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Harim Tok
A pictorial record of recent New Guinea life
* for larger pictures - double click - *
[ for contact - harim.tok@gmail.com ]
65,000 years ago Melanesians travelled down through Indonesia and habited the New Guinea mainland. This was 20,000 years before homo sapiens ventured into Europe or America. So it is an old culture. The New Guineans arrived at the same time as the Aborigines settled in Australia.
Here is the homo sapiens' journey -
http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/stephenoppenheimer/index.php
In that time the people developed over 850 languages, and there was obviously a 'pay-back' system , where attacks against other groups were carried out, and retaliation to those attacks occurred.
The first foreign visitors to New Guinea's shores found people living in long-houses and having a very close communal society. This does show that people who lived together were better at defending themselves against attack.
New Guinea, located just north of Australia, is the world's second largest island, having become separated from the Australian mainland when the area now known as the Torres Strait flooded around 5000 BC. The name Papua has also been long-associated with the island (see "History", below). The western half of the island contains the Indonesian provinces of Papua and Papua Barat (formerly West Irian Jaya), while the eastern half forms the mainland of the independent country of Papua New Guinea.
At 4,884 metres, Puncak Jaya (sometimes called Mount Carstensz) makes New Guinea the world's fourth highest landmass.
Port Moresby (IPA: [ˌpɔːrt ˈmɔːrzbi]), or Pot Mosbi in Tok Pisin, population 255,000 (2000), is the capital of Papua New Guinea. The city is located on the shores of the Gulf of Papua, on the southeastern coast of the island of New Guinea.
The area on which the city was founded was first sighted by a European in 1873 by Captain John Moresby. It was named in honour of his father Admiral Sir Fairfax Moresby.
Rabaul is a town in East New Britain province, Papua New Guinea. The town is built within the caldera of a large volcano, called Rabaul caldera, and is continually vulnerable to eruptions. Settlements around the edge of the caldera continue collectively to be referred to as Rabaul despite the town of Rabaul itself being reduced to insignificance by a volcanic eruption in 1994. Little of its pre-1994 site having survived or been rehabilitated.
Until 1994 Rabaul was the provincial capital, after the volcanic eruption the capital was moved to Kokopo, about 20 km (12 mi) away. The destroyed airport was rebuilt at Tokua, farther away on the far side of the caldera.
Rabaul was the headquarters of German New Guinea and then the Australian mandatory Territory of New Guinea from 1910 until 1937. During World War II it was the base of Japanese activities in the South Pacific.
As a tourist destination Rabaul is popular for SCUBA diving and for snorkelling sites and a spectacular harbour; it had been the premier commercial and travel destination in Papua New Guinea and indeed in the wider South Pacific during much of the 20th century until the 1994 volcanic eruptions. There are still several diving operators based there.
Samarai is an island and former administrative capital in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea. The island is historically significant as the site of a trading port and stop-over between Australia and East Asia. The island was declared a National Historical Heritage Island by the government of Papua New Guinea in 2006.
Located off the south-eastern tip of New Guinea in the China Strait Samarai is small at just 24 ha (59 acre) big. Samarai town was established on the island and at its height was the second largest after Port Moresby in the Territory of Papua.[1]
Central Province is a province in Papua New Guinea located on the southern coast of the country. It has a population of 183,983 (2000 census) people and is 29,500 km square in size. The provincial capital of Central Province is Port Moresby, which is also the national capital and is technically located in the National Capital District rather than Central Province itself.
Whereas Tok Pisin is the main lingua franca in all Papua New Guinean towns, in part of the southern mainland coastal area centred on Central Province, Hiri Motu is a stronger lingua franca (but not in Port Moresby).
Eastern Highlands is a highlands province of Papua New Guinea. The provincial capital is Goroka. The province covers an area of 11,200 km², and has a population of 432,972 (2000 census). The province is the home of the Asaro mud mask that is displayed at shows and festivals within the province and in the country. It is reachable by air and road transport.
One of the main cashcrops in EHP is coffee.
Trobriand Islands (today officially known as the Kiriwina Islands) are a 170 mi² archipelago of coral atolls off the eastern coast of New Guinea. They are situated in Milne Bay Province in Papua New Guinea. Most of the population of 12,000 indigenous inhabitants live on the main island of Kiriwina, which is also the location of the government station, Losuia. Other major islands in the group are Kaileuna, Vakuta and Kitava. The group is considered to be an important tropical rainforest ecoregion in need of conservation.