Why was Papua New Guinea apparently spared by massive plagues brought by europeans, and why was Papua never extensively colonized unlike Australia, Africa or the new world ?

by Naliju

I guess that native papuans had extensive contact with Indonesian people further east, and that this would explain why they weren't victim of massive plagues brought by european contact, but how extensive was this immunity ? For instance native papuans didn't had at my knowledge domesticated animals (apart from semi-domesticated pigs ?) so were they immune to all the illnesses brought by europeans ? Does that also concerned other melanesian people which lived in more isolated places, such as Kanaks, Solomon islanders or Guadalcanal natives ?

Also, I guess that Papua wasn't extensively colonized due to its harsh climate, rough geography and hostile native, but how true was that ? Were there other factors that played in dutch and germans not populating and modifying those lands as british did for Australia or french did in western Africa ?

koredozo

I would say that Papua wasn't spared from plagues at all; European contact just came very late to the Papuan inland, and thus, so did their diseases. Schlieffen's ethnography The Sorrow of the Lonely and the Burning of the Dancers relates that tribes such as the Etoro and Kaluli were devastated by repeated measles and influenza outbreaks during the 1930s and 40s, killing over 50% of some groups, and they have still not still recovered to their former numbers.