Buin is a town on

Bougainville Island Bougainville Island (Tok Pisin: ''Bogenvil'') is the main island of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, which is part of Papua New Guinea. It was previously the main landmass in the German Empire-associated North Solomon Islands, North Solo ...

, and the capital of the

South Bougainville District South Bougainville District is a district of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville of Papua New Guinea. Its capital is Buin.Autonomous Region of Bougainville, in eastern

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

. The island is in the northern

Solomon Islands Archipelago The Solomon Islands (archipelago) is an island group in the western South Pacific Ocean, north-east of Australia. The archipelago is in the Melanesian subregion and bioregion of Oceania and forms the eastern boundary of the Solomon Sea ...

of the

Melanesia Melanesia (, ) is a subregion of Oceania in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It extends from Indonesia's New Guinea in the west to Fiji in the east, and includes the Arafura Sea. The region includes the four independent countries of Fiji, V ...

region, in the

South Pacific Ocean South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþaz ...

. It is a government-established town in the jungle, now inland from the coast, where its sea-landing predecessor of the same name was located. The town is in an

autonomous region An autonomous administrative division (also referred to as an autonomous area, entity, unit, region, subdivision, or territory) is a subnational administrative division or internal territory of a sovereign state that has a degree of autonomy� ...

of Papua New Guinea established in 2000, and was the former North Solomons Province (1976-2000).''Merriam Websters Geographical Dictionary, Third Edition'', p. 183.

History

Buin and Bougainville Island gained world attention with the

Japanese Army The Japan Ground Self-Defense Force ( ja, 陸上自衛隊, Rikujō Jieitai), , also referred to as the Japanese Army, is the land warfare branch of the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Created on July 1, 1954, it is the largest of the three service b ...

's occupation in 1942,

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, and the subsequent American counterattack in November 1943. After the war, the present-day town of Buin was established, inland to the north from its original location, which had been a minimal point of sea-landing on the coast. In 1943,

Imperial Japanese Navy The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, when it was dissolved following Japan's surrender ...

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was flying over Buin in his G4M "Betty" bomber. A squadron of American

P-38 Lightning The Lockheed P-38 Lightning is an American single-seat, twin piston-engined fighter aircraft that was used during World War II. Developed for the United States Army Air Corps by the Lockheed Corporation, the P-38 incorporated a distinctive ...

s flying up from

Guadalcanal Guadalcanal (; indigenous name: ''Isatabu'') is the principal island in Guadalcanal Province of Solomon Islands, located in the south-western Pacific, northeast of Australia. It is the largest island in the Solomon Islands by area, and the se ...

ambushed Yamamoto’s bomber, killing him when the "Betty" crashed. During the late 1960s, Buin became a regional center of government, commercial, and education activity. After Bougainville Copper, Ltd., was established, it came to national prominence as the source of a large proportion of the country's financial base. The town was isolated from contact and commercial activity during the 1990s Bougainville Civil War. In 2000, it fell within the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, upon the Autonomous Region's establishment.

German New Guinea

Buin was within

German New Guinea German New Guinea (german: Deutsch-Neu-Guinea) consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and several nearby island groups and was the first part of the German colonial empire. The mainland part of the territory, called , ...

from 1884 to 1919. Three anthropologists explored traditional cultures in Bougainville in the 1930s, one in Siwai, the ethnically and culturally closely related region immediately to the west of the later Buin; another in the region of the long-established east-coast town of Kieta to the north. They published widely read books. One Chinese trade-store family arrived during German period before World War I, four of whose members ultimately continued running Buin trade stores until the political and military crisis which began in 1988. The Germans, though not the later Australians, permitted Chinese immigration. Buin and Siwai boys visiting Lake Loloru and feeling discomfort

Buin and Siwai boys visiting Lake Loloru and feeling discomfort

Roman Catholics and Methodists (from 1968 the United Church in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands) established missions early in German times in the region of what later became Buin, a small number of other Christian denominations also later establishing a smaller presence. A Roman Catholic nunnery was very early established immediately adjacent to the later Buin

airfield An aerodrome (Commonwealth English) or airdrome (American English) is a location from which aircraft flight operations take place, regardless of whether they involve air cargo, passengers, or neither, and regardless of whether it is for publ ...

