PAPUA NEW GUINEA: Out of the Stone Age

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The birthday of the world's latest self-governing nation was a subdued, almost furtive occasion. Joy was restrained, to say the least, and so were the celebrations. Pubs and clubs in all of Papua New Guinea were closed not only on Dec. 1, the first day of self-rule, but also on the days preceding and following the historic event. The passage of power was officially marked only by a brief ceremony in the capital of Port Moresby, where the Australian administrator changed his title to high commissioner, the equivalent of ambassador.

"We wanted to play it cool," explained the nation's new leader Chief Minister Michael Somare, 37, a former teacher and journalist. "Some people thought that self-government meant they could take over plantations and other things. We did not want to encourage such thoughts by overexcitement or too much celebration."

Somare's caution was understandable Papua New Guinea has a fair claim to being the world's most backward nation. Its 2,600,000 people, spread over an area somewhat larger than California, are divided into 702 tribes and speak perhaps as many languages. In the past year there were at least 20 known battles between tribes fighting with spears, clubs, bows and arrows in disputes over land, pigs and women, in approximately that order. A lingering appetite for cannibalism is suspected in the remote interior where Stone Age conditions prevail Witch doctors still thrive and sorcery is practiced. The cargo cults, a weird blend of religious faith and economic frustration, claim 60,000 members. They believe that they can acquire such desirable Western luxuries as radios and canned beer by practicing certain rites like assembling on mountaintops, where they construct mock airplanes and await the gifts from heaven.

In short, for most citizens of Papua New Guinea, the concept of self-rule is either meaningless or misunderstood. When one tribesman heard that the gift of self-government was to be bestowed upon the people, he sought out his representative in Parliament and asked for three—one for himself, one for his wife and one for his son.

Alien Notions. Full independence for Papua New Guinea, scheduled for some time around the end of next year, is even more difficult to grasp; it involves such alien notions as defense and foreign affairs, which are now administered by Australia. But the Australians clearly are eager to shed their responsibilities as soon as possible. They inherited Papua from Britain in 1906 and took New Guinea from Germany in World War I, administering it in recent years as a U.N. trustee. Together, the two territories constitute the eastern half of the world's second largest island (after Greenland); the rest is the Indonesian province of Irian Jaya.