A bomb or a bullet or the bloody flux? Population change in the Aitape Inland, Papua New Guinea,...

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A Bomb or a Bullet or the Bloody Flux?: Population Change in the Aitape Inland, Papua NewGuinea, 1941-1945Author(s): Bryant J. AllenSource: The Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 18, No. 4 (Oct., 1983), pp. 218-235Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25168529 .

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A Bomb or a Bullet or the Bloody Flux? Population Change in the Aitape Inland, Papua New Guinea, 1941-1945*

BRYANT J. ALLEN

FROM EARLY 1942, WHEN AUSTRALIAN OFFICIALS LEFT THE TINY COASTAL OUT

posts at Aitape and Wewak, until late 1945 when General Adachi received

orders from Japan to surrender his broken 18th Army, the people of the Sepik were caught in the centre ofa conflict of previously unimaginable violence. The

Australian reoccupation of the area began in April 1944 when the XI American

Corps landed at Aitape. A detachment from the Australian New Guinea Ad

ministrative Unit (ANGAU) which accompanied them immediately sent out

patrols to assess Japanese strength and contact villagers. Patrols from the Palei

area southwest of Aitape reported that Jap' dysentery had reduced populations

by as much as 60%. To the southeast the presence of Japanese troops made

censusing out of the question, but in July 1945 following a Japanese withdrawal further reports were received of reductions in village populations of

between 20 and 30%. It is the nature and causes of this decline in village populations which are of

concern here. Of particular interest is the relative importance of three causes of

increased mortality put forward at the time: medical neglect, disease and

psychological stress. The latter factor was described in 1945 as a 'mal de

guerre', 'a sort of disease which indirecdy can kill the primitive Papua Melanesian as surely as a bomb or a bullet'.1

That the war had an adverse effect on village populations directly involved

is not in dispute, but for many reasons demographers have not closely studied

the event. It has been argued that the war directly affected only 35% of the

total population of the country, that most data are lost, and that even if they were available they would be inadequate and it would be impossible to

distinguish demographically between the effects of the war and post-war village losses from migration.2

* I am indebted to the late David Fenbury, H. A.Jack Fryer, John Milligan, Nancy Lutton, Donald De

noon and John Burton for inspiration and information. Thanks are also due to the staffs of all the archives

consulted, and to Robin Hide for comments on a draft of the paper. The Australian National University and the University of Papua New Guinea provided financial support. For 15 months of 1971 and 1972 I lived in

Tumam, a western Urat village, and visited almost all Kombio, Warn, Urim, Urat and Gawanga villages, and a few Palei and Seim villages, and have since made a number of visits of up to three months duration, but until recently was unaware of the demographic impact of the war and of the extent of the dysentery epidemic. The paper owes a great deal to the people of the Dreikikir area, expecially those of Tumam and

Ngahmbole. 1 Patrol Report-Aitape No 3 of 45/46 (P. E. Fienberg), Port Moresby, National Archives of Papua New Guinea (hereinafter NA). 2 D. J. van de Kaa, The Demography of Papua New Guinea's Indigenous Population', PhD thesis, Australian National University (Canberra 1971), 54; N. McArthur, The Populations of the Pacific Islands, Part VII: Papua New Guinea (Canberra 1955).



POPULATION CHANGE IN THE AITAPE INLAND 219

Before the war village censuses were carried out using a Village Book

system in which every family in the village was recorded at a first census and

births, deaths and movements in and out of the village were recorded by simple

book-keeping. Many people avoided being recorded in early censuses, and

when patrols occurred as infrequently as three years many births and deaths

went unrecorded, so the figures, if they had survived, would be of doubtful

value for a detailed analysis of population change. Census figures were record

ed on a special form which made up the cover of a written report on the patrol and these were removed from the report when it was received in a headquarters and filed separately. A volcanic eruption in Rabaul and the obliteration of all

coastal outposts during the war appear to have resulted in the almost total

destruction of reports and census information. In the villages the Village Books

were either destroyed by the Japanese to mark the end of Australian colonial

rule or succumbed to the ravages of the climate and the cockroaches.

Some written reports survive in whole and in part in the possession of the

officers who wrote them, or in the case of events of interest to the Australian

government, as copies of despatches in Australian archives, but details of pre war village populations seem not to have survived. ANGAU patrols took cen

suses during the war, where possible, but again these figures have been

separated from the written reports. Most of the reports exist, scattered through a number of archives and other collections,3 but population figures remain

elusive. Where by chance enough information survives it is possible to partially reconstruct the pattern of population change during the war for restricted

areas.

the minimum requirements for an examination of changes in village popula tions between 1941 and 1945 are village totals for both years and some evidence

of their reliability. From 1939 to 1942 Aitape was in the charge of J. L. Taylor, a uniquely farsighted man, and under him as a patrol officer was David

Fienberg, one of the few officers in the colonial service at that time with a

university degree. Fienberg changed his name by deed poll after the war and as

D. M. Fenbury became Secretary of the Department of the Administrator.4

3 Documents used in this paper include reports from the Australian New Guinea Administrative Unit

(ANGAU), the Australian Intelligence Bureau (AIB), the Far Eastern Liaison Organization (FELO) and the 6th Australian Army Division Record of Operations, which include transcripts of interrogations of

Japanese Army officers. These records are held in the Australian War Memorial, Canberra (hereinafter AWM), the Commonwealth Archives Office, Canberra (hereinafter CAO), the National Library of

Australia, Canberra (hereinafter ANL), the National Archives of Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby, the

University of Papua New Guinea Library, Port Moresby (hereinafter UPNGL), the microfilm series of the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau, Canberra (hereinafter PMB), and in the possession of private individuals.

