Abstract
This report details the 40 day patrol led by D.W Eisenhauer. The members of the patrol team were a New Guinean interpreter, medical orderly, five policeman and 49 carriers. The patrol explored the uncontrolled area South of Mt Michael to expand the Australian Colonial Administration. Starting at Goroka the patrol walked to Kami, Lufa, Palomedi, Mengino, Gasuabitei, Meiyahuri, Aro’itei, Amanetu, Misapi, Udiebi and Somaihitei. From Somaihitei the patrol travelled deeper into the uncontrolled area, following the Koma and Tsubu rivers. The report diary contains Eisenhauer’s account of the difficulties of the patrol: the weather, topography, and the carriers fear of unfamiliar territory, spirits and water. The report contains observations of the New Guinean populations encountered. Observations about their health, education, agriculture practices, language, dress, mission contact, previous contact by Europeans, and if contact was peaceful or hostile. The report includes maps and information about roads and bridges. Three carriers drowned on this patrol.
Key Words:Investigative; Political Development; Topography; Weather
Introduction – The Patrol
From 3July to 12 August 1950, amid the familiar challenges of torrential rain and the mountainous landscape, Patrol Officer D.W Eisenhauer led an exploratory patrol from Goroka to the south of Mt Michael.[1] The 40-day patrol was one part of a three-pronged drive into the uncontrolled area, with the purpose of expanding the Australian colonial administration.[2] Assistant District Officer D. Young-Whiteforde and Patrol Officer A. Carey led other patrols that drove into the same area at approximately the same time.[3] Some days these patrols walked together before separating again. Eisenhauer outlined three aims in his patrol report: ‘to generally explore the terrain…to contact the native peoples and ascertain the extent of their population in the area…[and] endeavour to locate a suitable airstrip site should a large population be found’.[4] The accompanying personnel were all New Guinean, the interpreter was Pepe of Yabiufa and the medical orderly was C.R.T.S. Trainee Kasawaho of Goroka. [5] Forming the police detachment was Corporal Anton and Constables, Kausingut, Enava, Pip, Samuk and Umbuf.[6] 49 carriers from the Kami area completed the patrol group.[7] The patrol encountered many New Guinean villages throughout the first week. At Kami, Lufa and Meiyahuri, the interaction with New Guineans was relatively peaceful, the patrol was able to trade, confiscate weapons, and instruct them on administrative tasks. This was due to these New Guineans having had exposure to the Administration through contact with Patrol Officers previously.[8] After 17 days of walking the patrol descended further into the uncontrolled area south of Mt Michael and interactions with the indigenous peoples became significantly fewer and more reluctant. In the latter part of the patrol Eisenhauer encountered evidence of sago growing. [9] Eisenhauer also spotted from the bank near the junction of the Tsubu and Pio rivers a canoe with six New Guineans on board travelling upstream. [10] They were hailed, ‘but the paddlers merely increased their speed.’[11] Simultaneously the carriers became increasingly distressed as the patrol progressed due to being in unknown territory, concerned about spirits and a fear of water. This peaked after the drownings of three carriers, Yamua of Kami, Alebu of Kami and Hegiba of Numoga. It was after this that Eisenhauer decided to retrace their path back to Goroka in view of the carriers now being ‘completely terrified of the local rivers’.[12]
Discussion
The facts in this report are shaped by the context of the time and the person who wrote it therefore this report is not a ‘pure’ account of New Guinea’s colonial past. It is Eisenhauer’s perspective of events, shaped by his values, life experiences and the context of the time. That Eisenhauer was a Patrol Officer working for the Administration does not mean his account should be disparaged; rather this account should be considered alongside many viewpoints, including those of the Administration at Port Moresby, the District Officer at Bena Bena, fellow kiaps Carey and Young-Whiteforde, the carriers, police detachment, and the New Guineans’ encountered during the patrol. These perspectives can be found in Eisenhauer’s report by reading against the grain and further research is necessary to understand them. It is only when numerous perspectives are considered that the most accurate truth of the past can be revealed. Not all perspectives are documented or preserved, a problem all historians are familiar with. The very fact this report has been preserved on microfiche and made accessible digitally shapes what can be known and written about this past. Then a historian’s own conscious or unconscious biases come into effect. Taking all of this into account, the events documented in this report will now be explored through the context of the time, and the perspectives of the Administration, Eisenhauer, and the carriers in an attempt to better understand this reports position in New Guinea’s colonial history.
