The Keveri of South-Eastern Papua New Guinea

A paper presented by

Jan Hasselberg
At the ESfO Conference, Brussels, June 2015

1
 ABSTRACT

After the Keveri people of South-east Papua New Guinea were visited by missionaries in
1935 they went through such a rapid conversion to Christianity that when government
anthropologist FE Williams visited five years later he wrote in great disappointment about
vanished traditions and an almost total loss of Keveri material culture. They were the last
group in this part of the country to keep up with raiding and killing, but in just a few years
they had broken with their past in an extraordinarily thorough manner.

This paper discusses in what way three sets of texts and photos, with the advantage of
being able to combine their different agendas and approaches, but also with their
limitations, can reconstruct parts of the past in a way that will enrich the present Keveri
communities.

I have studied the writings and photographs from three sources dating from 1933 to 1940:
Austrian photographer and ethnographer Hugo Bernatzik; missionary brothers Cecil and
Russell Abel, who wrote about the ‘converting expedition’ and its follow-up in “Kwato
Mission Tidings”; and F E Williams. I am also relating this to my short visit to the area last
year, where I found a unanimous and sincere interest in learning more about a past that is
largely forgotten. How can this material, none of which is known among the present Keveri,
contribute to identity restoration?

I will also comment on the different approaches, in writing and photography, of Bernatzik,
the Abel’s and Williams, and about the availability of the material.

Tapa cloth from Upper Musa, collected by Capt. Barton in 1901,

Queensland Museum

2
 Content
Maps p. 4

Introduction: Biruma, Abel and Williams p. 6

Why reconstruct Keveri history? p. 9

The Mountain people of the Southeast p. 12

Hugo Bernatzik p. 16

The Abel’s and Kwato Mission p. 19

F. E. Williams p. 22

Three presentations of the Keveri p. 24

Bernatzik’s South Seas and photo albums p. 25

Cecil and Russell Abel and Kwato Mission Tidings p. 29

F. E. Williams and Mission Influence Amongst the Keveri p.33

Why the Sudden Transformation? p. 38

Potential for Repatriation p. 42

Conclusion p. 50

Thanks and literature p. 54

Photographic sources:

Bonartes Photoinstitut, Vienna BP

National Archives of Australia NAA
Mitchell Library, Sydney ML
Royal Anthropological Institute , London RAI
Kwato Mission Tidings KMT
Private collection of Elizabeth Abel EA
Copied from Russel Abel, 1934 RA
Copied from Young & Clarke, 2001 YC
Copied from Monckton, 1922 CAWM

Photographs not otherwise credited are by Jan Hasselberg

The use of photographs has been approved by the keepers of the collections.

Cover photo: Girls looking after babies, Buyay village, by Bernatzik, BP

3
4
5
 Introduction

Biruma, Abel and Williams

Around 1930 Biruma, a clan chief from the

mountains behind Cloudy Bay in south-east Papua,
was taken prisoner by the colonial government. He
had taken part in a raid on a nearby village where
some people had been killed. The Dorevaidi and
Keveri people, to which he belonged, were the last
in this part of the country to defy the government
and keep up with their old tradition of gaining
status and prestige by taking lives. Biruma was not
alone when he was captured. Together with five of
his clansmen he was sent to jail at the
administration centre on Samarai Island to serve
several years.

At Samarai he came in contact with the missionaries

from Kwato Island just across the bay. Having picked
up the Motu language during his imprisonment he
understood that the they had a message about
peace and friendliness and this appealed to him. He Biruma taken to jail; EA
became convinced that this could bring a positive
change not only for him, but to his people. The missionaries told him that they were interested in
coming to Cloudy Bay, and he agreed to help bring them up to the inland villages after his release.

In November 1935 Biruma welcomed a company of fourteen people from Kwato to his village. They
were led by the missionary Cecil Abel, the eldest son of the mission’s founder Charles. The others
were native assistants and evangelists – two of them were women. Biruma guided the group to a
string of villages, walking for many days, reaching all the way up to Dorevaidi and to the Keveri Valley
on the northern side of the watershed. Along with the Kwato evangelists Biruma gave his personal
testimony of his Christian conversion to the villagers, who listened with great interest. The group was
warmly welcomed by the ‘notorious killers’, who asked them to come back - the mission expedition
was a sensational success for Cecil Abel and his party, and for Biruma too.

This was the start of an unprecedented transformation in the lives of a group of Papuan villagers. In
just a few years more or less all the villages along this part of the mountain range, and its southern
foothills, had converted to Christianity, and they had done so most thoroughly. They changed their
daily routines to follow the suggestions by the mission, and attitudes and social organization changed
along with it. The mission looked at everything that could be associated with their homicidal
traditions as old, evil ways, and convinced the Keveri to discard it: feasting and dancing stopped; all
decorations and adornments were discarded; they moved to a new ‘model village’ down the valley.

6
When FE Williams, the government anthropologist, arrived in the area in 1940, just five years later,
he was pleased to see that the killings had stopped, but he was shocked by how the local culture and
traditions had been almost totally erased. He saw this as highly unnecessary and feared it would have
negative consequences. In the paper that he wrote he was very critical to the missions’ methods,
although at the same time he complimented many of their achievements.

While the transformation was seen as a necessary change to Biruma and other Keveri leaders at the
time, this loss of tradition and history is today sadly missed by the Cloudy Bay people. Through their
oral history they have kept their origin stories, and they have kept some of their social organisation
and some of their belief in sorcery and magic, but decorations, songs and dances, and much of their
attachment to their past in the mountains has been lost. Or has it just been hidden? Through written
material and photographs not known to the Keveri communities, found in books and reports, and
kept in archives abroad, parts of their lost heritage can be allowed to resurface, and it is this
possibility that I have tried to examine in this paper.

The three sets of text and photograph I will concentrate on are all from the 1930s – the time of the
Keveri ‘conversion’. The first is by Austrian photographer and ethnographer Hugo Bernatzik who
visited the villages along the Mori River all the way up to the watershed in 1933. He also spent some
days at coastal Domara village, where he started and ended his adventurous Keveri expedition.
Bernatzik wrote a colourful chapter about this trip in his popular book “South Seas”1 and he took
many photos.

Secondly, I have studied three issues of the Kwato Mission Tidings, where the missionary brothers
Cecil and Russell Abel wrote of the historic 1935 expedition, and then how it was followed up in the
next couple of years. Their recapturing of the events is also illustrated with photos. As for the
Keveri’s pre-Christian history, oral history traditions has only managed to keep fragments of these
revolutionary events for succeeding generations, so the articles and photos by the missionaries can
be of the greatest importance for the present communities.

The third contribution comes from government anthropologist FE Wlliams who after a longer stay at
Amau and the Keveri Valley in 1940 wrote the mentioned monograph, in which he described some
features of the old Keveri culture and traditions, but most of all described the new life of the
converted villagers. On previous visits to other villages in Cloudy Bay, in 1927 and 35, he had also
written shorter reports and taken some photographs.

The three sets of texts are very different in style, approach and ambition, but seen together they give
a most interesting picture of pre-Christian life among the Keveri groups, as well as of the dramatic
changes that followed contact with the mission. The same is true for the photographs. In support and
addition to these three presentations, I have supplemented with information from patrol reports,
some other publications from colonial times, some recent social mapping reports, and with
impressions and information I collected myself during a brief visit to the area in 2014.

In 1973 David Wetherell wrote an article on Charles Abel and the mission’s influence on the Keveri. In
this he analyzed Williams’ critical report in light of the background, theology and development of the
Kwato Mission, and this is the only research that has been published on this topic and this group of

1
The original title is Südsee, and it was translated into 7 other languages.

7
people since 1940. I have in this paper done much the same as Wetherell, but with the privilege of
having access to more written material and, perhaps most importantly, with the three collections of
photographs. I have also moved the main focus from the Mission over to the local groups.

Before my visit to Cloudy Bay in 2014 I came to an agreement with Bonartes Photoinstitut in Vienna
Austria – the keepers of Hugo Bernatzik’s photos – to bring along a small selection of photos. This
was to see what reaction they would produce and find out if there is a local interest for further
repatriation. During stays of a couple of days in three villages – Domara on the coast, and the two
Keveri villages Moreguina and Amau – I got a first-hand impression of the people and the area. I
registered a unanimous interest in the photos, and in finding out more of their ‘lost’ history.

To my benefit there has over the last few decades been published many volumes and articles on
Christianity in Melanesia, some directly addressing the process of conversion and the first formative
years of local Christianity. These have been of great help for understanding the events and
developments in the back of Cloudy Bay in the 1930s, where Joel Robbins’ Becoming Sinners,
Christine Weir’s article White Man’s Burden, White Man’s Privilage’, and the writings of John Barker
on the Maisin people have been of particular value.

In the first part of the paper I give my reasons for looking into this topic, followed by a presentation
of the Keveri people – an attempt to summarize the information at hand - and then a brief
introduction of Bernatzik, the Abel’s and FE Williams. After describing the content of the three sets of
texts and photographs, I give my own thoughts on why the Keveri experienced such a revolutionary
change, before discussing the material’s repatriation potential.

Makala village, 1933, Bernatzik, BP

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 Why reconstruct Keveri history?
Reconstructing history has a tradition within ethnographic research that stretches back to the early
days of this science in the 19th century. The driving force for those early ethnographers was the
search for universal evidence of human development and the hope of finding ‘missing links’, all to
increase our knowledge about our origin and the world around us. Here I take an opposite starting
point, hoping to help today’s local population in their need to define their own identity by re-
assembling parts of their past. This, incidentally, has the benefit of also being of academic interest
and importance.

The rapid and deep-reaching abandonment of traditional culture that the Keveri people experienced
in the late 1930s is one of the most dramatic examples of change in the colonial and cultural history
of Papua New Guinea, and this loss had a much more far-reaching influence on their lives than both
they themselves and the Kwato missionaries could have understood or predicted. It altered most
aspects of their lives, including social relations within their families, villages and tribes; structures of
authority and prestige; their relations with the dead; the physical organization of houses and villages;
and their daily rhythms. While serving the purpose of stopping the many killings and curb their
sorcery practices, this loss of old traditions has over time had a negative effect on the Keveri’s sense
of identity and their self-esteem, just as F.E. Williams predicted.

While abandonment of traditional culture was a desirable and expected development in the eyes of
many representatives of the Government and the missions, it was certainly an issue of debate at the
time. This is where F E Williams was more concerned than his employer Hubert Murray, the
Governor of the colony, pointing to how for instance dancing and feasts played an important role in
keeping the health and energy of the local people – for the benefit not only of themselves but also
for the colony. He argued that the people had shown great adaptability to many changes and that
many traditions can live on or find slightly new expressions when clearly unwanted activities such as
sorcery, raiding, manslaughter etc. have stopped. Murray wanted change, but slowly - his main
worry was that rapid changes would decimate the population, as had taken place in other colonies.
Williams stressed the importance of ceremonies and indigenous crafts for the people’s sense of self-
respect, and voiced his opposition to the practices of those missionaries who came down hard on
expressions of traditional culture. His disappointment with what he met with in the back of Cloudy
Bay in 1940 followed several other discouraging experiences2.

While the Keveri at the time of the arrival of the mission saw the benefits of leaving their traditions
of violence and homocide behind, and feared their possible return, today’s Keveri no longer sees
such a threat: the old-time killings now belong to the past and they no longer fear sickness and
damnation when telling old stories, etc, in the way that they believed in the 30s and 40s. The
material improvements that they experienced in the first decades after their conversion, which they
rightly connected with the mission, have been exchanged with a reality of economic stagnation, even

2
When investigating the ’Vailala Madness’ cult in the Gulf area (1922), for instance, he reported on the
negative effects of the Mission’s abolishment of several traditions.

9
recession. At Moreguina, today’s district center, the shut-down rubber refinery – their corner-stone
industry - casts its dismal shadow over the village, and the copra plantations down toward the coast
struggle with low world market prices.

In other parts of the country the people mark church days and other events with dances, kundu
drums, and shells and feathers - whether their economic situation is good or bad – but the Keveri no
longer remember these traditions: their traditional decorations were discarded long ago and some
are hardly remembered; they haven’t danced for 75 years; and it sticks deeper.

