Joanne Wodak worked as a Tutor then Senior Tutor in literature at the University of Papua New Guinea from 1968-1970. This collection is the result of research conducted in Ombisusu in the latter part of the first half of 1969. It consists of stories by inhabitants of Ombisusu that were mostly translated into English, some left in the original language, and written down or typed by the researcher after recording them on tape. The aim of collecting stories was to keep them for the benefit of the children of Ombisusu villagers and for other people in Papua New Guinea. The collection contains origin stories, history stories and clan stories.

This is a dictionary of Lihir language translated into German. There is also a notebook about Christian events in Lihir language and three notebooks on Lihir grammar.

These Patrol Officer field notebooks are about the Worin village of the Huon Peninsular in the Morobe District of New Guinea. Edwin Ernst Styants primarily kept the first register, but during the period 1944-1946, Patrol Officers L. Williams, Stuart Rylands and A.J. Leyden also recorded their observations and findings. The register includes clear instructions and orders on how to compile or record the names of village men and women and their dates of birth if known. Patrol officers recorded the names of all the village and hamlets inhabitants including those who were absent on indentured labour recruitments. The details recorded provided valuable and useful census data for the colonial authorities. This data formed the basis of the inspecting officer of the Department of District Services to crosscheck all births, deaths, migrations or relocations.

This register also lists the names of village or group, hamlets, native district, Luluai, Tultul, Medical Tultul by the Patrol Officer. There are blank pages for patrolling officers to enter their notes and instructions for the inspecting officers of the Department of District Services. The first register lists Uron as the Luluai of the Dopet hamlet and Dingson of the Nakom hamlet. Tultul MUSU of Mumbok served for 24 years and was presented a signed certificate of his services at Mumeng on 22nd October 1962. The Medical Tutul was SIWI of Dopet hamlet.

Of note in the first register is an entry stating that Tultul Dunjiyong wielded considerable power and was instrumental in giving full assistance to Peter Ryan during the Second World War. Ryan was the author of ‘Fear Drive My Feet’, a classic memoir of his time patrolling isolated regions of New Guinea during World War 2/World War II.

The second Village Register is divided into the following columns:
Males, Females, Estimated or known Year of birth. The entries in these columns have their original native names and often lists husband and wife but also whether the adult member of the village lives on his or her own.

General information on condition of roads, tracks, water supplies, gardens, distances between the villages as well as sanitation and latrines. All are hand written by the visiting Patrol Officers.

This collection consists of two reports written by Carl Franke, Cadet Agriculturist, for the Department of Agriculture, Stock and Fisheries (DASF), Territories of Papua and New Guinea, during the period 1947-1948. The first report, ‘Report On – General description of; native agriculture in; and rubber production at Kokoda – Sub-district of the Northern District of Papua’, describes climate (including rainfall), population (including social, spiritual/sorcery), vegetation, religious missions, effects of war, land use systems, food crops, livestock, health and nutrition, trade and economics. It reports on Kokoda sub-districts: Autembo-Wairopi-Hungiri, Biagi, Wawanga-Managalasi and Chirima. It also reports on a government rubber plantation at Kokoda, noting that pre-war records were destroyed during World War II. It describes the processing stages, including preparing land, tapping, standardising, coagulating, smoking, drying or curing, and packing.

The second report, ‘A Report on the Agricultural Potentiality of the Goilala Sub-district of Papua’, describes the location, including communications infrastructure, population, language groups, climate (including rainfall), customs, kinship and marriage, social organisation, chieftainship, politics, diet and feasts, sorcery, religious missions, health and nutrition, land use and tenure, gardens, crops, and economics. The report also includes Franke’s patrol diaries.

Both reports contain photographs and hand-drawn maps.

Captain Hamilton (1852-1937) was born in Scotland and came to Australia at the age of 10. In 1882 - 1883 he made voyages from Brisbane to Vanuatu (at that time the New Hebrides), New Britain and New Ireland (Papua New Guinea) in labour recruiting vessels. For a dozen or so years from the late 1890s, he ran the Hamilton Pearling Co. with luggers operating out of Komuli in the Admiralty Islands and Gizo in Solomon Islands. This company also traded in copra, tortoise shell, black lip and green snail shell. Later, Captain Hamilton had big planting interests in the Solomons, mainly on Choiseul. He died in Sydney in November, 1937.

