Papua New Guinea
The indigenous population of Papua New Guinea is one of the most
heterogeneous in the world. Papua New Guinea has several thousand
separate communities, most with only a few hundred people. Divided
by language, customs, and tradition, some of these communities have
engaged in low-scale tribal conflict with their neighbors for
millennia. The advent of modern weapons and modern migration into
urban areas has greatly magnified the impact of this lawlessness.
The isolation created by the mountainous terrain is so great that
some groups, until recently, were unaware of the existence of
neighboring groups only a few kilometers away. The diversity,
reflected in a folk saying, "For each village, a different culture,"
is perhaps best shown in the local languages. Spoken mainly on the
island of New Guinea--composed of Papua New Guinea and the
Indonesian province of West Papua--some 800 of these languages have
been identified; of these, only 350-450 are related. The remainder
seem to be totally unrelated either to each other or to the other
major groupings. Most native languages are spoken by a few hundred
to a few thousand, although Enga, used in part of the highlands, is
spoken by some 130,000 people. However, the Enga people are
subdivided into clans that regularly conflict with each other. Many
native languages are extremely complex grammatically.
Melanesian Pidgin serves as the lingua franca. English is spoken by
educated people and in Milne Bay Province. The overall population
density is low, although pockets of overpopulation exist. Papua New
Guinea's Western Province averages one person per square kilometer
(3 per sq. mi.). The Chimbu Province in the New Guinea highlands
averages 20 persons per square kilometer (60 per sq. mi.) and has
areas containing up to 200 people farming a square kilometer of
land. The highlands are home to 40% of the population.
A considerable urban drift toward Port Moresby and other major
centers has occurred in recent years. The trend toward urbanization
accelerated in the 1990s, bringing in its wake squatter settlements,
ethnic disputes, unemployment, public utilities pressure, and
attendant social problems, especially violent crime.
Approximately 96% of the population is Christian. The churches with
the largest number of members are the Roman Catholic Church, the
Evangelical Lutheran Church, the United Church, and the Seventh Day
Adventist church. Although the major churches are under indigenous
leadership, a large number of missionaries remain in the country.
The bulk of the estimated 2,000 Americans resident in Papua New
Guinea are missionaries and their families. The non-Christian
portion of the indigenous population, as well as a portion of the
nominal Christians, practices a wide variety of religions that are
an integral part of traditional culture, mainly animism (spirit
worship) and ancestor cults.
Foreign residents comprise about 1% of the population. More than
half are Australian; others are from China, the United Kingdom, New
Zealand, the Philippines, India, and the United States, most of whom
are missionaries. Since independence, about 900 foreigners have
become naturalized citizens.
Though cultures vary widely, traditional Papua New Guinea social
structures generally include the following characteristics:
The practice of subsistence economy;
Recognition of bonds of kinship with obligations extending beyond
the immediate family group;
Generally egalitarian relationships with an emphasis on acquired,
rather than inherited, status; and
A strong attachment of the people to land, which is held communally.
Traditional communities do not recognize a permanent transfer of
ownership when land is sold.
Though land and other possessions may be inherited through the
female line in some cultures, women generally are considered and
treated as inferiors. Gender violence is endemic.
Patterns and frequency of sexual activity, though never publicly
discussed (especially in rural areas), contribute to the current
rapid spread of HIV.
Most Papua New Guineans still adhere strongly to this traditional
social structure, which has its roots in village life. |
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Archeological evidence indicates that humans arrived on New Guinea
at least 60,000 years ago, probably by sea from Southeast Asia
during an Ice Age period when the sea was lower and distances
between islands shorter. Although the first arrivals were hunters
and gatherers, early evidence shows that people managed the forest
environment to provide food. There also are indications of gardening
having been practiced at the same time that agriculture was
developing in Mesopotamia and Egypt. Early garden crops--many of
which are indigenous--included sugarcane, Pacific bananas, yams, and
taros, while sago and pandanus were two commonly exploited native
forest crops. Today's staples--sweet potatoes and pigs--were later
arrivals, but shellfish and fish have long been mainstays of coastal
dwellers' diets.
When Europeans first arrived, inhabitants of New Guinea and nearby
islands--while still relying on bone, wood, and stone tools--had a
productive agricultural system. They traded along the coast, where
products mainly were pottery, shell ornaments, and foodstuffs, and
in the interior, where forest products were exchanged for shells and
other sea products.
The first Europeans to sight New Guinea were probably the Portuguese
and Spanish navigators sailing in the South Pacific in the early
part of the 16th century. In 1526-27, Don Jorge de Meneses
accidentally came upon the principal island and is credited with
naming it "Papua," a Malay word for the frizzled quality of
Melanesian hair. The term "New Guinea" was applied to the island in
1545 by a Spaniard, Íñigo Ortiz de Retes, because of a fancied
resemblance between the islands' inhabitants and those found on the
African Guinea coast. Although European navigators visited the
islands and explored their coastlines for the next 170 years, little
was known of the inhabitants until the late 19th century.