The loss of festivities and adornments is only the most visible part of what has changed. Even more
important is the loss of old stories, the weakened lines of authority, and the general loss of identity
and pride. Robbins has (for other groups) pointed to how, at a deeper level, the coexistence of the
past’s relationism and Western individualism, has been difficult to come to terms with3. These
parallel sets of values, which are difficult to merge, lead to uncertainty and even disillusion. In light of
this, and in times of great changes, such as PNG is going through at the moment, a strong identity is
of irreplaceable value. Cloudy Bay villagers meet with the modern world in the form of logging
prospectors and other business ventures; they face new expenses with mobile phones and rising
food prices. These are great challenges. Life is not easy, and they need to be strong.

A reasonable connection to and knowledge of our history is one of the foundations of our identity.
For the Keveri, as for all Papua New Guineans, there are two categories of history – two parallel
historicities. First there is their traditional oral history, where the origin and migration stories and the
stories that tie the people to the land where they live and have rights are the most important. These
are stories that have been the basis for their social order through generations, and they are still kept
to some extent. Then there are other stories from the past, tied to their old traditions, about people,
animals, spirits and events. Here much has been lost since the missionaries discouraged everything
that could be connected with the old ways. Today we can safely claim this as an unfortunate
circumstance that has a negative effect on the people’s identity.

3
Robbins, 2002, p.13

10River, 1933; Bernatzik, BP

Betel nut break by the Mori
The other historicity is that which was brought by the Europeans, and which the local people have
now related to for a hundred years. This doesn’t only mean colonial history, but a history of people
and events not necessarily tied to land or clan and tribal issues. It’s about chronology and about
establishing historical ‘truths’. Traditional Papuan story-telling is founded on geographical locations –
sometimes like a long list of names of seemingly insignificant (for a European) place names, while a
European story will be based on events and actions tied to a time lime. It’s a way of thinking, brought
by the colonizers, that is part of the basis of modern government and economy and thus integrated
in the lives of today’s Papua New Guineans, side by side with their old stories.

The Western historicity is by many New Guineans perceived as something belonging to the church,
the administration and contact with Europeans and Australia. When I asked people of Cloudy Bay
about historic events, they eagerly told me the history of the Mission, or rather, the details of this
history that have been remembered. At coastal Domara they recently celebrated an anniversary for
the arrival of the SDA mission, which shows how the church is an active agent of this historicity4. At
Amau they keep stories of the arrival of the Kwato expedition in 1935. Their favourite story is how
missionary Cecil Abel convinced the Magistrate in Abau to spare the lives of two Keveri men charged
with murder5. Information on their roots, migration movements and relations to other groups is not
immediately perceived as historically important when asked by a Westerner.

The weakening of the old oral tradition is today a worry among Cloudy Bay villagers. Even essential
information about old peace agreements, dispute settlements and movements during migrations are
feared to be lost, and sometimes already have been.

When visiting the Keveri villages with the small

selection of photos by Hugo Bernatzik, I also had
in my bag I a copy of his adventurous book
‘South Seas’ which has a chapter on his Keveri
expedition. The photos were an immediate
magnet, and local chiefs and elders came around
to have a look and to share stories. Many took
time to read from Bernatzik’s book, and some
brought out their mobile phones to take pictures
of the photographs. When asked about the
possibility of bringing more photos, and having
more time to hear stories and take notes, the
response was unanimously positive among men
and women alike. One of my most interested
hosts was the present pastor at the Kwato
church at Amau.

Ukaudi chief Buri Darei and wife with a first

look at their old villages and their ancestors,
2014

4
Interestingly, they emphasize the SDA arrival more than the arrival of Christianity (with the LMS) some
decades earlier, and in this way the SDA has laid a claim on their Christianing that is not quite correct.
5
The two men were sentenced to death, but Cecil Abel, believing in the restoration of sinners, convinced the
Magistrate to send them to goal in Port Moresby instead.

11
 The Mountain People of the South-East
The Keveri (or Kevere) originate from the northern side of the Owen Stanley Range and their
language is related to their neighbouring groups, closest of which are the Baruga and Moikodi6.
Culturally they have much in common with most groups in Oro province, but since they have had
land on both sides of the range for centuries, they also share some customs with the groups on the

Dancing at Buyay village, 1933, Bernatzik, BP

southern side down toward the coast. Physically they are, in Williams’ words, a Papuan–Melanesian
mix and could easily be mistaken for being Orokaiva, the large group some distance farther to the
north.

Government representatives, missionaries and the authors mentioned in this paper have different
and inconsistent definitions of which groups and tribes should be called Keveri. Keveri is the name of
a mountain by the Keveri Valley, and its name was attached to this group of people by the
Europeans. The name was adopted and is now in use by many of the groups and clans in the area.
The three tribes7 from the Keveri valley, who speak the Bauwaki language, can be called the heart of
the group, but then the Dorevaidi and sometimes the groups around the Ibinamu, Adau, Domara and
Moni rivers – the tributaries that form the Musa River- can be included since they share most

6
The Bauwaki (along Adau river) and the Aneme-Weke (around Domara river) are both Non-Austronesian
languages, linking them to all the groups in the northern part of the province, and some of those to the north-
east.
7
The term tribe is difficult when talking about the groups of New Guinea, but in this area the people define
themselves as such. So while the Keveri can be called a group, Ukaudi is a tribe and Ariabura, i.e., is a clan.

12
customs and their languages are related. Early colonial reports and books by administrators and
missionaries call the mountain people of the Musa River basin Doriri8 or Keveri, all the way down to
the foothills. The notorious chief Iji, of this lower region, however, protested to the administrator
when called Doriri and Keveri, and told them that they live higher up9. As Williams, I will use the
Keveri term mostly for a wider group covering the whole mountain area between Cloudy Bay and the
Musa River, and when discussing the Keveri Valley itself this will be marked.

The area from Dyke Ackland bay in the north to Collingwood Bay in the south-east, with the Owen
Stanley Range flanking in the south-west, was for the whole 19th century, and possibly a long time
before, an area characterized by constant and violent tribal feuds and migrations. The feuds were
basically between clans, but sometimes groups would team together for raiding common enemies.
The migrations were often just small alterations, as when a clan moved closer to a friendly neighbour
or up to a hill top for better protection, or it could be whole, large groups of many clans moving over
long distances10.

Among these groups, the people of the Upper Musa were particularly feared enemies. Not only did
they have good hiding places in the (for most) inaccessible mountains, but they were also the most
notorious killers. Taking lives had become a central part in Keveri culture and tradition, more so than
in others’, shaping internal relations and bonds and defining manhood. The women would not marry
a man who hadn’t yet collected a ‘trophy’. There was a ritualized manner of killing where one man
strikes a person down, and his abesi - sometimes a boy, a debutante - finishes the job, or gives the
corpse some extra blows. The victims could be anyone from a particular enemy to a defenseless
woman of a rivaling group or clan.

In the first years after the Government Station at Tufi was established there were instances reported
where mountain groups snatched Maisin people from their gardens and hunting grounds in the
back11, and others where a bigger group of Upper Musa raiders would together attack a village, burn
it down, and kill as many of the villagers as they could12. Incidents like these resulted in punitive
expeditions and arrests. There were similar episodes around the Cloudy Bay area in the south.

Lives were also taken by sorcery, and fear of sorcery was, as in most New Guinea communities, a
significant presence in everyone’s lives. When a clan member had died the men would get together
and through divination find out who had caused the death. They would often arrive at someone from
another village, and/or clan or tribe, who would have killed through sorcery. Once the guilty party
was identified the men decided on how the revenge should be carried out, and this would often be
through their own sorcery practices. Poisoning through special plants and spells were common, and
also the method where you kill the victim (or get him in a state of coma), then re-awaken him or her
to suffer a slow death (see details in the FE Williams chapter below).

8
Doriri means mountain in many of the local languages, and most of the early Europeans mistook this for a
tribe’s name.
9
Manning, Monthly Report of the North-eastern Division, Oct 11th 1905
10
I.e. the Korafe who moved from the Lower Musa to Okeina areas near Gobe, then over the mountain
(Keroroa/Mt. Victory) to Collingwood Bay, and after several more movements ended up by the fjords of Tufi.
The Maisin of Collingwood Bay had a similar migration some time before the Korafe.
11
Monckton, 1921, pp.207
12
Manning, Annual Report for the North-Eastern Division, 1904/05

13
The written documentation that we have only gives a vague outline of how the tribes, clans and
villages were organized and led. Inter-marriages and affine ties to both parents’ sides made each
individual into a complex ‘micro-cosmos of relations’ (to use Marilyn Strathern’s phrase). Patrol
reports from the first decade after 1900 indicate that the Upper Musa was fragmented with many
small groups. Villagers would be relatively well-informed about others’ movements and
whereabouts, while at the same time they guarded their own interests and security meticulously.
The women were brave and strong, but the men had all the formal authority and land was inherited
through the male line. Marriages were generally arranged and when time was ready the wife was
brought to the husband’s village along with bride-price gifts to mark the event. Women stayed
around their villages only visiting close relatives while the men sometimes moved over large areas -
some of them would have seen the ocean both on the northern and southern coast.

Gardening and hunting were the main occupations of the mountain villagers. Their most important
crops were taro, yam, banana and sugarcane, but other crops such as breadfruit, pandanus and
beans were grown. Food could sometimes be scarce, and that would make them go to lower country
for hunting and for making sago. They grew betel nut for chewing, of course. They fenced their
gardens to keep out wild pigs – a time-consuming work – while domesticated pigs could walk around
freely in the hamlets and villages since they were blinded(!). The Keveri hunted wallabies, pigs,
cassowaries and smaller game for food, and for decorative purposes also other birds and cuscus. The
greater diversity of colourful birds in the
higher altitudes gave them feathers and
plumes for trading, while shells for
decorations was their most important
import from neighbours closer to the
coasts.

Feasting, with dancing and the villagers

dressing up in their finest plumes, was an
important part of Keveri life. They had feast
for the different stages of marriage and
bride-price exchanges; feasts when
someone had died; harvest feasts; and
feasts for bestowal of special, earned
decorations. The mortuary feasts would
have been the most important ones, and
the Keveri would surely have celebrated
successful raids as was the case with other
Oro groups13.

In the Keveri valley, and some places further

Elevated living in Buyay village,

Bernatzik, 1933, BP

13
Williams, who has listed different feasts, does not mentions initiation ceremonies for girls. We must assume,
however, that since these were of great importance all around Oro, as well as elsewhere in New Guinea, the
Keveri would have held such feasts too.

14
down towards the Musa, the villages were defensive dwellings. Many are referred to in reports as
located on steep hill tops, or they were surrounded by a succession of strong stockades. Houses
were also built high up in trees, supported by tall, slender trunks, as good look-outs and safe refuges.
According to the local fighting code one did not cut down an enemy’s house14 (though sometimes
they would burn whole villages!). Tree houses were still common in the high altitude villages in the
30s in combination with lower houses, and the building materials were the same as in all the
surrounding communities. Cooking was mostly done with a pile of hot stones, which were first
heated, before the wrapped food was placed in the pile, and then all was covered with banana leaves
– a very effective method.

The stories of the Keveri place their origin around the Domara and Adau Rivers and the area near the
Keveri Valley. From there each separate tribe or clan have their own migration stories. The Ukaudi,
for instance - one of the Keveri heartland tribes - zigzagged to the east and west through the last
centuries, up and down the valley and across the range down to Mori River. And then back!15 In the
north they would haves been affected by other tribes’ hostility and migrations, but this has not been
properly examined. The Keveri have claimed land rights on the southern slopes of the Owen Stanley
Range since the very early days, and it is possible that they have controlled the back of Cloudy Bay
for many centuries. The leading clan of the Domara people, now on the coast near the Mori River
estuary, migrated from Domara River in the north and didn’t stop to settle properly before reaching
the south coast beaches16. They have had settlements there since before the arrival of the
Europeans. The most substantial migration of the Keveri to the south, however, was triggered by the
Kwato Mission in the mid 1930s.