The context of time is a factor that has shaped the production of knowledge in this report. After World War Two the mandated territories of New Guinea and Papua became a United Nations Trusteeship and were administered by the Commonwealth of Australia.[13] Australia was to work to advance education, economic and political development.[14] Patrol Officers were an important part of this work.[15] As representatives of the Australian colonial administration they produced colonial knowledge. An exploratory patrol produced a different type of knowledge compared to patrols that were to extend and consolidate previous contact.[16] This is because different types of patrols collected different information. The latter type typically conducted a census. This describes knowledge that is intended to catalogue a population and included recording things such as births, deaths, marriages, and houses. American anthropologist Bernard Cohn’s ‘investigative modalities’, which are descriptions of forms of colonial knowledge, would classify census information belonging to the Enumerative modality.[17]
Cohn’s investigative modalities will be applied to demonstrate the knowledge Eisenhauer produced. [18] These modalities can overlap. Of Cohn’s six modalities, two are evident in Eisenhauer’s report of the exploratory patrol. The first is the observational modality. This describes the ‘creation of a repertoire of images and typifications’ that determines what is significant to the external eye.[19] Eisenhauer’s report contains imagery and typifications’ consistent with most reports. The torrential rain and the difficulty of navigating Highlands terrain, for instance: ‘Ascended to 8,150 feet. Atrocious foot track…Heavy downpour of rain…Storm broke. Very uncomfortable’.[20] The report also contains Eisenhauer’s colonial judgements that New Guineans belief in spirits was irrational. One example is when Eisenhauer writes the carriers’ have ‘an innate fear of invisible malicious “spirits”’.[21] His use of quotation marks around ‘spirits’ communicates he doubts the validity of their views. This imagery and typification’s contributed and reinforced the prevailing external narrative in 1950 of New Guinea as a wild and exotic place that needed to be civilised.[22]
The second is the survey modality, ‘a form of exploration of the social and natural landscape’. [23] Eisenhauer’s report includes his mapping efforts, notes of languages spoken and if encounters were hostile or peaceful.[24] He also included some anthropological observations, all powerful and valuable information given it was to be used to advance colonial ambitions.[25] The Commonwealth of Australia’s 1949-1950 annual report to the United Nations, prepared in Port Moresby by the Director of the Department of District Services and Native Affairs, makes clear the patrol was a part of a ‘formal action to reduce the proclaimed uncontrolled areas’ and ‘extend the administration’ which was successful. [26] An awareness of this context brings with it the understanding that this report contains colonial knowledge produced by a colonial representative, used for colonial purposes.
The report reveals how Eisenhauer used colonial knowledge to advance Australia’s colonial
Administration’s goals during the patrol. Cohn’s ‘historiographical modality’ underlies many of the other modalities and describes the knowledge of how the current natural and social worlds are constructed by history.[27] In the report it can be seen how Eisenhauer used previously collected historiographical knowledge, specifically of language and the structure of New Guinean society, to encourage the goals of the Administration. At Meiyahuri, Eisenhauer spoke to the headmen who were the leaders and best to approach to achieve the aim of building a road. Whether Eisenhauer spoke himself or through his interpreter Pepe is unclear. On Sunday 9 July Eisenhour writes, ‘In view of previous Administration contact having been made at Meiyahuri, the local headman there was lectured on their obligations to open and maintain a road. Instructed to link Gasuabitei and Meiyahurei. [28] Historiographical knowledge was powerful and had a pervasive influence.[29]
Eisenhauer’s values and beliefs, temperament, his professional role and his personal relationship to New Guineans and the land have undoubtedly shaped the interpretation, selection and ordering of facts contained in this report. Unfortunately, little is known about Eisenhauer, except that he had some patrol experience. He conducted a 17 day patrol in March-April 1949 inspecting patrol posts throughout the Bena sub-district of the Eastern Highlands.[30] Much of what influenced Eisenhauer’s view of the world is unknown.
