Saturday March 23, 2013 KITAVA, the TROBRIAND ISLANDS - PAPUA NEW GUINEA
We continued our steady cruise overnight heading South to the Trobriand Islands which are an archipelago of coral atolls off the Eastern Coast of the large island of New Guinea (the other half of the island is INDONESIAN IRIAN JAYA). The Trobriands are situated in Milne Bay Province in Papua New Guinea. Most of the population of 12,000 indigenous inhabitants live on the main island of KIRIWINA, which is where the Papua government station LOSUIA is located. Other major islands in the Trobriands are KAILEUNA, VAKUTA, and KITAVA and are considered to be an important tropical rainforest ecoregion in need of conservation.
KULA RING tradition.
In the Trobriands most people are subsistence horticulturalists who live in traditional settlements, within a social structure based on matrilinealclans (the women own the land) who control the land and resources. There is an important culture here called KULA - where the folks sail in their dugout outrigger canoes from one island to another to visit their trade partners. The KULA ring spans 18 island communities of the Massim archipelago including the Trobriand islands and involves thousands of individuals. Participants sometimes travel hundreds of miles in their canoes to exchange KULA valuables which include:
shell disc necklaces (BAGIS) that are traded to the North, circling the ring in a counter clockwise direction, and
shell armbands (MWALI) that are traded in the Southern direction, circling the ring in a clockwise direction.
If the opening gift was an armshell or MWALI, then the closing gift must be a necklace or BAGIS, and vice versa.
The terms of participation in the KULA ring varies from region to region, for example in the Trobriand Islands the exchange is by Chiefs only, whereas in DOBU all the men can participate. The KULA valuables are non-use items traded purely for the purpose of enhancing one's social status and prestige. The ceremonies and traditions that accompany the exchanges follow carefully prescribed customs and traditions which establish strong and life long relationships between the exchange parties, and results in exchange members being welcomed as family everywhere within the KULA ring.
In the late 20th century, anti-colonial and cultural autonomy movements gained followers from the Trobriand societies. When inter-group warfare was forbidden by colonial rulers,the islanders developed a unique and very aggressive form of cricket!
We had a weather forecast for light showers during the morning and a high of 28 degrees - it looked like another great day! Captain Vincent Taillard had made great time overnight with the calm seas and so we arrived early which is what the Expedition Team was hoping for - we looked across to the beach on KIATAVA island, and we could see a large area set up with palm fronds all around denoting the performance area for the cultural dances. Again, we all needed to arrive together for the welcome, so after breakfast we were soon boarded onto the first zodiac and heading to KITAVA. Being first we managed to get photos before anyone arrived from the ORION and we could see that this was going to be very special event - there were already well over 100 villagers with lots of kids sitting around the dance area, all veery excited with a real hum from everyone talking together. There are 5 villages on KITAVA and they all come to this event for ORION. Interestingly, and in some ways a real shame, oter ships are planning to visit this village and a couple of smaller ships have already visited. Due to Justn's relationship within the village (he is an adopted brother of Abraham) the performance is done right on the beautiful white sandy beach on the shoreline. A couple of other ships have visited and they have to walk up to the village (a good 30 to 45 minutes) they are not allowed to have the performance on the beach, only ORION can have the performance on the beach.
We were welcomed by 6 beautiful young girls, all dressed in colourful shells, flowers and feathers - and they placed a flower and leaf lei over our heads as we walked through the ceremonial palm fronds into the dance area - were we were not allowed to cross the central area where the dances would be performed but we had to walk around the outside and could then sit on the narrow wooden benches, or the woven straw mats, on the sandy floor. As the zodiacs unloaded the Orion passengers who entered the arena, more and more villagers arrived and the noise level increased - the villagers love these events and are as enthralled with them as we are!
One point to note is that when we entered the dance area, over top of the palm fronds was a beautifully painted white and red yam house replica - each home has a yam house where the villagers store their yams. The Chief of the village died ? and was an Aussie called King Cameron who arrived during WWI and never left because he loved the island so much, and became a member of the Coastwatchers for Australia. Later in the morning when we walked up the track to the village, we stopped at the gravestone for King Cameron and on it is a beautiful white and red cared and painted boat prow from his boat. It is at this point that we were welcomed into the village and could wander through and visit with the villagers. The village previously presented the ORION with a replica of King Cameron's boat prow which holds position of pride in the Galaxy lounge onboard the ORION today. When the Chief (King Cameron) died, a Lindblad ship was scheduled to visit for a cultural event but they were turned way since the village was in mourning. However, Orion also visited at this time and they were received and welcomed into the village because of Justin's relationship with his adopted brother Abraham, and Orion had sent 2 pigs to the village paying their respect when the Chief died.
