PAPUA NEW GUINEA EXPLORATION OF THE SEPIK AND KARAWARI RIVERS

DEC 1979 PART 5

Northern edge of the Chimbu Highlands flight to Sepik River and Karawari River I managed to publish a magazine article on New Guinea in 1979, and because of that Bob Halstead with the diving business promoted me as being the only

Karawari River exploration lined in red associated with karawari Lodge. The karawari River flows into the vast lake system before reaching the Sepik River

westerner to have published an article on adventure travel in New Guinea in the past several years. I was fortunate to then be invited in 1979 as a guest of Papua New Guinea’s newly emerging Tourism Office organized by Australians. I joined a group of travel writers introduced to the less adventurous but yet interesting and orchestrated cultural tour, staying in ‘luxury’ accommodations. We experienced, a sampling of New Guinea at Mt Hagen, the central city in the highlands, Sinaloam on the Bismarck Sea, and Sepik River at Kawarari Lodge. Karawari Lodge is located in one of the most remote and un-spoilt destinations in

Papua New Guinea the Karawari River, a tributary of the immense Sepik River. The

goal was the promotion of tourism, but the infrastructure was still emerging, and already there were many changes beginning to take place in the country after almost two years since my first visit. I had been privileged to see remote and untouched sections of the highlands including the Bulolo Watut River and Mt Wilhelm, and we had explored Manam Island in 1978.

From Port Moresby, we left for Mt Hagen and saw the commercial presentations of Highland dancing in various villages. I could see the differences from the remote villages we had visited two years prior where they painted their faces with natural clays and dyes, and the village celebration was a bride price. There were no tourists in this area. In Mt Hagen the children and men wore bright commercial facial paint, and had changed to more gaudy headdresses, yet the songs and traditions were being kept. We left Mt Hagen and flew to Karawari Lodge, located on a tributary of the Sepik River. The lodge was run by Air Niugini and had a private airstrip. Chartered aircraft is the only way in and dugout canoes are the primary mode of transport between stilted villages that line the edges of flooded waterways. There are no roads and the people of the Sepik

River live completely off the land, weaving baskets for catching fish; gathering, preparing and cooking their staple food from the Sago Palm.

We descended from the timeless cloud forests of New Guinea’s Central Mountain Range, then flew over amazing wilderness of primary rainforest with limestone mountains draped in montane forest and waterfalls at the edge of the mountain spine of New Guinea. Below lay an immense lowland forest as we crossed the Yuat River that originates at Mt Hagen, revealing vistas from the air of the core of the Sepik River watershed, one of the largest and most intact freshwater basins in the Asia Pacific region. Landing on a grass airstrip we were escorted to 4WD vehicles that carried our group up the hill to the lodge, which was styled in the shape of a Haus Tamboran or

spirit house, with peaked roof ends and decorated with masks, mythical sculptures

and native artwork. This would be our base for the next few days to explore by canoe the villages upstream and downstream as the Karawari River meanders through lakes,

bogs and forest on its way to the Sepik. Our Papuan guide took us around the

grounds and shared with us “Karawari Lodge comes close to giving visitors the “full experience” of interacting with village life and the friendly people of Karawari. There are 20 bungalows with verandahs and private bathrooms. Guests have the chance to visit villages along the river; the home to the Arambak tribes, people relatively untouched by progress.

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. For most of the Sepik's length the river winds in serpentine fashion, like the Amazon River, to the Bismarck Sea off northern Papua New Guinea. Unlike many other large rivers, the Sepik has no delta whatsoever, but flows straight into the sea, about 100 kilometers (60 mi) east of the town of Wewak. The river's total length is 1,126 kilometers (700 mi) and has a drainage basin of over 80,000 km² (30,000 mi²). There is a 5-10 kilometers wide belt of active meanders formed by the river along most of its course that has created a floodplain up to 70 kilometers wide with extensive backwater swamps. There are around 1,500 Oxbow and other lakes in the floodplain, the largest of which are the Chambri Lakes.