European contact

There might have been some contact between Keveri tribesmen and Europeans in the 1880s down in
Cloudy Bay as the first ships stopped by and Government and mission stations were established in
the vicinity. It is likewise possible that
wandering Keveri individuals might have
encountered William MacGregor, the
Governor, and his party in the middle reaches
of the Musa in 1895. In early 1897 gold
prospecting brothers Frank and Dan Pryke
went as far up as Moni River (as MacGregor)
where they found promising quantities of gold
and, of course, met with the local people17.
Shortly after the turn of the century a
government patrol, led by Captain Barton,
followed the Mori River up and then across

the divide to Dorevaidi. From here they Captain Barton’s party with villagers at
Dorevaidi, ca 1900, RAI
14
Chignell, An Outpost in Papua, p.319
15
This migration story was given to me by Ukaudi chief Buri Darei in September 2014. His story mentioned 14
times that the tribe had moved, giving me names and locations of all these villages, and sometimes the reasons
for their movements.
16
Domara elder Tena Ganua, personal communication, September, 2014.
17
Frank Pryke’s letters to his family, and his poems (!), have been researched by H.N.Nelson (1978)

15
continued to the Keveri Valley, and then followed the Godoguina River back to the southern coast.
This would have been the first ‘official’ contact between the government and the Keveri. 18

In 1902 the Pryke’s came back and made it all the way up to the Keveri Valley, and here they found
workable amounts of gold. Over the next three years they travelled up and down between the valley
and the coast many times, and they also attracted other fortune seekers. At the most there were 15
miners and around a hundred labourers working the gold in the valley. Most of the labourers were
from the Milne Bay coast, but some were also recruited locally. The miners were mostly on good
terms with the Keveri, but Frank Pryke commented on their internal feuds, and after some time there
were several episodes where labourers (running away from their employers) were killed. By 1905 the
gold washing activity was already in decline, but there was one miner still staying there in 1940.

The most important contact with Europeans was with the government. Coastal tribes and clans that
had suffered from Keveri attacks sent complaints to the Government Stations at Cape Nelson and
Abau, and from there patrols, and sometimes larger penal expeditions, were sent out to capture
those responsible for raids and killings19. Many Keveri men served time in the Port Moresby and
Samarai prisons, often several years. This is why some men met by Berantzik and Williams could
communicate in Motu or English, and this is how some of them came in touch with the Kwato
Mission.

Hugo Bernatzik
In the Keveri villages of Cloudy Bay Hugo Bernatzik met with just the
sort of setting he was hoping to find. Here were communities where
the Western world of government, Christianity and plantations had yet
had little or no apparent impact. He saw stone tools at work; some
lived in tree houses; widows were still dressing in their special
mourning garments; and he was told stories of recent raiding
ventures. This was in 1933, just two years prior to the Kwato
expedition.

Bernatzik was most of all an experienced and highly skilled

www
photographer, having travelled in many areas of Europe and Africa, always with state-of-the-art
camera gear ready at hand. He enjoyed travelling ’rough’ both on land and at sea, not shunning local
transportation, primitive sleeping quarters or local food. As a writer Bernatzik often addressed a
wide readership but he also developed an academic ambition in the field of ethnography. Before
starting his South Sea expedition he was given a Doctorate in this discipline, and he would
continuously through his career strive to be acknowledged as a scholar. He still continued writing for

18
Captain Barton was at the time Commander of the Armed Native Constabulary, and was joined on this patrol
by the governor’s private secretary Guy O. Manning. They were both excellent and historically important
photographers, but took only a small number of photos on this patrol.
19
Before the establishment of Abau Staion in Cloudy Bay in 1913 the officer at Rigo, between the bay and Port
Moresby, handled this area. F. Pryke complains of such a visit when constables and a ‘mob of carriers’, led by A.
English, were emptying the local gardens, then only to arrest the wrong people.

16
a popular literary market, trying to combine the adventurous with the scientific. His theoretical
approach was conservative, where as an outspoken evolutionist he was concerned with
classifications of ethnic groups and was constantly in search of evolutionary remnants of ancient
humanity. This turned out to be a disadvantage in his relation with the academic community.

While conservative in theory he was an excellent observer in the field, always seeking and enjoying
closeness to the peoples he visited. Since he was looking for comparative material he set out on
expeditions with several stops rather than prolonged stays at one place as had by then become the
norm within ethnographic fieldwork. His style of travelling was not as formal as many earlier
expeditions20, however, but his choice of fairly brief stays naturally limited his collected information
at each place.

In New Guinea Bernatzik first met with ‘untouched’ communities around Benabena in the Highlands,
where he arrived shortly after the famous Leahy brothers. He was the first trained ethnographer, and
the first trained photographer, to visit a group in the New Guinea Highlands and he produced his own
genuine ‘first-contact’ album after joining a kiap on an exploratory patrol. Before reaching Cloudy
Bay he then made stops at several coastal villages where he took notes and photographed village life,
portraits and dances. Here he witnessed all degrees of Western influence: fabric lap-laps and dresses;
modern tools; Christianty, etc. When taking photos at these locations Bernatzik often instructed his
subjects not to wear any Western clothes or decorations, so that he could achieve the authenticity
he was looking for21. He wanted original pre-contact images and stories since his aim was to record
cultures and traditions before they were lost.

Trekking toward the Keveri villages through the forests of Cloudy Bay, Bernatzik saw how
Westernization
gradually faded and
he could again use
his camera without
such preparations.
Photography could
still be difficult due
to the weather and
poor lighting. Cloudy
Bay can be a dark
place, and an

Dancing at
Mailu Island,1933.
Bernatzik, BP

20
I.e. like the Hamburg Südsee Expedition in 1906 and the American J. N. Field South Pacific Expedition, 1909-
13), typically carried out in large, white ships and with a party of well-dressed ‘whitemen’ formally approaching
the natives, while Bernatzik was by himself with the local people and even sailed long stretches with local
vessels.
21
Photos from Gaire village by medical doctor SM Lambert in 1920 show dancers with Western skirts, lap-laps
and trousers, while Bernatzik’s Gaire dancers – 13 years later - are all in traditional dress.

17
unpredictable place: his stay had its dramas with torrential rains, roaring rivers to cross, etc. He also
had to leave most of his carriers halfway up the valley because they were scared stiff just by the
thought of the Keveri tribes, so he only travelled with a very small group of natives and with minimal
gear and supplies. This suited Bernatzik’s adventurous mind perfectly – romantic ideas of exploring in
an exotic, wild terrain among cannibalistic savages was another trait of his time that coloured his
work both as a photographer and writer.

Writing wasn’t his main past-time on

this particular visit, and the
ethnographic value of his published
texts is limited. The Keveri chapter in
his popular South Sea book is more
about his travelling and
‘adventures’, than about the people
he encountered. On other journeys,
particularly to the Mergui
Archipelago of Burma some years
later, he produced written
documentation that was far more
thorough, and has been of great
value for successive researchers22.
There he described ceremonies and
exchanges and took notes on their
oral stories. He also published an
ethnology, Owa Raha, on the people
of this small island in the Solomons
which he visited just before arriving
in Papua. Most of all he is credited
for drawing attention to a number of
marginal groups, such as the Lao and
Meo on today’s Laos-Vietnamese
border and the Moken and Mlabri of
Burma.
Portrait of Makala villager, Bernatzik, 1933, BP
In his photography from both Africa,
Asia and Oceania Bernatzik always focused on people. In his first major publication on a non-
European culture, Gari Gari about the people of Nubia, 60 of his 75 photos are of people. They are
portraits and show activities, etc; only four illustrations show villages and there are no landscapes.
Some of his photographs followed the established stereotypes of exotic imagery: extravagant or
bizarre decorations, bare-breasted girls and women, etc, but most typically his photos managed to
catch the individual. Nordström has commented on how they show “the human side to his subjects
that evoke as much as they specifically inform, and it is these pictures that resonate most strongly
with our current sensibilities.”23 This blending of the popular and the scientific - the factual with the

22
Jacques Ivanoff, 2003
23
Nordström, 2003, p.47

18
personal - combined with his outstanding technical skills gives Bernatzik’s photography a special and
appealing signature. His skill is particularly pronounced in his captures of movement, which can be
seen in his fishing series from the Solomons and Burma, and in the numerous dancing images from all
location. His whole register as a photographer can be seen in the Keveri photographs.

The Abel’s and the Kwato Mission

When the Kwato Mission entered the Amau and Mori River valleys in
Cloudy Bay they were at their height as a mission, having developed
slowly over a period of forty years. It was Charles Abel of London
Missionary Society (LMS) who in 1890 was given the task and the
challenge to build a mission station on Kwato Island, and from there
spread Christianity to the south-eastern tip of New Guinea and the
islands around. His energy and practical intelligence was to result in a
most successful mission project – a small mission, but one receiving a
www lot of attention. When the Abel’s started their work the people of the
Milne Bay area were all frequently engaged in tribal feuds, and sorcery
Charles Abel and cannibalism were characteristic elements of their culture. They
were also traders and craftsmen (and women), and they had proud traditions of rituals, story-telling
and dancing. Abel showed an interest for his new neighbours, and like several other early
missionaries he combined his religious work with writing about the people that he encountered in
the early years. He wrote an ethnographic monograph on the people of Logea Island right next to
Kwato (1890s), and then an educational book for young British readers titled Savage Life in New
Guinea (1901). In this his description is given to support the mission project and his ethnographic
information stresses their ‘superstitions’ and what he saw as barbarian.
Charles Abel, and his wife Beatrice, who accompanied him after a short while, set out on their
missionary tasks with enthusiasm and energy and with great determination they urged their
candidates to abandon most of their old ways and replacing them with Christian virtues, routines,
ceremonies and beliefs. They saw a connection between almost all the native’s activities and their
sorcery, killing and cannibalistic practices, and this was an argument for abolishing all ‘evil ways’. As
the Kwato station slowly grew and took shape with buildings, school, workshop and sports field, they
were more and more
successful in their mission
work. There were ups and
downs, often for financial
reasons, but Kwato soon
had a reputation far
outside mission circles for
being a model community,
receiving praise from the
Governor and other
expatriates, and also
attracting many natives.

19
Later even visiting anthropologists such as Wedgwood and Hogbin, commented positively on some of
the achievements of Charles Abel.

By educating young villagers, having them stay full time at Kwato, Abel gradually built a staff of local
evangelists and assistants. Long sessions where he gave private instructions and discussed religious
matters with the candidates were an important part of the training. Missionary out-stations were
established at several villages such as Waga Waga and Suau, and in these the daily routines of prayer
meetings were introduced and order and cleanliness was promoted in every way. His introduction of
cricket, with an oval built on Kwato island, became an iconic feature of the Mission. Abel’s belief in
sports as a remedy against idleness and a substitute for discarded activities was shared by both
Governor Murray and by FE Williams.

There were, however, critical voices, and some came from within the LMS. Abel had put great
emphasize on sports and industry (carpentry, sewing, printing etc.) as arenas where the converts
could use their energy, replacing the old feasts and raiding. The latter, the industry, was difficult for
the LMS to relate to, since this was understood to be a possible path into the corrupting ways of
business. Most held the view that a mission should evangelize and nothing else. Schools and health
services were of course in tune with this in everyone’s eyes, but building boats (for sale) and selling
copra to finance the growth of the mission, as was done at Kwato, was unacceptable to many
influential LMS leaders.

The other point of criticism was Kwato’s strategy of ‘adopting’ boys and girls from their villages and
keeping them for years at the mission, cutting them off completely from their traditional lives and
their families. This spartanesque practice was stricter than any other mission in the colony, but while
there were many critical comments, most visitors to Kwato reported with enthusiasm on how the
natives managed tasks and projects that most other colonists would have doubted. Abel believed,
and proved, that the natives could be great craftsmen, sailors, work leaders, teachers and, most
importantly, evangelists.
Although he was skeptical to
the locals’ ability to progress
and develop without white
leadership, he was a most
important counter weight to
the bulk of planters,
administrators and other
Europeans who were
notoriously negative about the
Papuans’ abilities. At Samarai
Abel met with the attitudes of
planters and administrators, as
well as with those of the rough
crowd of miners, who wasted
their earnings in the bars of
the small town. As a flag-
bearer for Christian
humanism, protecting the Cecil Abel and leaders in Keveri Valley, 1935, KMT

20
natives from immoral and evil European influence was one of his main concerns.

Despite their diverging views on important issues, the LMS continued to support Kwato for a long
time since it was the most successful of all their mission stations in the colony. Finally it came to a
break in 1927, when Abel had found new sponsors in Britain, and particularly in the USA. By this time
Kwato had out-stations in several villages around Milne Bay, on the islands near Kwato and Samarai,
and around Suau by the South Cape. They were aware of the particularly heathen groups of people
straddling the Owen Stanley Range at the Dorevaidi and Keveri Valleys, and this they regarded as an
inviting and challenging ground for mission initiatives.

