Papua New Guinea Cultural Immersion
Iconic Mt Hagen Show in the Scenic Highlands 
 Sepik River Mystic - Ramble around Rabaul- Bougainville

The promotion of community tourism on the Sepik River is an absolute imperative because if people can see the economic value in conserving the diverse culture and biodiversity of this region, it is less likely to be destroyed.

Canoe transport has served the Sepik population for thousands of years. The canoes have a very low centre of gravity, making them virtually impossible to capsize or sink. The canoes range in length from 6-10 metres and are powered by 30 hp and 40 hp outboard motors. Travelling on the Sepik River in a motorised canoe is very safe and provides an ideal vantage point from which to observe the river’s aquatic inhabitants, birdlife and Sepik River peoples whose daily life seems unchanged by modernity.

 

The Sepik River is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and after the Fly and the Mamberamo the third largest by volume. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Sepik) and East Sepik, with a small section flowing through the Indonesian province of Papua.

The Sepik has a large catchment area, and landforms that include swamplands, tropical rainforests and mountains. Biologically, the river system is often said to be possibly the largest uncontaminated freshwater wetland system in the Asia-Pacific region. But, in fact, numerous fish and plant species have been introduced into the Sepik since the mid-20th century.

From the headwaters to the mouth, the river flows through at least 12 different Sepik languages, each corresponding to one or more culture regions of related villages that exhibit similar social characteristics. The largest language and culture group along the river is the Iatmul people.

 

The hunting of crocodiles is conducted sustainably employing a number of methods. Firstly: during the day the crocodiles are chilling in the sun, in the evening they go hunting as do the croc hunters. During the dry season they canoe along the river banks by the use of a torch until the light hits the eyes of a croc. The canoe is steered gently towards the prey, the hunter sticks to the crocodile armed with a hooked spear while the backman steers the canoe. This method has proven to be most efficient. Secondly: a group of hunters march through the swamp close to each other and working nearby to where the crocodile mother laid the eggs. Then they indiscriminately poke the swamp until they hit something and then capture it. Thirdly: set a bait overnight on a fishing hook from the shore until a croc gets caught on it.

 

In 1885, the North West coastal area of the mainland along with many New Guinea Islands including Bougainville came under German administration under the German New Guinea Company. With the outbreak of the First World War, Australia occupied all of German New Guinea in 1914. At the conclusion of the war German New Guinea was declared a League of Nations mandate, to be administered by Australia. Bougainville has remained part of Papua New Guinea up to and after the attainment of Papua New Guinea’s independence from Australia in 1975.

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The Tamatama Festival of Central Bougainville celebrates the popular local food. “The tamatama has its own ancient folklore. In recent times it has earned its place amongst the traditional cuisine served both as entreé and also thrown into the smorgasbord mix and fray of local and modern delicious dishes” explains Simon Pentanu. “It owes its popularity to the delicate and caring hands of women in the close knit village family households.”Tamatama is a local rich vegetarian dish slowly prepared by stirring fresh coconut oil over hardwood fire stoked under undamaged selected banana leaves or in tradition claypot - kakasi’. It is entreé on its own but has gradually found its way for pickings as part of many smorgasbords amongst other garden food and seafood. Best eaten hot to warm for a unique taste that caresses the pellet when eaten on its own. Comes in straight up and down longish shapes, meatball sizes and, occasionally, in flat and roundish scone shaped finishes. Variaties come in banana, taro and cassava prepared on their own or mixed in a single dish finish. Rarely spared to last overnight as it slowly loses its freshness and taste. However, leftovers can be heated to get a roasted banana, taro or cassava taste but at this stage it is usually eaten for the feel of the remaining rich coconut oil and cream which still holds its taste at any temperature.

 

Upe is a traditional hat worn by boys especially in Terra and Rau Constituencies in the Wakunai area, Central Bougainville. 

The hat is not worn randomly, only in specific rituals. This may be when young men, especially first born males, are taken high up in the mountain forests of Wakunai to be initiated into manhood. This practice has significant ethical and moral value. In the forest, the young boys are taught many things about life. The educators teach the young boys such things as hunting, planting, catching, building, fatherhood, leadership, war, how to make weapons, responsibility, honesty, respect, bush medicine, different types of plants and animals and their purpose of existence and uses. This life in the forest is out of the normal but is very useful in the life of the community. After some years in the bush, when the Upe leader and his helpers see that the boys have become men, they will initiate them to return home and make a normal living.

