Kainantu
Kainantu is a town in the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. It had some historical significance as an airstrip town during WWII. It functions primarily as a market town for local produce growers and cash croppers. It is located on the "Highlands Highway" approximately by road west of Lae and by road east of Goroka. It is approx from a nearby missionary station Ukarumpa and is nearby the Aiyura valley. Kainantu has basic facilities such as a school, hospital, police station, district court, and service stations.
History
Early history
The area was explored in the 1929 by the two Lutheran missionaries, Pilhofer and Bergmann. and again in 1930 by two Australian explorers Mick Leahy and Mick Dwyer.Early missions
Under German New Guinea this area was part of Kaiser-Wilhelmsland. Lutheran missionaries first established mission stations at Finschhafen and moved up the Markham Valley towards the Eastern Highlands. Between 1916 and 1918 the Kaiapit station was established by the Neuendettelsau Mission Society and by 1919 eighteen Yabem evangelists were resident in the surrounding area and made contact with small groups on the fringes of the Eastern Highlands.These early contacts with the Gadsup were gradually developed in the early 1920s and evangelist out-stations were successively
founded by the Lutherans at Binumarien and Wampur. Lutheran missionaries, Pilhofer and Bergmann explored this area and in 1931 established a temporary mission station, bush-material home and small farm at Kambaidam to enable further extension of the mission inland. In 1933 they established a more convenient station at Onerunka, near Kainantu where they joined a small number of gold prospectors and government officers from the Upper Ramu patrol post.
In 1934 a small Seventh-day Adventist undertaking was started at Kainantu by a European missionary and ten Solomon Islands evangelists which increased to 40 the following year. In 1941 there were 19 Seventh-day Adventist outposts compared to 17 Lutheran out-stations but this decreased after the war.
Throughout the 1930s internecine warfare was common and resulted in the deaths of two Europeans and retribution. An influenza epidemic resulted in many sorcery accusations and tribal fighting and a new Kainantu government officer attempted a process of "re-education".
Pacification movement
In response to the disturbances, the administration amended the Uncontrolled Areas Ordinance to curtail European movement in the highlands. Apart from government officers, Europeans were not allowed to enter the Highlands and those presented were restricted to their settlements. Kainantu Government Officer prohibited the work of all missionary operations. inBy 1934 Hans Flierl, the son of Johann Flierl was operating 19 evangelist out-stations around Kainantu from the Raipinka Mission Station. In response to the government proclamation, Flierl led a large party of warriors to Kainantu, where they deposited weapons and sorcery items for Aitchison to destroy. These events set off a chain reaction from Dunantina in the west to Pundibassa in the east. Over the next few months groups of warriors in increasing numbers arrived at Kainantu to destroy the 21 instruments of war. Only in the Kainantu areas were the missionaries successful in having the government prohibitions lifted and as a result of the actions by Kainantu missionaries the government policy was changed.
Later Lutheran Missions
By 1940 the Onerunka Station was operating some 25 out-stations and 16 schools with 500 pupils. As a result of WW2 the work was halted but recommenced by 1947 where some 60 chapels were constructed throughout the region.World War 2
In 1943, Japanese patrols partially succeeded in entering the Eastern Highlands and there were numerous air raids on the various airstrips. Small detachments were later sent in defence of the airstrips including Kainantu.The 2/7th Independent Company Headquarters was supplied by provisions from Kainantu.
This was an experimental house build by an architect Rex Addison working out of Lae technical college about 1960-1970.
1960s
Mr. Graham Pople was a former kiap and Member of the first Papua and New Guinea House of Assembly in 1964 and in 2010 authored The Popleography, an unpublished manuscript. When describing Kainantu in the 1960s he writes:Geography
Geology
Probable Palaeozoic metamorphic rocks, the Bena Bena Formation, intruded by Upper Triassic Bismarck Granodiorite and Mount Victor Granodiorite, constitute the basement on which lower Miocene Nasananka Conglomerate and Omaura Greywacke were laid down. The andesitic Aifunka Volcanics of probable Pliocene age, Pleistocene lake sediments, and Recent alluvial deposits complete the stratigraphical record of the area.Topography
A narrow south-east-trending dissected plateau dominates area to the south; it forms the watershed between rivers draining north to the Markham-Ramu Graben, and those draining south to the Papuan coast. The plateau ranges in elevation between and above sea level, and is about above the surrounding country. It is wide at its north-western end, but narrows to about to the south-east, where Nompia Creek cuts across it in a deep gorge. East of Nompia Creek, it is about wide, and the Lamari River flows across it in another deep gorge. The streams draining the plateau are mature over most of their courses, but near its edge they are deeply incised and flow along youthful valleys.Climate
The average rainfall is 1.8 meters annually. Being up in the mountains, the province has warm days and cool evenings, seemingly perfect, as most of the time is like spring. Daily temperatures range from a maximum of 27 to a minimum of 15 degrees, but some nights get as cold as 10 degrees.Demographics
The Kainantu languages include the Gadsup, Agarabi and Tairora languages.Governance
Law and Order
In 1965 it was reported that;In 1973 it was reported that;
Before independence, the role of the Kiap was both judge and jury. In the highlands this role continued while the Constitutional Planning Committee, wanted the State to reform the courts, to reform the laws and to reshape the judiciary.