* David" Fenbury died in 1976. His personal papers are held in the ANL under his assumed name and that name is used throughout the text, except in references to documents written in his previous name.



220 THE JOURNAL OF PACIFIC HISTORY

Fenbury began a personal campaign to upgrade village living conditions and

reduce the level of disease in the inland, where he carried out extensive patrols.

During 1941 he remained in the area for five months and censysed almost

every 'controlled' village, as well as carrying out first censuses in a number of

southwest Gawanga villages. In 1944 and 1945 he again began censusing. With his brother Phillip, who was also in the area in 1941, he produced, using

copies of their 1941 censuses, figures which showed startling losses of popula tion from 1941 to 1945. Elsewhere, unless officers had retained personal copies of their census figures, the destruction of village books and files in district

offices meant pre-war villages counts were lost. Fenbury argued these figures were 'at least 99% complete' and noted that the interval between the 1941 and

1945 censuses was almost exactly four years.5 The figures cover all villages in

the present Urat and Urim census divisions, three villages in the northwest

Gawanga census division and two in the southwest (Table 1). The East Palei

figures have not been found but may be held in the Papua New Guinea Na

tional Archives.

table 1 ?Population Change in the Dreikikir Area 1941-45

Percent

Village Groups 1941 1945 Change

Eastern Urat(a) 1,497 1,033 -31.0

Western Urat(b) 2,489 2,084 -16.3

Urim 1,814 1,283 -29.3 Northwest Gawanga(c) 1,313 1,206

- 8.1

Southwest Gawanga(d) 551 595 + 7.9

Notes: a Asiling, Emul, Misim, Namaiasung, Musenau, Pelnandu, Porombil. b Daihungai, Moiwhak, Mulengi, Musembelem, Musingwa, Musingwik, Nanaha, Ngahmbole,

Musendai, Museng, Musilo, Tumam, Yerhmain. c Tauhundor, Tauhimbiet and Kubriwat.

d Bongos and Wosambu.

It is immediately apparent that population decline was not uniform and

that in one area, the southwest Gawanga, populations actually increased. The

eastern Urat and Urim villages suffered similar losses of around 30%, while

the western Urat and northwest Gawanga villages lost between eight and 16% of their 1941 populations.6

A breakdown of the populations into males, females, 'adults' and 'children'

5 Patrol Report-Aitape 3 of 45/46 (P. E. Fienberg), NA. 6 No significant difference exists between changes in population in eastern Urat and Urim villages. The

differences between the eastern Urat and Urim, and the western Urat and northwest Gawanga are signifi cant at the 0.1 % level. The difference between the western Urat and northwest Gawanga are not significant at the 5% level.




is available for both groups of Urat villages but the Urim figures are divided

only into 'adults' and 'children' (Table 2). In eastern Urat villages both sexes

and the 'adult' and 'child' populations decreased in approximately the same pro

portions and this is also the case in western Urat and Gawanga villages. In

Urim villages, however, the 'child' population decreased significantly more

than the 'adult' population. The Urim figures do not include absent labourers, almost all of whom would be classified as 'adult'. If they are included, the

difference in decline between Urim 'adult' and 'child' populations is even

greater.

Population losses are directly associated with the location of villages and the

spatial pattern of wartime events. Throughout their occupation the Japanese showed little interest in the inland, preferring to 'govern' it from the coast

through appointed village officials. Patrols were sent inland in pursuit of Allied

intelligence gathering groups, but it was not until 1944 when their situation

table 2 ?Changes in Population Structure 1941-45

Percent Change Labourers Labourers

1941 1945 included excluded

EASTERN URAT VILLAGES Children males 343 248 -27.6

females 312 226 -27.5

Adults males 424 267 -36.8 -17.9*

females 418 292 -30.1

Total males 767 515 -32.8 -22.3*

females 730 518 -29.0

Total adults 842 559 -33.6 -24.0*

children 655 474 -27.6

WESTERN URAT VILLAGES Children males 908 697 -23.2

females 785 632 -19.5

Adults males 1,161 881 -24.1 -17.5

females 1,131 907 -19.8

Total males 2,069 1,578 -23.7 -19.8

females 1,912 1,539 -19.5

Total adults 2,292 1,788 -21.4 -18.6

children 1,693 1,329 -21.5

URIM VILLAGES Total adults 756 562 -25.6 no information

children 1,058 676 -36.1 available

Note: The only statistically significant change in any of these proportions occurs in the Urim populations (X2-4.15, i><5%). *

Includes 29 labourers listed as missing.



^_ _

_ Village /hamlet a^ js. 0 10 20 km Government outpost ^v* *c?-*--V

V. x- Village mentioned in the text ^

^?^^V -'-Main tracks ^ ^J^^^\ X

:?-^^ '/% Severe dysentery reported v^T^O?*

.' "T >k ? Australian advance 1944-45 _

^AITAPE a '

^** ^K"\ v* Japanese forward defences

'<.//, ' r <"-'"/ r^^ a A,rstrip

'''*'..,, ' *' I ? ^""^^r-^Paup ?'? Possible extent of severe dysentery

/ '.' LUM. ;/')^'\WAPEI ^'^'^^^^^^^^y N\^\ \L.bu.miARAPESH M0UNrA,N

^x% . *. ". " " /: '. ,'' \NW GAWANGA J Apott *? -~&-J- . # ' ABElAM ' ' \ '..' . ...?

