New Guinea Research Bulletin R.G
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NEW GU INEA RE SEA RCH BULLETIN Plate 1. T onnny Kabu NEW GUINE A RE SE ARCH BULLETIN Number 14 Nancy E. Hitchcock and N.D. Oram January 19 67 Published by the New Guinea Research Unit, The Australian National University , P.O. Box 4, Canberra, A.C.T. and P.O. Box 779, Port Moresby , Papua -New Guinea THE AUST RALI AN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY Research School of Pacific Studies New Guinea Research Unit Committee Sir John Crawford , Chairman , Director of the School w . Stanner, of and Sociology J .W. Davidson, Department of Paci fic His·tory H.C. Brookfield, Department of Geography Ann Chowning , Department of Anthropology and Soc iology E.K. Fisk , Dep artment of Economics R.G. Crocombe, New Guinea Research Unit Editor , New Guinea Research Bulletin R.G. Crocombe Editorial assis tant Susan Fairc loth January 1967 Part I Rabia Camp and the Tommy Kabu movement by N.D . Oram Foreword 3 Chap ter 1 Introductory a. Traditional Purari society 5 b. Post-contact social changes to 1945 5 c. Economic development 6 Chapter 2 The Tommy Kabu movement a. The leaders 8 b. The reform policy 10 c. The movement in the Purari De lta 10 d. Economic activities in Port Moresby 11 e. Reasons for the failure of economic activities 16 f. The attitude of the movement to the Administration 16 g. Political aims 17 h. At titude of th e Administration to the movement 17 Chap ter 3 Rabia Camp a. The search for a site 23 b. Establishing Rabia Camp 24 c. Leadership 26 d. Housing and environmental sanitation 27 Chapter 4 Land rights a. Attitude of Kila Kila rightholders 31 b. Search for security of tenure 33 c. Government view of the legal posi tion 33 vii viii Chapter 5 Policy of the Admi nistration towards migration to urban areas 35 Chapter 6 Conclusion 38 Part II Migration and emp loyment by Nancy E. Hitchcock Chap ter 7 Migration and emp loyment , 1963-4 a. Data collection 47 b. Population changes 47 c. Migrations 53 d. Tribal origi ns of immigrants 54 e. Household composition and domestic arrangements 56 f. Relationships within households 56 g. Emp loyment 58 Chap ter 8 Migration and emp loyment , 1966 a. Population changes 60 b. Housing 61 c. Migration 61 d. Tribal origins 62 e. Duration of residence of head s of households 62 f. Relationships 62 g. Employment 63 Chapter 9 Nutrition a. Method of study 64 b. Procuring of food 6 7 c. Household equipment 71 d. Food preparation and cooking 71 e. Food preservation and storage 80 f. Feeding pattern 81 g. Stimulants 81 h. The food buying pattern 83 j . Food and nutrients consumed 84 k. Physical condition, health and general activity 93 1 . Income and expenditure 96 ix Page Chap ter 10 Discus s ion and conclusions a. Migration and emp loyment 104 b. Dietary levels 105 c. Budgets 110 Appendices 1 Infant feeding 112 2 The means of improving nutrition 116 3 Rabia Camp examp le households 118 Bibliography 122 Tables 1 Age and sex composition of Rabia Camp , count 1 (May 1963) 48 2 Age and sex composition of Rabia Camp , count 8 (March 1964) 48 3 Variation in population at each count 50 4 Arrival dates at Rabia Camp of count 1 population 51 5 Percentage of age groups by date of arrival 51 6 Origins of Rabia Camp residents 55 7 Emp loyment record and departures , counts 1 to 8 58 8 Age and sex compos ition of Rabia Camp (February 1966) 60 9 Composit ion of foods/100 g food 68 10 Foods and cooking methods used 73-9 11 Average weight of food consumed by men and women per head per day 85 12 Average daily consumption of fluids by men and women 86 13a Consumption of nutrients by adults 87 13b Consumption of minerals and vitamins by adults 88 x 14a Consumption of nutrients by infants and children 89 14b Consumption of minerals and vitamins by infants and children 90 15 Percentage of total calories from vari ous foods 91 16 Height , weight , skinfold thicknesses in adults 94 17 Heights and wei ghts in infants and children 95 18 Income and expendit ure of Rabia Camp sample household for one week 98 19 Cash value of food consumed by six sample households (Parts one and two compared) 100 20 Return of menstruation in relation to age of infant 113 21 Complementary foodstuffs consumed during weaning period , showing nutrients thereby obtained 115 Figures 1 Age structure of Rabia Camp populat ion (a) May 1963 , (b) March 1964 49 2 Age structure of Rabia Camp population (a) 1955 after Maher 196 1, (b) 1959 cal culated from Groves 1959 data 49 3 Percentage composition of average adult diet - Rabia Camp 