The papers copied on this microfilm are the most interesting and valuable historically of a large collection (in the Oxley Memorial Library) relating to Captain Hamilton's career. They comprise:

• Diary of a recruiting voyage in the schooner Lochiel from Brisbane to the New Hebrides from September 20, 1882, to December 29, 1882.
• Diary of a recruiting voyage in the schooner Jessie Kelly from Brisbane to the New Hebrides, New Britain and New Ireland from March to September, 1883.
• Two reports on voyages in search of pearl shell in New Guinea and the Solomons in 1899-1900.
• Log of the pearling lugger Nippon from April 20, 1901 to September 24, 1901, kept at the Hamilton Pearling Company's station at Komuli, Admiralty Islands.
• Log of the Hamilton Pearling Company's station at Komuli from September 27 1902 to March 10 1903.
• Logs and diaries kept by William Hamilton in the vessels Canomie, Ysabel, Gazelle and Kambin from January 1 1903 to November 14 1905. These concern the operations of the Hamilton Pearling Company in New Guinea and the Solomons.

For further details of Captain Hamilton's career and of his other papers in the Oxley Memorial Library, see the Bureau's newsletter 'Pambu' October 1968:3, pp.3-6.

The Reverend Richard Heath Rickard (1858-1939) was a pioneer missionary in New Britain. He published the first New Britain dictionary and grammar in 1889.

Some of the documents in this collection relate only indirectly to the Rev. R.H. Rickard. The documents comprise:

1. A copy of a letter dated May 1, 1882, from Rickard to the Wesleyan Church offering his services as a missionary in New Britain.
2. A fragment of a diary kept by Rickard's wife in the Duke of York Islands from May 19, 1883, to September 24, 1883.
3. Four letters from Mrs C. Phebe Parkinson to Mrs Rickard, written between 1898 and 1939 from various places in the New Guinea Islands. One of the letters, of 1935, was written from the little-known Tingwon Islands, off the western tip of New Hanover, and is one of the fullest descriptions known of those islands. (Mrs Parkinson became a friend of the Rickards during their early years in New Britain. For an outline of her career, see the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, November, 1968:4)

The author of this manuscript, generally known as Gordon Thomas, was born in Chicago, USA, in 1890 and died in Sydney in 1966. After schooling in England, Germany and Switzerland, he began a newspaper career in Canada. In 1911 he joined the Methodist Mission in New Guinea as a printer, and later worked as a planter, trader and oil driller in that territory. He was editor of the 'Rabaul Times' from 1925-27 and 1933-42. An obituary of Thomas was published in 'Pacific Islands Monthly' for August, 1966, pp. 9-10.

When the Japanese invaded Rabaul, New Britain, in January 1942, they captured about 300 European civilians. All but half a dozen of these were removed from Rabaul in the 'Montevideo Maru', which was sunk with all hands before reaching her destination, Japan. Thomas was one of the few Europeans who was kept back by the Japanese - to work as a rouseabout at the freezer and power station. 'Rabaul - 1942-45' is an account of Thomas' life as a prisoner-of-war in New Britain, Papua New Guinea.

See also PMB 600.

Father Baldwin spent several years at the Sacred Heart Mission in the Trobriand Islands, Papua New Guinea.

A 333 page Bohilai-English vocabulary. Bohilai is the language of Basilaki Island (formerly Moresby Island), one of the islands of the Louisiade Archipelago of Papua. Additional language material by Father Baldwin is available as PMB 1031

Eleanor J. Walker was a member of the Methodist mission at Dobu in the D'Entrecasteaux Islands of Papua New Guinea (then called British New Guinea). The mission was established in June 1891. For details, see George Brown, D.D., Pioneer Missionary and Explorer : An Autobiography, London, 1908, pp485-92.

The diary describes how the diarist came to join the mission and gives an account of her life at Dobu.

Sister Lida Tonkin (Mrs L. Gill), a nursing sister from Young, NSW, first arrived at the Methodist Mission at Raluana in New Britain (Papua New Guinea) in 1916.

The photographs and post cards include events, daily life and traditional customs practiced in Rabaul in the early 20th century. Funerary and marriage customs are represented. There is a good set of photographs on traditional fishing (PMB Photo 1_31 to PMB Photo 1_46). Other images show canoe building and sailing, basket, broom and string making and traditional houses, mission life and the Malabunga hospital. Dances, such as the Kulau dance, carvings used in dances and the