Papua New Guinea: Kerema to Kanabea Patrol, 1972

Abstract

[Transcribed from the video case] "This 50 minute video is transposed from 8mm film. "In 1972 I was a Patrol Officer based at Kerema in the Gulf of Papua. My friend, Jack Byham of Cobram, Victoria, was a visitor who came along with me for the experience. Jack is well known as "Mr Boomerang" an authority on Australian Aboriginal cultures. He brought his movie camera with him. The commentary is by him. "The patrol started at Disctrict H.Q. of Kerema in the well established administrative and copra plantation coastal area of the Gulf of Papua, then proceeded through coastal swamp by motorized canoe. Then over a period of three weeks we climbed into highland areas populated by the very infrequently visited and notorious "wild" Kukukuku people. Kanabea was at the time a new RC Mission outpost Station. Jack flew out of the Kaintiba Patrol Post, itself a new and basic government outpost, and back to Kerema I continued the patrol on foot, back to Kerema over a period of a further two weeks. The film and sound track is of poor quality. However it is my only visual record of 14 years in the service of P.N.G. (1964-1978)." Show more