A trial separation : Australia and the decolonisation of Papua New Guinea

Iknew little of Papua New Guinea when my family and I arrived in 1972 from Idi Amin’s Uganda. One colleague at Makerere University had told us about cargo cults1 and another had shown us Gardens of War,2 the photo-essay on the Dugum Dani in Irian Jaya. These books portray cultural complexity and physical vigour, but no ‘modern’ politics or economics, so we were ill-prepared for the re…