wanda clan of Weneru, who were up to this moment unaffected by dislocation, quickly escalated to open warfare and resulted in the successful routing of this last segment of the former local group at Piyawanupindi. The trigger for this war is not wholly clear; one version attributed the origin of the conflict to sorcery and counter-sorcery (tokabu) between these two groups (which were enemies before – the Wanda clan split a generation ago, and feelings of hostility remained). In contrast, others located it in an argument about a pig stolen by Weneru. According to this latter version, when the Weneru people refused to compensate the stolen pig by giving back a piglet, the Mugayamuti attacked the Weneru hamlet at dawn, killing three men. The Weneru were able to rally and fight back, but they had trouble rallying allies to defend them. The Ketabe, Maibasa and Takai clans of the Ketabe local group split, some supporting Weneru, others abstaining from the war, or even joining the Mugayamuti side. In the end, Mugayamuti succeeded in torching the hamlet of Weneru, and with their dwellings destroyed, the Wanda and other clans of Weneru left for Awarosa on the other side of the wooded ridge behind their territory and built houses there. Some Maibasa of Ketabe even joined them in exile. The Weneru at that time had good relations with the Awarosa, and at least one man of Weneru (Amonandigi, the father of my informant Aiyoma) already left after the first attack (in which an adopted son of his got killed) and built a house for his family there. At first, the Weneru did not attempt any retaliation. When a Mugayamuti man killed Anombara of Wanda clan while he was hunting in the forest, however, they also retaliated with an ambush. The Weneru were able to kill a Mugayamuti couple on their way to their garden, and quickly retreated into the forest, pursued by some Mugayamuti warriors who were alerted. In the dense forest, the Weneru realized they were followed, and immediately set up a successful ambush, in which they killed three of the pursuers.

5.1.4 The Ketabe – Mugayamuti Conflicts In the meantime, tensions escalated between Ketabe and Mugayamuti. One old Ketabe man, Kitaga, was visiting his sister in Mugayamuti, at a time when the Mugayamuti were mourning the three men just killed by Weneru. Older men were usually relatively free to visit their relatives in enemy villages, but in this instance, the Wanitabe, who still held a grudge against Ketabe, killed Kitaga with arrows. The Ketabe then sent word to the Weneru refugees in Awarosa to join them to retaliate against the Wanitabe residing in Mugayamuti. Some Weneru men continued to build houses in Awarosa and stayed there with the women and children, while others came back over the ridge and stayed in the Ketabe men’s house and went to battle with them against Mugayamuti. In one of these encounters, the Ketabe were able to break the Mugayamuti battle line apart and chased after the retreating sections, killing two Mugayamuti men, Banaigi and Pasiba. The fighting continued for weeks and escalated into mutual ambushing, in which at least two men from Ketabe, Arotabe and Base, and one woman from Mugayamuti, Daro, were killed while trying to fetch food from their gardens. Children too were not spared, and an uninitiated Ketabe boy who was hunting for birds in the grassland was killed as well. The fighting only slowly died down, followed by a mutual stalemate, in which both sides again planted staples and vegetables in their gardens. The Red Flag of Peace 119

The Wanitabe burnt down a new field for their gardens and planted taro, which grew exceptionally well. As the Ketabe saw these gardens, they must have become concerned, as taro was a prestige food to give away to cement alliances. The Ketabe had not long ago received yam from Ilesa in such an alliance feast and were getting ready to reciprocate with winged bean when they heard that the Wanitabe were also sending out word to Ilesa to come and receive taro. The Ketabe leaders then decided that they would start the enmity with Wanitabe and Mugayamuti again, and to destroy their gardens, so that they could not convert their harvest into alliances which might ultimately threaten Ketabe. One morning, the Ketabe advanced in force with their shields and weapons to the Wanitabe gardens and started to dig out taro and sweet potatoes, while the Mugayamuti and Wanitabe were rallying to defend themselves. Several men from Mugayamuti and Wanitabe were returning later in the day from hunting in the forest and realizing that war had broken out again in their absence, two of these men snuck behind the Ketabe battle line and surprised a mother and her daughter and killed them both. The fighting dragged on, and both sides called up their allies. On the side of Ketabe, the Kamira local group and the Wanitabe clan of Ivingoi joined them in the fighting, as well as the Wanda clan of Weneru and some Ai who were living at Evabindi, while other men from the Ai clan supported Mugayamuti and Wanitabe. The fighting continued on and off for quite a while and was in effect only stopped by the unexpected appearance of a patrol with the first white man, who erected a camp and stayed overnight at Oregori, near Mugayamuti. A lot of Ketabe also came to witness this exceptional event, and this rapprochement led to peace overtures, which led to a period of a few years of relative peace.

5.1.5 The Kapagori – Evabindi War Wars did not solely take place between long-standing enemies, however, and were not always dictated by strategic decisions. They could also result from accidents or strokes of fate and break out even within firm political alliances. The next war shows this quite well, as it erupted between the Takai clan at Kapagori, a section of the Ketabe local group, and the Ai and Takai clans at Evabindi near present-day Embogovindi, which were considered staunch allies of the Ketabe. The Takai clan at Kapagori (which later split off to form the local group of Takai- Purosa) realized that some men from Ai clan residing with the Takai clan at Evabindi stole some of their pigs. They then intended to confront them and demand compensation. Some men from Evabindi anticipated them coming, and hid close to the spot where they were coming through the grass. As soon as the argument between both groups became heated, the trap was sprung, and one Takai man from Kapagori, Parega, died on the spot from an arrow through his backbone. With one man dead, there could be no more possibility of settling this internal conflict amicably, and a full-scale war erupted between the settlements of Kapagori and Evabindi. Only a few men from other local groups joined the fighting on both sides, some men from the Ketabe and Weneru local group supporting Kapagori, others from the Weneru and Mugayamuti local group joining Evabindi. The battle was fierce nevertheless, and in the end, five men on the Evabindi and four men on the Kapagori side were dead, before both sides agreed to end the fighting. As a result, Evabindi hamlet was given up, and the Takai and Ai clans moved away from their former allies at Ketabe towards Dakamapindi, back towards the original hamlets of the Ai clan near Kimaruti, and thus in effect forming what later became known as the Ai local group.

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5.1.6 The Routing of the Manya Clan of Weneru Wars had a tendency to move people around, and only a few of my interlocutors from the local groups of Ketabe and Mugayamuti were able to proudly tell me that they still lived in the same spot where they were born. Most other men, especially those from Ai, Weneru, Agakamatasa or Ainai typically had stories of multiple moves in their youth, spending several years of their childhood and adolescence outside the main Purosa area, either at Ivaki, at Awarosa, or in Ainai. The fate of refugees and immigrants was not always a pleasant one, even if local groups were eager to recruit new warriors to their group. This is shown very nicely in the next two immediately following wars towards the second half of the 1940s. The focus of the first war was on the members of a clan called Manya residing at Weneru. These Manya were originally refugees from Ivarato, who had fled when their local group split up in a fight and sought refuge in Weneru in the 1920s, almost a generation ago. They were taken in by the Wanda clan at Weneru and intermarried with them, and together with them, they were chased away towards Awarosa in the war mentioned above. A few years after these clans had moved back from Awarosa and re-established their hamlet at Weneru, a new war erupted again with their old enemy Mugayamuti. The trigger for this war was the death of Mugayamuti leader Izondumu’s wife, who succumbed to kuru, which was seen as an especially nefarious and deadly form of sorcery. Suspicion was directed against the Manya of Weneru and confirmed by detection sorcery. The Mugayamuti then prepared a stealthy night raid on the Manya men’s house inside the Weneru stockade. They successfully bribed a Weneru man from another clan with some pigs and valuables to keep a part of the stockade unguarded, and a mixed war party of Mugayamuti and Dungkwi men was thus able to get inside the three fences of the stockade and started to set fire to the Manya men’s house. But the other Weneru clans were quickly alerted to the presence of the intruders. While the Mugayamuti killed one young boy, they became a clear target by the light of the burning house, and the Weneru were able to kill one of the intruders, Kawagota. At the same time, the rest of the Mugayamuti retreated. The next morning, the body of the intruder was sent back to Mugayamuti through an intermediary, and both sides prepared for open battle. The Kaugoti and the Anga from Dungkwi, who had their distinctive style of fighting, supported Mugayamuti in this war. In addition to bows and arrows, the Anga from Dungkwi also used long wooden clubs to significant effect, which were called kimi and likened to today’s bush knives. They carved these clubs from the wood of a hard ironwood-type tree. The Dungkwi used these clubs for hand-to-hand fighting, by getting close to the enemy line and trying to smash in the wooden shields of their opponents, or then by throwing the clubs from farther away. As the clubs were attached to long ropes, the Dungkwi could swing the clubs over their head, then release them, and quickly pull them back again by the cord. People said that the force of these clubs was sufficient to separate the head from the torso if a blow was struck against the neck. Their war cry of a menacing ‘brrr, brrr’ was greatly feared by the Ketabe and Weneru, and they saw them as wild and dangerous warriors. The Weneru, on the other hand, received support from the Ketabe and the Ai local groups. They were able to use a fairly common battlefield ruse to great effect: When both lines were still rather far apart, the Weneru shot arrows at their enemies that fell short, in order to lure them closer. When the Mugayamuti then picked up these arrows to return fire, another barrage of arrows was launched, which in this The Red Flag of Peace 121 case killed one Mugayamuti man, Amuye, on the spot. Over the next few weeks of open battle, the Mugayamuti concentrated their fire on men from the Manya clan, successfully killing three of them. At the same time, Mugayamuti made it clear to the other clans of Weneru that their target was only the expulsion of the Manya clan, and that all other clans could stay in Weneru. When the men of the Manya clan realized that they alone were singled out and targeted, they decided to move away. They sought refuge across the Kaza River in Ivaki, and sometime later moved back to their place of origin in Ivarato, others seeking asylum at Awarosa, leaving their sisters and daughters married to other Weneru clans and many adopted children behind.

5.1.7 The Routing of the Wanitabe Clan of Ivingoi Not all refugees were as well integrated as the Manya clan. The next war shows very clearly the precarious situation in which refugees could find themselves. Some men from the Wanitabe clan of Ivingoi were dislodged by wars in their area, and came down to Purosa, looking for refuge with the Wanitabe clan residing at the time at Mugayamuti. They built a men’s house close to them, but not long after their arrival, they were accused of being tokabu sorcerers. A woman from Mugayamuti and a woman from the Ai local group both died under suspicious circumstances, and the Wanitabe refugees from Ivingoi were blamed for their deaths. The Ai and Weneru local groups conspired with the Wanda and Takai clans of Mugayamuti, and one morning at dawn they encircled the men’s house of the Ivingoi Wanitabe. The Wanitabe must have been warned, as they had already left the house and were fleeing towards Ketabe. The Ai and Weneru succeeded in killing one man, Leo, who was trying to slow down the pursuers by taking a stand. The noise of the battle attracted some armed men from the Ketabe local group, and since some Ketabe were related to the Ivingoi Wanitabe, they took them under their protection and guided them towards their territory. The Ai and Weneru were not content in killing just one Wanitabe man, however, and they pressed on the following days, with the Ketabe defending the Ivingoi Wanitabe in battle. Some deaths resulted in this open battle, and both sides effectively used ambush tactics. One Ivingoi Wanitabe man was killed in an ambush while he was returning from a newly established garden site in the forest above Ketabe. And a Wanitabe man from Mugayamuti, Taboga, was killed while on the way to the battlefield. The Ai and Weneru tried to avenge him by killing another Ivingoi Wanitabe, at first with little success. In the end, they resorted to bribery, slaughtering some pigs and giving the pork to a few men from the Takai clan of Ketabe. In the night, these Takai men then went to a house where only one Wanitabe man, Uzeima, slept by himself, and killed him with a bamboo arrow without anybody else noticing. One of my informants was just a little boy when this happened, and at the time he almost blurted out that he recognized the arrow which killed Uzeima, as it was the same one that he saw being carved the previous day by some Takai men. The Wanitabe soon after that left back for Ivingoi, having lost three men in battles and ambushes, and one by treachery. After this particular fight, a period of hunger following the abandoning and destruction of gardens on the Mugayamuti side led to the exodus of all Wanitabe, Maibasa and some Takai lineages, who had joined the Mugayamuti less than ten years earlier. They went over the ridge to the northeast and made a new settlement in the Lamari Valley that became known as Agakamatasa, receiving some initial help with food from neighbouring Awarosa.

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5.1.8 The Last War The last war in the Purosa area took place during several months between late 1951 and early 1952, at a time when several government patrols had already passed through the area. It pitted most of the Purosa local groups against the Ivaki and their allies on the other side of the valley. The war started with a conflict between Kaugoti and Ivaki. The most often heard version of the trigger for the fight was that a strong Kaugoti warrior, Konumu, succumbed to sorcery performed by Ivaki. However, the Ivaki themselves accused the Kaugoti of killing one of their own by the same means. Some stolen pigs also might have played a role, and tensions escalated to open battle, with the Ivaki attacking the Kaugoti first. The Mugayamuti soon rallied behind their ally Kaugoti, as did the Ai and Weneru. The Ketabe curiously split, some Ketabe and Takai lineages deciding not to get involved in the fighting but evading the conflict by acting as go-betweens (so-called pako) and temporarily moving down to Urai, a close ally of Ivaki. This decision was probably due to a certain hesitation to ally with the Ai and Mugayamuti after they had just recently fought with them. One of my informants, Anuye Awaina, also confessed that they had just killed a Mugayamuti woman and feared they might get shot at if they would join the Mugayamuti side. The Ivaki, on the other hand, received support from Urai, Indamatasa, Karu, Takai, Ibunarasa and Mentilasa. The war at first only took the form of open battles, either on the Purosa or Ivaki side of the river, wherever the two sides would meet. Wawari Tago told me that since they had already received matches from earlier patrols, the Purosa men used them in setting fire to the dry grass on the slopes and trying to entrap the enemy by fire. The fighting went on for quite a while, but with only one or two casualties. An escalation only occurred when Kazaima, a man from the Wanitabe clan who had remained in Ivaki and later moved to Urai, was killed while he was visiting Kaugoti as a pako. Wawari Tago, one of my informants, realized that some Kaugoti and Mugayamuti men were conspiring to kill him and tried to save and hide him out of sympathy. Kazaima, however, attempted to escape, got caught and was killed on the spot by Tambendo Te’u and Kassam Uvinda, two of my other informants. The Ivaki became enraged by the shooting of a go-between. Suspecting that the two pako from Ketabe, who had settled in with Kazaima, were somehow involved in this ambush, decided to retaliate by ambushing them in turn. Some Ivaki men close to Kazaima thus went to the settlement at Urai, where they were welcomed and invited to partake in a meal, when they suddenly opened fire on the unsuspecting Takai and Ketabe men residing there temporarily. The Ivaki killed two men on the spot, Awasegi/Yawiko and Agena, while a third man, Aunaga, was able to escape but died of his wounds shortly thereafter. The rest of the Ketabe and Takai clans from Ketabe fled back to the Purosa side and joined the Mugayamuti and Kaugoti in the war against their former treacherous hosts. In retaliation for the betrayal, the returned Takai and Ketabe revenged themselves by killing two men who also acted as go-betweens. A small war party of Takai and Ketabe men, including my informant Movino Kamere, crept into Mugayamuti and killed a man from Karu, an Ivaki ally, who was at the time staying there. In addition, they knew that another man from Indamatasa, another ally of Ivaki, was residing with the people at Ainai. They sent word to one of the Ainai men to lead this Indamatasa man under a false pretext right into an ambush. When the Ainai man approached the trap, he suddenly tackled the Indamatasa man and held him down, while the Purosa warriors fired arrows into him. The score would have been even at the time, The Red Flag of Peace 123 but the Purosa groups were still unwilling to agree to a ceasefire, and another few weeks or months went by with several more killings in open battle or ambushes. In one sortie, a small group of Purosa men successfully ambushed a man tending to his sugarcane garden in Urai, then retreated a distance back up the valley, before hiding and shooting another three pursuers in an ambush. The war finally came to an end when both sides were spreading rumours that the police had been seen or was on the way to the area, and it would be better to cease the fighting before they would all be killed by the ‘sound of a bamboo cracking in the fire’ (the local term for gunshots). The Ivaki even slept a few nights in the forest out of fear that the police would suddenly show up. Both sides shortly after that held a sugarcane-drinking ceremony (uva) and agreed to raise more pigs in order to cement the peace by a pig-killing. Warfare thus continuously shaped and reshaped the political landscape of the Purosa area. The local groups of Piyawanupindi and later Weneru were shattered and dislocated through war, having to find refuge among neighbouring friendly groups. Others like Awarosa and Ketabe were split apart by internal strife, in effect creating new political entities. Even comparatively large local groups like Ketabe and Mugayamuti, which were able to hold their ground and never suffered dislocation, were not unaffected by the ever-changing political shifts taking place all around them. Warfare took a heavy toll on the population of the Purosa area. Children and women were not protected from being targeted; neither were older men. And with the men fighting for weeks and months at end, and the women unable to tend to their gardens in fear of ambush, hunger was a constant threat. At the beginning of a war, sweet potatoes were still plentiful in the gardens and could be harvested for a while (if the enemy did not destroy gardens). Later, old fallowed gardens would have to be dug up again in search for residual tubers, and edible plants were gathered in the forest. With no possibility to establish new gardens, this state of affairs could not go on forever, and it was usually around this time that both sides slowed down in their fighting spirit and ceased hostilities, at least as long as it took to plant new gardens. Nobody was safe from a sudden ambush even at these times, and men always took their weapons with them wherever they went.

5.1.9 War-Related Mortality I collected the names of 115 people, men, women and children, who were killed in inter-village wars over approximately 25 years (1927 - 1952). All names were collected either in interviews or through genealogical surveys focusing on the pre-colonial wars, and caution was taken to always corroborate the names by checking with other informants, and attributing the deaths to a specific conflict, sometimes also collecting the precise circumstances of the death. The number of 115 people killed thus constitutes a minimum number of deaths that occurred among the Purosa people. Numerous other names were not included in this count, since there were conflicting accounts of their deaths (which are especially murky when the type of violent attack sorcery called tokabu is involved) or could not be attributed to the specific wars in the 25 years before the last war. Often some informants no longer remembered the exact names of the people killed. In these instances, these deaths were not counted towards the total, except when it could be established through various sources that a certain number of people were killed in specific incidents. I took care to make sure that the same death was not entered twice under different names, by checking whether people had several names and going through the list of people killed with a large group of informants. It is clear that this minimum number does not tell the

124 Ending War whole story, as especially women and children’s names were only remembered by close relatives or if they died under extraordinary circumstances. The genealogical survey of all of the present-day Purosa villages (Takai-Purosa, Ketabe, Ai, Weneru, Mugayamuti and Kaugoti) could out of necessity only include the direct paternal and maternal ancestors, without inquiring about the lateral relatives (uncles, aunts, great-uncles, great-aunts). People that died in pre- colonial wars without surviving direct descendants could thus not be found by this method. Through this method, 13 additional names were collected, but I could not confirm them by sources other than the immediate descendants, nor placed in specific wars. But even considering these limitations, the minimum number of 115 war-dead in approximately 25 years gives an impression of the seriousness and impact of warfare in the Purosa area. Some wars were exceptionally costly to some groups: the Wanitabe clan lost at least eight people in the series of wars from their split from Awarosa to their flight to Ivaki. Mugayamuti lost eleven people in the series of wars against Ketabe after the Wanitabe clans joined them, coming back from Ivaki, in addition to the six people killed in the preceding war against Weneru. Even a so- called ‘small war’ between sections of local groups, as the fight between the hamlets of Kapagori and Evabindi of Ketabe, cost the lives of seven people in total. This number of 115 confirmed war deaths results in an average of 4.6 war deaths per year in the whole area. As 750-800 people were residing in all the Purosa villages (including Awarosa and Agakamatasa) in the mid-1950s, this would result in a war mortality rate of 5.8 - 6.1 war deaths per year per 1000 people. The number of the total population is derived from the colonial census data available from the patrol reports. The kiaps counted 744 people in 1953, 774 in 1954 and 1955, 741 in 1960 and 792 by 1965. As census evasion was never an issue among the people of Purosa, this number reasonably accurately reflects the population in the early 1950s up to the mid-1960s. The resulting mortality rate should still be treated with caution, however, as the pre-colonial population might have been somewhat larger before the 1940s. It is well established that the 1943 dysentery epidemic caused a significant number of deaths, especially among young children (Bennett 1962:36). Based on data gathered by Ronald Berndt in Kogu among the Usurufa (1971:397-399), 43 people died in dysentery epidemics between 1943 and 1947. As the total number of people living in the village of Kogu was 175 in 1953, this is a remarkable and devastating drop of 20-25%. Calculated for the 50 years for which Berndt gathered genealogical data, dysentery deaths accounted for 12.7% of all deaths. On the other hand, kuru mortality increased rapidly during colonial time and significantly limited population growth. In 1961, the annual rate of natural increase of population was only positive in Ketabe village (+3.4%), while all other Purosa villages experienced stagnation or even a decrease of the population (0 to -1.1%), with annual kuru mortality in the area of 20-25 deaths per 1000 people in the same year (Bennett 1962:30, 38). With rising kuru deaths after 1950, the number of 750-800 people for the whole population of the Purosa area might be closer to pre-colonial population rates than elsewhere, where improvements in health and sanitation quickly led to rapid population growth of around 3% per year (Bennett 1962:26). The war mortality rate of 5.8 - 6.1 war deaths per year per 1000 people would mean that an estimated 23-24.5% of all deaths were due to warfare. This is again only an estimate, as in order to calculate the exact percentage of deaths due to warfare, one would need to know the total The Red Flag of Peace 125 number of deaths in the same period. This data was impossible to collect for the case studies, as remembering all deaths in a period 85-60 years before the time of recording is illusory. Thankfully, two studies do just that for the area and the period in question: Berndt’s (1971:397- 399) study of Kogu, which reports 199 deaths in 50 years in a population of 175 villagers, and Hayano’s (1974a:287) study of Tauna, which lists 206 deaths in 50 years in a community of around 160 villagers. This would mean that it takes on average around 40 years until the total of deaths reaches the size of the total population. For 25 years, the total number of deaths for Purosa can thus be estimated around 470-500 people, and with 115 of those people killed as a result of warfare, the estimated percentage of war deaths is 23-24.5%. For lack of better numbers, the war mortality rate (and the percentage of deaths due to warfare) can nevertheless be used to compare the intensity of warfare with other ethnic groups. And here it is clear that Fore warfare is similar in intensity to other ethnic groups in the area. Among the Auyana, Robbins (1982:211) established that 21 people died in inter-village wars in the last 25 years of pre-colonial warfare in the village of Auyana (present-day Asempa). Assuming the average population of the village during this time to be around 200 people, he calculated a war- related mortality rate of 4.2 per thousand per year. As he did fieldwork in 1962 and counted 213 people living there at the time (Robbins 1982:248), the pre-colonial number might have been even slightly smaller, considering the rapid population growth experienced everywhere else since the 1950s with improved health and sanitation. It is difficult to verify earlier population numbers, however, since what the anthropologist established to be a local group (or sovereignty in Robbins’ terms) does not line up nicely with the administrative census units imposed by the kiaps (which usually encompassed larger groups). The official census unit of Auiana thus had 298 inhabitants in 1953, and 385 in 1965. Pataki-Schweizer (1980:86) records 286 inhabitants for the local group of Asempa alone in 1963, noting that the government census unit also includes the local group of Omuna with 80 inhabitants for a total of 366 inhabitants. That the mortality rate of 4.2 per thousand per year is significantly lower than the one for the Purosa area can be attributed to the remarkable success of the village of Auyana in warfare. Using the same calculation process and the same numbers as above, the deaths due to warfare in the village of Auyana would amount to only 16.8% of all deaths. Among the Awa, Hayano (1974a:287) counted 53 war deaths in the village of Tauna over 50 years, which amounts to 25.7% of all deaths he recorded in genealogies between 1900 and 1949. Men were more likely to die from warfare than women, and thus 30% of all male deaths and only 16% of all female deaths were due to wars. Hayano did not attempt to calculate an average yearly mortality rate. At the time of his fieldwork in 1969-1970, Tauna had a population of 170 inhabitants (Hayano 1974a:282), which corresponds well with the 1966 census figure of 145. Any earlier census data from patrol reports is not available or unreliable, since the people of Tauna were known to shirk from census duty. If a conservative estimate of a population of 150-170 people for the period of 1900-1949 is used to calculate war mortality, this translates to a war mortality of 6.2-7 per thousand per year, which is not significantly higher than the war mortality calculated for the Purosa population. These numbers can also be compared to the Usurufa. Ronald Berndt (1971:397-399) counted 80 male deaths due to intergroup warfare (and a further 11 who died in intra-group violence) out of a total number of 199 deaths during 50 years in the village of Kogu. This means that a staggering 40% of all male deaths are due to warfare (or 45% due to violence). Among women,

126 Ending War the death rates from war and violence are 18% and 19% respectively, with 25 women killed in intergroup warfare, and 2 in intra-group shootings. This would mean for the combined population of males and females, that a total of 31% of all deaths are due to warfare, and a further 4% due to intra-group violence. 15 If the population of 175 people in 1953 were taken as a yardstick, this would result in an average annual mortality rate of 12 per thousand, which is almost double the mortality rate for the Purosa area. Even if I account for all the dysentery deaths, and add them back to the population, this would still result in a mortality rate of 9.6 per thousand.

5.2 Early Contact How was this intensive warfare eventually stopped in the early 1950s? In order to understand the process of pacification in the South Fore area, it is necessary to unravel the ‘structure of conjuncture’ (Sahlins 1981) that made it possible. It is the local perceptions and cultural notions that are important in explaining why the people of Purosa so quickly and willingly gave up warfare. And for this, it is necessary to go back in history a good twenty to thirty years, long before first contact with government patrols in 1949. The eventual end of warfare was ushered in by almost twenty to thirty years of constant changes, rumours and novel events affecting the villages of the Purosa area, creating a climate conducive to the pacification efforts of the colonial administration.

5.2.1 Western Goods and their Impact The first portents of things to come were Western artefacts like steel axes, pieces of cloth, ceramics or mirror shards that reached the villages of the Purosa area from the south through long-distance trade networks connecting the Fore with groups living on the Purari River and the Gulf Coast. Through these networks, the Fore traditionally acquired saltwater shells that were the main indigenous valuables in exchange for string bags and bundles of tobacco. The Fore travelled for two or three days through the densely forested foothills down towards where the Lamari meets the Purari River and exchanged their goods with the Papuan people living along the Purari River. Accordingly, some South Fore refugees long ago fled towards the south and intermarried with the people living there, creating this trade link. These Papuan villages had their own trade links with villages further towards the coast, apparently extending all the way towards Baimuru near the Gulf Coast. Among these first foreign goods, knives and axes were especially coveted, since their superiority over traditional stone and bamboo tools was soon discovered. Several axes thus already reached Purosa long before the first government patrol. Their owners acquired considerable prestige and loaned them out to others within the local group when someone needed to cut trees. All these goods were associated with the spirit realm and deemed to hold supernatural powers. The influx of such goods dramatically increased from the 1930s onwards. Especially small giri- giri shells became abundant at this time, and a bride price payment soon contained several

15 Berndt’s (1971:399, 401) own calculations of 32% of males and 12% of females dying from warfare are slightly misleading, since they were calculated taking as a base all recorded names (dead and living), and thus do not correspond to the numbers calculated by Hayano (1974a), who correctly calculated mortality percentages based only on deaths. The Red Flag of Peace 127 strings on which these small shells were strung up. These new goods came from the north, however, as the first missionaries, gold prospectors and government patrols had reached Kainantu, north of the Fore area, in the 1930s. This caused a reversion of traditional trade flows. Groups in fringe areas, like the South Fore, which were traditionally in a favourable middleman position between the coast and the Highlands, suddenly found themselves at the periphery of a trade network radiating out from the government and mission posts in the Highlands (Boyd 1975:42; Lindenbaum 1979:76-79). This process was also active in other areas of the Papua New Guinea Highlands (Hughes 1978:311-317) and had quite an effect on regional dynamics of marriage and alliance, as South Fore groups were now in a much more disadvantaged position.

5.2.2 Aeroplane Sightings In 1933 the first aeroplane was sighted, flying over the valley from east to west. In that year, the Australian administration, together with the New Guinea Goldfields Company, started survey flights into the Eastern Highlands and Chimbu valleys (Lindenbaum 1979:78). People from Purosa were horrified and went into hiding, scared of the noise. There are a lot of often- humorous stories associated with the first plane sighting, in which men grabbed their arrows, assuming that the sound was made by a nearby cassowary, before realizing it came from the sky. The plane was believed to be a huge shining bird flying high in the sky, and the name Kukube was attached to it in Purosa, while the Ivaki called it Fufumbe. Interestingly, the name for the plane was similar in the neighbouring Awa (Kukumbe) and Auyana (Kubukabana or Pupumbayo) language groups, indicating that there was a path of communication probably extending all the way to Kainantu, where planes landed for the first time in 1932.16 People tried to protect themselves against certain danger emanating from this strange bird. They slaughtered red-coloured pigs, offering them to the shining bird and distributing the pork amongst all the men. Or then they took special medicinal leaves, holding them up towards the sky, and then together with cooked pork gave it to all people to eat, including children and women. My informants said that as they saw something that they should not see they were convinced that they would all die. Together with those trade goods, artefacts, and aeroplane sightings, rumours reached the villagers in the Purosa area that men with red skin were sighted in the north around Kainantu. The purpose of their appearance was unknown, but they were variably believed to be spirits from the land of the dead or even returning ancestors. Among the North Fore, some rumours predicted the death of all pregnant women or of all black-coloured pigs (Berndt 1952/53:50- 56), while other tales had it that the returned ancestors are handing out large quantities of shells and iron tools. As a matter of fact, shells and Western goods did arrive in larger quantities at around the same time and so indirectly confirmed these rumours.

16 See Smith 1981:109-110 for an alternative explanation that connects pupune, the Yagaria term for a white man, with the sound of the gun.

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5.2.3 First Contact The first visitor from the outside world that people in the Purosa area remember was a black man called Sareabu with a line of carriers, probably a gold prospector, who came from the direction of the Gulf Coast in the early 1930s. He passed through a former village of Ivaki called Tavubindi, on the other side of the ridge from Ivaki, and went as far as Kamira before turning back, but bypassed Purosa. He wore a laplap (wraparound skirt) and sandals and was said to be so tall, that his feet hung out of the door of the house when he slept with his head near the central fireplace. He carried a hurricane lamp with him, which illuminated the night, as well as a radio (see Lindenbaum 1979:79 for a similar description from the people at Wanitabe). He showed people how to light matches and gave them salt and told them to taste it. He tried to explain to them that soon things will come in the sky, which will make a noise like ‘wrrr’. And before turning back, he wrote a note and told people that they should hand it from village to village until it reaches a certain ‘Avoru’ in a place called Kainantu. The letter was handed on from Ivaki to Awarosa, then to Okasa and Ofafina, after which people lost track of it. People of Ivaki later explained the dysentery epidemic with the assumption that somebody must have opened the message and that this had called upon them the wrath of the spirits. The first white man that the people of Purosa ever saw crossed through the Kaza River valley from Kainantu en route to the Gulf Coast probably just at the onset of World War II in early 1942. He arrived at the head of a patrol, coming from over the ridge in the northeast, from the direction of Agakamatasa, and built a camp at a place called Oregori near the Mugayamuti local group. People of Purosa told me that they experienced this visit as in a dream, and they only realized it was no dream after they saw the second white man. It must have been a surreal event, similar to what Schieffelin and Crittenden (1991) report for the encounter between the Etoro and the Strickland-Purari patrol by Hides and O’Malley. As it was, the first visit by a white man instantly drew a considerable crowd. People called out to each other that Kukumbe had come, and people from all the villages in the Purosa area came to look at this strange creature, regardless of the enmity still existing after a recent fight between Mugayamuti and Ketabe. As Movino Kamere explains: When the first white man came, nobody thought about the fight anymore. […] We were all excited and called out to everybody to come and see; something has arrived. So we held our bows and arrows and went to see. (Movino Kamere)

There was no fear shown, even though people were surprised and shocked, and when the white man handed out salt, this was much appreciated. A few cargo carriers accompanied the white man, and a black woman in a dress, who caused just as big a stir, and whose name (Sasamba) is still remembered in songs today. A large dog on a chain held by the white man also awed and scared people, as it was huge compared to their own rather scrawny and puny dogs. The white man and his company pitched their camp for a night and indicated by putting some sweet potato and taro leaves in their mouths that they would like to get some food. In return, they distributed salt and small shells, which caused a lot of excitement. The next morning, they moved on towards Ibunarasa, where they again pitched camp for the night, before moving on towards the Gulf Coast the following day. Everybody wondered what kind of being just visited them, and there was a big meeting encompassing all the different local groups of Purosa to discuss where it might have come from and what its purpose was. The Red Flag of Peace 129

There was some fear that people might die because they had seen what seemed like a man with different skin colour in broad daylight, something that they believed they shouldn’t have seen. Some precautions were thus taken to ward off evil; and a specific medicinal leaf was put on the path on which the white man walked and then cooked with vegetables, spat on with salt and eaten. It is believed that some of those who did not take these precautions later died of the dysentery epidemic. People still followed the same precautions when the first kiaps came to Purosa in 1949 and the following years. Some men even rubbed the kiap’s legs with leaves and then cooked them before distributing them amongst children and women, as they were most susceptible to this kind of danger. A while later, two other white men with a more sizeable escort of carriers and armed men passed through the Purosa area. They came from the direction of the Takai Mountain and stopped at Kawagumkagori, near present-day Embogovindi. All people from Purosa again assembled, but this time the whites and their armed escort forced them to build two houses by whipping them with canes, shooting off guns and intimidating them. They handed out some axes and bush knives to speed up the construction of the houses and paid for vegetables with a spoonful of salt and some shells. This patrol must have been somewhat nervous, as they fired off guns during the whole night to keep people frightened and away from the camp. The next morning, they also left towards the Gulf Coast. It is not possible to pinpoint with certainty who led these two patrols. However, it is known that two parties of gold prospectors, one with Tom Fox and the other with Ned Rowlands and Ted Ubank, evacuated towards the Gulf Coast taking this general route at the onset of World War II. Patrol Officer G.F. Neilsen and Ned Rowlands then led an army patrol through the area in September 1942; retracing the route Rowlands took down to the coast six months before (Kainantu PR 1947/48/5; 1950/51/8; NAA: AWM52, 1/10/1). It is also not completely clear how many of these patrols actually came through the Purosa area. Most people just remembered two patrols: the white man (or two white men) with the black woman camping at Oregori, and another patrol coming down from Takai Mountain. Koro Pare, however, emphasized that there were actually three patrols which all made their camp at Oregori: first two white men, then a white man with a white woman, then another white man, before the first kiaps came down from Takai Mountain. The time between these events is also difficult to estimate since I received various conflicting accounts. It is possible that the patrol(s) camping at Oregori and the one camping at Kawagumkagori were separated by several years, which might mean that the patrol camping at Kawagumkagori might have already been the first government patrol led by acting ADO Gerry W. Toogood in August 1949. These red-skinned beings were at first called tete’kina, meaning red people. There was a belief that these red-skinned beings were dead ancestors, especially strong warriors that died a violent death, then travelled to the land of the dead located to the northwest in the Finisterre Range, there changed their skin colour and then returned. As all earlier patrols came from that direction, this association was most logical to make, and similar beliefs existed all over the New Guinea Highlands (Connolly/Anderson 1987). As the first white man was also using a radio inside his tent, people were strengthened in their belief that he must be a spirit, as they heard all kinds of voices coming from inside the tent. It was only through the giving of salt and shells that the white men slowly became human, as they engaged in exchange, a profoundly human activity.

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As Kandanaga Kuvoki explained: “This first white man told us that he was a man, not a ghost. And he gave us salt, tobacco, made tea for us and gave it to us, gave us biscuits, and we realized it must be true that he was a man.” Others maintained that it took quite a while for them to shake off the belief that the red-skinned beings were spirits, at least until patrols became more frequent in the after-war years.

5.2.4 World War II and the Japanese With the advent of World War II, the speed of events increased. Whole squadrons of aeroplanes were suddenly flying over the area, and again they were believed to be birds and given names. People made a distinction between the larger bomber planes flying rather close to the ground and their escort of smaller fighter planes that were called Sokibe. Some people reported seeing men in these flying contraptions. Rumours were coming down from the Auyana in the north that there was a big fight going on, and the name of Siapan (Japan) was making the rounds. That men were indeed guiding these planes was confirmed when a plane crashed at Awande in the North Fore, and a few people from Purosa went there to examine the dismembered bodies of the crew. Just a little bit later a Japanese bomber with a four-man crew crash-landed at the confluence of the Puburamba and the Lamari River near Ilesa, on the other side of the mountain to the northeast of the Purosa villages. It was coming up the Lamari Valley from the south and probably tried to fly up towards Obura and then down into the Markham Valley. But it must have been shot down or developed engine trouble, as it crash-landed near the Lamari River. This bomber was probably involved in one of the Japanese air raids on Port Moresby, which might put the date of this crash anywhere between Feb. 3rd, 1942 and September 20th, 1943, when the Japanese Air Force conducted aerial bombings of Port Moresby (Pacific Wrecks 2015). It is less likely, although still possible, that the crash was even later, as in July 1944 an Australian patrol was sent up the Purari and Lamari Rivers to check on a rumour that 4 Japanese were seen somewhere around Mt. Michael. The patrol came to the edge of Gimi and Fore territory, before turning back, assured that the rumours were sparked by two downed U.S. & Australian airmen, who were helped towards the coast via this route (Kikori PR 1944/45/4). Whatever the exact date, it forms another clear marker in Purosa storytelling, mostly because of the tragedy that happened next. As soon as the plane crash-landed, people from all over congregated near the crash site. The first ones on the spot must have been villagers or Awarosa, Ilakiah, Ilesa and Mobutasa. Soon enough people from Purosa also heard about it and made their way over the ridge. The crash of this strange contraption made people suddenly forget their enmity, and former and current enemies milled around, gawking at the wrecked plane. The people quickly realized that the aircraft consisted of the same material as the coveted iron axes and knives. In an attempt to break apart the wreck for metal that they could shape into knives and axes, some villagers from Awarosa were attracted by the sharp fins of one of the bombs still in the plane. They hoisted the bomb off the plane and unwittingly triggered it when they smashed the bomb against a stone. It is estimated that about two dozen or more people lost their lives, most of them from the closest villages of Awarosa, Ilesa, Mobutasa and Ilakiah, but also at least two men from Purosa. Two of the four Japanese crewmen actually survived the crash and tried to warn people not to get close to the wreck, but they could not make themselves understood, not even with The Red Flag of Peace 131 hand signals. People wondered what kind of beings these two red-skinned men were, and what power they controlled, but bore no grudges against them. The two Japanese, one of whom broke a leg in the crash, were nursed back to health for a few weeks, before they hiked out towards the north through the territory of the Awa and Auyana towards the Ramu Valley, leaving behind a population that had experienced first-hand the terrible forces these strange beings could unleash. People of Awarosa helped them, carrying one of the Japanese on a stretcher until Yagusa. The names of these two Japanese are still known, Esagi or Iseki and Omisawa, as a few children were named after them, not only in Purosa but also in Asempa and Amaira among the Auyana, where they also passed through.

5.2.5 Epidemics An even more deadly, albeit invisible force soon made itself felt. A dysentery epidemic swept through the area in 1943-1944, as well as a whooping cough epidemic in 1949 (Lindenbaum 1979:84f.). The flu epidemic of 1936 that was especially virulent in the Kainantu area (Radford 1987:144) might have reached the South Fore as well. However, the symptoms are not specific enough to be remembered in the oral record. Dysentery killed a large number of people, especially young children, and agricultural activities ceased for a while because too many people were too sick to tend to their gardens (see also Lindenbaum 1979:31). To protect against dysentery, people resorted to cooking and ingesting medicinal tree bark, and this was said to have saved some from the epidemic or at least lessened the symptoms. Bennett (1962:36) realized in his demographic report on the Fore area in the 1960s that there is a clear gap in the age group of 15- to 29-year olds, caused by the dysentery epidemic. Hayano (1972:93) in his genealogical census of the Awa village of Tauna counted 25 people killed by epidemics, about 20-25% of the village population at the time. Some of these epidemics might have caused an intensification of warfare, since deaths from sickness, which were usually attributed to sorcery, accelerated the cycle of revenge and retaliation. Dysentery and whooping cough did not directly contribute to an increase in warfare, however, since both diseases were categorized as not inflicted by other humans but ‘caused by a strong wind’ called igubiya. A different case was kuru; a deadly spongiform encephalopathy transmitted by the cannibalistic mourning rites of the Fore, which had only arrived in the Purosa area within living memory around 1933 (Lindenbaum 1979:17-22). The Fore attributed the symptoms of this degenerative disease on a type of sorcery called kuru (from which the disease received its name). Kuru was a form of exuvial sorcery, in which bodily substances (like semen, faeces, hair, fingernails or spittle), food scraps or other objects in close physical contact with the target person were wrapped in a bundle together with other sorcery substances. This bundle was then variously beaten, roasted over a fire or buried in mud. Since the first case in 1933, at least three wars in the Purosa area were started because of this previously unknown disorder. Because this disease afflicted more women than men, there already was a significant demographic gender imbalance by the time of the first government patrols through the area, which increased even more in the 1950s and 1960s.

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5.3 New Ideas and Innovations With all these new events, new ideas also filtered through to the South Fore area around Purosa. These ideas are mainly responsible for the motivation of the Fore people to eventually give up warfare once the first patrols entered the region.

5.3.1 Cargo Cults With World War II, the influx of Western goods from the north abruptly stopped, since colonial officers and missionaries were evacuated out of the Kainantu area because of the Japanese threat. According to Berndt (1952/53:56-57), the Fore were convinced that the spirits had betrayed them, and a wave of cargo cults swept through the area in the 1940s. New rituals were invented to appease the spirits and to re-attract the goods. The Purosa and Ivaki people also participated in such ceremonies. In Ivaki, people remembered dancing around the men’s house with torches, singing a song in which they were asking Fufumbe (the name given to the planes, and also the red-skinned men) to come back and bring them these goods. In both Purosa and Ivaki, people built special houses for these spirits. They collected stones from the river, packed them into bundles and hung the packages from the rafters of these spirit houses. They also filled sand from the river into bamboo tubes and similarly hung them from the rafters. People then sat around the fire inside these spirit houses and tried to imitate the Pidgin they heard from the first white men and their entourage who passed through their territory. They abstained from sex with their wives and no longer ate vegetables, corn, mushrooms, possums and pork. It was believed that if the stones and the sand were sufficiently heated by the fire and break, they would reveal large kumu-kumu and smaller giri-giri shells (see Berndt 1953/54:214 for a similar ritual). It seems possible that what the Purosa and Ivaki people did was in effect mirroring the behaviour of some of the gold prospectors who came through their area and most certainly did some panning for gold in the rivers. It was at this time that the word mono’ana reached the Purosa area for the first time. Mono’ana was a term coined to signify all the goods associated with the red-skinned people, from shells to axes and knives to pieces of textiles or even salt.17 Some Purosa men were trying to find ways to produce this mono’ana for themselves again and again. After the first wave of collective cargo cults had subsided, a later wave in the late 1940s to early 1950s centred on prominent cult leaders. One of the most prominent leaders of such cults in the Purosa area was the man who later became tultul of Ai village, Tambendo Te’u. As the rumours from the North Fore hinted that the dead were able to produce mono’ana, he went to the burial places of his ancestors, lit a fire there, smoked tobacco the whole night, put his hands down into a hole he dug in the earth and asked the dead for mono’ana. Not much later Tambendo went to Kainantu and received a red piece of cloth (it must have been in the early 1950s, after the last fight with Ivaki). He hid it, cut it into little pieces, and pretended that he was able to conjure these pieces of cloth up by himself. He was able to convince a lot of people that he knew the secret to produce mono’ana. With his new entourage of followers, he then continued to try to create more mono’ana by building a big house with a wing-shaped roof and a tall centre pole, on which he hung all kinds of nice-smelling leaves from certain trees

17 The term might in fact be derived from the English ‘money’. The Red Flag of Peace 133 and shrubs. He left a big opening in the wall of the house, to catch the wind that was supposed to blow mono’ana in their direction. As Tambendo Te’u explained it: “I had an idea that if a big wind blows, it brings a lot of things. So I thought that this wind blew over us and bypassed us and that we thus weren’t able to get the mono’ana, and that we had to catch the wind.” He then instructed women to congregate in this house to ‘catch the wind.’ After this attempt failed, he carved wooden guns and put them in this house. He instructed some of his followers to enter the house with him, then shoulder these guns and come marching out with them, as he thought that the act of marching with these guns and hardening them over the fire was necessary to turn them into real firearms. He was not the only one who did this. Another cult leader from Ketabe also carved guns and bush-knives out of wood, wrapped them in pieces of cloth and put them into a small house built for the purpose. These wooden replicas were then supposed to turn into real goods with the help of the spirits. All these rituals are variations on common themes also reported on by Berndt (1952/53, 1953/54) from the North Fore, Usurufa, Kamano and Jate areas.

5.3.2 Connections to the North Fore There was indeed a direct link between Purosa and Kagu18 in the North Fore. A lineage from Ai clan had fled from the constant fighting in the Purosa area and found a new home in Kagu about a generation before first contact. Once Kagu was affected by the rumours and the ritualistic activities, one of these refugees travelled back to Purosa to inform his relatives about what was happening. He brought news of mono’ana to the Purosa area, instigated rituals himself, and told the people that they would have to stop wars and no longer marry prepubescent girls, for the red-skinned people would arrive with their mono’ana and handing out shells. He also instructed the people of Purosa to bring food, water and firewood to these red-skinned people, should they come to their hamlets. Some Australian patrol officers were later quite surprised when people enthusiastically welcomed them with gifts of pigs and food, lined up as if they were ready for a headcount, or saluted them. In essence, all behaviour they had either heard about or witnessed first-hand in already contacted and pacified areas (see Lindenbaum 1979:80, 130, 139). Atenumu Agamea confirmed this by demonstrating how he stamped his feet together and saluted the kiap when he first came to Purosa. He was also organizing his people in lining up for census, as he already had been instructed about the procedure from this person from Kagu. People from the already contacted and pacified North Fore and from even further afield, from Kamano or Kainantu, who made their way down to the South Fore hamlets were thus an essential conduit for new ideas. They caused quite some consternation and alarm at first. While most were still wearing traditional clothes (only some already wore laplaps), they already had their traditionally long hair cut short. They called themselves mono’kina (literally ‘money people’) and spread the news that mono’ana will soon arrive in their wake. They talked in a made-up Pidgin to impress people with their knowledge and connections to the red-skinned people, and in Wanitabe, they were able to command the men around and take their women

18 Kagu is the same village as Berndt’s Kogu among the Usurufa. This village is by now apparently classified as a North Fore village. As most Usurufa people were bilingual, mutual understanding apparently was not a problem.

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(Lindenbaum 1979:139). Some of them carried wooden bush-knives or wooden guns with them that they had carved and blackened with soot, impersonating policemen. Some of these North Fore and Kamano intruders must have been mission evangelists, since they appointed locals as bossboys and papatra (mission officials), further adding to the confusion as nobody could make sense of these new names. When the first kiaps came on patrol through Purosa starting in 1949, they usually hired carriers from the North Fore. As their dialects were mutually understandable, these North Fore cargo carriers became another vital source of new information for the South Fore. The carriers instructed them for example how to behave towards the kiaps and policemen on patrol, how to help in setting up camp, what kind of food to bring, and that they should wash and cut their long hair if they wanted to gain mono’ana through their interactions with the red-skinned beings.

5.3.3 First Visits to Kainantu With the first white men passing through the area and the cargo cults and rumours all arriving from the north, the people of Purosa decided that they should send out some men towards the north to confirm those rumours and ascertain from where precisely these men came. Tambendo Te’u claims to be one of the first persons from Purosa to have visited Kainantu. After one of his extended relatives from Ai clan from Kagu in the North Fore visited him and told him that the red-skinned people were handing out shells in Kainantu, he accompanied him back to Kagu. It was just after the last war against Ivaki, at a time when the police had started to oversee the construction of a graded track suitable for motorbikes from Kainantu to Moke Police Post, which puts this event somewhere between mid-1950 and early 1952. The policemen stationed at Moke forced villagers from all over the North Fore area to build the track using mostly digging sticks and a few spades. Together with one of his relatives from Kagu, who had already visited Kainantu, Tambendo worked on the track, but then also travelled to Kainantu over bush tracks and saw Kainantu station for the first time. The big attraction was the trade store, where Tambendo was able to buy an axe and some cloth with money given by his relative. With the appointment of luluai and tultuls in 1953, they became one of the most important conduits for information about Kainantu and the aims of the administration. All luluai and tultul from Purosa were instructed by Assistant District Officer Harry West to visit him in Kainantu so that he could show them around and explain the aims of the administration. As their badges of office gave them an official guarantee of safe passage, they were free to travel back and forth regardless of the previous enmity. When the luluai and tultuls came back from this journey, they told everybody about the government station, about the trade store where they were given tinned fish and tinned meat, and soon more and more people went to Kainantu to see the town for themselves. People travelled in small groups of five to ten people and had to spend at least one night on the road. After the patrol post in Okapa opened in June 1954, people of Purosa generally spent a night at Okapa, then journeyed on to the Salvation Army mission station at Onamuga, and then continued early next morning to Kainantu, before coming back, sleeping at the same places. The yearly Christmas sing-sings at Kainantu soon became a regular fixture for the people of Purosa. At first, it was again an expectation to receive mono’ana by participating in the The Red Flag of Peace 135 festivities that attracted people to travel that far. With time, Kainantu and the festivities became the attraction in itself. People often tried to emulate whatever they saw in Kainantu. Atenumu Agamea, for example, recounted how he constructed a rectangular house at the time, carefully copying the design he saw in Kainantu, including small windows. He also bought a large mirror, broke it apart, and set the mirror shards into the windows, believing that he will be able to produce mono’ana this way. In the Purosa area, the rumours and cargo cults created an atmosphere conducive to rapid pacification. These events and occurrences nurtured an interest in new and non-traditional activities. Traditional standards of knowledge were weighed up against these novel ideas. Thus, the collapse of traditional activities (like warfare) was not only accepted but also actively supported. According to Berndt (1952/53:149-150), the decline of cargo cults among the southern Kamano, the Usurufa and North Fore coincided with the spread of colonial power, and the fervent desire shown by the local population to radically alter their life bore certain traits of a cargo cult in itself.

5.3.4 Ending Warfare Once and for All It was in this period of recurrent cargo cults and increased influx of new ideas, that the pig-kill to cement the peace after the last war between Purosa and Ivaki took place. According to Koro Pare, several leaders from Purosa were actually conspiring to start the fight with Ivaki anew but were dissuaded by the raising of the red flag by Tambendo, Yawa and Endokava, three of the newly appointed Luluai and Tultuls. The raising of the flag had a significant impact. Tambendo Te’u explains the reasoning behind this act: The fighting was already finished, and we drank sugar cane, and we arranged for a pig-kill, and I went up to Kagu, got this laplap, and when we had the pig-kill, I raised the red laplap and told them that the fighting will stop now. From all over they came and saw me raising this laplap, and that it was a new thing. So we all ended the old system and looked ahead to the new system. And so the fighting stopped completely. […] This laplap, I brought it on my own accord, showed it to everybody and told them that we should stop fighting, lest we miss out on the good things to come. It was a big speech that I made, and everybody agreed that we should stop fighting and look to the laplap. This laplap was loaded with meaning. I was thinking about the whites, which will come and bring a good future, and I used the laplap as an example. (Tambendo Te’u)

At that time, there was already a fairly regular contact with patrols, and Tambendo himself previously accompanied a patrol that attempted to ascertain the boundaries of the Eastern Highlands District and was exploring the region towards the Gulf Coast until Paiti. This was probably ADO Gerry Toogood’s second exploratory patrol through the area in 1950 (Kainantu PR 1949/50/5). Tambendo declared to have picked up quite a few ideas in his speech from the kiap, who told him through a North Fore interpreter that fighting should stop and then in the future good things will come. The hoisting of a red piece of cloth at the peace ceremony was itself modelled on the raising of the Australian flag witnessed by the Purosa people whenever a patrol came to their village. Even some of the first patrols regularly raised a flag as soon as they arrived and lowered it at dusk. The accompanying ceremony (the lining up of the policemen, parading and saluting) greatly impressed the people. One of my informants stated that as children, they were terrified

136 Ending War by how the flag turned and twisted in the wind, and even the older generation was apprehensive in getting too close to it. The flag as a demonstration of the power of the government already left an impressive impact on the population, and it is thus no wonder that Tambendo and his fellow luluai and tultuls imitated it in their ceremony. To ensure that fighting would no longer break out, other modifications to the traditional exchange of pigs were made. The people from Ivaki put leaves of a particular tree into the snouts of the slaughtered and cooked pigs, while the Purosa put some sort of wild celery-like grass in the muzzles of their pigs. Both plants were seen to have significant meaning and were deemed to be signalling the end of all hostility. Such a cult with cargoistic overtones stressing or prophesying the end of all warfare was not an isolated case in the ethnography of the Papua New Guinea Highlands. I have already mentioned the example of the peace movement that swept through the Kamano area in 1936 after evangelists, who were one of the main channels of Western goods, were to be recalled from their village outposts (Radford 1977a). The cult of Ain that spread over most of the Western Highlands in the 1940s, from the Enga to the Ipili and Somaip speakers, although mainly focused on acquiring wealth and ascending to the sky, at its onset also had as one of its tenets that warfare should be banned (Biersack 2011:116f.). Through reviewing the history of new ideas and cults spreading throughout the area, it becomes understandable why a lot of Purosa elders see the event of the raising of the red piece of cloth (associated with the red-skinned people) as the decisive endpoint in their long history of warfare. It was the common desire among all groups to receive mono’ana and to partake in this new world, which made it possible for all sides to stop warfare at the same time, and once and for all. That the hoisting of the red flag of peace was so successful in halting further conflicts also had to do with the fact that just as the people of Purosa were deciding to stop warfare, the administration had already started to exert control over the area by sending patrols into the South Fore. The construction of a patrol post at Okapa in 1954 was to be the significant cornerstone of this endeavour.

