Addendum 2: Kiaps

As explained on the Ex Kiap website at www//exkiap.net, “Kiap" is a "tok pisin" (pidgin - english) version of the German word for Captain, "Kapitän" and is a legacy of the German colonial era in New Guinea.

Wikipedia at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiap states that Kiaps were “formally known as district officers and patrol officers, and were travelling representatives of the British and Australian governments with wide-ranging authority in pre-independence Papua New Guinea... Soon after the establishment of British New Guinea in the 1880s a system of patrols was established to expand the Government's administrative control beyond the major towns. The system continued after the change from British to Australian administration in 1905.”

Mr Hank Nelson wrote in his 1982 “Taim bilong masta the Australian involvement with Papua New Guinea, Sydney, Australia” ABC Books, at page 33 “In the early years, there were relatively few kiaps scattered across vast tracts of land. At the height of Australia's pre-war administration in 1938, a total field staff of 150 men existed to govern three-quarters of a million people, while a similar number of people lay beyond official government control.”

Page 11,825 of the Australian Federal Government’s Hansard from Monday 16 November, 2009 records Scott Morrison, then an MP before he was appointed the 30th Prime Minister of Australia, as stating “From 1949 until 1974, the best estimate of how many men served in these roles [was] around 2,000”.

It is estimated the number of kiaps at any one time ranged from 30 in 1900, to 120 in 1942, and 756 (250 of which were actual Field Officers) in 1972.

Manning, H. J.; Ciaran O'faircheallaigh in "Papua New Guinea" The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 2000, wrote “Kiaps provided pacification, medical aid, and administration to some 11,920 villages in rugged and almost impenetrable terrain. The kiap system … appointed to each New Guinea village a Luluai, through whom control was administered, and in each Papua village a Village Constable”.

The Ex Kiap website at www//exkiap.net states that “Kiaps carried out many or most of …. the following functions:

• geographic/demographic exploration (patrols);

• police (exercise the powers of as well as management of police personnel) and corrective institutions (including asset and staff management);

• treasury (payment and receipt of public monies);

• postal & telegraphs (radio based);

• banking (agency function);

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• civil works (roads, bridges, building construction including schools, aid posts, housing, markets, bush saw mills, water wells);

• area planning & co-ordination of other government functions such agriculture, health, education, co-operatives, social welfare;

• outstation management (construction, maintenance, stores & supplies)

• census (collection and analysis of demographic data);

• electoral including political education;

• local government (electoral, administrative, by-laws, financial, taxation & works including equipment);

• aviation (airstrip construction, maintenance & strip reporting);

• security;

• Transportation (vehicles and equipment management and maintenance);

• Lands (dispute resolution, demarcation, titles & alienation);

• Labour (regulatory and recruitment);

• any other duties that may be directed to be carried out from time time.”

Patrol work could be dangerous. There were deaths from attacks by hostile tribes and locals, as well as deaths and illness from drowning, boating, and aircraft accidents.

Ross Wilkinson in his 7 January, 2018 article “Those PNG kiaps – small in number, big in nation-building” in the PNG Attitude Keith Jackson & Friends newsletter  at pngattitude.com/2018/01/those-png-kiaps-small-in-number-big-in-nation-building.html wrote ‘Field Marshall Sir William Slim, the eminent British military commander, when he was Governor-General of Australia, made a comment to Australian Minister for Territories Paul Hasluck :

“Your young chaps in New Guinea have gone out where I would never have gone without a battalion and they have done on their own by sheer force of character what I could only do with troops. I don’t think there’s been anything like it in the modern world....” ‘

In the online news.com.au article dated 12 July, 2013” Kiaps of PNG recognised at long last AUSTRALIANS who served as patrol officers or kiaps in PNG have finally been recognised with the award of the Police Overseas Service Medal” by Max Blenkin and AAP Defence Correspondent, former PNG Patrol Officer Chris Viner-Smith is quoted and is reproduced below :

“Kiaps were the tangible representatives of the Australian administration in remote areas of the nation, travelling accompanied by only a few local policemen and juggling the multiple roles of policeman, ambassador, explorer, farmer, engineer and anthropologist.

Viner-Smith said the life of a kiap was to live on a patrol base in the middle of nowhere, patrolling a specified area on foot or in boats for any time between three weeks and three months.

‘We weren't resourced very well. There was no radio backup while you were on patrol. There was no medical assistance of course. You were miles and miles from anywhere. You lived on your wits the whole time and survived that way,’ he said.

Kiaps travelled from village to village with the prime mission of maintaining law and order, acting as a travelling magistrate to settle disputes. Sometimes there (were) specific missions such as conducting a census or introducing local government as a precursor to national government.

‘We did many other things. We were the chief officer of all government departments in our area and we built bridges and we built airstrips. We were the post master and we gave weather reports. Everything there was to do we did.’

Viner-Smith said this was an enormous job, unknown to most Australians.

‘It was perhaps one of the most magnificent colonisations of a country, bringing it from a primitive state to nationhood in 25 years with very little violence. It's never been done anywhere else in the world,’ he said.

Of the 2,000 kiaps, official records show 23 died on duty, although Viner-Smith believes it could really be as high as 40.

‘That's a higher death rate per capita than the Vietnam War,’ he said. Tribesmen murdered some kiaps. Others died of accidents and illness.”