by Colin Adamson (1957-60)

It was 3 am and I stared without much comprehension at the net six inches above my nose. Outside of the tent fly, the rain pelted down and inside, the mosquitoes whined away. I scratched and rubbed at the grille festering in my crutch, fingered a couple of scabrous leech sores and belched wild duck.

My canvas stretcher lurched as one of the supporting posts sank another foot into the swamp, and a couple of bush rats scampered off to find fresh shelter.

As I drifted off again, I reflected on the good fortune that had placed me in the middle of a sago palm swamp, 200 miles from a cold beer and weeks away from a hot tub.

It was 1959 and the European in the Territory of Papua New Guinea reigned supreme. In Port Moresby, the RSL continued to draw crowds on Sunday mornings; Terry Mitchell jugged 27 Kukukuku in Menyamya for rape, murder and cannibalism and in Wewak, Tom Ellis (Masta Tom) strode the streets with his .303 at the trail and a police bugler at his side. It was also the year that Bob Dougherty put down a tribal fight in Mt Hagen by confronting the warriors and telling them that they were silly bastards; and Dennis Faithfull had the bone pointed at him by a sorcerer of Agugunak.

Large areas of the Territory, particularly in the Highlands and the upper Sepik remained unexplored; larger sections were designated Uncontrolled. The Dept of Native Affairs was undermanned and over-stretched. The Pacific Islands Regiment did its best to assist where it could.

And so it came about that a month earlier, Patrol Order NG2/59 arrived for me at Vanimo, Cape Concordia, about 25 miles from the Dutch border:” Proceed to May River Patrol Post, assist DNA, gather topographical information and study techniques of patrolling in uncontrolled territory”.

All very straightforward you might think, but the order omitted details of travel to the May. There were not too many choices available. We could walk south for 10 days to the Post at Green River and make a beeline for Soagamuk, fairly near the May and sited on the northern bank of the Sepik or, inspiration, fly into Ambunti and travel comfortably up the Sepik by Admin launch.

I put up the last for openers. It took some time before the OK came through, for this was a most radical approach in those days. Our CO was Luke (Kanga) McGuinn and he was little inclined to be soft on young platoon commanders. On patrol we lived on bully beef, brown rice and dog biscuits, and a twist of tea and sugar, and he stirred us along with the stories of the Italians, Germans, Vichy French, Japanese, Chinese and North Koreans that he had put to the sword.

Six of my platoon were to go with me; Corporal Gani of Morobe, Kaiolong of Gasmata, Kopene of Bouganville, Girae of Chimbu and Pulei of Manus Is. We spent the last few days in preparation. Clothing and web equipment changed, rations weighed and packed, rifles waterproofed and the canteen and trade store raided for salt, stick tobacco and fish hooks.

Our allowance then was one shilling per man per day. We used it to purchase trade goods and then barter with them for the purchase of such items as sweet potato, bananas and fish to supplement our diet.

I spent some time on a map reconnaissance. It didn’t reveal too much; 4 miles to the inch, it was white for sago swamp and brown for hill features.

The notes on the map gave me some cause for despair. The Army Topographic Service in 1946 had given credit for the placement of rivers, creeks and tracks to Karius and Champion. Intrepid explorers they were, but map-making was not their forte. Setting off from Daru in September 1927, they reached Bolivip, south of Telefolmin two months later. In early January 1928 they reached the headwaters of the Sepik and followed it downstream for 12 days until meeting up with the government yacht ‘Elevala’. For much of this time they were ill with malaria and dysentery and their path lay some 50 miles to the west of mine.

It was a Norseman that came for us; squat and ugly, single radial engine and corrugated sides. Slow and noisy, it was an excellent aircraft for use in the Sepik where the strips were short, muddy and built in funny places. Our pilot was Bobby Gibbes (Robert Henry) Wing Commander (Retd) DSO DFC and bar, fighter jock, airline entrepreneur (Gibbes Sepik Airways) and plantation owner. He brought Junkers from Sweden in 1946 and barnstormed a living until Mandated Airlines saw him off.

