Lost Watut

[BURTON John]

Mesulam! 

> We also
> have place names like "Watut" stuck in the middle of the bush 
> of the village
> where I belong. Brought in from "Bulolo Wau" region during 
> Gold Mine in the
> Wau Bulolo years ago.

The Watut landowners I was working with 1995-200 lost a ancestor of theirs
in New Ireland during the war. Knowing I had been to New Ireland, they asked
me on many occasions if I could find out what happened. We did a survey
around 1995 on another matter, when Dinah Minol visited villages between
Kavieng and Namatanai, but no trace. This is the first I've heard of the
name "Watut" ringing any bells in New Ireland at all.

What happened was five men were arrested around 1939 for a witch-killing at
Sapanda village. They were taken to Wau for court, convicted and send off to
serve jail terms elsewhere in New Guinea. Three, possibly four, went to
Kavieng, and then the war came in 1942 and they were stranded there. Two of
them survived until the liberation and were safely repatriated to Bulolo.
(There is a subsequent  complication that they had to found a new village
because of the unavenged murder they had committed.) Both became quite
famous, one as the luluai of Nauti village, and the other as a prominent
alluvial miner. Indeed, he became one of the 'black millionaires' of Wau,
beginning his rise in 1957 when miner's licences began to be issued to New
Guineans. The first didn't go far from the government station at Kavieng and
probably survived by doing odd jobs for the Japanese garrison. The second,
however, moved on from village to village, dodging patrols.

The one that is missing has left a significant gap in the land ownership of
the Upper Watut Valley. The son of the seond man says he was with his father
for part of the time then they got separated. Curiously, he is not written
off as presumed dead - there is a faint belief that he may have gone to
ground in the war, got married, and stayed there without telling anyone. (I
should add that Watuts can be quite solitary and characteristically do not
go in for the networking that is such a feature of other Papua New Guinea
societies).

So, what's this place called "Watut"???

John Burton