5.4 Kiap Patrols The Purosa people came into contact with the project of pacification by the Australian administration in August 1949, when the first exploratory patrol under acting ADO Gerry W. Toogood reached their hamlets. Toogood had the people build a rest house at Kotuti, near Ketabe, did a first cursory census of what he perceived to be two villages, and already nominated the first luluai and tultul. The patrol stayed one night, before continuing onwards towards the Lamari Valley to the east. Until 1952 there was only one patrol per year, usually staying only one night in the Purosa area before moving on. All these patrols reported of continuous fighting in the South Fore area, which generally ceased for the duration of the patrol, only to break out again afterwards, but the kiaps at the time did little to stop it. The earlier patrols were welcomed warily, and many Purosa informants said that they were initially afraid to get close to these red-skinned men, due to the persistent rumours about them being spirits. What convinced most of them to approach the patrol eventually is the ever-present tale about salt, how people were lured closer to try it. Whenever people brought in staples and vegetables, the kiap and policemen had them bring some banana leaves as well. They then poured salt onto them, dipped their finger into it and put it on their tongues to show it was The Red Flag of Peace 137 something to eat and not dangerous, and then asked them by gestures to do the same. Salt being a valuable and scarce commodity at the time, people were thrilled about the ‘sweetness’ of this new kind of salt, and it was often said that only through this gift of salt did they realize that these newcomers were friendly. A police post manned by three New Guinean policemen was set up in Moke among the North Fore in 1950 (Berndt 1952/53:41; Kainantu PR 1950/51/7), about half a day’s walk away from Purosa, and was in use from mid-1950 until mid-1952 at the latest (Kainantu PR 1951/52/8). The policemen stationed there were charged with bringing the situation in the North Fore under control and overseeing the construction of a road from Kainantu into this area. They did some patrolling on their own in the South Fore area and were well received by the Purosa villagers, even though they could hardly communicate with the people. They were well respected, and fighting between enemy groups usually ceased at least during the time they patrolled through the area. One of these policemen, Cpl Nalakor, was staying overnight on patrol in Waisa in early May 1951, when the Purosa local group of Ketabe and their allies attacked that particular village the next morning. The Ketabe had previously accused the Waisa of killing one of their leaders through sorcery and had decided to attack. Unaware that a policeman had come to Waisa, they started to encircle the Waisa settlements together with a broad alliance of warriors from Wanitabe, Kanegitasa, Kamira, Amora, Indamati, Ivaki and Karu. Cpl Nalakor attempted to dissuade them from attacking. He fired off two warning shots, but as the effect of a gun at that time had not yet been demonstrated, the Ketabe and their allies pressed on undeterred. As arrows started to rain down onto the assembled Waisa warriors, and after an arrow only narrowly missed him, Nalakor aimed at one of the advancing warriors and shot Umabea from the Takai-Purosa clan in the leg, just below the knee. Umabea fell with a broken leg, the Ketabe retreated in shock and haste, and the triumphant Waisa warriors set upon Umabea and killed him with arrows. It was the first and only time that a government agent used lethal force and got embroiled in violence in the South Fore area. While it prevented the village of Waisa from being overrun by the Ketabe at that moment, fighting in the area continued. Nalakor reported this incident to Patrol Officer Gordon Linsley, who passed through the area two weeks later, and who then suspended Cpl Nalakor from duty and launched an investigation into the affair. He wrote: About two weeks prior to the arrival of the patrol, Cpl. NALAKOR, in charge of the Patrol Post at MOKE, proceeded into this area to endeavour to persuade the people to cease their fighting, and whilst at KASARU, found himself in the middle of a mourning attack by the PUROSAs upon the KASARUs. He shot at and wounded one of the PUROSAs, whom the KASARUs later killed, and the PUROSAs promtly retreated over the range. (Kainantu PR 1950/51/8)

Linsley visited Purosa the next day and expected to face some trouble entering the area, but was somewhat surprised when the reception was unexpectedly friendly: They welcomed the patrol in the friendliest manner possible, and appeared to be completely unconcerned about the incident, and an incident which could have damaged the influence of the Administration appears to have had no effect whatsoever. (Kainantu PR 1950/51/8)

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This reaction can best be explained by the idea people had about the kiaps and the police as sources of wealth. The informants I asked about this incident said that they did not intend to attack the police or the kiap and that they only held a grudge against the Waisa who killed Umabea. They in retrospect blamed themselves for continuing the attack even after warning shots were fired and said that in the end, it was their fault that Umabea was killed. When Linsley compensated the family of Umabea with an iron axe, they were more than happy to let matters rest. The kiaps at the time warned people from continuing to wage war. As communication was often difficult, they used highly symbolic means to get their message across: they took bows and unstrung them whenever a patrol met people armed with bows and arrows and so tried to convince people to give up warfare. As Kandanaga Kuvoki recounted: “The kiap told us that if we fought again, we would die and become eradicated, and we obeyed him and didn’t fight anymore.” One kiap even publicly broke some bows and arrows and burnt them in a bonfire. By the time the patrol of Assistant District Officer Harry West in 1953 came by, fighting had effectively ceased, and stockades were falling into disrepair: The people of South Fore live in small scattered hamlets on the forest line or well concealed in bamboo and pit pit thickets astride steep ridges. All are palisaded, but many of the palisades have been allowed to fall into disrepair, indicating that peaceful conditions had prevailed for some time before the patrol’s visit. Everywhere there were indications that steady progress towards a settled way of life has been made since the people were initially contacted and that there has been a considerable amount of free and unmolested movement - an essential prerequisite to any development. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/5)

In September of the same year, the administration opened a temporary base camp at Okasa as a staging post for their efforts to send additional patrols into the Lamari River area and the mostly unexplored regions further to the south. The next year, Kumiava Patrol Post was closed and in June 1954 transferred to Moke, 15 miles or about half a day’s walk north of the Purosa villages. 19 Okapa Patrol Post, as it was now called, was permanently staffed by a patrol officer and a detachment of police. From then on, patrols were regularly visiting Purosa villages at least once yearly, often twice a year, and already the next patrol in 1954 reported that the situation in the South Fore had changed considerably: Although the area has had several patrols, systematic organised patrolling could be said to have commenced only as far back as October 1953, with the initial census. Much of what the earliest patrols had accomplished would have been annulled by their infrequency and irregularity. As the situation is today, we have gained a lot. There have been no tribal fights for over a year at least. The confidence of many

19 As former Patrol Officer Bill Brown recounted, the post was originally planned to be located at Okasa (then spelled Okapa), as District Officer Ian Downs liked the name – it reminded him of an okapi, the animal. As Moke was closer to the centre of population, however, ADO Harry West set up the patrol post at Moke, but renamed it Okapa in order to avoid having to contradict Downs on the best spot for the patrol post. The Red Flag of Peace 139

important men has been gained, and, to a lesser extent, the people considered as a mass. (Kainantu PR 1954/55/4)

5.4.1 Harshness of Kiaps and Police As had already been pointed out in the previous chapter, patrols usually restrained from inflicting unnecessary deaths, as regulations concerning the use of firearms were quite restrictive. Kiaps were proud of this tradition of non-violence. They generally strove to comply with these regulations, knowing that an impulsive and trigger-happy approach could easily lead to a career break or even a prison term. Some kiaps and policemen were not beyond other forms of brutality and violence, however. I collected numerous stories from my informants how the police caned them, kicked them with their boots or hit them with their rifle butts for minor offences, such as refusing to bring food for barter or for not showing up at census. Police also delighted in pulling people’s hair, their ears or their noses, and caned people for the slightest misbehaviour. As it would have been suicidal to fight back against this mistreatment, the only option was to swallow their pride and remain silent. For the informants of Purosa, it was a humiliating experience to be beaten with canes and sticks without being able to defend oneself. Police at times increased the humiliation by stripping men, cutting the rope that held their wati (bark-cloth strips hanging in the front and the back from a belt) together, bringing shame not only to the person but to all the others who witnessed it. In one instance, the kiap even held a match to the wati of one man, burning off all his pubic hair in the process. At least one kiap was remembered vividly for handing out sentences of ‘one-day kalabus’20 for cases of adultery or burning off grassland. The sentenced man first had to dig a hole into which he was then lowered and ‘cemented in’ so that only the head would poke out. The hole was entirely filled again with earth and water, and the prisoner had to remain in it for the rest of the day. Another account even stated that red-hot stones were rolled into the hole and water dumped into it so that the prisoner got steamed in the heat. Another kiap was remembered for inflicting collective punishment on a hamlet that had burnt off some grassland on its territory, by sending the police to the hamlet with the order to shoot any pigs they would see and bring them to the rest house for consumption. The first demonstration of a gun was often a traumatic event. In Purosa, people were told to set up a thick wooden post and attempt to shoot at it with their arrows from some distance away, some of them missing it, while others hit it rather ineffectively. Then the police fired a volley at the same post, and their bullets blew it apart. As Tambendo Te’u explained the effect this had: “When we saw that we were all afraid and subjugated ourselves under their authority. […] We told them that their bow is much stronger than ours and that we will stay beneath them from now on.” The kiap and police also regularly killed pigs that were given to them in exchange for axes with their guns, and the sudden death of these animals by the bullets were a great shock. Purosa men also witnessed the potential for violence by kiaps and police while accompanying patrols as cargo carriers to other groups. Koro Pare recounted how he once participated in a patrol to Mobutasa and Abomatasa at a time when these two groups were actively fighting each other. He said that he helped the kiap to arrest the men who participated in the fight and that

20 Kalabus is the Tok Pisin term for prison.

140 Ending War they were then all tied together by their necks to a long rope and led to the prison in Okapa. With glee, he recounted how on the trek back to Okapa, one of the arrested men fell and pulled down all others, an amusing spectacle for police and carriers alike. A somewhat sensitive subject in interviews was the behaviour of the police towards women. A few informants complained that the policemen were raping their women and that this was one of the main reasons they gave up warfare. Especially during road construction, with the police acting as overseers without direct control and supervision by kiaps, women were abducted and raped by the police. These narratives all demonstrate that kiaps and police were perceived to be both ferocious and erratic and that the best approach was clearly to appease them at all costs. The reason behind the violent behaviour was often not immediately evident for the local population, and the effectiveness of punishment was thus clearly limited in the sense that it often was unclear why people were punished. That kiap and policemen could use such indiscriminate violence without incurring resistance, however, was a clear expression of their military might that had been revealed in the shooting of Umabea by Cpl Nalakor, and the potential for violence was clearly and conclusively established. People pointed out, however, that it was only during the first few patrols that kiaps and policemen treated them with deliberate violence. They added, that as soon as some of the villagers could speak a bit of Pidgin, the harsh behaviour, especially by the police, eased up, as the people were now able to report any misbehaviour to the kiap. Aiyoma Amonandigi described for example that when the police of one patrol mistreated them, they then sent a delegation with their luluai and tultul to Okapa to report this to the kiap, with the effect that the kiap punished these policemen. This story indicates that at least during the later phases of colonialism, people had a possibility to stand up against injustice.

5.4.2 Intercultural Communication Communicating the aims of the government was difficult during the initial patrols because of a lack of translators. Informants told me that they at first wondered what kind of language these strange beings used, noting that some of the most common words were ‘go’, ‘kaikai’ (food in Tok Pisin) and ‘hurry up’. As Anuye Awaina explained: “We couldn’t understand any Pidgin at all. [...] Whatever they said, it was all noise to us, and we just saw that their mouth was moving. And they also didn’t understand us.” And Atenumu Agamea added: “We didn’t understand their Pidgin, and they didn’t understand our language. But once they were angry, they went ‘Hrrmmm’, and when they did this, we knew that they were angry now.” Later patrols then were able to communicate through translators. One man called Pake, who spoke Agarabi, Kamano and North Fore, acted as a translator on some of the earliest patrols. Subsequent patrols then used men from the North Fore that had already picked up a bit of Pidgin English and could make themselves understood in the South Fore dialects. One man from Kagu called Anugupa was one of the first remembered translators, and later Muriso, who remained translator for a long time and was subsequently elected as the representative from Okapa to the House of Assembly in the first general elections in 1964. The translators were influential as they used the already existing concept of mono’ana to translate the words of the kiaps stressing the need for an end of warfare into the Fore language. The translator also referred to the kiap The Red Flag of Peace 141 as being the ‘fathers of shells’, and pointed out that people should bring food for the patrol to receive the coveted shells. It was through the interpreters, then, that the connection between the end of warfare (which had already occurred in the North Fore) and the spread of mono’ana was strengthened. As Tambendo Te’u stated: “When I met the kiap, the kiap told his translator, and the translator told us that we have to abandon all warfare and all the other things from before and that the kiap will bring mono’ana.” By 1953, the patrol of ADO West took some young boys from Purosa and other villages with them back to Kainantu. The intention was to treat the boys well, teach them a bit of Pidgin and then send them back to their communities where they would become important middlemen and agents of change. Each of these boys was chaperoned by one of the policemen or the medical orderlies accompanying the patrol. Tarubi Taguse was one of these boys, and the medical orderly from Kainantu took him along. Tarubi quickly learnt Pidgin, was then involved in the construction of Okapa Patrol Post in June 1954, functioned as a translator on several patrols together with PO John Colman, and in 1956 was sent to a training school for aid post orderlies for two years, before in 1958 returning to Purosa as the first aid post orderly in the whole area. Kassam Uvinda was another of these boys. He was taken in by policeman Merakami, learnt Pidgin and had his hair cut in Kainantu, and then returned to Purosa, where he often helped translating during the annual census, and became an important agent of change. Within a few years, the villagers of Purosa thus had their own conduits through which they could communicate with the administration. With language no longer the main problem, there remained a vast cultural gap between the Fore villagers and the Australian kiaps, but also between the former and the Papua New Guinean policemen. One of the main points of conflict in this intercultural interaction was the custom among the Fore to betroth women at a very young age to their prospective husbands. The kuru epidemic even exacerbated this trend to betroth prepubescent girls at the age of ten to twelve. As kuru disproportionally affected women, there were a lot of bachelors or widowers anxious to get married and fathers wanting to marry their daughters off and receive a bride price for them before kuru would strike. In this marriage arrangement, the prepubescent girl would stay for several years with the groom’s parents before they had first intercourse. Still, at census time the girls usually lined up together with their prospective husbands. Some kiaps were clearly irritated by this custom, as can be seen from the following assessment by PO W.T. (Bill) Brown on the Fore: The people themselves are extremely friendly, co-operative and pleasant – their customs of child marriage, sorcery and cannibalism are repugnant. […] The Fore people have the reputation, even among the Chimbu police, of being oversexed. Young girls are married at a very early age and it is not uncommon to see young undeveloped girls in the 9-10 years age group married. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/8)

Some early kiaps and especially their policemen thus tried to put a stop to this custom, checking the armpits of married girls for hair growth, and if none was visible, punishing the husband and the girl’s father by caning or by the aforementioned one-day-kalabus in the hole. As Atenumu Agamea explained: We thought it was all right to marry young girls. But when the kiap came for the census, he asked us: who is your wife. And when we were holding the hand of a little girl, he asked us whether this

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is really our wife, and if we said yes, the police would beat us up with canes. Then they returned the girl to the parents and told them to take care of her until her breasts were developed. (Atenumu Agamea)

When the next patrol came through, people quickly adapted by sending married prepubescent girls back to their family for the duration of the patrol. This trick did not always work, as by this time local interpreters and the police found out an easy way to spot these fake single girls: Among the Fore, single girls wear a grass skirt that only covered the front and the back, but not the sides, whereas married girls wore a full skirt. When the sides of the upper legs were clean, this was a clear indication that the girl had only put on a single girl skirt for the patrol. Another point of contention was the high rate of men of marriageable age that showed up for census without a wife. Most kiaps initially assumed that the women were hidden away, for example Cadet Patrol Officer W. J. Hibberd: In most villages there is a shortage of young women. Whether this was due to the habit of hiding young women when strangers enter the village, could not be ascertained, and the suject was not pressed. There are however, a large number of strong healthy men of thirty years of age or more who are still unmarried. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/6)

While CPO Hibberd portrayed his actions in his patrol report as unobtrusive, the Fore informants stressed that they were often punished for not showing up with a wife for the census, even when they were clearly unmarried. Kiaps reproached them for not being married and told them that they expected them to appear with a wife for the census the next time. The police made fun of men taking care of small children or even holding babies, as this was seen as contravening New Guinea-wide gender norms, not realizing that these men had no choice, as their wives had died of kuru. The Fore in their turn interpreted this ridicule and anger as a sign that the kiap was upset with them that so many women were killed by kuru sorcery. It was only relatively late, in 1961, after the full extent of kuru was known, that a genuine understanding for the predicament of South Fore men shows up in the written record. Cadet Patrol Officer William D. Allen came to the conclusion that the gender imbalance (as high as 2.1:1 in the 16-45 age group among the South Fore) could no longer be explained by women not showing up for census and was, therefore, a real problem, presumably due to the higher prevalence of kuru among women (Okapa PR 1960/61/3).

5.5 Co-optation of Leaders The threat of punishment by these sporadic patrols – despite their often almost casual violence – was not the decisive factor in the process of pacification. Their intention was often unclear, and the people of Purosa interpreted their actions in terms that made sense to them. Much more important for the end of warfare and the stabilization of pacification was the co-optation of local leaders as village officials, and the role they played in keeping conflicts from escalating through the use of emerging and hybrid forms of conflict settlement involving both local leaders and colonial institutions. The Red Flag of Peace 143

5.5.1 Appointing Luluai and Tultul The appointment of indigenous leaders as village heads in the form of luluai and tultuls was one of the foremost aims of the early exploratory patrols. Kiaps tried to ascertain who was the most important leader in a local group and appointed him as luluai. As tultul, kiaps chose mostly younger men that had a certain standing in the community and had already come into contact with the administration. Kiaps apparently also looked for particular physical traits in a tultul, as several men mentioned that the kiap looked at their body size and their muscles before evaluating whether to select them or not. Already G.W. Toogood in his first patrol to the South Fore in 1949 appointed provisional luluai and tultuls in the two local groups that he contacted and where he conducted a census. As he explained for all villages covered in this patrol, this idea was widely accepted: The people in all villages having had contact of some sort with the Administration are eager for appointments of Luluais and Tultuls, while in the previously uncontacted villages the people readily fell in with the idea of having someone to represent them in the village. Provisional appointments of Luluais and Tultuls were made in all villages contacted, complete list is appended. (Kainantu PR 1949/50/1)

Unaware that previous appointments for village officials were made, ADO Harry West in October 1953 again provisionally appointed luluais and tultuls and handed them their badges of office. As was standard practise, he encouraged newly appointed officials to accompany him on patrol, in order to familiarize them with a patrol and to break down animosity between the villages, and inculcate peaceful relations between former enemies by bringing them together under the aegis of the patrol. On later patrols, luluai and tultuls were also taken back to Kainantu and shown around the government station to impress them with the power and reach of the colonial administration. They were given shovels and picks with which to build bridle paths and roads and invited to come back with their fellow villagers to celebrate Christmas every year with a big sing-sing in Kainantu. Luluais and tultuls were encouraged to cut their long braided hair and were given a laplap to wear instead of the traditional wati (bark-cloth strips hanging in the front and the back from a belt). The badge of office of the luluai and tultul was regarded as a powerful protective symbol, which enabled people to travel to other places without fear of being attacked. This way, former enemies were able to come into contact with each other, first in the protection of the patrols, but later also on their own in little groups led by luluai or tultuls. Chimbu Areya of Ivaki explains: This Luluai and Tultul badges enabled us to go to other places where we could not go before, to enemy places, to carry cargo. And thus we made friends with them, and said, okay, before we fought, but now we are at peace, let it be this way, since this other thing came. (Chimbu Areya)

Toogood and West were quite successful in selecting the right people. The men chosen as luluai in the Purosa villages were all respected leaders of their local groups, and the tultuls soon became important leaders in their own right. Several of them were (classificatory) children of older leaders, and this helped in the transition of power from the older village leaders to the newer village officials. I was fortunate enough that two of the original tultul in the Purosa area were still alive in 2006. Tambendo Te’u, the tultul of the Ai local group, was already selected

144 Ending War as a tultul while helping to construct the road from Kainantu to the North Fore area in late 1951 or early 1952. A kiap saw him, and when upon inquiry it was revealed that he came from Purosa, appointed him as tultul on the spot. According to my Purosa interlocutors, they were already informed about the term luluai and tultul and their role as guardians and representatives of local groups when the first village officials were appointed, having acquired this knowledge through their line of communication to the North Fore, and through people who had been in Kainantu and had themselves seen luluai and tultuls. The term was therefore not unknown, even though their exact role was only hazily understood. Especially the distinction between luluai and tultul seemed somewhat negligible. People realized they were clearly destined to be leaders of a community, and their association with the administration gave them the power to enact the will of the government. As Koro Pare expressed it: “We thought that the Luluai and Tultul were there to tell us we shouldn’t fight anymore or work sorcery. They were there to watch over us and see that we stayed peaceful.” Tambendo Te’u, who had been appointed tultul, had this to tell about the instructions he received from the kiap regarding his duties: When the kiap gave me the badge, he said to me that I shouldn’t anger the people or make them afraid so that they wouldn’t run away to the bush. He said I should talk softly to them and treat them well. But if there is a brawl or a family fight, I should bring them to court, bring them and leave them in the hand of the kiap, and he will then punish them and throw them into prison. He told me that I shouldn’t escalate things, but only bring in the people who ran away. He said to me that would be my work. And I followed his orders. (Tambendo Te’u)

Tultul and luluai in the Purosa area were indeed keen to support the administration and were quick to stop quarrels and bring troublemakers to Okapa Patrol Post for sentencing. There might have been a certain element of compulsion in this keenness, as is shown by the luluai of Ivaki, who was once arrested and sentenced to prison because he did not report nor try to settle a quarrel within the village involving some stolen pigs. Most people readily accepted the courts held by police and kiap at the patrol post, and many voluntarily went to Okapa with their disputes or waited until the kiap came by on his yearly patrol. All people interviewed stressed that they respected the leadership of the luluai and tultul and followed their instructions. It was likewise manifest that the kiap and the police supported the luluai and tultul in their endeavours, and that people disobeying them might feel the full wrath of kiap and police. The village officials were aware of their role, and as they explained, they tried to get potential conflicts under control. They were also aware that to prevent conflicts from erupting, they had to have a special eye on known troublemakers and keep them busy. Tultul Tuva saw the roadbuilding and later the planting of coffee as an excellent method to keep troublemakers busy and make them forget about fighting. Tambendo Te’u even got hold of a pistol for a while to intimidate his fellow villagers. While crossing a river, a kiap lost his belt with the gun in its holster, and it fell in the water. Tambendo participated in the search for it, found it, but with his feet moved it under a large stone while pretending not to have seen it. Later he went back to the same place, retrieved it, and used it to frighten people who were not following his orders. He never fired the gun, but the symbol of power was terrifying enough. About a year later, he was reported to the kiap for owning a pistol, The Red Flag of Peace 145 was cited before the kiap, had to return the gun and was given a one-week prison sentence. He defended himself and his actions in the following way: I told the kiap that I used the gun to gather all the people that used to run away from the kiap and to stop everybody from stealing and fighting. I used this pistol to lead the people on the good road, and that he couldn’t get it back. But the kiap just told me to put the gun on the table, and so I put it on the table and returned it. […] But I also asked him whether he was able to gather all those ‘wild pigs’ of people in Purosa? I told him that only the pistol enabled me to gather them all. I told him that I would go to prison, but it will be harder now to gather all the people. (Tambendo Te’u)

5.5.2 Local Village Courts One of the most important of innovative ideas preceding first contact among the Fore was the institution of rudimentary courts, whereby a case was debated in front of an audience and finally settled by general agreement through the administering of a compensation payment or corporal punishment. This led at the same time to a consolidation of traditional forms of leadership, since leaders were awarded more authority – or took on more authority – to settle conflicts in this novel way instead of with traditional means of self-help. The acceptance of the idea of courts to resolve disputes facilitated the development of informal courts once the first patrols passed through the area and proclaimed a ban on further violent forms of self-help. Luluais, tultuls, evangelists, but also policemen without the knowledge of their superiors soon held their own courts styled after kiap courts and pronounced judgements without being authorized to do so, but thereby contributing to pacification. The acceptance of such informal courts was widespread and rested on one side on the scant information about the duty of a village official and the fear from the kiap and the police, but on the other side also on a consensus among the majority of the population. This acceptance is not that surprising, since these courts, in contrast to the official courts, upheld traditional values and passed locally more acceptable sentences (Berndt 1953:124; 1962:314-327; Hayano 1990:38; Westermark 1996:307). The luluai and tultuls in Purosa also heard their own rudimentary courts, whereby minor cases – mainly about adultery – were debated in front of an audience and finally settled through the administering of harangue and corporal punishment or the arrangement of a compensation payment. Former Tultul Tambendo Te’u said that he held countless court sessions. People would bring their conflicts to him, together with some gifts of food (yam, banana or pork), and he would sit down with them and hear their cases. He said he often used a cane to whip recalcitrant people, who would disobey him. At the same time, luluai and tultuls usually included other important local leaders in the decision-making and discussed cases with them. People cooperated with the luluai and tultuls in bringing their cases to court and apprehending troublemakers, one the one hand because some clearly were angry at the instigators of these conflicts, but on the other hand also because villagers were afraid that everybody would have to go to prison if disputes could not be settled within the village. These courts were efficient not only because they upheld traditional values, investigated the root causes of each case and passed locally more acceptable sentences, but also because the luluai and tultuls could always send villagers not wanting to obey their convictions to the patrol post for imprisonment (see Berndt 1962:314-327). Cases that could not be settled on the spot were often put before the kiap when he came to Purosa on his patrol, or on occasion also brought to Okapa, where the kiap or the policeman in charge dealt with it.

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These local village courts were so efficient that kiaps on patrol rarely had to settle any conflicts. Cadet Patrol Officer William D. Allen wrote in 1961 about a patrol he undertook among the South Fore villages: Very few disputes were brought forward for arbitration. The Fore, especially in the more remote areas whose contact with officers of this department is during patrols only, depend a great deal on their own village headmen and elders to decide litigation. Especially in regard to what may be considered as civil cases. e.g. Bride price and pig trespass. (Okapa PR 1960/61/3)

While there was no official doctrine regarding the power of village officials to settle conflicts on their own, kiaps generally supported and encouraged village officials to do so. On the other hand, they were aware that this might lead to excesses of violence, and some luluai and tultuls that overstepped their authority and gave out harsh sentences or fines were removed from office (Berndt 1962:390). Patrol Officer J. A. Wiltshire had this to say in his patrol report upon discovering that village officials were holding their own courts: In many areas it was found that village officials have a tendency to hold private courts presided over by themselves. I do not know what official policy is on this matter but I have tended to encourage it, but only in cases of a minor nature where at times more satisfactory settlements can be arrived at than if heard in the C.N.A. [Court for Native Affairs]. However, this situation is now getting out of hand in as much that cases of a serious nature are now being settled amongst themselves, cases which do require a hearing before a C.N.A. and are being deliberately hushed up. No doubt the culprits quite enjoy a settlement in kind and are not perturbed by the chances of receiving a term of imprisonment and also the Luluai or Tultul has his prestige increased by his role as a peacemaker, while perhaps lining his own pocket from bribes.21 (Kainantu PR 1957/58/4)

Even today, these former luluai and tultul courts are held in high esteem and favourably compared to today’s village courts or councillor courts. In the view of the mainly older men interviewed, these more recent courts are no longer attempting to determine the root cause for a dispute or take into consideration all extenuating circumstances, and the fines imposed are too high and only end up lining the pockets of the court officials. People pointed out that in the luluai and tultul court compensation for damages had to be paid by the guilty party to the victim, while in today’s courts, even the victim will have to pay to have his court heard, and no longer receives adequate compensation. It was also observed that councillors nowadays lack the power and assertiveness that luluai and tultuls had in former times, as the latter derived their power to a large extent from their strong association with the powerful kiap, and their ability to send people to jail. The cooperation between the luluai and the tultuls on one side and the police and kiaps on the other was apparently functioning very well. The two tultuls among my informants told me that whatever the dispute or infraction was, they would accompany or send the guilty party on their

21 The last part of this sentence seems to spring more from the imagination of the writer than from actual fact. I never encountered any indication by my informants that bribery ever took place in luluai and tultul courts. Gifts for village officials for settling conflicts were common, but not with the intention of influencing the outcome. The Red Flag of Peace 147 own to Okapa to serve some time in prison. Most people interviewed thus spent some time in jail, usually for a few weeks at a time, working around the patrol posts in Okapa or Kainantu. Several men also received longer sentences of several months duration during which they helped in the construction of the Highlands Highway over the Kassam Pass. Koro Pare, a self- avowed troublemaker, achieved a total of twelve different prison sentences within about a dozen years, for infractions such as hitting his wife or not showing up for compulsory roadwork, but also for wounding a man trying to seduce his wife by shooting an arrow at his leg, or participating in brawls and stick fights between hamlets or local groups over disagreements regarding the distribution of mortuary payments or marriage arrangements. Koi Yausa also went to prison eleven times, mostly for brawling and adultery. At least in these cases, the threat of a prison sentence did not seem to have a deterrent effect, even if both stressed that prison work was hard work, and the sleeping arrangements there less than satisfactory, as the toilet was nearby. But what the institution of the prison achieved was that troublemakers could be taken out of the village for some weeks or months at a time, allowing emotions to cool down and thus effectively prevent the resurgence of serious violence.

5.5.3 Role of Village Officials in Preventing Resurgence of Violence It would be wrong to say that violence did no longer happen. Even organized violence between groups could break out at times, mostly over marriage arrangements or the distribution of death payments. One such case concerned the hamlets of Embogovindi and the local group of Takai, in which an argument over a woman led to a brawl in the mid-1950s, in which even some arrows were used. But the village officials quickly called upon the police stationed at Okapa to come down to Purosa and arrest everyone involved. The tultul of Kaugoti, Tuva, was also involved in the brawl and had to go to prison together with others. He said: I knew I shot some family members of mine, and I knew that as I was Tultul and a village leader, I should not do this kind of thing. That’s what I thought. So I regretted it, and when I came back, I no longer did anything like this and looked after the village. (Tuva Kayara)

Even more critical than the cooperation between village officials and the government was the cooperation between village officials from different local groups. They coordinated amongst them on which days to hold court and on which days to carry out government work. When a dispute erupted between members of different local groups, an event that in the past could potentially lead to full-blown warfare between the two groups, the luluai and tultuls of both groups came together to hear court and give a verdict. And people quickly adapted to this way of organizing their disputes, informing their own and the other group’s village official if a conflict broke out. This way, one of the most problematic conflicts, those between local groups, was effectively curtailed by the cooperation of the village officials from both sides. Considering that sorcery was indeed the most frequent trigger for wars, it is worth noting that with the increased number of kuru cases in the 1950s and 1960s, there was no return to warfare. That such a danger was indeed present can be shown by an incident in 1955, in which four men from Ketabe and Mugayamuti ambushed and killed two men from Ainai. There were two main instigators in this ambush: Anuye and Watavo who each held a grudge against two men from Ainai. Anuye suspected one of them of being the sorcerer who killed his wife through kuru sorcery. Watavo was upset at the father of the woman from Ainai he had previously eloped with

148 Ending War and wanted to marry. When she returned to visit her father, he took her with him towards the lowlands to a village called Weme and married her off to a man from there. Anuye and Watavo both swore revenge, and they went to Tumandainti, a Mugayamuti hamlet, to involve two more bachelors, Anavo and Kandanaga, in an ambush on the two Ainai men, by promising them that they could marry the two wives of the targeted men. Anavo and Kandanaga then lured the two Ainai men, Konde and Kisawe, to a place where Anuye and Watavo lay in wait, and together they killed them with their arrows. As Kandanaga Kuvoki – one of the conspirators – explained it, they informed the tultul of Ai, Tambendo, and the luluai of Mugayamuti, Egasa, about their deed themselves. Tambendo was related to the people of Ainai through his mother’s side, and so he went there to check out what happened. The people of Ainai decided not to retaliate, but instead corroborated the identity of the four killers and demanded punishment. The luluai and tultuls of Ai, Mugayamuti and Ketabe then confronted the four men and instructed them to slaughter their pigs and distribute the pork, as they would have to go to prison for a long time. The four murderers did not resist and followed the luluai and tultuls up to Okapa Patrol Post, where they were first imprisoned, and in February 1956 charged and sentenced by a Supreme Court Judge to six years of hard labour (NAA: A452, 1963/3262). They were taken to Lae and Port Moresby to serve their jail sentence. As they were absent for such a long time, a lot of people in Purosa assumed that the administration killed them, and this seemed to have quite a deterring effect. When they finally came back in early February 1962 (just a day or two before the solar eclipse of Feb. 5th, 1962), they became important agents of change, as they were exhorting people to no longer fight or conduct sorcery and telling them about the unpleasantness of prison life.

5.5.4 Acceptance of Kiap Justice Kiap justice was therefore readily accepted in Purosa because it was softened in its impact by the role of the luluai and tultuls. The villagers had several different options available where they could turn to in order to settle their conflicts. Most first approached the luluai and tultuls to hear their complaints. Others brought their charges straight to the kiap in Okapa, who might then send out the police to arrest the culprits and bring them to court. The kiap heard cases either on patrol or back at the station in Okapa. Not all sentences consisted of lengthy prison stays. Sometimes the kiaps on patrol summarily issued short-term sentences of one or two days to be served as carriers for the patrol. Those carriers were given double loads and had to carry a heavy patrol box that was usually roped to a pole and carried by two people all by themselves from Purosa to the next village on the patrol route (usually Ivaki). It was apparently possible to influence the kiap court up to some extent, and I collected numerous stories in which informants ‘won’ their court cases (even though they admitted their guilt to me). This outcome was either realized through outright and steadfast lying that was credible enough so that the kiap believed it, or through collusion with the interpreter or other witnesses. Ikebala of Agakamatasa, for example, was in love with a woman, but her lineage would not release her and have her marry him. He went to court, and he had friends in Ibusa, who influenced one of the translators also from Ibusa to state that Ikebala was indeed rightfully married to that woman. In another case, Atenumu Agamea, together with another man, killed a man that they were sure was a sorcerer after elders told them so. It was only later that he realized the elders were only trying to get rid of that person to marry his wife. In any case, Atenumu The Red Flag of Peace 149 apparently ‘won’ the court by stating that the victim had already killed two of his clan members, thus apparently convincing the kiap that he had a good reason for killing the man. Whether this account is accurate in all details seems rather doubtful, but it portrays how people try to assert themselves in front of the court. With some kiaps, it was apparently even possible to avert a prison sentence by killing a pig and giving it to the kiap and the police as a fine. And the policemen employed as prison overseers could also be bribed at times with a pig to let a particular prisoner go home before his time was up. At the same time, my informants stressed that the kiap court was widely accepted, and praised it for its wise decision-making, its no-nonsense approach to dealing with troublemakers and its effectiveness, especially in contrast to contemporary court procedures. Whoever was brought before the kiap had to expect not only a prison term but was also blasted with a harangue about what he did wrong. Kiaps were seen as all-powerful, and their decisions feared and respected, as they had the necessary resources to imprison people right away. The collaboration between kiaps, police and local leaders was thus instrumental in stabilizing the peaceful situation that existed after the last war had been ended only a few years after first contact. This raises the question of why village leaders in the Purosa area so willingly cooperated with the colonial government. I would like to argue that this had much to do with the particular type of leadership that existed in the South Fore area.

5.5.5 Type of Leadership in the Fore Area Among the Fore, leadership did not centre as much or exclusively on prowess in warfare to the extent shown in the other two language groups under study. While leader figures of the despotic type (Feil 1987; Watson 1971) existed among the Fore, other men that were not as warlike were also clearly designated as leaders. They were seen as equal or in some respects even more important than the actual war leaders. Tambendo Te’u, for example, said the following about his father, who – although evidently a leader figure – was not participating in the fighting himself: He only used to shout and urge everybody to fight. He said he was a leader; therefore, he wouldn’t fight. He only stood and watched and didn’t shoot arrows himself. But when the fight was finished, and it was time to arrange a peace ceremony, he went ahead. He was a man who had a lot of pigs, so he went ahead and helped them and finished the conflict. (Tambendo Te’u)

Te’u as a leader was thus closer to a classical Big Man with his emphasis on the accumulation of wealth and exchange than to a Great Man with his focus on prowess in warfare. He was undoubtedly an industrious gardener, and as he married five wives over his lifetime, he had ample hands at his disposition to tend to his gardens. He planted extensive gardens of yams, taro, winged beans and sugarcane, to be able to sponsor feasts with pigs provided by him, and invited people from other villages to come and take part in the singing and dancing for the feast. This emphasis on feasting and alliance-building was also necessary to strengthen and cement the wide-ranging alliances typical for the South Fore, where men from as many as ten to twelve local groups could join a conflict on one side alone. Te’u was an important leader in the sense that he was a leader at the end of the war and during peacetime. At the same time, there were fight leaders as well. For the local group of Ai, these were his brother Moruso and his cousin Yausa, and two other clanmates, Dare and Yoisa. They

150 Ending War were undoubtedly leaders that derived their power from their prowess in warfare, and especially Yausa clearly had traits similar to Watson’s (1971) famous portrayal of a despotic leader, Matoto. Yausa was easily irritated, and even killed his sister because she had numerous adulterous affairs, as well as one of his wives. If someone dared to challenge him, even from the same local group, he was said to quickly take up arms and fire an arrow at that person. He was a formidable opponent on the battlefield, and his reputation preceded him wherever he went. In contrast to Matoto, however, he was not the dominant overpowering figure, but rather one amongst several leaders, each with different temperaments and functions. His prominence is difficult to establish in hindsight, as some people saw in him the dominant leader, while others maintained that Te’u or Moruso were just as important. In times of war, there were also two types of war leaders. Some war leaders preferred to lead from the front, going into battle as the first man, holding their shields and directing the other men in the front line, indicating which way they should move. Other leaders preferred to lead from the back: they observed the movements of their own and the enemy line from a vantage point overlooking the battlefield (usually together with the women) and shouting instructions to the front lines. For the Ketabe local group, leaders from the back were Iyopa, Ibunagaya and Iratondi, while Uwinda, Yogi and Andokava were leaders from the front. This list again demonstrates that there were always several leaders per local group and that their styles of leadership differed quite significantly. Glasse and Lindenbaum (1971:372-377) also noted this tendency of the South Fore to have leaders for different functions, some of which were skilled in warfare, others in sorcery, and others in the organisation and manipulation of exchange relationships. They called South Fore leaders ‘Little’ Big Men (the term Great Man had not yet been coined), to emphasize that they differed from their better-known colleagues in the Central and Western Highlands in the scale of their activities and their more limited powers of respect and influence instead of coercion. The term ‘Little’ Big Man is apt for some Fore leaders, however, as they clearly have more in common with Big Men due to their manipulation of exchange relationships, than with the Great Men and despotic war leaders found among the Tairora for example. Glasse and Lindenbaum (1971:373) also pointed out, that with pacification, another criterion for leadership became suddenly more important: the power of oratory. The case of Wawari Tago of Mugayamuti, one of my informants, is instructive in this regard. He was a self-avowed coward during wars, preferring to stay in the back of the fighting line and running away into the undergrowth whenever the fighting came too close. In the last big war against Ivaki, he even tried to hide and save an Ivaki man whom his fellow warriors wanted to kill. Wawari made himself a name as an organizer and leader of exchange feasts, however, and the self-confidence and prestige as a leader that he gained through these activities led him to become the leader of the Mugayamuti SDA church and later one of the more prosperous businessmen in the area. When local leaders were appointed as luluai or tultul and urged to end wars and prevent conflicts from escalating to violence, they were thus able to fall back on their reputation not only as war leaders but also as peacemakers, without losing status. One of the standard questions for determining the suitability of men for the position of luluai in the South Fore area was: ‘who was the man who organized pig-kills’, which favoured more the ‘Little’ Big Men than the despotic type of war leaders. Luluai and tultuls furthermore quickly realized that they The Red Flag of Peace 151 could extend and strengthen their power base through their association with the wealthy and powerful agents of the state, and henceforth willingly collaborated with the administration.

5.6 Continuing Preoccupation with Mono’ana Among the South Fore, cargo cults did not instantly disappear with the advent of the colonial administration, and there were several recurrences in a different form in the 1950s and 1960s. The quest to gain mono’ana remained a preoccupation with the Purosa people throughout the colonial period, and this in effect strengthened the prevailing peace in the area, as people’s interest and focus were on acquiring status through wealth and not warfare. There were not many avenues for the people of Purosa to get their hands on mono’ana, the desired Western goods, however. One way was to carry patrol boxes for the kiap on patrols, especially on initial exploratory patrols that needed hired carriers, as villagers without previous contact could hardly be expected to carry the patrol gear towards the next village. A number of my informants thus had experience on patrols towards the Gulf Coast or through the Anga territory across the Lamari. They were first paid in tobacco or face paint, but already quite early also in shillings, which they then used to buy Western goods or salt and tinned fish and meat in Kainantu and later Okapa. Another way was to travel with products to Kainantu for which there was a market, for example wild betel nuts (Areca macrocalyx, kabibi in Tok Pisin) or bird-of-paradise feathers (which nearly became extinct in the area through overhunting) and sell them there.

5.6.1 Building Roads The construction of roads was another avenue through which people desired to acquire mono’ana. Already in 1951 or early 1952, when the police post at Moke was already established, a few young men from Purosa went and participated in the building of the road to connect Kainantu with Moke. The road started at Jawabi on the Kainantu side and was then extended all the way to Moke Police Post. Tambendo Te’u and Atenumu Agamea both participated in the building of this road and the construction of bridges, Atenumu staying in Ibusa at the time, Tambendo at Kagu. Some people from Purosa also supported the construction of the patrol post at Okapa in June 1954, as well as the widening of the road from Kainantu to Okapa to a motor road. Road building continued to be a significant activity in the Fore area, and between 1956 and 1958 the motor road was extended down to Purosa. The willingness of the people to participate in road building and the feverishness with which it was accomplished showed aspects of a cargo cult, a similarity that already Ronald Berndt (1952/53:150) observed. Jeffrey Clark (2000:84-92) uses the term ‘cult of work’ for similar developments among the Wiru in the Southern Highlands. Several informants, in fact, mentioned that they were more than willing to help in the construction of the motor road from Okapa to Purosa because they expected mono’ana to arrive with the road. They then went on to say that this was in a sense the truth, since soon after the construction of the road they were shown how to plant coffee and create an income that for the first time allowed them to purchase Western goods, true mono’ana, on a large scale. The arrival of the first government car in Ivingoi was a huge event, and even people from Purosa went there in decorative dress to welcome the first portent of modernity. Overcome with joy about what they achieved; they almost lifted the car. The arrival of the first car in Purosa a year or so later was similarly celebrated.

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Other informants in retrospect now clearly perceive the building of the road as forced labour. The police at the time came and rounded up whole villages – men and women – for the construction of the road in two stages, first from Okapa to Ivingoi, and then from Ivingoi to Purosa. They used the luluai and tultuls to supervise the road construction and to make sure that nobody absconded from work. The people of Purosa were mainly employed in the section between Keiagasa and Ivingoi, and in the second stage they started in Purosa and constructed the road up to Iwati, where they met up with the other team that started the construction in Ivingoi. The government distributed some shovels and axes to help with the roadwork, especially for cutting trees to construct the road through the forest at Usumundi. Still, many worked on the road using traditional wooden spades for garden work. On swampy ground, people were instructed to get gravel near creeks and rivers and put it on the road. People worked for several months on the road, and still today call it kalabus work – prison work – as it was in effect forced labour. After the road was constructed, a system of weekly government work was institutionalized for the maintenance of the road. Cordyline plants were planted near the road as road markers, dividing the whole route from Purosa up to the junction to Waisa into segments. Each family thus had to take care of one section of the road, cleaning and repairing it as needed each Monday. At the same time, road construction was also seen as a sort of competition. The South Fore from Purosa and elsewhere doubled their efforts after being insulted by North Fore that as their women had all died of kuru sorcery, they would not be fit enough to build the road. This competition at one time even ended in an all-out brawl, when two road teams working from opposite sides towards each other met near Wanikanto and accused each other of working too slowly. Working together on a joint project like the road also contributed towards dispelling former hostility and suspicion, and people from Purosa said that now they worked alongside their old enemies from Ivaki, and even the Gimi, and joked with them. The road was not only a conduit of ideas and change flowing into the South Fore area, but it also enabled Fore to get into contact with the world outside their territory. As the road was associated with the government, it was seen as a protected causeway, on which people could travel without fear from physical or metaphysical attack. Fore from Purosa used the road to go to Kainantu to sell goods for which there was a demand, and buy the coveted axes, bush knives, shells, tinned meat and fish, as well as items of clothing like laplaps, and bring them back to Purosa. They all went unarmed, which would have deemed foolish just a decade earlier. Nevertheless, it was an arduous journey, as people usually had to spend one or two nights on the road going there, and again the same coming back. As some Purosa clans had connections to distant relatives in Kagu, this became a convenient overnight stop. Young Fore men early on also used the road to look for work and adventure elsewhere. The possibility of earning money with which to buy Western goods and the fact that most general labourers in the colonial towns and on plantations were fed with rice, tinned fish and tinned meat was a big incentive to leave the village. On their own, they set out towards Kainantu or Goroka to find work. Aiyoma Amonandigi, for example, was working in Goroka at a sawmill already in 1957. Doye Kakinda also went in the late 1950s as a young, unmarried man to the Asaro Valley near Goroka to work for an Australian coffee plantation owner and stayed in the Goroka area until after 1967 when the Local Government Council was established. Informants from Purosa, in fact, worked far longer in other parts of Papua New Guinea than informants The Red Flag of Peace 153 from the other research areas, who only left their areas for short terms or then as labourers in the government-sponsored Highlands Labour Scheme. Koro Pare, for example, worked first as a labourer for a gold prospector, then around 1962 in Goroka, and later a total of twenty years as overseer on two different coffee plantations in the valleys near Kainantu. Several others worked as labourers on the construction of the Highlands Highway over the Kassam Pass. The Fore were some of the first people from the research area to find gainful employment elsewhere, and they had a good reputation as labourers in the colonial ethnic hierarchy (more so than the Tairora for example) and quickly found work. When the Fore were no longer recruited for coastal labour under the Highlands Labour Scheme after 1958, due to the fear by the administration that kuru might have a genetic basis and could spread to the coast, they easily found employment in the Highlands or found their way to coastal towns to work there.

5.6.2 The Entrance of the Missionaries Missionaries and evangelists also are intricately entwined with the South Fore preoccupation with mono’ana. The first church agent to come to Purosa was an evangelist from the Seventh Day Adventist denomination, Yorakei from Kasoru village. He arrived around 1956, asked for a piece of land to build a church, and was given a section of land in Mugayamuti. He constructed a house for himself and a fence around it, and with an interpreter told people about God and taught them how to close their eyes and pray. He also brought with him a gramophone with sermons in Pidgin English, which he used to attract people, and handed out matches and razor blades. He was later relieved, and another evangelist built a church and held the first church services. At this time, the white SDA missionary in charge, Pastor Tindol, as the Fore called him, visited Mugayamuti for the first time. The knowledge of these evangelists and their connections to the whites was actively sought. The people of Purosa enthusiastically attempted to attract further mission attention. Tambendo Te’u explained how he went with a pig up to Kagu to entice a Kainantu evangelist stationed there to come down to Purosa with him: I brought this pig and gave it to him and told him I would pay him to come down to Purosa. The kiap saw me and asked me what I was doing. I explained to him I wanted to buy a missionary with this pig. The kiap told me to go back and ready a place for the missionary, and that he then will bring one. I then came back and prepared a place. The kiap then found a missionary, a white man called John James. He wrote my name on a piece of paper and gave it to John James, and he came down here and asked for Tambendo. And that’s how we started this mission here. (Tambendo Te’u)

In 1957, the US-American John E. James of the World Mission Society thus arrived in Purosa to establish a mission at Kotuti, at the same place where the government rest house was already located. He became the first permanent white resident in the whole South Fore area, later in 1961 and 1962 joined by two female missionaries working with his mission organization, Mrs McGill who took up residence at Waisa and Mrs Cervinka at Orie (Lindenbaum 2013:204; Okapa PR 1966/67/9). The missionaries and evangelists had a vital role to play in the propagation of the message of peace. As Tambendo explains it: In the morning and afternoon, the missionaries told us to abandon ancestral practises and only pray to God. They told us to stop fighting with arrows, with sticks, being angry with our wives, starting fights in the village, stealing, killing or working sorcery. They told us to abandon those practices, to go to church, and then God will take us with him. (Tambendo Te’u)

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Missionaries and evangelists were important agents of change, principally since they were permanent residents in the area and thus in constant contact with the local population. People felt that they were much freer to talk with missionaries and evangelists than with the kiap and the police, who remained more distant and aloof. It was mostly the influence of missionaries and evangelists that lead to the abandoning of the elaborate and large-scale male initiation ceremonies in the late 1950s and early 1960s. One of the focal rituals of the men’s house was thus abandoned, and the men’s houses slowly became derelict. Married men built family houses, while unmarried men continued to stay with their families or constructed their own houses. Some informants explained the abandoning of the men’s houses as following a directive from the kiap or the missionaries, while others denied this explanation and said they gave them up themselves. It is rather doubtful whether kiaps actively encouraged the abandoning of men’s houses, as they usually were rather conservative when it came to changing customs. There certainly seems to be an element of emulation, however, as the new housing and sleeping arrangements were deemed modern and became widespread throughout the sub-district, especially after the Fore saw that other areas with longer histories of contact had already adopted family houses. The young men that were taken to Kainantu with some of the first patrols were also instrumental in the process of abandoning the men’s houses. Kassam Uvinda explained that when he returned from Kainantu around 1955, he publicly divulged many secrets between the sexes, telling the women that men also excrete, and entering women’s menstrual and birthing huts to show the men how women gave birth. He then said to the men to abandon the men’s houses and construct family houses. These family houses at first led to considerable awkwardness between the sexes, as men and women were not used to cohabitation and did not know how to comport themselves in the presence of the other sex. Usually, even these houses were therefore divided into a male and female sphere.

5.6.3 Coffee Growing as the Promised Good One of the most consistent and often-told stories I heard about the colonial time was the introduction of coffee to the Purosa area, and how this marked the beginning of the arrival of true mono’ana, real wealth. It all began with a mass baptism that missionary John James of the World Mission held in Purosa in 1958 or 1959. He baptized a large number of people, both men and women, in a local creek. There were an enormous enthusiasm and a swirl of cargoistic beliefs surrounding baptism. People were expecting that through baptism, they would finally receive mono’ana on a large scale, or that at least the American missionary would divulge them the secret of how to create it. When nothing eventuated, the leaders of the area gathered in the afternoon of the same day, decided to kill six big pigs, and together with bananas, taro and sweet potatoes, heaped everything in front of the missionaries’ house. The leaders, including all the luluai and tultuls, then confronted John James together with a large crowd. They first accused him of withholding the real knowledge (of how to create cargo), saying that he baptized them for no apparent cause, giving them just a little bit of knowledge, and that they were rightfully displeased with that. They then offered him the pigs and the food in exchange for the knowledge they wanted. John James responded that he did not come to Purosa for this reason, but only to spread the gospel. Nevertheless, he told them that if they really wanted cargo, he could help them to get coffee, as only through the planting and sale of coffee would it be possible to acquire money. He then wrote a note, handed this to his mission translator, Igamba, The Red Flag of Peace 155 and sent him and another man to Aiyura, where they fetched a half bag full of coffee seeds from the Agricultural Research Station. Afterwards, John James told the people to prepare the earth for the seedlings and construct a shelter to shield them from the sun. He told them to wait for the seedlings to reach a certain height before transplanting them. The first coffee seedlings were planted near the current school ground and then distributed to the luluai and tultuls of the wider Purosa area, to Ivaki, Awarosa, Agakamatasa, Takai and Ilesa. From these first trees, people then harvested the coffee cherries, planted them again, and created more seedlings to give to every man who wanted to establish a coffee garden. The importance of this event is shown by the fact that almost everybody I talked to tried to claim to have been part of the introduction of coffee. Tambendo Te’u and Tarubi Taguse both claimed to be the ones chosen by the missionary John James to walk to Aiyura to obtain the coffee seeds. Others claimed it was them who had the idea to ask John James about the secret of mono’ana or were involved in fetching the bag that would hold the coffee beans, or in preparing and planting the coffee nursery. Others maintained that they themselves introduced coffee to Purosa even before John James. Aiyoma Amonandigi said that he received some coffee seeds from people at Arora and planted them in Purosa. Previously, he already worked in Goroka and received some schooling on how to plant coffee from an agricultural extension officer. Koro Pare confirmed that he and Aiyoma Amonandigi were among the first ones to plant coffee in Purosa. When Koro was employed on a coffee plantation near Kainantu, he brought some coffee beans to Purosa in a tin can and planted them himself. Processing the coffee beans in these early days was hard work: first, the cherries needed to be pulped by hand with big round stones, washed and then put out to dry on small pieces of cloth or mats, before being stored in bamboo tubes and transported by foot to Kainantu for sale. It was only with such a first sale that copra bags for transport, and later with enough accumulated capital, coffee-pulping machines could be bought. And only after coffee production reached a certain threshold did coffee buyers in cars make their way into the territory of the South Fore. With their focus steadily set on creating wealth, knowledge about fighting wars was soon vanishing. Older people I interviewed said that while they still know how to hold a shield or turn their side towards the enemy when they hear a bowstring snap, they no longer transferred this knowledge to their children. As a consequence, two whole generations have by now grown up without any knowledge about traditional fighting skills. As Tambendo Te’u explains: When I was tultul […], we told our children that we abandoned bows and arrows, that we couldn’t use them anymore. We told them that the mono’kina came and that we should try to gain mono’ana. So we didn’t tell them how to turn if an arrow came and such things. (Tambendo Te’u)

The road and the opportunity to gain cash through coffee set in motion a rapid cultural change, which quickly transformed most people’s mindset. Men’s houses were abandoned in favour of family houses. Clothes were slowly adopted, first by luluai and tultuls who were equipped with them, later by churchgoers when they went to church, and with time by the rest of the population at all times. When the first councillor was elected in 1967, he even decreed that from now on, women had to wear wraparound skirts instead of grass skirts.

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5.6.4 Continuing Cargo Cults During the whole colonial time, cargo cults consistently sprung up again and again, even after the introduction of coffee. Wealth creation remained the main focus of these cargo cults, but the form of the expected goods shifted. The focus at the very beginning was on shells, then later on Western goods like cloth, iron axes and knives, or even guns, and with increasing monetization on coins and banknotes. Aid Post Orderly Tarubi Taguse observed such a late example around 1970 when he was stationed on an aid post in Agakamatasa. He said that people from further north, from Amora and Kamano, came to Awarosa to show people how to create money, demanding pigs and cash in exchange for the knowledge. Following their instructions, the people of Awarosa built a small house, in which they stacked all the suitcases and patrol boxes that migrant labourers usually carried back with them to the village. Cultist activities then centred on this pile of suitcases, with heavy smoking and chewing of tree bark. The cult leaders from Amora secretly put some banknotes and coins into the top box, showed it to the people and told them that soon the boxes below would be filled with similar amounts, if they kept up their activities. At this stage, they demanded payment in pigs and money and left for the next village with instructions not to open the suitcases and patrol boxes for another two or three months, as the money would steadily increase during this time. Tarubi intervened and told people that it would not be possible to create money that way, but the people just relocated their activities into the forest. When they opened the boxes after the allotted time, they were all found to be empty. The same cult was also performed in Ketabe. The same cult leader from Amora first gained their trust by secretly hiding coins in the sand of a nearby creek and told them to get shovels and dig for the coins at a specific place. Then he asked people again to gather suitcases and self-made wooden boxes in a house built for this purpose. The cult leader secretly inserted a latticework of sticks halfway down the boxes and suitcases and put a thin layer of bills on top of it, making it appear as if the box was full almost to the brim. He let people look into the house from the outside through a little window and showed them their boxes. When the owners of the boxes saw the money at the very top of their suitcases and boxes, they assumed that the box indeed was filled with cash and paid the leader a hefty sum for his services. At the time, there were already several sceptics, however, as people had been deceived too often. Even former cult leader Tambendo Te’u saw through the trick. But others were overjoyed and were already fantasizing about cars and motorbikes they would buy with the money. When the leader left and did not return for several months, people became impatient, broke down the door to the house and realized to their dismay that they had been duped.

5.7 Contemporary Situation Interestingly enough, the Purosa area has not seen any resurgence of violent conflict since independence as has happened in the other case studies. The Purosa people have developed a self-image of themselves as being a fundamentally law-abiding and peaceful people, surrounded by different language groups much more prone to fighting. Confronted with the question of why fighting has resurged in the Tairora areas after independence, but not in Purosa, most people stated the obvious, that they just no longer fight, without offering any more in- depth analysis. A few others pointed to a cultural divide between themselves and other areas regarding the appreciation of law and order. As Tarubi Taguse formulated it: The Red Flag of Peace 157

Yes, we hear that Obura and Marawaka are a fighting line [a people that constantly fight], but we are a harim tok line [a people that obeys]. […] We obey law and order and the councillor and komitis. (Tarubi Taguse)

They also point out that their neighbours to the West, the Gimi, have seen much fighting in the 1980s and 1990s, that the same is true for the Southern Tairora to the east around Obura, and even their culturally closely related brethren in the North Fore area had been fighting violently. Fighting was still underway there at the time of fieldwork in 2006. People recounted with simultaneous fascination and revulsion the stories they heard of the heavy fighting between North Fore villages that caused dozens of victims, and they wondered whether they would one day be affected as well. Even the South Fore villages of Ivaki, just across the Kaza River, fought first with a Gimi group in the 1990s and then amongst themselves in early 2000. Tellingly enough, Purosa leaders intervened in this last conflict and brokered a peace agreement. The old pre-war lines of conflict were long forgotten, and there was no longer any grudge or enmity between Purosa villages and their former enemies. As Atenumu Agamea explained the situation between the old enemies of Purosa and Ivaki: We are married to them, and they are married to us and live here, and so we became one family, and we stopped the enmity. Now we even meet the older men from there and sit together and tell stories, and show them our scars and tell them whom of them shot us, and we would joke and laugh about it. There are no conflicts nowadays. We made big feasts over there, even stay there overnight, laughing and making fun, and they came here too for such feasts. (Atenumu Agamea)

Accordingly, several types of sorcery are still being practised (except kuru, which has completely vanished). Nevertheless, people say they no longer try to determine who the culprit is but instead forgive him and forget. Christian rhetoric was often employed in recounting how people curb their thirst for revenge and forgive the sorcerers for their evil deeds. The incidents of sorcery have nevertheless decreased significantly, and with the current population growth, they no longer affect population numbers. Councillors and komitis, as well as local village court magistrates, still exert strong leadership that keeps the general situation calm. I witnessed a flare-up of tensions between different local groups of the Purosa area over a rugby game during the Christmas celebrations in 2005, with both sides charging each other with sticks, stones and slingshots. But leaders from both sides were able to quickly quell the fighting after one side retreated, and then arranged compensation payments for those wounded in the affray. The constant repetition by these leaders that the Purosa people are law-abiding people, profoundly interested in keeping the peace and thus having government services reaching their far-away place, seems not unlike the constant exhortation of peacefulness by peaceful people like the Semai in Malaysia (Robarchek 1979:108). Today’s Purosa leaders thus try to ensure that their efforts in peacefully settling conflicts are still seen as a valuable common good. There is a tendency by the old informants, however, to look back to the colonial time with nostalgia, and compare it fondly with today’s problems. The most glaring problem often mentioned was the introduction of alcohol and marihuana, which has led to interpersonal violence and petty criminality in the village. Most older men were frustrated that they could no

158 Ending War longer assert themselves vis-à-vis their children and grandchildren, and they had a rather negative view of today’s councillor and committee system.

5.8 Conclusion Purosa Case Study When people were asked to account for the end of warfare in the Purosa area, they laid stress on their own agency, mentioning most of all the promise of mono’ana and new things to come as a decisive factor in why people no longer took recourse to warfare. There certainly was a threat of force by the state, as the shooting of one Purosa man by Police Corporal Nalakor and the often almost casual violence of kiaps and police attests, but this was not seen as a determining event in the ending of warfare. Positive incentives to give up war were far more crucial. In the end, it was the promise of rewards spread by rumours and North Fore translators and carriers in a psychological climate of uncertainty, rapid change and new possibilities that made it feasible for all groups to end war at the same time, within a few years after first contact. All groups felt that they could trust each other to no longer escalate conflicts in the knowledge that each one of them desired the goods that were supposed to arrive with the coming of the red-skinned people. This movement of peace symbolized by the hoisting of a red flag on a former battlefield thus acquired a dynamic of its own, and the end of warfare became a self- fulfilling prophecy. Once peace was established, it was the active support from significant parts of the population, and especially the role of the luluai and tultuls in setting up their own courts and sending troublemakers to jail, that sustained this rapid pacification. That village leaders in the Purosa area so willingly cooperated with the colonial government can be partly explained by the rumours about mono’ana and a new way of life, combined with the realization that leaders could strengthen their power position with the help of government backing, thus paralleling similar developments in the Western Highlands, where Big Men quickly realized the value of cooperation with colonial authorities to access shell valuables that they could use to increase their political status in feast giving (Strathern 1984:22-23). What seems crucial is the fact that leadership among the Fore never solely depended on prowess in warfare to the extent shown in the other case studies. Fore leaders were also skilled orchestrators of alliances and exchange relations, sponsors of feasts (although not to the extent as in the Western Highlands), and makers of peace. Informants from Purosa mentioned their role in feast giving side by side with their role in warfare. With quite elaborate and costly peace ceremonies, it was the Fore leaders’ skill in arranging and also contributing to these ceremonies that guaranteed lasting peace between local groups. It was this legacy as peace brokers that facilitated their transformation into mediators and adjudicators, and they no longer felt the need to underline their leadership with recourse to warfare.