After Charles Abel’s death in 1930 his sons and his daughter took over the running of the mission.
Before the expedition to Cloudy Bay, Cecil, the elder brother, had studied in England, where he had
come in contact with the reviving Christian movement called the Oxford Group. Their views
corresponded well with what Charles Abel had prophesized in Papua, and this brought new
enthusiasm into the activities of Kwato. Armed with new energy Cecil Abel, along with native
evangelist Philip, two women and five more men of the native Kwato staff (plus a few carriers)
marched from the coast into the Cloudy Bay inlands. They reached all the way across the watershed
to the Dorevaidi villages and to the Keveri valley on a mission expedition that turned out more
successful than they could have dreamt of.

In the following year the local converts continued to contact other villages to make them follow the
New Way. Six Dorevaidi and Keveri leaders spent time at Kwato for schooling. These men were
followed up by Philip who returned with a team of three more native evangelists, and then Russell
Abel joined them. Some months later they returned for another visit, and to hold a big meeting
which they called the ‘Domara Conference’. This is where they became aware of the tremendous
success and impact of their mission work among the Keveri.

Over the following decade the Kwato Mission’s work spread over to the Musa Basin, but they didn’t
manage to keep up their work over such a widespread area. Today Kwato is a small but well
established church around Milne Bay and around Amau in Cloudy Bay, while other denominations
are dominant in some of
their former areas.

Although Charles Abel’s

skepticism of the
Papuan’s ‘barbarianism’
stayed and was even
strengthened over time,
he kept his faith in their
abilities. This trust was
carried on and developed
by his sons while the
world around was
becoming harsher on
racial issues. The 1930s
was a time of strong racial
debate in the Western From Kwato Mission Tidings, with a characteristic caption

21
world: in Germany Nazi philosophy was on the rise and in the USA the influence of the Ku Klux Klan
was at its peak, both finding support in ‘scientific’ publications and misinterpreted Darwinism.
Australia was a country of ‘White Australia’ legislation and the institutionalized kidnappings of half-
cast children, and then there were strongly opposed, ethnically charged opinions about the course of
the Mandated Territory of New Guinea for which Australia had taken over the responsibility. On this
matter the missions were the strong defenders of the humanitarian principles outlined by the League
of Nations.24

Cecil Abel later played a most important role in Papua New Guinea’s preparations for independence.
Giving political science classes at the Port Moresby college, with Michael Somare and other later
prominences among his students, and as a key policy-maker for the Pangu Pati, he spoke for the
rights of the people and for equal economic distribution. Part of the Abel family still live in PNG
where they have been, and still are, engaged in economic activity and development programs,
including cultural activities. The Kwato Mission founder’s great grandson and name-sake is presently
a Minister in the government.

F. E. Williams
Since Francis E Willams, as the appointed government anthropologist, did fieldwork in Australian-
ruled Papua for almost twenty years he holds a special position in this country which has attracted so
many anthropologists. His study of the Keveri was the last major report that he wrote, but due to the
circumstances it was one very different from all the others. His aim was always to describe the old
cultures and traditions, but in the Cloudy Bay hinterland that turned out impossible, so instead his
report became mostly an investigation into cultural change, and it became his strongest critical
statement on the missions.

Besides Williams’ monographs, which were based on long

stays in different regions (sometimes several stays with some
years in between) he also wrote a large number of reports
concerning cultural and anthropological matters which the
Governor had asked for. This is what brought him to Cloudy
Bay once in 1927 (to Sigili, Bam and Ukaudi villages) and to the
same area in 1935. The second trip was with the specific
mission of finding a connection between numerous killings and
homicidal emblems (particularly hornbill tail feathers). Besides
finding out that this connection was not so obvious, he learned
that the people up in the Keveri Valley were holding on to their
old ways even more than the groups he had visited. He
therefore made plans for a return to make a proper study. F.E. Williams YC

The Australian Williams got his scholarly training at Oxford, studying under the distinguished
professor Marett. In ethnographic theory and fieldwork approach Williams was influenced by the ‘old

24
Christine Weir, 2008, p.283-303

22
school’ of Haddon, Seligman and MacDougall, but also, and more so as time passed, by the
functionalism of Malinowski. From his long-term position in the field, however, unattached to any
academic institution, he most of all developed his own individual mix of theories, based on his
experiences among the different Papuan groups. He gave special attention to ceremonial life and he
always reported in detail on material culture. Important in a theoretical perspective was his criticism
of Malinowski for not seeing that some cultural practices can be altered or abolished without causing
a total cultural breakdown, a statement that Williams could back up with many examples from his
own research. His belief in adaptability would, however, have been shaken when he made it up to
the Keveri valley, and this must have triggered his closer analyses of the seemingly total turn-around.

Of Williams’ other work his long monographs and reports on the Orokaiva people of the North-east
Division (today’s Oro province) and his monumental ‘Drama of Orokolo’ in which he gives a detailed
and learned rendering of the months-long Evehe feasts on the coast of the Gulf region, stand out. His
visit and reports from around Lake Kutubu and the neighbouring ‘grasslands’ area also make him an
important pioneer in the Highlands.

Among many groups he was the first to carry out intensive ethnographic research, and succeeding
researchers have complimented his work for the validity of his information and his keen eye for
finding important and special social and cultural features in the groups he visited.25 Williams’ position
as a government officer was an advantage in many ways – mostly practical - but could also be a
disadvantage in his research. When Joshua Bell
brought Williams’ Purari Delta photos back to
their place of origin, 80 years after they were
taken, he was told stories that had not been
given to Williams during his relatively long stay.26
We can assume that his official status as a
government representative would have affected
people’s attitude to him, and that this at times
could, despite his friendly nature, have kept
stories and information hidden.

On most locations Williams brought his camera

and some of his publications are illustrated with
his excellent photographs. Together with his
anthropological surveys these photos make up a
particularly valuable resource, both for the native
communities and for researchers.27 He took more
than 2000 photographs from many corners of
Papua, and at some locations he was the first to
bring a camera. His photos covered most themes:
villages and physical culture, crafts, domestic
activities, ceremonies, decorations and people.
His captures are often, as with Bernatzik, natural
Williams took many beautiful portraits in the
25
See i.e. in Schwimmer, 1973 Southern Highlands in 1939, YC
26
Bell, 2008
27
FE Williams PNG photos are listed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register for Asia/Pacific

23
and un-posed, and his portraits often depict character of the individuals more than the strict and
anonymous ‘physical types’ images that were still common with other photographers.

Sadly, during his Keveri visit in 1940 he did not take photographs, possibly a reaction to the
disappointing, poorly
westernized appearance
of the people he met.
On his two previous
visits he had taken some
photographs, but these
were with few
exceptions very posed,
and certainly not among
his best. In the present
context, Williams’
contribution as a
researcher and writer is
the most important, and
I will show how his work
grows in importance
when combined with
the reports of the Abel From the Hevehe feast, Orokolo, 1932 , Williams, NAA
brothers and with
Bernatzik’s photographs.

Three Presentations of the Keveri

Although both Williams and Bernatzik held ethnographic degrees their writing and photography from
the Keveri area is fundamentally different. We thus have three presentations that focus on different
aspects of the people they visited and from different points of view. Seen together they reveal some
of the shortcomings of each presentation, but most of all they complement each other. In short we
can say that Bernatzik’s writing from the area is a popular and adventurous narrative of his visit,
spiced with some interesting ethnographic information, while his photographs clearly aim for
ethnographic meaning. The Abel’s articles in the Kwato Mission Tidings describe the historic mission
expedition and the following evangelizing development in a typical missionary style, and the
photographs picked for publishing are generally illustrations to the text, focusing on mission themes
such as ‘the missionary and the heathen’, village prayer meetings, and the ‘savage’ before-and-after
conversion, supporting the reports from the visits. FE Williams’ text has a general ethnographic
introduction, then detailed information on some traditional practices and finally - the longest part -
on the ‘new life’ with some comparisons with old ways. In an ethnographic perspective it is
important to note that in both Bernatzik’s and the Abels’ writing there is information that
supplements the more detailed account of Williams.

24
 Berantzik’s ‘South Sea’ and photo albums

Bernatzik’s narrative of his adventurous expedition fitted into the well-established genre of generally
informative, but most of all entertaining travel and exploring literature of his time with a focus on
dramatic events and exotic encounters. Most of the Keveri chapter in South Seas is devoted to the
journey up into the mountain villages, finally reaching the watershed, and the trek back down to the
coast. These give the readers a vivid picture of the rainforest, of the roaring rivers, the birdlife, the
plague of fleas, lice and leaches, and the rain that kept him soaked throughout his stay. He was
obviously captured by the beauty of the forest and the country they passed through, and he
describes the impressive view over the Keveri Valley from the ridge. He only took a few photos of
forests and views (and no
rivers!), and, somewhat
surprisingly for one who had
published books on European
bird life, there is not one photo
of birds. The lek display of the
Birds of Paradise that he
describes in the chapter would
have been difficult to catch with
the camera, but as both
hornbills and Crowned Pigeons
were plentiful – and certainly
exotic - one would have
expected an interest in
Mountain hamlet, 1933, Bernatzik, BP
photographing them.

There were some obvious disadvantages for Bernatzik regarding his collecting of ethnographic
material at Cloudy Bay, and this can explain some of the misunderstandings and shortcomings in his
text. It is furthermore unfortunate that he never worked his notes from the area into a proper article
or report, so we can’t be sure of what information he didn’t find suitable for his popular presentation
and which has not been published elsewhere. The genre of his book also explains, and to some
extent excuses, some of the popular expressions and ‘colourful’ descriptions he has chosen. Calling
the Keveri ‘head hunters’, for instance, is certainly not correct, a fact which he was well aware of.

His visit was relatively short. Some villages he only passed briefly and some of his comments show
that this caused him to miss important points. He writes i.e. that the villagers of coastal Domara,
where his expedition started, were Mailu people (they speak Mailu language) while they were
actually a complicated mix of coastal clans of different origin, of Mailu islanders, and with the leading
clan, the Dunari, having migrated from the Domara River at Upper Musa. The Dunari clan thus have
much common history and traditions with the Keveri.

Bernatzik only devoted one short paragraph in his book to Domara, while his album has as many as
40 photos from here. These show mostly canoes of different types and houses, with special attention
given to the animal totem carvings pointing from their roofs. Two photos show a man with a fishing
net.

25
Only four pages are devoted to the culture of the people he met with in the foothill and mountain
villages, but here he has managed to give a reasonably inclusive summary. The hamlets he passed or
stayed at were all small, with two to six houses. Koraudi, where he stayed for several days had eight
houses, making it the largest of the settlements. He makes note of the central role of killing among
the Keveri, from which he – somewhat incorrectly – assumes that there was hardly any contact
between villages and hamlets. His comments on their language are also based on vague assumptions.

Some information found in Bernatzik’s book is not mentioned in Williams’ study: we learn that the
aya braids were smeared with charcoal dust and honey, which is why it kept parasites away; widows
carried the hair and the ornaments of their husbands in a bass belt round their bodies; their dances
were imitations of animals and war dances; incestuous relations were not uncommon, which he
connected with the high prevalence of degeneracy that he observed. In his cultural description he
compares the Keveri with the Benabena people of the Eastern Highlands, where he visited just a few
weeks before, but not unexpectedly these presumptions have not stood the test of time28.

During his stay he did not

visit their gardens, and
he had no opportunity to
describe or photograph
their hunting practices.
He did however, quite by
chance, experience a
traditional feast with
visitors from several
hamlets dressing up in
their plumes and
performing a number of
dances. While in villages
on the coast he had
‘ordered’ dancing for the

Cooking in a pile of hot stones, Makala village, 1933, Bernatzik, BP purpose of taking
photographs, here he
witnessed a perfectly genuine feast. To his jubilant satisfaction the clouds even opened up for some
hours, giving good light for his cameras.

The disappearance of the Keveri’s decorations and the abrupt ending of their dancing just a couple of
years later, make Bernatzik’s photos from the Buyay village feast particularly unique. That they are
also photographed with great technical and artistic skill make them special among all historical
photos from New Guinea.

Bernatzik’s spent much time with his camera in the villages of Makala and ‘inland Domara’ near
today’s district headquarters at Moreguina, at Koraudi further up the Mori River, and finally Buyay
village high up along the mountain track. The images cover close-up and full figure portraits; people
in activity; village scenes and buildings; costumes and dancing. An unusual feature is a series of men

28
In 1933 no one had yet an understanding of the Highland cultures, and Bernatzik’s assumption of some
continuity between mountain tribes and peoples over long distances was certainly optimistic.

26
and women, individually walking past the camera, showing well – as with the dancing scenes – how
movement could be captured with the camera gear of the 1930s.