^ --' ? " V. X^w GAWANGA

AITAPE DISTRICT . \\ SEPIK DISTRICT




became critical that numbers of Japanese soldiers in small groups moved in

land to forage for food. After the American landings, Japanese foraging parties and patrols sent to intercept ANGAU patrols from Aitape increased. From

June 1944 until mid-1945 life became increasingly difficult for people, par

ticularly in the eastern inland area. The ANGAU patrols warned people not to

assist the Japanese in any way and to abandon their villages and hide in tem

porary shelters in the forest. In the Urat Fenbury 'kept preaching?yam stores

in the bush, saucepans [clay cooking vessels], in the bush, pigs (if possible) in

the bush, avoid the Nip and a bullet for Quislings'.7 People who continued to

assist the Japanese voluntarily were shot. The Japanese, frustrated by the lack

of co-operation, began searching for people and forcing them to carry supplies. When some villagers retaliated using stolen weapons, the Japanese declared all

villagers west of Balif'enemy' and shot at them on sight. Some of those killed

were eaten. Japanese soldiers raided gardens, killed pigs and cut down

coconuts they were unable to climb. In October 1944 the Australian 6 Division

took over the Aitape beach head from the Americans and from December 1944

to February 1945 the 17th Infantry Brigade attacked Japanese forces in the

eastern half of the inland area, pushing them east into the Maprik area. Smoke

from fires in the forest attracted not only Japanese soldiers but also RAAF

ground attack aircraft and all cooking had to be done at night. For almost 12

months people 'camped in crude bush-houses hidden in damp gullys' and 'ex

isted on a sketchy diet, poor in nutritive value but spiced with anxiety'.8 Eastern Urat villages are located along two prominent ridges which were

defended by the Japanese as tactical ground. They were almost totally

destroyed in fighting between the Australian 2/5th Battalion and the Japanese 238th Regiment. The Japanese burned houses to clear fire lanes and the

Australians called on 'Beaufort bombers from Tadji guided by mortar smoke

and radio telephone' to make air strikes 'almost every day'9 for a month and a

half. In the western Urat only Musembelem was defended by the Japanese and

they withdrew without a fight after heavy bombing. The other Urat villages were subject to similar harassment from Japanese foraging parties and patrols as villages elsewhere in the inland, but of greater frequency and determination

because of their proximity to the Japanese main inland line of defence from

Labuain, through Porombil and Musenau and southeast to Apos. West and

south of this line normal village life was disrupted less often and in the distant

southwest Gawanga villages hardly at all. In this area only Urim villages

7 D. M. Fienberg to H. A. J. Fryer, 17 ?June 1944 (in the personal papers of Mr H. A. J. Fryer, Cairns). 8 Patrol Report-Aitape No 3 of 45/46 (P. E. Fienberg), NA.

9 G. Long, The Final Campaigns, Vol. VII, Australia in the War of 1939-1945 (Canberra 1963), 290.




suffered population losses as severe as eastern Urat villages. Together with

some western Kombio villages, they were the eastern limits of an epidemic of

severe bacillary dysentery, probably the same epidemic as Fenbury reported had reduced East Palei villages by 60% during 1943. Population losses in the

Urim are characteristic of epidemic dysentery which kills more children than

adults. Why the epidemic did not continue spreading east and south to Urat

and Gawanga villages is a question which is addressed later. First the cause of

population decline in Urat and northwest Gawanga villages is examined.

direct physical violence can be quickly ruled out. Documentary and oral

evidence indicate it is unlikely more than 50 people died violent deaths from

deliberate or accidental actions by Japanese and Australians during the war in

the whole of the Aitape Inland,10 whereas in the Urat villages alone, without

taking into account children born in the period, more than 400 deaths must

have occurred between 1941 and 1945 to have caused the decline in population observed. Acute starvation is also unlikely to have been an important factor,

except perhaps in the case of breastfed infants whose mothers ceased to produce

adequate milk because of nutritional and other stresses. People in this area

have a wide range of 'bush' or famine foods and although Urat gardeners were

unable to plant for almost a year and much of the previous year's food was lost

to Japanese, no reports indicate cases of acute malnutrition among villagers. Two critical factors however were the extremely delicate balance which existed

in pre-war populations between birth rates and death rates, and prevailing en

vironmental and disease patterns. It seems no complete census figures survive for any village in the Aitape In

land for the period up to 1940. H. E. Woodman noted the adult, child and in

dentured labour populations of 18 Palei villages in his patrol diary in 193711

but only 10 of the names match with a complete census of 45 villagers in the

same area taken by D. M. Fenbury in 1941. Fenbury's figures, recorded on the

original cardboard report cover, include total populations for most villages at

the previous census taken in 1939, as well as births, deaths and new names ad

ded to the Village Books since the last census. Also available is an identical cen

sus for 40 Dreikikir villages.12 Using these figures it is possible to calculate

some crude rates of change for these populations. In the Palei villages, resident populations decreased over the two years at

0.25% per year, and the birth rate of 21.7 births per 1,000 total population per

10 Documents 422/7/8, Japanese atrocities in the Madang and Aitape areas, Document CA16/2/1, Civilian casualties Sepik District, folio 44, AWM, and fieldnotes 1972.

11 H. E. Woodman Papers, PMB602. 12 These documents are in the possession of the author and are shortly to be deposited in the ANL with

other Fenbury papers.




year was almost the same as the death rate of 21.4. In the Dreikikir area the

birth rate was higher at 28.6, as was the death rate at 23.8. Village populations here increased at 0.25% per year. Fourteen percent of adult males were absent

from the Palei villages on indentured labour contracts compared to 11 % in the

Dreikikir villages, but it is not possible to estimate the influence of these absent

males on the rates of change of the resident populations because the numbers of

indentured labourers absent in 1939 are not available.