Despite knowing little of Eisenhauer’s perspective, it is possible to glean some of his outlook from the report and in doing so also explore the carriers’ perspective. He believed that the carriers’ belief in spirits and increasing fear the further they went into the uncontrolled areas was irrational. On Sunday 16 July, Eisenhauer writes, ‘Carriers difficult to control. Their superstitions and fears of unknown country tending to blind their reason and faith’. [31] On Saturday 22 July his entry reads, ‘Carriers very sullen. Several cases of stomach upsets during the night. All claim rice and meat ration, together with local water, is poisoned. Conclusive proof that illness due to the indiscriminate eating of wild [?] pandanus and breadfruit nuts far from ripe’.[32] The phrases, ‘blind their reason and faith’ and ‘conclusive proof that illness is due to’ indicates Eisenhauer believes the carriers’ actions were illogical. However, from the carriers’ perspectives their fears and actions are perfectly reasonable. For carriers this was not an ‘uncontrolled area’, but another tribe’s territory. Historian August Kituai explains that tribal fighting and warfare was a traditional practice and entering another’s territory had consequences.[33] It was reasonable to be apprehensive, despite years of pacification efforts by the Australian colonial administration. [34] Secondly, it is worth exploring the carriers’ understanding of what Eisenhauer called ‘superstition’. Historians Bill Gammage and Hank Nelson make clear that for New Guineans sorcery was very real, and it was perfectly reasonable to look out for it. Gammage explains that ‘sorcery is a means of understanding the world’. [35] Nelson adds, ‘Traditional life and society was ruled by sheer fear of upsetting the spirits of the ancestors, sheer fear of sorcery and witchcraft, sheer fear of evil spirits which could cause sickness and death; vendetta, paybacks and fighting.’[36] Knowing this, the carriers’ apprehension in unfamiliar land and their decision to not eat certain foods is reasonable and logical.
Conclusion
The limitations of this discussion are that there was only scope to analyse the Australian colonial administration, Eisenhauer’s and the carriers’ views and how this guided their decisions and actions. For a better understanding of this report, an exploration of the perspectives of the members of the police detachment or the New Guineans they encountered on the patrol would be valuable. Patrol reports are valuable sources of information and should be read with and against the archival grain to help ensure the histories written about colonial New Guinea are as close to the truth of the past as a historian can ever get.
Bibliography
Australian Department of Territories, Report to the General Assembly of the United Nations on the administration of the Territory of New Guinea, Commonwealth Govt. Printer, Canberra, 1951, TROVE [online database], accessed 15 Sep 2020.
Brown, P., ‘Colonial New Guinea: The Historical Context’, in N. McPherson ed., Colonial New Guinea: Anthropological Perspectives, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 2001, pp. 15-26.
Cohn, B., Colonialism and its forms of knowledge: The British in India, Princeton University Press, Princeton N.J, 1996.
Eisenhauer, D.W., Patrol Report no.1 of 1948/49 Bena Bena Subdistrict, Patrol Reports. Eastern Highlands District, Goroka, 1943-1949, National Archives of Papua New Guinea, Accession 496, https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/collection/bb30391860 , accessed 15 Sep 2020.
Eisenhauer, D.W., Patrol Report no. 3 of 1950/51 Bena Bena Subdistrict, Patrol Reports, Eastern Highlands District, Goroka, 1949-1951, National Archives of Papua New Guinea, Accession 496, https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/collection/bb30391860 , accessed 15 Sep 2020.
Gammage, B., ‘Sorcery in New Guinea, 1938 and 1988’, Journal of Pacific History, vol. 41, no.1, pp. 87-96, 2006, JSTOR [online database], accessed 15 Sep 2020.
Greathead, G., Letter to Director of District Service and Native Affairs Port Moresby, Patrol Reports, Eastern Highlands District, Goroka, 1949-1951, National Archives of Papua New Guinea, Accession 496, https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/collection/bb30391860 , accessed 15 Sep 2020.
