Goroka Show & Lake Kutubu Festival     
12 days - PNG Highlands Festival & Culture Tour

The densely populated Highlands region of mainland Papua New Guinea was “discovered” as recently as the 1930’s by Australian gold prospectors, Mick Leahy and Michael Dwyer. Melanesians have occupied the highland interior of New Guinea Island probably for more than 30,000 years, developing advanced plant cultivation and irrigation technologies at 1,500 metres above sea level, possibly 10,000 years ago, establishing themselves amongst the world’s earliest agriculturists. The oldest evidence for this is in the Kuk Swamp area, where planting, digging and staking of plants, and possibly drainage have been used to cultivate taro, banana, sago and yam.

 

The cultural practices of the people of Lake Kutubu result in their wise use of natural resources. They illustrate on a daily basis the importance that traditional methods and cultural expressions play in conserving the lake and it’s surrounding forest. 

The Kutubu Kundu and Digaso Festival celebrates the Kutubu peoples continuing connection with their beautiful surrounds.

The people of Lake Kutubu in Papua New Guinea offers an unique opportunity to examine and appreciate the role of local people not only in biodiversity conservation but in the promotion of their cultural heritage as well. The Lake Kutubu people are indigenous and on account of the retention of much of their traditional culture, retain close ties to their ancestral land and the abundant biological diversity found therein.

 

Made throughout the Melanesian Islands tapa is a traditional cloth made from the inner bark of suitable trees like paper mulberry or breadfruit trees. In Papua New Guinea it is commonly associated with the Maisin people in the Oro Province. This bark cloth is also made by the Fasu and Foi people in the Lake Kutubu area. They utilize larger sheets as undecorated rain capes, predominately worn by women in times of bad weather, as well as for traditional dances, ceremonies and in times of mourning. The inner bark layer is peeled from the trunks of the harvested trees and alternately soaked in water and beaten to gradually produce a thin sheet. Strips of tapa are often overlaid crosswise and beaten again to produce larger and stronger pieces of blank cloth to suit particular end uses and designs. Tapa beating is carried out using a hardwood or stone tool to flatten the fibres against a smooth log or similar. The locals, more particularly the women wear costumes of tapa cloth throughout the “sing sing”. 

 

Sago is extracted from Metroxylon Palms by splitting the stem lengthwise and removing the pith which is then crushed and kneaded to release the starch before being washed and strained to extract the starch from the fibrous residue. The raw starch is suspended in water and then collected in a settling container.

 

Digaso oil is rubbed on the skin to give traditional dancers a shiny black look. It comes from the Digaso tree found growing among sago palms. The pinkish-white heartwood produces abundant clear exudes which react with oxygen to form black oil. The Kutubuans oil is stored in long bamboos, kept in the longhouses and traded for modern money, traditional shell money and pigs. Traditionally the oil was traded with the Huli people for pigs, Nipa people for stone axes and the Enga people for salt. In the past it was also used to protect against lice and heal sores.

 

The Lake Kutubu Wildlife Management Area supports a rich and varied bird community. Surveys conducted to date have recorded nearly one-third of all bird species resident or regularly occurring in  the New Guinea region. The high species richness is attributable to the presence of multiple habitats, including a variety of dryland forest, open-water wetland and swamp vegetation types, spanning an elevational range of nearly 600 m within a small geographic area.

​

The Foi and Fasu people eat bamboo shoots from the gardens and use the bamboo tubes for carrying water, cooking sago and as pots for boiling other foods such as vegetables.

They also tend small, often fenced, tobacco gardens. Clearing garden land is primarily men's work while planting and weeding are done by both men and women. Longhouses are surrounded by small gardens, while larger gardens are made in the bush and along the banks of rivers. Various plants are mixed together in food gardens.Tree crops in the Kutubu area include pandanus, breadfruit, tulip and coconuts. The trees are planted in gardens as well as near villages. The tulip trees, in particular, are planted in gardens but unlike other places in New Guinea where people eat its leaves, in the Kutubu area, it is grown primarily for its bark which is used to make capes and twine for string bags (bilum). Foi and Fasu people hunt wild pigs and cassowaries in heavily forested mountains. They also hunt small bats in limestone caves. The lake is the main focus for fishing activities and usually available along the edges of streams and along the rivers are crayfish, crabs and large fish such as barramundi.

Pigs are of extremely high value anywhere in Papua New Guinea including the Kutubu lake area where they are kept in villages. They sleep by the women's houses and are given special attention and food such as chewed, cooked sago mashed with greens. When grown, they figure prominently as bridewealth given by the groom's family and in other ceremonies.

 

​