Similar rates of change have been found for village population during this

period elsewhere in Papua New Guinea. The Yule Island and Mekeo popula tions grew at an average annual rate of 0.34% between 1903 and 1940 while

the inland mountain Fuyuge population increased at 0.72% from 1914 to

1940.13 The populations of New Ireland, Manus and other offshore islands in

creased at an average rate of 0.17% per year from 1927 to 1937.14 In the

villages of Yakamul and Paup on the coast east of Aitape between 1917 and

1939 the average crude birth and death rates, calculated from Catholic mission

records of vital events, were respectively 43 and 42 per 1,000 total population,

considerably higher than those calculated from the Palei and Dreikikir 1941

census figures. The difference may be real, but it is more likely to be the out

come of the non-recording of infants who were born and died between censuses

in the inland area. But relative differences aside, it is likely that inland, as on

the coast, birth rates and death rates were similar and that a slight increase in

the death rate or decrease in the birth rate could quickly induce a decline in the

small village populations.

environmental conditions and disease patterns appear at first glance to be

easier to reconstruct than the demographic situation which they produced, but

before 1942 outside observers consistendy emphasized the spectacular and the

bizarre and ignored the insidious, and none were trained in medical matters.

Although villagers can describe symptoms which are identifiable in Western

medical terms, they rarely subscribe to 'western medical theory' and so classify and recall disease patterns in a manner which is not immediately useful to a lay

person.

The dominant feature of northwest Papua New Guinea is the coastal range which rises to over 1,800 metres southwest of Aitape and runs from the Indone

sian border to the Sepik River mouth, dividing a narrow coastal plain from a

broad band of well dissected mudstone and sandstone foothills to the south.

When Aitape was the headquarters of the Aitape District, more than three

13 R. Scragg, 'Historical epidemiology in Papua New Guinea', Papua New Guinea Medical Journal, XX: 3

(1977), 102-9. 14 Van de Kaa, op. cit., 53.




quarters of the district's population dwelt in the Aitape Inland. The ranges are

rugged and even today can be crossed only by two days walking. In 1942, with

the exception of Maprik, established in 1936 to oversee the activities of

goldminers in the ranges nearby, no permanent administration stations existed

south of the ranges. During the 1920s Australian patrols moved the border be

tween 'controlled' and 'uncontrolled' villages south by about 20 km from the

inland crest of the ranges where the Germans had exercized only partial influence. Labour recruiters and surveyors and geologists of an oil exploration

company moved easily in the area in the 1930s, but government patrols visited

any individual village only around once in every three years. The inland people lived in villages, usually built along sinuous ridges and

gardened the surrounding forest using swidden agriculture. Along the inland

crest of the range people knew of the ocean and traded with coastal villages and

in turn with inland villages where there was no knowledge of the sea. Well

developed local networks involving exchanges of food, valuables and

ceremonies existed. Houses were constructed with a softwood frame and

thatched with sago palm. They had dirt floors, no windows and usually only one door, protected by a shallow porch. They were built close together, often

with the undergrowth covering the rear of the house and the door opening onto

a small clay 'plaza' around which the houses were grouped. Food was cooked

either by roasting in an earth oven, or, more commonly, by boiling in coiled

clay pots. Coconut shell bowls were used in common by a whole family and

families frequently gave each other cooked food. Water was drawn from

springs below the village which were also used by wild and domesticated

animals. Although people observed a number of restrictions related to eating which they believed would help maintain good health, the washing of hands

before cooking and eating was not a regular habit. Faeces were deposited in

latrines which were little more than a convenient log on which people squatted and pigs which had access to village water supplies also scavenged in the

latrines. The dead were either placed on platforms in the village or in shallow

and often open graves inside houses and mourning frequently involved close

contact with the decomposing corpse. After decomposition was well advanced

bones were removed and distributed to relatives. Such conditions were ideal for

the spread of infectious disease. In addition, malaria was holoendemic

throughout most of the inland.

Outside observers associated the most obvious and spectacular afflictions of

the inland peoples, yaws and tropical ulcers, with cultural practices which they found most offensive: the use of open latrines in close proximity to living areas,

and open burials. These practices drew immediate attention from colonial



population change in the aitape inland 227

officers. As early as 1928 the people of Museng village were ordered to 'clean all

roads, build a cemetery and use it' and to 'hear [obey] the talk of the luluai in

this regard'. In 1933 the order to build latrines was given. Yet in both years officers observed, 'village clean, health good'.15 In 1936 J. K. McCarthy cen

sused 105 villages around present day Dreikikir. He was appalled by the

prevalence of ulcers, noting, 'at least half of the people seem to be suffering' and

'the majority of children are affected by framboisea'. In one village in the pre sent Kombio census division he blamed an 18% decline in population since the

last census three years previously on 'deaths caused by sores' [?ulcers]. No

medical patrol had ever visited the area and people who required treatment

had to walk to Aitape. But McCarthy concludes his report by stating 'despite my recommendation for a medical patrol to certain areas the population

generally is very healthy'. He recorded an excess of 235 births over deaths in a

censused population of 15,358.16 John Milligan, then a patrol officer at Aitape, recalls that in 1939 'latrines and cemeteries were a constant problem for a young officer'.17 He was certain that practices which involved smearing the fluids from

the decomposing body of a relative over the skin, and the flies which rose in

clouds from the open latrines, must be contributing to the prevalence of disease

in the villages, but he was less confident that enforcing colonial regulations

during infrequent patrols would bring about improvements in health. He was

correct. It is likely that the outcome was a worsening of the situation.

