Boazi - History and Cultural Relations

Boazi speakers are culturally similar to groups to the south and west of the Lake Murray-Middle Fly area, including the Suki, Yéi-nan, Marind-anim, Bian Marind, and the tribes of the Trans-Fly, but they are culturally very different from the peoples who live to the north of the Lake Murray-Middle Fly area such as the Yonggom, Aekyom (or Awin), and the Pare speakers. To date no archaeological research has been done in the Lake Murray-Middle Fly area. It is therefore impossible to say with any certainty how long people have been in the area or where the ancestors of the present-day Boazi speakers came from. Boazi speakers claim that their ancestors originated in the Lake Murray-Middle Fly area itself, and Boazi oral history records various military conquests and subsequent movements of people within the Lake Murray-Middle Fly area prior to the arrival of Europeans. The first contact between Boazi speakers and Europeans took place in June 1876 during d'Albertis's exploration of the Fly River. d'Albertis had brief hostile encounters with people along the middle reaches of the river both during his ascent and during his descent later that year. For the fifty years following d'Albertis's visit, Boazi speakers both along the Fly River and at Lake Murray had only brief and sporadic contacts with Europeans. In the late 1920s, in response to head-hunting raids by Boazi speakers on peoples close to Australian and Dutch government stations, the colonial administrations both of the Australian Territory of Papua and of Dutch New Guinea began trying to pacify the Boazi speakers of the Middle Fly. This led to a period of Dutch control and proselytization by Dutch Catholic missionaries in the Middle Fly from 1930 to 1956. Dutch control did not, however, extend to the Lake Murray area where traditional warfare continued into the late 1940s. In 1956, Boazi speakers became citizens of the Independent State of Papua New Guinea.