Papua

Papua was the name, as provided to the Portuguese commander Jorge de Meneses while sheltering there in 1526, of the people living on Waigeo, one of the Raja Ampat Islands west of the Vogelkop Peninsula, now part of the West Papua province of Indonesia. The Spanish pilot Martin de Uriarte in the same year and Andrés de Urdaneta two years later named these islands "Islas de Papuas". Until the 18th century, "the Papuas" exclusively referred to the Raja Ampat Islands and later the Vogelkop peninsula, while the rest of the large island was known solely as New Guinea since 1545. Over time, anthropologists, linguists and others started to use the term Papuan for the cultures, languages, and people of all of New Guinea. It has been proposed that "Papua" finds its origin in the Biak phrase sup i papwa, meaning "the land below the sunset", used by the people of Biak to indicate Waigeo, though the term could also simply be a proper name from Raja Ampat itself. ^[1]

Papua may now refer to:

Common to the whole of the world's second-largest island, the Island of New Guinea:

• Papuan languages
• Papuan peoples who are indigenous to New Guinea and all the Solomon Islands

In relation to the modern country of Papua New Guinea:

• Papua New Guinea, independent country since 1975; the large western part (extending to Indonesia's provinces on the other half of the island) was claimed by Germany in 1884 (German New Guinea), the much smaller Papua peninsula by the British crown in response (British New Guinea). After WW-I, both territories were administered separately by Australia, then joined administratively in 1949.
  • Papua Region, one of four regions in the country of Papua New Guinea
• the Papua peninsula, which extends easterly from Lae to the headlands of Milne Bay at the juncture of the Solomon Sea and the Coral Sea. The peninsula corresponds to the 1884 claim by the British crown of lands on New Guinea, with the settlement at Port Moresby, now the capital of the nation state:
• Territory of Papua, Australian-administered territory in southeastern New Guinea 1884–1949
• Territory of Papua and New Guinea, 1949-1975, predecessor administrative union between the two Australian-administered territories of 'Papua' and 'New Guinea' in 1949.

In relation to Indonesia:

• West Papua (region), the Indonesian western half of the island of New Guinea
  • Papua (province), the larger of two Indonesian provinces making up the western half of New Guinea
  • West Papua (province), the smaller of two Indonesian provinces making up the western half of New Guinea

Other:

• Papua Island, located off the north coast of Joinville Island, Antarctica and named after the Gentoo penguin, Pygoscelis papua

References

1. ^ David Pickel, Between the tides: a fascinating journey among the Kamoro of New Guinea, Periplus Editions 2002, pp 150-154.