Tree-houses had by
this time become a
feature of the past in
south-east New
Guinea, but in these
more remote areas
they were still a
natural part of the
village layout. From
different angles
Bernatzik took many
photos of towering
dwellings balancing on
a forest of slender
trunks, and then also

A Makala widow (left, BP) and two widows of the Middle Musa area (by catching their
Manning, ML), all carrying their husband’s hair and belongingings interiors. Here
around their bodies. villagers sitting by the
small fireplace turned
their heads away from the flash, and Bernatzik made sure to include the storage spaces under the
ceiling above his sitters within his frame.

At inland Domara a series of photos capture the process of cooking. One of the women engaged in
this is a widow, and she is also photographed in full figure portraits from several angles, showing her
hood and the bundle around her waist and bosom where she kept the memorabilia of her deceased
husband. This is where we can make an interesting comparison with photos taken by Guy O Manning
in the Middle Musa thirty years earlier where we see widows in similar dress. The Musa people have
never received ethnographic attention, but the photos reveal traditional ties between the Keveri and
the people of the river basin. Similarly, the hornbill beak headdresses are almost identical to those of
the groups of the northern coast. Some other headdresses, by contrast, are strikingly similar to those

Keveri Korafe (ML) Keveri Kerepuna

Hornbill headdresses like those around Oro, and others like the peoples’ of the southern coast.

27
of the southern coast. Since these decorations have never been described in detail the photographs
are our only evidence for these connections.

Bernatzik, like other photographers with a scientific agenda, took photos showing the physical
characteristics of different groups. He preferred natural backgrounds as opposed to blank ones and
he often photographed at a 45 degree angle instead of a straight side view (see image p.18 ). His
portraits here, as with those from his other travels, stand out in that they depict personality more
than physical features.

The photos from the feast at Buyay show both vistors arriving, decorating preparations, studies of
fully decorated men and of the actual dancing. The variety of decorations – shells, tapa cloth, clubs,
feathers in all shapes and sizes - make a particular impression and the backgrounds with people
involved in other activities verifies the
authenticity of the event.

For his books Bernatzik naturally made a

selection of photos centered on the exotic.
Interestingly, he cropped almost all his
photos for publication, drawing the
attention even closer to the people29. The
photos support the texts well, but are for
the most part not specifically tied to the
narrative. The South Sea chapter must all in
all not be seen as an ethnographic report,
but it does hold some interesting
information. In the ambitious Die Grosse
Völkerkunde – which Bernatzik co-edited -
there are no specific comments on the
Keveri, but some of his photos from the
area appear in the Oceanic chapter.

But how ‘untouched’ were the Koraudi and

Dorevaidi groups with which he stayed.

Woman arriving at the Buyay feast, 1933, Bernatzik refers to a chief who could help
Bernatzik, BP him with interpretations: he knew English
because he had spent several years in Port
Moresby prisons. This and other circumstances concerning the strain between old and new times
might have been hidden for Bernatzik by the villagers’ enthusiasm for the visit of an interesting,
interested and likable European.

Bernatzik’s contribution for this area is consequently most of all a visual one. His photographs are
professional and unique. Taken at a time with special cultural developments just around the corner,
they are of particular value for the Keveri of today.

29
As opposed to Malinowski, for instance, who insisted on always including the surroundings for context.

28
 Cecil and Russell Abel and the Kwato Mission Tidings

The articles by the Abel brothers in the Kwato Mission Tidings were most of all aimed at a readership
of fellow Christians and supporters of the mission in England, Australia and America, not the least
those who helped finance their activities. They would certainly also have seen their articles as a
narrative record of their activities. Cecil wrote of the expedition he led in 1935, and then in his
absence the following year, Russell wrote about his two visits to Cloudy Bay.

They both devoted quite some space to describing their journeys - sailing and trekking - naturally
expecting this daring and adventurous aspect of their work to be in their readers’ interest. Their
boats were described as well as the content of their packs when going inland. The native evangelists,
crew and carriers that accompanied them were always commented on with compliments, and most
of them were named.

Cecil’s rendering of the historic expedition follows their movements day by day. We hear how they
are met by Biruma in the first inland village, and already on this first day the villagers’ eagerness to
give up their ‘old evil ways’ is commented on. Important clansmen, chiefs and others are mentioned

by names, and Cecil, who had brought a camera, took photos of many of these men. The old Amau
chief Belei, crippled from fighting, was the first to be honored thus. At each village the evangelists
gave witness on their Christian experience and conversion for the villagers and this makes up an
important part of the article. Bringing some women from Kwato’s native staff proved to be of special
importance. Alice, the most experienced of these, was reported to have had particularly attentive
listeners as she addressed the local women about not making killing a condition for marriage.

29
They had not planned to walk all the way across the
range, but an invitation from Dorevaidi made them
continue and the full-day climb up steep paths
through mossy rainforest is vividly described. After
some days of more hospitality and evangelizing at
Dorevaidi they continued yet another day’s march
to the hamlets of the Keveri Valley. Here the people
were somewhat more reserved toward the
newcomers, but Cecil also describes this stop as
successful.

The older brother’s article ends, after describing the

journey back to the coast, with a typical expression
of gratitude: “We think of God’s wonderful
unending goodness in bringing us back – no, not
that – rather in letting us be the first messengers of
His great Good News to these hungry, needy
people.” No doubt they were not only happy for
their successful evangelizing, but also relieved to have met with such friendliness and hospitality
among the feared, ‘murderous’ Keveri.

As a result of the expedition, six leaders from the district came down to Kwato to learn more of the
way of Christ, and to prepare for spreading the word among the other villages in the back of Cloudy
Bay. This is also described in the Tidings30, with special mention of the Keveri groups’ visit to Sariba
Island – next to Samarai and Kwato – where they all enthusiastically experienced the meeting with
new peoples in an atmosphere of friendliness, hospitality and sharing.

With Cecil in England it was Russell who the following year returned to Cloudy Bay for two visits. First
he visited Duram Island, Dou and Amau along with some of the Kwato staff that had taken part in the
expedition, like Philip and Mary. At Duram, where the mission had already placed an evangelist,
Davida, and started a school, they felt quite a bit of tension with the local community. Russell is quite
black-and-white in his description of those who follow the’ heathen ways’ and those who follow the
path of the mission, calling the men of Duram ‘the most awful skinflints on earth’, the people
described as dirty and quarrelsome, and the buildings in a poor state. The Christians on the other
hand had short-cut hair – this was always stressed a civilised look – and “a picture of everything that
is different : clean, tidy, sincere, no heathen pasa or loud cheeky ways.”31 He used the Duram
‘heathens’ for comparison throughout the article - a before-and-after-the-mission description which
was typical for many missionary presentations at the time.

During their three days stay at Amau this experience of polarization became even more pronounced
in the eyes of the Kwato party. Here they were met with the warmest hospitality and they found that
the daily routines of the village were already following the mission’s formula with bath and prayer in
the morning, then after the days chores an afternoon bath, more prayers and then dinner. The team

30
This is first described in ‘Postscript’, KMT no.40 by Russell Abel, and then in ‘When the Chiefs Returned
Home’, KMT no.41 by the evangelist Davida.
31
KMT no. 41

30
was thoroughly overwhelmed by the success of their efforts. The Kwato women, Alice and Martha,
gathered the children for reading lessons, and they found their young students quick and intelligent,
remembering everything they were taught and told till the next day.

As the only one of the writers discussed here Russell Abel gives us a good description of the local
cooking tradition. The women heat stones over a fire for twenty minutes and then gather them in a
pile in which they place the wrapped food. This is done on flat ground, as opposed to the mumu,
which is used in other areas of New Guinea and the Pacific, where a hole is dug for the stones. He
describes how the women look after the cooking underways and he is superlative about the tasteful
result.

He also makes two comments on homicidal emblems: first some elaborate notches on their
‘murderous-looking’ spears, and then the long dunari strings of shell, that the men wore from their
head down over their shoulders as an ornament. Among the Keveri, where taking lives was such an
integrated feature in their social life, it was difficult to define which objects and decorations were
actually homicidal emblems and which were not. There was also a tendency among all Europeans to
put this label on far more objects than was right, and it was a popular reference to make for readers
back home. It is not clear to what extent Abel’s assumptions here were correct.

Later the same year Russell Abel returned for what he named “the Domara Conference”. To find out
how the six local leaders had accomplished the spreading of the word after their training at Kwato,
they had decided to meet at inland Domara village on the Mori River. It turned out a festival-like
week with hundreds of people from many villages around. Some had walked for many days to take
part. Many women came along, mostly to take care of the cooking during the gathering, but many of
them were also involved in the spiritual activities. Two women took some days off to go into the
forest to give birth!

31
As well as seeing how the interest had spread, the missionaries could witness how several took the
steps from doubt to embracing the New Way during their week-long stay. For Russell Abel and his
Kwato party this was above all expectations and an exhilarating mission experience as good as it can
get. There were not only words of conversion spoken but also the discarding of charms, tokens and
decorations. Although the Abel’s have emphasized that the leaving of old traditions were always the
natives’ own choice after they had chosen the Christian path, his jubilant reaction after the
conference shows the conviction that he and his staff brought and transmitted to the villagers: “We
saw the light of discovery in their faces. We saw them getting their first experience of real guidance.
We saw them giving up old ways, throwing away old heathen things, because God had told them
to.32”

What they also witnessed was how groups from many different villages, who just a year before
wouldn’t have come near each other, now came together in a friendly, hospitable and cheerful
manner. The Domara gardens were opened to past-time enemies and all shared in a combined

The new Amau village, KMT

traditional-Christian way.

In his writing Abel again paints a harsh contrast between the new converts and those they met with
who were not. These were described as not only filthy with long, horny pigtails, but also as grim,
cruel murderers “with hard wolfish expressions on their faces,”33 while the setting and atmosphere
around the Christians was described with pastoral bush strokes. We see how the polarizing of the
before-and-after conversion is a favourite device in Russell Abel’s writing.

32
KMT no.42, p.6
33
KMT no.42, p.5

32
The photographs taken in the area published in the Kwato Mission Tidings are, we can assume, from
Cecil Abel’s camera, and thus taken during the expedition itself. The articles are also illustrated with
some photos from Kwato Island mission station. The photograph of Cecil Abel himself talking with
three Keveri man is monumental in the missionary perspective, and so are the captures of the first
prayer meetings at Koraudi and in one of the Keveri Valley hamlets. There are also some photos of
village life; a family in their shelter, a man making a bracelet, etc. The whereabouts of Cecil Abel’s
photos is unfortunately not known. The ones shown here are thus copies from the small-sized
journals. A couple have been sent to me by Elizabeth Abel, Russell Abel’s daughter.

All in all, the articles about the Cloudy Bay expedition and its outcome give an important view of
events that are of the greatest interest for today’s Keveri people. It is, however, important to see
them in light of and in combination with other sources.

F.E. Williams and Mission Influence Amongst the Keveri

While Hugo Bernatzik found just what he was looking for in hills behind Cloudy Bay, FE Williams had
the opposite experience. For his last major work he would experience his greatest disappointment.
His expectations of doing work on a group resisting ‘assimilation’ to colonial realities, and specifically
the split sex-affiliation of boys and girls which he had observed just briefly here during his two
previous but short visits, was not longer possible due to the surprisingly rapid and almost total
change in the everyday life that he witnessed. What he managed to record were some general
ethnographic information and some more detailed observations on homicidal emblems and former
sorcery practices. The greatest part of his study deals with the conversion and of the new life of the
Keveri, in light of what they had left
behind. Although his
disappointment hovers as a dark
cloud over the presentation, it has
significant importance since it is the
first anthropological report bringing
up the topic of rapid response to
missionary activity in PNG, as well as
being the first, and only, to describe
traditional Keveri culture.

During this stay he spent most of his

time up in the Keveri valley, in a
newly built hamlet called Ekeiu, and
his part on traditional Keveri life is
mostly based on information from
there, combined with material he
collected during his previous visits.
His ‘new life’ observations are

From Bam village on the

Robinson River, Williams, NAA

33
mostly from in and around Amau village.

On traditional life Williams stresses the central role of killing, and he comments in some detail on
marriage customs and on the typical aya braids worn by the men. He describes the houses in Ekeiu as
poorly built, and that the abandoned villages nearby actually looked better. Everyday activities such
as gardening, the keeping of pigs and hunting are briefly described. On gardening he observes that
the communal effort in clearing large gardens and building fences starts off with magic spells
performed by a garden magician. Hunting was mainly with spears for the larger game, while an
interesting technique of catching birds with bag-shaped nets is described.

