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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