Kituai, A., My Gun, My Brother: The World of the Papua New Guinea Colonial Police 1920-1960, University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 1998, JSTOR [online database], accessed 15 Sep 2020.
Nelson, H., Taim Bilong Masta: The Australian Involvement in Papua New Guinea, Australian Broadcasting Commission, Sydney, 1982.
Sinclair, J., ‘Patrolling in the restricted areas of Papua and New Guinea’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, vol. 8, no. 3, 1954, pp. 129-145, Taylor and Francis [online database], accessed 15 Sep 2020.
[1]D.W Eisenhauer, Patrol Report no. 3 of 1950/51 Bena Bena Subdistrict, Patrol Reports, Eastern Highlands District, Goroka, 1949-1951, National Archives of Papua New Guinea, Accession 496, https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/collection/bb30391860, accessed 15 Sep 2020.
[2] G. Greathead, Letter to Director of District Service and Native Affairs Port Moresby, Patrol Reports, Eastern Highlands District, Goroka, 1949-1951, National Archives of Papua New Guinea, Accession 496, https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/collection/bb30391860 , accessed 15 Sep 2020.
[3] Australian Department of Territories, Report to the General Assembly of the United Nations on the administration of the Territory of New Guinea, Commonwealth Govt. Printer, Canberra, 1951, TROVE [online database], accessed 15 Sep 2020, pp. 19-20; Eisenhauer, p. 2.
[4] Eisenhauer, Patrol Report no.3, p. 1.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid, p. 3.
[9] Ibid., pp. 7-8.
[10] Ibid., pp. 7-8.
[11] Ibid., pp. 7-8.
[12] Ibid., p.8.
[13] P. Brown, ‘Colonial New Guinea: The Historical Context’, in N. McPherson ed., Colonial New Guinea: Anthropological Perspectives, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, 2001, pp. 15-26; Australian Department of Territories.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Ibid.
[16] J. Sinclair, ‘Patrolling in the restricted areas of Papua and New Guinea’, Australian Journal of International Affairs, vol. 8, no. 3, 1954, p. 130, Taylor and Francis [online database], accessed 15 Sep 2020.
[17] B. Cohn, Colonialism and its forms of knowledge: The British in India, Princeton University Press, Princeton N.J, 1996.
[18] Cohn, pp. 8-9.
[19] Ibid., pp., 6-7.
[20] Eisenhauer, Patrol Report no.3, pp. 3-6.
[21] Eisenhauer, Patrol Report no.3, pp.2-4.
[22] H. Nelson, Taim Bilong Masta: The Australian Involvement in Papua New Guinea, Australian Broadcasting Commission, Sydney, 1982, p. 12.
[23] Ibid., pp. 7-8.
[24] Eisenhauer, Patrol Report no.3, pp. 1- 14.
[25] Ibid., pp. 5-6.
[26] Australian Department of Territories, p. 19.
[27] Cohn, pp. 5-6.
[28] Eisenhauer, Patrol Report no.3, p. 3.
[29] Cohn, p. 5.
[30] D.W Eisenhauer, Patrol Report no.1 of 1948/49 Bena Bena Subdistrict, Patrol Reports. Eastern Highlands District, Goroka, 1943-1949, National Archives of Papua New Guinea, Accession 496, https://library.ucsd.edu/dc/collection/bb30391860 , accessed 15 Sep 2020.
[31] Eisenhauer, Patrol Report no.3, p. 4.
[32] Ibid. p. 5.
[33]A. Kituai, My Gun, My Brother: The World of the Papua New Guinea Colonial Police 1920-1960, p. 130,University of Hawai’i Press, Honolulu, 1998, JSTOR [online database], accessed 15 Sep 2020.
[34] Kituai, p. 19.
[35] B. Gammage, ‘Sorcery in New Guinea, 1938 and 1988’, Journal of Pacific History, vol. 41, no.1, p.90, 2006, JSTOR [online database], accessed 15 Sep 2020.
[36] Nelson, p. 156.