Where does the name Papua New Guinea come from?

LANGUAGE

In these monthly discussions we answer one question about language in PNG and beyond. This month we are looking at the name of the country we live in and ask where this name came from.

BEFORE colonialism, Melanesians had names for almost all the small places where they lived, but no one had a name for the whole of the very large island in the middle of the region.
Early European explorers gave the island several names, of which two lasted.
One was “Nueva Guinea”, given by the Spanish sailor Ynigo Ortiz de Retez in 1545, which became “New Guinea” in English. He gave this name to the large island he came across because the dark skin of its people reminded him of Guinea in western Africa. That name in turn had come from the Portuguese word “guiné”, which is the name of a plant used in traditional West African and Afro-Brazilian religious ceremonies.
The other name was “Papua”. It is not clear where this name came from. One possibility is that it comes from the Malay word “papuwah”, which means “fuzzy hair”, but the earliest we find that word in a dictionary is in 1812, long after Portuguese and Spanish sailors were already using it as a name for the people living on the Rajah Ampat Islands off the north-western coast of West Papua.

Another possibility is that it comes from “papo ua”, which means “not belonging” in the Tidore language of what is today eastern Indonesia. The Tidore kings claimed to own the area we now call West Papua as the land did not belong to any king of its own.
When the island known to some Europeans as “New Guinea” and to others as “Papua” was divided into areas controlled by the governments of the Netherlands, Great Britain, and Germany, the areas they claimed were called “Netherlands New Guinea”, “British New Guinea”, and “German New Guinea”. “German New Guinea” was used as a name for all of the German-controlled areas in the western Pacific, including northeastern New Guinea (“Kaiser Wilhelmsland”), the Bismarck Archipelago, the northern Solomon Islands, and most of Micronesia except Guam.
The name “Papua” was not forgotten, however. Anthropologists and linguists began to call the non-Austronesian languages of Melanesia “Papuan languages” and in many European languages, the indigenous people of Melanesia were called “Papuans” rather than “Melanesians”. When Australia took over British New Guinea in 1905, it named its new territory the “Territory of Papua”.

After World War II Australia joined its two Melanesian territories under one administration, calling it “Papua and New Guinea”. At Independence there was a lot of discussion about the name of the new nation, as many people felt that this colonial name was too long and cumbersome. Many were in favour of calling the new nation “Niugini”, a term that remains in the name of the national airline, Air Niugini. But under pressure from people in Papua who were afraid of being dominated by people from the more developed and populous Territory of New Guinea, the names of the two Australian territories were retained and merged to form “Papua New Guinea”.
“Netherlands New Guinea” had already disappeared by this time, becoming “Irian Jaya”, the easternmost province of Indonesia. Melanesians resisting the Indonesian invaders insisted that they were not Asians, calling themselves “Papuans” and their home “Papua” instead. For many years the use of this word was illegal in Indonesia, but when the province became an autonomous region under President Abdurrahman Wahid, it was renamed “Papua” as a concession to the people of the province, who overwhelmingly preferred that name.
The province was later divided into two autonomous regions, “Papua”, with its capital in Jayapura, and “Papua Barat” (“West Papua”), with its capital in Manokwari.
Last year the Province of Papua was further divided into three provinces: Papua, with its capital in Jayapura, Highlands Papua, and South Papua. In Indonesian, the term “Tanah Papua” (“tanah” being Indonesian for “land”) is sometimes used to refer to all of these territories collectively or even for those these territories plus Papua New Guinea. Today the use of “Papua” can be confusing. The term can mean the southern part of Papua New Guinea, which was formerly the Australian Territory of Papua and before that “British New Guinea”. Or it can mean the easternmost part of Indonesia. Furthermore, in Indonesian, “Papua” is used for the name of the island that we call “New Guinea” in English.
And in both Indonesian and many European languages, “Papuan” is used to refer to the citizens of both eastern Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, or even to all Melanesians. This can lead to some confusing encounters.

For example, I remember meeting a Tolai in Europe who did not know how to react when he was introduced by Germans as “a Papuan” or as “our friend from Papua”.
To add to the confusion, “Papua” is also the name of an island off the Antarctic Peninsula south of Argentina and Chile. Papua Island got this name because it is the home to many gentoo penguins, which have the scientific name “Pygoscelis papua”. They were given this scientific name because a scientist who travelled with Captain Cook and who was the first European to see them thought for some reason that these penguins came from New Guinea, which he called “Papua”.
There are no human Papuans living on this Papua Island, as it is too cold for human habitation and only penguins live there.
Like the nation itself, the name “Papua New Guinea” is a colonial construct. At different times, “Papua” and “New Guinea” have been used to describe all or part of the nation and for areas beyond its national borders.
Even today, the name “Papua” is especially confusing, being used by different people to refer to different places.

• Professor Volker is a linguist living in New Ireland and an Adjunct Professor in The Cairns Institute at James Cook University in Australia. He welcomes your language questions for this monthly discussion at [email protected]. Or continue the discussion on the Facebook Language Toktok page.