He shrugged a bit when I told him that the load was me and six plus 1200 pounds of cargo. “The strips a bit short so put the tail wheel in the sand and throw a bit of ballast onto the wings”.

The takeoff was fairly uneventful. The Norseman was wheeled to the end of the strip near the pump house, the troops hauled on the wings and struts for dear life and Bobby gunned it down the strip which also doubled as a sports field. The stick came back as we hit the sand at the far end, and the Mission at Warimo across the water breathed again. The flight to Ambunti took two hours. The sky was blue and cloudless, visibility was good and Bobby was absorbed in a stick book all the way.

And then we hit Ambunti – 200 miles from the mouth of the Sepik, it lay on the northern bank and spread itself over three major ridges. Headquarters of the Sub-District which bore its name, the District Officer enforced control over the best part of 10,000 square miles. His bailiwick ran 250 miles to the west of the Dutch border, an indistinct distance to the South to the foothills of the Central Highlands and North apiece towards Maprik.

Landing did not prove to be a major problem. The strip commenced at the north bank of the Sepik and then ran uphill north-south between two of the ridges running uphill a 10 degree slope to a most abrupt halt at the foot of the mountain. I did find that skimming over the river at ten feet was interesting!

Bernie Ryan was the DO; a man of few words. “G’day. Put the troops in with the police. The launch is due in soon. Dinner my place tonight. Bring your own rum”. And so we did! And its time to mention here that the Territory favourite was Rhum Negrita from the West Indies. The label featured a dark and comely lady and was fondly known as Meri Buka after the ladies of Bougainville.

We loaded the launch the next morning and set off upstream after lunch. There is not much beauty on the Sepik. Brown, fast flowing and meandering, the banks covered in elephant grass and wild sugar cane, the odd sandbank sporting a crocodile basking in the sun and thousands of mosquitos at night. No villages are in sight; they were all well back on higher ground. Half an inch of rain in the Star Mountains equals a forty foot rise in the Sepik eight hours later!

Three long days later we came to the May River Patrol Post. And there was Jack Mater to meet me. Shortish, barrel- chested and red-bearded. Gentle as a lamb until the Irish in him took over. I had met him in 1957 at the Australian School of Pacific Administration while undergoing training readying me for service in PNG. I ran into Jack outside of the Directors office; he was being cautioned for some form of indiscretion which I did not pursue.

There was an apocryphal story about him that some time earlier, he had enjoyed the delights of Marienberg and finished off the night with an argument with a pro croc shooter. The shooter smouldered away for a few days and finally issued a challenge to settle the matter with the knuckle. Jack sent him back a note…”Can’t fight, won’t run, bring gun”. The shooter turned up with two bottles of rum instead.

The Post was not too much to look at. Typical of Sepik encampments it straddled a ridge fifty feet above the high water mark. Haus kiap, haus polis, haus kalabus and haus sik referring to admin building, police quarters, gaol and aid post completed the presence. Dominating the whole was the flagpole. DNA was pretty well low-keyed but the flag bespoke law and order, authority and presence.

Jack’s residence was quite palatial – 10 square, with both living and working space. The whole was protected against mosquitos and his office included the national flag, photo of the queen and the spoils of past successes against the Mays; shields, bows and arrows.

Part of the furniture was Doki, a young buck from downstream who had volunteered to guide us through the swamps to our first untapped village.

Doki was an incredible young man. He was about 30 years old, a self-confessed cannibal and had seen the salt water. His buttocks also bore witness to a crocodile attack. Doki was a character. Sepiks are mostly morose, surly and introverted. Not so he. He was a chatterbox, the bringer of good news and a never failing optimist. We relied on him quite heavily as he was also the “tanim tok”; our interpreter.

And so we come to the reason behind this patrol. Minor exploration of secondary rivers flowing into the Sepik near its headwaters had been conducted before 1942 but few people except crocodile shooters had ventured into them since.

