THE NAME "PAPUA."

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 27 June 1912, Page 3

THE NAME "PAPUA."

In the discussion which followed the reading of Mr Staniforth Smith's paper on "Exploration in Papua," before the Royal Geographical Society, London (now printed in the "Geographical Journal for April), a question was raised as to the appropriateness of "Papua" as the statutory name for British New Guinea. Mr A. F. R. Wollaston (who has explored in Dutch Guinea) said that Papua (pronounced Papooa, with the accent on oo;, signifies woolly, and is in use among the Malays of the arckipelago, who apply it. to the woolly-head-ed natives of New Guimea. In course of time- the island came to be called Papua. ' But the true Papuans, as recognised by anthropologists, are more characteristic of Dutch than of British New Guinea, where they are in a small minority, so (says Mr Wollaston) apart from the absurdity of its meaning, it seems a pity to name the territory Papua.