6 Case Study Amaira – The Song of Motame and Kifingku When Patrol Officer and acting ADO Gerry W. Toogood led the first patrol through most of the Auyana area in late August 1949, he was received with suspicious reserve and even open hostility. His patrol was only the second patrol to traverse the southern portion of the Kainantu Sub-district, and it took him through the North and South Fore, parts of the Awa, Southern Tairora and Auyana. Of all the communities encountered on patrol, he considered the Auyana to be the most belligerent: Probably the most difficult villages in all senses of the word are those on the boundary of the TAIORA-FORE-HOTE language groups, made more complicated by a pocket in the midst of all three of a GADSUP dialect speaking group,22 consisting of the AMAIRA and AUSANA villages. All these villages are constantly involved in tribal fighting and live in perpetual fear of attack. Each village was suspicious of the next and declared they were anxious to abandon fighting altogether but were unable to do so owing to the attitude of their neighbours, each blaming the other. (Kainantu PR 1949/50/1)

Attempting to bring the villages together, Toogood must have been somewhat surprised at the request of the men from Amaira, especially from their eminent leader and provisional luluai, Poge, that they desired a specific policeman to be stationed in their midst because only this way could they stop further wars. Toogood obliged, and when a few weeks later he wrote the report on the patrol undertaken, he could already relate the astonishing success that this measure had in the area: The natives requested that the TAIORA Patrol Post Constable, who has been doing good work in maintaining order in the nearby area, be stationed in their midst until mutual trust has been established between the villages. This was agreed to and Constable PAKAU, after receiving careful instructions regarding his actions and attitude to the people was moved to AMAIRA, it being considered advisable to attach another Constable, KAMAVO was detailed to assist PAKAU. These constables have accomplished far more than was at first anticipated and are to be commended for the way in which they have carried out their instructions. No further fighting has been reported from the area and recently the Probationary Village Officials, elders and able-bodied men of all the villages concerned voluntarily came to KAINANTU and surrendered their Bows & Arrows at the Sub-District Office. (Kainantu PR 1949/50/1)

A remarkable success in pacification achieved in little to no time at all. This raises a number of questions. What induced the men of Amaira to ask for this policeman to be stationed among them? What did they expect from it? And why did the stationing of constables Pakau and Kamavo so immediately stop all warfare within the whole of the Auyana area? The answer this

22 Although classified as its own language, Auyana is closely related to Gadsup and forms a language subgroup with Gadsup, Agarabi, Awa, Kosena, Ontenu and Usurufa (Ethnologue 2015). 160 Ending War time lies in the particular history of the community of Amaira during the preceding five to ten years.

6.1 A History of a Community on the Move The history of Amaira is in effect the history of a community on the move, a community that at times moved to new places to open up new areas in the then still heavily forested valleys, and at other times splitting apart through conflict or being routed by enemies and fleeing to find new land to live on.

Map 3: Current-day Amaira hamlets and neighbouring local groups (relief from Google Maps).

6.1.1 Early Movements All informants agreed that the history of the community now known as Amaira started in Opoimpina, south of Asempa, which was seen to be the first settlement of their direct ancestors after a mythical time of darkness. This darkness lasted one day and two nights and was accompanied by ice falling from the sky that killed all garden produce. Auyana legends state that at the time all of the Auyana people lived at the same place, called Ayantapa, near Koforufa, and sought refuge from the darkness in their big house. Two ancestors chewed a certain kind of tree bark (finto) together with ginger and started to divine when the darkness would end. Both gave different predictions, saying it will stop when either the cry of a bird of paradise or a hornbill will be heard. One of the predictions came true, and it was after this time of darkness that these ancestors began to split up into clans and move away from their place of origin. Blong (1982) has collected numerous similar legends of such a time of darkness in other parts of Highlands New Guinea and concluded, that these legends (although not all of them) probably refer to the eruption of the Long Island Volcano and the resulting ashfall in the mid-17th century. The Song of Motame and Kifingku 161

The ancestors for most of the people from Amaira were Aymona (father) and Wayonka (son), who first established their village at Opoimpina. According to the somewhat incomplete and sometimes conflicting genealogies collected (due to telescoping of generations), Aymona lived about five to six generations before the current grandfather’s generation. These ancestors later moved their village to a place near Asempa called Tofisampa, down the slope towards the Taifa River. The grandfathers of today’s oldest men were born there. A generation later, the ancestors of Amaira crossed the Taifa River and established another village at Firiampa (near current-day Waifina). The great-grandfathers and grandfathers of today’s grandfather generation lived at this place, and the fathers of some of the oldest men in Amaira were born there. At Firiampa, two rifts happened that split the original community into three distinct groups. One conflict erupted over some blackwood palms planted to furnish wood for bows. As a result, the people that later formed the local group of Nangkona moved away and settled near their current location further down the river. A second rift over adultery took place between subgroups that later formed the local groups of Amaira and Avia. An Amaira man was cuckolded while living for a while in a Tairora village, and upon his return and discovery of the affair killed the seducer of his wife, which led to the split of the village. The people that later formed Avia moved towards Tokapa, at the top of the current (unused) mission airstrip in Ponampa, and then established a new village on a spur midway between Nangkona and Avia called Andainumpa. The people of Amaira at the same time moved and built a new village at Ponampa, at the lower end of the airstrip. The conflicts that led to the splits were later settled, but the three groups remained separate entities, sometimes allying with each other, at other times fighting each other.

6.1.2 The Origin of the Amaira – Avia Conflict In the late 1920s to early 1930s, the Amaira group established a new village at Waisampa, consisting of five men’s houses in four locations at or close to the current hamlet of Waisampa. All of the oldest men in Amaira today were born in Waisampa. At the time, the Amaira were involved as allies in a war between the local groups of Sinkura and Asempa. Previously, a conflict had split the village of Ofumpina into the Sinkura and Kauwe local groups, and the Amaira people together with the Avia helped the Sinkura in a war against the Kauwe, who found refuge among the Asempa, and who were also supported by the local groups of Nangkona and Waifina. Disputes over a woman later lead to a direct conflict between the Avia/Amaira and the Waifina/Asempa/Nangkona alliance, resulting in several deaths on the side of Amaira. Avia and Amaira at the time were located reasonably close to each other and were allied. However, a conflict a few years later between the Nangkona and the Avia over sorcery accusations tested this alliance. The Nangkona and Asempa adversaries pooled a lot of wealth and pigs and promised them to the Amaira men if they would switch sides and combine with them in fighting against the Avia. At first, the Amaira men were reluctant but finally found a pretext to start a war of their own against their close allies of Avia. Some informants told me that a conflict over runaway pigs was used as a trigger for this war; others said that some men from Avia conducted uva’a sorcery on an Amaira man and that this caused or further escalated the conflict.

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This conflict proved rather costly, however, as the Avia warriors fought tenaciously, and a few lineages from Amaira lost several of their members. The men of Amaira decided to relocate their village away from the conflict up the valley towards the east. They established themselves at Isaufa, near current-day Avia. But the Avia made an alliance with the people of Kawaina to eliminate all of Amaira, surrounded this new village in the night, attacked at dawn, inflicted several casualties again and torched all the newly built houses. This event led to a split among the Amaira lineages. The larger part of the community argued that they had to stay together to present a united front against the Avia and avenge the deaths. They, in concert with their allies of Nangkona and Asempa, returned to the abandoned village of Waisampa and continued their fight against the Avia. The lineages that bore the brunt of the casualties, however, decided to flee even further up the valley and over the ridge to current-day Amaira, causing quite a bit of resentment among the part of the community they left behind.

6.1.3 Refugees among the Tairora The Amaira refugees cleared some ground and built shelters at the current site of the Amaira village. Some gardens of tobacco and pitpit were already established at Amaira while people still lived in Waisampa, as these crops grew well in this altitude. As attacks by the Avia against this new settlement continued, the refugees were invited by Tairora people from Norei’eranda to settle with them. As the refugees were short of food, they gratefully accepted. The Auyana people at the time already had a long history of contact with the Tairora. One Auyana myth tells of the story of two brothers who left the Auyana Valley and went over into Tairora territory, on the way learning the names for plants and animals in the Tairora language and planting some cordyline plants to serve as markers. The myth and the path these brothers took are well-remembered (including the Tairora language words for all things they saw on the way) and must have often been used as a guiding map to establish contact with the Tairora. I collected, for example, the story of the great-grandfather of Afayto Nana, who at a time when the Amaira people still lived at Firiampa followed the directions of the myth all the way to Tondona. He befriended some Tairora men there and received tobacco from them in a trade. He often went back and forth between Tondona and Firiampa. Towards the end of his life, he even established a winged-bean garden and raised pigs in Tondona, and as he was getting old and frail, had to be carried back by his children to Firiampa on a stretcher. These initial relations continued as trading relations (Amaira traded bark rope, tapa cloth and stone axes against winged beans and giri-giri shells), and a few marriages were also arranged between the Amaira people at Waisampa and the Tairora villages of Tondona, Tandaina, Nompia and Noreikori. The refugees thus used these connections to find refuge in Norei’eranda and Tondona. The refugees constructed houses and established gardens at the edge of the Norei’eranda grasslands. Some also found refuge in Tondona proper. They only stayed a few months, however (long enough so that they harvested some vegetables, but not long enough to harvest their first sweet potatoes), before a message from the rest of the Amaira at Waisampa reached them. It stated that while they had made peace with the Avia, fighting with their former allies of Nangkona had broken out, and that help was direly needed. The refugees duly returned to Waisampa and joined back in the fight. But the episode among the Tairora was important for what ensued next. The Song of Motame and Kifingku 163

6.1.4 The Nangkona War and the Routing of Amaira This new conflict broke out between the Amaira and the Nangkona over some Nangkona pigs that were roaming freely and were killed by Amaira women with sharpened sticks. The Nangkona clans called up numerous allies to help them in this war, and some men from Asempa, Arora, Sepuna, Indona, Waifina and Kawaina all joined their side. Amaira relied for support on their allies of Ofumpina/Sinkura, and also on the Avia, as they had made peace with them. The Nangkona war continued unabated for a while, and both sides held each other in check, although casualties mounted on the Amaira side. During this conflict, some Nangkona leaders succeeded in bribing the men of Avia with pigs and shell valuables. The Avia warriors the next day suddenly attacked the unsuspecting Amaira warriors from behind or the side when they were engaged fighting against the Nangkona on the open field of battle, and completely routed the Amaira side. One of the most prominent leaders of Amaira at the time, Feforu, was killed in this battle, together with several other men. In this and previous battles against Nangkona, Amaira lost a staggering 16 men. Having lost so many men and one of their most eminent leaders, the Amaira warriors found themselves unable to continue the war. As their village was now suddenly besieged by two sides, they fled during the next night up the valley towards current-day Amaira, where some had already cleared land and established gardens before as refugees. They established several hamlets: Amaira proper (with three, later four men’s houses) and Ainompimpa (with two men’s houses) on two neighbouring spurs running down from the Ramu-Purari watershed towards the Tairora grasslands, and later the hamlet of Kafiyamompa on top of the ridge above today’s hamlet (with one man’s house). Some Sinkura people that fled from their wars later settled on Amaira territory, establishing two hamlets with one man’s house each, one near Kafiyamompa called Waisampa, and another one between Amaira and Ainompimpa called Wafapa. The local group of Amaira thus still contained a sizeable population, and there were eight men’s houses at the time of first contact. The Amaira people buried their leader Feforu under the big pine tree at the centre of Amaira hamlet. The Amaira warriors succeeded in revenging Feforu a few months later when they surreptitiously crept towards Nangkona and killed Feforu’s killer, Isitunda, himself a noted warrior and leader, in an ambush. The distance between the two villages precluded any further open battles, and Amaira was now first of all concerned with fighting against their former allies of Avia to punish them for the betrayal. As the terrain between the two local groups of Amaira and Avia was rugged and heavily forested, the war with Avia almost exclusively took on the form of ambushes, raids and counter- ambushes. Bands of warriors roamed the forest, looking for human prey and avoiding any potential trap set by Avia warriors. The Amaira men were once able to surprise an Avia man who was cutting branches off a tree and shot him out of the tree. Allies of Avia were also targeted, and once, Amaira warriors came upon a group of Waifina men returning from the Tairora area and killed two of them. At other times, Amaira warriors would get close to the Avia hamlets, shoot some arrows over the enclosure or even climb to the top of the palisade to fire some arrows on their enemies. At other times, they just called out to them from a long way off, calling them cripples and ugly brutes. When the Avia warriors then gathered and attacked, the Amaira men fell back into the forest, where they staged an ambush for the pursuers. The

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Avia men employed similar tactics, and all seven men (and one boy) from Amaira killed in this war perished in ambushes. Women were also targeted, and so three Amaira women were killed this way, as were several women from Avia. In one incident, a small band of Amaira warriors snuck up to a group of three Avia women cutting pandanus leaves to make mats and killed them all. The last victim in this sequence of events also was a woman. She was originally from Norei’eranda and married to an Avia man, and Amaira men ambushed her on her way to visit her father in Norei’eranda. After this, there was a short period of peace, initiated by the Amaira people, and a sweet-potato-sharing ceremony (called taumogorane in Auyana) was held at Tauarempa near Tuenampa.

6.1.5 The War with Norei’eranda While the Amaira people were fighting against Avia, they at first had excellent relations with their neighbours in the other direction, the Tairora villages of Norei’eranda and Tondona. The Tairora helped them with food and seedlings in the initial phase until their gardens started to bear fruit. As land was somewhat limited in Amaira, some families also went down to settle near the village of Tondona and were quickly integrated into this community, as quite a number of marriage relations already existed between Tondona and specific Amaira lineages. Auyana men residing in Tondona continued to assist the Amaira in their fight with the Avia, and the Amaira also helped the Tondona in their wars with the Nompia. Similarly, the Amaira also helped the people of Norei’eranda in their battles against their traditional enemies of Kofuta, another Tairora village further to the east. But these friendly relations soon turned into enmity and wars. One informant even mused that the Avia must have enticed some Norei’eranda to start a fight with the Amaira in order to put them into a strategically difficult position. The trigger for this war was the killing of an Amaira man, Yoraindu, while he was on his way to trade salt against shells, steel knives and axes in one of the Tairora villages to the northeast of Norei’eranda. Yoraindu was a marginal man without a wife, who was often sent to trade, as he was a harmless and mentally slightly retarded fellow, who would hurt nobody and could thus cross enemy territory unmolested. But this time, he was attacked, his throat cut, and he was thrown into the nearby creek. When Yoraindu did not return, the Amaira men suspected the Norei’eranda of being behind his disappearance and went to investigate. The Norei’eranda denied their involvement, and an open battle ensued near Tandaina, in which an Amaira man, Parinanu was hit in the belly and died four nights later. Whether or why men from Norei’eranda killed Yoraindu is not precisely clear, but traditional salt might have played an important role in the leadup to it. A few incidents were cited, that set a precedent and might have soured relations between the Amaira and the Norei’eranda. When the Amaira group was still located in Waisampa, a man from Ofumpina went hunting in the forest towards where Amaira is located now. When he did not return after a while, people from Ofumpina went to look for him. They found his half-rotten body lying under a tree, loosely covered with leaves, the head severed from the body by a blow with a bush knife, and they deducted that a man from Norei’eranda must be the killer. The people from Ofumpina then recruited some men from Amaira to hunt for Tairora men in the forest. They surprised a Norei’eranda man cutting branches used for making salt, shot him, cut off his nose with a bamboo arrow in retaliation for the defacing of the Ofumpina man, and likewise left him to rot in the forest. The Norei’eranda found him and buried him properly later. My informant from The Song of Motame and Kifingku 165

Norei’eranda remembered that the war started about a slightly different incident involving salt. Men from Norei’eranda and Amaira were producing salt together by burning branches and leaching the ashes. When afterwards a man from Norei’eranda went to ask for some salt from the Amaira, they rebuffed his request, at which point he got angry and started the war. The Amaira then engaged the Norei’eranda in a round of challenge fights in open grassland. The Amaira warriors would first go to Tondona and gather their allies there before moving towards the Norei’eranda hamlets in force and engage them in open battles. The Norei’eranda warriors, in turn, came to fight the Amaira and their allies Tondona, who later relocated to the mixed Amaira/Tondona hamlet of Afatarampa for security reasons. Even later, the Amaira offered them some land around Amaira and Ainompimpa for settlements, to better mobilize and concentrate their forces. During this whole time, the Sinkura also remained trusted allies of the Amaira and often came to their help when they were engaged in open field battles against the Norei’eranda. Likewise, Amaira men at times went to Sinkura to help them in fighting against their enemies of Nangkona, Anokafa, Avikara and Waifina. Shortly before first contact in 1949, a whole hamlet of Sinkura fled their area and built a hamlet of their own on Amaira territory, on the ridge overlooking the current hamlet at a place also called Waisampa. After being unable to kill men in open battle, the Amaira warriors plotted ambushes, but at first, they were thwarted by the watchfulness of the Tairora. Some Amaira men were wounded when they tried to sneak close for an ambush. The Amaira finally succeeded in killing a Norei’eranda couple working in a remote garden during another attempt. A small Amaira war party hid near this garden in the afternoon and was able to encircle a married couple and a boy. The couple was killed, while the boy was able to escape and raise the alarm. But as the garden was a long way from the village, and since the Amaira men retreated right away, the pursuers abandoned their pursuit as soon as the Amaira war party reached their territory. A few weeks later, a Norei’eranda war party came to seek revenge. They also surprised a family working in their garden near the eastern creek, and injured husband and son and shot the wife in the belly. The husband, Arafi (or Utawfino) hid behind a large stone, tightening his bow and waited for the Tairora to get closer. When they were close enough, he shot one of them through the belly in retaliation and raised a general alarm. The Norei’eranda warriors then retreated in haste; carrying their wounded and severely bleeding companion with them, before hiding him near a creek under a felled tree while arrows were still flying. All men of Amaira hurried towards the garden of Arafi, searched for and soon discovered the hidden Tairora warrior and riddled him with arrows. When Arafi returned to the village to find his wife dead, he became terribly enraged. He returned to the corpse of the Tairora warrior, grabbed some dry grass and some fence post, threw them on top of the body, and lighted it on fire, completely charring the corpse. The retreating Tairora war party was on a ridge nearby and had to witness this spectacle helplessly, howling with rage. What was left of the body was then sent down towards Norei’eranda with the help of a Tairora woman married to an Amaira man. Cruelty against a dead warrior was not uncommon, but the burning of the body was apparently rather unique and was considered a major provocation to the Tairora. This story might have even sparked the interest of the kiap in pacifying this area.

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6.1.6 Amaira Encircled The Norei’eranda around this time sent a message to the Avia to help them in the fight against the Amaira, and both sides now allied against their common enemy. They sent some men to the other side to help coordinate their attacks. The local group of Amaira was now under attack from two sides, and the death toll mounted, as they had to guard against ambushes from both sides and could no longer engage one side with the whole force in open battle, lest they are surprised by an ambush on their village from the other side. The Avia warriors entered the war by shooting two men and a boy in an early morning ambush. Another woman, Awindo, was killed when some Avia men succeeded in shooting some arrows through gaps in the palisade of Kafiyamompa hamlet early one morning. Her body was laid out for mourning in a house in the hamlet of Ainompimpa. When her brother Isandu came to participate in the mourning ceremony, Norei’eranda warriors killed him in an ambush when he made a detour to harvest some sugar cane on his return to Amaira hamlet. This ambush occurred several weeks after the Norei’eranda corpse was burnt, and the warriors decided to retaliate in kind, heaping grass on the body and trying to set it alight. But the Amaira men were by that time alerted, and rushed towards the Norei’eranda fighting force, planting their shields in the ground and defending their fallen man. They were able to extinguish the fire before it charred the body. Another Amaira man, Amasey, was killed near his garden when he came upon a Norei’eranda war party intent on attacking the Amaira men’s house. Assuming these were only a few men, he engaged them and was lured right into an ambush by the retreating advance guard. The Amaira finally succeeded in killing two scouts of Avia, which turned out to be the last two victims of the war, because soon after this episode Kiap Toogood’s patrol crossed the area and sent the two policemen to stop further wars once and for all. This episode of the killing of the last two Avia men was well remembered and often told. The people of Amaira were mourning Isandu in a house in the upper part of Amaira hamlet. Some men outside suddenly saw a man climbing up a tree on top of the ridge overlooking the hamlet. They at first thought this was a ghost (wanta), but when he came down, and another man climbed up, they realised that these must be scouts from an Avia war party. One version of the story even elaborated that the spirit of Isandu warned the mourners by causing a bundle of his arrows that were hung on the wall next to his body to fall, thus making the people check the environs, whereupon they saw the two men. Immediately, the Amaira men split into two groups, and while one party followed the creek on the eastern side of the ridge, the other followed the stream on the western side. Some men crossed over to Ainompimpa and silently raised the alarm as well, and the men from Ainompimpa followed their spur towards the top of the ridge. One of the groups surprised one of the scouts and killed him at the top of the hill, riddling him with arrows. The other two groups checked for tracks and chased after the other men. The group from Ainompimpa followed down a different trail to overtake them and set up an ambush, while the other group chased the fleeing Avia men down the hill towards them. In a panic, most of the Avia men had dropped their shields to run faster. During the pursuit, one man was hit and fell into a creek, where he tried to hide. But he was discovered by the Amaira men and killed on the spot. What then followed was a celebration on top of the ridge of Mount Kafiyamompa, as told by Sanda A’andu: The Song of Motame and Kifingku 167

We then came back towards the mountain, broke off leaves and sang our war cries. The line on the other side of the hill, who killed the scout, also broke off leaves and came singing towards the mountain. We sang the following song [sings the song]: Motame-e, Kifingkue-e… [song continues in Auyana]. In this song, we named Motame and Kifingku, the policeman and the evangelist that we knew, and how they came here to cut through the forest and we killed the two men in their name. (Sanda A’andu)

This particular episode and the remembered victory song show that policemen and evangelists at this time were already forces to be reckoned with, and that the people of Amaira were well aware of their power and influence. This history of prior warfare and movement is essential for understanding the trajectory of the process of pacification in the case of Amaira because, at the time of first contact in 1949, the people of Amaira were in a strategically difficult situation. Besieged and constantly attacked from two sides, simultaneously having to defend themselves against both the Avia and the Norei’eranda, the people of Amaira were very much interested in stopping these conflicts.

6.1.7 Death Toll Just like in Purosa, a minimum total of war casualties was established through interviews and a genealogical survey. All names found in this way were crosschecked with some of the oldest informants, collecting the exact nature of their death wherever possible. For a period of approximately 20 years (1929-1949), I collected the names of 43 people from Amaira that were killed in the various wars. As with the Purosa case, this represents the minimum number of people killed, as there were twelve other names gleaned from the genealogical survey that could not be confirmed with my oldest informants. They might either have died from other causes or died in warfare before the cut-off point (or my key informants forgot them). Nevertheless, 43 is quite a significant number of war deaths, as in this case, it only concerns one local group (Amaira) and not several as in Purosa. The war against Nangkona that led to the routing of the Amaira group from Waisampa was especially deadly, as it accounted for a total of 16 deaths (15 men and one woman). The war against Avia while residing in Waisampa cost ten lives, and a further nine people were killed in wars against Avia while the group already lived in Amaira. Against Norei’eranda, seven people died, and the Nompia killed one man. The gender distribution is quite distinct, as only nine women could be remembered versus 34 men. This again might be not only because women were less likely to be killed in warfare, but also that their names are less remembered. This number of 43 confirmed war deaths results in an average of 2.15 deaths per year. The total number of people in the Amaira local group can be estimated to be around 250-300 people, which results in a war-related mortality rate of 7.2 - 8.6 deaths per year per 1000 people. With assumed total mortality of 125-150 deaths in these 20 years, war-related mortality would account for 28.6-34.4% of all deaths. The estimate of the Amaira population was taken from the first impression of the kiaps in 1949 when they estimated the community to be over 300 people, and the census included in the patrol reports, which counted 245 people in 1953, 247 in 1954, 244 in 1955 and 249 in 1956 (Kainantu PR 1948/49/6; 1953/54/4; 1953/54/6; 1955/56/3; 1956/57/1). No other census data has been attached to patrols reports, and the only other census figure is from the 1963 census reported in Pataki-Schweizer (1980:86), by which time the

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Amaira village has increased to 416 people. As with the numbers in Purosa, these numbers have therefore to be treated with caution. But when taken at face value, it becomes clear that mortality in Amaira was clearly higher than in the Purosa area (and also higher than in any of the other case studies, as will be shown below). The death toll being quite considerable could also at least partly explain why the men and women of Amaira were so willing to give up war. At least in retrospect, this high death toll was often given as an explanation for why warfare was given up so quickly after 1949. As Afayto Nana explained, when asked the question on why warfare was given up: “In the time of fighting, there were a lot of deaths on all sides, and the population was decreasing. We felt this pain. That’s the reason; we were sick of losing more people; we were sick of fighting.” Most informants freely admitted that warfare in their youth was a terrible burden on society. When asked about what he thought about the pre-colonial time, Awato Kabunye from Norei’eranda, for example, explained: “It was a horrible time. We hardly had enough to eat and never slept well. Now we have enough and good food.”

6.2 Enter the Police Their difficult military situation and the high casualty rate from warfare goes some ways in explaining the extraordinary request by the Amaira leaders for a policeman to be stationed in their midst. But, as will be shown in this chapter, the reputation of the police and the evangelists also played an important role. This reputation gained traction in a situation of indirect contact, in which the people of Amaira were already significantly affected by outside forces long before the first government patrol passed through their hamlets.

6.2.1 Indirect and First Contact While the people of Amaira still resided in Waisampa, the first aeroplane flew over the area. As aircraft were often used in establishing and supplying government stations in the Highlands, this first plane could have been seen as early as 1932 or 1933. In the following years, sightings of numerous other planes happened occasionally. Some of the first aeroplanes were given names: Karomu, Kasarema and Filaki were some of the names people remembered, and also Pupumbayo, similar to the name I encountered in Purosa. In Asempa, the planes were named Kubukabana, demonstrating some regional diversity. The first planes created an atmosphere of fear. The people took recourse to magical means to stave off danger from these unexplainable events. Afraid that especially women and children might be in danger, people slaughtered pigs and rubbed the pig blood and fat all over their bodies. They also braided tanket (cordyline) leaves into a rope, smeared it with pig grease and wrapped it around their bodies. People searched their myths to explain these strange flying objects, and often connected the planes to the time of darkness when ice was falling from the sky.23 Rumours about fair-skinned beings also reached the people around that time. At Waisampa, people also acquired their first few axes, small steel knives and long bush knives, and even chickens from trading with Tairora villages, particularly Barabuna, as a woman from

23 The time of darkness nowadays is commonly explained by referring to the Bible and the story of the darkness that descended when Jesus died on the cross. The Song of Motame and Kifingku 169 there had been married to a man from Waisampa. The Amaira people, in turn, supplied the Tairora with bush rope, barkcloth, traditional salt, also some dogs and even shells that they had acquired from the Fore. Chickens were first considered to be disgusting, as they pecked at the dirt on the ground, and only older men and women ate them. The people of Barabuna told the Amaira that they acquired these axes and bush knives from Arau, and explained to them how to use them to make gardens. After people moved to Amaira, these iron implements became more and more common, as they could be traded even more easily with the now more closely situated local groups of Barabuna, Batainabura and even Arau against feathers and net bags. Most of these iron implements were described as already heavily used and damaged by other groups before they reached the Auyana. Large shells, in a quality never seen before, also started to filter down into the Auyana valleys. The village of Asempa had regular trade relations with the Oiyana villages, and even heard from them, that after these shells came, the owners or originators of these shells will also soon come and visit them. And not much later this was indeed the case. While still residing in Waisampa, thus somewhere in the mid- to late 1930s, the people of Amaira encountered their first white man. A patrol led by two white men with a lot of carriers came from the direction of Oiyana and Sinkura, following the creeks, and constructed a camp of a canvas tent and some bush material shelters for the carriers right between Amaira and Nangkona (who were at war at the time) on the flat terrace of Ponampa. The metal patrol boxes that the carriers slung on a pole and carried in teams of two, and in which all the equipment was stored, impressed people considerably. At the same time, they were terribly afraid of the white men, whom a lot believed to be spirits. People assumed that if someone dies, they will go to the land of the dead towards the east. These ancestral spirits they saw before them must have changed the colour of their skin there and must have returned. Nevertheless, the people of Amaira helped them in gathering long grass for roofing a shelter. They provided them with a pig and some garden food after being asked by sign language and through an Oiyana carrier accompanying them that understood a bit of the Pidgin they spoke. People received giri-giri shells, salt and matches for the food they provided and were overjoyed by these presents. As the Amaira were at war, they tried to get this party to join them in the fight with the Nangkona, but they could not make themselves sufficiently understood. As the camp was right on the battlefield, people did not linger around a long time, but warily kept their distance. The patrol left the next day towards Avia and Tondona. This encounter happened before World War II, and it was most likely a prospecting party, as people said that they followed the rivers and creeks. People understood the names of the two white men as Filaki and Karomu, the same names that they had given to the planes. These two whites were called afa’wasi (wild men), and people were envious of all the bush knives and axes they saw in use by the patrol. The same protective rituals were used as against the danger emanating from the planes. A dysentery epidemic also afflicted the people while still residing in Waisampa a few years later. All these events were believed to be portents of an intending apocalypse, and many drew a clear connection between these events and the myths of the previous ‘time of darkness.’ Iwewe Tusafe of Asempa village paints a clear picture of these concerns at the time:

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We all believed that the dead would go to a place of the spirits. If they would leave this land of the spirits and come back, then a colossal rain would fall, the ground would shake, and the trees would topple over and kill us all. So we built a house where there were no trees, up here on the mountain. When we built this house, we stayed in it a while, but then left it again. (Iwewe Tusafe)

A return of these spirits in broad daylight was seen as an extraordinary and dangerous event. I failed to encounter similar accounts of building houses for protection against this impending apocalypse in Amaira. Still, this account from Asempa village ties in well with reports of the building of houses among the Fore. With World War II, the sightings of planes increased, and they now appeared in squadrons and no longer just as single planes. Some informants were already teenagers by the time and witnessed air battles over nearby Kainantu, and the bombing of the Kainantu and Aiyura airstrips by the Japanese. Several planes were shot down, and some crashed nearby. The two Japanese, here called Esagi and Omisawa, who crashed near Ilesa and Awarosa, also came through Waisampa. The people of Awarosa, who first took care of these strangers, contacted the Auyana at Asempa, because the Japanese mimicked planes, called the name ‘Kainantu’, and pointed north. The Asempa answered that they had heard of this Kainantu, and helped to escort the two surviving Japanese to Asempa. The two Japanese stayed a while in Asempa, and the people from Asempa accompanied them towards Bundaira and Kainantu. As the people of Amaira were quite knowledgeable about the Tairora villages, and as there even was a woman from Barabuna married to an Amaira man, some Amaira men acted as guides and accompanied the Japanese over Tondona towards Barabuna and Arau. It is assumed that from Arau, the two Japanese made their way down into the Markham or Ramu Valley and then onwards towards Lae or Madang.

6.2.2 Rumours about the Police At the same time, rumours were circulating about powerful killers on the loose in the Tairora and Kamano areas. These strange warriors would kill with a new kind of bow called kateres (the Tok Pisin word for cartridge), which made a sound as if a bamboo cracks in the fire. They were ruthless and cruel, killing men and pigs wherever they went, roasting them both over fires and devouring them. Some of these rumours called these killers ‘wild rats’ or ‘crazy men’, others called them by the Tairora term piripu (meaning a man who gives orders) or kilimpu. Some men from the Auyana area even saw the wounds these weapons inflicted on some Tairora men when they were visiting their trade partners. People also heard that these kilimpu would apprehend Tairora men, put a rope through their nasal septum, tying them together and putting them in something called kalabus (the Tok Pisin word for prison). Rumours about fair-skinned men, or wayankwasi in the Amaira language, also increased. People were tremendously frightened by these local accounts of the quite brutal campaign of pacification undertaken by the ANGAU troops and later the post-war colonial administration in the mid- to late 1940s in the Tairora and Kamano areas, but at the same time must have developed considerable respect for these policemen. A lot of people took precautionary measures of building little lean-tos and shelters in the forest, where they could escape to if attacked. When rumours were especially vivid, all women and children would sleep in these hiding places in the woods, only the men remaining in the village. The Song of Motame and Kifingku 171

First contact with the native policemen and evangelists operating in the Northern Tairora area soon after World War II was through the association and close connection of the Amaira people with the Tairora village of Tondona. The Tondona knew that a policeman was stationed in Arau, as they had regular trading relationships with Barabuna, a neighbouring village. The Amaira leader Poge decided to make use of this connection when men from Sinkura came to Amaira for help. Their enemies from Waifina had attacked them and killed one of their men, and they wanted Amaira men as allies. As the conflict with Norei’eranda was still on-going, a small party of Sinkura and Amaira men slipped down to Tondona, and via Barabuna and Saiora then travelled towards Arau. They aimed to find this policeman called Motame and try to get him to help them. They found him, presented their case to him, and he took this small party of Amaira and Sinkura men towards Kainantu to inform the patrol officer stationed there. On the way to Kainantu, they slept overnight at a village near Aiyura, where a Lutheran evangelist from the Finschhafen area called Kifingku was stationed. Upon seeing Poge, who was already a pre-eminent warrior and leader at the time, Kifingku recognized his standing among the visiting uncontacted group and gave him an elongated piece of stone or bone to be worn through the hole in his septum, to mark him as a village leader. Upon reaching Kainantu, the villagers presented their case to the kiap in charge. But apparently, the kiap at the time deemed the area too remote and did not initiate any action. It was the first time that men from Amaira travelled that far, and they clearly enjoyed the protection afforded by the policeman. Motame brought them safely back and told Poge that he would soon be chosen as luluai, and that it was now his job to report anybody who started trouble to him, Motame, so that he could then come and arrest these people. Other villages did succeed in involving policemen in their conflicts. A while after Poge met Motame, some warriors from Kawaina attacked a hamlet of Avia and killed two people. Some Avia men at the time had established some trading relations with the Tairora village of Aiyura through a pair of sisters from the Tairora village of Kofuta; one sister married to an Avia man, another to an Aiyura man. The Aiyura were well acquainted with the police, and told the Avia visitors, that the police would punish groups who attacked others. After the attack by the Kawaina, a group of Avia men under the leadership of the later Luluai Anakofi thus went to Aiyura, and they met Police Constable Pakau. They carried large bundles of pandanus nuts with them to give to Pakau so that he would be inclined to help them. Pakau then came to Avia, accompanied by some Aiyura and Norei’eranda men. After ascertaining that the attack did indeed take place, he told people to kill a pig for him and get ready to attack Kawaina at dawn. They lighted torches, and Pakau left still during the night towards Kawaina, together with a large force of Avia warriors and some allies from Norei’eranda and Aiyura. When this detachment approached the hamlets of Kawaina, Pakau had them surround the first one, and at dawn he attacked the men’s house, shooting through the walls and at anybody who tried to escape. Pakau killed five men with his rifle, while the Avia warriors killed five others with their arrows. Afterwards, they returned to Avia, where Pakau was hosted for a big feast and amply rewarded with pork, feathers and pandanus nuts. This story travelled far and wide and established a healthy fear of the police in the minds of all Auyana. Not much later, Constable Pakau was again involved in a conflict, this time between Sinkura and the villages of Oiyana, Anokafa and Asempa. Some men from Oiyana, as they were located

172 Ending War closer to Kainantu, reported the fighting to Pakau who at the time was stationed in Kainantu. Pakau must have decided to pay a visit to the area again. Pakau approached the Sinkura village before dawn, together with a large force of Oiyana and Anokafa warriors and some men from Asempa. From the accounts, it looks like Pakau this time just wanted to settle the conflict, as he stayed a distance away and fired some warning shots into the air. But the Oiyana and Anokafa warriors, emboldened by his presence, stormed the village and killed five Sinkura men. The attacking force also suffered two casualties, and a third died later from the wound he received. A large part of the Sinkura people subsequently fled their hamlets and sought refuge among their trusted allies in Amaira, relating to them the tragedy that befell them, and telling them of the sound of the gun that they heard, ‘as if a bamboo cracked in the fire.’

6.2.3 The First Government Patrols The first recorded encounter with an official government patrol with an Australian patrol officer in charge took place on February 1st 1949. Acting Assistant District Officer Allen Timperley and Patrol Officer Dudley Young-Whitfords together with seven policemen were on patrol to investigate alleged unrest at the headwaters of the Lamari River, especially in the Suwaira- Barabuna area that Timperley had visited a few months ago. Timperley had previously undertaken a short surveillance flight to locate villages further south, and on patrol went as far south as and established contact with Obura. The patrol was on the return journey when it was informed of fighting between Norei’eranda and Amaira, and the kiaps decided to visit the officially still uncontacted people of Amaira. The kiaps quickly established friendly contact and built a camp between the hamlets of Amaira and Ainompimpa. The villagers helped in building shelters for carriers and police and supplied them with large amounts of food. Some of my informants remembered how they received valuable shells and salt in return, and were more than eager to exchange these for the food the patrol requested. The two kiaps estimated the population to be over 300 people. They noticed that the hamlets were heavily stockaded and that the houses were in better shape than elsewhere in the Tairora areas. Timperley appointed the Amaira leader Poge as luluai and remarked: I appointed a luluai - by name POKS. A blow to the NOREI-ANDA people who, for a long time, have monopolised control of this end of the valley. (Kainantu PR 1948/49/6)

Luluai Poge received his badge of office right on the spot in Amaira. He was later called to Kainantu and was able to cross enemy territory unmolested. Timperley also most likely warned the Norei’eranda to cease any hostility against Amaira, but this warning did not have the desired effect. Fighting continued after this initial contact, and it was only after this first contact when Amaira succeeded in killing the two Avia men on top of Mount Kafiyamompa. The second patrol to pass through Amaira arrived on August 30th, 1949, led by acting ADO Gerry W. Toogood. The patrol came from Asempa, and two men from Amaira residing in Asempa led the patrol through Avia to Amaira. In Avia, Toogood was informed that the Amaira had just recently killed two Avia men, and the Avia wanted the patrol to take revenge for them. But the kiap told them it was their fault, as the men were killed while trying to attack the Amaira. This patrol and others that passed through Amaira had Tairora interpreters with them, which made communication easier, as most Avia and Amaira villagers had at least a rudimentary grasp The Song of Motame and Kifingku 173 of the Tairora language. When Toogood attempted to communicate with the Amaira villagers regarding the fighting in the area the next day, Poge was thus able to make himself understood and told him about the dire situation the people of Amaira were faced with, having to defend themselves against enemies from both sides. He showed him the shields that they used, which were riddled with arrow tips. As Autu’a Amasey related: When the kiap came here, we reported to him that the Avia and the Norei’eranda were constantly fighting with us and that he should send some police to stop this fighting. We told him to come here and kill all our enemies. (Autu’a Amasey)

Poge was said to have been accompanying the kiap to Kainantu and then returned with the policemen, which set up their first police station in Amaira. It is this second patrol that led to the stationing of two policemen in the area that most of the informants remembered, and the accounts of this encounter vary in accuracy and informative content. Sometimes, different episodes get telescoped into one, and the following report of first contact by Autu’a Amasey is fairly typical. At the same time, it exhibits what could be understood as the trinity of factors conducive to pacification (colonial administration, mission, health), all in one account: There were three white men in all that came: one kiap, one doctor and one Lutheran pastor. They came with a long line and some police. The doctor came and looked at all the people who had sores and gave them medicine. The missionary gave us all salt and matches and made us all happy, and the kiap just got the report of the fighting and appointed the luluai and tultul. (Autu’a Amasey)

There is no indication that a Lutheran pastor (or a European medical orderly) accompanied Toogood’s patrol. Still, the account demonstrates what people remember and what is seen as important and significant.

6.2.4 Enforced Peace-Making After Toogood’s patrol, Police Constables Pakau and Kamavo were detailed to oversee the pacification of the Auyana area. They were both Highlanders; Pakau was a Chimbu man, while Kamavo was from the Eastern Highlands around Benabena. They established their residence at first in Amaira proper, at a place now called ‘White Stone.’ A few weeks later they forced the villagers to build a large house for the policemen, a kitchen house, and two rest houses for visiting patrols a few hundred meters above Amaira village, on top of the ridge between the Amaira and Avia villages. Villagers received them with high expectations, slaughtering pigs and sharing the pork with the policemen. They greeted them as protectors, and probably secretly hoped that these policemen would retaliate against their enemies. Indu Sana responded on the question whether they were happy to receive the police in their village with the following words: “We were in the middle between enemies, who joined forces, and we were happy that they came. They protected us from those enemies.” The two constables certainly lived up to their role as protectors. On their way to Amaira, Constables Pakau and Kamavo assembled the villagers of Norei’eranda and harangued them about continuing the war after being warned by the kiap. As the Norei’eranda had sufficient negative experiences with the police, this was more than enough to curtail any further violent activity from their part. A few years previously, the police summarily executed the appointed luluai of Norei’eranda, Kaibaro, and his brother, for failing to stop the war with their enemies

174 Ending War of Kofuta and for not reporting it to the police. Both men were killed on the spot, and the villagers fled in terror. When Pakau and Kamavo arrived in Amaira, they first gave a display of their military strength by shooting at trees and showing the assembled villagers the holes that this produced. They then urged the assembled villagers to give up warfare once and for all. As my informants told me, they were happy to oblige, as they had realized their awkward position between two enemies, and as the constant warfare had decimated them in the preceding years. As people had already heard that fighting has stopped in the Tairora area through the presence of the policemen, they knew that they could be safe from other villages that might still plan their revenge. The police were thus also seen as protectors and in that role very welcome. The two policemen then fired warning shots on the top of the ridge to announce their presence to all other Auyana villages further down the valley, and to deter them from attacking the police or the village of Amaira. The sound of the gun alone was enough to frighten people considerably at the time, as it carried with it the sure sound of devastation, as most villages had heard what befell the local groups of Kawaina and Sinkura. The presence of the two policemen in the village was thus sufficient to deter any further attacks. Next, the two policemen sent for the luluai of Avia, Anakofi. They had him shake hands with all Amaira villagers to signify that the war between the two local groups had now ended. Later, the two constables took the luluai and tultul from Amaira down to Avia to repeat the ceremony in front of the assembled villagers there, thus symbolically creating peace. It was, of course, a display of peace-making under the threat of the police guns, as Fuka’ana Kuana recounted: The police sent some Avia women married to Amaira back to Avia, to inform the people there that the police had arrived and that warfare was now forbidden. They sent for Anakofi, the luluai. Anakofi came with a net bag full of arrows and wanted to tighten a bamboo arrow and point it at the Amaira men. He said that this land was his mother’s land, and that we from Amaira had killed a lot of men, and as they were not avenged yet, why did we call for him? The Amaira then said: look at the police here, you want to deal with them? Then we shook hands with him, and the police sent him back to construct a police house. (Fuku’ana Kuana)

Another thing the police did to symbolically demonstrate their power and to show that warfare had to end was to tear down the palisades around the hamlets and publicly burn all weapons they could get their hands on. Pakau and Kamavo broke into the men’s houses, collected all bows and arrows, shields and spears, threw them on a big heap together with the planks from the palisade and set everything ablaze. Afraid of the police, a lot of men helped them in this task, the luluai and tultul in the forefront. As was described in the patrol report at the beginning of this chapter, the police also coerced people not only from Amaira but also from the two enemy villages of Avia and Norei’eranda to carry the rest of their weapons to Kainantu to surrender them in front of the resident patrol officer. For most villagers, this was the first time they had been that far away from their village, and the government station at Kainantu greatly impressed them. To be sure, the burning of weapons was nothing more than a symbolic act, as the men could quickly whittle new bows and arrows, which they needed for hunting anyway. But this symbolic act had a considerable impact, and all villages clearly understood the message. The Song of Motame and Kifingku 175

There are also accounts that the big men’s houses were demolished and taken apart by the police, as they considered them to be the focal point for warfare. The women and children had already evacuated the village before the arrival of the policemen and were living for a while in little lean-tos in the forest. They were afraid of getting anywhere near the village while the policemen were stationed there (and with good reason, as will be shown below). The men, prevented from rebuilding the large men’s houses by the policemen, did have no other choice than to build new smaller roundhouses, in which they had to sleep with their women and children. Some informants, however, reported that they still slept in men’s houses until 1954, when the village site was moved. It is thus possible that some men’s houses were rebuilt (or never destroyed), and that especially young unmarried men continued to sleep in them. The policemen were portrayed as ruthless and quick to anger. Whoever did not follow their orders was hit and whipped with bamboo canes. Pigs were summarily confiscated, shot and consumed by the police constables, with the population unable to defend themselves against these abuses. As Fuka’ana Kuana explained: “The policemen killed a lot of pigs and ate them all. We were just looking on; we were new men [meaning contacted only recently]. We weren’t able to fight back. We were afraid they would break our heads.” These first policemen also took any women they fancied and raped them. This wanton violence against people that could not defend themselves hammered home the message that the time of fighting was over. Autu’a Amasey explained: If there were a pretty woman around, married or young, the police would get her and rape her. And that’s why we were all afraid of making trouble, since we were afraid the police would then come and rape our women, so we stopped. (Autu’a Amasey)

After having dealt with Amaira and Avia, the police constables then went on patrol to other villages in the Auyana area, burning palisades, weapons and sometimes men’s houses. Their appearance on the scene immediately stopped all hostilities, as their reputation and the tale of what had happened in Amaira preceded them. When the police nevertheless encountered a hostile reception, they handcuffed all the men they could apprehend and kept them under watch until their relatives ransomed them with pigs. The police then demonstrated the power of their rifles by shooting these pigs, which again was a drastic demonstration of their military superiority. As Karentua Komaisea from Avia pithily explained: The police came and gave warning shots, and killed pigs, and we saw how the pigs did not get up again and were dead instantly, so we did not make any wars anymore. (Karentua Komaisea)

Several of my informants accompanied the police on their patrols when they were still young boys, and participated in the feasts held with all the confiscated pigs. The police also attempted to bring enemy villages together by forcing them to visit each other’s villages under their guard and arranging peace and reconciliation ceremonies. In one encounter, when constable Pakau had arranged for a sing-sing between the villages of Anokafa and Sinkura to settle their conflict, fighting broke out nonetheless. Pakau then shot a Sinkura man through his hand from a distance, but my informants said it was probably only a warning shot gone amiss. Pakau and Kamavo later moved down to Avia, and constructed another rest house and police post there, before relocating to Nangkona to pacify that area. Less than a year later, in May 1950, Pakau and Kamavo had already established another police post at Asempa, while

176 Ending War constables Raka and Nua (both men were from the Western Highlands) took over the Amaira Police Post and oversaw the construction of a bridle path linking the whole Auyana area with Kainantu, and on to Okapa. They also established rest houses for the kiaps on patrol in close succession: in Amaira, Avia, Ponampa, Asempa, and Okasa. Nawa (or Enava as spelt in the patrol reports), a policeman from coastal Sepik or Madang, followed a while later, and probably stayed the longest in Amaira, as he was given a local wife, who prepared his food for him. One account I gathered was that by giving him a local woman as a wife, the villagers of Amaira actively tried to bind him more closely to them so that he would stay on and not leave like the other policemen. A strategy that did not go as planned, as Nawa just left his Amaira wife behind when he was transferred elsewhere. Most other policemen were already married, and some of the later ones also brought their wives to Amaira. By the time Cadet Patrol Officer Kevin I. Morgan conducted a patrol to inspect the string of police stations in the newly contacted areas of the Kainantu Sub-district in early March 1951, there were three policemen (Nalakor, Pakau and Merakami) in Moke, and one each in Asempa (Kamavo) and Amaira (Enava). Policeman Afuti also had a local wife while stationed in Asempa for several months. It is not clear who followed Nawa: Motame from the Markham also must have stayed in Amaira for a while, while others, especially Afuti and Ombiko (from Chimbu) came through Amaira en route to the police post in Asempa. While the police used a considerable amount of force and intimidation, they also used promises, telling people that if they give up warfare, a big reward will come their way. They connected this promise with rumours that people had heard before, about a particular entity called Pupumbayo, which would bring them untold riches. The police also handed out salt and giri- giri shells to make people more inclined to follow their exhortations. Communication between policemen and villagers was not so straightforward, however, as the first constables, Pakau and Kamavo, only used Pidgin English and their hands to make themselves understood, at a time when nobody of the villagers had a firm grasp of Pidgin yet. The next constables, Raka and Nua, brought two Tairora interpreters from Matona with them, Koramare and Nenerau, which stayed for a while in Amaira, teaching the local men some rudimentary Pidgin, which eased communication between both parties. Nawa also taught some young men from Amaira Pidgin, among them my informant Fuka’ana, and used them as translators.

6.2.5 Building of Roads As soon as Pakau and Kamavo had settled in, they started with the construction of a bridle path through the whole area. They assembled the Tairora villagers from Norei’eranda to build a track from their village to the boundary with Amaira, and from that spot on the Amaira villagers had to construct their section until the border with Avia. Raka and Nua then continued overseeing the construction of the road at Avia and all the way to Asempa and further on towards Okapa. Nawa (Enava) took over the Amaira Police Post from them and was stationed there for at least eight months. Enava apparently had less success in getting people to work on the road, at least according to the evaluation of Cadet Patrol Officer Kevin I. Morgan who inspected all the police posts in March 1951: Roads in Enava’s area are bad, Enava has done his best to persuade the natives to improve them without success. The native situation is satisfactory but is remaining at a standstill. The population is not an easy one to deal with and it is thougt that The Song of Motame and Kifingku 177

Enava is not sufficiently experienced. It is recommended that he be transferred from Auana [sic] and another Policeman be placed there. (Kainantu PR 1950/51/7)

The construction of this bridle path was described as a time of arduous work. Tools for the construction were supplied by the administration, some axes, bush knives and spades, but most people, especially the women, used their hands and digging sticks. The policemen in concert with the luluai and tultul made sure that all men and women of sufficient age started work early in the morning, caning people who turned up late or not at all. Whoever ran away from work was brought back, hands bound together, and whipped until blood flowed. Sometimes the drudgery would continue all day, even after nightfall, with torches lighted and a massive fire built next to the section of the track people were working. Some informants who were too young to help in making the track vividly remember cooking sweet potatoes and bringing them to the work party at night, or holding torches to illuminate the work area. It took quite a while to build a decent track, as most of the terrain was covered by dense forest. Thus, the men first had to cut all the trees on and along the route. Then they had to dig out all the tree stumps and roots, before digging up a roadway, levelling the path and digging ditches on the sides. The police oversaw the building of the path. On one occasion, a man from Tondona was punished for slacking on the job, as he took a break on his own to have a smoke, and Constable Nua kicked him so hard with his police boots in the side that he eventually died. In the end, he was the only victim of police violence in this time of unsupervised police posts. Still, this wanton disregard of human life certainly had an added impact in subduing and pacifying the Auyana area. The police also constructed a big house up on Mt. Kafiyamompa, showed it to all people and warned them that they would be imprisoned in this makeshift kalabus if they would not obey them. Whoever disobeyed or was late for roadwork was then thrown into this house without food for two days or so, until his or her relatives brought a pig as ransom. The policemen also had to be provisioned for free by the villagers with garden staples and vegetables, and the occasional portion of pork. If somebody wanted to slaughter a pig at the time, he had to set a portion apart for the policemen. Their role as protectors thus came at a cost for the people of Amaira, a cost that they in hindsight sometimes grumble about, but which they still feel was justified, as they had welcomed the end of war.

6.2.6 Peace Ceremonies In contrast to the Purosa example, there were no large-scale ceremonies to end warfare once and for all in the Auyana area. What little ceremonial ritual took place was mostly arranged by the police, as the example of the shaking of hands between Avia and Amaira village officials demonstrated. There was no closure in the same sense as felt among the South Fore. Thus it was possible for Karentua Komaisea from Avia to state, that they did not yet avenge the two men that the Amaira killed on top of Kafiyamompa Mountain: “And then Amaira killed two Avia men at Kafiyamompa Mountain, and at the same time the police came up and stopped the fight. And we haven’t avenged these two yet. We left it.” It becomes clear then, that the end of the war between Avia and Amaira was not so much a self- made choice, as it was among the South Fore, but rather one that was forced upon the people

178 Ending War by the despotic and brutal regime of the police. This perception is especially evident in the following statement, again by Karentua Komaisea: The police came down here, where the hamlet was, close by where we are now, and they burnt the houses, uprooted the palisade posts, lined up the people and whipped them, killed pigs and raped women. They torched houses. They stopped the fight. When they did this, we lost all thought about war. We stayed in peace. (Karentua Komaisea)

As this despotic regime quickly dispelled any further thoughts about retaliation and warfare, it almost seems that a peace ceremony was not even necessary, as wars were effectively curtailed by the presence and the threat of violence emanating from the policemen alone. Enmity and animosity between the local groups continued to fester for a considerable time, however, and would result in several challenges to the peace. With Norei’eranda on the other hand, there was a peace ceremony to officially end the state of warfare that reigned between them and the people of Amaira. This peace ceremony was initiated by the Norei’eranda side, which goes to show that they apparently felt the need to perform such a ceremony. The tultul from Norei’eranda, Awato Kabunye, was among the organisers of this peace ceremony. They killed several pigs, steamed them in an earth oven and invited the Amaira men for the ceremony: We killed pigs on both sides, and then came to the middle and held speeches to make peace. Then the leaders held hands together and promised that this kind of conflict would not come up again during their time and the time of their children. When they held hands, somebody poured quicklime made from a bush tree onto the hands, then broke bows and arrows, and threw bows and arrows into the water, and then they put their hands into the water so that the fire that caused the fight was doused. Then they took out the food from the earth oven. One took a bite of the sweet potato and gave the other half to the other side, together with the spittle. And with the meat the same way. And then there was peace. (Awato Kabunye)

6.3 Co-optation of Traditional Leaders The permanent presence of the police offering protection and threatening to punish those communities still willing to continue warfare was undoubtedly the main reason for the quick cessation of war in the time between late August 1949 and the end of 1952, during which police were stationed on semi-autonomous police posts throughout the Auyana, North Fore, and Northern Tairora area. That the peace was kept after the withdrawal of the police from the area at the end of 1952 had again much to do with the co-optation of traditional leaders and their integration into the system of administration as luluai and tultuls. Leaders in Amaira can be aptly characterized to belong more to the ‘Great Man’ model of leadership. They were first and foremost war leaders and killers, and their role of organizers of exchange and distribution feasts was only secondary (cf. Robbins 1982:148f.). During the last years before pacification, there were five pre-eminent leaders in the entire Amaira local group: the brothers Poge (who later became luluai) and Nana from the Sinkuranda clan, and Ari, Arafi and Amasey from the Avianda clan. Autu’a Amasey’s characterization of these leaders shows the importance warfare played in their leadership: The Song of Motame and Kifingku 179

Those men advised others in the fighting. They were the first line, and they went first into the fight. They were real killers. They held the village together, at the time Amaira came here. When they went into the men’s house before the fight, they would dream in the night before which arrow to use to kill. If they then used this specific arrow, you would die if it hits you. Those men only had this gift. (Autu’a Amasey)

Poge apparently was a physically especially imposing person, a man with renown whose name was recognized in faraway places. At the same time, he was rather quick-tempered, always the first one to start a fight, and whatever trouble there was, he was sure to escalate it to an arrow fight. When the first kiap came to Amaira on the 1st of February, 1949 from the direction of Norei’eranda, he appointed Poge as luluai. My informants mused that the kiap must have recognized the sign of the white stone worn through the nasal septum that Poge had previously received from the evangelist Kifingku, and thus picked him to become the official village head. Other accounts recounted that the kiap asked people who their leader was, and they pointed out Poge, who was indeed one of the most pre-eminent war leaders. Poge was appointed luluai during the first patrol and received his badge of office at the same time. Another leader named Popo was then appointed tultul during the second patrol. Over time, more tultuls were appointed, so that Amaira often had several tultuls at the same time, usually one each for each hamlet. From the patrol reports, the following names for the tultuls could be established during these years: Popo in 1949, Piatra in 1952 (the report misspelling the name as Ratara), Waiana and Piatra in 1953, Waiana, Piatra, Ankwa and Asena in 1965. Popo was also a middle-aged man like Poge, but Waiana and Piatra were younger men.

6.3.1 Luluai and Tultuls in the Police Regime The police quickly enrolled the help of the luluai and tultul in their despotic regime. The village officials turned into henchmen of the police and helped them in burning all weapons and shields, and later to assemble all people for work duty, and oversee the construction of the bridle path. The police took them under their wing and instructed them how to properly (in their view) lead and organise a village. In a sense, the policemen were also dependent on the village leaders, as they knew best were people would hide in the forest to evade roadwork. It was the luluai and tultul, who went to the woods to seek out these people, apprehend them, bind their hands and bring them to work. As Nunafa Karu explained: The luluai and tultul joined with the police and turned upon us. They got power from the police and used it against us. They went and caught men in the bush and bound them with rope, and the women they stripped and raped them and brought them back naked. (Nunafa Karu)

The luluai and tultuls thus clearly gained power from their association with the police and started to exhibit despotic tendencies that might have already been present before. Luluai Poge was always described as a quick-tempered man even before he became luluai, but the power derived from the police seemed to have reinforced this particular character trait. He hit anybody with a stick who dared to disobey him. The other men in the village did not risk to defy or take up arms against this now undisputed leader, as he seemed to enjoy the full protection of the police. The policemen even warned people not to challenge their luluai and tultul when they closed the police post in Amaira at the end of 1952. The luluai and tultul thus seamlessly took

180 Ending War over the same position of authority that the police constables had established themselves in by force.

6.3.2 Village Officials and their Courts The policemen also instructed the luluai and tultuls how to hear court and settle conflicts and punish troublemakers. This local court was a hybrid institution, best shown by the punishment meted out. In most cases, Luluai Poge tried to arrange compensation to be paid in kind, and also a court fine, usually one pig, for him and the tultuls. For smaller offences, compensation would consist of giri-giri shells, paper or matches. The villagers told me that despite his temper Poge usually handed out fair sentences. But he could be easily angered and become irritated and violent if someone would not accept his verdict. On one occasion, he lighted some dry grass and burnt off the chest hair of the offender. On another occasion, he together with the tultul caught three men from a different village in suspicious circumstances near the village, and reckoning them to be sorcerers had them eat ashes, before bringing them to the prison in Kainantu. And his son (Fakaka Poge) remembers how Poge once tied an adulteress to stakes driven into the ground, spreading her legs, and building a fire between them, to ‘smoke out’ her vagina. The luluais and tultuls from different villages usually came together to settle cases that concerned conflicts between communities, for example about runaway pigs that were killed by men from another village. There was regular communication between the luluais and tultuls of different villages in the Auyana area, spurred on by the patrols that usually took them along to visit other communities. This was again a clear strategy of the kiaps, as it made it easier for them to settle conflicts between different villages. Especially important and renowned villages officials, like Tasina from Arora, had a reputation far beyond their own village and proved to be extremely helpful. As Kainantu was a half-day and Okapa a full day’s walk away from Amaira, it was relatively easy for the luluai and tultul to bring troublemakers to Kainantu or Okapa for a court hearing, if the case could not be settled in the village. This course of action was usually only necessary if people did not agree on the amount of the compensation payment, or when compensation was not forthcoming even after a repeated warning. The luluai and tultul then accompanied both parties down to the patrol post in Kainantu or Okapa and presented the case to the kiap in charge in a court of native affairs. It was said that the kiap usually did not even ask much about the incident, trusting the luluai and tultul to be the judges on who was in the right, and whether someone should be sent to prison or not. If both sides agreed on compensation or any other kind of settlement, the kiap allowed them to return to the village. He only threw them in prison if the incident was considered severe enough to warrant a prison sentence, or if one of the parties was foolish enough not to agree to a settlement. One such rather serious incident involved a group of brothers, who argued about the distribution of bride price and started to brawl with fists and sticks. The tultul together with Constable Raka, who was stationed in Amaira at the time, arrested all of the participants and led them down to Kainantu, where they were sentenced to six months of hard labour, having to construct roads and bridges. Luluai Poge in retrospect was seen as a person who stood up for his own villagers, accompanying them to their court cases, and speaking out for them. Most cases were settled in the village, however, as people preferred The Song of Motame and Kifingku 181 this arrangement and the sentences meted out by the luluai and tultuls, and Luluai Poge did not want to be seen as somebody who could not settle these conflicts himself. It was also a standard practice that the kiap on patrol would refer cases to Kainantu or Okapa for a hearing, noting down the names and sending them to the patrol post on their own or accompanied by police. Kiap justice was thought to be effective, and sentences generally held to be fair. Asked about what incidents usually led to imprisonment, my informants replied most often thefts of pigs, adultery or rape, or also census evasion. Sentences were in the range of two to five months for theft or census evasion, up to six months for rape. Most people I interviewed, however, only went to prison once (most of them because of a brawl with Kofuta in the late 1960s, when most adult men were imprisoned, see below), and some of them not at all. It was rather rare that someone had to go to prison twice, which is quite a difference from the accounts received in Purosa, where some men racked up a significant number of prison sentences. It does not mean that conflicts no longer escalated to violence with pacification and the introduction of luluai courts and kiap justice, however. Conflicts about incidents like adultery, theft of pigs, garden food and personal belongings, and also arguments about garden boundaries regularly lead to interpersonal violence between the direct participants, usually taking the form of one person attacking the other with fists or a stick. But these incidents no longer led to organized collective violence in the form of war, as local village officials (with the threat of the kiap and police in the background) quickly stopped these violent incidents from escalating. This was not only the case within villages (where even in pre-colonial times most conflicts after initial violence could be settled peacefully) but also for conflicts between villages. There was only one major incident in Amaira in the early phases of colonial history. In March 1953, a message reached the patrol post in Kainantu that there had been fighting at Amaira. A planned extension patrol towards the Southern Tairora region was rerouted first to visit Amaira on the way towards Nompia and Obura. Patrol Officer Bill Brown spent one day investigating the fighting, which turned out to be “merely an intra-village affair”, arrested ten men and sent them back to Kainantu under the guard of two constables (Kainantu PR 1952/53/9). The origin of this intra-village conflict lay in a heated argument between two men from Ainompimpa, Taifa’a from Avianda clan and Aira’a from Sinkuranda clan, over the use of land for a garden. In the shouting match between the two over some distance, Aira’a shot an arrow that hit Taifa’a in the spine, killing him. Aira’a realized what had happened and ran away with his family and sought refuge among his kin in the village of Sinkura. This incident led to a limited arrow fight between the two lineages of the victim and the killer, in which both sides only attempted to shoot at the extremities. This intra-village violence was finally quelled by the luluai and tultul after two or three days. The kin of Taifa’a then sent a small force after Aira’a and killed him after he had settled in at Sinkura. Another short bout of arrow fighting between the two lineages followed, but again luluais and tultuls from both sides intervened, and settled the conflict, arranging compensation payments in pigs to be made by both parties. It must have been around that time that the patrol made its appearance and arrested those immediately involved in the conflict. This intra-village battle was said to be the most severe and troubling incident during colonial times. Tensions lingered for quite a while, and some men from the victim’s lineage decided to relocate to Tondona permanently.