A massacre in 1956 changed all that. The post was set up in 1957 and for the next 18 months friendly overtures were made to the people on the river. This accomplished, it was then the turn of the inhabitants of the hinterland to be introduced to the delights of civilization. But I go too fast.

The peoples of the Yellow River and the May River had been traditional enemies for aeons. Rape, murder, sackings and cannibalism against each other was traditional, ritualized and formalized, and demanded of the young men by village lore and custom. They lived fearful lives; bodies, deformed through disease and malnutrition; minds twisted by sorcerers and their life expectancy limited to 32 by crocodile or arrow.

But the Yellows realized that times were changing. DNA had established a permanent post there in 1951and the Baptists had followed with a mission the next year. In 1956 they put out peace feelers to the Mays. They sent out a tanget, the territory- wide sign of peace and invited the Mays, chiefly the people of Wanimowi on the Sepik-May junction, to a feast; to discuss mutual problems and seek a rapprochement.

The Wanimowi responded; “Yes; we’ll meet on the sandbar opposite our village; bring bananas, fish, sago and taro and let’s talk”.

By all accounts, the gathering started off fairly well.26 Yellows turned up and brought three pigs as well as other food. They were heavily armed with bows and arrows and one man carried a rusty Japanese rifle. (The Yellows accounted for a large number of Japanese after the Maprik campaign).

A similar number of Wanimowi turned up on the sandbar and they sat around a blazing fire, alternately one Yellow one May. There were many speeches and harangues; the gist from the Yellows being that they were tired of fighting and afraid of the white mans power. As the gathering progressed, bows and arrows were broken over the knee and cast upon the fire. Friendship was bountiful until Nanggatta, leader of the Mays asked a compatriot for more sago, whereat the Mays produced hidden cassowary bone knives and stabbed their neighbours to death.

All 26 of the Yellows perished. The flesh from their upper arms and thighs, together with their kidneys and livers were eaten. Their heads were also decapitated and stuck on poles surrounding a brand new single man’s house at Wanimowi.

Several days later, bits and pieces began to bump against the wharf at Ambunti.

Word moves fast on the Sepik. The garamut, a huge hollowed log beaten to prescribed patterns was widely used to send messages. In 1956, DNA used it frequently as a means of communication throughout the District; to announce the arrival of a Patrol Officer, to call in the Luluai and Tul Tuls and so on. This time the garamut beat out a message regarding a feast and a massacre.

Bernie Ryan didn’t have the details but they were enough for him to call in the three officers and forty police from his sub-districts to Ambunti. The bodies in the Sepik gave him more than enough reason to investigate.

A week later, Bernie and his team paddled by dugout into Wanimowi and surrounded the single mans house just before dawn. A most knowledgeable man, he had beaten the garamut by incarcerating visitors to Ambunti who would have seen his preparations, and sending out a message on the drums that he was on to his way to Maprik to investigate village toilet systems; a story guaranteed to put idle hands to work, and minds on matters far removed from a massacre.

As the sun streamed through the fog, Police Constable Aiisa, 19 years of age, filed-toothed and son of a former headhunter from Angoram, crawled into the single mans house by the ladder beneath it. Armed with a torch, he kicked out bows by the dozen and arrows by the hundred and then gently told the sleepers with the word that they should move out slowly.

Bernie assembled the court. A betel nut palm was felled, a halliard attached and the flag raised. A folding camp table was produced and Bernie presided. He was judge and jury, prosecutor and defender. Rough by most standards but that was the system: it was swift, honest, fair and understood.

Plenty of evidence against the killers was available. The heads were still on the poles but most came from self-indictment. …”they were enemies, they were men of no account, they were weaklings, they were nothing men and they were rubbish men. I ate his parts because they give me strength and it is prescribed by custom. I merely killed him first before he killed me.”

And so the entire adult male population of Wanimowi was re-educated at Boram gaol, Wewak, for six months. The youngest may have been fourteen years. Little wonder that when we set up our first base camp, the local ladies were not too much pleased with our presence.

For five days we slogged through the swamp. Mostly ankle –deep, it was frequently up to the waist. Interminable sago palm, it stank, tore at us and impeded us. The water softened our feet, the sago needles infected us and the mosquitos never left us alone.