A major defect of the court system was the absence of local tribunals and elements within the Constitutional Planning Committee wanted to include these while many elements opposed. Soon after self-government, attempts were made to fill this gap. In Kainantu, Village Courts started up spontaneously and forced the hand of the Government. An immediate problem with the Village Courts was the impossibility of linking them through magistrates to the rest of the judicial system.
2011 Massacre
In 2011 it was reported that 15 men were hacked to death in an early morning raid and their homes at Banana Block, a notorious settlement and was burnt to ashes. The event caused business disruption.First National Election
In 1964 the first election of a national House of Assembly, by universal adult suffrage on a common roll, took place in the Territory of Papua and New Guinea.In Kainantu, the only European candidate, was Barry Holloway who was an officer on leave from the Department of Native Affairs, and responsible for setting up the first two Local Government Councils in the sub-district, the Agarabi and Kamano Councils. Holowei won decisively in the Open Electorate as his first preferences were over twice as many as those of his nearest rival, To'uke, the Tairora candidate. The biggest single block of Holowei votes, over a third of his first preferences, came from Gadsup.
The issue of ethnic candidates, and of European vs. New Guinea candidates, was ruled out in the South Markham Special Electorate, of which the Kainantu Open Electorate formed a part, but which also included a sizeable area and population outside the Kainantu sub-district. Three European candidates were entered, of whom only two, Mr. Mick Casey and Mr. Graham Gilmore, were residents of the Kainantu area. Gilmore, a new arrival in Kainantu, had recently taken over as proprietor of the Kainantu Hotel.
The final figures in the Kainantu Open Electorate were:
Holowei - 8,350
The final figures in the South Markham Special Electorate were:
G. Gilmore - 9,311
A later synoptic account told by group of Gadsup men highlights the pertinent features of the first election for a village group of 265 people in the Eastern Highlands of New Guinea. These horticultural people viewed the election as a very serious “business”, filled with many responsibilities, and having many uncertainties about it. A troublesome question in discussion was whether to vote for a “white man” or a “black man”.
Conversely some villagers who had experienced only limited, and in some cases unfavourable, contact with the Europeans said,
Economy
Most produce from the highlands is sent to Lae for market. In the 1950s it is reported that it was common for up to 50 women to be sent to walk produce on top of their heads from Kainantu to Lae.Colbran Coffee Lands
Colbran Coffee lands is a large coffee plantation run on the Kainantu highlands run by the Colbran Family since 1962. They are one of the largest plantations and coffee processing factories in PNG. They buy local parchment coffee from locals during harvest season and process is for domestic and international use. This provides work for the nearby locals. In 2009, the Colbran Family started a primary school that educates children from around 12 neighbouring villages.Kainantu Gold Mine
Alluvial gold was discovered near Kainantu about 1930, by E. Ubank and N. Rowlands, who were the first Europeans in the area. Compared with the Wau-Bulolo Goldfields, where gold had just been discovered in the rich Edie Creek, the Kainantu Goldfields were neither very rich nor very extensive, and so never attracted large numbers of prospectors. By World War II the best patches of alluvial gold had been worked out, and the few lodes found had not proved economic. After the war the field provided a good living from both alluvial and lode mining for a small number of Europeans.Construction of the Kainantu Gold Mine began in March 2004 and commenced operations in March 2006. In 2004 landowners threatened to close down Highlands Pacific's Kainantu gold mine.
Kainantu Gold Mine is an underground mine and the concentrate is trucked to Lae and shipped to Japan for processing. In January 2009 production was halted. The mine has been designed to produce in excess of 100,000 ounces of gold per year. In 2007 a decision was made by Highlands Pacific Ltd. to sell Kainantu Gold mine and licences to Placer Dome Oceania, a subsidiary of Barrick Gold Corporation for a cash price of USD141.5 million. The mine was then sold to K92 Mining, a Canadian company, that has restarted the mine and is expanding the known resource and yearly output. Both numbers are expected to be increased in the future. It is expected that by the end of 2022 mine production will be above 300,000 ounces per year.