Kiap

Kiaps, known formally as district officers and patrol officers, were travelling representatives of the British and Australian governments with wide ranging authority, in pre-independence Papua New Guinea.

'Kiap' is a Papua New Guinean creole (Tok Pisin) word derived from the German word Kapitän (Captain).

The role of the kiap changed as Papua New Guinea changed. The more primitive the conditions the more wide-ranging were the duties, and the more decision making power was granted. "The kiap, for example, is district administrator, commissioned policeman, magistrate, gaoler: if he is in a remote area he may well be engineer, surveyor, medical officer, dentist, lawyer, and agricultural adviser. The kiap system grew out of necessity and the demands made by poor communications in impossible country: the man on the spot had to have power to make the decision."

Under Australian administration the kiap was a one-man representative of the government, taking on policing and judicial roles as well as more mundane tasks such as completing censuses. The kiaps were commissioned as officers of the Royal Papua New Guinea Constabulary and were appointed as district magistrates.

During the 1960s the kiap became more like a magistrate, moving away from law enforcement.

With over 800 languages spoken among a population of just over six million people [in 2009], PNG is one of the most socio-linguistically diverse countries in the world.".

Soon after the establishment of British New Guinea in the 1880s, a system of patrols was established to expand the government's administrative control beyond the major towns. The system continued after the change from British to Australian administration in 1905.

The kiaps patrolled at a time when cannibalism was still practised in parts of PNG. Violent intertribal conflict occurred frequently.

When Patrol Officer (Kiap) Jim Taylor and prospector Mick Leahy, with eighty native police and carriers, first entered the Wahgi Valley in March 1933, the Australians were thought to be ghosts. Later in the same year, a number of indigenous people in the valley were killed, after a misunderstanding, and in 1935 there were further indigenous deaths, during an intervention between fighting groups, and the deaths of two white missionaries. First contacts were fraught with misunderstandings and the potential for violence.

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