Although deep burial of corpses would have reduced the level of pathogenic bacteria in the environment, people continued to place corpses in shallow

graves inside houses, covering the grave with sago palm spathes and a thin

layer of soil to avoid detection. The use of the easily observable platforms gave

way to an increase in house burials where everyone living in the house came in

to close contact with the decomposing body. This subterfuge continued until

after the war and patrol reports from 1952 note exhumations from houses and

reburials in the cemetery.18 Whether the new latrines were much used is not

known, but modern village pit latrines are frequently totally unhygienic. Their

floors are often wet and badly soiled and it is impossible to use them without

standing among faecal material from previous users. The bottom of the pit is almost always a seething mass of maggots and flies move freely in and out of the pits. It seems unlikely that their enforced use would have greatly reduced the exposure of village populations to infection.

15 From notes taken by G. A. V. Stanley from the Village Book while sheltering from rain at Museng in 1933. G. A. V. Stanley papers, Diary T, File 9, Box 7, UPNGL.

16 Patrol Report P/1936-37, Report of a Patrol to the Warn, Muihan and Urat Areas, 28 Jan. 1936 to 18 Feb. 1936, PMB616.

17 Interview, Mr J. S. Milligan, South Caulfield, Melbourne, 2 Dec. 1982.

18 Report of a Patrol to the Bumbita-Muihang Area, 16 Apr. 1952 to 7 May 1952, J. D. Martin,

Dreikikir District Office.




None of the pre-war observers of village life mention the extremely high in

fant death rate. As itinerants they did not observe for themselves the death of

infants and in the villages where it was normal for one in five of all children

born to be dead before their fifth birthday unnamed infants who were born and

died in the two or three years between censuses were not considered worthwhile

reporting to the visiting officer. Even today among the Urat infants are not

named until they have lived for some time, and then temporary names are

often used, because it is senseless to 'waste' a name on one with such a high chance of dying. Yaws, malaria, intestinal infections, pneumonia and tetanus

killed children.19 Those who survived to young adulthood had gained some im

munity to the most common infectious diseases and they were 'healthy', except for tropical ulcers which could exist for years as a painful and handicapping affliction but which rarely killed quickly. With the exception of a campaign

against yaws which began in the late 1930s using novarsenobenzol (NAB) in

jections it seems fair to conclude that the activities of the colonial government in the area of public health were almost totally ineffectual.

The available evidence strongly suggests pre-war demographic patterns were the result of a fine balance between birth rates and death rates and rates of

total population change probably fluctuated widely from year to year as a result

of only small changes in one or both vital rates. The village environment

favoured the reproduction and spread of pathogens which selectively killed

children and older or weaker adults. Village populations appeared 'healthy' to

outsiders because those who survived childhood were largely immune to the

most common infections to which they were exposed, and those who aged or

weakened, quickly sickened and died. But even a few additional adult deaths

could quickly tip the scale and induce a relatively large rate of population decline. Just how often the scale was tipped is difficult to judge but Scragg

argues that it was tipped more often after colonial contact than before, because

of the epidemic spread of new infectious diseases such as influenza, measles

and chickenpox. In the inland Aitape villages, no documentary evidence exists of a major

epidemic disease causing large numbers of deaths before the war. However the

Gnau people near Angugunak and the Urat people near Dreikikir who are

situated about 50 km apart both have oral histories of a pre-colonial epidemic disease resembling smallpox which Urat people say killed more than half of the

people in their villages. When this event occurred is not clear, but an estimate

based on Urat genealogies places it around 1870 to 1880.20 On the coast, at

19 R. J. Sturt and J. M. Stanhope, 'Mortality and population patterns of Angugunak', Papua New Guinea Medical Journal, XI: 4 (1968), 111-7.

20 G. Lewis, Knowledge of Illness in a Sepik Society: A Study of the Gnau, New Guinea (London 1975), 82. B. J. Allen, 'Information flow and innovation diffusion in the East Sepik District', PhD thesis, Australian Na




Yakamul and Paup between 1907 and 1939 the death rate went over 50 per

1,000 total population on five occasions, which Scragg relates to unspecified

epidemic diseases introduced to the area through increased contacts following colonization.21 Measles, thought to have come from Hollandia, 'gradually

spread through the inland villages' in 1936 and although it is said to have caus

ed only mild symptoms in children and no deaths,22 1936 is a year when mor

tality at Yakamul and Paup rose to 5.9%,23 and if deaths occurred mainly in

infants and young children in the inland villages they may have gone

unreported as already explained. Thus no sound reasons exist for believing that diseases which spread along the coast did not also spread into the inland

villages. In 1942, therefore, when the Pacific War reached Aitape, the populations of

the inland were still coming to terms with a number of new diseases, as well as

coping with the effects of the labour trade which was removing from 10 to 15%

of young male adults from the villages. The war forced people from the open,

sunlit, breezy and relatively healthy ridgetops into hiding places in dark, damp forest valleys, in temporary shelters, which they commonly had to abandon

hurriedly to seek another refuge. Food was short. Their exposure to infection

was intensified and their ability to resist weakened, and as a result mortality rose, and populations declined.

But this does not satisfactorily explain why eastern Urat villages decreased

at almost twice the rate of western Urat villages. At the time the eastern Urat

decline was attributed to a malady which was

not easy to define. It is an attitude which arises from sheer misery and bewilder

ment and the collapse of all that has meaning in the native's world; at the shatter

ing of the traditional way of life. It manifests itself as a hopeless apathy?a spiritless acceptance of inevitable doom.24

It is now well established that situations which cause severe anxiety, fear or

grief induce biochemical and neurological changes in the human body and

people under acute stress show reduced resistance to infectious disease.25 Urat

tional University (Canberra 1976), 57. See also Murray's comments on Stone's 1875 report on smallpox in the Port Moresby area in the Papua Annual Report 1912-13; A. J. Marshall, Men and Birds of Paradise: Journeys

Through Equatorial New Guinea (London 1938), 63; a reference in the annual report of the German New Guinea Company to an outbreak of smallpox at Stephansort in 1893, P. Sack and D. Clark, German New Guinea: the Annual Reports (Canberra 1979), 81; and Richard Parkinson's report of smallpox on the Aitape coast in 1895, in trans, from Internationales Archiv fur Ethnographic, XIII (1900), 18-54, in P. Swadling, 'People of the West Sepik coast', Records of the National Museum and Art Gallery, VII (1979), 43.