Rest in the afternoon brought little relief. There was no dry ground to sit on; the rain bucketed down from 4PM onwards and there was little doubt that we were under observation and being followed.

There were bird calls that made the carriers go cross-eyed and put Doki to silence. There were times too, when the whole swamp was silent. The police grunted in anticipation, the carriers gathered closer together and Jack grinned with the delight of coming upon new people.

On Day 6 they came. Nine young bucks appeared in front of us as if from nowhere. They were naked and mud-smeared; their heads shaved back to the crown and the remainder of their shoulder-length hair plaited with mud.

They all carried bows armed with pig arrows; accurate enough at 10 paces and the arrow designed to tear through the flesh and arteries with little effort. The arrows were taut on the string; pulled back by the thumb and little finger while the other fingers drummed away on the string. Several of them were pointed at me and I felt a little sick. The carriers moaned, rooted to the spot, and the police and my soldiers straightened their shoulders.

Jack lit a cigarette, grabbed Doki by the ear and told them to get out of his way; he was a messenger of the Queen, on government business and an important person. Where was their village; how far away was it and how many people were there.

They went; scowling, angry and upset. The carriers were white-eyed, the police and soldiers relieved and Jack and me shaky-kneed!!

And so we slogged on; the rain continued to bucket down on us and the mosquitos and leeches chewed on us. The sago palm needles dug in and the swamp sucked away and stank, releasing odious gases.

Doki alone remained undaunted; “Not far” he’d say “the kanakas say not far now…klostu tru.”

And there it was; a rise of ground no larger that a tennis court; two feet above the swamp with three betel nut palms and two huts.

The huts were ramshackle, nondescript, poor and uninhabited. They were on stilts, roofed over with sago palm leaves and had hot embers in the cooking sections. Both were about three metres square and had several sleeping sections. Crocodile and human skulls adorned the rafters.

We settled down in the swamp. The tent flys were erected, the flag was raised and the cooking pots started. Brown rice, wild duck and pigeon (we had a couple of small calibre shotguns) tinned tomatoes and carrots. There was sago too, but I passed.

Jack had a goodie box. It was filled with glass beads, razor blades, small knives and axe heads. Several of each were placed on stumps at the edge of the clearing. They were gone the next morning so we replaced them.

Again they were taken, but around noon the following day, three young men appeared. They were as nervous as we were. They whistled, clucked their tongues and drummed their bow strings. Pale –skinned men were beyond their comprehension and they sweated profusely. Jack offered them tobacco which they took and left.

We put out more offerings and again they were gone the next morning. In the afternoon however, two of the young men re-appeared with bundles of sago, obviously for trade. We spoke to them briefly. They were nervous, fearful and upset. They rolled their eyes, clicked their tongues and searched for escape routes. There was not much doubt of the presence of a cover party. They grabbed the tobacco and knife and ran for it.

For the next two days we continued to leave out small tokens of tobacco and red cloth. We saw no one, but they continued to be taken.

Our campsite became a prison. The carriers sat, glowered and ate. The police and soldiers became restless and uncertain. Jack and I played patience, lied outrageously to each other and learned Police Motu. Food became the panacea, but it was staples only, as we had no wish to send out parties in a neighbourhood like this one.

On day six, the young men arrived again. They carried their bows and arrows, but this time they were held by the side. With them were three older adults and a young girl with a baby.

We had come to Tiggi.

This is but the start of the story. As the patrol continued, the people became easier to contact. They allowed us to give them injections and dress their yaws. They taught us how they fought the elements and nature in a bid for survival.

The passage of years helps to improve a good story; this one has not been meddled with too much. In all truth however, this patrol was the forerunner of many more. Jim Devitt followed me into the August River a month later, Greg Warland broke into the Dutch enclave west of Pagei and Terry Gray took his troops over the Strickland Gorge.

In later years we challenged the Telefomins, the Kukukukus and the Biamis. I am proud to recount my contribution to that scene