Bernard Narokobi's History of Wautogik Village

Chapter 15: The First Professionals - Part 1

Sengiromo was the first Wautogig man to become a professional. He worked as a dokta boi, a medical orderly, at the old Wewak hospital. He worked with Mr. John Sakangu of Kwangen. But most of the early professionals were schoolteachers: Joseph Guaigu, Leo Kobudan, Joseph Male Sallun, Cleophas Mellam, and Vitus Horieb.1 2 They were later followed by Matthew Rahiria.

Joseph Guaigu studied at Boram and then went to Dregerhafen in Morobe province to study to become a primary school teacher. Most of the other primary school teachers studied at Urip primary school, then Brandi secondary school through grade eight, and then went to Dregerhafen teachers’ college for training. After the war Mathew Rahiria’s father worked in Wewak at the Wewak Hotel. Matthew went to school in Wewak. He studied first at Brandi and then later at Kerevat national high where he achieved grade ten and trained as teacher.

Sir Pita Simogun started the first government-run primary school at Utepiguh in Urip in 1953. Mellam, Male, Kobudan, and Horieb were already adults when they attended the school at Urip.3 They had received their earliest education in Wautogig village under Anton Narokobi, later assisted by catechists Wolfi and Peter Mok of Boikin. Their early education consisted of reading, writing, and religion in Tok Pisin, done through repetition after the teacher. This no doubt gave them a head start in learning.

Joseph Sallun left the village as a young man and worked on a ship as a crewman, with peers like Nombote, while others like Nicholas Baiwog, Kais, and Inahur went off to Rabaul to work on plantations.4

Among this group were other men like Mattias Manga Ulaɲin who was then living in Banak village down the coast with the rest of the Kadaim clan. These young men walked as many as 15 kilometres each day to go to school and return home, until sago thatched dormitories were built for them to sleep in.

Because the school was new, much of each day was given to physical work like making vegetable gardens, building bush material classrooms and dormitories, cutting firewood, cooking, and cleaning school grounds. There was no place for female students.

Matias Manga was engaged as a switchboard operator for over twenty years in Wewak and Goroka until automatic switches were introduced and he became redundant. The others—Mellam, Kobudan, Horieb, Rahiria, and Guaigu—all became primary school teachers.5 Each one of them quickly became headmasters of the schools they taught in and remained in their posts until retirement. They taught at schools all over Papua New Guinea. Kobudan died while teaching in Manus and was buried there.

These young men were encouraged by the people of Wautogig. By 1953 the village had moved sites from Litali to Huraimbo, the present location, which shortened their walk to school. Mr. John Nindim, a big tall man of Krapehem clan, had become the first local government councilor for But-Boikin Native Local Government Council. John Nindim was a student of Anton Narokobi and another great supporter of education. Nindim went out of his way to encourage these young men to get an education. He did this by arranging for people to bring food to the school and by organising dances including the slaughter of a pig to farewell the boys when it was time for them to return to school at the end of their holidays.6

In the 1950’s another activity of commercial nature was taking place. Mr. Corrigan, an Australian labour recruiter, was active in the Sepik region, recruiting young men to work as indentured laborers on coconut planations in Rabaul or Kavieng.

Two young men, Moses Yauieb and Yambuagən of Wautogig, were quickly identified as the leading hands or bos bois. Both these men had served as policemen in the Allied Forces in the New Guinea Islands Battalion (NGIB) during the Pacific War.

They were sent into the Lumi, Nuku, and Ramu regions to recruit able-bodied young men to work on the Burns Philps and Steamships plantations.7 Like other young men of Wautogig at the time, they too were advantaged by having learned to read and write from Anton Narokobi.

Other young men like Rahiria and Musuruo, as well as Otto Sengu and his wife Teiliəs, took up full-time work in Wewak: Rahiria and Sengu as hotel attendants and Musuruo as Mr. Corrigan’s driver. Other men who went away to do wage work include Gabuogi, Morihia, Romukori, Pilimbi, Baiwog, Nombote, Kwainger, Nɨmbemie, Male, Numbojuor, Tamaɲe, Yomune, Sokamia, Inahur, Felix Natopol, Worebai, Watiem, and Musualis.8 Some worked in Madang and Lae and Rabaul. Many of these pioneers died away from home. Some sent their children and grandchildren back to Wautogig. Kais, Yomune, and Nombote did that.9

The first generation of men to advance in education was my generation. Tom Talonu and I were the first of the Wautogig village boys to get a tertiary education. After our tokples and catechist schooling with my father, Anton Narokobi, and his clan son and successor catechist Pita Robui, we enrolled at Urip Primary School, which was run by the Australian administration. This was in 1956. Tom and I were in fact the second batch of students to complete all primary grades. The first batch was made up of Male, Mellam, Horieb, and Kobudan. The one soul who preceded them was Joseph Guaigu, the first ever fully-trained primary school teacher from Wautogig village. He returned to the village after he retired.

Mellam and Male Sallun also retired to the village. So did Mathew Rahiria (who died on 11/07/2005). Kobudan died in active duty as a teacher in Manus. Horieb retired from teaching, entered provincial politics in New Ireland, and became a provincial minister. He retired from politics and died in 2000.