The Armed Constabulary of Papua
| Author | I. H. P. Murray |
| Published date | 01 October 1931 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3100400410 |
| Date | 01 October 1931 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The
Armed
Constabulary
of
Papua
BY
I.
H.
P.
MURRAY
HE
Armed Constabulary of Papua are a hardy and
T
vigorous body of men, muscular and well set up, and they
cut
a
picturesque figure as they swing along the road in their
uniform of navy blue and red; and they have this rather
remarkable fact to their credit that they, a mere handful of
'
savages
in
serge,' with no assistance from outside, have kept
order among an absolutely lawless population in a territory
nearly twice as large
as
England. For there was literally no
such thing as law in Papua until the proclamation of the Pro-
tectorate barely
a
generation ago. Unlike his neighbours, the
Javanese and
the
Malay, the Papuan was still in
the
neolithic
age when the white man came. He had been left far behind
in
the march of civilization, not because he
is
inferior to these
other races, for physically he is generally their superior, and
mentally often at least their equal, but because, from the acci-
dents of his history, he had been cut off from the stream of
human progress, and had stagnated in the stone age, without
settled government, without legal institutions, and with no
chiefs with any power worth mentioning. And the policing
of such a people as this involves questions rather different from
those which arise in more advanced communities.
Lieutenant-Governor
of
Papua
PAPUAN
CRIMINALS
For the type
of
criminal who fills the gaols elsewhere
does
not exist with
us,
and the crimes with which we are most
familiar
in
our courts would seem strange, in some of their
details, to
a
policeman or a legal practitioner of an older
civilization. Our people with few exceptions cannot read or
write, and have no money and no property of any value
;
so
571
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