. Pre-Christian traditional beliefs of course remained alive, including the firm one that souls of the deceased remained alive on Lake Loloru in a volcano northeast of the later Buin, and powerful men continued taking multiple wives. On the other hand, a strong tradition of intelligent and talented women having considerable influence remained vastly important. Indigenous Roman Catholic nuns and female Methodist ministers became deeply appreciated. Men of a Buin village drumming in their club-house

Men of a Buin village drumming in their club-house

Territory of New Guinea

Buin was within the

Territory of New Guinea The Territory of New Guinea was an Australian-administered United Nations trust territory on the island of New Guinea from 1914 until 1975. In 1949, the Territory and the Territory of Papua were established in an administrative union by the na ...

, a Mandate of the

League of Nations The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference th ...

, that consisted of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea and a number of outlying islands. It was wholly controlled by Australia during 1920–1942 and during 1945–1949 and mostly occupied by Japan during World War II, between 1942 and 1945. In 1914,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

seized German New Guinea which included Bougainville and Buka as the northernmost two islands of the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...

, which Germany and Great Britain had divided between them, the south of which had been taken by

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It ...

. Despite Australia's remaining a British colony until the Statute of Westminster of 1931, affirmed its independence when the "autonomous Communities within the British Empire ecameequal in status, in no way subordinate one to another" within a "British Commonwealth of Nations" despite Australia's not accepting such sovereignty until 1942 with the Statute of Westminster Adoption Act 1942. Australia took virtually no steps to develop this remote part of Papua and New Guinea, apart from minimally developing the small towns of Kieta, Buka Town, and Buin (initially on the south coast), and permitting plantations to be established from Kieta up the coast to Buka. Indeed, one of the most widely read books on pre-World War II Bougainville was Douglas L. Oliver’s ''A Solomon Island Society: Kinship and Leadership Among the Siwui'' ic''of Bougainville'', a lengthy report of his 1938-39 anthropological study of a village in Siwai. Oliver made no mention of the coastal port of Buin, though would necessarily have been where he landed and entered. Nor did he mention it in his ''Bougainville: A Personal History'' or ''Black Islanders: A Personal Perspective of Bougainville 1937-1991''. The Vienna-born and ultimately also US-based anthropologist Richard Thurnwald, (1869-1954), “one of the most productive ethnologists of his time,” wrote two published studies of people in the region of today’s Buin, both in English: ''Profane Literature of Buin'' and ''Pigs and Currency in Buin'' (1934)

World War II

The

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emper ...

occupied Bougainville in early 1942, building two

air base An air base (sometimes referred to as a military air base, military airfield, military airport, air station, naval air station, air force station, or air force base) is an aerodrome used as a military base by a military force for the operation ...

s on the southern end of the island, one at the site of what would become Buin after the War and the other at Kahili. The northern tip of the island was the home of the third air base, and the fourth was across the Buka passage on Buka. Buin briefly attained worldwide attention when on 18 April 1943 a Japanese Navy airplane carrying Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, then on a tour of forward bases, was shot down near there. The architect of the Japanese Navy's air attack on

Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor is an American lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. It was often visited by the Naval fleet of the United States, before it was acquired from the Hawaiian Kingdom by the U.S. with the signing of the ...

that brought the USA into the war, Yamamoto was the commander-in-chief of the

. The

ambush An ambush is a long-established military tactic in which a combatant uses an advantage of concealment or the element of surprise to attack unsuspecting enemy combatants from concealed positions, such as among dense underbrush or behind moun ...

was carried out by

s flying from

. Yamamoto's airplane crashed just north of the later site of Buin. "It was obvious to the planners that Japanese air power sited at Rabaul and at the Bougainville fields of Kahili, Buin,

Kieta Kieta is a port town located on the eastern coast of the island of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea, near the township of Arawa. After extensive destruction during the 1990 Civil Uprising on Bougainville, Kieta has few inhabitants now, and is kno ...