 

On April 18, 1943, Japanese Admiral Yamamoto's plane was shot down after Allied forces intercepted a Japanese coded message that Admiral Yamamoto would be flying from Rabaul to Bougainville to inspect Japanese installations there. The admiral perished. Yamamoto was Japan's most prominent naval officer during World War II. who was the mastermind of the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour. And yet, Pearl Harbor aside, Yamamoto was not a great admiral. His strategic blunders were numerous and egregious, and were criticised even by his own subordinate officers.

 

Bougainville boasted the best living conditions in PNG before a decade long civil war broke out in 1989, inflicting much destruction and the death of over 15,000 islanders. You will visit the now closed, Rio Tinto majority owned, Panguna mine, central to the grievances that initiated the formation of the Bougainville Revolutionary Army. The mine still contains about $50bn of copper, gold and other metals. In 2019 as part of the peace settlement, Bougainville’s population of 250,000 voted 98% in favour of independence from Papua New Guinea.  The prospect of Bougainville becoming the world’s newest country will unearth all the geopolitical intrigue that exists in the Asia Pacific region. Intrigue indeed!

 

Not far from Kokopo township in East New Britain is the beachside landing site at Kabakaul from where Australian military forces advanced in 1914 to capture the German wireless station at Bita Paka. This battle was Australia’s first major military engagement of the First World War. Bita Paka War Cemetary is now the resting place of over one thousand Australian and Allied soldiers who met their fate during World War 2, when “Fortress Rabaul”  became the South Pacific headquarters and staging post for the Japanese Imperial Forces. It was occupied by 100,000 Japanese soldiers.

 

In 1902, the 25-year-old German health reformer, August Engelhardt, who practiced sun worship and a strict coconut diet, retreated from Bavarian university life to Kabakon Island in the Duke of York Islands, which he purchased from his mother country with an inheritance. The first few years were idyllic. Engelhardt established a coconut plantation and called his followers to join him in this brave new world. They called themselves Sonnenorden and practised sun worship and nudity and lived off coconuts. But it didn’t last. The alien living conditions took their toll and several died. Others turned their back on him. Engelhardt, known by the local islanders as Mr Coconut, was eventually left alone, gripped by malaria and went insane. He died on the island aged 46 in 1919.

 

The Tubuan Society of the local Tolai people who have strict laws and taboos. Learn of the Ingiet stone carvings associated with the powerful Ingiet sorcerers and the secret men’s society, outlawed by the German administration in 1905. Early missionaries and travellers to New Britain found it to be the only area in the Pacific region they had come across where the locals had a true money currency of a standard value. The Europeans were intrigued by the local monetary system and the way in which Tambu was intricately woven into the very texture of social life. It still plays its role in Tolai society today, maintaining its cultural significance, particularly as part of the bride price or gift giving to the father of the would be bride.

 

The Rabaul caldera was created about 1400 years ago with an explosion which erupted 11 cubic kilometres of rock. This massive outpouring of gas, lava, rocks and ash produced the largest volcanic dry fog in recorded history. A mysterious cloud that blocked sunlight for 12 to 18 months over Europe, China and the Middle East in 536 AD is linked to this mighty eruption.

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Queen Emma Coe was a Polynesian Princess and daughter of an American sailor and Samoan mother who in the late 19th century brought commerce to East New Britain, through her savvy business sense and huge land holdings, upon which she grew an abundance of copra and cocoa. The steps are 140 years old, built in 1882 to grace Queen Emma’s famous bungalow Gunantambu. They were climbed by Governors, Ambassadors and Officers representing German Kaiser, American President and kings of England, France and other European nations along with assorted bishops and world-renowned scientists, explorers, anthropologists and adventurers. Gunantambu gatherings were famous throughout the South Seas.

 

Mt Hagen, capital of the densely populated Highlands region of mainland PNG 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 Kuk Early Agricultural Site was formally accepted onto the World Heritage List at the 32nd Session of the World Heritage Committee in Quèbec in July 2008.

 

Societies of Papua New Guinea and Indonesian West Papua often use bird-of-paradise plumes in their dress and rituals, and the plumes were popular in Europe in past centuries as adornment for ladies' millinery.

Hunting for plumes and habitat destruction have reduced some species to endangered status; habitat destruction due to deforestation is now the predominant threat.  The first Europeans to encounter their skins were the voyagers in Ferdinand Magellan's circumnavigation of the Earth.