182 Ending War

6.4 Stabilization of Pacification Once the presence of the police and the implementation of procedures for the peaceful settlement of conflicts through local leaders led to a cessation of war, other institutions and processes soon contributed to the rather quick stabilization of the peaceful situation in the Auyana area. These range from the transformation brought about by evangelists, the abandoning of men’s houses and initiation ceremonies to economic changes and the dividends of peace, which all ensured that war was no longer a viable option.

6.4.1 Arrival of the Mission Not long after the first two police constables, Pakau and Kamavo, had rudimentarily pacified the area, the first Lutheran evangelists entered the area a few months later. The Seventh Day Adventists followed soon after. Already in October of 1950, less than a year after the police first established a police post in Amaira, ADO Toogood already observed that the influence of the mission was being felt in Amaira (Kainantu PR 1950/51/3). The first Lutheran evangelists in the area, Posiwayo, Uriofa and Funke, were originally from the Finschhafen area. Two of them were preachers and one a teacher. Posiwayo remained at Amaira, while Uriofa later settled in Tondona and Funke at Anokafa. Two SDA evangelists, Soso and Israel, followed soon after. In contrast to the police, who were initially welcomed but who then turned out to rule with a heavy hand, the evangelists were always made most welcome, as they behaved correctly, and paid for the food they consumed with salt, matches and sometimes giri-giri shells. A Lutheran church was built near the big pine tree in Amaira, and an SDA church followed not much later at a different part of the hamlet. The Lutheran mission soon spread to other villages, establishing churches there. The white missionaries supervising these churches at times also came on patrol, Johannes Flierl Junior among them. In 1963, an American missionary, Vince Fricke, and his wife opened a Lutheran mission station in Ponampa. There was a bit of rivalry between the evangelists of the two denominations. The Lutherans as first-comers considered Amaira to be their turf. But the people of Amaira were apparently of the opinion that the more evangelists, the better, and split their attendance in both churches about equally. There was no clear allocation of clans to the two churches, and church membership at first often even differed between members of the same lineage. For the evangelists, it was mostly a slow process of gaining adherents and converting them one by one. They first established a foundation before the first conversions and baptisms took place in the second half of the 1950s. Both the Lutheran and the Seventh Day Adventist mission insisted that all polygamists had to divorce all but one of their wives, and this hindered conversion. It also led to social problems for the divorced wives, who then had to return to their natal lineages. The SDA church had the added disadvantage of having to convince people to give up smoking and eating pork, but they still retained about half of the church members. Both churches did recruit local helpers, and after giving them a rudimentary education, they eventually put the church into local hands. The evangelists also established the first schools, teaching Pidgin English and some rudimentary reading, writing and basic mathematics. Parents were eager that their children went and learnt at least some Pidgin so that they could make themselves understood and communicate with the police, the kiaps and the evangelists. Some informants told me that The Song of Motame and Kifingku 183 school was hard and that they were caned for not remembering their teachings. Some of the more gifted pupils were eventually sent on to the mission high schools in Raipinka and Omaura. The white missionaries supervised the evangelists and, on some occasions, also visited Amaira, especially for baptisms. The evangelists with their long-term presence and their teachings had a stabilizing influence on the area. They preached peace, forgiveness and repentance, encouraging people to give up violence and weapons for good, and instead focus their energies on more productive endeavours. They also helped in dispelling mistrust between the villages, by creating an encompassing identity as Christians. The evangelists took their congregation with them to other villages, even to their former enemy Avia, to witness and participate in important events taking place there, especially baptisms.

6.4.2 Abandoning Men’s Houses and Initiation Rituals The missions were instrumental in the abandoning of other aspects of traditional life, especially the initiation rituals. Men’s houses were given up soon after pacification. While some reliable informants reported that the police destroyed the men’s houses, others insisted that they still lived in men’s houses when they resided in Amaira up until 1954. It is possible that some kind of smaller men’s house was rebuilt after the first big houses were destroyed. It is certain that a men’s house was still constructed for unmarried men when people moved their settlements from Amaira down to Tuenampa and Waisampa in mid-1954. Nevertheless, this arrangement quickly disappeared not soon afterwards. The missions worked tirelessly against this custom, advocating that married men should sleep in smaller roundhouses together with their women and children. There was quite a bit of resistance against this imposition, as the men’s house was the central focus for transfer of knowledge across generations, as Fuka’ana Kuana explains: The evangelists told us to abandon the men’s houses and stay together with the women. But we said to them that we give all the stories in the men’s house. And it was only a while later that we abandoned it ourselves. We used to gather there, tell stories of our ancestors. I used to argue with all the people who wanted to give up this institution. Because all the teachings were transferred in the men’s house, about how to work gardens, how to serve guests, and all those. It was only with the next generation that the men’s house was given up. I still think that it was a good institution, since there were also a lot of stories about how to comport yourself with women, and how to achieve old age, what food to eat to reach this age. (Fuka’ana Kuana)

The mission also influenced the architectural style, as they introduced rectangular houses, which were adopted by some families as well. Some gender separation nevertheless was still built into these houses, as they were partitioned into a lower front section with a fireplace where the women would work and sleep, and a higher section in the back that was the domain of the men. The initiation ceremonies were also given up soon after the relocation of the village down to Tuenampa in 1954. There was only one more ceremony held in Tuenampa, and thus only men over the age of sixty still remember the initiations. Fera Nana said about this gradual shift: We all said to each other to continue, but I don’t know why they stopped it. At other places they still hold it, but here, they don’t do it anymore, even though we told them to keep on holding the

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ceremonies. The church came, and the men were converted and forgot about the customs and traditions and just went to church. (Fera Nana)

As can be seen from some interviews, the evangelists actively disparaged these and other ceremonies and were instrumental in their discontinuation. At times, they threatened that people would not go to heaven if they would hold onto these traditions. As young boys were also instructed how to fight during the initiation ceremonies, it is quite significant for the stabilization of pacification that these initiations were given up. Some of the last men to be initiated remembered how they still were taught how to move on the battlefields, how to evade arrows, and how to handle the big unwieldy shields.

6.4.3 Lure of the Little Big City One of the most significant dividends of peace that accrued to the people of Amaira was the possibility of unrestricted travel. Enmity on all sides generally made travel outside one’s territory difficult and dangerous. With pacification taking hold so quickly and decisively, people were now free to travel wherever they wanted, as Indu Sana noted: “We also didn’t see any other areas before, and after the police stopped the fighting, we could go to visit other villages and go unhindered throughout the Tairora and all the way to Kainantu.” Kainantu especially was a magnet for all people from the Auyana area, and most informants vividly remember and described their first visits to Kainantu. Soon after pacification, people were eager to obtain all the Western goods that up until then they only rarely had the chance to acquire in the trade from the Tairora area. Already in the early 1950s, villagers from Amaira regularly brought garden produce, especially introduced tubers and vegetables like cabbage, onions and potatoes, as well as firewood, to the main market in Kainantu to earn some money. With the money, they bought textiles, steel tools and smaller necessities, like salt, tobacco, paper and matches. The older men mainly sent younger men and women on the 25-kilometre trek to Kainantu, demonstrating the freedom of movement and the perceived lack of danger on the government roads. Already in January of 1953, ADO Harry West reported that large quantities of English potatoes were grown in the Auyana area, some of which regularly find their way to the Kainantu market (Kainantu 1952-53/8). The lure of these Western goods and the possibility to obtain them in nearby Kainantu in exchange for their agricultural products should not be underestimated in explaining the swiftness and sustainability of pacification in Amaira. This connection is best summed up in the following quote by Indu Sana, who drew a direct line between the two aspects in his answer on why wars no longer broke out after the police were recalled: The police came here and stopped the fighting, and then we visited Kainantu ourselves and saw all the new goods in the store, and bought those things and completely forgot about fighting. We were converted and didn’t fight anymore. We thought about all the things of the government and were no longer preoccupied with fighting. (Indu Sana)

6.4.4 Plantation Labour and Coffee The Highlands Labour Scheme also had a significant impact on the stabilization of pacification. The kiaps actively and early on recruited men from the Auyana villages for labour on coastal plantations. The earliest mention I could find in the patrol reports for men from Amaira The Song of Motame and Kifingku 185 recruited for coastal employment stems from September 1953, only four years after the first patrol passed through the area (Kainantu PR 1953/54/4). This fact again is an indication of how quickly pacification took hold among the Auyana. With such early onset of recruitment, it is then no wonder that almost all men I interviewed in Amaira spent at least one two-year term as plantation labourers, most of them on the same rubber plantation in Malibo in Central Province. Others were sent to Port Moresby as general labourers, cutting grass and cleaning up rubbish on the airstrip in Seven Mile. A massive wave of labourers for Malibo plantation left in 1962, among them many of my informants. Plantation labour became a rite of passage for young men. It was described as a time of excitement, leaving their valleys and flying in a plane for the first time. Work on the plantation was hard, getting up very early before dark, tapping the rubber trees and carrying the buckets with sap to the factory. A few of the Amaira men were promoted to supervisors, and one even went for a second term. On the plantation, the men for the first time came into contact with people from other provinces, and most of them only learnt Pidgin there. The labourers were fed and housed on the plantation, and they received their weekly rations of one tin of meat, one stick of tobacco, paper, matches and one bar of soap. Part of the salary was paid out monthly, part of it held back and given as a lump sum at the end of the contract. The pay was meagre in retrospect, but at the time the lump sum paid out at the end of the contract was enough to buy a bundle of all the coveted goods: soap, matches, laplaps, shirts, a lamp, bush knife, tomahawks and a spade. As most men who went to the plantation were married, this had a significant impact on work distribution in the households (cf. Boyd 1975, 1981; Hayano 1979). The construction of the road over the Kassam Pass down to the Markham Valley also attracted some young men from Amaira. They signed contracts as labourers and were paid a decent wage. Another way to generate some income was to get hired as a carrier for the patrols of the kiap. Some of my informants went on patrols to the Southern Tairora and further south into Anga territory in the 1950s. On these patrols, the men from Amaira quickly realized that their history of pacification was entirely different from these groups, as fighting was at times still going on there. They quickly developed a superiority complex and regarded these groups as bush kanakas, backward savages. Already in the mid-1950s, a different labour market developed closer to home, as expatriate planters started to convert large tracts of grassland into coffee plantations in the Northern Tairora area. One planter encountered Luluai Poge in Kainantu and struck a deal with him that people from Amaira would come and help him establish a plantation at Noreikori. A large number of people from Amaira were hired to cut the grass, dig ditches, and plant the coffee trees. After the trees bore fruit, Amaira people returned annually for the harvest and weeding. Patrol Officer J. A. Wiltshire noted in September 1958 that 54% of the male labour potential was absent when he came to conduct the census, most of them working on the Noreikori coffee plantation and returning every weekend (Kainantu PR 1958/59/4). The people of Amaira soon realized, however, that they could generate more money by planting their own coffee trees. Coffee was introduced and first planted in 1954, earlier than in all the other three case studies. One of the kiaps told the villagers about coffee and the possibility to make money from planting these trees. Some of the villagers then on their own undertook the short trek to Aiyura to the agricultural research station and procured some coffee seedlings from the agricultural extension officer there. They initially planted these trees in Amaira, only to dig

186 Ending War them out a few weeks later, when they decided to move the village down towards Tuenampa in the middle of 1954. The whole Auyana area quickly seized the opportunity, and patrol reports from this time often comment on the enthusiasm of the Auyana in planting coffee: The coffee in the AUIANA area is growing well. That at ARORA and INDONA now has small berries on it. These people appear very enthusiastic over their coffee. A man from a TAIORA village who previously worked at AIYURA H.A.E.S. [Highlands Agricultural Experiment Station] is now living at AUIANA and is assisting the people of the villages. (Kainantu PR 1955/56/3)

The planting of coffee and profits from its sale really took off in the second half of the 1960s, after a vehicular road was built throughout the Auyana area from Norei’eranda to Okapa between 1962 and 1963, which made it possible for coffee buyers to visit the area. When asking Indu Sana about his employment history, this shift from looking for employment to harvesting and selling coffee became most evident: “I was only employed on the Kassam pass road, and then helped to plant coffee at the Noreikori and Kaurona plantation. After we got our own coffee, we didn’t go elsewhere again.”

6.4.5 Marriage Relations Another factor that stabilized relations and eased tensions between the formerly antagonistic local groups were marriages that took place between Amaira and Avia. The people of Amaira and Avia had traditionally intermarried before warfare broke out between them in the late 1930s. Even during the fighting some women from Avia eloped (as they were not happy with marriages arranged for them), fled to Amaira and got married to Amaira men. These women usually knew who they wanted to marry, shouting from afar that they came to marry the sons of such-and-such and that they should not be killed. In Afayto Nana’s lineage alone, three Avia women intermarried in this way, and since there was no exchange of bridewealth for these women, they were readily accepted. After the war ended, there were again many more intermarriages, and normal affinal relations (including bride price payments) ensued. As there were still suspicions between Avia and Amaira, and as sorcery continued to be blamed for some deaths, sometimes relatives of a woman might object to her marrying a man from a former enemy village, however. Curiously enough, intermarriage with the adjacent Tairora village of Norei’eranda (another precolonial enemy group) is a more recent phenomenon. But as there were practically no precolonial marriage relations (only two Amaira women marrying Norei’eranda men and no women the other way), and as it is a different language group, the lack of intermarriage immediately after pacification is less surprising. Suspicions between Amaira and Norei’eranda thus took much longer to dissipate, and sorcery fears between the two led to the relocation of the Amaira settlement in 1954, as will be explained below.

6.5 Continuing Tensions Despite these stabilizing influences, there were also continuing tensions that threatened to undermine the peaceful situation in the Amaira area. As peace should be understood as a process and not as a permanent state, it is not surprising that there were often challenges to the idea of an end of warfare and lasting peace. These challenges came in different forms, from cargo cults The Song of Motame and Kifingku 187 that were branded as anti-administration, to the continued importance of sorcery, to conflicts that escalated to interpersonal violence during football matches and sing-sings. None of these tensions succeeded in reversing the peace in the Auyana area, however, at least not until independence.

6.5.1 Cargo Cults In contrast to the Fore, where cargo cults shaped the local perception of the encapsulating state in a positive way, the influence of cults in Amaira was more ambivalent. In contrast to the Fore, where such cults proliferated before contact, cults among the Auyana were predominantly a post-contact phenomenon. They could more precisely be characterized as an attempt at adaption or even resistance to the imposed dichotomies of power between the state and local communities. When focusing on cults among the Auyana, one cannot fail but mention the name of one man from Asempa village, Wanamera, who throughout his life was at the centre of most cult activity among the Auyana. Wanamera was a young tultul when he first developed his own peculiar brand of cultist ideas, which he later refined into a whole philosophy, a fascinating attempt to combine local myths with Christian lore and other influences from the West. He first started his activities in 1955 and gained a large following throughout the Auyana area, so that the SDA mission urged the colonial authorities to intervene. A patrol under Patrol Officer John Coleman with the purpose to investigate this reported cult activity was sent out in March 1956 and arrested Wanamera and several of his closest associates (Kainantu PR 1955/56/8). Coleman found out that Wanamera had apparently been in contact with a man associated with the Yali cult in Madang, and had then decided to propagate these teachings in his home area. The cult by Wanamera promised good things to come if they would follow his advice. Together with his followers, he built a new hamlet with new sturdy houses, and decorative flower gardens surrounding them. In each house, people would set up something akin to a small altar, on which they put bottles with flowers in them and peculiarly formed stones (mostly archaeological artefacts of ancient mortars and club heads): In his own house he put two bottles with water and flowers on a small table and in the centre of these two bottles he placed a stone. Each day a plate of cooked sweet potatoes together with a spoon was placed beside the bottles and the stone.. 'A man' was supposed to visit the house during the night, eat the food and leave money in return. When all this was first started pigs were eaten and large quantities of food consumed. (Kainantu PR 1955/56/8)

This decoration of houses with flower bottles became the defining aspect of his cult activities, which quickly spread to other villages, Amaira among them. Wanamera was dismissed as tultul, but kept up his cult activities for the rest of his life, soon incorporating carved statues of men and women into his ceremonies. These statues he carved from images seen in dreams, and they represent powerful ancestral beings. Indu Sana, one of his close associates in Amaira, while explaining what Wanamera did, gave a clue as to the impact of his message, and the promise associated with following his activities: Wanamera used to decorate bottles [with flowers] and then told us that he saw and talked with another man. He all told us to stop fighting and give up sorcery, and then he decorated this bottle

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and told us that we would see another man. […] Wanamera promised us if we put this bottle in our houses and kept changing the flowers, we would see all the dead men, all the whites and blacks. He promised us this, and I put this bottle up myself so that I would see these men in the bottle. (Indu Sana)

I had the fortune to be able to talk with Wanamera in 2004 and late 2005 (he died during my stay in Amaira in spring 2006) and interviewed him about his activities. What became clear was that Wanamera attempted to align biblical texts and ancestral myths, thus trying to bridge the gap separating them, and putting them on an equal footing. Striking parallels between biblical stories and ancestral myths were also found elsewhere in the New Guinea Highlands, and used by local evangelists in converting people to Christianity, so among the Huli in the Southern Highlands (Frankel 2005:23-33). Even though his teachings also focused on giving up warfare and sorcery, he was continuously brandished by the colonial administration as a troublemaker and arrested numerous times. The attitude towards Wanamera is clearly evident in the following excerpt from the patrol report by Cadet Patrol Officer Warren Bartlett, who was again alerted that Wanamera was gathering a larger following in 1966, and investigated his cult activities that this times focused on the bones of his mother that he unearthed, placed in a coffin and venerated each Saturday: It is to be noted that WANAMERA / SOSE has been the leader of cults in this district for a number of years. He has been imprisoned at OKAPA three times for periods of six months for operating cults. He is spoken of in the area as ‘King’ and many people take his advice which, so I am told by the PONAMPA missionary, is anti- Administration. I feel sure that if any further information comes to hand, or if a cult does begin to develop, that the A.D.C. at OKAPA shall continue to investigate. (Okapa PR 1965/66/5B)

The numerous arrests of Wanamera actually backfired, as this convinced his followers even more that there must be some truth in his statements; otherwise, the administration would not be so concerned about his activities. Wanamera was elected as the first Local Level Government Councillor in March 1967 and continued to be influential in shaping the interaction between the local population and the administration.

6.5.2 Sorcery Most informants stated that while the police quickly and efficiently stopped warfare, they were powerless against sorcery, as this was a much more secretive affair. Sorcery thus continued to take its toll. With colonial pacification and the ending of open warfare, most other ethnic groups in the Eastern Highlands had similarly experienced an intensification of sorcery (Johannes 1976:149; Levine 1977:49; Mayer 1987:44; Watson 1983:295; Zuckerman 1984:106, 181). Sorcery attacks were now considered to be the only feasible avenue for intergroup hostility and retaliation. There are, however, regional or even local differences in the trajectory of the increase in sorcery and sorcery accusations. While Hayano (1973:187) reported for the Awa village of Tauna that deaths from sorcery did not increase after pacification, Boyd (1996:47) noted for the neighbouring village of Ilakiah a few years later that sorcery attacks had risen significantly. In the Agarabi and Northern Tairora areas, sorcery cases at first even decreased after pacification, before sharply increasing again in the 1960s, and quickly surpassing pre- The Song of Motame and Kifingku 189 colonial levels, coinciding with growing conflicts about land (Westermark 1981:93-95). Among the people of Amaira, sorcery fears greatly increased, leading to the relocation of the village itself. In early 1954, a large number of older people and also younger women died of dysentery and other illnesses. The villagers of Amaira petitioned the kiap that they would like to move away from their current settlement sites at Amaira and Ainompimpa, citing as reasons that their village was at a rather high altitude, exposed to the winds and relatively cold (which I can attest from personal experience). Unknown to the kiap at the time, the people also had a different reason for the move, as they blamed the deaths on sorcery conducted by their former Tairora enemies. A new village site was thus selected at Tuenampa, in the main Auyana Valley, away from Norei’eranda and closer to the local group of Avia. Their former enemies of Avia even helped them in constructing their new houses. In the words of Fuka’ana Kuana: When the police stopped the war, they only stopped open fighting. Sorcery went on, and a lot of people from Amaira died up in Amaira, and then the Avia told them to come down to Tuenampa. They told us: “We are one, we were once together and only split by the recent wars, and as a lot of you have died from Norei’eranda sorcery, you better move down towards us. The Norei’eranda are another language, so they will continue to kill you.” And the Avia helped us clear the area and helped us with food. (Fuku’ana Kuana)

The hamlets of Amaira and Ainompimpa were abandoned, and about half of the Amaira people moved to this new site at Tuenampa in mid-1954. The other half moved even further west down the valley and resettled at the ancient village site of Waisampa. Both Tuenampa and Waisampa currently still are hamlets of the Amaira census ward, as are Amaira, Ainompimpa and Afatarampa, which were resettled more than twenty years later after independence. This episode clearly shows that Norei’eranda was not trusted. At the same time, however, it also indicates that the enmity between Avia and Amaira had already cooled off considerably, and this only five years after pacification. The relative freedom of travel on government roads after pacification brought with it an even more increased concern about sorcerers, as they were rumoured to travel long distances and offer their services to anybody with a grudge (Lindenbaum 1981:120; Zuckerman 1984:183- 184). Increased inter-ethnic contact also contributed to the diffusion and proliferation of sorcery techniques. There were soon new forms of sorcery rumoured to be spreading throughout the Eastern Highlands, new forms that were much more powerful than the old types, and for which there were no known countermeasures. The Auyana experienced the arrival of two new forms of sorcery. One kind of sorcery called Sa’a was introduced from the Tairora area. Sa’a sorcerers no longer need any sorcery implements, for they work through the utterance of spells alone. The other form of sorcery or poison, called wanwe (Tok Pisin for one-way), was introduced through the Fore area and is accordingly so powerful that it instantly kills if a clueless victim ingests it. The Auyana were not alone in their increased fear of sorcery after pacification. The Fore, for example, expanded their knowledge about different types of sorcery from six to sixteen within a decade after pacification (Lindenbaum 1979:74). Some forms of sorcery that were already known were modified using modern objects or substances. One of the most dreaded forms of attack sorcery, called tokabu among the Fore and tira’a among the Auyana, spread to the neighbouring groups of the Kamano, Agarabi and

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Tairora (Lindenbaum 1981; Watson 1983:295-298; Westermark 1981:94). Tokabu sorcerers would make themselves invisible by using magical leaves, knock a victim unconscious and slip little bamboo or wood slivers into the intestines, the joints or the heart. They then wake the victim, who would stumble home disoriented and die several days later (Bamler 1963:131-132; Lindenbaum 1981:120-121). Nowadays, the tokabu sorcerers are held to no longer use wooden but iron needles that they first dip in battery acid or pesticides before inserting them into the body of the victim (Westermark 1981:94; cf. Johnson 1980:28 for the substitution of traditional sorcery/poison materials with battery acid and DDT). The influx of new forms of sorcery continues to this day. Lindenbaum (2013:191), for example, reports of a new type of sorcery transmitted by handshake called tauwa, which had arrived by 2007 in the Fore region from the neighbouring Gimi. With sorcery on the rise, people also attempted to find ways to combat the proliferation of sorcery and to restrict the movement of sorcerers. When the Auyana villages were incorporated into the Okapa Local Level Government Council in March 1967, the first councillor for Amaira, Autu’a Amasey, founded an anti-sorcery movement and was credited with ruthlessly purging the area of sorcery. He went to the houses of suspected sorcerers, demanded entrance and confiscated all sorcery equipment that he could find. Informants stated that sorcery was almost completely eradicated at the time, but the movement lost its momentum. When Autu’a lost his position in the next election, his successor from Avia no longer concerned himself with eradicating sorcery. Sorcery thus made a comeback in the late 1970s and 1980s and was considered to be the sole reason that inter-village wars broke out again in 1982 between the people of Amaira and their former enemies of Avia (cf. Schwoerer 2017). Within the last thirty to forty years, not only the number of sorcery cases and sorcery techniques had increased in the Eastern Highlands, but also the direction from which sorcery was deemed to emanate. Traditionally, it was clear that only enemy local groups were responsible for inexplicable deaths. Sorcery within a hamlet, within a local group or even between traditional alliances, was unheard of. But as observed by Westermarck (1981, 1984) in the 1970s among the Agarabi, this rule no longer held, and people started suspecting jealous co-villagers of attacking them through the means of sorcery. Westermarck demonstrates that this was due to increasing competition inside regional and local groups brought about by socio-economic changes and the involvement of the groups in coffee and cattle projects all needing large tracts of land. As Lindenbaum (1981:119-120) similarly points out, the ‘zones of safety’ contracted over time and there is a palpable change from exo- to endo-sorcery, with sorcery now originating from within social groups. She likewise explains this increase of sorcery within communities by the incompatibilities in values that come to the fore when kin-based communities increasingly interact with larger spheres of trade and wage labour. I have observed similar developments in the Auyana and Fore areas but would like to point out that this shift is also due to the rapid growth of local groups. A lot of larger local groups are no longer the face-to-face communities that they once were a generation ago, and for almost all practical purposes ceased functioning as coherent local groups. They are to some extent still integrated through a community-wide political administration, which has not evolved in step with the population growth, but this administration is finding it increasingly difficult to overcome differences and conflicts between segments of these large local groups. The Amaira community is a case in point: while Amaira The Song of Motame and Kifingku 191 in 1953 consisted of 245 inhabitants living in two fortified hamlets situated on adjoining spurs, by the year 2000, its population has tripled to 745 people living in four separated settlement clusters, each consisting of several hamlets. With the increasing competition over land for coffee gardens and tensions between kin regarding exchange and distribution of customary death and marriage payments, sorcery accusations were rife between the two most distant settlement clusters during the time of my fieldwork, and they erupted into armed conflict at the end of 2006.

6.5.3 Continued Suspicions and Violence The generation most active in the pre-colonial fighting had always remained slightly wary about their former enemies. Even with pacification complete and the police and kiaps in control of the situation, the older men of Amaira still referred to Avia and particularly Norei’eranda as enemies. Suspicions ran deep, and people took precautions around their former enemies. Afayto Nana, for example, reported that when he was sent to the mission school in Raipinka together with three other boys when he was about 14 years old, they left again after three months in a hurry fearing for their lives. A Tairora man had insistently asked them questions about where exactly they were from. The boys were afraid that he might find out that they were from Amaira, and as the Amaira warriors had once burnt a Tairora man in the pre-colonial warfare, they feared that they might become targets for retaliation. This fear was not unfounded. There were several deaths from Amaira that were reputed to be the work of secret killers. One of the sons of Fera Nana, for example, was found dead in a creek under suspicious circumstances, his body all smashed up. While he might have drowned and then tossed against rocks by the current, his father Fera steadfastly believed that he was killed in secret, as the injuries resembled too closely the work of tira’a sorcerers. He never found out who could have done it. Another of my informants related the story of how he was actually involved in the murder of a man from Avia. Two Amaira women had enticed this man to visit them in Amaira, at which point he was killed. His relatives then accused several Amaira men of being behind this killing, my informant among them. The luluais and tultuls of both villages tried to investigate and settle the case before it would escalate into a war. They were unable to come to a settlement, however, and sent the accused men to Okapa for a trial in front of the kiap. As nobody admitted any guilt, and as there was no conclusive evidence as to their participation in this conspiracy, they were all acquitted.

6.5.4 Football Football also led to some incidents of collective violence on a more moderate level. The kiaps introduced football as a means to keep people occupied and maybe even to allow them to vent tensions between villages in a controlled environment (more on this in Chapter 8.3). The people in the Eastern Highlands quickly adopted football as a means to settle conflicts. Among the Auyana, football matches gained in popularity from the mid-1950s onwards but were again abandoned by the end of the 1960s. As the football played was a rather physical contact sport, brawls between players invariably developed. In one such incident when playing against Avia, the Amaira football players were ambushed with sticks and stones on their way home, and some Amaira men were severely wounded. The Amaira did not retaliate, however, as Luluai Poge

192 Ending War had expressively forbidden the playing of football and said it was the fault of the participants themselves in getting embroiled in violence.

6.5.5 Sing-sings Sing-sings were usually joyful occasions for inter-village visits, involving feasting and dancing throughout the night. Such ceremonial feasts were often used in pre-colonial times to cement alliances and to reward allies for their services after a war. After pacification, these ceremonies continued, and at the same time became more and more competitive (Lindenbaum 1979:154). All the people of one local group organized these sing-sings together and then invited friendly neighbouring villages, gathered food for the guests, and erected a round, shelter-like structure around a central dancing ground. Men and women from the invited villages then dressed up in feathers, tanket leaves and flowers, and danced throughout the night together with the host community, attempting to outdo each other through the lavishness of body decorations and the vitality and endurance of their singing and dancing. The hosts made sure to serve large portions of food and meat, in the form of pork, hunted game or store-bought tinned fish and meat, in order to gain prestige and to shame the guests if they were not able to reciprocate in at least equal measure when it was their turn to host a sing-sing. These sing-sings thus became outlets for inter-village rivalry, which was now no longer carried on with military but economic means (c.f. Berndt 1953:134; Hayano 1990:85). Kiaps usually not only tolerated these festivals but also actively supported them, in contrast to missionaries, who often perceived them to be licentious and sinful. Kiaps argued that competitive feasting was a useful outlet for aggressive tendencies of the men, offering a peaceful environment in which they could vent their energy. These festivals also were a welcome change to the daily routine, and kiaps often arranged sing-sings or sportive competitions in the form of archery, racing, tug-of-war, or climbing a greased pole at their outstations for important holidays like Christmas or the Queen’s Birthday (Hayano 1990:119; Sinclair 1981:64f.). With the increase of monetization, these sing-sings changed and gained a commercial note, without losing the competitive element. Commercial sing-sings differed from the earlier varieties that a gate fee was charged and that food and drinks were now sold to the attending guests. These commercial sing-sings were first introduced around Kainantu in the early 1970s. They were probably influenced by purely commercial parties in the coastal provinces, with which the Eastern Highlander got into contact as contract labourers. In the 1980s these sing- sings became the most important social events in the Eastern Highlands. Almost every village hosted sing-sings, which took place in an enclosed area with food and drink stalls. The gate fee and the sale of drink and food generated a not unsubstantial profit, which was then shared among the hosting village. The competitive element remained, however, as local groups still vied to organize the most substantial and best-decorated sing-sing. The activities even stayed the same in that the guests always attempted to outdo each other, now not only in their body decorations and the singing and dancing but also in the largesse with which they bought food and drinks (Boyd 1985a:328-336). As sing-sings were also major marriage markets for young men and women, they had the potential to create new inter-village ties. At the same time, they also had the potential for The Song of Motame and Kifingku 193 violence, as conflicts between men over women were likely to break out. I collected several stories of brawls between men or groups of men during such sing-sings. One such incident merits special mention, as it was the only major bout of inter-village violence in Amaira after pacification. As it happened relatively late in the colonial history (it was impossible to establish a precise date, but it must have been between 1970 and independence in 1975), this shows that collective violence was not automatically precluded by pacification. The swift reaction and retaliation by the administration made it clear, however, that the government’s monopoly of violence was unassailable. The incident was taking place in Norei’eranda when this village hosted a big sing-sing inviting several neighbouring communities. During the night, a Kofuta man accosted an Amaira woman and wanted to start an affair with her. She reported this to her brothers, and they waited until dawn, before angrily attacking the Kofuta man in question. A squabble broke out between them and escalated first into a fistfight involving a large number of Amaira and Kofuta men. When one side was beaten back, they first used sticks and stones, and later even bows and arrows, as the men had carried weapons to the sing-sing as part of their decorations. Several men were wounded by arrows, but nobody gravely. The police were quickly called, and they arrived with a large contingent and several trucks. All the men of Amaira and Kofuta were arrested, loaded onto the trucks and carted to Kainantu. There they had to line up and wait in the blazing sun. The kiap then proceeded to ask each individual whether they participated in the brawl. Almost all Amaira men admitted of participating, even though not all of them did, in fact, participate, having agreed beforehand on this strategy. They assumed that if all of them admitted guilt, it would be impossible for the kiap to incarcerate all of them. But their gamble did not pay off, and all men from Amaira and Kofuta that admitted guilt were sent to prison for five to six months. Sanda A’andu remembered how they had to walk to Obura to cut bamboo and carry it back to Bundaira to construct their new prison cells. Only three men of those arrested were acquitted, as they decided that it would be better to lie about their participation than to tell the truth. For most men I interviewed, this was their only experience of prison, which is considerably different from Purosa, where several people had multiple terms of incarceration.

6.6 The Persistence of Peace and the Contemporary Situation Despite tensions and a few violent escalations, the people of Amaira and other Auyana villages agreed that they had given up warfare for good during the colonial time. There was a perceptible shift in attitudes regarding war over time, with the younger generation in the forefront in accepting the peace and the new avenues for establishing fame and renown. As Iwewe Tusafe, former tultul of Asempa village explained: When the white man came, and we compared the ideas that the white man brought with the thinking of our fathers, and we realized that our father’s ideas were not that good. We would slowly adopt the new ideas and stayed peaceful, holding on to them village by village, and I would stand up and talk forcefully about those ideas, and all families would agree and stop fighting. (Iwewe Tusafe)

Children were no longer taught how to fight, how to handle shields and turn their side towards the enemy when they heard the twang of a bowstring. When warfare erupted again in 1982, the younger generation thus first had to be indoctrinated and taught how to fight. This first war in

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Amaira after more than thirty years of peace occurred in 1982 because one Amaira man living in the neighbouring village of Avia was severely beaten up by his co-villagers, who suspected him of conducting sorcery against them. The nature of his injuries, especially the broken Adam’s apple, led the Amaira people to believe that the Avia were the real sorcerers. Breaking the Adam’s apple is a standard repertoire of tira’a sorcerers, in order to mute the victims, so that they can’t call for help. Then, the sorcerers knock the victim unconscious and insert slivers of bamboo into the joints and innards. This war between Amaira and Avia went on unchecked for more than a year. Police were either unable or unwilling to intervene, due to the number of other fights going on at the same time and the deteriorating road conditions. Both sides received ample support from allies, and the fighting led to at least eight confirmed deaths before it could be quelled by mediation from important men and politicians of the surrounding villages. Three to four years later, the men of Amaira were again involved in a war, this time as allies of the Tondona against the Nompia, and another year later another long and drawn-out war took place between the Amaira and Avia. The 1980s thus were a time of conflict and war. Since 1992, however, the people of Amaira were no longer involved in any armed conflicts. Asked about whether fighting could still be a possibility in 2006, most people disagreed, citing the spread of church attendance, school attendance and the construction of permanent houses as a clear deterrent to further fighting, as nobody wants to lose the investment they made in permanent dwellings. As Afayto Nana explained: But I don’t think there will be another fight, because there are a lot of permanent houses, and a lot of people go to church, so I think the chances about a new fight are smaller. Now, a lot of children also are sent to school, so I don’t think the fight would be worse than at my time, because they all think about their permanent houses. And a lot of people go to church. (Afayto Nana)

People also pointed to the deterrence effect of the prevalence of homemade shotguns, which would make fighting much more devastating than before. Listening to these accounts, it seemed as everyone was fearful of the mutually assured destruction that was certain to follow if war broke out again. As Afayto Nana responded to what would happen if another war erupted: “That would be devastating. They will all finish everybody off. With an arrow, you always have a chance of survival, but with a gun…” It thus came as a bad surprise for most of the older people that I interviewed that another short- lived armed conflict erupted in January 2007, long after I had left the field site of Amaira, this time between two hamlets of Amaira, Afatarampa and Waisampa. This outbreak of violence was preceded by a dispute about sorcery, in which the local councillor and komitis initially tried to get both sides together to discuss the accusations. When the accused party failed to show up twice, forcing the councillor to postpone deliberations, the accusers from the hamlet of Afatarampa mobilized some allies and at night sneaked towards the hamlet of Waisampa with homemade guns for an early morning raid. Some people from the neutral hamlets of Tuenampa saw the war party and quickly informed the councillor. At considerable personal risk, the councillor raced to the targeted hamlet of Waisampa. He was able to warn the inhabitants, who then quickly started to flee with their women and children to a neighbouring village, while some of the adult men held off the attackers in a rear-guard action. When the first shots were fired, the councillor attempted to get in between the lines and hold both sides off but realized that it The Song of Motame and Kifingku 195 was too dangerous. Nevertheless, his actions ensured that neither side suffered any casualties so that hostilities were stopped again quickly. The councillor and the komitis from the other hamlets in the ward subsequently successfully negotiated a settlement between the two parties. The original demand of Afatarampa was 14’000 Kina, two pigs and two girls from Waisampa to be married to Afatarampa men as a compensation payment for the sorcery deaths. In the end, this was reduced to 5’000 Kina and two girls to be married off. Waisampa paid the first instalment of 1’227 Kina as bel-kol money (appeasement payment), with the promise to pay the rest and marry the girls off after the next coffee season. That compensation demands included girls of marriageable age to marry into the other group is a phenomenon not (yet) observed elsewhere in the area. It seems to be part revitalisation of traditional peace procedures, which included intermarriage, and part insurance against further sorcery, as it is assumed sorcerers would not attack a family their daughters or nieces married into.

6.7 Conclusion Amaira Case Study Pacification took hold quickly in the Amaira case, and this can best be explained by the specific trajectory of pacification set in motion by the initiative of the people of Amaira to ask for a policeman to be stationed in their midst. This agency was predicated on the particular situation of Amaira at the time of first contact with the post-war patrols in 1949. Amaira was a refugee community that had been routed and settled in a new territory to regain their former strength. By the late 1940s, however, they found themselves in a strategically even more difficult location between two enemy local groups, the Avia and the Norei’eranda, which coordinated their attacks against Amaira. The war against the Avia, due to geography and the lack of open grassland, was mostly conducted by ambush, which led to a high number of casualties. The people of Amaira, in fact, have experienced the highest number of war casualties of all the case studies, and there were clear indications that the population had become war-weary. At the same time, rumours about the police operations in the Northern Tairora grassland and trade expeditions into already controlled areas have instilled in the people of Amaira a healthy respect for what were perceived to be extraordinary killers and warriors, but also guarantors of peace. The victory song about Motame and Kifingku, the policeman and the evangelist, on top of Mount Kafiyamompa, is in that sense a perfect symbol for the reputation and influence that these powerful agents had in the minds of the people of Amaira. In contrast to Purosa, where the expectation of tangible rewards in the form of goods was a major reason for pacification, it was the reward in the form of protection from their enemies that compelled the influential men of Amaira to cooperate with and even attract government influence. That police were then so efficient in quelling any further armed conflict had much to do with the fact that they were permanently stationed in several villages in the area between 1949 and the end of 1952, and could thus react quickly to any disturbance of the peace. They institutionalized a harsh and repressive regime, in which corporal punishment, extortion of pigs and the rape of women were the norm for misbehaviour. They also actively propagated peace by dismantling the fighting stockades, symbolically burning weapons and bringing villages leaders together to shake hands and renounce further violence. They also channelled the energies of the men into an almost continuous and ardently pursued road-building program.

196 Ending War

After the police were withdrawn from their police posts, it was the strong and at times almost despotic leadership of the luluai and tultuls, which had profited from their close association with the police, that ensured that conflicts would no longer escalate to serious violence. They used court-style hearings modelled after the summary police courts to administer sentences of either corporal punishment of more frequently compensation payments to deal with any disturbance of the peace. The closeness of the government stations in Kainantu and Okapa, both less than a day’s walk away, and the support of the kiap, who jailed people brought in by luluai and tultul, allowed for effective handling of conflicts. With warfare initially stopped through the activities of the police, other processes took off that made a return to war even more unlikely. The people of Amaira became actively involved in the cash economy early on, through the sale of vegetables at the Kainantu market in the early 1950s, their work on nearby coffee plantations in the mid-1950s and the recruitment for plantation work at the coast through the Highlands Labour Scheme from 1953 onwards. These new economic activities and the lure of the little city and Western goods kept people’s thoughts away from warfare and focused on cash labour. At the same time, mission influence and the desire of the local population to become ‘modern’ led to the relatively quick abandoning of customary traditions associated with warfare, like the male initiation ceremonies and the strong gender separation expressed in the men’s house. Even the cargo cult led by Wanamera and the anti-sorcery movements under the leadership of the first Amaira councillor contributed to pacification by propagating the end of strife and sorcery, the former while trying to find in local mythical stories a key to independence and wealth.

7 Case Study Obura – The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death The pivotal moment that ensured pacification in the Obura area took place on the 8th of June, 1963, almost fifteen years after first contact, and consisted of the arrival of a large armed government patrol under the leadership of Patrol Officer Barry Holloway in Obura. This patrol had a dual purpose: it had to return the dead body of Luluai Tetendau to Obura, and it started to construct a new patrol post right in the middle of the Obura local groups, in order to finally bring this troublesome corner of the Eastern Highlands under control. Tetendau had been the eminent leader and luluai of Kuaranumbura, one of the Obura villages, and he was killed by a Chimbu man outside the courthouse in Kainantu while standing trial for the murder of three Chimbu traders who came to Obura looking for bird of paradise feathers. The men from the Obura area were prepared to attack this patrol and had taken up positions on a ridge overlooking the track the patrol would follow. In the end, it was the presence of PO Barry Holloway, who was well known and who had previously hosted Obura leaders in Kainantu, that prevented an escalation, as he was able to negotiate safe passage for the patrol and the dead body. It was then the continuous presence of armed policemen and a kiap on the newly built patrol post that facilitated the end of warfare and violent clashes around Obura. Asked why they stopped waging war, the men in Obura all said it was due to the influence of the kiaps and policemen, who told them to stop and threatened to punish them otherwise. People also noted that it was on top of the dead body of one of their most prominent leaders, Tetendau, that the station was built, and they were forced to build it with their own labour. Comparing the experiences of the people from Obura with those from Purosa and Amaira, the question arises then, why did pacification in Obura only start to take hold fifteen years after first contact? And what induced the Obura men to rise up against and threaten a government patrol with armed violence fifteen years after first contact?

7.1 A Short History of Precolonial Warfare I start this chapter with a slightly shorter presentation of the history of warfare that took place in the roughly twenty years before the arrival of the first post-war patrols in the area. As with Purosa, I am in the position to offer an overview of wars from a regional perspective, detailing the alliances and enmities that existed in the area as a whole. During the childhood and youth of my primary informants, there were four local groups in the Obura area: Kuaranumbura, towards the ridge of the mountain range to the east, then further below in the valley the two communities of Samura and Sonura, and Mussaori near the Lamari River. The local group of Saurona established itself by a violent split-off from the Kuaranumbura local group shortly before the first pre-war patrol arrived, around 1947 or 1948, and moved north, up the Lamari Valley. All these different local groups were said to have their origin in one local group that resided in the informant’s grandfather’s generation at a place called Obura, a site near current-day Kuaranumbura, and from where they have kept their common name. What led to the dispersal of this original group was a tragedy at a large initiation ceremony, in which a sizeable number of men perished in a fire that broke out in the men’s house in which the ceremony was held. Some young men from Ahea and the Waffa community of Kusing on the Markham Fall also perished in this fire, and they blamed Obura for the tragedy, 198 Ending War with the result that the Obura community split up and moved further down the mountain for safety. The Obura themselves blamed the Konkonbira/Pinata groups, who must have used a powerful type of sorcery called ira’e to generate this conflagration, and a series of wars with these groups followed.

Map 4: Current-day Obura communities and neighbouring local groups (relief from Google Maps) As in the other case studies, it was impossible to create a concrete timeline for wars that happened before the current informant’s generation was born. Upon enquiry about the enemies in the previous generation, it seemed that fighting was mainly with groups to the south, Anima, Himarata, Asara, To’okena and Habi’ina, or to the north with Suwaira. Some casualties also eventuated from conflicts with groups in the Baira region, across the Lamari River. Each local group within Obura had some special relations with one or two neighbouring groups, although alliances could change, and conflicts within these special relationships were nothing unheard of. While Kuaranumbura had strong ties with Asara and often helped them in their wars with Himarata, Samura had a long-standing friendship with Numbaira and Nompia across the Lamari. Mussaori and Motokara were usually allied, while Sonura had relations with groups to the northeast of Suwaira, at Andandara and Osarora. There was definitively a lower intensity of conflict between the Obura groups proper during the previous generations, which changed during the youth of my informants. Most of them stated that in their father’s time, there was mostly peace between the Obura local groups, and that only in their generation did conflicts between the Obura communities occur more regularly and cost more lives than conflicts with groups further away. That a timeline of wars even in the current informant’s generation is difficult to establish is also shown by the attempts of Mayer (1987:73) and Johnson (1980:23), who conducted fieldwork in Obura in 1975-1976, thirty years before I did fieldwork in the same community. They had at The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 199 their disposition informants who were the foremost fight leaders during the pre-colonial wars. They were interested in other aspects than traditional warfare, to be sure, but both wrote sections on warfare and drew up a list of these wars and the changing alignments between villages. While Johnson seems to indicate that his list was not composed chronologically by stating: “Fight reminiscences revealed the following wars and village alignments having taken place at some time in the remembered past,” (Johnson 1980:22, emphasis mine), Mayer (1987:73) cautiously lists wars in approximate chronological order from 1945 to 1965, noting that informants often disagreed amongst themselves. Mayer (1987:73) listed 14 wars, Johnson (1980:23) 11, and comparison is complicated by the fact that while Johnson lists the local names of the villages, Mayer uses the administrative names, which lumps the three local groups of Samura, Sonura and Mussaori into one administrative unit named Yonura. This approach is problematic, as parts of Samura and Sonura stood on opposite sides in some conflicts. Only four of the wars listed correspond with each other in the relevant details (No. 2, 5, 9 and 13 on Mayer’s list), indicating again that Johnson’s list is likely not chronological. Allowing for the fact that wars could coincide, and for the fact that what some informants regard as several different wars, other informants might consider as a single sequence of the same war, or the fact that not all allies might be mentioned in one or the other list, there are still significant discrepancies. Johnson mentions two wars that do not appear at all on Mayer’s list, possibly because they took place before 1945 (No. 6 and 9 on Johnson’s list). None of these lists mentions the war between Samura and Bibeori, in which four people were killed, and which I already knew about because I had previously collected the narrative of that particular war in Bibeori. Mayer’s list does not include any conflicts with Suwaira, which is peculiar, as my investigations and one patrol report both mention a war between Sonura and Suwaira around December 1952. As both Mayer and Johnson only list the alliances, but not the trigger for the warfare or the number of deaths, it is difficult to reconcile these two lists with my investigations. It is possible, even likely, that Mayer’s sequence is more elaborate than my own, as with one generation further removed, some events might be lumped into one single chain of events instead of presented as two different conflicts. And smaller conflicts of only a few weeks’ duration and in which nobody was killed or seriously hurt might have been completely forgotten when I asked questions about all the wars people were involved in or remembered.

7.1.1 The First War among the Obura Communities As wars continued to occur far longer after initial contact than in the Purosa and Amaira case studies, and are often interlaced and punctuated by government patrols and retaliation, I will elaborate on these wars in the coming chapters, and here concentrate on those conflicts that took place before the onset of pacification. The main sequence of wars that was one of the earliest ones I collected from my informants started around 1936 between the local groups of Sonura and Kuaranumbura. It went on for almost five years, with periods of little actual conflict in between. The Sonura were infuriated about several pigs that were stolen by Kuaranumbura men and confronted them about it. This confrontation escalated into an arrow-fight, and Naubiri from Kuaranumbura was killed on the spot. A war with mostly open field battles followed, in which the Kuaranumbura warriors were able to avenge the first death, before the Sonura succeeded in ambushing a group of Kuaranumbura men on the way to the battlefield, killing four of them. The war raged on for a considerable time, and the Kuaranumbura were able to even the tally only slowly by killing one Sonura after the other in open battles. As the fighting

200 Ending War was so fierce, some men left their settlements and sought safety in the territory of other groups. Some of the Kuaranumbura moved to Asara, while some of the Sonura shifted their residence more towards Mussaori. The Samura at the time were uncommitted and kept themselves out of the conflict, except for a few Samura men who were closely related to some Sonura, and joined them in attacking the Kuaranumbura. The rest of the Samura only became affected by the war when the Sonura killed Ati’ataro, a Kuaranumbura brother-in-law of Dati from Samura. Ati’ataro at the time resided in Asara with his family, and his wife went to Samura to receive some sweet potatoes from her brother Dati. Ati’ataro was expecting her return the same day and with his two sons waited near Orabannara Mountain. When she stayed the night, he sought shelter near a clump of bamboo at Hundora and lit a fire to keep him warm. Someone from Samura saw the rising smoke and informed his relatives in Sonura, who during the night set out to ambush Ati’ataro. They encircled him in the early morning and killed him on the spot, while the two boys were able to escape. Most of the Samura men had already left that morning for the forest to gather forest products. Dati and his son were working in their garden when they noticed the commotion near Hundora. Curious as to what had happened, they came closer and asked whom the Sonura had killed. When one of their fight leaders, Arawa’a, boasted to Dati that they had just killed his brother-in-law, Dati drew his bow and shot Arawa’a right between the eyes, killing him on the spot. In the words of Wafuri O’e, the grandson of Dati, this was an act of bravado and pure heroism: Dati then tightened his arrow and shot him right into the bridge of the nose, and Arawa’a was dead on the spot. The Sonura then attacked, and they fought with them, and they chased them down the hill towards Samura and finally mortally wounded Dati. Dati planted his bow in the ground, hung onto it and cursed the Sonura, telling them: All my older and younger brothers went to find leaves and bamboo for bowstrings in the forest of Motokara. I will not fall here. I will stand here, and only when my little brothers come, will they be able to lay me to rest, break my arrows, take my shield and bury me. He stood, and all Sonura shot one or two arrows into him, but he did not fall but continued to stand upright. As his son O’e was related to Ati and Na’ive from Samura, who together with their lineages were staying with the Sonura and supported them, they put their shields over him and thus protected him. (Wafuri O’e)

The Sonura then torched the Samura village, and the Samura upon return from the forest sought refuge with the Kuaranumbura people. The newly formed Samura-Kuaranumbura alliance was at first successful, killing one Sonura man in an ambush near a big clump of bamboo. As the Sonura continued to harass the Samura in Kuaranumbura, however, and succeeded in a raid to scale the palisade of one of the Kuaranumbura hamlets, shooting at the men and women inside, the coherence of the Samura group wavered, and it came to a split: some lineages of Matauta clan that had relatives in Sonura switched sides and joined the Sonura after the Asara allies of Kuaranumbura had threatened them. A large part of the Samura, consisting of the whole Kyaui clan and some lineages of Matauta clan crossed the Lamari River. They sought refuge at Numbaira, a few others at Atakara, while some lineages of Matauta stayed behind with the Kuaranumbura. In Numbaira, they built their own hamlet and started to establish new gardens and plant tubers and vegetables, far away from the still on-going war in Obura. The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 201

The war between the main adversaries of the Sonura and the Kuaranumbura continued in the meantime. The Sonura had the more significant fighting force, as their hamlets counted six men’s houses at the time, while the Kuaranumbura only had three men’s houses. Both sides gave up their more exposed village sites after they had become targets in raids, and moved further away. The Sonura established a new village at a place called Dapara near Mussaori. At the same time, most of the Kuaranumbura lineages sought refuge among their allies in Asara, while others moved as far as To’okena, Himarata or Anima, some even all the way to Habi’ina. The war at that time changed in character, as both sides were now living further away from each other, and open battles gave way to more infrequent attempts at ambushes. The Samura that fled to Numbaira were finally successful in staging an ambush against a Sonura family that was on their way to harvest some sweet potatoes left behind in their abandoned gardens near Sonura. The narration by Wafuri O’e is again interesting, as it shows the significance of revenge in Obura warfare: The Sonura were convinced that they had routed the Samura for good, and since the Kuaranumbura were also in the defensive, they were not too concerned about ambushes. A man and his wife together with his children and an older man came up the hill and walked right into the ambush. One strong warrior named Okay’ura, was still hidden and shot an arrow directly at the Sonura man and said: “Oh, Dati, my brother, you went and married to Sonura, and now you came up the hill. I have been waiting for you and finally found you now.” That was a revenge taunt. Then the Samura shot all the arrows into him so that you could no longer see the skin. His wife tried to run away, but they caught her and killed her too. The older man alone, as he was related to them, they hid him in the tall grass, lest the Asara allies would kill him. And the children also ran away and hid in the creek underneath some flotsam. The Samura then returned up the mountain in triumphant singing. (Wafuri O’e)

This success then emboldened the Samura who had fled to Numbaira to return to their old village site and rebuild their houses, approximately seven months after they had fled. Some other Samura who had joined the Sonura realized that the tides of war had turned, and re-joined them at their original village site. The Sonura were now more reluctant to attack the Samura, which reaffirmed their alliance with the Kuaranumbura. The Sonura were still able to kill one Kuaranumbura woman in an ambush, however, and a Kuaranumbura man who was in the process of uprooting stakes of a Sonura stockade in preparation for a raid, which also tempered the resolve of the Kuaranumbura. Hostilities started to peter out, and after a few years with only a few hostilities, a peace agreement was finally reached and a truncated peace ceremony held between all parties.

7.1.2 The Samura – Bibeori War Between the mid-1930s and mid-1950s, conflicts between neighbouring local groups took longer and cost more lives than other wars. That is not to say that there were no conflicts with places further away. The war between Samura and Bibeori that took place around 1943 or 1944 is an interesting example because it demonstrates some fundamental problems in waging and sustaining war over a certain distance. The conflict started when the brother of Atupaha Ngarai, Vati, died of suspected sorcery. The detection ritual pointed towards the village of Bibeori as the origin of sorcery, and some of Atupaha’s lineage prepared for revenge. They had to leave

202 Ending War around midnight to ford the Lamari River and ascend Atakara Mountain to be able to hide close to some Bibeori gardens in time before sunrise in order to ambush whoever came out towards these gardens. The ambush was a success, in that they surrounded and fired arrows at several women who had come in the early morning to their gardens. How many exactly were killed seemed unclear to the Samura men, as there were different accounts, from two boys and two girls to five women and two children. From collecting the same story in Bibeori, it was clear that three women and two children were killed in that particular ambush. The Samura then sent a message via Sobara, informing the Bibeori that this was done to revenge their earlier sorcery and that they would be ready for peace. The Bibeori were not prepared to agree to reconciliation with that many casualties not yet avenged, however. A large party of Bibeori warriors went to stay at Sobara, and in alliance with them fought several open field battles with the Samura near the Lamari River for some time, before returning to their village. The Samura received help from the Sonura in these battles, and together they also attacked the Sobara village, or sent more ambushing parties towards Bibeori, without much success. It was during one of these open battles near Sobara that Atupaha’s father, Ngarai, was hit by an arrow in the ankle, from which he later died after the wound became infected (this was blamed on tuhi, a type of poison sorcery applied to the arrow that struck him). A man from Sobara was also killed in these battles, steeling their resolve to support the Bibeori and continue to fight against the Samura-Sonura alliance. The Bibeori were successful in exacting revenge in the end when early one morning a Bibeori war party forded the Lamari River near Mussaori, further upriver than expected, and continued towards Saurona, where they surprised some Samura women in their gardens. One man left to guard them, Neivei, was busy kindling a fire nearby and did not see the Bibeori war party approaching. The Bibeori warriors surrounded the women and shot arrows at them, killing two women and a girl, and injuring two other women who survived. As the Bibeori attack party did not spot the lone male guard, however, he was able to sneak closer, and as the Bibeori turned around and left, he shot the leader of this troop, Nataro/Sukuo, in the back. The Bibeori then attacked Neivei in turn and wounded him while covering their retreat, taking their seriously injured leader back with them to Bibeori, where he died not much later from his wounds. The Bibeori were convinced that they had in effect killed all five women and the guard, which in their eyes meant that the tally was now even, as they had also incurred six deaths in all. The Samura themselves assumed they had killed six or seven women and children in the first ambush as well as Nataro, while only incurring four deaths, and were thus also ready to settle for peace. With the Bibeori having retreated to their village and no longer staying overnight at Sobara, open warfare seemed too bothersome anyway. The local groups of Bibeori and Samura were several hours apart, which made it challenging to sustain open battles over time. Both sides sent out peace overtures, and an exchange of one pig and one big kiau shell sealed the peace agreement between both parties. The impression gained from the account of pre-contact war stories was that there generally was a constant balance between opposing forces. There were movements of settlement sites away from each other when conflicts erupted, and the occasional routing or moving away to more distant allies by weaker forces, but again, no major victories, no complete defeats. Lines of enmity and alliance were relatively stable within a generation, with all groups having at least one constant and reliable ally they could turn to in times of need. Ever so often, usually after The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 203 one or two generations, these steadfast alliances could sour, however, resulting in a complete realignment of lines of enmity and alliance. Such a reconfiguration of alliances happened in Obura in the early 1950s, and it was one of the reasons why the region experienced a higher degree of turmoil precisely at the time when the patrols intent on pacifying and administering the area started arriving. But this will be further expanded in the chapters to come.