21 Scragg, op. cit., 107.

22 New Guinea Annual Report 1937-38. 23

Scragg, op. cit., 107. 24 Patrol Report-Aitape No. 3 of 1945/46 (P. E. Fienberg), NA. 25 R. S. Lazarus, 'The concepts of stress and disease', in L. Levi (ed.), Society, Stress and Disease, Vol. I,

The Psychosocial Environment and Psychosomatic Diseases (London 1971), 53-8.




villagers, most of whom had previously come into contact with foreigners only

fleetingly, suffered personal death threats, witnessed public executions, and

were caught in aerial bombing and straffing attacks and in the crossfire be

tween Japanese and Allied patrols ? situations which can induce nervous col

lapse in trained soldiers. This occurred while they were being forced to live in

conditions which increased exposure to infectious pathogens and physio

logically reduced their ability to resist infection. Pre-war environmental con

ditions produced a demographic pattern in which an increase in mortality of

one or two per cent could cause a substantial decline in a small village popula tion. Military operations created conditions which were as deadly for the

eastern Urat people as a severe dysentery epidemic was for the Urim. Nothing is known at present of wartime birth rates, but it is possible that many women

stopped ovulating, that sexual activity decreased, that the conception rate fell

and that more than the usual number of pregnancies failed to reach full term.26

So while it is unlikely people were dying ofa spiritless acceptance of inevitable

doom', the observation that the severe psychological shock imparted by the war

was associated with a decline in population was a fair one in the circumstances.

The population decline was considerably lower in villages not directly affected by military operations or epidemic dysentery. Here people were expos ed to less psychological stress and were better able to resist infectious diseases

and re-establish normal village living in mid-1944 after the Japanese had

retreated. It is also apparent that the increased mortality of the war years was

not a result of'medical neglect'. The only villages in which populations increas

ed were those least affected by the war, where no government medical patrols had visited and where village hygiene regulations had never been enforced,

which is further evidence that pre-war government efforts to reduce mortality were mostly ineffective.

The occurrence of severe dysentery in the inland during 1943 was reported in May 1944 by a combined US Army-ANGAU patrol to the Palei area which

noted although health appeared 'reasonably good' people 'advised [a] recent

dysentery epidemic which has taken heavy toll of the local population'. This

disease was thought to have come from Tadji near Aitape where the Japanese had begun the construction of an airstrip and labourers from the inland villages had worked.27 By July 1944 Fenbury had visited the area and taken a census,

and although neither the patrol report nor census figures have been found, they are widely quoted in subsequent reports. In July 1944 when commenting on

the situation in the Urat area Fenbury explained,

26 J. A. McFalls, Psychopathology and Subfecundity (New York 1979).

*7 Patrol Report-Aitape No. 2 of 1943/44 (A. F. Gow), AWM.




Chief menace is the Jap-introduced dysentery. Inland natives were brought to BUT for work, contracted the disease and returned home to die and spread the disease. EAST PALEI (I carried out the last civil census check) has been badly hit, and the population there has decreased an estimated 60 percent.

The more heavily populated KOMBIO-URAT-URIM area has not as yet been

greatly affected, but current movements of Japs makes a dysentery epidemic there

highly probable . . . Some sulphaguanadine is being held at TONG in readiness.28

In 1967, with no previous knowledge of the epidemic, Lewis estimated from

genealogies that 'close to half of the population [of Rauit village] died in an

epidemic of bloody diarrhoea', and he and Sturt note the small size of the 25-29 and 30-35 year age cohorts in village populations in the Angugunak area.29

Fenbury's July 1944 fears were only pardy realized however. Epidemic

dysentery did not spread into the Urat, but by July 1945 it was apparent that

The URIM area, though not yet hit by operations, and only slightly damaged by enemy occupation, has suffered to a marked degree by dysentery. Most villages show a decline in population corresponding to other areas, and in some cases this

decline has been even more rapid.30

To explore the question of why dysentery did not spread further east it is

necessary to consider briefly the nature of the disease. Bacillary dysentery is caused by a group of bacteria called the Shigellae which total 27 in number and are classified into four groups, Shigella dysenteriae, Sh. flexneri, Sh. boydii, and Sh. sonnei. The disease takes the form ofa sudden onset of severe abdominal pain, followed by explosive diarrhoea in which the stools are immediately watery,

mucus laden and in severe cases, bloody. The large bowel becomes acutely inflamed and sometimes ulcerated. In a healthy adult the disease is usually self

limiting and recovery is uncomplicated, but even today mortality may be as

high as 2.5%, with children and the aged being significantly affected, and more males than females dying.31 The natural habitat of the bacillus is the human in

testine and it does not live long outside the body. Large numbers of the bacillus are excreted in the acute stages of the illness and they are highly infectious. It is

thought direct contact between people in conditions where faecal contamina tion is likely, and the presence of large numbers of flies, is more important in the spread of the disease than the contamination of drinking water. The pattern of immunity created in individuals who contract the disease and the impor