, and Buka must be neutralized before the Empress Augusta Bay operation could take place.” WWII remains on Buin beach

“On Bougainville y mid-1944the Japanese were forced to retreat north to Bonis Peninsula and Buka island, and south around Buin.” In late 1944, the Australian Army took over responsibility for clearing of Japanese troops from the island, and they slowly began to advance south from Torokina towards Buin where the main Japanese forces were located. “By the end of June

945 Year 945 ( CMXLV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * January 27 – The co-emperors Stephen and Constantine are overthrown barel ...

in the major area of operations, southern Bougainville,…it was estimated…that the Japanese army had dwindled to approximately 14,000 men…. Over eight thousand were in the Buin area, now only thirty miles from the advancing Australians." Stiff Japanese resistance and heavy rains, however, brought the advance to a halt in July 1945, just after the Australians reached the Mivo River. As a result Buin remained under Japanese control until the end of the war in August 1945. The northern and western Solomons long remained world-famous because two later presidents of the USA served in the U.S. Navy in this area, Lt.

Richard Nixon Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...

on Green Island just north of Buka, and Lt. John F. Kennedy on a

patrol torpedo boat A PT boat (short for patrol torpedo boat) was a motor torpedo boat used by the United States Navy in World War II. It was small, fast, and inexpensive to build, valued for its maneuverability and speed but hampered at the beginning of the w ...

based on

Rendova Island Rendova is an island in the Western Province of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific, east of Papua New Guinea. Geography Rendova Island is a roughly rectangularly-shaped island, located in the South Pacific in the New Georgia Islands. The ...

. During the 1970s, there were expeditions to Buin by large groups of Japanese to find the bones of fathers and grandfathers killed in South Bougainville during the war, to cremate the remains, and take them home to Japan. Many also visited Yamamoto's wrecked airplane and obtained accommodation at the Buin High School, bringing substantial gifts of books for the school library. Buin trade store

Post-World War II development

“To replace and improve livestock destroyed during the war, the Department

f Agriculture F, or f, is the sixth letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounced ), and the plural is ''efs''. Hist ...

built pig-breeding centres at Lae, Madang, Wewak, Aitape, Manus, Sohano and Buin; and day-old chickens were flown in from Australia, reared, and distributed.” “Around…

967 Year 967 ( CMLXVII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Europe * Spring – Emperor Otto I (the Great) calls for a council at Rome, to present the ne ...

developments in timber and road metal in the Buin area of South Bougainville were handled with … contempt for villagers. In order to try and entrench itself among Bougainvilleans, CRA ougainville Copper Ltd.suavely hired a miscellany of experts, including at least three noted anthropologists. One of these, professor Douglas Oliver of Harvard and the East-West Centre of Hawaii, had already written a masterly ethnographic study of the Siwai of South Bougainville dating back to 1938-39. His published advice to CRA shows no awareness of the political implications of mining, but merely a facile optimism that the people he portrayed to CRA shareholders as simply primitive and superstitious ‘will probably get used to the Company’s presence.’” Bougainville Copper commenced operation of the mine at Panguna in 1972. Australia had begun to take interest in Bougainville with the establishment of Bougainville Copper. This was when development of Buin became serious, together with that of the by-then long-established

and additional towns in the region. These included the new Arawa, which became the capital when provincial status was established in 1975 — substantially at the urging of the Buin political leader, figure of national eminence in Papua New Guinea and Roman Catholic priest, (Father)

John Momis John Momis (born 3 March 1942) is a Bougainvillean politician who served as the President of the Autonomous Region of Bougainville in Papua New Guinea between 2010 and 2020. Momis served as a Catholic priest from 1970 until 1993, becoming active ...

. Although large expatriate plantations were established from Arawa northwards along the northeastern coast to and including Buka, such activity did not occur in the Buin region, although a Chinese-run trade store was established during the German period, and four family members continued running trade stores at Buin, one continuing until the crisis beginning in 1988.

Early provincial self-government

Buin High School students en route from town to school

In 1973, Papua New Guinea was granted self-government, and then independence in September 1975 from Australian government rule on orders by the United Nations, some 30 years ahead of plan. Not long thereafter, Bougainville declared independence from Papua New Guinea, causing PNG to invade Bougainville with the military support of both the Australian and New Zealander governments in an attempt to secure control of the lucrative Panguna Copper Mine, from which the Papua New Guinea government and Australian shareholders obtained significant wealth. In times of economic vitality before road transportation existed, from southern Bougainville through Buin northeast to Kieta and Arawa, people went to Buin, and in the days before it became common to hear and speak

Tok Pisin Tok Pisin (,Laurie Bauer, 2007, ''The Linguistics Student’s Handbook'', Edinburgh ; Tok Pisin ), often referred to by English speakers as "New Guinea Pidgin" or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an ...

