Papua New Guinea Patrol Reports

Reports from government patrols represent a major source of primary information on the pre-independence (before 1976) era in Papua New Guinea. The reports provide first hand accounts on many topics, from first contact with remote Highland villages, to census counts, tax collection, health care, administration of justice, plantations, missionaries, anthropological descriptions, tribal warfare, languages, and more. The original reports are at the National Archives of Papua New Guinea.

The UC San Diego Library collaborated with the National Archives of Papua New Guinea to preserve the patrol reports and provide better access for research. The Overview section contains more information about the project and using the reports. 

To Access the Reports

In recent years and with the permission of the National Archives of Papua New Guinea, a portion of the PNG patrol reports have been digitized and are available online at https://lib.ucsd.edu/png-patrol-reports

The following sets of microfilm are not available digitally, and are housed in and administered through the Special Collections & Archives (SC&A). Information on hours, photoduplication policy and pricing, etc. may be obtained from the SC&A website.

• Files of Correspondence, Journals and Patrol Reports from Outstations of British New Guinea and Papua, 1890-1941 (CRS G91) --58 microfilm reels. 839 files, containing over 5,000 documents. Originals are held by the National Archives of Papua New Guinea, and the microfilm was created by the National Archives of Australia. Includes only documents from British New Guinea (later named Papua)--roughly the southern half of present-day Papua New Guinea. Modern province names of this area include Central, Gulf, Milne Bay, Northern, Western, and most of Southern Highlands.
• Papua and New Guinea Patrol Reports, 1922-1955 (CRS A7034) --7 microfilm reels. 199 patrol reports, of which 105 were written between 1950 and 1955. Originals are held by the National Archives of Papua New Guinea, and the microfilm was created by the National Archives of Australia.  Remainder are dated from 1922 to 1942. All modern-day provinces of PNG, except Manus and New Ireland, are represented in this set with at least one report.

The reports are arranged by patrol post and year. This guide lists each report in the order microfilmed and provides an index to patrol officers. A geographic index is also provided, although it indexes only those geographic terms appearing on the title pages of the reports--as such, it is incomplete. To find all of the references to a certain locale (village, etc.), it is necessary to search the complete microfiche file for the appropriate subdistrict.

Note: Provincial boundaries in Papua New Guinea have changed over the years. To identify reports on a given area, search the records for neighboring provinces and subprovinces using the "Find in page" function to look for particular placenames (Ctrl F).

The information on number of reports, extent, patrol officers, and areas patrolled, has been taken directly from the contents pages supplied by the National Archives, rather than from the reports themselves. Thus, it must be noted that this information is somewhat incomplete. For example, not all of the geographic names noted in a patrol report have been indexed.

For other information about the Papua New Guinea Patrol Reports or other Melanesian materials at UC San Diego, please contact:

Cristela Garcia-Spitz
Curator, Tuzin Archive for Melanesian Anthropology
UC San Diego Library
9500 Gilman Drive, 0175D
La Jolla, CA 92093-0175
Phone (858)822-7906
Fax (858)534-0189
cgarciaspitz@ucsd.edu