The social organization of the three Keveri Hills tribes was based on a large number of small groups,
kigia, loosely founded on mythical ancestry. Williams regrets that he couldn’t find more detailed
information on these complicated relations. He furthermore touches on their linguistic relations with
neighbouring groups. Since no one has studied these communities since his visit, we still rely on
Williams for information on these social and relational matters34.

The marriage customs were primarily

based on exchange of girls, and it was
the maternal uncle who had the first
right to exchange a girl on behalf of his
son. Here the affinity of girls to their
mothers’ group and the boys to their
fathers’ plays an important role. Girls
often lived in their maternal uncle’s
household till they were married. The
marriages were in general arranged by
the families’ elders years in advance, and
the ceremony that followed was rather
simple.

When the Keveri died their spirits

travelled to a mountain in the west, but
they would still haunt the places where
they had lived. Williams refers to a story
The aya braids covered by tapa, Williams, NAA
about the origin of death, and then
mentions spirits believed to live in hollow trees and mountain caves. These would catch or kidnap
unwatchful villagers and represented a constant threat alongside evil-minded sorcerers.

In his research on the killing practices he found the already mentioned abesi relation to be of special
importance. When two men – often an older man and a younger novice – had killed a person
together as described (p. 13) they established a life-long bond. Instead of using names they just
called each other abesi. This was followed by a ceremony where, if the younger was a first-timer, got
his initial abamu decoration – a homicidal emblem. The three emblems Williams mentions are: a
decorated and fringed tapa perineal band; the white cowrie shell; and the white tail feathers of the

34
A Social Mapping study of the coast between Port Moresby and Suau, made for a petroleum company in
2011, has Williams’ 1940 study as its only historic reference to the Cloudy Bay area.

34
hornbill. He emphasizes that in many cases the abamu is not the actual killer, and that other
circumstances also make it difficult to call a decoration exclusively homicidal. Hornbill beaks worn in
the headdress, however, were true man-slaying emblems, Williams states.

He lists four different kinds of sorcery aimed at killing enemies. The first was by saying a spell over
some ‘personal leavings’, like a piece of chewed sugarcane. The second was by touching a victim’s
body, i.e. when sleeping, with a stick dipped in a magic, poisonous mix. Thirdly, a special spirit could
be guided to perform the deed by using special objects together, like a crocodile’s tooth and ginger,
so that these would gain power and send the spirit to the victim.

The forth method, mimi, Williams describes with more detailed examples over several pages. In short
it means to make the chosen enemy unconscious, or put in a coma, by hitting him hard, but not too
hard, or by some other method. One way is to have someone hold the victim while another bites his
Adam’s apple, or twists his (or her) neck. The raiders would then whisper in the victim’s ear to go
back to his village, where he would die after some days. Not surprisingly, this method was sometimes
unsuccessful in the sense that the blow or
twist or bite was fatal.35

Williams, the Mission and the Keveri

transformation

Williams’ study starts with his expressed

disappointment and it ends with his
questioning of anyone’s ethical right to
destruct any people’s traditions. In his
treatment of the changes and the new life
in the area, however, he compliments
many of the mission’s achievements
wholeheartedly. This ambivalence is voiced
in his conclusion as : “..while entertaining a
very high admiration for Kwato’s work in
the spheres of religious, moral and material
welfare among the Abau mountaineers, I
think it is very much to be regretted that
the mission has interfered so drastically
with their former way of living.”36 Keveri ’raiders’ posing for Williams, 1927, NAA

He praises the leadership qualities of the chiefs-turned-evangelists, referring to Ofekule as the

leading charcter at Amau, and Sibodu as the number two. These were among the six chiefs that were
schooled at Kwato in 1935 and their personal qualities undoubtedly played an important role. In the
Keveri Valley, however, where the mission’s presence and influence wasn’t as strong, William’s
questioned the quality of the leaders.

35
Interestingly, in some of the languages in the nearby areas the word for unconscious and dead is the same
(Sigmund Evensen, 2002).
36
FE Williams, 1940, p.141

35
In discussing confession – a pillar in the New Way – Williams first describes how it was practiced with
both the private ‘Little Confess’ and the public ‘Big Confess’, and then supports it as being for the
benefit of the people. As for prayer, which had already become an essential part of the people’s life
and was practiced with great sincerity and enthusiasm, Williams was mostly positive. He makes a
comparison between prayer and their old practice of magic, and stresses the positive influence of the
presupposed personal spirit, Christ, who protects and shows love. On the other hand he also
recognizes the negative impact of how prayer replaced traditional story-telling which he counted as a
serious loss. He doesn’t venture into any analyses of how well the Christian message was
understood, or in what way it was interpreted within their own cosmology – if their embracing of
prayer and other practices were utilitarian or individualistic (see p.39).

The mission put great emphasis on friendliness, and their leaders would always meet people and
situations with this as their guiding star. Violence and quarrelling was seen as destructive, and this
had an immediate appeal. Williams writes that “the evangelists seem to make good in almost every
place they set their foot in”, and he relates this to their positive attitude. He also writes how this
friendliness was sometimes practiced in a comical ways, in what he describes as a ‘hand-shaking
frenzy’.

An important aspect of the transformation was the Mission’s guidance on settlement, where they
urged – and assisted – the villagers in the foothills to concentrate in one place, at Amau. In 1940 all
the villagers from Dorevaidi, and most from Koraudi and other hamlets had moved down. The new
village became something of a model settlement with neat rows of well-built houses, flourishing
gardens and former enemies living together in supposed harmony37. Again Williams was positive in
his comments, not surprisingly, since this was in line with his own vision of a modernized Papua. The
better soil and conditions for gardening at Amau was an obvious advantage, and he saw this as an
additional pull factor. Amau was an example of food abundance and material welfare for the people,
and it had a social attraction: “Kwato has succeeded in building up there a vigorous society where
things are on the move.”38 However, again Williams saw the contrast with the Keveri Valley where
hamlets had been deserted for the central village of Ekeiu. This he viewed as a miserable place,
deprived of culture and spirit, and with no obvious improvement in sight.

Expressions of traditional culture were close to Williams’ heart, for its artistic wonder as well as for
its vital role for native identity and self-esteem. His Keveri report continues along this track when he
questions why “..(Kwato’s) reforms should be coupled with a most consistent and resolute blotting
out of the past.”39 When listing and commenting on cultural aspects that he saw as gone, he finds
only killing, magic and sorcery as positive losses, while the negative include dancing, music,
decorations and ornaments, traditional clothing, feasts and ceremonies, stories and pigs40. He
doesn’t comment on changes in the local socio-political structure – what he in other publications
refers to as the ‘psychological factors’ – although he recognized their importance.

37
The different groups moving to Amau had their own sections within the community and their own gardens.
38
Williams, 1940, p.126
39
Williams, 1940, p.128
40
Pigs were mostly kept for feasts, and with feasts gone the need for pigs was no longer obvious. The mission
also regarded pigs as unclean – though not forbidden – and this opposed their idea of a tidy village.

36
Williams, 1927, NAA

37
This ‘wholesale condemnation of the past’ Williams attributes to the mission, of course, but he
stresses the impact of national and local evangelists. There was a clear tendency among these to take
every hint from the missionaries about restrictions and do-not’s and translate them into taboos and
visions of hell-fire. Everything belonging to the old ways was thus considered bad by the Cloudy Bay
converts; they were, for instance, led to believe that dancing and singing would make them ill or
even die.

While the sum of Williams’ writing is, as shown, ambivalent, his criticism stands out. One might react
on the many ‘probablys’ in his text, and assumptions with only poor factual backing, but then it must
be remembered that after twenty years of fieldwork spread all over Papua, Williams had a more solid
background for making assumptions than anyone else in his time.

The photographs Wiliams took on his first two visits show the people in traditional dress. Some he
had asked to pose decorated as for feasting or raiding. While these images are poor compared to
Bernatzik’s, and many of his own from other areas, some have particular interest. We here see a
variety of shields, some similar to those of the northern coast and some from the southern part of
the range, and he has also photographed some Robinson River youths dressed up for an initiation
ceremony. A photo of a young boy making a stone club is particularly picturesque, living up to the
Western idea of the primitive Other, as well as showing an actual everyday reality of the Keveri
people in 1927.

Why the Sudden Transformation?

One cannot address the experiences of the Keveri people in the 1930s without raising the question:
Why? Why did this uniquely rapid adoption of a new set of beliefs, one that affected most aspects of
the people’s lives, take place within this group of people and at this time? Neither the Abel’s nor
Williams ventured to analyze this in any depth, although they reported on the fundamental turn-
around. Russell Abel commented on the changes just a year after the expedition, but gave the whole
credit for this to the Holy Spirit and God’s will, and thus avoided looking for other explanations for his
Mission’s success. Williams brings the question up in between the lines, and then gives much
information from which the reader can draw his own conclusions. His emphasis is on Kwato’s
influence on the ‘exchange’.

In David Wetherell’s 1973 article he analyzed the Kwato success among the Keveri, and he both
complimented many of the mission’s achievements and agreed with Williams’ critical comments on
some of their methods and the destruction of local traditions and culture. In his analysis Wetherell
stresses how the Keveri were ready for change, and how there were several factors within the Cloudy
Bay communities that made the missionaries’ arrival more welcome than they had expected. A few
years prior Williams was told by some Keveri that they wanted a missionary, because that would help
them to stop fighting and killing41, and this was later repeated by other villagers to the Abel brothers.

41
As opposed to the government’s trust in imprisonment as a method for stopping the killings. Wetherell,
1973, p.37

38
The initial surprise of first contact with the Europeans had by the 1930s been replaced by an
openness to change. The missionaries’ friendliness and inviting attitude thus opened for exchange –
the Keveri were ready for a new type of relation. Joel Robbins in his ‘Becoming Sinners’, where he
describes a comparable conversion among the Urapmin people of the Upper Sepik, discusses two
models of conversion. The utilitarian has a focus on worldly motives, of taking up the religion for
worldly means such as acquiring Western ‘kago’ (goods), gaining prestige etc, while the intellectualist
model is followed when the new religion has a spiritual meaning. As with Robbins’ Urapmin group,
the Keveri motifs are first of a utilitarian kind, but then intellectualist motives become more
prominent. Under the utilitarian umbrella we have to include the wish to end the killings as part of
the mix of cargo cult elements.

SIL missionary Sigmund Evensen, who

worked in a remote mountain village not
far to the north-east of the Keveri valley
in the 1980s, reported on an active cargo
cult, which he defined as the conviction
of being able to obtain material and
spiritual wealth by knowing the right
secrets and rituals. He continues: “As
time has passed these [old, transformed]
legends have been mixed with introduced
and misunderstood Christianity, attempts
to understand the changes in the world
around them with its technological
wonders, the introduction of money, and
increased contact with white people and
the outside world in general.” 42 Such a
hotchpotch of impressions of the
Europeans’ wealth, religion and powers,
although not developed into a cult, were,
as shown above, already firmly present
among the Keveri in the 1930s.

Wetherell held out the Keveri’s need for

a solution to their problematic
acquaintance with the Europeans, and
then stressed how the Kwato mission’s European supremacy – The LMS ship visiting
“appeal to emotion, concrete experience Wagawaga in Milne Bay, early 20th century, RA
and mysticism (..) made it easily
assimilated with Melanesian thought-
patterns.”43 Schieffelin writes from a conversion example in the Southern Highlands in the 70s that
“The people (..) drew the conclusion that the church was the major road to comparative wealth and

42
Evensen, 2002, p. 142-43 (my translation)
43
Wetherell, 1973, p.41

39
status for Papuans, not only on the plateau, but in the outside world as well.”44 In areas where the
missions have been more present and visible than the administration this appears to have been, and
still is, a common outcome.

In addition to utilitarian and intellectualist relations to European Christianity John Barker has stressed
how the churches’ rituals and institutions were essential.45 From the Maisin of Collingwood Bay he
gives examples of how the Anglican services and practices became established as a visible framework
for village life, even before the Christian message was well understood. When later the Anglicans
opened for more traditional music and decoration in church services and events the Church became
an institution that protected local culture as pressure from other missions and modern influences
increased. The church institutions came to represent continuity. For the Keveri this institutional
aspect would also have been significant - the Kwato Mission came with a ready-made package that
was easy to grasp and reasonably manageable to hold on to.