82 Map s 1 Rabia Camp 22 2 Sago depots 1946-51 22 Plates 1 Tommy Kabu Frontispiece 2 Traditional house in the Purari Delta 13 xi 3 A new vil lage in the Purari Delta, 1947 13 4 A general view of Rabia Camp 29 5 House recently built at Rabia Camp 29 Part I RABIA CAMP AND TH E TO MMY KABU MOVEMENT N • Oram Large numbers of rural people in all developing countries are moving to towns in search of a livel ihood . The reasons they leave home , the settlement pat terns they establish in towns , and the economic attitudes and activities of the settlers can only be fully understood if the home environment is also examined. Port Moresby , wh ich has a deep natural harbour , was founded in 1884 and is the headquarters of the combined Te rritory of Papua and New Guinea. Roads reach no more than 70 miles into the sparsely populated hinterland and other parts of the country can therefore only be reached by sea and by air. Th e population of Port Moresby was only 2,800 in 1935 but after the second world war it grew rapidly to 15 ,700 in 1954 , 29 ,000 in 1961 and 42 ,000 in 1966. Before the war , Papuans in Port Moresby lived either in villages belonging to two landholding groups (Koita and Motu) or in employers ' compounds. In the immediate post-war years , the large influx of migrants , par ticularly from the Gulf of Papua , built their own houses in ethnic clusters on village land , with the exception of one group who built on government land . In 1964 , one -fi fth of the Papuan population lived in 22 such settlements (Oram 1964:41) . Port Moresby was the headquarters of the Tommy Kabu movement , an unusual examp le of organised social change . Its members sought to establish a trading depot and migrant settlement, Rabial Camp , in this urban setting . The influence of this choice of locale on the fortunes of this Purari group , including such factors as the existing sys tem of land rights and the government policies wh ich conditioned the development of a Purari settlement in town , are examined in some detail . In outl ining the history of this m9vement I try to show that it was a part of the general process of social change in the Purari Delta. Previous accounts of the Tommy Kabu movements have not fully examined the extent to wh ich it contained 1 Rabia means sago in the Motu language wh ich is spoken in a number of villages in the vicinity of Port Moresby , and also in the simpli fied version , known as Police Motu , wh ich is widely spoken as a lingua franca. throughout Papua . 3 4 elements of ' cargo cultism ' in the sense th at members sought to achieve their end s by me ans wh ich were non-rational in Western terms . The reasons for the failure of the movement also require re-e xamination , and in this paper I attemp t to provide some answer to these problems . The paper is based on research carried out from 1962 to 1965 in the course of a wider study of the town. Material was obtained from assoc iation with Tommy Kabu and members of his movement , and from government officials , documents and published sources. Th ere is now considerab le literature on the Purari people: F.E. Williams , government anthropologist, published a general ethnographic account (Williams 1924); and J.H. Holmes , a member of the London Missionary Society , who lived at Urika in the Purari Delta from 1906 to 1920 , also produced in the same year a study (Ho lmes 1924) of the Purari and other peoples living in that area, wh ich is of particular interest because of his knowledge of religion and belief. In 1954 and 1955 an anthropologist, Ro bert F. Maher , carried out a study of culture change in the Purari Delta , the results of which were published in Maher 1961. In 1951 the South Pacific Commission published as its Social Devel opment Notes No .7 an account of a community development project in the Purari Delta wh ich was begun in that year . The papers include a valuab le account (Allen 1951) of the ' Purari Kompani ' by the late Rev . L.W. Allen of the London Missionary Socie ty , who was an observer of many of the activities of the company's members when he was living in the mission station at Urika ; and a careful account of the movement by R. Thomson , who was then Senior Social Welfare Officer of the Department of Educa tion . I gratefully acknowledge my debt to Professor Peter Lawrence , Dr Diane Barwick, also to Dr R. Crocombe and my other colleagues in the New Guinea Re search Unit for reading drafts of this paper and making valuable criticisms and suggestions ; to Mr Tommy Kabu for his assistance during my fieldwork; to Mr D.