7.1.3 War Casualties Casualties from the pre-colonial wars were again collected using the same method already explained in the previous chapters. This investigation resulted in a total of 60 confirmed fatalities over a slightly shorter period of 20 years from 1934 until 1954 when the last Obura war casualty was recorded. Another four names collected through the genealogical census have not been counted, as other informants could not confirm them in interviews. As only close kin recalled these people dying in specific wars, it is likely they either died in wars before 1934 or then in conflicts in which they participated as allies for other groups, probably even whilst residing elsewhere. The starting date of 1934 for the sequence of wars is later than in the previous case studies due to the slightly younger age of the oldest informants, and due to the fact that the first major war between all Obura communities starting two years later seems to have overshadowed earlier, smaller conflicts with more distant groups. Information on wars before that date was too generic to be used for this study. Also not counted to establish pre- contact warfare mortality were the casualties from a punitive police raid shortly after World War II (see Chapter 7.2.3). The distribution pattern of casualties in the Obura area follows the same patterns as in the Fore region. The majority of casualties were due to conflicts with immediate neighbours, even though these neighbours at times would ally with each other against more distant enemies. Conflicts within the Obura communities themselves (Sonura, Samura, Kuaranumbura, Mussaori, later Saurona) cost a total of 41 lives, wars with more distant enemies 19. The assertion that no lives were lost in earlier conflicts between Obura communities in the preceding generations, as they had split peacefully and remained strong allies for over a generation, can no longer be established in retrospect. Still, genealogical information I collected did indeed point to the fact that casualties in previous generations might have been patterned differently, as they were caused by more distant communities. These results also indicate that most fatalities are caused by conflicts that started with a break-up of a previously strong alliance and a subsequent re-alignment of lines of enmity and alliance. A re-computation of all casualties according to this pattern shows that 46 out of 60 casualties resulted from such conflicts. The total number of 60 casualties between 1934 and 1954 corresponds to 3 casualties per year for the whole Obura area. With a total number of Obura inhabitants of 450-500 in the mid- 1950s, this translates to a casualty rate of 6-6.7 deaths per 1000 inhabitants per year. With an estimated 225-250 deaths in the same period of twenty years, this would correspond to a war- related mortality rate of 24-26.6%. This rate is just perceptively higher than in the Purosa area (5.8 - 6.1 per 1000 per year, or 23-24.5% of all deaths), and a bit lower than in Amaira (7.2 - 8.6 per 1000 per year, or 28.6-34.4% of all deaths). These numbers again need to be treated with caution, especially as the total number of inhabitants is difficult to establish during these 20 years. The first census sheet was attached to a patrol report in 1952, with a census of 421 people for the whole area (Kainantu PR 1952/53/1). This number has risen considerably when

204 Ending War the next census could be conducted in 1955 with 460 inhabitants (Kainantu PR 1955/56/4), in 1956 with 456 inhabitants (Kainantu PR 1956/57/4), in 1958 with large number of absentees with 446 inhabitants (Kainantu PR 1958/59/2), indicating that the first census was most likely not fully attended. Pataki Schweizer (1980:64) uses the 1962 census and reports the total population for the administrative villages of Kaurona (Saurona), Koronumbuara (Kuaranumbura) and Yonura (Samura & Sonura) to stand at 540 inhabitants. By 1967 the total population has grown to 621 inhabitants (Obura PR 1966/67/3). With relatively rapid population growth after contact due to better sanitation, and similar losses due to dysentery and whooping cough as in the other study areas, it seems prudent to assume that the number of inhabitants in the 1940s and 1950s would be in the range of 450 to a maximum of 500 inhabitants. In contrast to other areas, I have never heard someone mention the high casualty rate as a reason for ending wars, however. The perception of war in retrospect seems to be different, and conflicts continued to escalate to collective violence after the last war casualty occurred in 1954 and were quick to resurface after independence, with a period of warfare again costing several lives between 1987 and 1995.

7.2 First Contact The area around Obura had also been affected by twenty years of constant changes before contact with the first administrative patrol in January 1949, but to different degrees than in Purosa and Amaira. In Obura, I did not find the same preoccupation with cargoistic ideas as in Purosa, and nobody recalled any rumours about red-skinned people or strange new beings comparable to the Fore setting. This difference is probably due to the different spatial orientation of the trade networks.

7.2.1 Trade and the Arrival of Steel Tools and New Crops For Obura, trade networks ran in a generally east-west direction. They connected the Obura groups with Waffa speakers at the Waffa River headwaters, who had trade connections with the Markham Valley, who in turn traded with groups on the Huon Gulf. Shell valuables were acquired mainly via this route. Individual men had special trading relationships (called torti) with other men in Tumbuna, Kusing and Aringon, small villages of Waffa speakers on the densely forested slopes of the Markham Fall. They traded mostly young pigs for shells, betel and pandanus nuts, bows and arrows, barkcloth, and clay pots (also see Mayer 1987:42f. and Johnson 1980:46f.). Some of these goods, especially the shells, were then traded on with groups further to the east, mainly with Nompia and the Baira villages, against stone axe heads, that they, in turn, had received from the northwest, from Ontenu and Arokara. So-called kiau shells were important valuables, as they were included in bride price and mortuary payments, and in compensation payments after a war. Another vital trade good was salt. While the Obura groups had their own way of producing salt from leaching the ashes from certain trees and shrubs, called kyoro’u, they also acquired salt called aimu from the Baruya living in the Aziana Valley, who produced it from burning reeds that grow in marshlands (cf. Godelier 1969). No Obura man had ever hiked all the way to Wonenara before pacification, but some Baruya regularly visited the Southern Tairora villages of Oraura, Konkonbira and Pinata to trade their salt, and they, in turn, visited the Obura area to exchange the salt against shells, job’s tear necklaces and pigs. The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 205

In the late 1920s, the first introduced crops were traded in from the Waffa groups and also from the Tairora-Gadsup border, from Arau through Osarora and Andandara. These were first corn, then cabbage, pumpkins and new types of beans. It took some time before these were consumed widely, as there was a reluctance to new food crops, and it was usually the younger generation that first adopted these new crops. Tobacco also arrived long before first direct contact. There were hardly any trade relations with Northern Tairora groups, as they had their own connections with people on the upper slopes of the Markham Valley. As the main trading partners of the Obura people, the Waffa and Baruya in one direction and the Tairora further to the west in the other direction, were only contacted and pacified at the same time or even later than the Southern Tairora at Obura, there was thus less opportunity for rumours or information from already pacified areas around Kainantu filtering through to Obura like in Amaira, which had trade relations with already pacified Northern Tairora groups, or like in Purosa, which had trade relations with the North Fore. In addition, the enmity between Obura and Suwaira, but also between Suwaira and groups further to the north, inhibited the spread of information about the events taking place from the 1930s onwards in Kainantu. In contrast to the Fore in Purosa, which experienced a drastic reversal of trade routes, no such reversal took place in the Southern Tairora region. Their lines and directions of trade remained the same, and they continued to acquire shells and other Western goods predominantly through their trade connections with the Markham Valley, where missionaries and government officers were already operating during the 1910s and 1920s. The first axe reached Obura at some time before 1930, probably in the mid- to late 1920s. Atupaha’s father Ngarai had travelled to Aringon before he was born around 1930, and acquired an iron axe from there. No particular ideas were connected with these implements, and the name tokiamamaha, said to be Adzera language, but likely derived from the English word ‘tomahawk’ was used for it.

7.2.2 The First Gold Prospectors The first white men to reach the Obura area in the 1930s came as a complete surprise. They arrived in Obura from the south at the head of a large patrol with police and carriers, spent several days in the Obura area, where they camped for a few days, distributed some salt and matches in exchange for food, before moving further up-river. That these were gold prospectors was evident by the fact that they always followed watercourses and panned in the creeks. It is unclear, who led this first patrol by prospectors, and it is also not clear whether they had come up the Waffa headwaters and crossed into the Lamari Valley from there, or whether they had bypassed Obura to the west on their way south from Kainantu, and then returned through Obura on their way back. It is possible that this first encounter was with prospector James Nason- Jones, who was heading east after he and Kiap Allart Nurton failed in their attempt to cross the Mount Piora divide in July 1933 (NAA: A7034, 39; Radford 1987:107f.). In contrast to the Fore, who through rumours were informed that these beings were spirits or returning ancestors, the people of Obura assumed from the onset that these were men like themselves, just with a different skin. That these white men were potentially dangerous was later confirmed when a second patrol passed through the area a few years later, again arriving from the south. One lone Obura man, Vakyovu, saw them approaching and raised his bow to threaten them, at which point he was shot in the chest near his armpit but survived. Some of my

206 Ending War informants still remembered a song commemorating this incident. They said that the carriers that accompanied the patrol sang this song in Tairora to taunt them, and it is, therefore, most likely that this was a patrol that departed from Kainantu, presumably with some Northern Tairora carriers. Another patrol passed through the area from Kainantu shortly before or during World War II and continued to Asara and further south. This time, the white man in charge gave a demonstration of the power of the gun by shooting at a fencepost, splitting it in half, only adding to the terror that people experienced from the noise of the gun. People from Obura again attempted to follow the patrol but were sent back, and given salt, matches and mirrors in exchange for food. It is unclear, whether a government officer or gold prospectors led these two subsequent patrols, but Radford (1987:161) records two government patrols entering the Lamari area: one led by Kiaps John Black and Cedric Croft in February 1936, and another one led by Kiap Cedric Croft alone in July and August 1938. The Obura people thus had a first-hand experience of the potentially lethal violence of guns, which might be the reason that the only short-fledged cargo cult that spread through the area during World War II was not so much concerned with producing shell valuables or bush knives, axes, cloth or salt, like among the Fore, but centred around wooden replicas of guns called tarama in the local language. This particular cult spread down from the Northern Tairora, who themselves had already made acquaintance with guns in violent encounters with prospectors and government officials. The Northern Tairora near Kainantu had been brought under a semblance of control by the late 1930s, but warfare broke out again with the withdrawal of government officials at the start of World War II. The cult started with the building of large ritual houses. Pigs were killed and the blood and fat smeared on wooden gun replicas, which were then wrapped in dry banana leaves, sprinkled with salt, and put into the rafters of the ritual house. Long nights of singing and uncontrollable shivering were expected to turn these replicas into the real thing (cf. Berndt 1952/53, 1953/54). When nothing eventuated, the Southern Tairora quickly went back to their everyday life, and cargo cults and cargoistic ideas only had a revival in the later phases of the pacification process in the early 1960s, when contact with wage labour refocused attention on the amassment of wealth. People in Obura were thus less interested in acquiring valuables from the red-skinned people, and more concerned about obtaining the power that emanated from their guns. There was generally much less emphasis on wealth accumulation than in the Fore area. Compensation payments and bride price payments required fewer shells than in the Fore area, and the shells the Tairora liked most, of a type called kiau, were never handed out by the kiaps in significant quantities. Most of the informants stressed that they did not associate these valuable shells with the coming of the whites, as they continued to get them through the established trade routes from the Markham Valley, and it was only the smaller giri-giri shells that were associated with the kiaps. Kiaps often complained that it was difficult to find enough demand for trade goods in the Southern Tairora area, as there was not much demand for smaller shells, or for salt, which the people continued to acquire from the Baruya in the Aziana Valley. The only trade goods in high demand were small knives, as well as axes and tomahawks in exchange for larger items such as pigs, and laplaps in the later years of patrolling. The mutually reinforcing dynamic between the kiaps that wanted to establish peace and gave out shells, bush knives, axes, cloth and salt, and the local population that desired these valuables to such an extent that they stopped The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 207 warfare in order to acquire them, did not eventuate in Obura. Instead, the more violent side of pacification dominated the history of Obura.

7.2.3 Police and Deadly Violence It is generally understood that strategies of repression by the Australian Territorial Administration were relatively benign compared to other colonies. According to conventional historiography, the official policy of the administration already before World War II was one of ‘peaceful penetration’, which aimed at winning the hearts and minds of the population, and less a strategy of forceful subjugation. Violent clashes between government patrols and local groups occurred nevertheless, and historians and anthropologists have focused on several of those that took place during the famous exploratory patrols during the 1930s. After World War II, however, when the Territory of New Guinea became a trust territory of the United Nations, the use of lethal violence was officially severely restricted and only permissible in self-defence. Other forms of violence like corporal punishment, the torching of houses, the killing of pigs, and the destruction of gardens by administrative personnel were equally condemned by regulations of the Department of Native Affairs and District Administration (Sinclair 1981:198; Wolfers 1975:11). Most of the kiaps after World War II, therefore, employed a tactic of calculated restraint, trying to avoid situations where they would otherwise have to use force. A patrol contacting a village for the first time would typically distribute presents to show its peaceful intentions but might give a demonstration of force as well, by shooting at purchased pigs, trees or through wooden shields. A patrol that encountered warring parties would usually wait for the hostilities to end and then try to bring both parties together and identify and arrest the instigators of the conflict. If firearms were used by patrol personnel, it was usually to fire warning shots, which was often enough to scare away a hostile party. While this picture is generally accurate for most of the encounters between government personnel and local villagers, there were always exceptions, and the Obura people had the misfortune to experience several of them. The first such deadly event took place just immediately after World War II, in my estimate around 1947. At the time, the kiaps stationed in Kainantu were attempting to bring the Northern Tairora villages under control again. Most of the communities close to Kainantu had already been pacified in the 1930s but had experienced a return to warfare with the lapse of government control during the war. To achieve pacification, they not only conducted patrols into this area but also established a string of police posts, staffed by one or two native policemen. These policemen were in charge of enforcing law and order around these patrol posts, and they were given much leeway and were only sporadically supervised. They were instructed to bring lawbreakers to the kiaps for adjudication. Still, some policemen decided to hold their own courts without knowledge of their superiors, or tried to enforce their authority through violent means, for example by torching houses or administering corporal punishment (Berndt 1992b:83). As has been shown in the chapter on the Amaira case study, these semi-autonomous police posts had a significant impact on the progress of pacification, since the policemen assigned to them were in constant contact with the population, in contrast to the kiaps who usually visited villages on average once or twice a year on patrols. This system of semi- autonomous and only irregularly supervised police posts was disbanded at the end of 1952, possibly as a reaction to several excesses of violence by policemen.

208 Ending War

Around 1947, a conflict erupted between Sonura and the smaller village of Motokara to the north over a hunting accident. A man from Mussaori who was hunting for tree kangaroos in the forest killed a Sonura boy by accident, and upon realizing his mistake, fled to Motokara. In retaliation, a Sonura war party ambushed him, his wife and another man from Motokara in the forest and killed them on the spot. The people of Motokara buried the dead and went to Suwaira to enlist the help of the Suwaira as allies for retaliation against the Sonura. The Suwaira told them to go to Omaura instead, where a famed warrior named Nalakor resided, who had already killed a lot of people. The Motokara slaughtered two pigs and brought them to Omaura, where they met Nalakor, a coastal policeman who was stationed at the police post in Omaura. The Motokara delegation asked him to help them in their conflict, offering him the two pigs that they brought with them. Nalakor apparently must have decided to teach the Obura people a lesson. He told them to return and fetch him and his retinue a few days later in Suwaira to show him the way. Nalakor then arrived on that day with several men from Saiora, Barabuna and Omaura, and together with some Suwaira men he was then guided at night to the Sonura men’s house at Tumorora. It was the only men’s house of Sonura at the time, with about 40 men and older boys sleeping in it, as the Sonura had just recently rebuilt their hamlet after moving back from the previous fight, which had seen them fleeing to Mussaori. As the conflict with Motokara had not yet escalated to full-fledged warfare, there were no guards posted, and Nalakor was able to simply enter through the gate in the palisade surrounding the men’s house, where he positioned himself just outside the men’s house, waiting for first light. At dawn, Nalakor opened fire with his rifle. The effect was tremendous: the first bullet hit the centre post, and the Sonura warriors were thunderstruck by the noise. As soon as some men stood up to check the noise, shots fired through the men’s house wall hit them. Panic ensued, some men running for their lives out the main door or through the walls, others seeking protection by remaining prone on the floor, too scared to move. Nalakor and the accompanying Northern Tairora archers shot several of those that attempted to flee out of the main entrance. One of my informants, Namu Orataro, was a young boy of maybe ten or twelve years of age at the time, and he succeeded in dodging the bullets and scaling the palisade to escape. As he recalled the carnage: When we heard the shots in the morning and saw the men falling, we tried to find a way out. All those who stood up were felled by the gun, while those who crawled on their bellies were safe. We crawled and got out. A lot of us escaped. Some crawled out before the gun got them. Others turned themselves in the blood of the others and played dead. Nalakor then came inside and saw a lot of people dead and then left. […] Nalakor had come through the gate and got inside, and the first shot he fired went right into the centre post. The men were all surprised and wondered what kind of noise it was. We did not know about a gun yet. And then he shot and shot, and we smelled the smoke of the gun, and some said that is the smell of the tarama [gun]. And those that got up were felled down, and the blood ran like water. And some ran away, and my father tackled me and pulled me down. But I did not listen to him but ran away, and I escaped. I was a boy, so he must not have paid any attention to me. He came right at dawn when he shot. Some men did already get up and start a fire, while others were still asleep when that happened. (Namu Orataro) The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 209

The death toll, in the end, amounted to 13 men, 11 of them killed instantly by Nalakor’s bullets, two others so gravely wounded by arrows that they died not much later. Two of the victims were actually men from the Elandora hamlet in Suwaira, who had been visiting kin in Sonura. Nalakor sustained an arrow wound himself in the battle and had to abort the whole punitive expedition. One of the Sonura men shot him in the face from the side, the arrow piercing through both cheeks and his tongue. Nalakor managed to break off the arrow shaft and then withdrew in an orderly fashion with his supporters, covering his retreat by continuing to shoot wildly into the air. He returned to his police post near Omaura, where the arrow was extracted. He is reported to have said that he would have been able to kill even more men, if not for this injury.24 The aftermath of this attack must have been a horrible sight. People from Samura and Kuaranumbura came and stared at the dead in a pool of blood in the men’s house. The survivors were terrified and initially unable to understand what exactly had happened and how these people had died, as there were no arrows, only small entrance wounds and gaping exit wounds, the flesh torn apart by the force of the bullet. They mused it must have been the work of a wild man or spirit with overwhelming power to kill so many people at once. Only a delegation from Suwaira, coming to collect their dead, later explained that a man named Nalakor was behind it all and that he effectuated these killings by some sort of akiau’huru, a strange/wild bow. The dead were buried quickly and without the usual ceremonies. The Sonura men decided to construct their houses further away from their current settlement. Other communities were so shocked that some of them also abandoned their hamlets and sought shelter for a while in the forest. This kind of violence perpetrated by unsupervised policemen is the great lacuna in Papua New Guinea colonial history, as there is hardly any documentary evidence for such massacres. This case is not exceptional, however, as I have collected narratives of three other similar events in the Lamari River Basin, with an additional sixteen casualties, as I have already detailed in the Amaira case study.

7.2.4 Effects of Police Violence This sudden loss of eleven men, almost a fourth of their total fighting force, including their most prominent and successful war leader, Erorata’i, crippled the Sonura local group. They no longer played the leading role they had in previous conflicts and for the next few years had to rely on their alliance with the neighbouring local group of Samura to be able to survive politically. The balance of power within the Obura groups shifted to the now more numerous Kuaranumbura, and this led to a series of new conflicts, heightening the instability in these post-WWII years until the arrival of the first patrol in 1949. The next series of conflicts was predicated on a split within the Kuaranumbura group. Sorcery accusations between two Kuaranumbura hamlets, Povandara and Kuaranumbura proper led to

24 This information stems through a second-hand account from Nalakor himself. In the 1960s Wafuri O’e and other men from Obura were working as contract labourers near Rabaul in the East New Britain District, when they encountered the by then retired policeman Nalakor, who asked them about Obura and told them about his punitive expedition. He invited them to a feast that he and his kin prepared to atone for the massacre.

210 Ending War an armed conflict, in which one man from Kuaranumbura was killed. A war between the two hamlets ensued, and after three men from Povandara were killed in open battle, among them one of their leaders, the Povandara hamlet fled further north and established a new local group at Saurona. By this time, the Kuaranumbura had shifted their attention to their old enemies, the Sonura, who had been helping the Saurona faction, and the Sonura had to depend on their new allies from Samura to be able to survive. The Samura carried the brunt of the fighting in this engagement and lost two men in this war before the conflict ended after a successful ambush onto several young Kuaranumbura boys.

7.2.5 Peaceful Contact with the First Patrols Towards the latter part of the 1940s, the kiaps had been relatively successful in bringing most of the Northern Tairora villages under some semblance of control. One of the most problematic corners turned out to be the Suwaira – Andandara – Barabuna section in the southeast. Patrols in 1948 and 1949 attempted to intervene in on-going conflicts, and Constable Nalakor was also active in trying to mediate between the conflict parties. In the course of these attempts, one patrol under acting Assistant District Officer Allan Timperley decided to continue south from Suwaira and reached the Obura area on January 28th, 1949, stayed one night, and then returned towards Nompia. This route was previously surveyed from the air with a plane, and it was decided to enlarge the sphere of control to include the Obura cluster of villages, as they were deemed sufficiently close to Kainantu to warrant regular patrols. First contact with the government patrol was rather uneventful from the perspective of the kiap, and Timperley wrote a relatively short diary entry on his encounter with the Obura villages: Friendly contact was effected and the patrol camped in the vicinity of KIAKUIA, a group of well constructed houses surrounded by good, cultivated areas. These people known as OMURA but who speak a language which is probably called MBUTANBATA, are small in stature and aggressive in attitude. Tribal fighting seems to be very prevalent. Food was provided in abundance, and the bulk of which was restricted to sweet potatoes. Some excellent taro gardens were seen on the journey from SUWAIRA. Appointed a Luluai for this group of villages. His name is MURAPE. The population which is domiciled in scattered hamlets is estimated at 300. (Kainantu PR 1948/49/6)

From the perspective of the Obura groups, however, this encounter was a traumatic event, even more so because Nalakor was among the detachment of eight police accompanying the patrol as a police corporal, and they made their approach from the north towards the Sonura hamlet known by shooting in the air. Most people fled to the forest. The undisputed leader of Sonura, Murabe, had remained in the hamlet and was the first to approach the patrol, and Mayer (1987), who interviewed him, quoted him as follows:

Naroto [the local name for Nalakor]25 looked at me. My heart was thumping and I thought 'Why did I stay here? These men will kill me.' The people heard his talk and I heard the women cry for me their tears falling to the ground. He asked 'Have

25 Mayer wrongly assumes that the name Naroto refers to a patrol officer called Norton, apparently unaware of the existence of Const. Nalakor and his role in the punitive raid on the Sonura men’s house. The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 211

you killed many people?' and I answered 'Yes I have killed many people' [an indication that he was a fight leader]. Then he called to me to come closer. Holding my shield in front of me and my bow and arrows I came closer and he gave me a bushknife, 'laplap' cloth, salt, matches and a badge. In the afternoon the policemen (piripo) dragged some people out of the bush and brought them to the village. Naroto said I must carry his things back to Nompia. I refused. (cit. in: Mayer 1987:47)

Murabe’s courage in this encounter should not be understated, as he was apparently fully aware that he was facing the man responsible for the death of many of his kin and fellow villagers. Revenge or resistance against these ferocious men with their powerful weapons seemed unthinkable at the time, and appeasement seemed the only feasible option to survive and avoid another massacre. One of my informants, Namu Orataro, said that he and others expected Murabe to die, as they initially thought that the police calling them to get closer was a trap. It was a massive relief for all Obura people when the kiap and policemen turned out to be interested in initiating peaceful contact. The distribution of salt, matches, pieces of cloth and steel tools confirmed their peaceful intentions. Murabe was rewarded for his bravery in meeting the patrol by being appointed the first luluai in the area. Through gestures, it was made clear that he would be in charge of provisioning any subsequent patrols with food and firewood. The second patrol was – after some initial reluctance – also well received, and the kiap in charge, Gordon Linsley, wrote: There was never the slightest indication of hostile intent or desire. I believe that a future patrol to these villages would be met as soon as it arrived, and that very little difficulty would be experienced in bringing them under control. (Kainantu PR 1949/50/2)

In the meantime, a police post with the now promoted Corporal Nalakor was set up in Suwaira in March 1949, and men from Samura even helped Nalakor to construct the police post. This post was operating at least until October 1951, when it was last mentioned in patrol reports, first under Cpl Nalakor, and then under Constable Tokua, which were both described as ‘old hands’, able in dealing with local politics. While the bulk of effort of the policemen stationed there was towards pacifying the Suwaira – Barabuna – Andandara corridor, they also visited Obura on occasion, and they urged the newly appointed luluai to start building a bridle track from Suwaira down to Obura. Nalakor himself supervised the building of a walking track from Suwaira to Saurona and then down to Obura and further south to Himarata and Anima. This track was still under construction in December 1950, but by May 1951 it was reported to be finished and in excellent condition. Another bridle track further south towards To’okena was constructed with the help of Kuaranumbura men not much later. The process of pacification thus for all purposes seemed to mirror the one for Amaira, where the constant presence of police in nearby villages prevented further escalation, and where people were likewise exhorted to build walking tracks to ease the movement of patrols. The first few patrols through the Obura area came at a time of relative peace, and there was a lull in traditional warfare. Due to this, the kiaps considered the area under control already three

212 Ending War years after first contact. ADO Gerry W. Toogood stated in his report from 1952 that these villages “are now well under Government control and the people anxious to co’operate to the best of their ability, little fault could be found with their work or their attitude” (Kainantu PR 1952/53/1). A first provisional census with around 60 people was already undertaken during the second patrol in September 1949 to familiarize the people with administrative procedures, and a first official census was taken during the fourth patrol through Obura in December 1950. My informants reported that they quickly understood the purpose of these census books as a monitoring device, which would allow the kiap to check on all the individuals in the group to see whether they were well or not. And even though one patrol reported that the census book for Asara contained only names of trees, birds and stones, and not names of individuals (Kainantu PR 1952/53/9), most people reported of readily giving their names and lining up whenever a patrol would check on them. As the kiaps from the second or third patrol onwards brought a Northern Tairora interpreter with them, To’uke, who could imitate the Suwaira dialect understood by the Obura people, the communication was less of a problem than in the other areas. The Obura area in the immediate period right after first contact thus had all the signs of settling down nicely.

7.3 Continuation of Warfare and Government Retaliation This erstwhile peaceful contact with the government agents was relatively short-lived, however, as was the peaceful state of affairs that prevailed during the first few patrols. Trouble began to brew between the two long-standing allies of Kuaranumbura and Asara, growing into a vicious and long-fought war that culminated in a serious confrontation with the government patrols attempting to quell it.

7.3.1 War against Asara The people that constitute the local group of Asara had originally formed part of Himarata two generations ago. After heavy fighting with Anima and To’okena, they split off and were allowed to settle at their current location by an eminent leader from Kuaranumbura. He offered them protection and bestowed the southern slopes of Mount Orabannara on them as their new territory. This gift of land resulted in a close and steady alliance between the Asara and the Kuaranumbura, confirmed and strengthened by numerous intermarriages. The Asara were the closest allies of the Kuaranumbura in their wars against the Sonura, and several families from Kuaranumbura found refuge there during that war. Close alliance can also grow discontent, however, and a first conflict came to a clash around or shortly before October 1951. According to the patrol report of Patrol Officer Gordon Linsley, there had been some sorcery suspicions surrounding the death of an Asara man, and groups further south influenced the people from Asara into believing that the people of Kuaranumbura had something to do with it. In the end, it was the elopement of a woman from Anima who was married to an Asara man to Kuaranumbura that provided the spark for two short fights about two weeks apart leading to a few injuries (Kainantu PR 1951/52/5). Only a few interlocutors remembered this instance of first conflicts, most stating that there had been no trouble between Asara and Obura until a much graver event again connected to sorcery occurred more than a year later. Only upon identifying the name of the woman involved and subsequently mentioning it in later interviews was I able to elicit a short response from some interlocutors that a short-lived fight had indeed taken place before the big war. The reason given for this fight was that it was due to an Anima The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 213 woman named Utatavura who was betrothed to the recently initiated Vaita from Asara. As Vaita was still too young for her liking, she then eloped to Kuaranumbura and married Apo, the younger brother of Luluai Tetendau. The relatives of Vaita were upset about their loss of investments in Utatavura. They went to Kuaranumbura to spoil some of their gardens, which resulted in a short-lived armed conflict between the Kuaranumbura and the Asara. Patrol Officer Gordon Linsley, who brought leaders from both sides together and discussed the events with them, successfully mediated this first conflict. Linsley seemed hopeful that no more fighting would break out, as both sides were long-standing allies (Kainantu PR 1951/52/5). Kiaps on patrols often acted as mediators and impressed upon villagers to bring grievances and conflicts to them for mediation and adjudication, rather than resort to violent retaliation. The kiaps that I interviewed reported that their presence alone was generally sufficient to bring the aggrieved parties together to discuss the issue and by themselves decide upon a mutually satisfactory solution, usually involving compensation of one sort or another. This mediation effort of the first patrol has not become registered in the collective memory regarding this particular war, however, possibly because this episode was utterly overshadowed by the ensuing events. And whatever the previous disagreements and squabbles between the Asara and the Kuaranumbura, the cause of the ensuing great war was presented to me as an extraordinarily cohesive picture; informants from both sides – Asara and Obura – agreed on precisely the same sequence of events.26 This consensus, and the fact that the blame was accorded to neither side but an uninvolved third party, points to the fact that agreeing upon the specific root cause of the war was often an essential element in peace-making (cf. Henry 2005 for an account of this process in the Nebilyer Valley of the Western Highlands). It all started with a man called Kaima from Anima, who was upset that his wife Wuanamau ran away from him and married a man from Kuaranumbura called Ivi. Kaima was looking for revenge and was lurking in the forest between Asara and Kuaranumbura when he encountered Vare, a man from Kuaranumbura, who was cutting fence posts. Kaima used tuhi sorcery against Vare, who shortly afterwards developed a grave illness and died. On his way back to his native Anima, Kaima first visited Asara and used a procedure called kukyepa to shift the blame away from him. Kukyepa is a method of leading sorcery detection rituals astray and consists of the sorcerer giving a gift to another village. In this case, Kaima brought a bundle of arrows wrapped in bark cloth with him to Asara and gave them to an Asara man. This trick had the intended effect: when the people of Kuaranumbura held their traditional sorcery detection rituals (by cooking hondi vegetables and by having the dead person hold a tara bamboo), the blame shifted to Asara. To confirm their suspicions, the Kuaranumbura people then invited people from neighbouring villages to attend the wake of Vare. When some Asara people presented themselves, another bad omen happened: just as they neared the dead body, it lost some of its fluids, a further clear sign indicating their guilt. This incident could easily have led to an outbreak of fighting. However, Tetendau and others who were related to some of the Asara warned the visiting guests that others were planning to kill them, and the Asara men quickly departed. Vare’s body was then buried, and the Kuaranumbura mobilized some allies from

26 This sequence of events is also consistent over time – Johnson (1980:25) recorded exactly the same sequence in 1975-76.

214 Ending War

Sonura and Samura for a show of force. Together they went to the Asara hamlets with the intent to discuss these sorcery accusations and settle the conflict. In the ensuing heated exchange between the two parties, the Asara protested their innocence and pointed to their long-standing alliance and friendship precluding such a hostile act. At the same time, the Kuaranumbura and especially the kin of Vare were livid and wanted compensation for the death. The deliberations were still going on, when Oando from Kuaranumbura, a strong and respected warrior, suddenly tightened his bow and shot an arrow, starting an all-out arrow fight between both parties. The arrow hit an Asara man called Nrorabe right in the ear from the side, but in the ensuing fracas, the Obura men did not realize that Nrorabe was killed, believing him to be only wounded. The Obura alliance returned the next day for an open battle, and in the process of this battle, another Asara man called Aukya’o was hit by an arrow and died. Again, nobody from Obura had noticed the severity of this incident, and the people from Asara buried both men in secret, not leaking the information that already two of their men had died. They then planned revenge, and together with some Himarata allies were planning to ambush Kuaranumbura in the early morning. On their way over Mount Orabannara, the Asara raiding party spied the main body of the Obura warriors further down the slope on their way to Asara, burning the kunai grass on the battlefield and hunting for Asara pigs. The raiding party quickly changed their plan and crept down the mountain in the cover of a gully. In the meantime, the rest of the Asara men had started to engage the Obura fighting force in a mock battle, and they consistently shot their arrows short to lure the Obura warriors forward. The raiding party was thus able to suddenly attack the Obura warriors from behind and block their retreat. The ambush completely caught the Obura men by surprise. They were under the impression that the war was still only a minor conflict and could not possibly escalate in that way, and thus did not take any precautions against such an ambush. As Hane Taveri explained, the Asara were remarkably successful in their ruse: When Obura shot Nrorabe, the Asara buried him in secret. We Obura did not know. We just thought it was a minor fight. So we went and fought, came back, went and fought again and so on. Asara pretended really convincingly that nobody on their side had died, they were joking and singing during the fighting, and made all of us Obura come closer to them so that they could encircle us. (Hane Taveri)

The front line of the Obura warriors at first did not realize their predicament until shouts from the back lines alerted them. While some Obura men fled further down the mountain, the more experienced Obura warriors succeeded in breaking through the Asara blockade to safety and forcing the Asara men to retreat up the hill. The sudden attack from behind had already left three men from Obura dead and riddled with arrows: Pairau’o and Akyuma’o from Kuaranumbura and Akai from Samura. And while both sides retreated, the Asara sang mockingly: “Nrorabe went to get married at Obura, and we Asara got him back”, thus declaring that they had acted in revenge for one of their deaths. The Obura alliance then launched a series of increasingly more daring raids against the Asara hamlets, succeeding in killing at least three more men and three boys. Open field battles also continued for weeks and months, and at least one more Asara man was killed in open fighting. In one of their raids, the Obura received help from an Asara man with kin connections to Kuaranumbura, who sent a message that he would be on guard duty that night, and would let The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 215 them inside the palisade surrounding the men’s house. The Obura warriors were thus able to cut the vines holding the stockade together and dig out its foundation, got inside, set fire to the men’s house and shot arrows through the walls. Their arrows did not penetrate all the way, however, as the Asara in precaution had lined up their shields along the outside wall. When the first Asara man tried to escape the burning building, he was shot and killed. The Obura men then had to retreat, as the burning building was lighting up the area and they were in danger of getting caught in the crossfire by Asara men coming to the rescue from the other hamlets. All the Asara men trapped in the burning men’s house subsequently escaped through the back walls. The most daring raid was conducted by a group of Kuaranumbura men who followed the ridge above Asara village towards Anima to attack the Asara hamlets from the back. They stationed several men on the track they took to guard the retreat, and in the end, seven of them then climbed down a sheer rock face with the help of trees that they felled on the spot. As the cliffs above seemed to offer them protection, five Asara boys had gone out trapping rats at night in the grass below. They had laid out their bamboo traps and were warming themselves around a fire in a makeshift hut when the Kuaranumbura raiding party under the lead of Nata Vokyauta suddenly encircled them. According to my Asara informants, two of the boys were somehow able to escape with injuries, while three others were riddled with arrows and killed. The Kuaranumbura warriors thought they killed all five boys (some of my Obura informants still gave me that number), retreated up the cliff face and shouted out their victory to the Asara village below. The Asara were eager for revenge. By that time, they had been able to kill one Kuaranumbura woman and her daughter in their gardens near one of the Kuaranumbura hamlets, but they were far behind in the tally of deaths. Their situation was becoming increasingly uncomfortable after the Obura had been able to dissuade the Asara allies from Himarata from further supporting them. Some Obura men had followed the ridge above Asara and placed taboo markers on the path that the Himarata men would have to follow, indicating that they would be singled out and ambushed if they continued to assist Asara. It was at the height of this conflict, at a time of deep hostility and aggression, that Kiap Bruce Burge arrived with his patrol in Asara in April 1954 and decided to take action, leading to one of the most spectacular confrontations between the Tairora and the government.

7.3.2 Attack on the Patrol The kiaps had been aware of the conflict between the Obura and the Asara for over a year. Already in January 1953, a patrol by ADO Harry West met a frosty reception in Obura, with nobody greeting the patrol and armed warriors taking up positions on the surrounding hills. At the time, this was believed to be due to a clash between a small group of Obura men and some people from Suwaira a month previously, which resulted in one Suwaira man slightly injured. As ADO West had several Suwaira carriers accompanying the patrol, he deemed this reluctance understandable. After three hours of negotiations, Harry West was successful in coaxing a luluai down to the patrol and explained his intention in settling this conflict peacefully. By nightfall, more people had visited the patrol, the dispute between the Obura and the Suwaira had been settled by compensation payment of one pig to the injured Suwaira man, and any signs of hostility had disappeared. ADO West remained another day at Obura to cement the good relations he had established. The next morning, he continued south with his patrol. He realized

216 Ending War that there had to be some fighting in this area as well, as the Asara people had deserted their hamlets upon the approach of the patrol, and he could not persuade them to come anywhere near the patrol (Kainantu PR 1952/53/8). That there were indeed armed clashes between the Obura and the Asara was then confirmed by the next patrol in March 1953, when Patrol Officer Bill Brown led a patrol throughout the Southern Tairora area and the Aziana Valley to extend administrative control and conduct a population estimate. Incidentally, based on his population estimate, PO Brown and ADO West argued that the Lamari and Aziana areas did not warrant the establishment of a patrol post and that the groups around Obura and Baira could “be easily controlled from Kainantu.” This assessment proved to be a misjudgement, though, significantly retarding the process of pacification in contrast to the Okapa area, where a patrol post was installed around the same time. While PO Brown and his patrol received a warm welcome at Obura, with the people arranging a sing-sing and appearing in full for the census, he realized that something was amiss when on his one-hour trek to Asara he spotted armed Asara warriors shadowing the patrol higher up on the mountainside. In Asara, he encountered a scorched rest house, and only a little food was offered for trade, as new gardens only now came into bearing. The few Asara people that dared to approach the patrol informed him that Obura warriors had previously destroyed all their gardens in the war (Kainantu PR 1952/53/9). The next patrol in October 1953, this time led by Patrol Officer Bruce Burge, attempted for the first time to intervene and mediate in this now long-standing war between the Asara and the Obura. As Burge approached the area from the southwest, he took some Asara leaders to Obura and attempted to settle the differences. He received assurances that the people would try arbitration in the future, but assumed that it might be some time before fighting died out completely (Kainantu PR 1953/54/4). In contrast to the earlier successful intervention by a patrol two years previously, hostilities continued as soon as the patrol left, mostly because the tally of deaths was too uneven. When PO Burge on his next patrol six months later in April 1954 realized that the fighting was still going on, he apparently found his impression from the first patrol in October 1953, that the Asara were the main aggressors, confirmed. At that particular moment in time, this was probably indeed the case, as the Asara had the larger number of casualties that still needed to be avenged. Still, his assumption was erroneous if one considers the whole sequence of events. After all, it was the Kuaranumbura and the other Obura local groups that initiated the armed conflict and conducted a series of successful and aggressive raids on the Asara shortly before the patrol arrived. That Asara was deemed the aggressor by PO Burge could also have do to with the fact that while being informed about the on-going war in nearby Numbaira (with people telling him that ten people alone were killed in the last few days – a gross overestimate), Burge also heard that the Asara allegedly said that they would attack any patrol that would interfere. Burge and his patrol of 5 policemen and 25 carriers thereafter proceeded straight to Asara and occupied the deserted village in a show of force and killed several pigs. The Asara had been completely surprised by the arrival of the patrol and fled as soon as they saw it nearing the village. When the luluai of Asara, Tunu, and some warriors finally approached the patrol, they were adamant in their refusal to accompany PO Burge again to Obura for another attempt at mediation. Burge must have become exasperated with their rejection, as early the next morning he arrested two The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 217 of the Asara leaders, Luluai Tunu and Ha’akyo, 27 intending to bring them to Kainantu. According to Burge’s patrol report, some Asara warriors attacked the patrol as soon as the arrests were made and the patrol then hastily departed towards Obura, firing several warning shots to cover their retreat (Kainantu PR 1953/54/9; NAA: A518, BJ841/1). None of my Asara informants could corroborate this incident, as they were hiding in the forest above the village. The Obura warriors were rather surprised when on the way to the battlefield that same morning they suddenly spotted a patrol heading their way, with two Asara prisoners in their midst. They let the patrol pass and then followed in some distance towards the government rest house. The luluai and the tultul greeted the patrol and promised to bring food, but around 1:00 pm, about 150 Obura warriors encircled the patrol at the rest house. Several Obura leaders went forward and demanded from the kiap that he surrendered the two Asara prisoners, indicating that they wanted to kill them. PO Burge refused, and all informants reported that his exact words were: “Those prisoners are mine. If you want to kill some Asara, go to Asara and find some for yourself.” This account might hint at the importance of translators in such interactions and how they could easily skew and influence the message. A long and heated discussion ensued, in which both sides steadfastly held to their positions and refused to budge. Burge reported in his diary: “These people were very hostile. Several hours spent talking to the leaders of the OBURAs but to no avail” (Kainantu PR 1953/54/9). With his carriers becoming increasingly frightened and the rest house considered indefensible, Burge then made preparations for moving off towards Suwaira around 4:30 pm (Kainantu PR 1953/54/9; NAA: A518, BJ841/1). Just before 4.30 pm, however, with the sun slowly setting, one of the Obura leaders, Haratru from Samura, the father of Akai who was shot dead in the first Asara ambush, had heard enough. As Hane Taveri recalled: Haratru took one decorated arrow, got close to the police and kiap, did not talk, just smiled in disguise, and then suddenly tightened his bow and shot this arrow right into the back of Tunu. That was the signal. All other Obura warriors started to fire their arrows. The kiap and the policemen grabbed their guns and started firing. All Obura warriors dove for cover, lying flat on the ground. They heard the firing and ran away in all directions, dove for cover in ditches and behind ridges. From there, they continued firing arrows in the direction of the rest house and the patrol. (Hane Taveri)

Patrol Officer Bruce Burge in his patrol diary, described the attack in much terser prose: “Patrol attacked by OBURAs at 4.30pm. Attack beaten off. Two members of the patrol and several OBURAs wounded. Patrol departed for SUWAIRA rest house” (Kainantu PR 1953/54/9). Burge and the policemen at first only fired warning shots into the air, barricaded themselves in the rest house, organized the patrol line with all the cargo carriers and then made a hasty sortie and retreat towards Suwaira, dragging the two wounded Asara prisoners with them. Some policemen in the lead that encountered warriors attempting to block their retreat as well as police in the back covering the withdrawal now also aimed directly at the Obura men, but only Kiaviova from Kuaranumbura was wounded when a bullet pierced the muscles of his upper arm. The Obura warriors at first had concentrated their fire on the Asara men, as they

27 Some informants mentioned a third man being arrested, Au’u, but the patrol report only mentions two prisoners.

218 Ending War were their primary targets of retribution. Nevertheless, they then also fired at the policemen without scoring any hits. As Hane Taveri recounted, their aim was to scare the police and the kiap so that they would abandon their two Asara prisoners, and they were quite surprised at them being escorted out to Suwaira despite the falling arrows. Some warriors shadowed the patrol’s flight all the way to Suwaira before abandoning the pursuit. The Obura men I interviewed recounted this incident with the same pride as they told me about their other exploits in warfare, and boasted that they were not afraid of the government and their guns. Some acknowledged that quite a number of their own ran away upon hearing the gunshots, as the Nalakor massacre was still in their minds. Still, a significant number of warriors continued to hassle the retreating patrol, while others burnt down the government rest house. The hasty retreat also made it appear that they, in the end, won a decisive victory, inflicting injuries on two of the Asara prisoners, while only suffering one injury themselves. In the words of Atupaha Ngarai: The kiap got angry, and he and the police shot their guns at us. He fired at us, and we shot back, singing and yelling at him, while he returned fire. It went on and on, but the kiap was not able to win against us Obura. We Obura all won against him. He only hit one of us, Kiaviova from Kuaranumbura, but the bullet only cut a piece of muscle out of his arm. The kiap then realized he would not be able to win, as we Obura were not afraid of death by the white man. We were too focused on the two Asara men we wanted to kill. (Atupaha Ngarai)

7.3.3 Government Retaliation For the administration, this attack was a sobering wake-up call that the Southern Tairora area was in many respects not as easily brought under control as was initially believed by some. As Patrol Officer Bruce Burge wrote in his report after the attack: In view of current events, my previous impression of friendliness towards the Administration must have been incorrect and the native attitude one of tolerance only. Initially the hostility shown by the OBURAs was directed at the two ATIERA [Asara] prisoners with the patrol and not at the patrol itself. Following discussions with the people and in view of the later attack, it appears that these people are prepared to cooperate with the Administration until their own inclinations differ with Administration policy, and the law, in which they are quite prepared to follow their own opinions with a show of force. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/9)

A few days later, in the second half of April 1954, another patrol was sent out, with Assistant District Officer Harry West at its head and a much larger contingent of police. The people of Obura deserted their hamlets and retreated to the forest as soon as they spotted this patrol, and remained there for the duration of the patrols’ stay. The patrol remained five days in the area, without establishing contact. The police were able to arrest ten people, who were questioned, and five of them were then again released (NAA: A518, BJ841/1). According to my Obura informants, the police also ravaged the hamlets of Mussaori, Sonura and Samura, torching all the houses, as well as destroying gardens and killing all the pigs they could catch in the wider Obura area. Wafuri O’e described the devastation he witnessed as a young boy: After the battle with the kiap, the Obura continued to wage war with Asara. Then they saw the kiap approaching, and everybody packed up their belongings and fled to the forest. Some went to the The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 219

Motokara and Sobara forest, some Samura joined Kuaranumbura and went to the Kuaranumbura forest. The kiap came to chase the people, but the villages were all deserted. The kiap was angry and torched all the houses, killed all the pigs, broke the fences and dug up the sweet potatoes, and spoiled the gardens, cutting the sugar canes and banana stalks, and ate everything. And some of the killed pigs even rotted on the ground. They ate all the good meat, and the fat they took and just threw it into the creek behind the rest house. And when they realized nobody would come back, they returned to Kainantu for good. And all the refugees then returned to their village and saw their whole village destroyed. (Wafuri O’e)

No patrol report was ever written about this incident (it might not have been registered as an official patrol). ADO Harry West’s letter to the district commissioner in which he reports about the investigative patrol undertaken after the attack contains no mention of the destruction of property. He only stated that: “I think that the visit of myself and Mr. Brown and twenty police will have a sobering effect on the Oburas” (NAA: A518, BJ841/1). It can be assumed that the kiaps in charge (or maybe only the police under their command) felt they had to mete out some sort of punishment to dissuade further attacks on government patrols. As former Patrol Officer Bill Brown explained in an interview, the fact that the patrol fled was a major psychological defeat for the administration, and that’s why they launched a patrol immediately afterwards. As he explained it:

That’s probably one of the only places that a patrol ran away from, when you think about it. The normal thing was if you get fired on, you had to do something about it. And after you’ve done something about it, you had to stay there. (Bill Brown)

Anu Ta’ase, a government interpreter from Asempa village, was part of this retaliation patrol, and he had his own take on this expedition: I straightened them out in the Obura area myself, I ‘killed’28 a lot with the police there, set their houses on fire and their tanket and bamboo too. I carried petrol and kerosene and brought it to Obura. We fought and ‘killed’ men and wrecked their villages. We scattered them and chased them into the bush. Then we called them back and arrested three men and sent them to prison to Kainantu. After they finished their sentence, I brought them back to Obura with five policemen. (Anu Ta’ase)

However, his recollection probably conflates several distinct patrols: the first one of a more punitive nature a few days after the attack in April, a second patrol at the end of June 1954 under Patrol Officer Bill Brown with twelve policemen that succeeded in re-establishing contact with at least some of the Obura groups after they had camped eight days in the area (Kainantu PR 1954/55/1), and a third even larger patrol in December 1954 under two kiaps and twenty policemen (Kainantu PR 1954/55/9), which was able to convince some villagers from Obura and Asara to accompany the patrol and visit Kainantu. These three patrols in rapid succession were an indication that the administration focused on stomping out further acts of war by a show of force. There was a flurry of correspondence between the district and national headquarters about the police force needed to undertake a more vigorous patrolling in the area,

28 The original kilim in Tok Pisin has both the meaning of to kill and to injure. No deaths were reported to have occurred during this punitive expedition by my Obura informants.

220 Ending War with the district headquarters complaining that staffing levels were too low to accomplish anything meaningful. The kiaps were convinced that only a show of force could establish peace in the area. As PO Bill Brown wrote in his patrol report on the third patrol after the attack: Four patrols have now visited OBURA in the past twelve months and whereas earlier patrols were viewed as curiosities, we are now regarded as a force to be reckoned with and when necessary, obeyed.

What we require, that is the complete cessation of tribal fighting and free movement of the people, cannot be accomplished overnight. Further intensive patrolling, and if possible, the establishment of a temporary base camp at either OBURA or TOU- ITENA [To’okena], is required. […] Our police strenght was of considerable assistance in that it placed us in a superior position, while the surveying aircraft was of great moral value. Further patrols will require a similar police strength or they may be considered easy game. (Kainantu PR 1954/55/9)

Bill Brown also made a critical assessment of the situation in the Southern Tairora area on the second patrol in June 1954, noting that only a simultaneous cessation of fighting might achieve the goal of complete pacification, as one village alone cannot cease fighting or they will continue to be attacked by their enemies. He proposed an intensive patrolling schedule and arrests of those people involved in the wars: Constant patrolling of the OBURA-ATIERA[Asara]-HIMARATA-ANIMA-TOU- ITENA[To’okena]-OBURA circuit and the relentless prosecution and imprisonment of offenders may solve the problem. […] The apprehension of natives from the area may prove difficult - it may well require force. It will be remembered that Mr. Burges patrol was attacked to gain their ATIERA [Asara] enemies from the patrol. The apprehension of their friends will probably precipitate more violent attack. My recommendation is that a patrol proceed to the area and after enquiry proceed around the circuit and arrest the natives, from all villages, engaged in the fighting. Arrests from one village alone will be insufficient as this will only disturb the balance of power. (Kainantu PR 1954/55/1)

These suggestions were never put into action, however, as staff turnovers at first left the kiaps shorthanded. Later, it was realized that the situation had calmed down already soon after the first two patrols, much quicker than the kiaps expected. After three patrols within a relatively short succession of eight months, the patrolling schedule reverted to normal, with a next patrol passing through Obura eight months later in September 1955, and the yearly census patrol following in October 1955, which noted that fighting had ceased and that people from Obura and Asara were visiting each other. In fact, the first punitive patrol had already led to a complete stop of the fighting between the Obura and the Asara. The Asara had lost two of their most eminent leaders when they were arrested by Burge’s patrol in April and were no longer willing or able to pursue further acts of revenge. They readily welcomed the first patrol led by ADO West after the incident, seeking government protection and pointing out that the Obura people had been the aggressors all along (NAA: A518, BJ841/1). Some Asara men had strong kin ties with people in Kuaranumbura, as there had been intermarriage for a long time, and these men, in particular, wanted to end the war. The Obura, on the other hand, had lost almost all of their pigs to the marauding police and The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 221 decided to slaughter a few of the surviving pigs for a mortuary feast of those killed in the war and then to agree on peace with the Asara. The Obura were more than happy to end hostilities at that particular point in time, as they had incurred fewer casualties in the war, and were now more preoccupied with rebuilding their houses and preparing new gardens. As Atupaha Ngarai recounts, the second patrol was instrumental in bringing both sides together, but it was the interest of both parties in ending the conflict that led to peace: When the kiap came and killed all pigs, we held a feast for the men that died with the few surviving pigs, as we had already avenged our men. The Asara did not yet avenge themselves, so they did not make a mortuary feast. Then the kiap went back to Kainantu. When he came again, he told us to stop the fight. We Samura obeyed, and the kiap went to the Asara to tell them the same. The Asara then agreed as well. All of the Obura then went with a clean face and went singing, as we had killed more men in revenge than we had lost in the war. But from the Asara a lot of men were buried without adequate revenge, so they put ashes on their face, and just held their shields without singing. It was only our side that sang. And so we stopped the fight. And only after this peace ceremony did the Asara hold their mortuary feast. (Atupaha Ngarai)

7.3.4 Study Tour for Villagers While the third patrol after the conflict stayed in Obura, it successfully attempted to recruit 25 men from Obura to take back to Kainantu, and a similar number from Asara. This hiring was the first instance of the strategy of the government to take a number of men on a tour of the patrol posts and impress them with the might and spread of the administration. The kiap in charge, Bill Brown, had high hopes that this strategy might prove successful: Some natives from each group accompanied the patrol to KAINANTU. Thirty of these are now at GOROKA and thirty are at KAINANTU. A number are only youths. Those at KAINANTU may encourage others from the area to visit and seek work which will be a diversion. When the present group return home they will no doubt be a steadying influence and may be of considerable propaganda value. (Kainantu PR 1954/55/9)

Even though a large number of men from Obura did indeed participate in that scheme, it met with little success in stopping the recourse to warfare. The Obura recruits were completely cut off from their usual surroundings and social interactions, as only a few of their kin dared to walk all the way to Kainantu to visit them. Some fight leaders, among them the two Asara leaders arrested by the first patrol, were even sent on a tour of Port Moresby by aeroplane, with Patrol Officer Burge, but they remained unimpressed. As the then ADO Bruce Burge wrote in a cover letter to a different patrol report ten years after the event: I must admit however that though I personally conducted some ATIERA [Asara] and OBURA fight leaders through Port Moresby in 1955, the sight of the Administration resources did not impress greatly and upon their return home they continued intertribal warfare. (cit. in: Obura PR 1963/64/5)

I was able to talk to two of the Obura men that were sent to Goroka, and they both felt they were tricked and deceived, as they assumed that they were hired as general labourers, only to realize that they were in effect treated as prisoners. After five months of work, they received a

222 Ending War bush knife, a spade and a laplap for their effort. Nata Vokyauta explained how he was recruited and worked in Goroka: The patrol stayed at the rest house near Sonura. At this place, the kiap shouted out to all the Obura and told them to assemble, as he would take some of us to work as cargo boys. And all of us thought that this was true, and five men each from Kuaranumbura, Samura, Sonura, Mussaori and Motokara were selected, and he told us that we would go and work as cargo boys in Kainantu. He took us and went to Kainantu, and then asked us to raise our arms, and whoever did not yet have hair in their armpits, he sent us to Goroka and told us that we would be working on the coast. He sent us to Goroka and showed us five fingers and told us we had five months to work. Afterwards, we stayed and worked for five months. After five months, the white master told us to go back to our place, and that we did not work as hired labourers, but as prisoners, because we had been fighting and chasing off the kiap. And he sent us back and told us if we really want to work for money, we’d have to come back again, and work here or be sent down to the coast. (Nata Vokyauta)

Furthermore, the cultural shock experienced by these mostly young men must have been considerable. It was the first time for all of them to be that far away from their home and to see administration houses, roads, cars and aeroplanes up close. When asked whether he was experiencing any homesickness for his village while staying in Goroka, Hane Taveri responded: We did not think about the village, we were completely lost, and our thinking got lost, and we just stayed there and forgot all about the village. After the kiap brought us back, and we came back to the village, we remembered again and realized that the kiap took us around and we stayed at Goroka and had just now returned. (Hane Taveri)

And Namu Orataro, who was one of the few young men who walked to Kainantu to bring some sweet potatoes to the Sonura men who were held in the labour camp there, recalled: It was the first time to go to Kainantu, so the place there was completely different. Our thinking did not work, and our eyes only were taking everything in. Kainantu was a place like Obura, but the kiaps were there, and the policemen and the prison. The place was similar, but the government was there, and that was different. […] We saw a plane landing and take off at Kainantu. And there was a car that went towards Yonki. The first time we saw these things, we did not know these names. We coiled back from these things and had the desire to run away. And then we came to know their names. (Namu Orataro)

The whole experience upon return was likened to awaking from a dream, and both men exhibited a kind of collective amnesia about what exactly it was they were doing in Goroka. Everything seemed so completely new that it must have been almost a sensory overload. Hane Taveri also told how his relatives in Obura at first did not recognize him anymore, as they all believed that he had died. Whatever impressions he might have gained from this trip, it did certainly not stop him from becoming involved in the next outbreak of war against Motokara.