28 Patrol Report-Aitape No. 4 of 1943/44 (D. M. Fienberg), NA. 29 G. Lewis, 'Beliefs and behaviour in disease', Health and Disease in Tribal Society, CIBA Foundation Sym

posium 49, n.s. (Amsterdam 1977), 227-41. 30 Patrol Report-Aitape No. 4 of 1945/46 (P. E. Fienberg), NA. 31 C. A. Mendizabal-Morris, L. J. Mata, E. J. Gangarosa and G. Guzman, 'Epidemic Shiga-bacillus

dysentery in Central America: derivation of the epidemic and its progression in Guatemala, 1968-69', The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, XX: 6 (1971), 927-33.




tance of passive carriers is poorly understood, but it is thought that some im

munity can develop to some strains and that people can carry the disease for some time with few or no symptoms. The different strains of bacilli cause

differing severity of illness. Sh. dysenteriae Type 1, also known as Shiga's Type 1

bacillus, is recognized as the most dangerous form of the disease. The bacteria are not always easy to isolate, however, and if laboratory techniques are inade

quate the causative organism of an attack of dysentery may not be positively identified.32

Bacteria from all four groups had been identified in Papua New Guinea by 1945 and Shiga's Type 1 bacillus was causing the most severe illnesses.33 It is

possible this strain was not present in Papua New Guinea before 1942. It was

first reported from the Gemo Island pathology laboratory on 1 December

1943.34 Although it was discovered in Japan and since the war has been found

in significant numbers only in East Asia,35 it was associated with approxi

mately 7% of dysentery cases among Australian servicemen in the Middle East

and the dysentery which occurred among Australian troops on the Kokoda

Trail was blamed on passive carriers of the disease who had contracted it in

North Africa.36 Japanese troops on the Kokoda Trail also suffered from

dysentery and the nature of the campaign created ideal conditions for the

transmission of the disease within and between the two forces and their carrier

lines. Both armies probably brought Shiga's bacillus with them to Papua New

Guinea and while the pejorative 'Jap dysentery' may have been strictly correct

as a description of the disease which swept through part of the Aitape Inland in

1943, it could almost as easily have been 'Aussie' dysentery. But dysentery was not first introduced to Papua New Guinea in 1942. The

earliest published reference in English translation to dysentery occurs in the

report of the New Guinea Company for 1888 to 1889 which notes 'a virulent

form of dysentery which was prevalent among the natives of Astrolabe Bay and

caused many deaths was introduced by them to Stephansort and Constan

tinhafen' ?colonial coastal outposts about 30 km south of Madang.37

Dysentery is mentioned annually in German reports from that time on and

serious outbreaks occurred in New Ireland in 1899 and 1908 and on Manus in

32 R. J. Dubos and J. G. Hirsch, Bacterial and Mycotic Infections of Man (Philadelphia 1965), 634-47. 33 In 474 cases of bacillary dysentery observed in an army field hospital in Papua New Guinea, Shiga's

Type 1 bacillus caused significantly more severe illnesses with longer hospitalization. C. Fortune and A. A.

Ferris, 'Diarrhoeal diseases in New Guinea', Medical Journal of Australia, I (1945), 337-44. 34

Report for the Month of November 1943, Angau Pathology Laboratory, quoted in J. Burton, The course of a dysentery epidemic in New Guinea and its mortality', Department of Prehistory, Australian

National University (1982). 35 Dubos and Hirsch, op. cit., 643. 36 R. Andrew, 'The clinical and pathological features of the dysenteries', Medical Journal of Australia, II

(1946), 289-311. 37 Sack and Clark, op. cit., 43.




1912 where it was estimated 1,200 people died.38 No specific mention is made

of the disease occurring at Aitape but in 1907 it was reported as 'a veritable

scourge among natives' and 'widespread over all parts of the Protectorate where

communications have been established'.39 It is specifically listed as an 'in

troduced' disease in the 1899-1900 Report. In 1910 a serious dysentery

epidemic occurred on the Lakekamu goldfields in Papua where 219 out of ap

proximately 700 labourers died, but in New Guinea until 1926 the disease ap

peared only sporadically. In 1922 at Rabaul a strain of Shigella Jlexneri was

isolated as a causative organism,40 but in 1932 when 522 cases occurred on the

Bulolo and Edie Creek goldfields the type of dysentery was not reported. Ofa

total labour force of between 2,000 and 3,500, 29 died.41 Six years later 491

cases occurred on the Morobe goldfields and this time the disease also appeared at Salamaua, the goldfields port, and at Aitape where 29 cases were reported of

which three died. For the years 1932 to 1939 there were respectively 677, 641,

701, 943, 435, 585, 562 and 405 cases of dysentery reported from New Guinea.

In 1930 a strain of Shigella dysenteriae resembling Schmitz's bacilli was isolated in

Rabaul in 16 out of 25 cases which occurred there.42

Not all outbreaks of dysentery which occurred in Papua New Guinea are

reported in the Annual Report however. Dysentery which spread from Aitape to the inland across the ranges in 1932, for example, is not recorded. Reports of

this epidemic come from the files of Oil Search Limited (OSL), an oil explora tion company surveying the area from Matapau to Lumi. Parties of geologists

and surveyors were maintained in the field by carrier lines travelling to and

from Aitape. In 1932 a 'serious outbreak' of dysentery at Aitape 'moving inland

to Kapoam' resulted in a complete quarantine on all movements inland which

was enforced from July until September. By 6 December 1932 the disease is

said to have 'completely died away' inland. No estimates of mortality are

given.43 In May 1935 dysentery again appeared inland, first at Weki and then

at Yapunda. Quarantine was enforced but OSL correspondence reveals at

least one indentured labourer paid off at Aitape appeared in his inland home

village a few weeks later. Only two cases and no deaths are reported from

Aitape but inland 13 deaths were reported from Yapunda, a village on the

main inland route censused as having a population of 129 in 1939, a mortality rate of between nine and 10%.44 Nor, between 1941 and 1945, was dysentery

38 Ibid., 340.

39 Ibid., 290.

40 New Guinea Annual Report 1922-23. 41

Ibid., 1926-43. 42

Ibid., 1937-38. 43 G. A. V. Stanley to H. L. Walter, July 1932, G. A. V. Stanley papers, Box 9, UPNGL. 44 GAVS to J. N. Marshall, 25 July 1935, G. A. V. Stanley papers, Box 9, UPNGL.