(until recently referred to in English as New Guinea Pidgin, and still by Anglophone Papua New Guineans), one could hear not only Buin's Telei language, but also a great deal of Siwai's Korokoro Motuna.

Local autonomy

When Bougainville again declared independence from Papua New Guinea in 1990, Buin erupted with a storm of local activity, including the destruction of the local council building blocks, and large craters being dug out of the local airport with bulldozers to ensure that PNG forces could not land there. The local goal (?) being torn apart and carried down the main street of Buin and dumped in front of the council buildings. The locals formed a strong rebel army, and they fought back and through a bloody and horrible series of battles, PNG and its allies Australia and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

were ejected from the island, which reportedly still widely yearns to become an independent state. Buin NSP Saturday market 1978

Economy

Shortland Island fishermen at Saturday Buin market

Commerce and town social activities

During its heyday, Buin was an affluent town. Access to Kieta and Arawa for selling cocoa and buying supplies, previously accessible only by northwest road via Panguna through mountains, became available more directly on a new highway from Buin northeast along the coast. There were a medical clinic and active government offices. Its main street had four trade stores, three run by Chinese and white Australian families (ethnically Chinese having been resident in PNG since German rule before the beginning of World War I in 1914), and one run by the local people. There was a bank, a men's pub, and a large Saturday fish, fruit, and vegetable market. Despite its lack of a hotel, foreign tourists arrived frequently, including aforementioned Japanese seeking remains of forefathers from World War II, and coming both from Kieta and Arawa on the eastern coast of Bougainville and from the south in the Solomons by boat. The obligatory local drinking pub, a post office, and a running subbranch of the Bank of Papua New Guinea, local weekly market filled with local trade including local fruit (guava, paw-paw, and mangoes), vegetables (cumu, taro, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin), fish of all types brought by Shortland Islanders, local fresh water crayfish, and fowl, including domestic chickens and local wild fowls. Bats and possums were often featured as well. Buin and Siwai villagers delivering cocoa to Arawa port

Buin and Siwai villagers delivering cocoa to Arawa port

Encounters with local people, both town and nearby village dwellers, were common. There was a thriving Saturday market with fruit and vegetables brought by nearby villagers, fish and shellfish by Treasury Islanders, the international boundary not being closely monitored. The precise national border between Bougainville and the rest of the Solomons can be confusing, and international maps can be openly mistaken. The Google map on the Internet shows no national border between Bougainville and Shortland Island and with the light official policing of such matters, so far from border crossing points, fishermen wishing to sell at the Buin Saturday markets would not encounter any border guards wish to see passports. “In the last two decades of the 19th century, the national border between Bougainville, part of German New Guinea, and the rest of the Solomons, a British colony, changed several times. The islands of Bougainville and Buka in the Solomons Group were added in 1886 and remain das part of Papua New Guinea in 1979, but the Shortland Islands, Choiseul and Ysabel were German only from 1886 until 1899. In a deal … concluded in 1899, Britain extended her Solomons border northwards to the Buin Straight south of Bougainville.” Village women always wore blouses to Saturday markets as to religious services, though as elsewhere in Bougainville and Buka they often went topless when not attending such functions. Wedding of Papuan Anglican groom and Buin Roman Catholic bride

Wedding of Papuan Anglican groom and Buin Roman Catholic bride

Culture

Buka boys performing at a Buin folk festival

The eminent anthropologist Douglas Oliver, who visited and extensively studied southern Bougainville's peoples and cultures from the 1930s through the 1980s, wrote many books including ''Southern Bougainville'' (1968) which has been summarized "The Greater Buin Plain of southern Bougainville provides a complex picture of similarities and diversity. From northwest to southeast, a clearly marked range in emphasis from maternal to paternal ties and descent is paralleled by a shift in the bases of the status hierarchy, from kinship and age (northwest) to greater stress on renown and a system of inherited class‐status. These are considered in relation to differences in leadership. Defining "political" broadly on the criterion of a group's corporate title(s) to the territory it normally occupies, the paper suggests that, in addition to cumulative change, all of these factors can be seen in terms of cyclical change between two sharply contrasting types of political unit."