7.3.5 War against Motokara Neither the destruction of houses, gardens and pigs in the first patrol after the attack nor attempted acclimatisation of younger men to modern life through bringing them to towns was enough to prevent further bouts of warfare a few years later. In October 1957, another conflict erupted between the local group of Samura and the smaller community of Motokara, the latter The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 223 having remained relatively peaceful since being contacted by the government. People from Obura in general still held a grudge against the Motokara because of the latter’s involvement in the Nalakor massacre. When two young Samura sisters – whose mother was originally from Motokara – eloped with their Motokara lovers, this triggered another war. A group of Samura men went to Motokara with their shields and weapons, walked straight into the village and confronted the two women, attempting to persuade them to return. The young women refused, and as tempers flared, arrows were fired at the women, injuring one in the thigh. The Motokara men fought back, and the Samura retreated, but encountered an elderly Motokara man on his way back to the village and killed him. The Motokara people defended themselves in open battle for the next few days but did not directly retaliate by offensive warfare and ambushes. Instead, they reported the incident to a kiap on patrol in the Northern Tairora area at the end of October. The Motokara people abandoned their settlement and sought refuge in the forest above their village. Patrol Officer J. A. Wiltshire requested additional police from Kainantu upon hearing the report and rushed through the remaining villages to finish his census patrol. Ten days later, on November 6th, 1957, he hiked into Obura at the head of a sizeable patrol to investigate the war. He was more cautious in his approach than previous patrols, avoiding any direct conflict. His patrol camped in Obura for four days, until people were tired of the constant presence of the patrol, and eventually sent forward some younger men as culprits. Wiltshire described the situation that followed in his patrol report: ... then a group of young men were brought forward and were alleged to have participated in the attack. Several MOTOKARA men who had accompanied the patrol then identified others of the assembly who took part in the attack. I took very little notice of the alleged participants produced by the OBURA people themselves as they had obviously fabricated a story beforehand and had selected a group to take the full blame. (Kainantu PR 1957/58/4)

Patrol Officer Wiltshire then arrested 23 men, which represented a large portion of the adult male population of the local group of Samura and all of their leaders, bound their hands with ropes and charged them with ‘riotous behaviour’. Three men from Motokara were also arrested for their involvement in the fighting. In light of the conflict with the administration only three years ago, he was careful in his approach, and had originally expected more difficulties in arresting such a large number of men: In all twenty three men were arrested for the attack, one for the murder of the MOTOKARA man. This was a very delicate situation as most of the ring leaders were the village chiefs and I had anticipated a demonstration when these were taken, however nothing came of it. (Kainantu PR 1957/58/4)

In light of the earlier punishment that the Obura had experienced first at the hands of Nalakor and then through the patrol that destroyed their houses and gardens after they had attacked the patrol in 1953, it seems understandable that there was no more resistance to these arrests. From the view of the local population, cooperation with the kiap was just the more reasonable thing to do. The way Atupaha Ngarai recounted this episode is interesting, as his tale shows considerable bravery in the face of the powerful police and kiap:

224 Ending War

The Motokaras reported this and the white man came down to court us. When they came, the Kuaranumbura, Mussaori and Sonura denied any participation and said that only the Samura were implicated. We Samura readied all our shields, arrows and bows, expecting the Motokara to come and fight with us. But they arrived with the police and their shields. […] I saw a single Motokara man, and shot all my arrows at him, and then returned to Samura and told everybody that we should ready all the food from the garden because the kiap had arrived. So we heaped all our garden vegetables and fruit and then singing carried it to the kiap. The kiap heard this and became afraid. So we arrived there, singing and dancing, and carried all our food while holding bows and arrows. We heaped the produce and told him to eat and sleep, and that he could then court us the next day. The white man said we did a good thing. And so the next morning we went back, and he courted us and handcuffed all strong men. There was a man that came down from Nompia, Kikora, and he pointed out who was implicated from Samura. And I cursed him and told him: “From where are you to come and point out people? We are all Oburas.” And the man did not know what to say and sat down. And the white man also shivered in fear. The white man then got fern from the bush, made a rope of it, and fastened the hands of all young men. The kiap only told me to accompany them to Suwaira and carry their cargo. But when we then passed by Motokara on the way to Suwaira, we sang a victory song, that we already killed one of them, and made them angry. The kiap heard us, and got afraid and asked us what the song was all about. I told him that it is just an ancestral song of ours, that we sang because we had to go to prison. When we were past Barabuna, he then told me that he only asked me to come to Suwaira, but because of that song, he would take me along to prison too, and he gave me two months. (Atupaha Ngarai)

7.3.6 Prison Sentences Those arrested were sentenced from two to five months in prison at the patrol post in Kainantu, depending on the severity of their involvement. The two men that admitted to killing the Motokara victim and one man who had shot the arrow that injured the woman in the first attack were sentenced to one full year in prison. For all of them, it was the first time to be in prison, and for most of them (except for those ‘recruited’ after the Asara war) it was the first time to walk as far as Kainantu. All informants said that at the time they had no idea that they could end up in prison for engaging in warfare, and that they were rather surprised when the patrol arrested them and took them to Kainantu. As Maho Ruru, the man convicted of injuring the woman, said: At the time, the kiap and the police would not come on patrol often, so we did not realize that we had to go to prison. We thought about the old time, that if a man gets killed, we have to avenge and fight. And so we did. We did not think about prison. (Maho Ruru)

The convicts had to perform hard labour while imprisoned. Atupaha Ngarai reported how they had to level the ground to construct the golf course above the Kainantu station. Prison work was perceived as a severe punishment, as people were unaccustomed to the hard and long working hours, and were taken out of their usual social interactions. It was only in the later years of the colonial era that people reported that they did not particularly mind going to prison, as they were fed a steady diet of rice, fish and meat, delicacies that otherwise were difficult to come by. But at the beginning, everything was new, and the discipline and the work experience was anything but agreeable, as Maho Ruru recounted on his experience in prison: The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 225

Before, we were not used to falling in line when the bell rang and then to work according to time. We worked according to our liking. But now we had to get up in time, take a break on time, eat on time. And we had to already get up at dark and start. And clothes and the way of smoking even changed. We used to smoke tobacco in bamboo pipes, and now we had to roll it in paper and smoke it. These things were all new. (Maho Ruru)

The Southern Tairora must have disliked the disciplinary aspect of prison more acutely than the Auyana or Fore, as there were quite a number of escapees from prison throughout the late 1950s and early 1960s. These prison breaks were deemed rather unusual, as ex-kiaps told me that most prisoners accepted their fate and could be trusted not to run away. While a prison compound was usually fenced and policemen or prison guards supervised the prisoners during the day, this was never an insurmountable obstacle against escape. A lot of patrols into the Lamari Valley thus had to be sent out with the explicit purpose to arrest fugitives from prison. They had a difficult task, as fugitives would run away upon hearing news of the approach of a patrol. As the Southern Tairora had frequent trade relations with Waffa villages like Tumbuna, Kusing and Aringon, they often found shelter in this direction, as the following patrol report also assumed: It is suspected that the escapees are in hiding at OBURA village itself and take to the bush when they hear of a patrol in the vicinity. I picked up several ‘whispers’ to this effect and believe them to be correct. The OBURA people have small garden places scattered throughout the bush between the village and TUMBUNA, which become natural ‘havens’ to people who have cause to run away. Naturally the OBURA people themselves will not apprehend the escapees and are indeed assisting them and it is quite common knowledge they are in the village itself. (Kainantu Special Report 1957-58/1)

7.3.7 Recruitment of Workers It was after the prisoners had returned that the first batch of men was recruited in August 1958 as general labourers in Kainantu to extend the airstrip, and as contract labourers at plantations on the coast through the Highlands Labour Scheme. This date is rather late in comparison to the other areas, where young men already went to seek out work in towns and on plantations in the early 1950s, indicating the relative isolation and the retardation of the process of pacification in the Southern Tairora area in comparison to the Auyana and Fore areas. It is also quite clear that there were fewer economic opportunities for the Obura people than for areas closer to Kainantu, as the following patrol report points out: Of all the villages visited during this Patrol, OBURA was the most uncooperative. The position found here is very doubtful and one forms the opinion that they are still not completely trustworthy. These people will not have sufficient money to pay Personal Tax for probably another two years yet. At present there is no source of income apart from the one or two men away working, but it is pleasing to note that more are taking an interest. While the Patrol was there, a total of three days, twelve men enlisted for the H.L.S. [Highlands Labour Scheme], the first to go from this group. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/2)

Atupaha Ngarai, Maho Ruru and three others were the first men from Samura that signed up for a two-year contract through the Highlands Labour Scheme and were sent down with the

226 Ending War plane to Malibo, a rubber plantation in Central Province. Asked for his motivation, Atupaha Ngarai said he was tired of the constant wars in his area in which he participated, but he also points out the influence of the prison stay on his mind-set: I went to prison in Kainantu. And the warden told me that I was foolish to get imprisoned and having to do work without pay. He told me that after the prison, I should wait until the kiap asked for cargo boys, and then I should sign up because then I would get money for the work. I heard this and remembered it, and when they asked for labourers, I quickly signed up and went. (Atupaha Ngarai)

The first recruits returned with a comparatively large amount of money for the area. Atupaha Ngarai was able to pay a bride price for his second wife with some of the money, he bought tools and textiles, and still had some left for savings. Maho Ruru likewise had earned enough money to be able to pay the bride price for a second wife. He liked the coastal life so much that he signed on for a second two-year contract in the late 1960s. The return of this first batch of labourers sparked an increased interest in leaving Obura for other places to work, and slowly contributed to a drain of younger men leaving the area for a few years at a time. It did not mean, however, that armed conflicts were now a thing of the past, as will become clear in the next chapters.

7.4 War-Centred Leadership Analysing this history of repeated outbreaks of armed conflict despite at times violent retaliation by the government patrols, the question arises, why did Obura (and by extension the whole Southern Tairora area) not follow the same trajectory as Amaira and the Auyana area, where a relatively short-lived intensive period of police presence had stopped all conflicts, or Purosa and the Fore area, where warfare as an option for conflict between villages was abandoned voluntarily. One crucial difference between the areas concerns the behaviour of the local leaders in their interactions with agents of the state. The Southern Tairora leaders – in contrast to the Auyana and Fore leaders – never established their own unofficial local courts, never voluntarily forwarded disputes to the kiap for adjudication, never arrested and brought troublemakers to the kiaps for imprisonment, and never focused on quelling conflicts in the first place. This lack of cooperation not only had to do with their experience of violence emanating from agents of the government, which made it challenging to build trust, and their physical distance from government stations, but also with the different quality of leadership among the Tairora, at least in contrast to the Fore.

7.4.1 Type of Leadership in the Tairora Area The Tairora leaders were of the typical ‘strong man’ type, best characterized by Watson (1971) in his description of the leader Matoto from Abiera. Matoto and others like him were war leaders who were feared and respected for their killer instinct, their ability to attract refugees to strengthen their local group, and their wide personal network that allows the recruitment of allies from far away. Matoto and some of his closest followers often travelled considerable distances to support other local groups in their wars, and his reputation on the battlefield was such that enemies would shy away from him. In his local group, Matoto was equally feared and respected, and he could intimidate weaker men by his glowering stare alone. His power was almost despotic, as nobody dared to oppose him or deny him anything, and he was able to flout The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 227 conventional norms by conducting his numerous affairs with other men’s wives publicly. Matoto also had numerous wives, and these affinal connections made it easier for him to attract allies from numerous local groups. In comparing his description with other Central Highlands leaders like the Chimbu and Siane, Watson (1971) sees similarities and notes that Eastern and Central Highlands leaders share many common traits: … [they] seem to be men whose status is based in large part, if not centrally, upon audacity, a capacity for violence, or an awesome persona. I do not argue that all of these groups are as little concerned with the leader’s economic skills as the Tairora account appears to make Matoto. Nevertheless, the qualifications of Tairora leadership seem to have appreciably more to do with physical prowess than Strathern indicates is true of Mt. Hagen peoples. (Watson 1971:264)

With the Southern Tairora, this strong man type leadership was even more pronounced, and the importance of trade and exchange relations for the achievement of status was even more attenuated. Alliances in the Southern Tairora valleys were considerably smaller than in the Northern Tairora grassland, due to topography and the resulting lower population density and larger distances between local groups. Therefore, wealth for the acquisition and cementing of alliances was also even less important. According to Mayer (1987:85), war leaders among the Southern Tairora were not in any way wealthier, either in trade goods or pigs, than other regular men, and most of them even eschewed polygyny, as contact with women might weaken their strength. This characterization accords well with information from my informants. As Kipana Nyamu stated it: To be a true village leader, and to lead a village, you cannot be a sugar-sugar man (a sweet talker) or a man who grows a lot of food or has a lot of pigs. You have to be a strong warrior and to fight in battle ferociously. Such a leader would look after a lot of people. He would not have a lot of children, but be a strong leader, who looks well after people from far away, like from Suwaira or further in the back and the north. Such a man is a leader. But men who talk sweetly or have a lot of children, or look after a lot of pigs and dogs and have a lot of food, they are not leaders. (Kipana Nyamu)

The Tairora word for such a leader was huru’a vaisi, literally ‘bow/war man’, or kepukya vaisi, ‘strong man’. It was thus exclusively through prowess in warfare and diplomacy that a clear, designated leader for each local group emerged. These leaders were not only respected but also admired and feared for their ferocity. Ono Vakyovu described Erorata’i, the undisputed leader of Sonura (who was killed in the Nalakor massacre) with the following analogy: Erorata’i was the umbrella of the Sonura. He overshadowed all of us, and we all stood in his shade. He went ahead and chased the enemy. He shouted about doing all these kinds of things, so he was a huru’a vaisi. You see the government designating a number one kiap and a number two kiap and all other workers work underneath them? Erorata’i was our number one kiap. […] All men from Obura feared him. They would run away from him when he yelled and fought. (Ono Vakyovu)

7.4.2 Involvement of Luluais in Continuing Warfare With such imposing leadership, it is thus no surprise that the kiaps were fairly successful in singling out these leaders when it came to handing out the badges for village officials. The first line of luluais and tultuls were all important fight leaders. Luluai Murabe and Tultul Noma from

228 Ending War

Sonura, Tultul Na’ive from Samura and Tultul Keimuanda from Kuaranumbura were among the most famous warriors for their respective groups. Luluai Tetendau from Kuaranumbura was considered the most prominent leader of all of Obura, especially during and after the war with Asara. He had a significant amount of influence even among the other local groups of Samura and Sonura, and his counsel and advice were valued far and wide. All of these leaders were men in their prime when they were appointed in the early 1950s, and most of them continued to retain considerable influence throughout the 1950s and 1960s. The luluai and tultuls apparently had only faint ideas about their tasks. The only tultul still alive was Habai’uo Beruta’i, and he was appointed tultul only around 1960, so I only have second- hand information regarding the motivation and the perception of their tasks by the first line of luluais and tultuls. But most informants noted that the main job for the luluai and tultul initially was to organize the people into lines for census and to make sure that the patrol was provisioned with enough food and firewood. When asked whether the luluai and tultul had any other task, Ono Vakyovu tellingly answered: The kiap did patrol to check on all the people. He did not give the luluai and tultul any additional work. And when the kiap left again, they were again like regular village leaders, and when a fight came up, they led everybody into battle. (Ono Vakyovu)

In all major conflicts, it was the luluais and tultuls in their role as war leaders that organized and directed the attacks. They even started some of the conflicts or were at least implicated in the escalation, not only in the Asara war, the Motokara war, and the killing of the Chimbu traders, but also in several smaller inter- and intra-group conflicts in the 1950s and early 1960s. The luluais and tultuls never saw their role to be guardians of the peace, and they never assumed authority to mediate or settle conflicts using the power they could derive from their association with the kiap and police, in contrast to the Fore and Auyana village officials. This lack of cooperation had much to do with the fact that their leadership was mostly centred on strategic and tactical skill in warfare, which had to be demonstrated from time to time. In contrast to the Fore, the leaders were not interested in ending war to acquire goods. In contrast to the Auyana, they did not have the opportunity to be installed into their role as peacemakers through the permanent presence of the police. Village officials thus stayed aloof and never interacted willingly with the patrol, which led to them often being characterized as ‘uncooperative’ and ‘lazy’ by kiaps. The following assessment of Luluai Tetendau, the most prominent leader of the Obura local group by young Cadet Patrol Officer Gavin F. Carter is instructive in this regard: Luluai TETENDAU ALWAYS a “thorn in the Patrol Officer’s side”, not pro- Government and lazy. Tultul TIEMURANDABA “under the thumb” of all the natives, and so has no control. Recommendations: Luluai TETANDAU to be dismissed. APOBA – his brother – to receive the position. (Kainantu PR 1959/60/6)

His superiors did not take up this suggestion, however. Other kiaps were more perceptive regarding local politics and realized that they up to a certain degree depended on these leaders to effect changes. Former Kiaps Barry Holloway and Dick Allmark both acknowledged the prominent status of Luluai Tetendau. Dick Allmark gave this assessment of Tetendau: The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 229

They made him a luluai. I don’t know why, because it didn’t mean anything to them. In most places, they put forward the village idiot as the luluai or the tultul, as they usually got abused by the kiaps coming through. But Tetendau, he was the strongest man in that area by a long, long way. A very fine man. (Dick Allmark)

As will be shown in the next chapter, it was Luluai Tetendau’s death that finally changed the approach of the kiaps, who up to this point only sent sporadic patrols to the Lamari Valley. With the establishment of Obura Patrol Post in 1963, the dynamic between kiaps and village officials also started to change, and luluai and tultul started to act more as an articulation between the local population and the government, as Namu Orataro outlines: At the time, between the Asara fight and the opening of the government station, there were no courts or arrests of people to bring them to the kiap. Before the station started, only the patrols of the kiap came through here, and only slowly did such ideas come and the thinking of the people was opened little by little. And only after the station was established did the luluai and tultul arrest people and brought them to the station for imprisonment. (Namu Orataro)

7.4.3 Problems with Village Officials in Neighbouring Areas The problem with luluais and tultuls being at the centre of retaliatory attacks was not confined to Obura alone, but a pattern that is reported in the patrol reports from all over the Lamari Valley. In Habi’ina and Numbaira, luluais and tultuls were implicated as ringleaders in attacks on government patrols. They were still allowed to retain their badges of office, as there was just no alternative to these leaders. The case of the tultul from Konkonbira, Nantisanjaba, is especially illustrative, as it shows to what extent ‘despotic’ or ‘strong man’-type leadership could clash with the expectations of the kiaps regarding the duties of village officials. From the patrol reports, it is quite clear that Nantisanjaba was a leader with similarities to Matoto. He was the most prominent war leader in Konkonbira, and just like Matoto, he was able to flout local norms. He killed one of his wives in 1962, causing a small outbreak of warfare between two local groups within the Konkonbira area. And just like Matoto, he pursued illicit relations with other men’s wives without them finding any form of retaliation, which perplexed Patrol Officer R. Catherall: Another rather baffling attitude of the people is that shown toward the alleged murderer, NANTISANTJABA. This man has, since the murder, committed adultery with the women of two KONKONBIRA men but no complaints have been received from these men and on being questioned they claim that they are not annoyed with the man NANTISANTJABA. This undoubtedly shows that the people remain in great awe of the man for in normal circumstances such an act would lead to considerable friction between the husbands group and the guilty person. (Wonenara PR 1963/64/1)

Tultul Nantisanjaba succeeded in evading arrest for more than 18 months, during which several patrols attempted to apprehend him for the murder of his wife. He continued to participate with some of his close kin in other conflicts and wars within the area, coming to the aid of a local group in the Pinata area in conflict with another Pinata group. He was finally arrested by a patrol in a Pinata men’s house in cooperation with some other sections of Pinata and led away to face the Supreme Court in Kainantu, where he was convicted for the murder of his wife and

230 Ending War sentenced to nine years in prison. When he and two other Southern Tairora convicts escaped the Kainantu prison shortly afterwards in November 1963, the administration launched one of the most extensive police operations in the Lamari Valley. Three patrols, one from Obura under Patrol Officer Dick Allmark, and two from Wonenara under Patrol Officer C.T. Campbell and Patrol Officer A.H. McArthur, were sent out to recapture him. The patrols coordinated their movements by radio contact and arrived in the Konkonbira area before Nantisanjaba did. As people from Konkonbira and Pinata that had a hand in his arrest feared reprisals by him, the patrols received ample support. After twelve days in which the patrols combed through the whole area checking all his known hiding places, Nantisanjaba surrendered at the Wonenara Patrol Post (Obura PR 1963/64/2; Wonenara PR 1963/64/10; 1963/64/11).

7.5 Eventual Pacification The area around Obura continued to be the ‘trouble spot’ of the whole Eastern Highlands District, with conflicts again escalating to warfare to the west and south of Obura in late 1962. The opening of a government station further south in the Aziana Valley at Wonenara in 1960 did little to quell the continued flare-ups of conflict in the Lamari Valley, despite an increased number of patrols that passed through the area en route to Wonenara. It is evident that the threat of imprisonment or retaliatory violence was not sufficient to deter the escalation of conflicts to violence in the Southern Tairora area. This situation was compounded by the often-delayed response of the kiaps, due to the distance between the Southern Tairora and the government station in Kainantu, and the ever-present shortage of staff. For Obura, the pivotal moment after which pacification started to take hold only took place in June 1963, when the Obura Patrol Post was established right in their midst, with a permanent contingent of armed policemen and a kiap. This event had a prehistory of its own. It was the tragic and dramatic conjunction of different trends identified so far: the increasing participation in the Highlands Labour scheme, the war-centred leadership of the luluai and tultul, and the strict law-and-order mentality of colonial patrol officers. Because in the end, the station in Obura was established – as one hears again and again in Obura – on top of the dead body of Luluai Tetendau.

7.5.1 The Killing of the Chimbu It all started with the killing of the younger brother of Luluai Tetendau, Apo, on a plantation on Karkar Island, far away from Obura. Apo had been recruited as a contract labourer for two years under the Highlands Labour Scheme, together with other Obura men, and was sent to a cacao and coconut plantation on Karkar Island in the Madang District. This contingent was the second or third round of recruits, and the younger men had already heard stories about working on rubber or copra plantations from older brothers and kin who had returned from their two-year stints the previous years. Most of them had also undertaken trips to various parts of the Kainantu Sub-district as cargo carriers for a government patrol. They had developed a liking for colonial food (rice and tinned fish), tobacco and money. While on Karkar, Apo and some other Kuaranumbura men had been raising chickens in their spare time. When they killed and cooked a chicken, a few labourers from elsewhere in the Highlands29 argued with them over the

29 It was often assumed that these men were from Chimbu, but Ono Vakyovu, who stayed with Apo on Karkar said that they were most likely Southern Highlanders, from somewhere around Yalibu. The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 231 ownership of that particular chicken. A brawl ensued, in which one of the Highlanders threw a pointed stick, which hit Apo in the forehead. He died not much later in the hospital. News reached Obura about this incident only with the return of the labourers after their contract had ended, around late 1962. Fate had it that the same Christmas, three Chimbu men from Suave who were employed as labourers at the agricultural research station at Aiyura visited Mussaori to buy bird of paradise feathers, which were highly prized as decorations for sing-sings among the Chimbu. It was not the first time that other Papua New Guineans had come to Obura to trade for feathers, and people had become accustomed to it. Assuming that these three Chimbu traders were from the same place as the men responsible for killing Apo, some Samura men informed Tetendau and his kin up in Kuaranumbura about their arrival. The next morning, some men around Tetendau lured the Chimbu up to their village by promising them that they were willing to sell them some of their feathers. On the track up, the three men were ambushed, killed with arrows, and the dead bodies were thrown down a vertical cave entrance (a karst sinkhole) at the top of Kuaranumbura village. For Tetendau and his kin, this was a simple affair of retaliation. They would have almost gotten away with it, if not for another Chimbu who was prospecting for gold in Motokara. He got wind of the story through an Obura man who had a grudge with Tetendau and sent a report to the kiap in Kainantu. A patrol was quickly sent out, and the kiap and police rounded up all Kuaranumbura men. They checked the sinkhole for the corpses, lowering a man down on a rope, and extracted one of the bodies with a grappling hook. They also found incriminating evidence among the Kuaranumbura villagers in the form of the tobacco pouches that the Chimbu carried with them. Tetendau and some of his close kin and in-laws finally gave themselves up voluntarily, explaining that they killed in retaliation, and were thus in the right to do so. All in all, seven men, including Luluai Tetendau, surrendered to the police and were arrested, five from Kuaranumbura and two from Samura. Many more were actually involved in the killing of the Chimbu, but these seven men decided to take the blame, knowing full well that a prison term will await them. The kiap then brought the arrested Kuaranumbura men to Kainantu. On the road near Aiyura and Kainantu, the prisoners had to be protected from irate Chimbu workers from the coffee plantations in the area who were all clamouring for revenge. The prisoners were put under heavy guard to await trial until the Supreme Court magistrate would arrive in Kainantu. Two of my informants from Kuaranumbura were among those arrested, both young men at the time. One of them, Soraw Aune, who at the time was around 26 years old and was newly married, had already been to Kainantu several times as a casual labourer. He worked on the extension of the airstrip and as a gardener for a kiap and was also recruited to build the patrol post in Wonenara in 1960. The other one, Ono Vakyovu was around 32 years old and had been together with Apo on Karkar island, which demonstrates that the strategy of assimilation and acculturation to a modern way of life that was at the heart of government strategy failed in this case in preventing violent retaliatory action.

232 Ending War

7.5.2 Court Case in Kainantu The court case against Luluai Tetendau and his six fellow defendants was a long, drawn-out and particularly legalistic affair. A lot of people from Obura arrived to witness the proceedings. They were hosted by the administration in a big roundhouse on the station and provided with food and firewood. Court proceedings seemed puzzling for most Obura people, and translation from Tairora to Pidgin to English and back did not help in establishing clarity either. The Public Solicitor’s office insisted on appointing separate legal councils to the main defendant, Tetendau, and the other defendants. Court proceedings were thus often interrupted when one of the barristers called a point of law, and the judge would ask all of them to approach the bench and discuss these points among themselves. The defence attempted to use a loophole in the Queensland Criminal Code, in arguing that it had to be proven beyond doubt that each particular individual was either the murderer or had knowingly aided the person who was the murderer (Nelson 1982:190f.). Chimbu workers from the coffee plantations around Kainantu, among them close kin of those killed in Obura, were also in attendance. They grew restless with each passing day, as to them it seemed to become evident that Tetendau and the others might get off with a minor sentence or even be acquitted. Ex-Kiap Otto Alder, who was at the time serving as the court interpreter, speculated that the frequent gathering of the lawyers around the judge’s desk must have looked like collusion to the Chimbu in attendance. As the court was getting close to reaching its conclusions, some Chimbu decided to take the law into their own hands. During breaks in the proceedings, the defendants were always led back to the prison under police guard. Two Chimbu men, Siunu and Gereagli, took advantage of this, and on the way back from the courthouse to the jail after the end of proceedings on the 6th of June, 1963, one of them distracted the police, while the other overtook them, walked up to Luluai Tetendau and struck him with an axe in the head and the neck, killing him on the spot. The Chimbu that had struck Tetendau ran away, towards the Kainantu Hotel and surrendered to Kiap Otto Alder, who as the Pidgin-to-English interpreter at court seemed to them the most neutral person, and who had previous experience in the Chimbu District. Both Siunu and Gereagli were charged with wilful murder and later sentenced to life in prison.

7.5.3 Setting up the Patrol Post After the murder of Tetendau, the worst fear of the administration was that there would be indiscriminate killing between the Obura and the Chimbu. The headquarter in Port Moresby apparently feared nothing short of large-scale ethnic conflict, and sent several DC3 loads of non-Highlands police to the Kainantu airstrip to quell any further unrest and to keep Obura and Chimbu people apart. Sepik Police Constable Omanjin Yangfuba, whom I interviewed in Obura where he retired, was flown up from Madang to guard the road from Obura to Kainantu, to prevent any men from Obura from attacking Chimbu workers on the plantations near Kainantu. All Chimbu plantation workers that did not already leave on their own by truck out of fear for their lives were then rounded up and hurriedly flown to Goroka to be repatriated. The labour situation on the plantations had to be subsequently alleviated by the government recruiting additional Fore and Gimi labourers (NAA: A452, 1963/3983). As the Obura people in Kainantu openly threatened to kill the next kiap or Chimbu they could get a hold of, the district headquarters swiftly sent Patrol Officer Cam Robson down to Obura The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 233 during the night to warn the census patrol underway in the area, before news of the murder could reach Obura itself. Patrol Officer John Fowke, who had spent the night after Tetendau was murdered in Obura, was thus roused by Robson in the middle of the night. Leaving all the patrol gear in Obura, the two kiaps and the police quickly left for Suwaira, where they were picked up by a waiting car. In Kainantu, Patrol Officer Barry Holloway was in the meantime ordered to bring all the Obura people back to Obura and establish a new patrol post there. Obura had previously been used sometimes as a base camp, where patrols would stay a few nights at a time to census the whole area. There had been plans before to establish a new patrol post in the region, either at Suwaira, Obura or Himarata, but the decision to put a patrol post at Obura was now fast-tracked to pacify the whole Southern Tairora area. All of the Obura people were loaded onto trucks and transported swiftly out of Kainantu until Suwaira, to prevent any conflict between them and the Chimbu workers around Kainantu. PO Holloway was given a large contingent of 20 police to take with him, and did so only reluctantly, as he feared this might only escalate the situation. And the situation did almost escalate. The Obura had in the meantime received news about the murder or Luluai Tetendau and prepared to ambush the patrol. As Barry Holloway approached Obura on the 8th of June, 1963, he quickly encountered resistance and attempted to deescalate the situation and appease the people:

There were Australian police and New Guinea police, accompanying my patrol with Tetendau’s body, and I was thinking how will I handle this. And we get to a river somewhere near Obura, and we were on that side, and they were on the other side, and thinking they would attack us. […] And we just stopped there. Don’t do anything. I will just walk in unarmed and talk with them. So I walked up and walked to the guys standing almost like statues, not blinking. I walked past him and asked where is the leader. I said all we do is return Tetendau’s body, and there would be no retribution. […] I was a bit scared, but the Australian police with their rifles trained, they couldn’t understand this approach. And so we came down, had a chat, got the body down there, and explained the whole situation what had happened. Told them that law and justice would follow given the circumstances, and I made it into a thing, that he was such an honourable man, that we brought him down with this escort. (Barry Holloway)

This confrontation was one more instance in which Obura men were not afraid to confront the government forces. Atupaha Ngarai, one of the foremost leaders of Samura by the time, recounted how he was close to shooting arrows at the patrol: So all strong men from Obura got up, grabbed their weapons and waited at the Saurona creek. Kiap Barry Holloway and another white man came, and I led this team and wanted to shoot the kiap. Kiap Barry Holloway saw that all the people of the place would not give him a chance, and he became afraid and stayed on top of the mountain. And he stayed a while there, and when he came down again, Barry Holloway said he was our kiap. I wanted to kill him for not watching out for one of our men. But Holloway said that I should unstring my bow and put it down, as he was my kiap. I disobeyed and wanted to kill him, but this man was strong, and he appeased me. It took a long time, and Barry said that he was already on the road since morning and that the dead body would start to rot and to let him through to the village. And when I heard this, I unstrung my bow and put down my arrows. (Atupaha Ngarai)

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Atupaha Ngarai went on to say that if it weren’t for Barry Holloway, they would have attacked the patrol right away. It was his generosity that saved Barry Holloway from trouble, the fact that he had established a close relationship with the Obura people, and that he had made them indebted to him. Atupaha explained: When we went to the court for Tetendau, Kiap Holloway gave us everything we needed: rice bags and cartons with tinned fish, tinned meat, salt, fat, he gave it to us, and he hosted us, and sat down and talked with us and made us feel good. And when the same kiap came down with the dead body, we gave him a chance. If a different kiap had come that we did not know, we would have killed him, and we wouldn’t have worried about the gun. Obura would no longer exist. They would have come with their guns and finished us all and the name Obura would no longer exist. So in a way, it was lucky that a kiap that we knew well and that hosted us well came, and we thus were appeased and obeyed him. (Atupaha Ngarai)

The kiap and police then went to work to immediately set up a base camp. All the Obura men and women were forcefully recruited to help in clearing and levelling the ground, cutting trees and underbrush and constructing rest houses for a larger detachment of police and two kiaps. At the same time, work was started on a vehicle road from Suwaira to Obura, again using forced labour from the villages of Obura. For the next few months, there was a permanent presence of about 15 police and two kiaps, the latter being exchanged on a two-weekly basis. From mid- August 1963 onwards, a permanent kiap, Patrol Officer Dick Allmark, was stationed in Obura and began with the construction of government offices. Between 1965 and 1966, an airstrip was constructed at Obura together with the hired help of other villagers from all over the Southern Tairora area. People from Bibeori, for example, recalled how they received spades and pickaxes to level the ground for the airstrip, working one week at a time, then being sent home for a week, and return for another week of work.

7.5.4 Conflicts between Police and Local Communities Soon, there was considerable resentment towards the kiap and the police for this unending forced labour. Part of the discontent was also directed towards the younger men that had gone to the coast to work as contract labourers (as the whole sequence of events started with the death of Apo), and towards the Kuaranumbura men who conspired in killing the three Chimbu traders. The resentment grew with the continued mistreatment of workers and especially of women during the first few weeks of construction. Most women we interviewed reported that they were upset with the men that they had brought this ordeal upon them. There were also numerous sexual assaults of policemen against local young women. As Soraw Aune reports of this forced labour: Then, we had a hard time working on everything. Kiap and police held sticks and hit men and women, and we worked and constructed the station. […] When we had to work at the station, we had to prepare food still in the dark, and at sunrise, we had to show up for work. When men or women wouldn’t turn up for work, the police went around and brought them down to the workplace at the government station. […] The police hit the people hard, breaking the heads, and people would get to work all bloodied. […] The kiap and policemen slept with some women. And some strong women were all afraid to go around. (Soraw Aune) The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 235

The women had been forced to work on the station and the Obura-Suwaira road for weeks on end together with their menfolk and had hardly had any time to tend to their gardens or even cook sweet potatoes in the morning. They complained about mistreatment and whippings, and when some decided not to show up for work anymore, the police started to round up these women and put them in prison for failing to show up for work. When some of their men subsequently wanted to bring some cooked sweet potatoes to them in prison, and the police stopped them, a major brawl with sticks (and net bags full of hot sweet potatoes) ensued between the Samura men and the policemen guarding the women, with several of the police getting injured. All men participating in the brawl were arrested and put into prison in Obura and had to work for an additional three months on the construction of the Obura airstrip. As Atupaha Ngarai, one of the men that started this conflagration, reflected on his resistance against the police and the kiap, he acknowledged that pacification only came about by actively subduing the Obura men: The kiap and policeman came to patrol to try to straighten our way of life, and I continued to disturb them and did all kinds of things. And they tried to chase me out and put me in prison and put a lot of effort in to put me down, and then they succeeded, and I became docile. We endured a hard time from these policemen, and they succeeded in putting us down. And now we are peaceful and raised a lot of children. (Atupaha Ngarai)

Part of the problem in the excessively violent behaviour of the police lay in the fact that most of them were hastily brought to Obura from urban areas with no real experience in stressful situations. As Patrol Officer Barry Kneen reported in August 1963: Most of the Obura Police detachment is from the Town Police detachments, and were formerly located at centres such as Lae and Madang. Very few have had any Patrol experience. As a result of this many were confused in the new type of work involved at Obura. At the time this officer took over Obura, morale was very low, and feigned illness a commonplace occurence. (Kainantu PR 1963/64/4)

With the permanent stationing of Kiap Dick Allmark, and with the arrival of more experienced police, the situation finally calmed down. In November 1963, Allmark reported: The OBURA groups have settled down well after the recent disturbances. KURANUMBUARA, the main offenders, are still a little wary of the Administration's aims but have worked well on road and station construction. The other three groups, YONURA, MOTOKARA and KAURONA, never really involved, have worked well and their present co-operative attitude is very pleasing. (Obura PR 1963/64/2)

In the end, the people of Samura even arranged a little peace ceremony with some of the police they had been brawling with. Some Samura men killed a pig, cooked it in an earth oven and shared it with the policemen at the station, who then reciprocated with cooked rice, tinned meat and tobacco. Police Constable Omanjin Yangfuba, who came as a relief for the first batch of police and stayed for two years between 1963 and 1965, was widely recognized by the Obura people as one of the more approachable policemen. He was from the Sepik, and as a pious Catholic took his personal motto of non-violence seriously. As he explained:

When I was here as a policeman, I did not hit any man or woman. I was angry with the kiap and the other policemen. I scolded them that if they would continue like that and then

236 Ending War

another batch would come, the people here would kill them all. […] When people shot at me with their arrows, I was sorry for them, and I did not shoot back. I believed it wouldn’t be good to kill somebody without reason if their arrows did not hit me. A lot of policemen from the Highlands, from Chimbu, Goroka, Bena-Bena, they all shot people. They shot men without any reason. But I was sorry for them. I am Catholic, and it is forbidden to kill a man without a reason. I said, if I get wounded by an arrow, yes, I will shoot him in the leg or so. But I know about the damage a gun did. So I just frightened them. (Omanjin Yangfuba)

Some kiaps that stayed in Obura for a longer time even became fondly remembered. Patrol Officer Peter Thomas, who remained from February 1964 until at least September 1965, was particularly well remembered for sleeping in simple village huts and arranging a big feast on Christmas 1964 and before his final departure. Fraternization between the police and Obura women continued. Now, however, it was on a more peaceful footing, and at times tolerated or even encouraged by their kin, as it meant good connections to the influential police. Constable Omanjin Yangfuba, for example, married a woman from Bibeori and has after his service retired in Obura. The anger of the people of Obura at having to work on the government road and airstrip also turned into pride once the first cars reached Obura and the first plane touched down on the runway, when the people realized that their labour had attracted these machines. Former Patrol Officer Peter Thomas recalled that the first helicopter to land at Obura created a huge uproar, and hundreds of people came from all over to look at it up close.

7.5.5 Effective Quelling of Further Conflicts With a constant presence of policemen and a kiap in Obura after the patrol post was established, it was now much easier for the administration to intervene in on-going conflicts and arrest troublemakers on the spot. With a little prison cell right in Obura, smaller crimes could be punished right there and then. It was thus only after the establishment of the patrol post that prison terms became a regular experience for the Obura men that I interviewed. Those from Samura already had to go to prison in 1957 after the Motokara war, and a few had experienced prison terms when kiaps sentenced them on patrol. But most of the other informants only experienced prison work after the establishment of the Obura Patrol Post. Conflicts could also more easily be brought to the station for adjudication and settlement. But it was only slowly that people started to trust kiap justice and bring their disputes to the station for arbitration and adjudication. Earlier patrols might have attempted to mediate some conflicts (the Asara conflict in its infancy, and Barry Holloway remembered mediating a conflict in Obura about the ownership of a bird shot out of a tree), but this was never seen as a useful way of settling a dispute. Dick Allmark, who was stationed in Obura between August 1963 and January 1964, did not remember many conflicts brought to him voluntarily. This situation only changed the next year, in 1964 with Peter Thomas, who reported an increasing number of disputes brought to the station. He said that hardly a day went by without some court case that he or the senior police on the station attended to. As he recounted:

There were a lot of disputes. They were invariably brought in; we didn’t go chasing them, that is the police didn’t go out and say, hey is there anything going on. There would never be a day without many disputes. There were people sitting on the little veranda out in the front, with the interpreters and the police talking to them, digesting whether there was in fact a real dispute or not before I saw them. So I suspect that there were many that didn’t get to me, the police saying, hey, you guys don’t really have a dispute, the kiap won’t be The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 237

interested hearing that rubbish, go home. And I think a lot were settled when they came up the hill in stages before they got to me. (Peter Thomas)

Conflicts still escalated to violence at times and then had to be curtailed by the police presence. Around 1965 or 1966, the first men were sentenced to longer prison terms of three to five years in the prison in Mount Hagen for murder. It was the first time that the luluai and tultul reported the incident to the kiap and police and actively assisted in apprehending the murderers, as my informants told me. It might be, that this was because at the beginning of 1965 the luluais and tultuls had attended a village official school at the patrol station run by Patrol Officer Peter Thomas, who was apparently successful in explaining them their duties. What happened is that a Sonura man had shot his wife in the thigh over an argument, and she died from loss of blood. His wife’s brothers then retaliated by killing his sister. Both sides were subsequently charged with murder and convicted. Not much later, a similar incident occurred in Kuaranumbura, and Watau Buakia, whom I interviewed, was also sentenced to five years imprisonment after killing the wife of his wife’s lover. Just as in Purosa, these long-term jail sentences made quite an impression, and the arrested men were similarly deemed dead or lost for good, as they had been away for a long time in prisons outside their district. The transition to the councillor system in 1967 did not necessarily alleviate the situation. The councillors and komitis were mostly from the newer generation, and no longer the war leaders of yore. Most of them had some experience as labourers at the coast or on patrols and knew Pidgin reasonably well. In contrast to the luluai and tultul, they started to settle conflicts on their own, held local courts, and reported the outcome to the police and kiap at the station. Still, they were not able to quell all conflicts, especially if they were involved themselves. In the early 1970s, for example, a dispute between several Samura men over the size of a pig destined to compensate a Kuaranumbura man for the killing of his pig led to a brawl with sticks that left one Samura komiti, Buakia, so gravely injured, that he died in the hospital the same day. The kiap and police arrived just in time to prevent further bloodshed and possible retaliatory action against the Kuaranumbura for causing the disagreement among the Samura in the first place. Several men were again sent to prison in Kainantu, and the person responsible for hitting the komiti on the head with a large stick had to go to court for manslaughter. In the end, he was acquitted as the court found he had suffered enough, as he unintentionally killed his own nephew. The village leaders simultaneously also arranged a traditional compensation payment to the kin of Buakia, consisting of money, shells, bird of paradise feathers, and other traditional valuables, demonstrating nicely how colonial and traditional concepts of justice continued to coexist. Low-level conflicts continued to be a permanent feature of Obura politics, and police intervention was necessary on several occasions to interrupt brawls and armed battles. Mayer (1987:80) reports that there were at least three one-day arrow fights between the Asara and the Samura and Sonura between 1967 and 1971, and one such battle between the Kuaranumbura and the Samura and Sonura in 1974 or 1975, all of which had to be quelled by the police. Only a year or two after independence, there was a major short-lived conflict that started with a basketball game during the annual Independence Day celebrations, in which villagers from further south, from Asara, Anima, To’okena, Himarata, Habi’ina and Oraura were also participating. A brawl between people from Obura and these communities led to a serious

238 Ending War armed conflict between a coalition of different villages and the larger Obura area, in which people were wounded by arrows, pigs killed and houses torched. The battle lasted for two or three days before things calmed down again, and peace was concluded through compensation payments. Sorcery accusations also led to a one-day arrow fight between Sonura and Saurona around 1977. Both sides met to discuss the allegations, but then arrows started flying, and an arrow injured a komiti from Saurona, who had attempted to mediate the accusations together with his counterpart of Sonura. The police contingent stationed in Obura had to break up the fight, and a large number of men from both sides were sent to prison for six months. Mayer (1987:80f.) documented in 1975-76 that men would still sleep with their weapons, never part with them during the day, and regularly meet in the men’s house to discuss defensive strategies against potential enemies. Fear of impending attack by enemies was apparently a constant preoccupation among the people of Obura.

7.5.6 Pacification in the Rest of the Southern Tairora The establishment of the station had a certain calming effect also on the other areas in the Southern Tairora, both north and south of the Lamari River. As Bibeori and the northern slopes of the Lamari Valley will be the topic of the next chapter, I will quickly mention the progress of pacification on the southern slopes. The area south of the Lamari River had been equally troublesome as the area around Obura, and the rugged nature and the long distances between local groups meant that patrols could only sporadically visit from Kainantu. This situation was apparently compounded by the more hostile nature of the people there, at least according to Patrol Officer J. A. Wiltshire: Intensive patrolling in this division [the Tairora south of the Lamari River] did not begin until 1956. The very rugged nature of the country is enough to keep anyone away from it. Likewise the area North of the [Lamari] river where any real and close contact has not been carried out but even so they are an easier people to get on with. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/4)

With the opening of Obura Patrol Posts, the kiaps and police could now much more quickly intervene in on-going conflicts also in the areas south of the river, and since people arrested would now be housed and imprisoned in nearby Obura, conflicts slowly abated. More and more people also on their own started to bring their conflicts to the patrol post for adjudication. Only a few months after the opening of Obura Patrol Post, Patrol Officer Dick Allmark had this to say about the communities immediately to the south of Obura: The To'okena/Ahea/Anima groups have, in the past, been considered the most unco- operative groups in the Southern Tairora. In the short time that Obura Patrol Post has been open I have come to regard [them] as by far the most co-operative. Their enthusiasm to assist in the construction of the post and in all other matters is gratifying to see. This appears to be the case with legal matters also. Whilst at To'okena an escapee from Kainantu was recaptured. Later he escaped again but was held at his village of Ahea to await the arrival of police. (Obura PR 1963/64/2)

In November 1964, Patrol Officer Peter J. Thomas gave a similar assessment on the situation in the whole of the upper Lamari basin. He pointed out that it was the regular patrolling and the threat of arrests that convinced local leaders to give up warfare: The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 239

I consider that the general native situation is most satisfactory. There are several groups who are not by any means friendly with each other, however there have been no incidents between any of these groups over the past months. This is the direct result of constant, regular patrolling through the area according to the village elders whom I spoke to about the situation. They were most unanimous in their statement that they no longer started fights because they were sure that a patrol would be in the area within a short time. This to me was most pleasing. (Obura PR 1964/65/5)

There was a short flare-up of warfare between Ahea and Habi’ina again in 1965. A group of Ahea people challenged some men from Habi’ina working in their gardens to a fight over hunting rights to a certain forest area. In the ensuing fight, the Ahea killed one and wounded two Habi’ina men. The Habi’ina retaliated by ambushing and killing the Ahea man held responsible for the dispute on his way back from Obura Patrol Post to his village. A patrol quickly intervened and arrested those who participated in the conflict without encountering resistance (Obura PR 1965/66/2). By the next year, the situation had already improved again considerably, as Patrol Officer R.W.S. Donne reported that violence was no longer used to settle conflicts: The political situation within both Census Divisions is stable and definitely pro Administration. There have now been no incidents of violence for some ten months. There has also been a considerable falling off in the number of convictions for serious offences, most Local Courts being convened to hear cases of a routine administrative nature only. (Obura PR 1966/67/1)

7.5.7 Arrival of the Mission The shaky peace achieved by the constant presence of police in Obura was stabilized by the arrival of Christian missions and the increase in converts towards the end of the 1960s. Especially in the views of some of the more pious elders I interviewed, the teachings and actions of these missionaries and evangelists were considered as an important contribution to the end of warfare. First evangelists and missionaries arrived in the Southern Tairora area when conflicts still escalated to collective armed violence, and they were thus more directly involved in the process of pacification than in the Fore and Auyana region. The first mission that attempted to establish itself in the Obura area was the Seventh Day Adventists. An evangelist named Lamai with a Northern Tairora translator named Aunai’o built a house for themselves at Samura in 1952 or early 1953, before the Asara conflict had fully escalated. They were soon disillusioned by the scant attention they received from the people, however, and transferred to Bibeori, where the SDA was already influential in shaping the trajectory of pacification. The Obura people I interviewed mentioned that they were rather confused and unimpressed by the evangelist’s attempts at preaching and teaching them to sing hymns that sounded so strange to their ears. Almost a decade later, in March 1961, the Lutheran evangelist Hongenare Ameke arrived and permanently settled in Samura, founding the first successful mission in the Obura area. At first, people were unwilling to talk to him or to offer to work with him, but one of the Samura leaders, Handaori, adopted him and let him build a little house next to his. Hongenare was from Henganofi in the Eastern Highlands. He had gone to the Lutheran schools in Lufa and Kundiawa, before being chosen to work as an evangelist in Obura. The Lutheran mission by

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1961 had only established a permanent presence as far south as Suwaira, and Hongenare was sent from there into the Lamari Valley. He was determined to build a church in Samura, planted his garden on a piece of land given to him, and in the beginning had to rely on trade goods like salt, matches and shells to buy food and attract people to visit and interact with him. He soon found an interpreter in Ta’i Ati, who had already learnt some Pidgin and started to translate for him. It was through Hongenare that most men learnt to understand a little bit of Pidgin, and were thus able to communicate in the colonial world. Hongenare was also soon to influence people to build larger, square houses with walls of bamboo plaiting, and he taught them how to bury the dead in deep graves and coffins instead of in a shallow grave in a sitting position. He slowly attracted a growing number of men and women interested in his teachings but was at times also threatened by continued inter-village violence between the Samura, the Sonura and the Kuaranumbura. He succeeded in stopping a smaller inter-village outbreak of warfare in 1962 through his influence and reputation as an outsider. He then invited people from Motokara, Mussaori, Sonura, Samura and Kuaranumbura to a Christmas celebration to end further violence. It was during this Christmas celebration in 1962 that the three Chimbu traders arrived and were killed. Hongenare’s attempts at stopping violence were thus soon supported by the establishment of the Obura Patrol Post. It took Hongenare about five years, until 1966, to attract and convert a sizeable number of church attendants for the first baptism class, at a time when Obura Patrol Post was already operating for three years. A new, larger church was constructed, and Hongenare told the people to symbolically bury all their sorcery implements to signify their break with past lifeways and to abide by the Ten Commandments. A large hole was dug at the doorstep of the church. The people then threw all their collected sorcery bundles and implements into the pit, and poured pig fat and bamboo tubes full of water over it to ‘cool down’ and thus neutralize their power. The hole was filled in and a banana stalk – another cooling symbol – planted on top of it. Several Samura men told me that this had a significant effect in reducing sorcery attacks and that the local group of Samura had given up sorcery since that time. The Swiss Evangelical Brotherhood Mission had also been sporadically visiting the Lamari area since around 1960. They established a first base camp with a Swiss missionary, Christian Schindler, permanently stationed at To’okena in late 1962 (Evangelischer Brüderverein 1975). The mission’s influence grew astonishingly quick, and Patrol Officer John E. Fowke was impressed by the effect it had on the previously unsettled state in To’okena, where a war with Anima was still in full swing in 1958, and where unrest and individual violence had been reported in most previous patrol reports: Since the last patrol into this area in September, 1962 the Swiss Evangelistic [sic] Brotherhood have set up a base camp at TO'OKENA with a European Missionary settled there. The influence on these people as a result is remarkable. In the past when a patrol arrived at TO'OKENA it would have to wait at least a day before any one person would arrive at the Rest House although groups could be seen squatting on ridges around the house site. On this occasion within an hour more than 100 people arrived bringing food of all kind sufficient for the patrol and carriers for two days. This stabilizing influence of the Mission is most desired particularly for this area. (Kainantu PR 1962/63/14) The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 241

The people of Kuaranumbura, who always had good relations with the To’okena (some of the men had helped them in their war with Anima in 1958), soon were attracted to the mission station as well. They appreciated the medical aid offered by the missionaries, and some even sent their children to the rudimentary school opened in To’okena in late 1965. Wanting to secure these same services for their village, and as on-going enmity with Samura and Sonura prohibited them from attending the Lutheran church there, some Kuaranumbura leaders attempted to persuade the Swiss Mission to establish a second mission station in Obura by offering them land and help in constructing buildings. In early 1967, Ulrich Sypcher and his family took up their invitation and started to reside permanently in Kuaranumbura, after they had established friendly contact with the villagers since 1964 (Evangelischer Brüderverein 1975). The first buildings were constructed at Rarera, with a school and a rudimentary aid post in addition to a church and houses for the missionary family. The desire for schooling was one of the main drivers for this invitation, and it was felt more and more acutely in the mid- to late 1960s. The people of Obura at the time feared that they would miss out on the opportunities presented to them, and mentioned that they desired a school to be set up so that their children could be instructed in the modern ways. Patrol Officer Dick Allmark also reports that he was approached numerous times by leaders desiring a school in the area (Obura PR 1963/64/2). On May 1st, 1967, the first class of pupils started their education in the mission school. The mission station later shifted down to Urukru, where the Evangelical Brotherhood Church (the successor to the Swiss Mission) still has a mission station today, staffed by a Papua New Guinean pastor and lay brothers. The arrival of the missions thus certainly contributed to the stabilization of pacification, but the advent of Christianity had a lesser impact in other regards. The two missions opposed each other on numerous points of doctrine: while the Swiss Evangelical Brotherhood Mission prohibited drinking, gambling, betelnut chewing, smoking, polygamy and performing initiation rituals and sing-sings, the Lutherans tolerated many local practices and rituals. The majority of people did not observe these prohibitions, however. While men’s houses were slowly given up in the 1970s, first by the young men that returned from their stints as coastal labourers, only later by the older males, initiation rituals continued to be held far into the 1990s, even in Kuaranumbura, which was the Swiss Evangelical Brotherhood Mission stronghold. Johnson (1980) was thus able to document these rituals when he conducted fieldwork in 1975-76. At the time of my fieldwork, most men and women in their thirties had undergone initiation rituals in Obura, a stark contrast to the Fore and Auyana areas, where the last initiates at the time of fieldwork were in their early to late fifties. The teaching of lessons of how to comport oneself on the battlefield, and how to avoid being hit by arrows, was thus still an on-going concern. When warfare returned in the 1980s, every young man at the time knew these lessons. During the 1987-1995 war, initiations were still conducted and took place during the height of warfare. Membership in the church only really increased significantly after the end of this long-lasting war in the mid-1990s, and only with the increasing number of churchgoers were initiation rituals eventually given up.

7.6 Sorcery and the Return of Large-Scale Warfare Sorcery continued to be the main preoccupation of Obura villagers far into the late 1960s and 1970s and is still a prevalent concern today. While Samura interlocutors mainly point to the

242 Ending War burial of their sorcery implements in 1966 to prove that they had given up sorcery for good, they now feared sorcery attack by outsiders even more. The Asara, the former enemies in the 1953-54 war, were especially feared, and there was considerable enmity between the Asara and the Samura and Sonura that continued far past the establishing of the patrol post in 1963. The Kuaranumbura, long-time allies of the Asara, were less perturbed and started to cultivate good relations with the Asara again after they had been forced to work on the construction of the station and the road from Obura to Asara and further down to To’okena. When Jessica Mayer (1987) and Ragnar Johnson (1980) undertook their fieldwork in 1975-76, their hosts in Samura warned them that they should under no circumstances visit Asara or Kuaranumbura, as they could not guarantee for their safety. The Samura hosts also feared that if the researchers were to befriend people from these villages, these people could then sneak sorcery substances into Samura on the pretext of visiting them. There was also a considerable fear of sorcery performed by people from villages further south, who visited the Obura Patrol Post or passed through Obura on their way to Kainantu (Mayer 1987:81f.). This concern about sorcery also led to new inventions in detection and healing rituals in Samura and Sonura when Mayer (1987) conducted fieldwork. She cogently demonstrates in her PhD thesis that the newly introduced assochia healing ceremony was an effort by men to reposition themselves as protectors against outside forces causing illness after they had been deprived of their earlier role as warriors (and thus protectors of their communities against external enemies) through pacification. Sorcery accusations were also the only conflicts that could not be dealt with by the colonial courts. Even after independence, people did not believe in bringing such allegations to the authorities, as they most likely would dismiss them. As Namu Orataro explained: The kiap and policemen did not believe in sorcery, and if we had brought a case, they wouldn’t have believed us. From my ancestors time until my time, nobody was brought to court over sorcery. When people did make sorcery, they put it underneath their legs, and hid it [meaning they ascertained who it was but did not openly accuse someone], and avenged it with sorcery. […] Before, whoever did not know how to make sorcery got his bow and arrow and went and killed. And whoever knew about sorcery, revenged himself by sorcery. […] And that is still the same today: if you would bring a sorcery case to today’s court, the judge will declare the charges void. (Namu Orataro)

Sorcery accusations were also the trigger behind the return of large-scale intensive warfare from 1987 to 1995. The death of Quamba, one of the best-educated men from Samura, who was picked and trained as a colonial aid post orderly and who was later working on Bougainville Island where he died, was blamed on some Sonura men who were also working on the same island. The people of Sonura heard first of the incident and had enough warning to flee in time before a force of Samura men wanted to attack them. The Samura men then turned their anger towards the community of Mussaori, where some Sonura had found refuge, and with whom there had been a history of sorcery accusations on both sides. The war escalated in ferocity and lasted for almost seven years. Five people were killed during this conflict, and the economic livelihood of the Obura communities was devastated, as they could no longer visit Kainantu to sell coffee. The police attempted to stop the fighting several times and burnt down most of the Samura houses, but only an intervention by two local members of parliament stopped the The Legacy of Tetendau’s Death 243 conflict in the end. Even during our stay in Obura in late 2006 and early 2007, the community of Samura was rocked by allegations coming from Saurona that one of their members was a sorcerer and had caused the death of a small child. The mostly older men and women that I interviewed reported that they were baffled that high- intensity warfare would ever return. They expected that it was a thing of the past. Asara also experienced a high-intensity war in the late 1980s, and when I asked Orato Urau from Asara why warfare returned in his lifetime, he answered: I am asking myself the same question. Before, when we fought in our old time, it was fitting, because we lived in the olden time, and didn’t have any other job, and were afraid of each other. When we fought then, it was logical. But then the white man came and stopped us, and the kiap brought us all kinds of government services. And we changed and a good time came. And when the fighting started again, I wondered, as I thought that was something that was long over. I never thought that war could start again when it started. (Orato Urau)

The return of warfare, while often triggered by sorcery accusations, is connected to the deterioration of government services. The infrastructure at the Obura government station was slowly but surely decaying. When the station was downgraded from a district headquarters to a local level government headquarters, most police were withdrawn. The district headquarters of the Obura-Wonenara District first moved to Marawaka, before being transferred to Aiyura near Kainantu. Asked why conflicts broke out again after a period of relative peace, former councillor Soraw Aune pointed to the same connection and added how difficult it was for village leaders attempting to stop the war: During the time I was councillor, it was a good time, and I would not have thought that war could start then, because the government was strong, and we stayed well, and law and order were strong, and all men put the law into their heads and were thinking about looking after their family. So I thought it was a good time. But then the police left, and the trouble started. […] When the government left, all these fights started. We village leaders tried to stop them, but if somebody had already died, it was tough to stop them, as they wanted revenge. If they had already enacted revenge, it would have been a bit easier. (Soraw Aune)

7.7 Conclusion Case Study Obura Pacification in the Southern Tairora area came late, and it came through force, through constant patrolling and a continuous presence of police and kiap, through arrests and demonstrations of power. Most informants stressed the fact that the pre-colonial warfare did end only through the enforcement measures of the kiaps, and saw themselves more as passive victims of pacification than active agents. This view is a complete inversion from the assessment made by the South Fore, who emphasized their own role and agency in ending wars. Atupaha Ngarai from Samura explicitly considered pacification as a loss of strength, as he recounted how the government finally intervened in conflicts among the Obura: Then the trouble with the Chimbus came, when people killed them on top near the forest, and then Tetandau was chopped by a Chimbu while tried in court, and this all contributed to pulling the government here, and the white man came and straightened our ways and sapped our strength. (Atupaha Ngarai)

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Several factors converged to affect this outcome. There were no expectations of wealth or security from enemies associated with the coming of the white men and police among the people of Obura. This lack of expectations had to do with the different orientation of their trade networks and the scarcity of rumours before first contact, but also with the lower emphasis on the accumulation of material wealth as a necessary condition for leadership or acquiring allies than among the South Fore. There was thus no mutually reinforcing dynamic between the kiaps intent on stopping warfare and handing out goods in exchange for food and the people desiring Western products to such a degree that they willingly gave up war as in the Purosa area. With the Obura local groups being in a relatively stable political position at the time of first contact, and with the intensity of warfare being not unduly high, there was also no interest in gaining the kiaps as allies or peacemakers as in the Amaira area. Instead, the early colonial history among the Obura was punctuated by excessive state violence, which – albeit shocking – failed to instil in the Obura warriors a sense of inferiority. They did not shy away from confronting the agents of the state head-on, and continue to be proud about their having dared to do so. As has been argued, one of the main differences between the Obura case and the previous two case studies is that local leaders never willingly cooperated with the kiaps and the police in quelling conflicts and bringing troublemakers to prison. This lack of cooperation was due to the different emphasis of leadership, which was much more focused on prowess in warfare than among the Fore, and the fact that there were no role-models in settling conflicts as has happened in Amaira, where the permanent stationing of police within the village effectuated a change in behaviour of the leaders themselves, as they realized they could achieve more power through their connections with the powerful police. In Obura, in contrast, the war leaders already had almost despotic powers even before pacification and were not particularly in need of this strategy to strengthen their position. Large-scale warfare and retaliatory killings were eventually stopped in the Obura case, but only after several instances of police violence, numerous arrests, and after it had become clear that the continuation of warfare would lead to automatic sanctions of those involved. It was only after the death of Luluai Tetendau and the resulting change of strategy by the administration, through the setting-up and permanently stationing of police and kiaps at the Obura Patrol Post that conflicts were forwarded to the colonial courts for a peaceful settlement. The strategies that were successful in familiarizing villagers with the administration and its aims in the other case studies, by instructing them when imprisoned and by recruiting them for work on government patrol posts and on the coast on contract labour, failed in this instance. Several of the returned workers participated in the killing of the Chimbu traders, which demonstrates that the general spirit of vengeance and retribution has been kept alive. Even with the permanent presence of the patrol and the arrival of missionaries that effected a slow change in behaviours and attitudes, the situation in the Obura area remained unstable. Several renewed outbreaks of small-scale armed conflicts, and after independence and the weakening of state presence also large-scale warfare, point to the longevity of the dynamic of fear and insecurity among the Obura.

