New Guinea, Crossing Boundaries and History.
McCallum, Maurice
New Guinea, Crossing Boundaries and History, by Clive Moore (2003),
University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu [ISBN 0-8248-2485-7]
Moore's book attempts to give a 'total' history of
the island of New Guinea. Though he can leave much detail of offshore
parts of 'New Guinea' to Matthew Spriggs's The Island
Melanesians, Moore necessarily makes appropriate mention of PNG's
islands as well. Other than Gavin Souter's slim work New Guinea:
The Last Unknown (1963), the only complete histories of New Guinea seem
to be in Dutch and German. Moore mentions works by Haga, Wichmann and an
edited Nieuw Guinea of 1953-1954. A Dutch scholar recently suggested to
me that other collective works in the Dutch language might also qualify,
especially some of the 1960s. And there is, as Moore says, the
collection of documents on New Guinea history edited by R.J. Lacey in
1975. But Moore's work might be unique in English, which would be
reason enough to acquire it.
Several causes help explain why it took until 2003 for the academic
world and the general reader to be provided with such a study. The
geographic exploration of what is now Papua New Guinea ended only with
the journeys of the Leahy brothers, in the 1930s, marking the end of
Europe's Great Age of Exploration. For some time the island was
divided, first into three, and most recently into two. Academic study
tended to follow the national interests and priorities of the European
colonisers, and was usually a mere rider to the study of things and
places which were of more interest to the 'centre', whether
that be German, Dutch or Australian. And traditionally, with exploration
coming late to the West and even later to the East, European concern for
this area had just about been exhausted by the time the country was
being opened up--that is, except for the hosts of anthropologists, who
were professionally uninterested in history and often still are.
Traditional Indonesian attitudes to orang papua and to all national
minorities also allow little attention being given to New Guinean
history from the decolonised West, despite the dedicated efforts of
individuals like Aditjondro on 'minority' matters.
So there are some 'great divides' separating writing on
New Guinea-as-a-whole into many parts. There is the halving of the huge
island between the academics of different colonising powers, one of
which has a language (Dutch) not featuring in the list of languages
commonly required of academics. Then there is the narrow focus and lack
of historical interest of the twentieth century anthropological world.
Moore bridges as many of these gaps as he can. If he does not have one
of the languages of scholarship he seems to rely on direct contacts with
experts from those countries.
Of course, he also has to rely on experts in prehistory and
archeology, linguistics and modern ethnology, and has read widely in
those fields. It seems that he maintains extensive personal contacts
with such researchers and then he picks a plausible up-to-date opinion
in contested matters, which fall in their 'territory'. In
prehistory there are, and will always remain, many contested matters,
both broad and narrow. He even descends to matters of fine detail, such
as the origin of the name Mount Hagen. Those interested in this
contested point may like to know what horse Moore 'backs'
here: it is Carl Lauterbach, from the Yuat river, in 1896, p.171. Which
von Hagen is not mentioned, whether the patrol officer murdered not long
before, or some famous figure back in Germany. Maybe we are invited to
look at his source, and he gives us quite a bibliography.
Of course, in a book of 200 pages there is little place for details
so fine, though some detail is periodically needed to prevent his
treatment from floating along entirely on a raft of generalisations.
History must constantly move from the particular to the
'explanatory' general, and back again. An error, or perhaps a
typo, which I must correct is his printed statement that the name
'melanesia' comes from the Greek melos. This word means
'a song', the Greek word for 'black' being melas in
the dictionaries, and in nominal compounds, melan.
There are very few misprints, and the book is beautifully laid out.
Given the prominence of its illustrations, it could be mistaken for a
coffee table book by those who don't dip into its often-dense
contents. The matter is at its densest in his account of the earlier
waves of migration, the linguistic situation past and present, and the
motley chronicle of 'explorers' known to have visited the
waters (and less often, the land) of New Guinea. But these sections are
separated by more digestible and more well worked material, some of
which is of immediate interest.
Because of its enormous sweep, the book probably needs such
occasional proof that the writer is a serious historian, who not only
has taught PNG history for a lifetime, but has also done archival
research himself--in Queensland newspapers, on Queensland
'kanaka' history. He calls himself a 'novice', and
no doubt he often 'transgresses' current academic boundaries.
But someone needs periodically to transgress the ever-multiplying
boundaries of modern professional study. Someone must synthesise, make
connections, rise over 'description' to
'explanation'.
Moore has personal experience of PNG, solid academic background,
and anyone writing the history of a third world country whose first
European 'discovery' was 1512 and which was largely ignored
for the next 400 years must rely on the specialised writing of many
sorts of narrow experts, even if his general treatment ends up being a
distortion of what these experts consider truth. One might say that
general truths always are untrue to some of their particulars--this
certainly seems to be true of history writing. One must also read
monographs and original sources, and not remain content with general
accounts. Moore's book can be used as a helpful guide to the
sources and the monographs, but the sources are not very accessible to
those of us living in New Guinea, and for many readers Moore will
probably have to replace such sources and monographs. To study PNG you
still have to leave PNG.
Open questions are given a 'most likely' solution:
Australian-New Guinean connections in prehistory, possible early links
with China, the cause of the extinction of the old megafauna (a
pan-Pacific question), and the nature of the 'phylum' of
languages claimed to stretch 'trans-New Guinea', ignoring, of
course, all modern borders.
His treatment is balanced in many ways. He tries not to skip too
fast over those unrecorded pre-colonial millennia. He honestly faces
unpopular trends, such as that of creeping Asianisation and its most
modern precursor, the language of Indonesia, which he predicts cannot
much longer stop its eastwards march at the border between Propinsi
Papua and the Independent State of Papua New Guinea. He admits that the
cultures and the individuals of this part of the world have often been
seen as 'ugly', but does his best to empathise with the local
peoples, and to view the history-writing invaders from the Melanesian
point of view, and in the context of their period. The competence with
which local groups managed their societies is an increasing,
pro-Melanesian theme. In this he is paying a tribute to the ancestors of
the present inhabitants, a sort of indigenised history writing.
Readers will all find some area, which is not as well treated as
they may like. Missions, for instance, are given brief treatment, but
are not ignored. The German experience may feature more prominently in
the index than in the body text. But lack of attention to Indonesian
cultures is an omission made by choice, because Moore began his academic
life with studies on south-east Asian history. No doubt he had to narrow
his geographic focus to write this book. There is plenty of attention
given to the more important peripheral regions, such as the islands of
Torres Strait and Maluku (both historically more prominent than the
mainland in different modern periods).
This is a history of New Guinea and its close surrounds which
refuses to treat its subject as a mere addendum to the discovery of the
Great South Land (often anachronistically interpreted as meaning merely
'Australia'), to the history of British or German or Dutch or
even Australian colonisation. It tries to emphasise things not given
sufficient attention in previous attempts at a general history of the
area, especially the importance of networks of trade and the range of
leadership types actually found among supposedly 'chief-less'
peoples. It is, of course, up to date on the 'discourse' of
the term race. It shows critical empathy for its subject, the people and
the peoples of New Guinea, and any better work will have to be much
larger, be written by a team, and use this book of Moore's as a
firm foundation and inspiration.
Maurice McCallum
Good Shepherd College, Banz
