sepik river

7/27/2019 Sepik River

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SEPIK VILLAGE, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Three of the villages along the Sepik

Palembei, Yetchen and

Kanganaman. Each of the three isfamed for its renowned artisans and

carvers and each of Palembei and

Kanganaman have beautiful spirithouses.

Spirit houses and shopping

In order to understand just how isolated and infrequently visited these places are by outsiders, it is important, I

think, to give some perspective on the size of ongoing western influence in the area. It was a battleground area

in WW2 and therefore each of the Australians and the Japanese had set up camps in different villages along theriver. Palembei, for example, was inhabited by the Japanese. Since the end of WW2, however, influence has

been slight. The total middle Sepik region may see 300400 tourists a year, and those will only visit certain

villages in the region. So, breaking it down, a village might see about 100-150 outsiders in an entire year. The

influence is slight and thus despite having largely moved to western dress, the ceremonies, initiations and

traditions continue to survive and thrive in the area.

Palembei had two spirit houses. The first was bombed by the Japaneseduring WW2 and only the large, beautifully carved poles remained. The

clan then split the spirit houses to represent each of the two large clans in

the village. The carvings were beautiful and the legends and histories

powerful. The first had two large links of knots hanging from the ceilinglike what you would put together to count the days until Christmas.

There were more than 100 of them. These links each represented a

trophy taken during the headhunting days.

It turns out headhunting was even more prevalent than you ever would

have thought. Why? Well, because it wasnt really viewed as war, butinstead essentially as a sport. Each village had its team of warriors who

were responsible for raiding the other villages and taking heads. Each

head was a trophy that represented a knot in the links, and, formerly, anaddition to the collection of decorated skills (those are now gone). At the

end of each headhunting season (it was only for a few months a year),

tallies were taken and the village with the most was the champion, e.g.the strongest and most powerful village in the Sepik area. Pretty incredible stuff.

Carved totem poles.

Remains of the bombed spirit house
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Palembeis spirit houses were beautiful, but Kanganaman was beyond description. We entered the village to the

sound of the beating Garamut drum eerily passing over the trees. As we got closer, you saw two men dancinginside of huge woven masks around an extremely large spirit house (it was easily double the size of the other

ones). The oldest spirit house along the Sepik, the building was massive and in the open lawn with the blood

stones before it, the figures dancing to the Garamut drum was otherworldly. The whole experience was

breathtaking.

Yetchen was a much smaller village, but one famous for its crocodile dance and beautiful woven masks. Clearly

the two go together. Along with the beating Garamut drums, a team of dancers, two of them wearing massive

crocodile costumes came dancing out of the spirit house. The crocodile men bobbed back and forth , with the

oven crocodile jaw opening each time they moved. It was a hilarious. The funniest part, though, was when theelder was explaining the dance at the end. We were commenting on how beautiful the masks were and he

abruptly complained that the young men had not been able to properly decorate the masks with the right leaves

due to the earlier flooding and thus the masks were essentially subpar. We certainly did not notice.
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SEPIK RIVER VILLAGE

Dusk over the tranquil and meandering Sepik River.

The Sepik is the longest river in Papua New Guinea at about 1,100kms long (700 miles), flowing throughswamps, tropical rainforest and around mountains but is mostly untroubled by modern human settlement,

mining or other industrial activities. It eventually flows into the sea near Wewak.

AHaus Tambaran and luxury tourist cruise boat on the Sepik River


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Haus Tambaran

Curly roofed Haus Tambarans in the East Sepik region of PNG have tall, elaborately decorated front walls

and house the local spirits, as well as superbly bizarre shell masks, penis gourds and other vital bric-a-brac on

offer to passing tourists.Traditionally Haus Tambarans are a male-dominated places of worship. They're commonly used as a meeting-

house and place for rituals, initiations and yam cult worship. Sepik women exist primarily to prepare feasts and

watch the men doing their rituals.

A typical Sepik village scene.

Reference:

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OTHER SIMILAR SETTELEMENTS
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SITE MAP OF THE SETTLEMENTS

AERIAL VIEW OF THE SETTLEMENTS SETTLEMETS ALONG THE RIVER
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