New Guinea
With Europe's growing need for coconut oil, Godeffroy's of Hamburg,
the largest trading firm in the Pacific, began trading for copra in
the New Guinea Islands. In 1884, Germany formally took possession of
the northeast quarter of the island and put its administration in
the hands of a chartered company. In 1899, the German imperial
government assumed direct control of the territory, thereafter known
as German New Guinea. In 1914, Australian troops occupied German New
Guinea, and it remained under Australian military control until
1921. The British Government, on behalf of the Commonwealth of
Australia, assumed a mandate from the League of Nations for
governing the Territory of New Guinea in 1920. That mandate was
administered by the Australian Government until the Japanese
invasion in December 1941 brought about its suspension. Following
the surrender of the Japanese in 1945, civil administration of Papua
as well as New Guinea was restored, and under the Papua New Guinea
Provisional Administration Act, 1945-46, Papua and New Guinea were
combined in an administrative union.
Papua
On November 6, 1884, a British protectorate was proclaimed over the
southern coast of New Guinea (the area called Papua) and its
adjacent islands. The protectorate, called British New Guinea, was
annexed outright on September 4, 1888. The possession was placed
under the authority of the Commonwealth of Australia in 1902.
Following the passage of the Papua Act of 1905, British New Guinea
became the Territory of Papua, and formal Australian administration
began in 1906. Papua was administered under the Papua Act until the
Japanese invaded the northern parts of the islands in 1941 and began
to advance on Port Moresby and civil administration was suspended.
During the war, Papua was governed by a military administration from
Port Moresby, where Gen. Douglas MacArthur occasionally made his
headquarters. As noted, it was later joined in an administrative
union with New Guinea during 1945-46 following the surrender of
Japan.
Postwar Developments
The Papua and New Guinea Act of 1949 formally approved the placing
of New Guinea under the international trusteeship system and
confirmed the administrative union of New Guinea and Papua under the
title of "The Territory of Papua and New Guinea." The act provided
for a Legislative Council (established in 1951), a judicial
organization, a public service, and a system of local government. A
House of Assembly replaced the Legislative Council in 1963, and the
first House of Assembly opened on June 8, 1964. In 1972, the name of
the territory was changed to Papua New Guinea.
Elections in 1972 resulted in the formation of a ministry headed by
Chief Minister Michael Somare, who pledged to lead the country to
self-government and then to independence. Papua New Guinea became
self-governing in December 1973 and achieved independence on
September 16, 1975. The 1977 national elections confirmed Michael
Somare as Prime Minister at the head of a coalition led by the Pangu
Party. However, his government lost a vote of no confidence in 1980
and was replaced by a new cabinet headed by Sir Julius Chan as Prime
Minister. The 1982 elections increased Pangu's plurality, and
parliament again chose Somare as Prime Minister. In November 1985,
the Somare government lost a vote of no confidence, and the
parliamentary majority elected Paias Wingti, at the head of a
five-party coalition, as Prime Minister. A coalition, headed by
Wingti, was victorious in very close elections in July 1987. In July
1988 a no-confidence vote toppled Wingti and brought to power Rabbie
Namaliu, who a few weeks earlier had replaced Somare as leader of
the Pangu Party. In 1992 Paias Wingti was elected Prime Minister.
Sir Julius took his place in 1994 after a vote of no confidence. The
1997 elections brought Bill Skate to power as Prime Minister, but he
was replaced by Sir Mekere Morauta after a vote of no confidence in
1999. Sir Michael Somare returned as Prime Minister after the 2002
general elections. He led his national alliance party into the 2007
elections and remained as the Prime Minister, becoming the
longest-serving parliamentarian in the Commonwealth. Somare
celebrated his 40th year in politics on March 16, 2008.
Such reversals of fortune and a revolving-door succession of prime
ministers have characterized Papua New Guinea's national politics.
From 1988 to 2002, the country had numerous prime ministers. A
plethora of political parties, coalition governments, shifting party
loyalties, and motions of no confidence in the leadership all lent
an air of instability to political proceedings. For the first 27
years of independence, a "first past the post" electoral system
resulted in many parliamentarians elected with less than 15% of
their constituency. Fractious politics and a 75% loss rate for
incumbents precluded the development of strong political parties or
a stable national leadership. The limited preferential voting,
introduced in 2003, and an organic law on political parties has
strengthened political stability.
In the 2007 elections, 66 members of parliament lost their seats.
The government was formed by a coalition of several parties, and Sir
Michael Somare, the leader of the National Alliance (and the
nation's first Prime Minister in 1975), was elected Prime Minister.
His government was the first to complete a 5-year term since
independence and hopes to complete a 10-year term. |
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