8 Case Study Bibeori – The Seven Day Village In contrast to the previous case studies, where I started the chapter with a turning point, after which the process of pacification accelerated and ran along a more or less preconfigured trajectory, the case study of Bibeori has to begin differently. Instead of one pivotal point, there might be several, or there might be none at all. To start this chapter, I would instead like to cite the following assessment by Patrol Officer J. A. Wiltshire about the ‘village’ of Numbaira in 1958, eleven years after government patrols had first contacted this area after World War II: At NUMBAIRA there are three distinct groups making up the village. The first is the group in which the S.D.A. Mission has been established. The influence of the Mission has been responsible mainly for the sophistication of the people, who are quite co- operative and good attitude [sic] towards the Administration. They are law abiding and are equal to the groups around the AUIANA area.

The second group compromises the people who attacked a patrol last year. They now appear to have learn't their lesson and their present attitude towards the Administration is good with a desire to engage in cash cropping and general development of themselves. Four men were recruited from here to work on the Administration labour line at Kainantu and it should not be long before they can be classified with the abovementioned group. Of them we now have control.

The last group and the 'thorn' is the largest of the three and who appear to be the ring leaders of all strife in the area. Their past history has been one of constant fighting (were mixed up in an attack on a patrol in 1956). They ignore the Administration and try to live in the world of their fore-fathers. Like TAUNA the sligthest disagreement is settled with weapons. The lesson learn't by the second group, above, does not seem to have made much effect on them yet. This trip only approx. one third of the censused population were seen. The remainder had just had an inter family brawl (with no one injured) several days before and frigthened of the repurcussions [sic] had fled to KONKONBIRA, South of the LAMARI River and were in hiding. On the second day the remaining persons had also fled. If anything this proves we have some control over them now - previously they would have blatantly remained in the village inviting a patrol to come and get them. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/4)

What can account for this bewildering variety of actions and reactions to colonial intrusion and the enforcement of pacification in the one community of Numbaira alone? Part of the answer lies in the fact that kiaps were notoriously bad in identifying the ever-shifting political and social boundaries between groups in the Eastern Highlands. They often underestimated the complexities of local politics. They consequently drew administrative lines somewhat arbitrarily, sometimes correctly identifying several settlements belonging to the same politico- social group, at other times lumping together into one administrative group called a ‘village’ a conglomerate of rather independent local groups. This process was already demonstrated in the case of Obura, where the hamlets of Kuaranumbura were correctly identified as one ‘village’, while the local groups of Sonura, Samura and Mussaori were all lumped together into so-called ‘Yonura village’. Most of these artificial creations went on to function quite well, often because 246 Ending War of pre-existing alliances between these groups, and because of the far-reaching exhortative powers of the colonial bureaucracy. That this sort of misconception happened quite frequently among groups in the southern parts of the Kainantu Sub-district might also be explained by the familiarity of kiaps and police with the usually larger local groups of the northern parts of the region around Kainantu. What in this quote has been identified as one ‘village’ called Numbaira happens to consist of three distinct local groups that happen to share the same bowl-shaped tributary valley of the Lamari River. The first group mentioned in the excerpt from the patrol report above is Bibeori, a local group that by 1958 had already long given up warfare, and was seen as one of the most pro-government settlements in the area. Atakara and Numbaira proper, the other two communities mentioned, were both involved in attacks on patrols. While Atakara had acquiesced to the pacification after a government patrol had routed them, Numbaira continued to evade patrols and cause strife in the whole area. The goal of this case study is then to explain this uneven development, and to demonstrate that one of the fundamental truths about pacification is that it can only be achieved if all communities in an area are willing to give up arms and settle conflicts peacefully around the same time. I will further show how people started to develop new modes of conflicts settlement in the form of football games, but that these carried in themselves the danger of escalation to more violent types of conflict.

8.1 A History of a Recently Established Community In recounting the pre-history of the Numbaira area, I am focusing on the local group of Bibeori, where I undertook fieldwork. Bibeori is a local group of more recent origin that started as a mixed settlement of refugees from Dosara and original landowners from Numbaira around the time or just slightly before most informants were born. This history neatly shows how the political landscape in the Eastern Highlands is continuously shifting, and how new local groups start to emerge and consolidate themselves. At the same time, the position of the people of Bibeori at the time of first contact is again significant for their particular experiences in the process of pacification.

8.1.1 Origin of the Local Group Bibeori Most of my informants from the Dosara clan that make up a large part of current-day Bibeori started their narrative of how Bibeori came to be with a conflict over a stolen pig between the Dosara and the Tauriena in the early 1920s. When the pig’s owner and his kin from Tauriena came to investigate, the men of Dosara at first denied that they had anything to do with the disappearance of the pig. The pig’s owner, Mutasavaisa from Tauriena, then discovered some ferns that were cooked together with pork in an earth oven, and an arrow fight started between the two groups. During this fight, his own brother’s son living in Dosara, Mosai, who was blinded by the setting sun and did not realize he was shooting at his uncle, killed Mutasavaisa. The maternal uncles of Mosai from Numbaira became afraid that their nephew might be directly targeted and murdered by the Tauriena in revenge for this breach of the commonly held notion that close kin should not engage each other directly in armed conflict, and they offered him and his whole lineage refuge on their territory. The rest of the Dosara clans, suddenly bereft of some of their most important warriors, also shifted their settlements onto Numbaira territory, some The Seven Day Village 247 settling in Oriera, near a prominent rock outcrop, some moving in with the other Numbaira clans.

Map 5: Current-day Bibeori and neighbouring communities (relief from Google Maps) The Dosara had thus for a while given up their territory for refuge from the conflict with the Tauriena, which continued for several years and cost numerous casualties, mostly in ambushes. The Tauriena had received support from the Kawaina, Kombora and Mei’auna, while the Dosara and the Numbaira retaliated at times with ambushes against the Tauriena and Kombora. During this conflict, some of the refugee lineages from Dosara, and some landowning lineages from Embatiya clan from Numbaira, started to form a mixed hamlet further up the Numbaira Valley at Embatiya itself, which developed into the nucleus for the local group of Bibeori. Most of my elderly informants were then born in this settlement at Embatiya, and in the settlements at Munara, Matoynara and Orivatana built a few years later. Bibeori was thus a mixed community with ties both to Numbaira and Dosara and continued to support both of them in their conflicts with the Tauriena, Kawaina and Kombora. A first test came when a combined force of Tauriena, Kombora and Kawaina attempted to break through the palisade surrounding the Embatiya hamlet before dawn one morning. Some Bibeori men heard them and alarmed everybody quietly. The Bibeori warriors then crept out over the stockade on the other side, circled their hamlet and fired upon the attackers still busy removing palisade palings. While most of them fled, one of the attackers was severely wounded and hid in the thick reeds surrounding the hamlet. When the sun rose, he was mercilessly hunted down by the Bibeori and by some Numbaira men who came to their support. He was encircled, killed, and then – in an act of calculated brutality – burnt in a fire on top of the ridge in full view of the retreating enemy groups. This conflict was eventually settled, but the atrocity of burning the dead Kombora man came to haunt the Bibeori group about a decade later.

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When the conflict with the Kawaina and the Tauriena eventually ended, some Dosara clans resettled on their territory, while those forming Bibeori remained at Embatiya. The people of Bibeori acted increasingly independent from the other hamlets of Numbaira in conflicts with the Obura and the Sobara. When disputes over pigs and children shooting at each other in mock fights erupted between the Bibeori and the other Numbaira hamlets, it became apparent that the initially close relationship between them had turned sour. The last straw was when the Numbaira attempted to kill a Bibeori woman married to a Tauriena man while she was visiting her brothers and stayed overnight at Bibeori. Some men from Bibeori with close relations to the Numbaira must have informed their kin in Numbaira, that she had arrived from Tauriena. As some Numbaira people still had grudges against the Tauriena because of unsettled scores from earlier wars, they decided to kill this woman. They surrounded the house in which she was sleeping in the early morning. Her brother Aundu realized what was happening, ran inside the house and barricaded the door. The Numbaira men started to remove the thatch from the roof and attempted to shoot at her. Instead, they hit Aundu, who was protecting her with his body, in the face. Upon hearing the commotion, more Bibeori men came to his rescue, and his brother Nataro killed one of the Numbaira attackers, while the others fled. The Bibeori then chased the attackers away, and in combination with the Dosara and incensed Tauriena warriors succeeded in completely routing the Numbaira, which then fled over the Lamari River to allies in Konkonbira and Himarata. Some Bibeori warriors subsequently allied themselves with the Asara to fight against those Numbaira men who sought refuge in Himarata, before the conflict petered out. A peace ceremony was arranged, and the Numbaira were allowed to return to their previous settlement sites.

8.1.2 Bibeori in Exile A few years later, it was the Bibeori’s turn to similarly having to seek refuge and live in exile on other groups’ territory for several years. A combination of factors led to this turn of events. First, the war between the Obura and the Bibeori that I already described in the Obura case study cost the life of Nataro, one of the most eminent war leaders of Bibeori, and rendered the Bibeori vulnerable to ambushes by the Obura. Then a conflict erupted between the Numbaira and the Dosara that threatened to split the Bibeori local group in half. Several men from the Dosara and Omaura clans of Bibeori secretly supported the Dosara side in their war against the Numbaira. In contrast, some men from the Embatiya clan of Bibeori quietly joined the Numbaira in fighting against the Dosara. The Numbaira soon realized that some men from Bibeori supported their enemies, and in combination with a conflict over stolen pigs, decided to teach those Bibeori clans supporting the Dosara a lesson. They attacked the hamlets of Va’arara and Ambura, from where the most ardent Dosara supporters hailed, succeeded in overpowering their defences and torched the houses of both hamlets. The Omaura clan that lived in Ambura hamlet, originally from Nompia, initially decided to seek refuge at their place of origin. However, some men from Dosara clan convinced them to seek shelter in Dosara instead. Weakened by this loss of warriors from two of the three hamlets, the rest of the Bibeori clans split up, some lineages joining the Numbaira, others the rest of the Bibeori lineages that had fled to Dosara. The Bibeori refugees in Dosara did not integrate into the main Dosara hamlets, however, but founded a new settlement within Dosara territory at Gausara. It was while most people lived in Dosara that the first post-war The Seven Day Village 249 patrol passed through the area in 1947, and the Bibeori did not return to their original settlement sites for another four or five years. While the Bibeori were in exile in Dosara, they participated in wars involving their close allies of Dosara. The most serious of these conflicts first erupted between the Tauriena and the Kombora in 1949. Some Tauriena had killed a pig from Kombora, and fighting broke out, costing several lives on both sides. The Dosara joined on the side of the Tauriena, and thus also became targets for ambush. The Bibeori at Gausara first did not join the fighting, but after a lone Kawaina ambusher killed one of their young men at a garden in Dosara, they also participated and went to war. After a lull in the fighting that lasted a few weeks or months, some Dosara and a few men from Bibeori went to ambush a party of Kombora men and women harvesting pandanus nuts. The ambush was successful, and several men and women were killed, while others fled. The attackers then retreated, but one man from Omaura clan from Bibeori, Ne’o, lagged behind, as he had been pursuing a young boy down a gully. Several Kombora men had by that time arrived at the scene and grabbed Ne’o from the back and held him down. Realizing that it was a man from Bibeori, and remembering how one of their men killed by Bibeori had been mutilated by fire, they started a fire from fence palings. One account I received even mentioned that the son of the man who burnt to ashes in the fire was the one who had caught Ne’o. The Kombora then shot some arrows at Ne’o and threw him into the fire. My informant Mariu’viri Husayta’i, who was the brother of Ne’o, heard his cries for help and came to his rescue together with his father and brothers. They shot at the Kombora gathered around the fire, and Mariu’viri in a daring dash was able to rescue Ne’o from the flames. His burns were too severe, however, and Ne’o died the next morning. The Dosara and the Bibeori succeeded in revenging him by ambushing a Kombora hamlet at dawn after it had been raining all night, and their approach over the palisade went undetected. They had taken ash in bamboo containers with them so that they could rub it onto their hands to prevent bow and arrows from becoming slippery. As it had been raining hard, the usual tactic of setting the men’s house on fire was unrealistic, so the men instead waited in ambush outside the men’s house. When the first man came outside, the raiding party killed him while he was relieving himself, then shot more arrows into the men’s house and dashed off. After this revenge, several men from Omaura clan left the Bibeori for good, returning to the land of their paternal grandfathers in Nompia. At the same time, the rest of Bibeori continued to stay on Dosara land, and a few years later moved back to Bibeori proper. This sequence of wars and movements shows a typical picture of the ‘organized flow’ (Watson 1970) that characterizes Eastern Highlands social organization. The local group of Bibeori had a short history, existing only about one full generation before first contact. Their situation at first contact was different from the other case studies as they were living as a bloc of refugees on their allies’ land. The desire to return to their own territory was one of the main preoccupations for the Bibeori men. As I will show in the next chapters, they firmly allied themselves with kiaps, policemen and evangelists to achieve this goal.

8.1.3 War Casualties To establish a casualty rate for the Bibeori is a more challenging task than in the other three case studies. First of all, it is difficult to determine who should be counted as a member of the

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Bibeori local group in pre-colonial times, as individuals and lineages continuously shifted back and forth between being members of Numbaira, Dosara, Nompia and Bibeori. Some of the older inhabitants of Bibeori that I interviewed switched residency several times during their lifetime: one older man, for example, was born in Embatiya, then moved to Numbaira around 1945, and only moved back to Bibeori in 1960; another was born in Dosara, initiated in Bibeori, and now lives in Atakara. Furthermore, I am less confident than in the other areas that I have collected most of the names of victims of war since the early 1930s, because of the patchier memory of the oldest informants. I thus continued to discover new casualties until the last day of interviews. As the area is considerably more rugged, it takes more time to reach other communities than in the Obura or Purosa area. It was therefore not possible to use the same approach I developed for these two areas (after encountering the difficulties in Bibeori) by considering the whole region as a unit, and to determine casualty rates by collecting all casualties from multiple communities within the entire area. The size of the local group of Bibeori is also difficult to establish, as Bibeori was only first censused as its own census unit in 1958. Before that date, some people from Bibeori were censused as part of Baira No 2 (Dosara), while others were considered part of Numbaira. As census evasion was also more of an issue in the Bibeori area than elsewhere, these data are much less reliable, and there are significant increases in new names recorded from year to year. The census for Baira No 2, for example, climbs rapidly from 162 people at the time of the first census in 1953 to 182 people in 1954, 198 people in 1955, to 248 people in 1956, indicating that the number of people absent from census was significant (Kainantu PR 1953/54/4; 1954/55/6; 1955/56/3; 1956/57/1). Especially the women I interviewed saw their first kiap often several years later than their men, as some of them systematically left their settlements to seek refuge in the forest whenever a patrol was reported to be near. In 1954 and 1955, Numbaira completely refused to be censused, and all the villagers fled to the forest. The first census for Bibeori in 1958, at a time when things had started to settle down, counted 175 people. By the next census I have data for in 1962, this number increased to 251 people (Kainantu PR 1958/59/4; Pataki-Schweizer 1980:65). This increase had to do with the fact that quite a few people that originally were from Bibeori but shifted their residence to Numbaira when the rest of the people from Bibeori went into exile at Dosara, returned to Bibeori around 1960. A conservative estimate for the population of Bibeori in pre-colonial time thus could be around 175 to 225 people, quite a large span. With these caveats in mind, I nevertheless intend to give an impression of the intensity of warfare in the general area. I have collected the names of 20 people who were killed in combat between 1930 and 1950. Calculating the casualty rate for a total population of Bibeori somewhere between 175 and 225 inhabitants thus gives a relatively large span of 4.4-5.7 casualties per year per 1000 people. With an estimated number of 88-113 total deaths in 20 years, this would correspond to a war-related mortality rate of 17.7-22.7%. It is the lowest rate of all four case studies, just below the rate for Purosa at 5.8 - 6.1 casualties per year per 1000 people, or 23-24.5% of all deaths. As the margin of error is higher here than in the other three studies, I would not want to emphasize this too much. Suffice it to say that the casualty rate is nevertheless more elevated than the militarily rather successful village of Asempa among the Auyana, which had a casualty rate of 4.2 deaths/year/1000 over a well-researched span of 25 years (Robbins 1982:248). What is remarkable is the relatively high number of women among The Seven Day Village 251 these war casualties, 7 in total, indicating that ambushes in which women were targeted were a most effective form of retaliation in warfare. Open battles in the grassland did happen regularly between adjacent local groups, according to the war stories I collected, but they only rarely cost lives.

8.2 Peaceful First Contact The experience of first contact in the Bibeori area does not differ much from the one in Obura. Only a few rumours preceded first contact, cargo cults and the promise of cargo were not a decisive factor, and the perceived dangerousness of an encounter with whites overshadowed the possible benefits that could be achieved by approaching them. First contact was again regarded as a mostly hazardous affair, even if it was mostly peaceful.

8.2.1 First Contact As in Obura, the main trade routes generally followed an east-west direction. Shells, new crops and first iron implements were traded in from the Waffa River headwaters through the villages in the Obura and the Habi’ina/Himarata area. People from Bibeori and Numbaira would either visit the Obura or the Himarata to trade with them for the items they had acquired from the Markham Valley and the coast. Bibeori was thus one stage more removed from the source of these goods in that direction. As the Bibeori also had long-standing alliance relations with the Nompia to the north (as well as the Konkonbira and the Oraura to the south), some rumours about white men had filtered in from the direction of Kainantu through Nompia. The first pre- war patrol was nevertheless a big surprise and created considerable excitement. The patrol came from the south, crossed the Lamari River and camped at Taurara, near the present hamlet of Tisara. These first white men were considered to be spirits, and this association was strengthened through their choice of the campsite the next day, as they had pitched their tents right next to a little wood that was considered to be a place of spirits, at Utora, below Atakara. A song still remembered by one informant referred to the ‘fathers of the tamiok’ (tomahawk) that had cut down some trees at the spirit place and predicted that all those participating in this act would die from it. The majority of people from Numbaira and Bibeori kept their distance, and only a few people went close enough to trade some of their food against salt and shells. After the patrol departed towards Sobara and Nompia, the tin cans left behind were used as valuable decorations, and the wood shavings produced by cutting down the trees with an iron axe were regarded as full of supernatural power. Holes were drilled into these pieces of wood and worn on a string around the head and neck. It is possible that this first patrol was the patrol by Kiap Allart Nurton in July 1933 on his return journey back to Kainantu after his failed attempt at crossing the Mount Piora range. His patrol report indicates that he left Konkonbira on a more direct route back towards Nompia than on his outward journey and that he camped at a village called Jojara, which might be a mishearing of Dosara (NAA: A7034, 39). This patrol remained a singular event, and no other white men were remembered to have crossed through the area until Assistant District Officer Skinners’ first post-war patrol in 1947. Nine years after the first white man had visited them briefly, the fighter and bomber planes during World War II created an even greater fear. The multitude of planes was overwhelming, and their formation in flight reminded people of flocks of birds. These planes were called Vuvu, apparently in imitation of the sound of their engines, and they were reported to be flying both

252 Ending War low in the valley as well as high in the sky. One of my informants, Nono Voravo, only narrowly escaped death as a young boy when one of these planes took a potshot at him. He jumped to the side just in time when one of the aircraft was coming straight at him, and he was only grazed by one of the bullets. Another informant remembers how as children they used to play with bullets that they dug out of the ground after this incident. Near Atakara, one bomber plane jettisoned two bombs, presumably in an attempt to gain height after encountering engine trouble. People came to look at the bombs, and the stabilizers were removed and sharpened into iron tools. Luckily, in contrast to Awarosa, the bombs did not explode, and a similar calamity was averted. The planes evoked panic in all who saw them and everybody hid from them. People also collected medicinal leaves in the forest, dipped them in pig grease and rubbed them on the bodies of the women and children, to protect them from the ‘heat’ and inauspiciousness of the planes. Similar to Obura, there was only one wave of cargo cults sweeping through the area around the time of WWII, again mostly centred on the transformation of wooden replicas into real guns, but also with a more general promise of shells, iron axes and knives. As in Obura, it was people from the Northern Tairora that brought this cult to Bibeori and performed it here, in this case, three men from Arokara near Barabundora who had already completed the same rituals in Nompia previously. They erected a partition inside the men’s house and told all men to gather on one side and sing so that the promised cargo will arrive on the other side. Only one of the cult leaders went into the separated partition, and knocked against the walls with a stick, simulating the arrival of the promised cargo. Pigs were slaughtered, the blood smeared on the partition wall, and the pork eaten, and then the cult leaders departed, admonishing the people not to open the partition until they had left. The people of Bibeori understandably felt tricked after they discovered the partition to be empty, and this was a sober inoculation against further such cults and promises. After the War, new rumours about conflicts between police and the local population in the Northern Tairora filtered through to the Bibeori area. The news about massacres of the men’s house inhabitants by Constable Pakau at Kawaina and Constable Nalakor at Sonura soon also made the rounds, scaring people further into approaching the first government patrols. Some men from Atakara with connections to Samura visited Obura after the attack there and saw the dead with their own eyes. They returned frightened by the death toll, and whenever rumours swirled around that ‘Naroto’ was approaching their village, men, women and children would flee to the forest and stay there for a few days until the danger had passed.

8.2.2 The First Post-War Patrols The first post-war patrol traversed the northern slopes of the Lamari Valley in October 1947. Assistant District Officer Richard I. Skinner came from the direction of the Awa near Ilakiah, and reached the village of Tauriena on the 10th of October, staying the night and leaving the next morning for Nompia (Kainantu PR 1947/48/5). He understood the name of the village to be Baida-Tauriena, thus starting a misunderstanding about names that was already consolidated by the time of the next patrol two years later, when Patrol Officer Linsley wrote of visiting the Baira villages at the end of September 1949. As baira is the Southern Tairora word for men’s house, it is easy to imagine how this misunderstanding came about: the kiap pointing at the men’s house, inquiring for a name of the local group, and the people answering with the name The Seven Day Village 253 of the building itself. Linsley wrote that Baira consists of “several villages, some of whom are at enmity with one another”, thus setting the stage for the proliferation of local groups incorrectly called Baira in that area (Kainantu PR 1949/50/2). In 1953, when a first initial census of all the villages in the area took place, PO Burge already distinguished between Baira No. 1 (actually Tauriena), Baira No. 2 (actually Dosara) and Numbaira (actually Bibeori and Numbaira/Atakara). First patrols were generally welcomed only cautiously, but once their peaceful intentions became clear, food was given quite plentifully, especially on subsequent visits. The trade items that the kiaps carried with them did have the desired effect, at least initially. ADO Skinner in 1947 remarked that there was an excellent welcome, with pigs given to the patrol at Tauriena, and PO Linsley in 1949 wrote the following about the reception in the ‘Baira area’: Coming up the Lamari river from the junction of the AZANA and on the Western side the effects of just one previous patrol were seen. Two years ago, Mr. Skinner made the first visit to IAKIA and BAIRA villages. I had one Const. with me who had accompanied him and he had told me that we would not obtain much food or see many people at these villages; they were a very nervous people. Instead, they readily greeted us, larger quantities of food were brought in and the BAIRAS even helped build the camp. This shows how friendly disposed these people are once one patrol has visited them and shown them they have nothing to fear. (Kainantu PR 1949/50/2)

This open and generous reception is even more remarkable as the second patrol in 1949 came at the height of a conflict between the Tauriena and the Kombora,30 and it seems entirely possible that both sides might have attempted to recruit the patrol for their purposes. After all, the neighbouring local group of Kawaina had already experienced the might of police power when an attack by Constable Pakau and Avia allies cost the lives of ten men a few years before, and they had by that time realized that the people from Avia had recruited Pakau through generous gifts. The patrol report mentions that the people of Kombora complained about the people of Baira being the aggressors. Kiap Linsley, based on what he saw in the area, came to the opposite conclusion, that it was the people of Kombora who started the fight (Kainantu PR 1949/50/2), which again indicates that both sides attempted to portray themselves as the victims, possibly in an effort to direct the patrol against their enemies. This particular war – that had also cost the life of Ne’o from Bibeori – had apparently ended by the time when PO Linsley revisited the area two years later in 1951. Still, tensions between Tauriena and Komboro would remain an ever-present threat to the peace in the whole region, erupting again into warfare on several occasions, and coming to a finale in one of the last wars in the area during the colonial era in 1962/63 (Kainantu PR 1950/51/8; 1962/63/8). Quite remarkably, PO Linsley also reported that some men from the Baira area had already been visiting Kainantu, which shows that the region had already quite a surprising amount of contact through the Northern Tairora villages, primarily through Nompia, all the way to Kainantu.

30 The patrol report mentions the conflict to have taken place between Baira and Kawaina. It actually took place between Tauriena (in colonial documents mentioned as Baira No.1) and Kombora (which was realized to be a local group independent of Kawaina in 1953).

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8.2.3 Friendly Welcome for the Missionaries and Evangelists One of the reasons for this early contact with already pacified areas soon after these first post- war patrols was the Seventh Day Adventist Mission, which played an important part in the colonial history of Bibeori. The first two SDA evangelists, Tori and Makima, came to Dosara around 1950, soon after the conflict with the Kawaina and the Kombora had ended. The people of Bibeori were still residing on Dosara territory and openly welcomed them. The two evangelists soon gathered a fervent following of men and women to hold open-air church meetings at Buruara, one of the hamlets of Dosara. One of the reasons for this warm welcome was that the people of Bibeori saw an opportunity to return to their original territory with the help of these well-connected and powerful outsiders. When the evangelists asked where they could build a house for them, the people of Bibeori told them that they would construct a house at their previous settlement site of Matoynara. When the evangelists agreed, the people of Bibeori rebuilt the settlement at Matoynara and moved back onto their original territory. Through Tori, a man from Kainantu, and Makima, a man from Omaura, the Bibeori now also had excellent connections to already long pacified areas. Tori brought some men with him on visits to Kainantu, and the ability to travel such a long distance through previously unknown and potentially dangerous and hostile territory in the company of the evangelist impressed them greatly. The evangelists preached a message of peace. They used symbolic actions, such as the breaking of bows and arrows and throwing them into the creeks, to signify that wars had to stop. They also gave people some rudimentary religious education. Their picture scrolls, showing the image of Jesus on the cross and other religious imagery, made a lasting impression among some of my informants. But the message went beyond religious instructions, as Ori Ove explained: The evangelists told us to be peaceful, told us to wash and clothe ourselves, to clean up the place. The mission said we had to follow the orders of the government, and that we would then have a good life. And so we followed their advice. (Ori Ove)

The evangelists’ efforts were met by general acceptance by a grateful people of Bibeori, and they quickly gained a sizeable number of adherents. Neighbouring local groups, however, remained deeply suspicious and fearful of these outsiders, and a conflict with the men of Numbaira quickly brought about the erstwhile departure of the first two evangelists after only a year or two. Some men from Nompia had come to stay with the evangelists at Bibeori. While there, one of them had entered into an affair with a woman from Numbaira. The Numbaira became upset and intended to confront the Nompia and their Bibeori hosts about it. As they approached the hamlet of Bibeori, some of the Nompia saw them coming and threw some fresh bamboo into a fire. The resulting explosions sounded just like gunshots. The Numbaira, who by that time had heard gunshots before when patrols had killed pigs in a demonstration of the power of the gun, ran away in fear for their life, and the Nompia departed back to their village unharmed. The men of Numbaira then suspected that the evangelists had these guns in their possessions. As the evangelists had also hosted the Nompia men responsible for the conflict, the Numbaira returned at night and burnt down the evangelists’ house. Tori and Makima then departed back to their mission headquarters at Oraura, as their situation had become untenable. However, they took several young boys and girls with them to be educated at the mission school The Seven Day Village 255 there, among them Nono Voravo, one of my informants. These young students became some of the most critical links in the connection between the Bibeori and the outside worlds. It was in late 1952 or early 1953, when the next two SDA evangelists, Lamai and Epel, made another attempt at proselytizing in Bibeori. They were both from Manus, and they came to Bibeori after their previous attempt at staying at Obura had failed. Epel had some training as an aid post orderly, and his medical treatment of local people ensured further acceptance by the people of Bibeori. They too left again a few years later, to be replaced by a Papuan man named Ko, and later another coastal man named Reima. In 1956, a patrol report mentioned for the first time the existence of the SDA mission at Bibeori. In stark contrast to the often very dismal reputation evangelists had among the government officers, Kiap W. J. G. Lambden was full of praise for evangelist Ko:

…the S.D.A. have a church and school established at BAIRA.31 Here a Papuan teacher is doing an excellent job in teaching the natives some idea of how to keep their houses, surrounding, and themselves clean. Mr. Barnard of OMAURA makes frequent trips to visit his teacher here, and on these trips gives medical treatment to the local people. (Kainantu PR 1956/57/1)

These frequent trips by Mr Barnard were still vividly remembered in Bibeori, and in most accounts ‘Masta Bainat’ was afforded equal if not higher prominence than the kiaps that passed through the area. He is also particularly well remembered because he conducted his visits on horseback, and his horse was seen as an imposing and mystical creature, indicating his otherworldly status. Quite a few men and women from Bibeori visited him in Omaura as well, and some attended the mission school there. Some people explicitly credit him with ending warfare, by collecting weapons and destroying them in a big bonfire. Nuru’o Vonu from Numbaira said for example: The first white missionary that came was a Seventh Day Adventist missionary. He came with a horse. He took all the luluais and tultuls and made them his brothers. He used those luluais and tultuls, and they then broke apart our bows and arrows and threw them away and made a fire with them and thus stopped the fighting, and we were peaceful. (Nuru’o Vonu)

Patrol Officer J. A. Wiltshire has already highlighted the effect these evangelists had on Bibeori in the initial quote from the patrol report. The administration was very pleased about these developments, and the evangelists in Bibeori were highly regarded by the kiaps, as they did not only instil some sort of law and order, but they could also be a great source of information regarding events and attitudes among the local population. When Ko left again after another round of conflicts, this time also involving Bibeori, PO Wiltshire expressed dismay: The S:D:A: evangelist and teacher at NUMBAIRA has now left there, much to my regret. He is a superior type of Mission teacher and was always a good source of information as to the goings-on of the locals at NUMBAIRA and was responsible for

31 The Seventh Day Adventists only ever established a church and mission buildings at Matoynara in Bibeori. Kiaps until 1959, when Bibeori was recognized as its own administrative unit, were apparently permanently unsure whether Bibeori belonged to the official census units of Baira 2 or Numbaira. While PO Lamden thus refers to Baira as the site of the SDA mission, PO Wiltshire in the following reports exclusively uses Numbaira.

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the introduction of a lot of law and order there. Although constantly threatened with violence by the inhabitants he has remained there for over 18 months and was of great help to the Administration. (Kainantu PR 1958/59/4)

8.2.4 Reputation as a Government-Friendly Village Bibeori not only received the evangelists and missionaries with open arms, and thus gained a reputation as a staunch ‘Seven Day’ community, but also made a special effort to please any patrols that came to their hamlets. When the village name of Numbaira was first mentioned in a patrol report in 1953 (thus indicating that the kiaps had by that time realized that the Bibeori/Numbaira cluster of local groups was a separate entity from the Baira groups), the kiap mentioned that they willingly helped to build good quarters for the patrol, appeared in large numbers for an initial census, and seemed to be not involved in any conflicts at the time. Patrol Officer Bruce Burge in his overview of the general attitude towards the administration in the area he had patrolled highlighted the behaviour of the people of Bibeori and Numbaira as exceptional: This overall healthy attitude towards the Administration is marred by the inter Tribal differences disclosed by the people showing friendliness to the Administration as individual groups but hostility towards each other. The exception to the above is NUMBAIRA who turned up in large numbers, for an initial census, without the necessity for cajolery and also show no evidence of being on hostile terms with their neighbors. (Kainantu PR 1953/54/4)

8.3 Football as a Means of Conflict Settlement and its Failure The people of Bibeori were mostly successful in their attempt to ally themselves with the government and the mission and to portray themselves as a peaceful group only standing on the sidelines of eventual conflicts in the region. The only hiccup in this peaceful relationship with the government took place in January 1958, when a number of men from Bibeori were arrested for having participated in a brawl and a subsequent short-lived arrow fight following a football match between the Bibeori and the Dosara. Football matches are of special interest for this study of processes of pacification, as they can be understood as local attempts at creating more peaceful means of conflict settlement after the government had officially banned warfare. By the late 1950s the people through the messages conveyed by the interpreters had a fairly good understanding that they could expect sanctions if they continued to engage in open warfare. Conflicts nevertheless needed to be settled. As in Obura, the idea of courts gained less traction than elsewhere, and village officials and leaders did not hold their own courts. This absence of local courts again was mostly due to the war-centred leadership and the distance to existing patrol posts, which made it less feasible to bring troublemakers to prison. Instead, football matches offered a possible, though slightly flawed, means of settling conflicts and restore justice.

8.3.1 The Introduction of Football in the Eastern Highlands Football had been introduced in the Eastern Highlands by the kiaps as a peace-building measure, in order to keep the former warriors occupied and entertained after pacification and to provide a peaceful outlet for inter-village competition and antagonisms. Kiaps actively The Seven Day Village 257 distributed footballs and on occasion organized inter-village games. A patrol report by ADO Skinner, who in 1946 wrote to district headquarters to send him more footballs to distribute, is the earliest document mentioning football in the Kainantu Sub-district: There is a keen demand for footballs in the area and it would be an excellent thing if we could supply, free, footballs as a reward for civic worth - on a village basis. A few bladders are available but covers are not. (Kainantu PR 1946/47/2)

The introduction of football and other sports as a replacement for warfare had a long history in Papua New Guinea. Already Sir Hubert Murray, the Lieutenant Governor from 1906 to 1940, and F.E. Williams, the Government Anthropologist from 1922 to 1943, both advanced the idea “that sport (principally football and cricket) should be encouraged among Papuans as an ‘effective working substitute’ for headhunting raids and tribal warfare” (Young/Clark 2001:29). They followed a functionalist understanding of culture, informed by the works of Bronislaw Malinowski, which held that even ‘bad customs’ might have an integrative function in village societies. The abolition of warfare thus needed to go hand in hand with a replacement by a ‘functional surrogate’, lest there be dire consequences to the fabric of the local society (Young/Clark 2001:9). The ban on warfare enforced by the Australian colonial administration did indeed have repercussions, and mostly the men felt them. With pacification, the men’s most important occupation (as warriors and guardians) and their sense of purpose had suddenly disappeared, and with warfare gone most of the rituals and ceremonies – closely connected to war – became redundant. Not surprising then, that a lot of men were complaining about the lack of excitement in their lives, and showed signs of apathy and boredom (Berndt 1953:119). The kiaps after World War II, many of them having taken a few courses in functionalist anthropology at the Australian School of Pacific Administration, realized that this ‘unemployment’, especially of the younger generation, would most likely create problems in the long run and sought ways to canalize all this pent-up energy, lest there be other, less desirable outlets. They made the men construct roads and bridle paths, as well as rest houses for them, but they also introduced football as a new form of competition, in which men could ‘let off steam’, as the kiaps put it: Our problem now is to supply them with some worthy substitute for the fighting which hitherto formed such a big part of their life. Sorcery has a strong hold now but, with fighting stopped and no substitute provided, it will become a much more powerful force. The supply of the much needed footballs and the organisation of inter-village and inter-group competitions, later leading to inter-Sub-district matches, will provide but a partial and temporary substitute. But as a first step it is highly desirable. (Kainantu PR 1946/47/2)

The kiaps believed that football might be an excellent way to overcome pre-colonial antagonisms, since rivalries between villages could be acted out on the football ground, bringing all sides together in friendly competition. But while it was the kiaps who introduced football, it was mainly the local intermediaries, the mission evangelists, the interpreters and the police constabulary, who were responsible for spreading the game throughout the Eastern Highlands. In Bibeori, the government interpreter living in nearby Nompia was for a long time the only person who owned a real football, and he loaned it to those groups wanting to play a match. The rules were very rudimentary, and all that was needed was a more or less even pitch,

258 Ending War two poles stuck in the ground on both sides of the field, and where there was no ball, banana leaves would be tied to a bundle and used instead. Others with a bit of money they earned from carrying cargo for the patrol officers went to Kainantu and bought small footballs at the trade stores there.

8.3.2 Football as a Means of Conflict Settlement Once introduced, the people quickly adapted football for their purposes and used it in novel ways to settle conflicts that could no longer be decided on the battlefield after the administration banned warfare. A challenge of football would be issued whenever a group felt another group had slighted it. As such, football served as the functional equivalent to the prohibited warfare. The classical description of colonial Highlands football comes from Kenneth Read’s ‘The High Valley’ on the Gahuka-Gama near Goroka in the Eastern Highlands (Read 1965). His short discussion of the subject was not only cited by Claude Lévi-Strauss in ‘The Savage Mind’, who sees Gahuka-Gama football as an instance of a game treated as a ritual (1966:30f.), but it also shows up in anthropology textbooks (Robbins 2009:26) and has even inspired a legal commentary (Schelly 1985). It is worth citing in full what Read observed among the Gahuku- Gama between 1950 and 1952: These football “games” were not mere sport but a substitute for feuding (…) Under the government-imposed peace feuding was proscribed, but groups that had been injured frequently issued a challenge to “futbol”, meeting their opponents in a contest that adhered to traditional rules of redress. The game was modeled loosely on rugby, but during the encounter, which occasionally lasted several days, the numbers of the opposing teams fluctuated sharply: at critical moments, as many as thirty men on each side might face each other. The team representing the offending group entered the field with a score of one in its favor, standing for the act that had to be redressed. Its opponents, representing the wronged group, aimed to even the score – not to win by amassing a greater number of points but simply to “back” the goals its rivals gained. In the heat of the encounter careful scoring was almost impossible. The game invariably degenerated into something closer to hand-to-hand combat than organized competition, yet eventually the ideal was upheld. For the contest ended when the elders of both groups, watching its progress from the sidelines, decided that the scores were even, and honor satisfied, the challengers left the field. (Read 1965:150f.)

In contrast to the football described by Read, in which arms and legs were equally important in trying to put a compact ball made of bark cloth between the wooden posts of the opponents’ goal (Read 1965:150), the game played in the Kainantu Sub-district was more modelled on football (or soccer) than rugby, in that the ball could only be moved across the field and into the goal with the legs. Indeed, the restriction on touching the ball with the hands was the one rule observed throughout the area, resulting in a freekick to the other party. Other than that, there were hardly any rules. In Bibeori, kicking the ball out of the field past the goal line would result in a corner kick, but among the North Fore, something like a goal-line was non-existent, and goals could even be scored from the ‘wrong’ side of the goalposts. Without proper rules governing the behaviour of players, it was an extremely rough and physical sport. Elbows, hands, knees and feet were all used to keep the opponent at bay, and The Seven Day Village 259 two players could easily get locked in hand-to-hand combat while the game went on elsewhere on the field. Some people stressed that in order to score goals, a team had to be quite disciplined, in that players should always pass the ball to an unguarded player as soon as they get attacked. One player was tasked with guarding the goal, two or three more were usually in the back defending, and the rest of the players tried to attack the opponents’ goal or defend their own, depending on the course of the game. There was a limit on players on the field at any given time – the most often stated number was twelve. Therefore, football was also commonly known as ‘twelve-kick’. After one set of players was exhausted, or if a goal was scored, replacements were sent onto the field. There was no limit on substitutions, and with the game usually lasting a whole day from morning until dusk, they were sorely needed. All able-bodied men participated in the sport, from the newly initiated young men to the fight leaders in their prime. In all areas where I collected interviews, football was usually only played if there was indeed a conflict that had to be settled. The causes most mentioned for issuing a challenge to a football match were the same ones leading to pre-colonial warfare: theft of pigs, adultery, or the elopement of women. Challenges could be issued between different local groups, but there were also matches played between factions within a local group, especially over adultery and conflicts over garden land. The close association with pre-colonial warfare goes even further: just as in war, allies were often called upon to support a team on the football field. This close association between football and pre-colonial warfare has been observed in other parts of Papua New Guinea and for other sports such as cricket and rugby as well. Harrison (1993) has shown for the Avatip in the Sepik how antagonisms that would previously have been expressed in warfare and war ritual can still be found in today’s football matches. Wilde (2004) shows that rugby league and canoe racing among the Gogodala in Western Province are activities that demonstrate masculinity and clan solidarity, and are closely linked with ideologies located in the ancestral past. And then there is the famous example of ‘Trobriand Cricket’, the topic of an anthropological film with the same name (Kildea/Leach 1973), that shows how the Trobrianders adapted the game of cricket to their own culture, incorporating various pre-colonial warfare activities into the game (Foster 2006; Weiner 1977). In Trobriand cricket, there is no limit on the number of players on the field, the home team always wins, and the focus lies more on celebratory dances and ritualized movements than on actual competitive gameplay. As mentioned by Read (1959:429), the scoring during football matches among the Gahuka- Gama was based on the principle of ‘equivalence’, meaning that no group should dominate the game. That the offending team entered with one goal in their favor into the match was apparently not the case in the Kainantu Sub-district, however. But the men from the Bibeori area I interviewed stressed the fact that a game could only come to an end when both teams had scored the same amount of goals. The total amount of goals scored was not even recorded in many instances; instead, it was the goal difference that was crucial. Like in warfare, every goal had to be ‘avenged’, and people kept tally of the score by tying a knot on a length of string for every goal received and untying the knot again after successfully scoring an equalizer. Football was thus a means to avoid an escalation of a dispute into open warfare and instead allowed the aggrieved party to exhaust their anger by challenging and confronting the offending party on the football pitch. “We played football to make peace” was how No’e E’ito from Bibeori

260 Ending War explained the purpose of the football matches, “we played and fought on the football field, and the anger we felt was gone.” The root cause of the conflict was not actually addressed, nor was there ever compensation paid for the wrong done. But the challenge in itself and the effort shown on the football ground was an adequate response to the affront, and it allowed both sides to save face and re-establish friendly relations with each other, without challenging the status quo.

8.3.3 The Escalation from Football to Warfare Nevertheless, there was always an element of competition in these football matches, and they were far from being just a ritual with a predetermined outcome. In January 1958, after almost a decade of continual contact with government patrols, and at a time when at least the local group of Bibeori was already considered nominally pacified by the colonial government, the people of Dosara challenged the people of Bibeori to a football match. The reason for this challenge was a grudge held by some Dosara men against two young men of Bibeori, who enticed two young women from Dosara to marry them. Both women were students at the Seventh Day Adventists’ mission school in Omaura, and on their way home for the Christmas period they stayed at the SDA church compound in Bibeori, where they became romantically involved with the two Bibeori men. Since both women were already betrothed to men from Dosara, the menfolk of Dosara took offence. They asked the government interpreter living in neighboring Nompia to come and help them settle this conflict, for he was the only man in the area in possession of a football. The football match took an unexpected turn when the Bibeori team scored five goals in succession without allowing a single goal to the Dosara side. The Dosara men became enraged, accusing the Bibeori team of not only stealing their womenfolk, but also of not allowing them to score goals, and the football match escalated into a fisticuffs brawl. The Dosara men quickly grabbed their bows and arrows that they had hidden behind the playing field just for such an event, and the Bibeori men retreated in haste. A few foresighted Bibeori men defended their retreat with the bows and arrows that they had brought and hidden behind their side of the playing field. The arrow fighting continued the next day, with some people from Nompia supporting the Bibeori side until both sides were exhausted. Seven people sustained wounds in the incident. The village officials informed a government patrol in the area about the events, and as a result, several people were arrested and served three-month prison sentences for their participation in the fight (Kainantu PR 1957/58/4). What led to the renewed outbreak of armed conflict in this and another recorded instance two years later was that the offending party (Bibeori) heaped insult upon injury by not adhering to the basic rule that the match should ultimately be all about equivalence and end in a tie. They instead played (too) competitively. There was always a tension inherent in football games as a settlement procedure since the competitiveness of the matches were slightly at odds with the goal to reach a settlement. Read (1959:427-430) described a similar contradiction between two antithetical principles governing inter-group relationships: ‘strength’ and ‘equivalence’. Groups always tried to demonstrate ‘strength’ by outdoing each other, as best exemplified in warfare, dancing and gift-giving. In order to remain on friendly terms, however, this demonstration of strength should be reigned in by the principle of ‘equivalence’, and no single group should be allowed to dominate others. Even in this regard, football was similar to warfare. In both instances, restraint was needed to transform the war or the game of football into friendly relations with the adversary. The use of football as a peace-building measure thus had its limits, The Seven Day Village 261 precisely because the underlying principles of how football was played were still very much the same notions that were guiding the conduct of warfare. And just like warfare, football matches could and did sometimes escalate. In contrast to the football game played among the Gahuku-Gama, of which Lévi-Strauss thought it was a game treated as a ritual (1966:30f.), it was the non-rituality, the unpredictability and open-endedness, which limited the effectiveness of football as it was played in the Bibeori area as a peace-making and peace-building measure.

8.4 General Instability in the Area While Bibeori was regarded as pacified early on, the whole area surrounding it remained in near-constant turmoil until the mid-1960s. Just as in Obura, there were attacks against patrols in the Numbaira and Baira areas, showcasing again the difficulty patrol officers experienced in getting the Southern Tairora under control. In this subchapter, I will present some of these conflicts to demonstrate how Bibeori – while remaining firmly on the side of the government throughout this time – was nevertheless affected by these developments.

8.4.1 First Attack on Patrol The first documented attack on a patrol took place in August 1956.32 Patrol Officer Robert (Bob) Cleland (the son of Administrator Donald Cleland) conducted a census patrol in the Obura area, where he was informed that an armed conflict was underway in Numbaira. It is unclear who exactly was fighting at the time and why (the report made no mention of the cause for the battle), but Bibeori was by all accounts not involved in that particular conflict. Kiap Cleland sent two policemen on their own to gather more information, but they were chased off, and had to withdraw. Cleland then sent for additional police from Kainantu, and on the 29th of August, 1956, approached Numbaira from the direction of Asara early in the morning. The approach to the village, however, was noticed by a lookout, a smoke signal rose, and all Numbaira men and women fled their hamlet. The patrol continued through Numbaira and wanted to ascend to the rest house located at the top of the ridge in Bibeori, when it was attacked by the Numbaira men, arrows falling straight down into the patrol line, wounding one policeman and a carrier. Cleland had not yet issued ammunition to his police armed with .303 rifles, and so only he and the European medical assistant, John Birkin, were in a position to use their guns. Some members of the patrol, probably the carriers from Asara, responded with their own bows and arrows, however, and the patrol finally reached the rest house.33

32 It is possible, that there was an attack before that date. Bob Cleland told me that he remembered that there was another attack on a patrol at Numbaira before his patrol got attacked. In a cover letter dated the 8th August 1956, ADO Foley mentioned to DO West that there had been an attack somewhere in the Upper Lamari River area the previous year: “The patrol was intended to bring as many people as possible onto census, to enable Mr. Lambden to revisit the area in which his patrol was attacked last year and to extend our rule of law and order throughout the Upper Lamari” (cit. in: Kainantu PR 1956/57/1, emphasis mine). The report for this patrol by Lamden the previous year (Kainantu PR 1955/57/5 or 1955/57/9) is missing. People from Numbaira and Atakara I interviewed only recounted one attack on the patrol, the one made in 1957, most likely because the retaliation following that attack overshadowed any possible earlier attack(s).

33 The fact that he had carriers armed with bows and arrows in his patrol apparently raised some eyebrows among his superiors. The copy of the patrol report on microfilm had the following handwritten note in the margins: "Patrol

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The Numbaira men continued to fire arrows on the patrol near the rest house, and Cleland had to take action. It was his first patrol into the Lamari area, and his first time to be in a hostile situation. He had only arrived in the Territory of New Guinea as a cadet patrol officer three years previously, and he had up until that time been stationed in the more controlled areas of the Eastern Highlands District, mostly tasked with supervising the construction of the Highlands Highway. As he reflected in his writings, there was a big difference between the detached and understated tone in which he summarized the situation in his patrol report, and the highly stressful and emotional turmoil he found himself in at the time. His patrol report states flatly: At this stage a single round of .303 ammunition was fired into the air well above their heads. They hesitated, but after a minute or so, continued firing arrows. A second round was fired into the ground about 50 yards in front of the hostile group. Seeing the puff of dust, they retired to sit on a kunai hillock ¾ mile away. (Kainantu PR 1956/57/4)

In his reflections on the situation, he mentions that he attempted to stay calm under pressure, and intended to deescalate the situation by giving a warning shot. This shot failed to have the intended effect, as the resounding boom of Cleland’s .303-calibre rifle was followed by several shots into the air by Birkin’s .22-calibre rifle, mere firecrackers in comparison. As the warriors attempted to manoeuvre closer towards the rest house, Cleland was then urged by his senior lance corporal, Kapo, to shoot directly at the luluai of the advancing group to take out their leader and prevent any further hostilities. He wrote about this incident: Kapo insisted, ‘Kiap, shoot the luluai. Without him, the rest will not attack.’ I knew that to be so, but still I waited. The luluai’s group, as well as the other groups, continued to close in, probably emboldened by our lack of further reaction. I concluded that enough was enough. I carefully aimed at the luluai and fired. As the heavy rifle jolted into my shoulder I was instantly appalled that I’d deliberately attempted to take a human life. I visualised serious reprisals. I imagined the inevitable enquiry into my actions and the devastation of my career. Then the bullet hit the ground about 50 metres in front of the luluai with a huge burst of dust and pulverised limestone. I remained motionless in the same expansion of time and finally ‘came to’ with Kapo saying, ‘Ah, good Kiap, they’re running away now.’ (Cleland 2014)

Kiap Cleland was afterwards able to persuade the luluai of Numbaira, Norasau’u, to give himself up and arrested him. When the tultul of Atakara, Wasaravarongka, who had not been part of the attack, approached the patrol in the morning, he was also arrested, together with five men, and all of them were brought to Kainantu and sentenced to three months in prison for ‘riotous behaviour’. It was planned that Cleland would bring these prisoners back to Numbaira after three months and man a base camp in the area, but then he had to leave for the long course at the Australian School of Pacific Administration back in Sydney. As staffing levels continued to be problematic, nothing came of these plans. The prisoners of Numbaira were released after

should not have natives equipped with Bows + Arrows accompanying it into areas which had been disturbed" (Kainantu PR 1956/57/4). The Seven Day Village 263 three months and had to find their way back home through unknown and potentially dangerous territory. The administration realized that just as in the case of Obura two years earlier, the practicality of introducing law and order remained difficult given the distances of the area from the patrol post in Kainantu. With the inadequate levels of staffing in the Eastern Highlands, which did not permit the opening of another patrol post or even just a base camp in the area, (the patrol post at Okapa had to be temporarily closed at the same time), District Officer Harry West realized that his hands were tied and that the pacification of the Southern Tairora would have to wait. As he instructed ADO Stanley Foley on the approach to be taken in a letter from the 3rd of November, 1956, he emphasized the difficulty in bringing this area under control: Because of the extremely rugged terrain and consequent isolation of the small pockets of population (both factors which contribute to parochialism, mistrust and superstition), it is recognised that progress in the Upper Lamari Basin, even to the extent of only the introduction of basic law and order, will be a slow process. Patrols at regular intervals of six months and encouragement of the young men to accept short-term employment at Kainantu, seem to be the practicable limits of administration at this stage. However, as soon as the unsettled staff position becomes stable and perhaps improves, a Base Camp should be established in the vicinity of Habi'ina. (cit. in: Kainantu PR 1956/57/1)

8.4.2 Manipulation of the Patrol The next year, in 1957, another patrol was attacked in the same area, this time by the people of Nabera (now called Atakara). Nabera at the time was considered by the kiaps to be a hamlet of Numbaira but had been operating as a separate local group for some time. The people of Bibeori played a more prominent role in this clash, proving to be not only staunch supporters of the government but also manipulating the patrol to serve their own purpose. What happened previous to the incident was that the prized boar of Mariu’viri Husayta’i, one of the most pro- government leaders of Bibeori, had gone missing near the hamlet of Nabera. He suspected the people of Atakara of having killed and eaten it, confronted them and threatened to report this transgression to the kiap. When the next patrol came to the area in August 1957, its mission – besides the usual revision of the census – was to ascertain the possibility of building an airstrip somewhere in the Lamari River area, through which a temporary base camp could be supplied from the air. Patrol Officer J. A. Wiltshire arrived at the rest house in Bibeori and then proceeded down towards Numbaira, where he staked out and measured a possible airstrip site at Tuvau with the help of people from Bibeori, and afterwards revised the census. No mention was made about the pig to the kiap on patrol, but the people of Atakara naturally assumed that the purpose of the patrol was to look for the pig and arrest those that had killed it, just like Mariu’viri had threatened. Tultul Wasaravarongka from Atakara had already experienced life in prison after he was arrested the previous year and as he did not want to return to prison again, prepared his men for resistance. As Mariu’viri Husayta’i reported, the men from Atakara taunted the patrol with war songs, and he made sure that the kiap got the message: The people from Nabera thought we had come with the kiap and police down to find this pig of mine. We were still eating food prepared by the luluai of Numbaira after we had measured the

264 Ending War

airstrip, and the people from Nabera were already readying their shields and weapons and started to sing war songs. They chanted: “whatever you throw at us, we will throw back at you.” The white man asked what kind of song they were singing, and I told him they sing: “Throw your gun at us, and we will throw our arrows at you.” This kiap left his food, and sent Nono and Noel [two other of my informants from Bibeori] back to the rest house to get the ammunition bags. He told them to get three bags. We went and got them, and shot them with it like you shoot birds. He didn’t get a lot of bullets, just a few. The two got the ammunition. They came running down again, and then the police got ready. They started the fight. The police gave them a warning shot, shooting at trees. The Nabera fired arrows straight at the police. One policeman from Simbu was hit by an arrow in the ribs, his name was Kurame. This policeman cried out he had been shot. And then the police fired directly, and chased them off. The police shot one man in the back, but he survived. It was late afternoon that this happened, and then night fell, and they aborted the fight and went back to sleep. (Mariu’viri Husayta’i)

This account corresponds in most details with the report that the Administrator of the Territories of Papua and New Guinea, Donald Cleland, sent to the Secretary of the Department of Territories in Canberra: The Officer conducting the patrol, accompanied by three police constables, a luluai and several villagers walked towards the area where the people were to appear for census revision.

The hamlet, Na-be-ra, was viewed through binoculars and fifteen to twenty men were seen assembled in front of the Men’s House; they were armed with weapons and shields. With the aid of an interpreter, the Patrol Officer had a shouted conversation with a man, supposedly the tultul of Na-be-ra.

It transpired from this conversation that the tultul believed he was about to be arrested on a charge of pig stealing. The pig stealing allegations were not known by the Patrol Officer at this stage. Enquiries revealed that the men of Na-be-ra had stolen and killed a pig from another hamlet; this theft had caused tension between the people of the two hamlets.

The Patrol Officer informed the tultul that he had not come to arrest him for pig stealing, but required his people to assemble for census revision on the following day. The tultul shouted insults at the patrol and called, “If you want to see me come up and get me.”

The Patrol Officer continued calling to the tultul and during the conversation an arrow was fired at the patrol from the cover of cane grass. The Patrol Officer called on the people to cease firing, but firing on the patrol continued. Shots were fired by police over the heads of the attackers but with no result, and a constable sustained a slight wound from an arrow in the area of his ribs. Shots were fired at the legs of the attackers but it is not known whether any were injured. When these shots were fired, the Police moved forward and the attackers fled, scattering amongst the ridges. (NAA: A452, 1957/2457)

What both accounts leave out was that the police did not just shoot at and disperse the attackers, but – enraged by the fact that one of their men was seriously wounded – also went on a rampage, The Seven Day Village 265 killing pigs, destroying gardens and torching houses. The men of Bibeori and some from Dosara and Nompia gladly joined in this punitive affair, revelling in the fact that they could get back at the Atakara people for their earlier pig theft.34 The people of Atakara ran away, slept during the night in some caves near the Lamari River, and then sought refuge with kin and allies in Samura, Oraura and Himarata. Three men were actually wounded in the shoot-out, one by a bullet through his shoulder, and two others received minor injuries. Tultul Wasaravarongka and his people visited the same kiap, J. A. Wiltshire, three months later when he came to Obura, and professed their regret about having attacked the police. PO Wiltshire later helped them to resettle at Atakara, let Wasaravarongka retain his position as tultul, and decided not to take any action against those who had attacked the patrol. He deemed it more prudent to gain the trust and support of the Atakara than to pursue a too rigid interpretation of the law. Asked why he was not afraid to engage the police and kiap with bows and arrows, former tultul and leader of Nabera, Wasaravarongka explained with bravado: We were not scared. We saw others, our parents die, and if they killed us, we would be buried in our own territory. And so we were not afraid of the police and kiap and fought with them. We told them that if they kill us, we would be buried here, but if we kill them, they would have to carry them out over the mountains. (Wasaravarongka)

The use of guns and the destruction of the hamlet did have an effect, in that at least the immediately targeted group never attempted any other attack against a patrol and remained peaceful. For the people of Bibeori, it again demonstrated the power of the police and kiaps, and that it would be prudent to be on their side. Ori Ove, for example, told me about the overwhelming effect of the guns: When the gun was fired, the noise was tremendous, the ground shook, and the leaves of the trees as well, and we were all confused. They told us it was the bow of the white man. It was the first time I saw it. (Ori Ove)

This demonstration of power certainly frightened people, and probably contributed to the ease with which the kiap could arrest the Bibeori and Dosara men after the football incident a few months later. It did not, however, completely curb the continuation of warfare. Even attacks against patrols retook place in the neighbouring Baira area five years later. What this incident brought about, however, was that local groups from now on would often evade the patrol and seek refuge elsewhere when they had to expect to be arrested. When Kiap Wiltshire, for example, visited Numbaira in August 1958, about 40% of the people had fled to Konkonbira after a recent intra-group fight (Kainantu PR 1958/59/4).