E1




confined to the western inland villages. Isolated cases were continually being

reported by patrols, some of which were treated and some of which were left

untreated because of the presence of Japanese patrols or the lack of drugs. The

reasons why pre-war dysentery did not become epidemic in the Aitape Inland, and why the 1943 dysentery spread and killed hundreds in restricted areas,

while a few kilometres distant dysentery which can be traced directly to contact

with Japanese soldiers affected only local populations, seem to be threefold.

First, the severity of the 1943 dysentery suggests it was caused by a bacillus

new to the area and capable of causing severe illness. Circumstantial evidence

suggests Shiga's Type 1. The non-epidemic dysentery encountered throughout the area was probably caused by milder strains which inland Aitape people had

already come into contact with before the war, either on the goldfields or in

their villages, such as Flexneri, which is still a common cause of diarrhoea in

Papua New Guinea.45 The severe form of dysentery seems to have entered the

inland from the Tadji area, near Aitape. The Japanese were building an

airstrip there and appear to have employed mainly people from inland villages nearest to Tadji. Inland people from around Dreikikir worked mostly on

coastal airstrips east of Tadji. When dysentery appeared among these workers

the Japanese ordered them home, so it is probable that when a more severe

form appeared at Tadji, workers were also ordered to disperse and in doing so

carried the disease directly into their home villages from where it spread east

and west along the ranges. Its westernmost extent is not known, but it did

reach Tauwetei (or Taute), southwest of Lumi.46 Urim villages had stronger

marriage, exchange and trade links with Palei villages than with villages to the

east and it is not surprising the disease spread to them.

Second, the disease did not continue to spread east because western Urat

villagers were severely restricted in their movements by roving Japanese par ties and remained in their forest hideaways. A third reason also bears con

sideration. The Urat account of what appears to have been a smallpox

epidemic contains vivid descriptions of quarantine measures taken at the time.

People afflicted with the disease were taken to isolated bush houses to recover

or die, the dead were buried or placed in streams, and contact with villages where the disease was known to exist was banned. In 1943 three men who came

back to Tumam from But with dysentery were isolated in a bush house until

they recovered, a practice learned during the Morobe goldfields epidemics. In

Rauit people abandoned their village when they found themselves unable to

45 J. S. Lawson and P. G. Curtis, 'Diarrhoeal disease in Papuan infants and children', Medical Journal of

Australia, I (1967), 101-3. 46 W. E. Mitchell, 'On Keeping equal: polity and reciprocity among the New Guinea Wape', An

thropological Quarterly, LI: 1 (1978), 5-16.




prevent the disease spreading, and scattered to live as small family units in the

forest. Urat people were already living in this way. Lewis observes of the

Gnau, 'they recognise the place of contagion in some human diseases and in

sicknesses among pigs'.47 The Urat know of quarantine measures their

ancestors took against a disease no one living has ever experienced. When con

fronted with epidemic sickness beyond their control the inland people appear to

have reacted in the best possible manner, a reaction which is perhaps based on

the experiences of previous generations.

Very little is known about precolonial population dynamics in Papua New

Guinea but it is apparent that along the northern coast and hinterland large,

periodic checks to population growth in the past are a distinct possibility. Such

events have an important bearing on a number of aspects of post-1945 popula tion change, in particular the ecological relationships between people and the

land. Post-war change is complicated by the introduction of chloroquin and

penicillin, by chemical spraying against the mosquito vector of malaria in some

areas and not in others and by out migration. It is not always clear from village census figures whether emigrants have been included in the village totals as

though they are only temporary absentees, or whether they have been exclud

ed. But it seems almost certain that those villages most affected by wartime

population losses took more than 25 years to recover. If the figures which seem

ingly include absentees are used, the Urim villages did not reach their 1941

levels until 1969 and the Urat villages until 1971. If stated 'absentees' are ex

cluded, the eastern Urat villages had smaller populations in 1980 than they had

in 1941. The less affected northwest Gawanga villages recovered their wartime

losses in under five years. At least 1,400 people died between 1941 and 1945 in the Urat and Urim

census divisions alone. The total number of deaths due directly and indirectly to the war in the Sepik Provinces must be several times that figure. Elsewhere

in Papua New Guinea wartime checks to population occurred. On the Gazelle

Peninsula, for example, at least 7,000 Tolai people died during the war, when

the death rate among children under five reached 40%.48 The description by Burton, elsewhere in this volume, of death rates in highlands populations not

directly involved in the war was made possible by an increase in documentary sources following the relaxation of embargos on wartime material held in

Australian archives. With improved access to this material and the discovery of

other sources in private hands or in library collections of personal papers, the

time may have come for a re-evaluation of van de Kaa's 1971 assessment that

the war was not an important event in Papua New Guinea's demographic

history. 47 In Lewis, 'Beliefs and behaviour . . .,' 230. 48 K. J. Granger, 'Land use in the Gazelle Peninsula', BA thesis, University of Papua New Guinea

(Waigani 1970), 63.



A bomb or a bullet or the bloody flux? Population change in the Aitape Inland, Papua New Guinea,...

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