It’s not possible today to say which factors had the greatest influence on these developments, but on
both the Keveri and Kwato side of the ‘exchange’ there were several circumstances that can be
listed:

Keveri

 After 35 years of peripheral contact with the Government and the presence of miners, the
European’s material superiority, in the form of desirable goods and weapons, was well
known to them.
 This superiority was perceived as supernatural, connected with superior magic.
 The Keveri were not happy about living with a constant fear for their lives, and they were
aware of the European’s peaceful ‘spirits’. They knew of the changes toward peacefulness in
the nearby coastal communities, and they understood this as a result of the missionaries
work.
 The ideas of an all-powerful spirit and of a spirit having returned from the dead – and being
expected to come back again – were not alien to their perception of their world.
 The long prison sentences that many of their men served for raiding and killing were an
exhausting strain on village life and a generally demoralizing circumstance.
 The Keveri Hills were not optimal for gardening, and when harvests were poor they were
forced to look for food in adjoining areas. Some had already settled around the Mori and
Amau rivers where the soil was better.

Kwato Mission

 The Kwato Mission was firmly established after 45 years. This meant a developed and tested
mission strategy and a staff of trained native evangelists and assistants – an institution.
 Their native staff was more thoroughly educated compared with other missions.

44
In Schieffelin and Crittenden, 1991, p. 266. The Papuan Plateau north of Mount Bosavi had only had marginal
contact with the government and Europeans before the 60s, and the evangelism that was introduced to them
is comparable with the Keveri experience in its emphasis on strict religious observance and abandonment of
local traditions.
45
Barker, 2014

40
  They had gained new enthusiasm through recent influence from the ‘Oxford Group’ in
England.
 The expedition’s main interpreter and guide, Biruma, was a highly respected man in the
Keveri communities.
 The expedition arrived in a friendly manner. They were both men and women (native) and
they spoke convincingly of a better life.
 They addressed the women about taking husbands who had not killed.
 The native evangelists that stayed to establish the church, and those recruited locally, had a
tendency to exaggerate strictness, particularly concerning the abandonment of old traditions
and all material culture connected to it.

When commenting on this subject of cultural change I have tried to place the Keveri example within
the theoretical structure that Joel Robbins has outlined46 (influenced by Sahlins and Dumont).
Robbins sketches three different modes of change: assimilation, where new cultural influences are
taken into old cultural structures without changing them – new circumstances fit into old categories;
transformation, where new influences are taken in, and change the balance between old cultural
structures; and adoption, where a new cultural ideas and practices are taken in, on their own terms,
without fundamentally altering the old traditions, resulting in two parallel systems.

I will suggest, from the fairly limited information we have, that Keveri culture was changed through a
combination of all three modes: they adopted the Kwato system of beliefs, and compared with
Robbins’ own example from the Upper Sepik, the Keveri let the ‘New Way’ dominate more
thoroughly over their old beliefs. There is still today a parallel existence of traditional and imported
systems and values, exemplified by their keeping of some old stories and the survival of the old
chieftain system. Since ceremonies were abandoned, balances of authority were altered to some
degree, and everyday routines were significantly changed, we must also apply transformation as a
mode of change. Finally, we can’t rule out assimilation: some aspects of Christianity and Kwato’s
approach would, particularly in the early period, have been understood in a local cosmological
perspective.

Although there are many parallels with Robbins’ Urapmin people, we see that every case has its own
mix of causes and characteristics. The taking up of new religious and cosmological beliefs must be
seen in the perspective of adapting to changes in the world around, and for New Guineans in the
early 20th Century this meant relating to Europeans and colonization. For every single group there
were local conditions and relations that affected this adaption, and these sometimes opened for very
different experiences even for neighbouring groups47. A group near a government station would, for
instance, have a different idea of the colonial project than a group living by a mission station and
from one where none were present.

What I will claim has been missing in earlier comments on Keveri culture and the changes they went
through, is a proper regional perspective. As mentioned, the Keveri name was introduced by the
Europeans, and they themselves would have identified with the smaller ‘tribes’ and most of all with

46
Robbins, 2004, p. 7-15
47
The many different ways in which Hides and O’Malley’s ‘first-contact’ expedition through the Southern
Highlands were interpreted by the local people is an excellent example of this. See Schieffelin and Crittenden,
1991

41
 their clans. There are many connecting
points with neighbouring groups but
relations and boundaries are complicated
and difficult to define.

The isolation of the small groups along the

range, due to their homicidal traditions, has
often been exaggerated. From their own
migration stories and from government
reports of the first decade of the 20th
century we know that they moved around
over substantial areas and that they were
related to clans and groups far down the
hills toward the northern coast. The
notorious Iji, mentioned earlier, who was
arrested several times around 1905 (he
managed to escape) was from a village near
the Musa River, but knew his way around
the Keveri Valley, the southern side of the
range and of villages far to the east near the
northern coast. ‘Walkabouts’ like that of Iji
were not uncommon. Furthermore, in the
30s F.E. Willliams found that when a death

This is possibly the notorious Iji – chief from Adau was to be revenged they would most times
River area. Unknown photographer. find the supposed guilty person, not among
their nearest neighbours, but in groups a
farther distance away. This shows that there was contact and often respect between close groups,
and that they travelled far both for peaceful and less honorable reasons.

What is not clear is how far the cultural importance of killing reached toward the coasts. Raiding and
killing was part of the way of life all around the North-Eastern Division in pre-colonial times, but since
we can trust Williams’ emphasis on the Keveri’s particularly deep-reaching homicidal tradition this
aspect would have been significant48. Their contact with the colonial government thus turned out to
be more exclusively negative than that of many other groups and this could have affected their long
resistance and their holding on to their old ways. This again made their transformation more abrupt
and revolutionary.

Potential for Repatriation

The information commented on here, as well as the photographic material is, as mentioned, basically
not known among the Keveri, Cloudy Bay and Upper Musa peoples of today, while it represents
important parts of their history and identity. But how can this be made available to them; in what

48
Williams long stays with the Orokaiva people twenty years earlier, just a short distance further north, gave
him a particularly good reference.

42
way can this be brought back? Do I, as an outsider, have a right to make selections and edit? To cut
parts out? Are there concerns and precautions that should be considered?

Availability of historical texts and photos has improved dramatically over the last decades with
masses of information to be found and downloaded from the internet. This is however not true for
the material discussed here. A few years ago none of this was available on the internet, but recently
the Kwato Mission Tidings issues have been digitized and published by Yale University Library. But
then, who finds it there? For village people with little access even to electricity this doesn’t happen
by itself.49 Some of FE Williams’ Keveri photos can be found on the National Archives of Australia’s
webpage, but this is a tricky one to navigate. You need to know they are kept at the NAA, and you
need to know how to make a search. The other texts here have to be bought as books, and the
remaining photos of Williams, as well as those of Bernatzik, can only be seen by visiting the archives
where they are kept. This information is thus still only hypothetically available to the people of the
area and is likely to remain so for a long time. It is therefore essential, here as elsewhere in New
Guinea, that archives and academic institutions assist in connecting the material with the source
communities.

Since the texts were all written for a European readership, I believe caution is necessary. Bernatzik
wrote an entertaining text for a wide audience, while the Abel’s wrote for their missionary followers
and supporters, and they all allowed themselves to over-emphasize some descriptions of the people
they met with and aspects of their lives. Williams then, wrote for an academic readership, which
naturally made him focus more on some aspects of the people’s lives than other. Today’s readers -
whether European or Papua New Guinean - will benefit greatly from having an understanding of
these pre-conditions.

49
To my surprise these issues were unknown even to Chris and Elizabeth Abel - son and daughter of Russell
Abel - when I contacted them.

43
The same is true for the photographs. The strong focus on what the photographers thought exotic or
picturesque can be an obstacle when repatriating a collection. Luckily, however, in this case the sum
of photographs shows the people in both everyday situations and during activities and feasts. The
photographers still had their agendas and this should always be kept in mind. When I visited in 2014 I
and made a selection of a small number of Bernatzik’s photos, I tried to weigh many considerations
as best I could. Further contact and repatriation will mean making a new selection and again give
attention to these matters.

From other’s repatriation experiences, as well as my own, we know that information related to
named people and villages are of special interest. Anything related to land will always draw
attention, and then there is a general interest in decorations, houses and other material culture. A
main aspect of repatriation projects have been to talk about and around photos and other
information, to collect stories, bring back memories and make comparisons. To achieve a democratic
and representative participation such activities should preferably be conducted in an organized way.
This means one needs to be familiar with local relations and circumstances. To exemplify this I will
take a detour to the neighbouring Tufi district, the area where I have spent most time:

Around Tufi there are, to my knowledge, two copies of CAW Monckton’s book “Taming New
Guinea”, in which he described how the government station was established and how he and his
Native Constabulary carried out some of their ’pacification’ work. Many local people and some local
events are commented on in the book, and beside the official reports this is the only written
references that we have from Tufi from this time. The two copies are kept by members of two minor
clans, and they have not become part of the general historical knowledge of the whole Korafe
language group. One of the keepers has used it to convince his clansmen of their kinship to a
particular leader, an assumption which is incorrect. He also, quite mistakenly, believed this would be
of importance for an on-going land right issue.

His misunderstandings had two sources. First, he was reading the book with the specific object of
finding information that would be favourable to his own clan, and he thus naturally overlooked
information that contradicted his hopes. Secondly, and most importantly, he did not have enough
knowledge of who Monckton was writing for; how he wrote from his very subjective point of view;
and how the whole genre of popular literature affected his style of writing. Monckton was
furthermore not always particular about the accuracy of facts he presented, so his information needs
to be treated with caution by all readers50.

My Gobe clan acquaintance’s treatment of his treasure shows how written historic material can
result in clashing historicities. Monckton’s information is of great value when critically checked,
compared and supplemented with other sources, but here it was used purely in a subjective clan
story perspective. The example shows the importance of knowledge and caution. One needs both
knowledge of local socio-political relations, of current relations (and disputes) between different
groups, and general and local anthropological knowledge to see when Monckton, as well as other
sources, can be trusted and when they can’t.

50
He even missed the date of the opening of Cape Nelson Station - where he played a starring role - by several
months.

44
 To relate text and photos from
the hills behind Cloudy Bay and
the Musa basin to named people
and places there is some
confusion that first needs to be
untangled. All the writers
referred to here have been
uncertain and bewildered about
names of tribes, clans, villages
and even rivers. The Abel’s, for
instance, wrote contradictory
information about the home
villages of some of their trusted
chiefs, and Williams placed
villages on the wrong rivers. The

The Moreguina counceillor documenting Bernatzik’s photos Keveri name is also mentioned
with his cell phone, 2014 by all writers as the local name
for Mount Clarence, but Keveri is
actually a mountain further to the north. The most confusing name is Domara. People having
migrated from the Domara River in the Musa basin – where there is still a Domara village - have
settled both down on the coast and far inland between Moreguina/Makala and the now abandoned
village of Koraudi. And was the name Koraudi? Wasn’t that just a clan’s name? The confusion is
massive, and with many villages abandoned in the 30s and 40s it might now be difficult to find out
which places were visited by our authors.

There is also a need to find out to what extent the people of the Upper Musa – around the Ibinamu,
Adau and Domara Rivers – shared old traditions, culture and stories with those of the Keveri Valley
and the Dorevaidi area. This has never been established. There is even a possibility that these groups
have kept some of the traditions that have been lost among those that settled on the southern side
of the range.

The Old Ways

Traditional Keveri culture and society can best be described by a combination of FE Wiliams’
descriptions, supported by some from patrol reports and some information from the Abel’s and
Bernatzik, and then combined with the photographs of the latter. This must be supplemented by
stories still kept in the communities. Origin stories and those of tribes’ and clans’ migrations are still
kept, as I myself experienced, and there will be other traditional stories that have been kept within
families and clans, not communicated outside their small circles51.

While the central role of killing was difficult to relate to for a long time after the conversion, it can
now be safely addressed as something firmly belonging to the past. Papua New Guineans in general

51
This has, for instance, been the case with many stories of the Kerebi people living on the coast around
Tufi/Cape Nelson (one of these is presented in Hasselberg, 2013).

45
In this peaceful image one can notice how the chief is wearing all three homicidal
emblems that were mentioned by Williams: the hornbill feathers, the white cowrie
shells and the fringed tapa laplap. Bernatzik, 1933, BP

46
relate to homicidal practices and cannibalism of not so distant generations without fear of their
returning. Sorcery practiced through poisoning is a different matter and must be treated with
somewhat more care, since the belief in unnatural causes of sickness and death has survived
alongside Christian beliefs and the adaption of Western ways of understanding the world around us.

