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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Alfred William Martin (1844-1928) was born in Clarence Plains, Tasmania, first son of William Martin (1805/6-1878), a convict transported to Tasmania, and Hannah Braim (1825/6-1860). Alfred William Martin was educated at Kettering Grammar School in Northamptonshire while his parents were revisiting England. Returning to Tasmania, Martin became a seaman, despite his good education, firstly on the ship Gem sailing out of Hobart and then, while still in his teens, on a whaler, Southern Cross, Capt. Mansfield, sailing out of Hobart to whaling grounds off New Zealand, NSW, and the New Hebrides. He then sailed on the Thomas Brown, Capt T.H. Brown, a freighter working between Melbourne and Adelaide. Subsequently Martin sailed a schooner, Jeannie Darling, 80 tons, owner Darling formerly a boat builder in Hobart, carrying timber and other goods between Melbourne and Schnapper Point (Mornington).

In Melbourne Martin joined the crew of a Brigantine, El Zéfiro (300 tons, Callao), Capt Manuel Diaz Garcias of Peru, smuggling opium to the China trade via Gilolo Island, Surigao and Manila; smoking bêche-de-mer at Ponape; trading in the Marshalls, the Gilbert and Ellice Islands, Niue, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji; trading for sandalwood in the New Hebrides; sailing onwards through the Banks Islands, Santa Cruz, San Christobal, Malaita, Guadalcanal, Bougainville, and back to Manila via the Moluccas and Celebes. El Zéfiro then sailed for Bougainville, reinforced with Bougainville warriors carried out a blackbirding raid in Aoba (Ambae) in the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), then sailed on to South America, touching at the Marquesas and Galapagos Islands, selling the New Hebridean slaves at Mollendo in Peru.

Alfred William Martin gave the manuscript to his granddaughter, Clara Ella Simm (b.1897), who he had brought up as a child after her father, William Simm (1855-1901), died in a flu epidemic in Launceston. When Dr Macnicol received the manuscript from his mother, via his sister, it was in a bundle tied with string. Dr Macnicol passed the manuscript to a conservator who repaired torn and fragmented pages. Dr Macnicol top-numbered the pages consecutively in pencil and transcribed the manuscript. He passed the transcript to Rafael Pintos-Lopez of Michelago, near Canberra, who submitted the transcript to Professor Brij Lal for assessment.

Untitled incomplete manuscript written by Alfred William Martin of Tasmania, written possibly in the 1890s relating his Pacific voyages and adventures in the 1860s, Ms. (gaps), re-paginated, pp.1-202; together with transcript of the manuscript made by Dr Peter Macnicol, Ts., pp.1-251.
See Finding aids for details.

Nigel Oram was an ethnologist and academic. In 1946, after military service in World War II, he read history at Oxford University. This was followed by a career in the British Colonial Service in East Africa and Uganda. In 1961, Oram helped set up the New Guinea Research Unit, Port Moresby, which was an offshoot of the Australian National University. His role was to undertake social research. To facilitate his information gathering, Oram learnt the Motu and Hula languages. In 1969, he was appointed a fellow at the University of Papua New Guinea, where he remained from 1969 to 1975. Oram returned to Australia where he taught history for nine years at La Trobe University and where, upon his retirement, he became an honorary senior research fellow. An extensive collection of Oram’s PNG research papers is held at the National Library of Australia (MS 9436).

The mystery of Guise: conflict between missionaries, colonial administrators and foreign traders during the British New Guinea Protectorate, Ts., 29pp., is a biography of Reginald Edward Guise, grandfather of Sir John Guise, G.C.M.G., K.B.E., Hon. Ll.D., the first Governor-General of the independent state of Papua New Guinea. This version of Nigel Oram’s manuscript dates from sometime after 1994. In the late 1990s Oram’s health went steadily down hill, and completing the manuscript was beyond him. After Oram’s death, Janet Fingleton rescued the manuscript from her father’s computer. Donald Denoon has since worked on an edited version of this paper which is to be submitted to the Journal of Pacific History. This is a complete copy of the existing manuscript, but note that the references and some of the footnotes are missing.