The villagers were ready to start their ceremonial dances and soon they came onto the sandy dance area in front of us - starting with about 50 young boys wearing a small tapa loin cloth with decorated faces painted with many white spots, some even had half of their face painted black with the white spots on top - this is called the Tapioca dance and involves lots of pelvic thrusting! Justin had told us about how in the Tobriand Islands there is lots of pelvic motions in their dances - it was something the London Missionaries had tried to eliminate by making them give up their dancing when they arrived, and they taught them to play cricket! But as mentioned above, the Tobriand Islanders just transferred their fierceness and pelvic thrusting on to the cricket pitch and completely changed all the cricket rules to meet their needs!
After the young boys came the older male youths, dressed the same way but with palm strings tied around their heads elbows and knees and chanting - again some pelvic thrusting and the KUNDU drums being beaten. The youths necklaces also had large round slices of shells or pig tusks hanging - we have seen such a huge number of pif tusks used in necklaces throughout our South Pacific travels.
Again we had a large number of young boys and some of their dance movements mimic what they saw the soldiers do during the war - so they are using sticks as rifles, and at the end of the dance they all fall flat on their backs in long lines - I think as if they are dead. but it certainly gets a good laugh from all the villagers watching and from us! About 40 small girls come in wearing multi layered multi coloured short straw skirts - nothing on top but they are 10 and younger, shells, straw ribbons and feathers in their hair, and some have the painting on their faces and rows of white dots under their eyes. One really pretty little girl (well they try were ALL pretty! had a black and white dot fish painted around her one eye. Their singing was so harmonious and pleasant, just lovely to watch and listen to. This was followed by the bare breasted teenage girls coming in and dancing - we were just entranced by them all. The last performance was a tug of war between the bare breasted women of the village against volunteers from ORION!! As you can imagine - the village ladies have never lost! They had their technique down and soon the ladies at the end (versus) the centre lay down on the sand pulling the rope which provided an anchor and then overcame the Orion guests who still did an awesome job!
The tug-o-war completed the cultural performance, and time for photos and to take a look at the huge artifacts market - I'll bet there must have been over 100 folks sitting down with a wide variety of items from wooden bowls (ebony, kwila, coconut) inlaid with shells and/or fabulous carving, ebony walking sticks, and of course lots of shells and shell necklaces. After seeing only 10% of the market we headed up to ? village with Justin, about a 30 to 45 minute walk depending on your energy in the humid heat. We talked t folks living along the trail up admiring the lovely yam houses (straw roofed small building on stilts) where they keep all their yams. The school at the start of the village was empty - all the kids enjoying their day off for the cultural performances. The village was well laid out with lots of grass in the centre and the homes on each side (very similar to Madang) and many had their wares laid out in front hoping we would buy. One lady was offering everyone a fresh coconut with water for whatever you wished to donate, while I spotted another lady busy weaving a new dried palm leaf matfor sleeping on - very dean precise work - she told me would take her about 2 days to complete (after all the palm leaves have been gathered and dried).
When we walked back down, many of the vendors from the beach market were heading back up the track to their homes - we managed to buy a small bowl and wooden knife (which we lost the same day) and give the two different men one 50 kina note to share since none had change - a perennial problem when travelling in the islands. You also can only ever pay in the local currency because these folks never go into a larger town with a bank which would allow them to change any currency from another country. We were almost the last to get on the zodiac and head over to the island opposite with the beautiful beach, along with many from the market who also headed over in their outrigger canoes, where we would spend all afternoon swimming and snorkelling and enjoy a wonderful beach BBQ that the galley and serving staff had spent all morning setting up and cooking. We enjoyed "drift snorkelling" where the Expedition staff dropped us off at the start of the reef up current and we drifted down checking everything and then swam back to the beach - lots of healthy corals, a huge number of smaller fish, some larger Napoleon wrasse, crown of thorns, anemones and clown fish, tons of ? stars - just fabulous and wonderfully clear with great visibility. There was also an open bar so we thoroughly enjoyed a glass of white wine with our choice of salads, grilled fish, beef, chicken, sausage with ice cream and fruits for dessert!
Again we were in the last zodiac back to the ship at 430pm after a truly great day and simply wonderful village experience and cultural performances from the Trobriand Islanders. We were joined in the zodiac by Nyree from Australia who had purchased the most wonderful ebony seahorse with inlaid shells - she had been back to Orion to get more Kina to complete her purchase!
To finish the day perfectly, after a refreshing shower, we watched the photo slideshow recap for the day in the Constellation Lounge - such a brilliant day and the photos were wonderful for a quick visit all over again! The day was completed with a tasty dinner downstairs in the Constellation Restaurant before we fell into bed!
Cheers ..... Jan Umbach
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