Religion

A Roman Catholic parish church and a United Church congregational church both thrived. Anglican clergmeny would visit to participate in intermarriages of local Roman Catholics with resident Papuans; a Canadian Anglican archbishop visited en route to a world conference in England, causing a long-term link to be established between Canada and the southern Solomons, where Australia did not greatly contribute. Douglas Oliver,Inter alia, Douglas Oliver, ''A Solomon Island society: kinship and leadership among the Siuai of Bougainville'', Cambridge, Massachusetts": Harvard University Press, 1955; ''Bougainville: A Personal History''. Carlton, Victoria, Australia: Melbourne University Press, 1973. an anthropologist of Harvard University and later the University of Hawaii who gained world fame with ''A Solomon Island Society'', 1938 after study in Siwai and ''The Pacific Islands'' was frequently consulted by Bougainville Copper and often visited Buin in the 1970s, where well-read people were pleased to meet and talk with him, ''inter alia'' as to his knowledge of by then past traditions which he knew from his aboriginal studies in Siwai in 1938-39. There was an annual folk festival on the parkland immediately south of town and next to the high school, with folk dancing and traditional music from all Bougainvillean ethnic groups having access, often including a few New Guinea Highlands people in traditional festive dress. Buin High School had a massive folk festival on its school grounds open to the public, with entertainment and sales pavilions.

Education

Very well established primary, high, and building and technical schools functioned, the high school with a province-wide enrollment of some 450 students. Secondary school students had once been forbidden by Australian Marist Brothers to speak indigenous languages though foreign teachers of nationalities other than Australian — British and Canadian — urged that such rule be modified; students were allowed to speak their own languages on weekends and they soon picked up New Guinea Pidgin ("Tok Pisin," as Australian academics lately insist it be called in English) for communicating in languages other than their own—secondary students were from all over Bougainville and Buka with a few from elsewhere in the New Guinea Islands and mainland New Guinea whose parents were employees in Bougainville -— or English and New Guinea Pidgin. Academic standards were remarkably high, with the 80 grade-10 graduates initially moving on to post-grade 10 schools elsewhere in the country at a rate of a handful of 80 but it quickly moving to over 75. Unlike in Enga Province and elsewhere in the New Guinea Highlands where Australian academic supervisors insisted that day students be allowed to take books home despite the warning that that would result in parents tearing them up to roll cigarettes, Buin High School students rejoiced in ample library books, borrowed them both at school and to take home, and read them thoroughly. Sporting activities at Buin High were extremely lively on well-kept fields, as were cultural exhibitions and exchanges and choir singing. The vocational school teaching building and mechanical skills, with Filipino teaching staff, thrived.

Climate

Buin has a

tropical rainforest climate A tropical rainforest climate, humid tropical climate or equatorial climate is a tropical climate sub-type usually found within 10 to 15 degrees latitude of the equator. There are some other areas at higher latitudes, such as the coast of southe ...

(Af) with heavy to very heavy rainfall year-round. Unlike many places in Papua New Guinea, Buin and the southern coast of Bougainville island experience a rainfall maximum during the south-east monsoon (low sun season).

Notable Buin people

Gallery

File:Buin High School from the air with the town beyond.jpg, File:Buin High School students in class.jpg, File:Basket ball at Buin High.jpg, File:Buin High School library 1977 when admission to education insti.jpg, File:Buka_students_at_Buin_High_School,_1978.jpg, File:Buin_High_School_classroom_buildings_restored_2013.jpg,

File:Christkas_dinner_1978_in_a_Siwai_village.jpg, Christmas dinner near a south Bougainvillean village: turkey, but cooked in traditional style in the ground File:United_Church_village_preacher.jpg, United Church village preacher File:Bougainvillean_female_United_Church_minister_1978.jpg, Female minister of the United Church File:A_United_Church_village_choir_in_Siwai.jpg, A village United Church congregation's choir

Notes

References

* *''Merriam Websters New Geographical Dictionary, Third Edition''. Springfield, Massachusetts: Merriam-Webster, Incorporated, 1997. . * {{Districts of Bougainville Populated places in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville