The ethnographic history of Kurti people on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, to 1919
Date
1977
Authors
Kuluah, Albert John
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Abstract
Apart from the numerous anthropological accounts, there has been no history written about the original inhabitants of Papua New Guinea. Whatever history has been written about them has been considered entirely in the light of European colonialism. So much so that during the ninety-one years of colonial rule the tendency was to play down or to outright deny the people's past history. Recently there has been a growing search into the writing of local traditional history and this thesis is part of the growing process.
The following work is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on the environment in which the Kurti people live. This results from the obvious fact that a people's history and culture is to a large extent geographically and environmentally bounded and determined. The type of environment in which they find themselves enclosed demands adaptation and formulates the pattern of their socio-political and economic life.
Part two concentrates on their tradition of origin, migration and warfare. The account of how they came to be is centered on a man called PAT and a woman called ELUH KALUU. Their marriage resulted in six sons who became the ancestors of the six original KURTI clans. The groups migrated to seek more space as they increased in numbers and this led them into confrontation with other groups of people sharing or occupying the same environment.
Part three examines the coming of the Europeans and their intrusion into the Kurti society towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. This intrusion led to hostile feelings between the groups culminating in the imposition of and adjustment to the colonial rule.
To state briefly, this study is the result of the growing search into the past history prior to the European intrusion. It is a history common to every group of people in Papua New Guinea; a tradition on which they stand and from which they draw their strength and courage in the wind of change.