Garrick Hitchcock

A note on the abandonment of raised field agricultural systems in the lower Bensbach River area, southwest Papua New Guinea

Construction of raised field agricultural systems was once widespread throughout the lowlands of south coast New Guinea and on Saibai Island in northern Torres Strait, but is no longer practised in many parts of the region (Swadling 1983: 26-7). This is the case along the lower Bensbach River in Papua New Guineas Western Province, near the border with West Papua (Irian Jaya), where relict field systems comprising long rectangular mounds separated by ditches are the most salient archaeological features. It has been suggested that these and other mound-and-ditch systems in western lowland Papua were abandoned some time prior to European colonisation (which began in the late nineteenth century) following a population decline in the area (Barham and Harris 1985, 1987; Harris 1995; Harris and Laba 1982). Recent ethnographic and archival research demonstrates, however, that abandonment of the Bensbach River systems took place more recently, and indicates that changes in local environmental conditions played a key role in this process.

Manuscript XXXIIThe Final Fate of the La Pérouse Expedition?The 1818 Account of Shaik Jumaul, A Lascar Castaway in Torres Strait

ABSTRACT The final fate of the La Pérouse expedition is a mystery. In 1788 the frigates L’Astrolabe and La Boussole were wrecked on Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands. According to Vanikoro oral history, the survivors then left, approximately six months later, in a boat which they had built. They were never seen again. This paper reports the rediscovery of an 1818 Indian newspaper article, detailing the rescue in Torres Strait of a lascar named Shaik Jumaul, a castaway for four years on Murray Island (Mer). While on Mer he saw weapons and instruments that seemed not of English manufacture. The Murray Islanders informed him that these came from the crew of a vessel wrecked nearby some three decades earlier. No European ship is known to have been lost in Torres Strait in that period. Shaik Jumaul’s account points to the possibility that the La Pérouse expedition ended finally in northern Australia.