Diving Papua New Guinea: PNG Overview
Papua New Guinea is truly one of the last frontiers – the country is a wild & adventurous place and offers some tremendous scuba diving, combined with many unique & fascinating things to see above the water.
One of the world’s most heterogeneous countries, Papua New Guinea (PNG) has a population of around 6.5 million people, but over 850 languages and nearly 1000 traditional societies & ethnic indegenous groups. This tremendous diversity is the result of the country’s mountainous terrain and dense vegetation whereby tribes & clans formed as a self-defense mechanism – leading to thousands of separate communities.
Low-level conflict between neighbooring tribes was usually (and in many places still is) the norm, which meant that each tribe tended to limit itself to it’s defined area and resulted in the large number of traditional societies & languages.
Even today less than 20% of PNG’s population live in urban areas, with the remainder usually following a traditional village & subsistence farming based lifestyle – many without power or running water, and where “luxuries” such as soap, cooking oil & clothes are few & far between.
Located north of Australia, PNG occupies the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, (the second largest island in the world), the Bismark & Louisade archipelagos, the Admiralty Islands, Bougainville Island and numerous other smaller islands in the Bismark & Solomon Seas.
Map of Papua New Guinea
Diving Papua New Guinea: A Brief History Lesson…
Papua New Guinea is believed to have been populated by humans for over 50,000 years, with the first inhabitants migrating there from other parts of South East Asia, and a major migration of Austronesian speaking people to the coastal regions of the country some 2,500 years ago.
European exploration of the island of New Guinea started in the 16th century, when the first sailing ships arrived in SE Asia in search of the source of the Spice Trade, but was limited to coastal areas as the mountainous hinterland was just too daunting for serious exploration.
The local Melanesian people were christened “Papuan” by the Spanish explorer Don Jorge de Meneses, the word being derived from the Malay version pepuah used to describe frizzy hair… and the Spanish explorer Yñigo Ortiz de Retez later christened the main island New Guinea (Nueva Guinea) after he noted a resemblance of the local people to those he had seen along the Guinea coast of Africa.
Serious colonization of the country occurred in the 1880′s when the northern half of the country became the colony of German New Guinea, and the southern half became British New Guinea – the Germans being motivated by the copra trade & coconut oil, while the British wanted to keep the Germans away from Australia…
British New Guinea became the Territory of Papua in 1906, when Britain ceded it’s administration to the newly independent Australia, and when WW1 started Australia moved quickly to invade & seize control of German New Guinea and was ultimately given formal control by the League of Nations in 1920.
Diving Papua New Guinea: Australian Colonial Rule
The territories of Papua and New Guinea were merged together after the Japanese invaded during WWII and were administered as a single colony of Australia until full independence in September 1975.
When visiting PNG it’s very easy to get the impression that it was “happy days” all round during colonial rule and Australia ruled with great wisdom and generosity. Many older local people who experienced those times will tell you that it was much better back then… ‘gut taim bipo’ (good times before), but the truth is that PNG was just not ready for independence in 1975 and many of the problems that plague the country to this day can be traced back to that key point.
Here is the LINK to an excellent paper called “Why is Papua New Guinea so Hard to Govern”, given by the widely respected journalist Sean Dorney, to the Australian Institute of International Affairs in November 1999. The paper is 11 years old now, but it’s content is still relevant and very useful when trying to understand the complex (almost mystifying…) nature of Papua New Guinea.
Diving Papua New Guinea: First Contact and the Lost World
One of the most intriguing aspects of PNG is that it is only about 70 years since “first contact” was made with the highland people of New Guinea. Incredibly that contact was made by an Australian prospector called Michael Leahy from rural Queensland, who not only extensively documented his experiences in a daily journal, he also took an extensive series of photographs using his Leica camera – thus providing a unique insight into an amazing series of events.
Prior to the discovery of significant gold deposits at Edie Creek on the north coast of New Guinea there had been no attempt by the Australian government to venture inland and explore the very rugged interior, as it was assumed that because as the highland terrain was so difficult nobody could there.
First Contact
That assumption was based on the chain of mountains that run east to west across the country. Unknown was the fact that there are actually (in very simple terms…) two parallel mountain chains and in between them are a series of fertile valleys which were populated with a large number of highland people.
Equally ironically, the highlanders lived very parochially in thousands of separate small communities – each with it’s own network of enemies & allies, the result being that there was very limited travel in the highlands themselves and nobody had ventured out.
The fertile soils of the valley provided the communities with what they needed and it was just too dangerous to travel outside the safety of their tribal territory, so there was a kind of “Lost World” of people completely isolated from the rest of the world and living what was basically a stone age existence.
Michael Leahy, his brother Dan and Patrol Officer James Taylor were the people who made that “first contact” during the four years they spent exploring the highland region looking for gold.
Australian writers & filmmakers Bob Connolly & Robyn Anderson discovered the treasure trove of Michael Leahy’s journals & images some 50 years later and turned it into the book & documentary of the same name – First Contact.
Diving Papua New Guinea: PNG & WWII
Papua New Guinea was a major theater in the battle for the Pacific during WWII with the Japanese forces landing first in Kavieng, New Ireland on the 21st January 1941 and soon after at Rabaul in New Britain, which they proceeded to turn into a major base.
The Japanese launched their attack on Port Moresby in May 1942 from Rabaul, as the pre-cursor to the invasion of Australia, but in the Battle of the Coral Sea US carrier-based aircraft and the Australian Navy succeeding in forcing the Japanese armada back to Rabaul.
In June 1942, after suffering devastating defeat at the Battle of Midway, the Japanese abandoned trying to take Port Moresby by naval attack and launched a surprise landing near Buna on the northeast coast of PNG, using it as a base from which to launch an overland advance across the Owen Stanley Range. These mountains reach a height of 13,000 ft and are like a spine that runs down the Papuan peninsula creating a formidable, saw-toothed, jungle barrier that separates the northeast from the southwest of the country.
The defeat of this attack by the Australian Army on the Kokoda Track is one of the finest moments in the military history of Australia.
Diving Papua New Guinea: The Wantok System
An appreciation of the “Wantok system” is important in gaining a better understanding of today’s Papua New Guinea, as it is both the social glue that binds the nation together, while probably being the largest single impediment to the country’s development.
PNG Fire Dancer - New Britain
PNG is basically a patchwork quilt of nearly 1000 traditional societies & ethnic indigenous groups, with over 850 different languages (one third of the world’s total languages still used), and one common tongue – Tok Pisin, the lingua franca spoken by the majority of the population.
Wantok is Tok Pisin for “one language” and refers to the language of the tribe a person belongs to. But Wantok is much more than a language as it encompasses the basic philosophy of life for the people of PNG and if one of your Wantoks is in trouble, needs money or is hungry you are compelled to help them as much as you possibly can.
The positive side is that because there are such limited basic services for the people in general, and no safety net for the poor, the Wantok system effectively performs that role.
The negative side is that the political system in PNG is such that anybody elected to the parliament has to basically promise the earth to all & sundry, but particularly so to any of their Wantoks, which creates a situation where a great deal of public money is consumed but there is very little to show for it…
Here is the LINK to an excellent paper by Bui Mana from 1999 which eloquently describes the situation.
Diving Papua New Guinea: So Should I Go?
Well… the fact that you are reading this would indicate that two weeks laying on the beach at a resort somewhere is probably not your cup of tea, so the short answer is yes you should.
Papua New Guinea is certainly not without it’s faults, but it is unique and for the adventurous traveller offers a very special experience.
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