34 Wiltshire in his next patrol report does mention that gardens were destroyed and pigs killed, but clearly lays the blame on the people of Numbaira and Dosara. Referring to the return of Wasaravarongka’s group, he mentions: “Since the attack many of this group have returned to NUMBAIRA, but have not permanently settled there. I was fully expecting some strife to arise out of their return as all gardens and pigs belonging to them were taken by the remaining natives of the other two hamlets” (Kainantu PR 1957/58/4).

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8.4.3 Attacks by Himarata Two years after the attack on the patrol, in December 1959, another football match, this time between the Bibeori and the Numbaira, again resulted in open warfare, demonstrating that pacification still had not completely taken hold. This time, the conflict was compounded by the sudden involvement of a third group, the Himarata. The grudge that led to the challenge to a football match was similar to the one with the Dosara: one man from Bibeori had made unwelcomed advances to a woman from Atakara. The people from Atakara and Numbaira then challenged the Bibeori to come and play a football match against them. The Bibeori went down to Numbaira, and the game started. Again, it was the Bibeori men who were clearly on the winning side, and after they had scored several goals, the Numbaira men grabbed bows and arrows that they had hidden near the playing field and started to shoot at the fleeing Bibeori. Some Bibeori men that had brought their weapons engaged and held off the attackers, but the fight was slowly shifting up towards Bibeori. Just then, something unexpected happened: the houses of the Numbaira local group went up in smoke. The people from Himarata had the same day decided to attack the Numbaira because of suspicions of sorcery. Himarata was located on the southern side of the Lamari River in an area even more regularly perturbed by conflicts, and pacification had taken less of a hold on that side. While most of the men of Numbaira engaged the Bibeori in an arrow fight, the Himarata attacked the deserted hamlets, killed one woman, one older man and a little child, and torched all the houses. The conflict between the Numbaira and the Bibeori ended then and there, and the Numbaira men turned around and set after the retreating Himarata warriors. With their houses destroyed, the Numbaira people sought refuge in Dosara, and some with kin ties also in Bibeori. This time, news of the war between the Numbaira and the Himarata reached Kainantu, and a patrol was sent out to investigate. Assistant District Officer Angus M. Bottrill and Cadet Patrol Officer Gavin F. Carter arrived in Numbaira on the 18th of December, 1959. The people of Numbaira involved in the conflict with the Himarata, as well as the people of Bibeori involved in the arrow fight after the soccer match, had fled at the approach of the patrol and sought refuge in the heavily wooded upper slopes of the Lamari Valley. Thus, the patrol could only arrest two men that were too heavily wounded to flee. The next morning, the luluai of Numbaira, Norasau’u, approached the patrol with some of his people to have an arrow wound he received in the fighting against the Bibeori treated. But he and all others ran away again during the night. Only old men and women were left behind in the villages, while the men were all evading capture. It was then decided that CPO Carter and some police would be stationed in the area over the Christmas and New Year period to man a base camp and to demonstrate the intention of the government to control the region, while ADO Bottrill returned to Kainantu. CPO Carter thus remained at the Bibeori rest house for a total of twenty days until January 6th, 1960. It was probably the most prolonged period at a time that there had been a permanent government presence in the northern Lamari area. Carter and his police arrested six people involved in the conflicts brought to him by the tultul of Atakara, Wasaravarongka, two men brought in by the tultul of Tauriena, and two men brought in by an unnamed older man from Numbaira. These arrests demonstrate that there was at least some cooperation between the tultuls and the kiap in arresting those involved in the conflict, and confirms the assessment by PO Wiltshire that Tultul Wasaravarongka would be of better service for the administration if he remained in his position after the attack the previous year. The Seven Day Village 267

During his stay, CPO Carter also arranged for a big Christmas Day celebration. He bought pigs and food and sponsored a big sing-sing that was attended by people from all over the area (he mentions the villages of Obura, Asara, Motokara, Kawaina and Baira). This feast is still remembered by the people of Bibeori today and was a successful event in that it created trust among the local groups. It stabilized the situation for a while. The permanent government presence also meant that there was now a possibility to access alternative means of conflict resolution through the kiap courts. The luluai of Kawaina quickly used this opportunity and sent a request to CPO Carter to send a policeman to his village to arrest several offenders that had been guilty of theft and adultery. On January 5th, 1960, ADO Bottrill and PO Otto Alder arrived at the Bibeori rest house, and the following morning the patrol including CPO Carter departed towards Himarata. Their patrol was almost attacked again, as the people of Himarata expected to be arrested for their involvement in the attack on the Numbaira. It was the fearlessness of ADO Bottrill, which prevented an escalation of the situation. The account of this encounter by Otto Alder neatly demonstrates the extent to which the authority of the kiaps was founded not only on the power of their guns but also on bluff and intimidation:

We walked from Numbaira to Himarata and when we got there, we didn’t get a very good reception at all […]. But they thought that we were coming to arrest them, and I never forget Gus [Bottrill], it was my first patrol in the area. They were all up there, giving their war chants, shaking their spears, all with their shields. And we were pretty puffed coming up the steep hill. And the leader of the village was in front a bit. There was a lot of uncertainty, they didn’t know what we were on about, and we didn’t know why they were wearing arms. And Gus told the police to step aside. And he wasn’t a very tall fellow, Gus, but a little bit rotund. And he walked up to this guy, until his face was a few centimetres away from the other guy, and said in Pidgin: “What are you going to do about it, put down the arrows.” And this bloke didn’t know what struck him. Nobody had confronted him in such a public and open way ever – he was the king of the castle. And you could see him gradually melt, and he just motioned for the rest to put their weapons aside. (Otto Alder)

8.4.4 The Tauriena – Kombora War After this incident, the northern Lamari area around Bibeori started to settle down, and the next few patrols reported an improved attitude of the people. Three years later, however, in December 1962, the long-simmering tensions between the Tauriena and the Kombora erupted into open warfare again. After the death of a Kombora man suffering from leprosy, people from Tauriena were invited to visit the wake. As they had been suspected of causing the death by sorcery in the first place, they were ambushed by some Kawaina and Kombora men. One Tauriena man was killed, and numerous others wounded, and a full-scale war between the two groups erupted. The following excerpt by the patrol report of Cadet Patrol Officer Dick Allmark, who was sent into the area to investigate, offers a tantalizing glimpse at possible underlying reasons for this eruption of warfare at a time when both sides had remained at peace for more than ten years: This fight was out of pattern of recent activities along the Lamari River (refer my patrol report KAI No.5 of 62-63). At the half-way point between BAIRA and KOMBORO is a Lutheran Mission village where both BAIRA and KOMBORO people live compatibly. It is felt that this fight was immediately caused by pressure from

268 Ending War

the old men of KOMBORO on the younger men to return to their old ways. (Kainantu PR 1962/63/8)

Later patrol reports and interviews with informants from Tauriena confirmed that the tultul and other older fight leaders of Baira No 1 were at the forefront of this conflict. These stories indicate that an inter-generational power struggle might have played an essential role in the escalation to warfare. The former fight leaders seeing their power slip away might have consciously escalated the conflict to recreate the condition under which they were respected and feared leaders. Hayano (1990:106, 132f.) reports similar occurrences among the Awa in the 1970s when violent incidents marred the slow transition of power from older warrior leaders to new and mostly younger village officials. The former warrior leaders always tried to provoke fights between villages and react to provocation with threats of force. In contrast, the younger generation of official village heads attempted to prevent an escalation and bring conflicts before colonial courts for settlement. Even in Amaira, younger informants mentioned that the older generation of men that had still experienced or at least witnessed warfare in the 1940s was responsible for the return of war in the 1980s. When CPO Dick Allmark arrived in Tauriena to investigate, the people from Tauriena requested permission to kill one Kombora man in return. Allmark declined by stating the intent of the administration to charge those responsible for the murder in the Supreme Court. He then proceeded to Kombora and Kawaina to arrest the five men from Kombora accountable for the killing and thirty-six others that were involved in the attack on the Tauriena mourning party. To further de-escalate the situation, the administration also resorted to the strategy of taking leaders from the villages involved in conflicts on tour to Kainantu and other government posts: A presumed BAIRA fight leader ABAUBI; the Luluai (who is very pro- Administration) and AMEU'UA were brought back to KAINANTU and taken on an induction tour to Goroka via OKAPA and LUFA to show them the progress achieved by other native groups in their immediate area, and the work being conducted by the Administration. They were visibly impressed and have since been sent back to their village. (Kainantu PR 1962/63/10)

The five Kombora men charged with murder were sentenced to 3 to 4 years in prison. For the people of Tauriena, however, that was not seen as an adequate punishment for murder. By that time, it had become clear that a lengthy prison stay was not necessarily an entirely negative experience. The men of Baira/Tauriena thus threatened to continue their revenge with violent means, demonstrating that colonial justice had its limits when it came to preventing warfare. Two patrol reports both mention threats to disregard and openly challenge the government’s ban on war if the murderers did not receive the death penalty: The people in the area are not satisfied with Administration justice. This is one of our main problems with these people. Whilst at BAIRA No.1 I was told openly that if the Court only gaoled the murderers they would be forced to take matters into their own hands as they considered that gaol was not a sufficient punishment. (Kainantu PR 1962/63/8)

The Supreme Cort had sat and heard this case on the 14 Feb., 1963 and adjudged the KOMBORA defendants guilty as charged. The BAIRA people were far from pleased The Seven Day Village 269

at the Supreme Courts findings and demanded either an Administration hanging of the Defendants or a direct blood pay-back. (Kainantu PR 1962/63/10)

As a result of this, the men of Tauriena continued to goad the Kombora into a fight by killing pigs and destroying their gardens. The fighting escalated twice more, in February/March and August/September 1963. The administration on both occasions reacted quite quickly by sending a patrol into the area to arrest people after they had been informed of the flare-ups. It is noticeable that people sympathetic to the administration quickly relayed that information, in the first instance it was the aid post orderly stationed in Baira, in the second the luluai from Kombora, who walked to the newly established patrol post in Obura and informed the kiap there. Patrols coming to arrest people were met with defiance, however, and on several occasions the men from Tauriena threatened to or actually shot arrows at the patrol. The following quote from the patrol report shows that the potential threat of the use of guns was no longer as effective as before, as people knew that patrols would only fire warning shots: BAIRA men surrounded the Patrol while it was camped at BAIRA rest house threatening attack and yelling abuse. On a number of occasions BAIRA men were heard to say, by the patrols interpreter, “Don’t be afraid of the Administration, if they shoot they will only shoot in the Air.” (Kainantu PR 1962/63/10)

8.5 Conclusion Bibeori Case Study Bibeori was a local group that attempted to give up warfare relatively early and to stay in good relations with all outside agents, whether evangelists, missionaries, kiaps or police. All outsiders regarded it as a dependable and progressive ‘Seven Day’ village, a beacon of peace in an otherwise hostile environment. Around Bibeori, conflicts routinely escalated to warfare, and only the opening of Obura Patrol Post in 1963 and the constant presence of kiap and police stationed there led to a gradual pacification of the larger area. Troublesome neighbours on all sides meant that the people of Bibeori had to at times defend their local group against incursions and accusations by other groups, and they were involved in some defensive warfare against their more confrontational neighbours. What this demonstrates, then, is that pacification has to be undertaken on a regional level. All groups have to put down their weapons at the same time, as has happened in Purosa through their own will, and in Amaira through the power of the police. Where this is not the case, like in Bibeori or Obura, the situation will remain unstable regardless of the interest of some groups in engendering positive relations with the administration. That Bibeori was welcoming to evangelists and kiaps alike was mainly due to their political and strategic position at the time of contact. Bibeori was a relatively new local group that had to seek refuge in Dosara among their allies after a conflict with the neighbouring Numbaira. They used the presence of evangelists, who were perceived to be powerful outsiders, to regain their territory and resettle on their traditional land. The evangelists themselves were most instrumental in shaping the trajectory of pacification in Bibeori through their continued presence, their preaching against warfare, their gifts and trade goods, their establishment of contact with already pacified areas and their communication with other government agents. With warfare and other forms of violence attracting punitive retribution by the kiap and the police, the Bibeori and other groups in the Eastern Highlands turned to alternative ways of

270 Ending War conflict settlement that were less violent. As colonial courts were difficult to access more than a day’s walk away in Kainantu, and as local leaders did not hear their own courts as in Amaira and Purosa, soccer was introduced as an alternative to warfare. Soccer matches were a form of restorative justice that enabled both groups to confront the tensions resulting from a dispute and to restore normal relations between them. They did not actually solve or decide the conflict in question, but ideally cooled off the tempers enough for both sides to come to an agreement regarding the wrong. As the underlying notions were similar to those governing actual warfare, escalation was nevertheless still possible, especially when one side was playing too competitively and would not allow any goals.

9 Conclusion What then are the crucial elements in assessing the efficiency of pacification strategies that could account for local and regional differences in the trajectory of the pacification process? What led the people in the four case studies to end traditional warfare, and how were incentive structures for war reversed or not during the process of pacification? The following table gives an overview of the most critical aspects and processes to be compared. It is intended as a helpful guide for the reader to review the case studies. Purosa Amaira Obura Bibeori Repression Unsystematic Systematic Unsystematic Unsystematic Initial spark Seen as Excessive Excessive overwhelming Systematic after Systematic after 1963 1963 State presence Police stationed Police stationed Police stationed Patrol post in in Moke 1950- in Auyana in Suwaira Obura 1963 1952 villages from 1951-1952 Patrol post in 1949-1952 Patrol post in Okapa 1954 Obura 1963 Incentives Expectation of Expectation of Insignificant Expectation of material rewards security security Judicial Informal village Informal village No institutions Football institutions courts courts besides kiap Kiap courts courts Position at first Strong Precarious Strong Precarious contact War mortality 5.8 - 6.1 deaths 7.2-8.6 deaths 6-6.7 deaths 4.4-5.7 deaths /year/1000 /year/1000 /year/1000 /year/1000 Type of ‘Little Big Men’ Despotic war Despotic war Despotic war leadership & war leaders leaders leaders leaders

9.1 Strategies of Pacification Helbling (2006a:72; 2006b:128-129) and Helbling/Schwoerer (forthcoming) have advanced three decisive conditions for pacification: 1) a strategy of repression by the state (or any other superordinate authority) that will force local groups to no longer wage war under threat of violence and protects groups who renounce war; 2) a strategy of incentives that will reward groups willing to cease war with prestige goods and co-opt their leaders; and, 3) the establishment of judicial institutions that enable the peaceful settlement of conflicts between the pacified local groups. The colonial administration in New Guinea has used all three 272 Ending War strategies in the pacification of the Lamari River Basin, albeit to varying degrees and in various temporal and spatial configurations. Regarding the most effective means of pacification, a diverse and diverging picture emerges. The oftentimes-emphasized factor of lethal violence in processes of pacification seldom played a decisive role in the four case studies and had even a detrimental effect on the progress of pacification. Both in Obura as in Kawaina, where individual policemen massacred inhabitants of men’s houses, wars continued to be a regular feature of the political landscape. The local population persisted in resisting patrols intending to stop conflicts and even attacked patrols when the odds seemed to be in their favour. Most villages did not experience direct lethal force, however. While rumours and hearsay regarding the potential for violence by agents of the state circled far and wide, most villagers gave up warfare without being forced to do so at gunpoint. Other forms of violence, such as police enforcement and arrests, as well as corporal punishment and the destruction of property and livestock, were a good deal more prevalent. These repressive measures started to slowly gain a modicum of success in preventing the escalation of violence once they became systematic and were deployed by the agents of the state after each incident of collective violence. After all, state violence only acquired social significance through the cognitive context in which it was set, and how it was interpreted and acted upon by the local population. It was thus only after it became clear that the sanctions by government agents were directed solely against those groups and individuals still pursuing conflicts by warfare, and not randomly against anyone, that the threat of violent repression effectively contributed to eventual pacification. In Purosa, the threat or actual application of these forms of violence during the pacification process can be considered an initial spark. This spark then triggered a process controlled by other factors, which, in the end, led to the abolishment of warfare. People did not consider the threat of violence to be the most important decisive factor in their willingness to give up war. Repression was clearly a more important issue in the cases of Amaira, Obura and Bibeori. In the case of Amaira, the threat of violence by the police was perceived to be overwhelming, and an alliance with these powerful men was eagerly sought. It was the promise of security and possible retaliation against their enemies in association with the police that led people to request the stationing of a policeman in their village. The police’s tactics of repression were successful in the Auyana area because they were constant and systematic, due to the police being stationed right in their midst. In the case of Obura and the local groups around Bibeori, it took much longer until the threat of violence was perceived to be overwhelming, mostly because violence by patrols was sporadic and unsystematic, and because people had a self-image of brave warriors. Even the use of excessive force, as in the killing of men at the Sonura men’s house or the destruction of property and gardens, could not prevent a resurgence of war at a later point in time. It was only after the establishment of Obura Patrol Post and the systematic arrest of individuals participating in armed collective violence that warfare was slowly given up. In Amaira, Obura and Bibeori, informants stated that they were up to a certain extent forced to give up war. At the same time, they also realized (at least in retrospect) that the kiaps and police had good reasons to stop further warfare. There was not much difference in the type and extent of violence employed by agents of the state against the Fore, the Auyana and the Southern Tairora (except that violent retaliation occurred more often in the Southern Tairora area because warfare there continued), proving Conclusion 273 that the degree of repression alone is a bad indicator for the rapidity of pacification. However, there was a difference in how rapidly, systematic and impartial the state agents reacted to incidents of warfare with repression, and this mostly had to do with the flow of information between the local population and agents of the state. Only where kiaps and police were promptly (and correctly) informed about the outbreak of collective violence could they hope to intervene quickly and thus create an atmosphere wherein the incentive structures to start a war could be reversed. Barring widespread collaboration between the local population, especially local leaders, and the agents of the state, this meant that the state had to be physically present in the form of police or patrol posts. It is thus not surprising that warfare relatively quickly receded in the cases of Amaira, Obura and Bibeori once a permanent state presence had been established in the region. Selective rewards to groups willing to abandon warfare can be a very efficient method of pacification. They can – as the case of the Waorani shows (Robarchek/Robarchek 1996, 1998) – result in a rapid pacification without force. Stewart and Strathern (2002:53f.), in taking up the distinction between seduction and coercion made by Ferguson and Whitehead (1992a) for the ‘tribal zone’, also argue that seduction was often the more effective strategy, albeit mostly in tandem with coercion as its guarantor. They demonstrate how the Enga in the Western Highlands, despite the presence of the destructive power of the gun, were pacified mostly through the desire of the Enga for the life-giving power of shell valuables (Stewart/Strathern 2002; Strathern 1984). A similar picture emerges for the Eastern Highlands from the case studies I presented. Rewards did take various forms and accrued either to whole groups who showed peaceful behaviour, like access to coveted goods or protection from warring groups, or was accorded to specific individuals who showed exemplary willingness in assisting the administration in their efforts to curb further warfare, like the empowerment of traditional leaders in their role as village officials. In Purosa and among the South Fore in general, the indigenous desire for Western goods and the threat of the loss of their sources of such products did play a much more significant role in initiating pacification than the threat of violence. Patrols were one of the primary sources of Western goods in the Highlands. The realization that access to such products was only possible if a group stayed on friendly terms with the kiaps generated a positive incentive to behave according to the expectations of the kiaps. As kiaps and missionaries had a monopoly on handing out these trade goods, they could reward positive behaviour up to some extent. Even more important was the psychological climate of cargo cults, uncertainty and rapid change, in which these goods achieved a disproportionate influence because they were connected to a future of wealth and peace. In Purosa, those rewards acquired a distinctive cultural meaning, since they were perceived as resulting from cargo-cult-like rituals held even before first contact and thus fulfilling prophecies that the ancestors returned from the land of the dead to reward their descendants. This way, those goods had an impact totally out of proportion, and directives of the kiaps and police were eagerly followed in the hope to obtain immense wealth. Where cargoistic ideas focused on the acquisition of wealth were absent, as in the Southern Tairora communities of Obura and Bibeori, this dynamic between the kiaps wanting to end warfare and handing out goods, and a population wanting these goods to such an extent that they willingly gave up war, failed to eventuate.

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For the consolidation and maintenance of initial pacification, other factors than violence and rewards were also clearly important. The widely accepted role of kiaps as neutral and efficient arbitrators and mediators, despite recurrent misunderstandings and misjudgements, proved invaluable. The importance of such an alternative means of conflict resolution to a continued pacification effort can be demonstrated best by the fact that violence erupted again as soon as such alternatives disappeared with the weakening of the state institutions after independence, as has happened in the cases of Amaira, Obura and Bibeori. As Gordon (1983) and Gordon/Meggitt (1985) similarly show for the Enga already in the 1960s and 1970s, the restructuring of the judicial system at that time contributed to a decrease in efficiency, conflicts could no longer be arbitrated within due time, and a lack of understanding increasingly met the convictions. The Enga soon reverted to warfare to pursue disputes over land that could no longer be addressed efficiently and promptly by the judicial system. But the process of pacification did not solely lie in the hands of the colonizers. The inclusion of members of the indigenous society into the process of pacification, in fact, is the central explaining factor for the different speed of the pacification process. Kiaps tried to establish a system of local representatives of the state through the appointment of luluai and tultul, which were charged with the enforcement of government directives, the prompt reporting of unrest and warfare and granted the right to mediate, but not adjudicate, in minor conflicts within the village. In most areas, these positions enjoyed significant prestige and authority and were in eager demand among politically ambitious men. Fore and Auyana luluais and tultuls in their quest for legitimacy and power quickly adopted ideas and procedures of colonial judicial institutions. In rudimentary informal courts on the village level, they meted out their own forms of justice, mostly in accordance with the sentiments of the general population. These institutions helped to efficiently quell conflicts before they escalated and kept troublemakers at bay. The occurrence of those informal courts in the Fore and Auyana areas is closely connected to the swiftness and sustainability of pacification there. In contrast, their absence in the Southern Tairora area goes a long way in explaining why conflicts continued to escalate. It was thus the luluais and tultuls, who turned out to be the most efficient and dynamic agents of pacification (but conversely also the most active leaders of resistance against government intrusion among the Southern Tairora). Influential village officials could single-handedly pacify whole local groups, even larger regions, albeit protecting their interests at the same time. Such powerful and influential intermediaries were widely accepted because similar leadership personalities existed in precolonial time; furthermore, the seizing and exploiting of power corresponded with the traditional ethos. It is essential to realize that while the state can impose judicial institutions to settle conflicts peacefully, the success of these institutions hinges on the willingness of the local population and local leaders to use them and make them their own, transforming them in the process. Without this active participation in conflict management, according to Koch (1983:206), peace might be nothing more than “the people’s acquiescence to foreign domination and their fear of violent reprisals for which they have no real chance of redress.” Whether and how these strategies work or not are contingent on local processes in the cultural and historical settings that they are being deployed. In other words, the perspective and agency of the local population have to be taken into account, as well as the dynamics of cultural explanations of historical events that mediate the interactions between local people and the Conclusion 275 representatives of the state. Pacification is a complex process that cannot be reduced to simple mechanics of force and resistance, nor be construed only from the perspective of the state.

9.2 Strategies of the Local Groups Being confronted with those strategies of pacification by the representatives of the state, the members of the local groups affected formed their own strategic take on the situation, weighed the advantages and disadvantages of several possible options of interacting with the state and its agents, and then made their decisions. In that decision-making process, a wide array of possible strategies was at disposal for interacting with colonial agents. It is important to realize that the question posed was never just one of pure subjugation or violent resistance. Similarly important is, that decisions for one or the other option could readily change as soon as circumstances changed. Erstwhile acceptance and welcoming of patrols would indicate nothing about later interaction between local groups and actors of the state, as the example of the Southern Tairora clearly shows. The following options for the members of local groups have been presented in one or the other form throughout the text and are being summarized here in a concise format: 1. Forceful resistance: Violence against representatives of the state was relatively rare. In my research, I encountered not a single instance in which open and violent resistance took place during first contact. It was usually when local groups were somewhat acquainted with the police and kiaps, and after their goals and aims were established and sufficiently known that some attacks against patrols were made. These attacks were usually aimed at preventing the patrol from making arrests, or then – as in the case of Obura – to take revenge against some enemies that were arrested by the patrol. Due to the blatant power differential between police troops equipped with modern rifles and villagers armed with bow and arrows, forceful resistance was never a feasible option in the long term. 2. Indirect violence: With open violence against patrols resulting in often disproportionate retaliation, some Southern Tairora groups used indirect and covert forms of violence to attempt to get rid of patrols passing through their area, either by using sorcery against them, by the theft of patrol equipment or by torching the government rest houses. Evangelists were also sometimes chased away in that manner, as had happened in Bibeori, where the people of Numbaira incinerated the house of the SDA evangelists. 3. Evasion: After it had become clear that patrols encountering warring groups would arrest the participants, people – especially in the Southern Tairora region – responded to the arrival of a patrol by fleeing their settlements with women and children and remaining in the security of the forested upper slopes of the valley. This strategy was quite effective at times since most patrols didn’t have the stamina to wait long enough until the population would return. Escaped prisoners likewise resisted arrest by seeking refuge in outlying hamlets and shelters for hunting located in the forest. 4. Passive resistance: This form of resistance could range from a refusal to provide information (for example about current conflicts or the whereabouts of escaped prisoners) or to supply the patrols with food or carriers, all the way to the disobedience of orders issued by police or kiaps (for example to show up for census or to work on road-building). Passive resistance was present

276 Ending War in all cases and was usually the result of mistreatment by earlier patrols or unwillingness to cooperate in tasks deemed too onerous. 5. Appeasement: During first contact or after violent encounters, patrols were often presented with gifts. This pattern suggests that people attempted to appease these powerful and potentially violent visitors, and attempted to win them as allies in their conflicts with enemies. The Kombora and Kawaina, for example, both showered the second patrol that passed through the area in 1949 with gifts and attempted to portray each other in a most unfavourable light. 6. Manipulation: Because colonial agents were always dependent on local information, this opened up opportunities for manipulation. Especially the system of appointed village officials presented those middlemen with the possibility to manipulate the colonial administration for their own goals. This option was demonstrated in the case of Bibeori, where local leader Mariu’viri left the patrol in the dark about his previous threat against the hamlet of Nabera, whereupon the people from Nabera attacked the patrol in the belief that it was sent towards them by the Bibeori leader. 7. Adaptation: With the knowledge about the expectations of the colonial power, villagers would start to adapt and behave according to those expectations, at least for the duration the patrol passed through their area. In the early phase of pacification, local groups in the South Fore and the Southern Tairora would stop wars while a patrol was in the area only to resume them after it had left, in the knowledge that patrols were only temporary phenomena. In a later phase, groups adapted to the demands of the kiaps by submitting some men for arrest that would take the blame and shield the majority of the other men that participated in violence, as had happened both in Samura after the Motokara incident and in Kuaranumbura after the killing of the Chimbu. 8. Cooperation: Full cooperation with the colonial state had many different characteristics and could stem from various local notions about the presence and aim of the government patrols. In Purosa, it was the lure of coveted goods that resulted in cooperation, together with an almost millenarian movement with the promise of untold riches. In Amaira, it was the opportunity to win the police as powerful allies and the relief of having the endemic war abolished. In Bibeori, it was the attractiveness of the evangelist’s perceived powers, riches and teachings, and in Obura more the realization that, as the kiaps and the police would be permanently stationed among them, it might be better to come to an arrangement with them. It is also clear that different individuals cooperated to a different degree with the representatives of the state. Village officials in Purosa and Amaira cooperated more fully with police and kiaps than in Bibeori and Obura. At the same time, younger men, especially those that spent some time as labourers on plantations, collaborated more with the police than elder men still steeped in the pre-colonial tradition of warfare. The decision for one or the other option – and therefore the decision whether pacification was accepted or resisted – was influenced on the one hand by socio-cultural facts and pre-contact conditions, and on the other by the available information. The decision was taken on the local level, through political decision-making within the local group, with different individuals and different factions following diverse interests. Depending on the size and influence of the various factions within a local group, of ‘doves’ and ‘hawks’, a wholly different strategy could be chosen from one village to the next even when preconditions were otherwise similar. These Conclusion 277 differences are most evident by comparing the adoptions of such divergent strategies by the local groups of Bibeori, Numbaira and Atakara. With the highly individualistic leadership style based on personal qualities and achievement, one or two influential individuals could determine the course of interaction of a local group with state officials. Wherever influential leaders in favour of a cessation of warfare were at the same time also appointed village heads, this resulted in islands of villages favourably disposed towards the administration in a sea of hostile or reluctant villages. Not all leaders would have such a dominant position, though, and the opposite is also readily observable: communities, where some settlements would be receptive to patrols, while other hamlets within the same village would still evade contact. These decisions were patterned to a certain degree, however, and could be coordinated with other groups nearby to form regional patterns of acceptance or resistance. Pacification was achieved most quickly if all groups at the same time decided to give up warfare once and for all, as had happened in the South Fore area through the desire to access goods and in the Auyana area through the threat of police retaliation. This decision-making process took place in an environment lacking crucial information, however, and was fraught with misunderstandings about the aims, motives and expectations of the colonial power. It also has to be seen that the eventual results of pacification and the subjugation under Australian domination were not only unpredictable for the indigenous population; they probably were wholly unimaginable according to traditional patterns of thought (Berndt 1962:383).

9.3 Pre-Contact Conditions Pre-contact conditions, such as variations in modalities and intensity of warfare, political constellations and alliances, styles of political leadership, as well as traditional methods of peace settlement had a significant – albeit not easily quantifiable – impact on the trajectory of the pacification process. They influenced and shaped the specific interests that guided members of the indigenous communities in the process of pacification and the encapsulation by the expanding state.

9.3.1 Intensity of Warfare and Strategic Situation at First Contact Each community was enmeshed in a web of differing political relationships, ranging from alliance to enmity, which predetermined up to a certain extent the strategy selected when confronting the agents of the state. As I have demonstrated with the example of Amaira, local groups in strategically precarious positions at first contact, involved in intensive warfare and suffering from a comparatively high casualty rate, were more willing to seek alliances or cooperation with representatives of the state perceived to be powerful. Through their willingness to collaborate, they pushed the process of pacification ahead much faster than in other areas. Amaira was a village that had to flee from their traditional grounds and establish a settlement at a different location, there only to be attacked from two sides, by old and new enemies alike. Their casualty rate was the highest of the four case studies, and ambushes were a regular feature of warfare with their enemies. The leaders of Amaira informed the second government patrol to contact them in 1949 of the willingness of the people of having a policeman stationed in their midst to stop the wars they were involved in. I have also presented numerous other examples, from Bibeori and Motokara in the Southern Tairora, to Waisa near Purosa, that show how militarily less powerful groups often try to seek protection from their

278 Ending War more powerful enemies in collaborating with agents of the state, at the same time possibly also hoping to participate in a possible attack upon their enemies in cooperation with the administration. On the local level, the political environment in which a group is situated thus forms an important dimension in explaining the strategies that local groups decide upon in interacting with agents of the state. As long as the military situation is not too dire, however, local groups that are temporarily behind in the tally of deaths might refuse interference from patrols attempting to mediate. The example of Asara has shown this clearly. Despite having suffered more casualties in their on- going war with Obura, the leaders of Asara blocked mediation efforts by Kiap Bruce Burge on his patrol in 1953. They preferred to continue their military engagements in the hope of turning the tides of war and reversing the balance of casualties. Regarding the hypothesis that higher intensity of warfare leads to a higher willingness to abandon war, a diverging and not wholly conclusive picture emerges. First of all, there is the difficulty of extrapolating from the casualty rate of one village to that of a whole area, shown by the diverging numbers between Amaira and Asempa among the Auyana. While the local group of Amaira gave up warfare quickly and willingly with a relatively high war mortality rate (the highest of all the case studies) of 7.2-8.6 deaths per year per 1000 people, the local group of Asempa that ceased warfare at the same time had a much lower casualty rate of 4.2 deaths per year per 1000 people, because it had been somewhat successful militarily in the last 25 years before pacification. What casualty rate represents the whole Auyana ethnic group? And did the intensity of warfare measured through this proxy value really influence their willingness to give up war? By ranking only the casualty rates of the four case studies, several problems arise. While Amaira with 7.2-8.6 deaths per year per 1000 people did indeed give up warfare quickly, the next lower group of Obura with 6-6.7 deaths per year per 1000 people was the group that continued to resist pacification the longest. Purosa with 5.8-6.1 deaths per year per 1000 people gave up warfare much earlier than Obura. And while Bibeori with the lowest casualty rate of 4.4-5.7 deaths was indeed situated in an area that saw repeated eruptions of war, the local group of Bibeori itself pretty much abstained from offensive action and only defended itself if attacked by neighbouring groups. The other three local groups in the area for which I was able to calculate mortality rates based on the work of other ethnographers further complicate the picture. While Kogu and Asempa gave up warfare very rapidly, their mortality rates differed immensely. Kogu with a mortality rate of 9.6-12 deaths per year per 1000 people was evidently more affected by war than Asempa with 4.2 deaths per year per 1000 people. Tauna among the Awa with a mortality rate of 6.2-7 deaths per year per 1000 people is closest to Obura and had a similar experience in terms of ceasing collective violence relatively late. The intensity of warfare measured by mortality rates is thus not a clear-cut indicator, even if a rough general trend is discernible. The intensity of warfare was, therefore, not the sole deciding factor in the decision to cooperate with the kiaps and police and to refrain from further wars. What might be more important than the relative intensity of warfare for determining willingness to abandon war could be the increase in the intensity over time. This hypothesis does receive more validity if it could be proven, as is often the case on the ‘tribal frontier’, that the indirect or direct contact with the state had resulted in an intensification of warfare beyond levels usually Conclusion 279 prevalent in the society (Ferguson 1990; Ferguson/Whitehead 1992b). Such an investigation is no longer possible, however, as it would depend on reliable data on war casualties over several decades previous to pacification. There is one indication that such intensification did indeed take place by Hayano’s (1972) study on the Awa village of Tauna, where casualty rates per decade more than doubled in the 1930s and 1940s. This intensification could have been the result of introduced steel tools, which reduced expenditure of labour and freed up more time for warfare (see Salisbury 1962), or of epidemics like influenza and dysentery, which resulted in an explosion of sorcery accusations. If the administration would establish contact right at such a decisive moment, where warfare has spiralled out of control and reached levels hitherto unsurpassed, not only would resistance to intrusion by such administrative patrols be less effective, the population at large would also be more susceptible to the elimination of warfare. Such a dynamic might have been the case in Amaira, where informants iterated again and again that they had been tired of war.

9.3.2 Forms of Alliance and Leadership Another difference between the three language groups of the Fore, the Auyana and the Southern Tairora concerns the extent and forms of alliance and the type of leadership. These are differences in degree more than in kind, but they nevertheless clearly had an impact on the process of pacification. Fore alliances were generally larger, encompassed more different local groups and were maintained more constantly by feasts. The Fore killed significantly more pigs for peace ceremonies and alliance feasts than either the Auyana or the Southern Tairora. The form of these peace ceremonies had great importance in the case of Purosa, not only because they were adapted and used to end wars for good, but also because they had a significant influence on the style of leadership. Fore leaders were not exclusively evaluated by their prowess in warfare, but also by their ability to maintain alliances and contribute pigs for the peace ceremonies. There were different types of leaders in different situations and with different functions. Southern Tairora leaders, in contrast, were the classical despotic war leaders that had to prove their position through constant success in warfare. When the kiaps then sought indigenous leaders to appoint as village officials, the role of Fore leaders as coordinators and contributors to traditional peace ceremonies facilitated their transformation into mediators, even adjudicators and guarantors of peace, and they no longer felt the need to underline their leadership with recourse to warfare. The Auyana leaders also willingly accepted their new role, as the permanent presence of the police in their midst had instructed them as to the advantages of cooperation with colonial authorities. Without this collaboration between village leaders and representatives of the state, pacification did not take place that quickly, and wars broke out again for some time, as had been shown by the example of Obura. On several occasions, the Tairora leaders, luluai and tultul among them, were behind renewed retaliatory attacks. As their position of leadership rested almost exclusively on their capabilities in warfare, they had much less incentive to cooperate in abolishing war. And some village officials, as had been shown by the example of the tultul of Tauriena, probably actively fanned the flames of conflict in an attempt to shore up their position in a generational struggle with younger and more peace-oriented contenders for influence and respect. Since information about the exact extent of the duties and especially limits of authority of a luluai or tultul were hardly available to the local population, and because of lacking control

280 Ending War mechanisms by the administration, luluais and tultuls tried to define their range of authority in a constant struggle between the expectations of the administration and the acceptance by their communities. Some leaders even succeeded in manipulating the colonial power for their own gains, since all information between the kiap and the local population would pass through the luluai and tultuls. Some achieved a previously unknown position of power through close links to the administration. Quite a few luluais and tultuls must have realized that pacification would be to their advantage, since they could expand their influence beyond their community with the help of the administration. These village officials turned into most effective agents of pacification, often settling conflicts themselves or by threatening to call the kiap or the police.

9.4 Information and Intercultural Encounters A significant factor in accounting for the differences in the duration of the process of pacification was the perception process at work during the intercultural interaction between representatives of the colonial state and the inhabitants of the indigenous communities, especially their leaders or men of eminence. The flow of information between the two sides – the agents of the colonial state and the members of the indigenous society – was influenced by several factors, among them existing trade routes, indigenous middlemen and cosmological concepts. Exchange of information was never easy, even after the initial problem of finding translators was overcome. Both sides continued to assess the situation according to their culture-specific ideas, concepts, worldviews and notions about ‘the other’. Putative interests and motives of the other side were established through guesswork, and events were continually misunderstood and misinterpreted by the local population as well as by the agents of the state. Even the acceptance of the ban on warfare could result from a misinterpretation of the policies of the colonial state and the rewards associated with it, as was the case with the Bokondini Dani in Irian Jaya (Ploeg 1983:161f.), who gave up warfare to emulate the Dutch colonial officers and missionaries, whom they believed lived without any strife and war. Looking at courses of action taken by the indigenous communities, the question arises on what basis did they decide to pursue one or the other strategy. Most important in connection with this question is the perception communities had on aims and motives of the agents of the state. In the Fore and Auyana areas, specific information on the kiaps and the police were already widespread in the communities even before first contact, passed along from village to village from already contacted areas. As I have shown in the case of Purosa and Auyana, where trade routes enabled the spreading of news, rumours and cargo-cult-like rituals circulated deep into previously uncontacted areas. Some especially curious and bold men then went on expeditions towards already contacted areas to get more information on the unheard-of events in the north. Those rumours and news had a direct impact on the reception of the first patrols and shaped the course of the pacification process significantly. In Purosa, it was the promise of wealth that led people to give up warfare on their own, while in Amaira it was the reputation of police as fierce warriors that led people to seek them as allies. Indigenous middlemen, in the form of indigenous people from already contacted and pacified areas, translators and local village officials, had an especially important role in the intercultural interaction and the spread of information. Among the South Fore, visits by already contacted North Fore are documented even before the first patrol reached the area, and they were a significant factor in the spread of cargo cults. The influence of such indigenous representatives Conclusion 281 of the state has hardly received any attention so far. It was at times considerable, as an example from the Western Highlands also shows, where two men, who were picked up by a pre-war- patrol as boys, returned to their hitherto uncontacted home area and instructed the people to build roads and eliminate warfare without being told to do so by the administration (Sinclair 1966:216-220). Because of indigenous expectations among the Fore and the Auyana, the first patrols were received enthusiastically and greeted with gifts. In some Fore villages, all the villagers would already line up as if for a census, apparently informed by their northern neighbours that this is the appropriate form of greeting. Where the kiaps and missionaries were perceived as a positive force, through rumours preceding them believed to be the bringers of goods and security, their presence was thus encouraged, and cooperation was actively sought. This welcoming attitude shaped the perception of the kiaps and evangelists, which started to label such people as ‘friendly, cooperative and pleasant’, and consequently they focused the extension of control first to those areas. In places where no such rumours had filtered through, as in Obura, and where the presence of police, kiaps or evangelists was only regarded with indifference (if not fear because of earlier violent encounters), there was no such willingness to cooperate, and the people were subsequently labelled by the colonizers as ‘truculent and churlish’ and regarded as more warlike. This perception then also influenced kiaps and police to more quickly resort to violent means to enforce state control, as it was assumed that warlike people only understood the language of force and violence.

9.5 Temporal and Spatial Aspects of Pacification It was in those areas that they were most welcomed, namely in the region inhabited by the Fore and the Auyana, that the colonial officers pushed the extension of the government control forward with remarkable speed. In contrast, other areas that received the first exploratory patrol at the same time or even earlier, as in the Southern Tairora region, were not as quickly brought under administrative control. This slight advantage or disadvantage at the start had a significant impact on the trajectory of pacification because the strategies of the state changed considerably over time. In the first phase of pacification from 1949 to the end of 1952, indigenous police operated without much supervision on quasi-autonomous police posts. They were an influential factor in quelling warfare through their constant presence in those areas deemed suited for their stationing. They did not shy away from harsh punishment methods and quickly involved the population in the building of bridle paths and roads. However, the rate of extension of the presence of the administration slowed down in 1953, when the administration policy changed, and these police posts were disbanded. The administration now needed patrol officers in order to establish new patrol posts and to send out administrative patrols. Since there was a chronic shortage of personnel, areas that up to this point were not already wholly pacified were left without a permanent presence of the administration until the early to mid-1960s, when more resources became available and new patrol posts were established in Wonenara in 1960 and Obura in 1963. It was in those areas without government presence in the southeastern corner of the Eastern Highlands District that conflicts between villages repeatedly escalated into warfare. There, the local population did not immediately feel the authority of the colonial state, nor were they able to easily access colonial intervention for mediation or protection from enemy groups.

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As has been shown in this thesis, colonial states are on the ground never the monoliths they seem from afar. There always exist spatial and temporal differences in the implementation of state control due to historical context, like changing structures of administration, changing presence in the area, or even the personality of heterogeneous actors, resulting in a pattern of different trajectories of the pacification process. The presence and efficiency of state agents are most noticeable in a certain perimeter around patrol posts, where a speedy intervention is guaranteed whenever conflicts threaten to escalate, and where on the other hand new institutions of conflict settlement are easily accessible to members of the indigenous groups. The quantity and quality of rewards will equally be more substantial in regions around patrol posts than in those farther away or not readily accessible, leading to an easily recognizable spatial difference. It is also possible to draw concentric circles around a patrol post according to the frequency with which conflicts are brought to the station for adjudication. Within the innermost circle, almost all arguments were brought to the kiap or police for settlement, in the medium-range circle people brought only the most conflict-laden disputes, and in the outer circle, conflicts were at most reported to a passing patrol, if at all, and never brought to the patrol post, as it would have usually meant more than a day’s walk to reach it. The continued presence of the representatives of the state was thus crucial for the implementation of strategies of pacification. The consistent and consequent enforcement of the monopoly of violence through the application of police power as well as through the establishment of a colonial justice system as an alternative to violent self-help could only be effective where the distance to the next police post or patrol post was not prohibitively far. Rapid intervention of the patrol officers was the key to pacification, as only the threat of immediate retaliation could guarantee protection for groups willing to give up warfare. As critical as the low spatial distance between the local population and the next patrol post was the small temporal gap between first contact and effective implementation of the monopoly of violence. Where those two phases followed right after each other, the local population did not have time to adapt; they were overwhelmed by a simultaneous wave of modernization and pacification. The initial acceptance of new ideas rapidly changed the whole society, i.e. through the formation of informal courts, and resistance soon lost its legitimacy. But when some time passed between first contact and the enforcement of pacification, like among the Southern Tairora, where kiaps at first only attempted to mediate and not immediately cracked down on warfare with violent means (as the police did in the Auyana area), the local groups could familiarize themselves with the new power and their aims and better assess the capabilities of kiaps. The state actors soon lost their aura of supernatural power and invincibility, and people challenged the patrols, like in Tauriena and Kombora, secure in their knowledge that the police would only shoot into the air. Resistance was then taken up as soon as the administration tried to curtail the use of force after a lengthy phase of peaceful coexistence and tolerance of warfare, as had happened in Obura.

9.6 Self-Propelling Dynamic of Peace and its Dividends Once the pacification process was taking hold and warfare ceased, a self-propelling dynamic led to a rapid change that lessened opportunities and conditions for warfare to recur. The population was quickly involved in road building, which re-focused the energy of the men of warring age, while at the same time facilitating contact and communication between formerly Conclusion 283 enemy groups. Roads were important avenues for new ideas, desired material goods, new livelihood strategies and a new socio-political order, which all led to a quick change in the outlook of especially the younger generation. They were sent to the coast as plantation labourers, and returned after two years with a new set of ideas and new goals, to participate in ‘development’ and attain material riches. With the abandoning of warfare, the dividends of peace started to accrue for groups and individuals alike. Most informants stress the multitude of benefits associated with an end of war, which were not confined to the fact that loss of life was now reduced. These positive consequences include increased mobility and enhanced food security, new economic opportunities through the introduction of cash crops like coffee, and access to government-sponsored health services and schools – all of which would not have been possible without the prior elimination of warfare. These ‘peace dividends’ trickled down to the local communities and had a substantial impact on their perception of war, since a large proportion of the population now profited from a state of peace. Those dividends changed the society in such a way that a return to traditional warfare was no longer a reasonable option as long as those dividends continued to be distributed. The colonial burden, on the other hand, was slight, especially compared to other examples from around the world, and did usually not result in resentment – except for Obura, where people were forced to construct the patrol post, the road and the airstrip without pay at a time when labour was commonly remunerated. A further long-term influence was the constant preaching of the message of peace – be it secular through the kiaps or religious through missionaries and evangelists. Through time, this had a slight but in certain areas more pronounced effect, by changing certain values about violence and redefining violence as evil. This effect is most evident in Purosa, where conflicts have so far no longer escalated to collective armed violence, and where local leaders continue to settle them successfully by peaceful means. The abandoning of traditional warfare also led to numerous other changes at the core of their culture. Where pacification was taking place rapidly, an equally rapid change in housing style, mode of gender separation and the abandonment of initiation ceremonies could be observed. Where pacification took longer, and warfare continued to be a recurrent event, initiation ceremonies were accorded prime importance and were either abandoned only recently or are still being held today, as could be personally witnessed in the village of Bibeori in 2005. New forms of economic entrepreneurship also brought about a change in economic differentiation in the villages. Whether this was any hindrance in resorting back to a strategy of warfare remains to be questioned, though. The integration of local communities into the world market remained tenuous at best in the areas under consideration, and research done by Grossman (1984) has shown, that a withdrawal from commodity production and a return to subsistence production remained a viable option in the case of decreasing world market prices for coffee. And as all communities with the exception of Purosa have seen a return to warfare after independence, it becomes clear that the changes in the economic and political outlook of the communities were not deep enough to prevent further war.

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9.7 Transformations of Violence and Sustainability of Pacification Pacification is a decisive event in the history of every warring society and can result in complex and deep-cutting social and cultural transformations. The extent of these transformations is crucial to the sustainability of pacification. Only where warfare was abolished through changes in the methods of conflict settlement and in the value system (war being declared as morally wrong) could a lasting state of peace be established. Where such transformations were lacking, warfare was still an option to be pursued once conditions of repression changed. As it turned out, no such lasting transformation of violent modes of conflict resolution took place in most of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, and new conflicts between communities led to a resurgence of warfare, especially in the 1980s and 1990s (see also Westermark 1984). Pacification, therefore, did not have a lasting impact and still remains rather tenuous, even if there were only a few conflicts in the areas that I travelled in between 2004 and 2007. Pacification, by definition, puts an end only to the most visible and collective form of violence: warfare. Other types of violence, especially individual violence, have persisted, as ethnographical accounts from the 1960s and 1970s, as well as my own fieldwork experiences, show. Antagonism and mistrust between villagers were still high and found a new form of expression in sorcery. All ethnographers who researched the topic report a sharp rise in sorcery accusations, as a hidden form of warfare. Tensions between communities increased over time and with new competition over resources, especially where land suitable for planting coffee had become scarce. The uneven economic development and provision of infrastructure in the form of roads, schools, aid posts between villages were cited by informants to be the main reason for sorcery, as they blamed envious sorcerers of more remote and economically disadvantaged communities for being behind unexplainable deaths (Schwoerer 2017). The ‘geography of fear’ between central and more peripheral groups first identified by Lindenbaum (1979:137-143) is thus still in place, and simultaneously made more complex, as it nowadays translates to remote villages being held hostage by the threat of violence from communities situated along the (often only) road they have to take to reach the nearest town. With the build- up of these conflicts and with the simultaneous decrease in the presence and efficiency of police forces in curbing violence, warfare broke out again in the 1970s and 1980s.

9.8 A Theory of Pacification This thesis also had the intention to formulate and test an encompassing theory of pacification. As has been shown, pacification strategies are more effective and sustainable, when repression is systematic and perceived to be impartial, when selective rewards are plentiful, and protection from bellicose groups is ensured, and when new institutions of conflict settlements are accepted. Then the security dilemma is overcome, incentive structures for the continuation of warfare are reversed, and a meta-preference for peaceful settlements of conflicts can come into play. Local groups can have a distinctive interest in accepting pacification quite eagerly, once they realize that the state is indeed efficient enough to punish still bellicose groups and reward peaceful ones. This dynamic had been in place early on during the pacification of the South Fore and Auyana groups, focusing more on rewards among the Fore and more on repression and protection among the Auyana. It is one of the main explanations why even the only sporadic presence of patrols among the South Fore was enough to curb further warfare. Those positive aspects of the presence of state agents have, of course, to be considered in contrast to the costs Conclusion 285 those communities had to bear, least of all the loss of political autonomy and freedom. As has been shown in this thesis, these conditions cannot solely be construed from the perspective of the state, but have to be interpreted and analysed from the point of view of the local population. Variables like ‘efficient punishment’ or ‘selective reward’ have to be consistently defined according to indigenous notions and perceptions, since decisions taken for or against the renouncement of warfare were arrived at through continuous cultural interpretation. The assessment of the colonial administration through the eyes of the local population and the expectations the local people had in the agents of the state are therefore crucial elements in gauging the effect of the different strategies of pacification. It also has been shown abundantly clear, that the culturally patterned agency of indigenous actors is crucial not only in explaining resistance to the imposition of state control but also in explaining the sometimes quick, sometimes delayed cessation of warfare. A theory of pacification that neglects this dimension is faulty at best. In comparing processes of pacification, it is thus crucial to compare not solely the numbers, strategies and methods of the agents of the state, but also the situation, beliefs and perceptions of the indigenous communities and its eminent leaders. What can the example of this historical end of warfare among in the Lamari River Basin of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea contribute to the quest to replace armed conflict by non-violent means of conflict settlement? First of all, it shows that the process of ending warfare can develop a positive self-propelling dynamic. It shows that local leaders can be enabled to keep conflicts under control and settle them peacefully if given positive incentives and support. And it shows that local cultural understandings and epistemologies have to be taken into account when determining reasons why people give up warfare. After all, the flag of peace in Purosa was red not because of the blood that was shed, but for the wealth and prosperity that it promised. It was the song of Kifingku and Motame and the military might it symbolized that led to the stationing of police in Amaira. It was the war-focused leadership of people like Tetendau that perturbed the process of pacification, and the legacy of his death that ensured the end of war in Obura. And it was the ascription as a ‘Seven Day’ village that helped the people of Bibeori to weather the storm of war around them.

10 Bibliography

10.1 Archival Sources National Archives of Australia. Department of Territories. Attack on Patrol - Lamari Area, Eastern Highlands 1957 - Papua and New Guinea. NAA: A452, 1957/2457. National Archives of Australia. Department of Territories. Happenings at Sebanuma Village, Wonenara Patrol Post - Papua and New Guinea. NAA: A452, 1961/7747. National Archives of Australia. Department of Territories. Crime of Murder by Natives in Papua and New Guinea – Policy. NAA: A452, 1963/3262. National Archives of Australia. Department of Territories. Murder of Native Titindau, Principal Witness in Obura Case, by Chimbu Natives - Papua and New Guinea. NAA: A452, 1963/3983. National Archives of Australia. Territories Branch - Prime Ministers’ Department. Patrol Report of Unexplored Area South of Upper Ramu Base Camp No.2 of 1933/34. Morobe District. P.O. Nurton. NAA: A7034, 39. National Archives of Australia. Department of Territories. Attacks by Natives - Attack on Patrol - Kainantu Sub-District, Eastern Highlands District. NAA: A518, BJ841/1. National Archives of Australia. Australian New Guinea Administration Unit (ANGAU). Appendix to War Diary for October 1942. Report by Lieut. G. D. Neilsen on Overland Patrol from Kainantu to Port Moresby. NAA: AWM52, 1/10/1. Papua New Guinea Patrol Reports. 1912-1976. Microfiche. Boroko: National Archives and Public Records Service.

10.2 Literature Aitchison, T. G. 1936 Peace Ceremony as Performed by the Natives of the Ramu Headwaters, Central New Guinea. Oceania 6(4):478-480. Ao, Tajenyuba 1993 British Occupation of Naga Country. Mokokchung: Naga Literature Society. Bamler, Heinrich 1963 Magische und religiöse Denkformen und Praktiken der Keygana, Kanite, Yate und Fore im östlichen Hochland von Neuguinea. Baessler Archiv 11:115-147. Barker, John 1996 Village Inventions: Historical Variations upon a Regional Theme in Uiaku, Papua New Guinea. Oceania 66(3):211-229. Barnes, John A. 1990 African Models in the New Guinea Highlands. In Models and Interpretations: Selected Essays. J. A. Barnes, ed. Pp. 44-55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beer, Bettina 2003 Methoden und Techniken der Feldforschung. Berlin: Reimer.

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Bell, Josuah A. 2013 Mistaken Gods and Other Misnomers of First Contact of the U.S. Department of Agriculture 1928 Sugarcane Expedition to New Guinea. In Recreating First Contact: Expeditions, Anthropology, and Popular Culture. J. A. Bell, A. K. Brown and R. J. Gordon, eds. Pp. 109- 128. Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press. Bennett, J. H. 1962 Population Studies in the Kuru Region of New Guinea. Oceania 33(1):24-46. Bernard, Harvey R. 2002 Research Methods in Anthropology: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Berndt, Catherine H. 1953 Socio-Cultural Change in the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 9(1):112-138. 1992a Journey along Mythic Paths. In Ethnographic Presents: Pioneering Anthropologists in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. T. E. Hays, ed. Pp. 98-136. Berkeley: University of California Press. Berndt, Ronald M. 1952/53 A Cargo Movement in the Eastern Central Highlands of New Guinea. Oceania 23(1-3):40- 65, 137-158, 202-234. 1953/54 Reaction to Contact in the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. Oceania 24(3-4):190-228, 255-274. 1962 Excess and Restraint. Chicago: Chicago University Press. 1964 Warfare in the New Guinea Highlands. American Anthropologist 66(4):183-203. 1965 The Kamano, Usurufa, Jate and Fore of the Eastern Highlands. In Gods, Ghosts and Men in Melanesia. P. Lawrence and M. J. Meggitt, eds. Pp. 78-104. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. 1971 Political Structure in the Eastern Central Highlands of New Guinea. In Politics in New Guinea. R. M. Berndt and P. Lawrence, eds. Pp. 381-423. Nedlands: University of Western Australia Press. 1992b Into the Unknown! In Ethnographic Presents: Pioneering Anthropologists in the Papua New Guinea Highlands. T. E. Hays, ed. Pp. 68-97. Berkeley: University of California Press. Biersack, Aletta 2011 The Sun and the Shakers, Again: Enga, Ipili, and Somaip Perspectives on the Cult of Ain. Oceania 81(2):113-136. Blong, R. J. 1982 The Time of Darkness: Local Legends and Volcanic Reality in Papua New Guinea. Canberra: Australian National University Press. Bodley, John 1983 Der Weg der Zerstörung: Stammesvölker und die industrielle Zivilisation. München: Trickster Verlag. 1994 Victims of Progress. 4th ed. Mountain View: Mayfield. Bibliography 289

Bourke, R. Michael 1986 Village Coffee in the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea: Early Beginnings. Journal of Pacific History 21(2):100-103. Boutilier, James 1983 Killing the Government: Imperial Policy and the Pacification of Malaita. In The Pacification of Melanesia. M. Rodman and M. Cooper, eds. Pp. 43-87. Lanham: University Press of America. Boyd, David J. 1975 Crops, Kiaps and Currency: Flexible Behavioral Strategies among the Ilakia Awa of Papua New Guinea. PhD Dissertation. University of California. 1981 Village Agriculture and Labor Migration: Interrelated Production Activities among the Ilakia Awa of Papua New Guinea. American Ethnologist 8(1):74-93. 1984 The Production and Management of Pigs: Husbandry Option and Demographic Patterns in an Eastern Highlands Herd. Oceania 55(1):27-49. 1985a The Commercialisation of Ritual in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Man 20:325-340. 1985b "We Must Follow the Fore": Pig Husbandry Intensification and Ritual Diffusion among the Irakia Awa, Papua New Guinea. American Ethnologist 12(1):119-136. 1996 The Legacy of a Highlands Great Man. In Work in Progress: Essays in New Guinea Highlands Ethnography in Honour of Paula Brown Glick. H. Levine and A. Ploeg, eds. Pp. 43-61. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang. Brown, Paula 1962 Non-Agnates among the Patrilineal Chimbu. The Journal of the Polynesian Society 71(1):57- 69 1963 From Anarchy to Satrapy. American Anthropologist 65(1):1-15. 1973 The Chimbu: A Study of Change in the New Guinea Highlands. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1995 Beyond a Mountain Valley: The Simbu of Papua New Guinea. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. Bush, Thelma 1985 Form and Decoration of Arrows from the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Records of the Australian Museum 37:255-293. Campbell, I. C. 1998 Anthropology and the Professionalisation of Colonial Administration in Papua and New Guinea. The Journal of Pacific History 33(1):69-90. Chagnon, Napoleon A. 1983 Yanomamö: The Fierce People. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. 1988 Life Histories, Blood Revenge, and Warfare in a Tribal Population. Science 239:985-992. Clark, Jeffrey 2000 Steel to Stone: A Chronicle of Colonialism in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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