The unique abesi bonds, as well as the sorcery practices of i’ua, munai, barau and mimi, as described
by Williams, is all information that will be of great interest. For the former it would be of academic
interest to find out if new ways of establishing bonds have replaced the old. A debate on sorcery
techniques will have relevance to present fears and suspicions. Williams’ details on marriage customs
and gender relations will make an interesting comparison with today’s situation since some elements
will still be there, and the same is true for his sketch of tribes, kigia groups and village association.

Dress, adornments and decorations are well documented in our sources, both in description and in
photos. Everyday dress is seen in all three sets of photographs, and a wide range of festive
decorations are shown in Bernatzik’s. All our writers commented on the aya braids and on the
widow’s mourning attire, and descriptions of these are best arrived at when combining the three
texts. All decorations suspected to be homicidal emblems can be seen in the photos, and here it is
Williams’ text, in which he described many of them, that we have to rely upon.

While the interesting information on hunting techniques - especially bird catching - cannot be
supported with images, the cooking practices can. Here the combination of Russell Abel’s description
and Bernatzik’s set of photos from Makala village make a particularly good match. Buildings and
village layouts are described by Williams and, again, well documented in Bernatzik’s photos.

Women at Amau seeing their grandparents in traditional dress, 2014

47
Together these impressions and descriptions supply important pieces of information and has great
potential for bringing out more information on traditions and culture in the Keveri communities. One
should, however, be aware of the pieces that are missing. We get very little information on the
people’s relation to their land, the forest and its animal life, and the crops they grow in their gardens.
These would all have been important aspects of traditional life, as we know from research on nearby
groups (such as the Orokaiva, the Maisin and Massim). Some of these aspects are, of course, still
central in the lives of today’s Keveri.

When looking back to bygone times I also like to stress the importance of photographs showing
ordinary, everyday-like situations, activities and practices. Visiting observers naturally had a keen eye
finding things and matters that were sensational, exotic or – in their minds – even grotesque. While a
picture showing i.e. a decoration that is no longer in use will be interesting as an image of something
that has changed, a photo of a girl looking after her little sister, or men just sitting in a shelter
chewing betel nut will signal familiarity and continuity. A relaxed or smiling face will strike different
strings than a bewildered or frightened one. Such images, and stories describing similar continuities,
are important to recognize in the material one wishes to repatriate. They might not generate the
most comments, but their impression will have significant importance in connecting with past
generations.

The Big Change

The Abel brother’s articles in Kwato Mission Tidings give the missionaries’ perception of the events
that led to the most important episode in recent Keveri history. They include mention of many local
persons who are the grandparents and great grandparents of today’s Keveri, and who played key
parts in this watershed transformation. Cecil Abel’s day-by-day recapturing of the 1935 expedition,
charting its route, is of obvious interest. The following Domara Conference is also an event of which
only fragmentary details are remembered and where the articles supply much information. Seen
together with Williams’ well-described details on the new daily lives that he witnessed, and his
comments on what had changed, we can arrive at a reasonably balanced understanding of these first
transformational years.

Information on the leaders Biruma, Sibodu, Ofekule and others is then supported by the photographs
from the Tidings and those I have gratefully received some from the Abel family. All the Abel’s
photos are of great interest, as for instance the one of the ‘new’ Amau village (see p.32), showing the
solid and orderly placed houses and a clean, open space, exemplifying the mission’s vision and
accomplishment. This is the only photo from Amau at this time that I have so far come across. The
photo of six converted leaders (p.43) are most likely of the six chiefs that went to Kwato for training
in 1935, making it historically important for the community today.

The two photos showing Biruma and Maieau, first as prisoners and then after conversion, can be
seen in a before-and-after perspective, but the former can also be interpreted in a number of ways in
a colonial discourse. Photos that show defeated, disillusioned and humiliated expressions such as
here, must always, I believe, be presented with great caution and in a proper context.

48
 Biruma is no two from the left and Maieau is far right, EA
The same is true for the texts. ‘Colourful’ descriptions of people, meant for a European readership, as
I have pointed to, need to be put into a context. A focus on Russell Abel’s comments on ‘evil, wolf-
like savages’ would, for instance, be misleading in terms of the mission’s attitude towards the local
people, and also unfair on Russell Abel himself.

During my visit, where I met

with both counselors, chiefs
and the Kwato pastor, I found
that their knowledge of these
events are kept almost
exclusively through oral
tradition, and that most of how
the conversion took place and
the involvement of different
individuals is only remembered
in vague terms. They are
extremely happy for all
information about these events
that can resurface in the
Biruma, Sibodu and Maieau a few years later, EA
community, in the clans and
the families.

49
 Conclusion
There is a vast number of historical photographs from Papua New Guinea kept in archives abroad,
and only a fraction of these are known in the communities where they were taken. When this
brought my interest to the Keveri area I also found that texts describing this people’s traditional
culture and those describing and discussing their conversion, were equally unknown to the people.
For a group that had so thoroughly discarded their old traditions this makes both the written
material and the photographs particularly important. The warm reception I received during my visit
confirmed my belief that there is an interest in knowing ones history, even if it contains some dark
shades.

In an academic context the historical photo collections from Papua New Guinea hold an ocean of
information in relation to local customs, to colonial relations, developments of racism, etc, and it’s a
treasure that has been only marginally addressed. The case addressed here is of special interest, I
believe, since the Christianization of the Keveri was so remarkably quick and reached so deep into
people’s lives and beliefs. The people of the area is also interesting in that their culture and history is
intimately connected with groups on both sides of the mountain range, that their culture was
particularly tainted by homicidal practices, and that they resisted Westernization for so long. And,
they haven’t received any attention for 75 years!

With the passing of time we still have to agree with William’s critical remarks on the work of the
missions. In the years following the conversion we can see that a fear of stirring up old emotions and
habits will have convinced the Keveri to follow the prescriptions of the mission and their evangelists

Keveri dancing, Bernatzik, 1933, BP

50
strictly. The material gains in the initial period, mixed with other cargo cult elements – the
inexplicable power of the whitemen and their ‘spirits’, etc. - would also have strengthened these
attitudes. While these factors would to some extent have substituted for loss of tradition back then,
now, in the more dismal situation of today, loss of identity and self-esteem has a visible negative
impact.

It’s important to recognize Williams’ ambiguity to what he witnessed, criticizing the Mission in many
ways but then praising some of what he saw as positive accomplishments. The prospering Amau
community, for instance, with its friendliness, tidiness and communal togetherness obviously
appealed to him. It will furthermore be somewhat unfair to aim the criticism for the discarding of
Keveri traditions solely on the Kwato mission. This was not an uncommon strategy among the
different missions operating in Papua, Kwato was just more firm in their application of this strictness.
In some practices where Kwato followed a different path than LMS – with workshops, and natives
performing many qualified tasks – Williams along with other anthropologists and administrators
found this commendable.

It is also necessary to see and understand Kwato and other missions’ role and their activities in a
wider colonial perspective. While they in many areas of New Guinea were negative to much of local
culture, they were at the same time, in a historical, colonial context, a significant and positive force
on the racial issues, opposing racial movements within the expatriate community.

As Wetherell has pointed out the success of Kwato at Cloudy Bay also had many explanations within
the local community, circumstances the mission didn’t know of or understand the significance of at
the time. These are all interesting aspects of Keveri history. Information on some of these aspects is
found in other sources than the ones I have focused on here: early contact with Europeans can, for
instance, be read about in government reports and in H.N. Nelson’s chapter on the gold prospecting
Pryke brothers, and the first photographs of Keveri people were taken by administrators Captain
Barton and Guy O Manning.

Hugo Bernatzik, the Abel brothers and FE Williams all had very special visits to the Cloudy Bay forests
and mountains, each in their separate ways. Their different backgrounds, agendas and approaches,
which we can see in their writings and from their photographs, make them, in my eyes, a most
interesting group to combine. When seen separately, Bernatzik deserves attention for his
photography where he with skill captured, by chance, the last years of the Keveri’s pre-Christian life.
Williams should be thanked for pursuing his trip despite his disappointment, thus giving us both
essential information on the Keveri and an important polemic contribution on the work of the
mission. Cecil and Russell Abel recorded the historic events which can be of great value for the
present Keveri communities, and at the same time their articles make up an interesting chapter in
the ‘saga’ of the Abel’s - an influential expatriate family in the history of Papua New Guinea.

When having a group of people or an area as the starting point for a repatriation project we get a
very different situation from when we start out from a particular collection of photographs (and/or
texts), which has been the case with most projects. While this certainly has resulted in some very
important and admirable work, we see in the case of the Keveri how a start from that end would be
unlikely to give them much attention: Bernatzik focused on his stay in the Solomon Islands on his
return from his South Sea expedition, and then he did more important work at locations in Africa and
South-east Asia; for the Abel’s and the Kwato Mission the Keveri was one of many mission ventures,

51
and although successful, it was somewhat peripheral and also after the death of their founder; and
as mentioned before, FE Williams produced several important monographs and has some
magnificent photo series’ from other corners of Papua, and though his is the only ethnographic study
of the Keveri people, it is naturally overshadowed by his more thorough work.

The three combined text and photographic presentations I have discussed here together give a most
interesting picture of both old Keveri traditions and of their conversion experience. By making this
material available, in a well-considered and respectful way, the present Cloudy Bay, Keveri and Upper
Musa communities will benefit directly from the information contained herein. Indirectly, the
material has great potential to uncover and re-surface stories and information that today is not part
of the people’s shared history and identity.

I hope with this paper to have shown how, by combining both text sources and photographic
collections – even those we might find biased or insufficient – can add up to a most valuable whole. I
have also pointed to the regional context in which the Keveri lived – and still do – and how many
local and outside circumstances influenced the developments discussed. While examples from other
parts of New Guinea will be comparable and have some common features, in the end, every group
will have their own unique story and their own unique history. And this they need to own.

The Kwato church at Amau in 2014. One of the graves in the foreground is that of Biruma.

52
 Thanks:
Special thanks to Monika Faber of Bonartes Photoinstitut, Vienna and to Elizabeth and Chris Abel for
access to photographs. Also to professor John Barker for helpful comments on history and mission
work. Nick Tena and Mile Eburi were my great travel companions and door-openers during my stay in
Moreguina, Amau and Domara.

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Abel, Russell W, 1934: Charles W. Abel of Kwato, New York

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Melanesian People, Vancouver

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Community, in Current Anthropology, Vol. 55, Dec 2014

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Bell, Joshua A, Brown, A. and Gordon, R. (eds.), 2013: Recreating First Contact

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Western hegemony; Cultural Practices of Identity Construction, Oxford

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Byer, Doris, 1999: Der Fall Hugo A. Bernatzik; Ein Leben Zwischen Ethnolgie und Öffentlichkeit, Vienna

Chignell, AK, 1911: An Outpost in New Guinea

53
Conru, Kevin, 2002: Bernatzik: South Pacific, Milano

Conru, Kevin, 2003: Bernatzik; Southeast Asia, Milano

Dupeyrat, André,1955: Festive Papua, London

Edwards, Elizabeth 1994: Visualizing history: Diamond Jenness’ photographs of D’Entrecasteaux

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Edwards, Elizabeth, 2000: Surveying Culture: Photography, Collecting and Material Culture in British
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Ethnology, in Conru, Kevin: Bernatzik; Southeast Asia, Milano

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Manning, Guy O. in Annual Report for the North-Eastern Division, 1904/05 . National Archives,
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Manning, Guy O. in Monthly Report of the North-eastern Division, Oct 11th 1905, . National Archives,
Canberra

Monckton, CAW, 1921: Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate, London

54
Monckton, CAW, 1922: Last Days in New Guinea, London

Morton, Chritopher, 2005: Anthropologist as Photographer: reading the Monograph and Reading the
Archive in Visual Anthropology, 18: 389–405, 2005

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Milano

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of Pacific History, Vol 8/73

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1944-1945

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Barton, in Pinney, Christopher & Peterson, Nicholas (eds): Photography’s Other Histories, Durham
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Young, Michael W, 1998: Malinowski’s Kiriwina: Fieldwork Photography 1915-1918, Chicago

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Williams, 1922-39, Honolulu

On mission in Cloudy Bay – as an independent researcher, with no institutional

guidelines to obey, local transportation will always get you around.

Jan Hasselberg
Bergen, Norway

janhass@online.no
www.beautifultufi.no

56