The Sepik has a large catchment area, and landforms that include swamplands, tropical rainforests and mountains. The river originates in the Victor Emanuel Range in the central highlands of Papua New Guinea. From its mountain headwaters near Telefomin, it travels north-west and leaves the mountains abruptly near Yapsei. From here it flows into Indonesian Papua, before turning back north-east for the majority of its journey following the great Central Depression. Along its course it receives numerous tributaries from the Bewani and Torricelli Mountains to the north and the Central Range to the south, including the Yuat River formed by the Lai and the Jimmi near Mt Hagen.

The soul of Papua New Guinea, the Sepik is often compared with the Amazon and the Nile, and it sustains an amazing variety of flora and fauna, much of it endemic, along with a wellspring of human cultural expression. In particular, many of the region’s people are economically, culturally and spiritually tied to the crocodiles of the river. The Sepik River is the largest pristine freshwater system in all of New Guinea and it holds some of its rarest plant and animal species, including two species of crocodile, one saltwater and one fresh, upon which the peoples of the river’s middle reaches are

economically reliant. The area is also one of the world’s most culturally and linguistically diverse, home to over 250 languages in an area a bit smaller than the state of Texas.

Left, the northern edge of the highlands, Rt lakes at the lower Kawarari River as it enters the Sepik River

The tropical lowland rainforest of New Guinea is diverse, sustaining an immense variety of flora and fauna with staggering 229 different bird species recorded at Karawari. Birds usually seen include the elusive 12-Wire Birds of Paradise, king bird of paradise, cockatoos, parrots, hornbills, cormorants and other water birds. Among other birds seen with some effort include the dwarf and northern cassowary, grebes, cormorants, great- billed heron, great egret, new guinea harpy eagle, whistling duck, pacific black duck, brush turkey, rails, emerald ground dove, thick billed dove, superb fruit dove, rainbow lorikeet, black capped lory, sulpher crested cockatoo, eclectus parrot, Papuan frogmouth, common paradise kingfisher dwarf kingfisher, rainbow bee eater, Blyth’s hornbill, hooded pitta, blue breasted pitta, rufous monarch, black chinned robin, grey and rusty whistler, black sunbird, yellow bellied sunbird, honeyeaters, and mannikins, 12 wired bird of paradise. The coast of New Guinea had been explored by Portugal, Spain, England, and France since the late 1500’s, but not the interior nor the Sepik River. European contact with the river started in 1885 when the Germans explored what they hoped would be German New Guinea. The river was named by Dr Otto Finsch, Kaiserin Augusta, after the German Empress Augusta and navigated about 50 kilometers (31 mi) upstream from its mouth. In 1886 and 1887, further expeditions by steam boat were conducted by the Germans and over 600 kilometres (370 mi) were explored upriver and in 1912 sent further expeditions to explore the river and surrounding areas. They collected flora and

fauna, studied local tribes and produced the first maps. The station town of Angoram was established as a base on the lower Sepik for explorations, but with the beginning of World War I, the explorations ceased. After the first World War the Australian government took trusteeship of the German colony, creating the Territory of New Guinea, and the Sepik region came under their jurisdiction. During this period the Australians established a station on the middle Sepik at Ambunti to conduct further explorations.

I learned that the Sepik River and its many tributaries still remain unpopulated with sparsely scattered, remote villages with little contact to the outside world where people live a lifestyle unchanged for thousands of years. The Sepik River culture has traditions and customs that can be found nowhere else, building large and elaborate spirit houses (haus tamboran) in their villages to house the good spirits, and the men create intricate wood carvings designed to ward off evil spirits. The isolation of the river’s small tribal groups, including the Arapesh, Iatmul, and Biwat (Mundugumor), from external influences has given rise to one of the most original and extensive artistic traditions

in Oceania. Characterized by the term Sepik River style, the ornamentation of household and cult objects, weapons, musical instruments, houses (high-gabled with decorated house posts), and canoe prows is highly developed. Masks and sculpture are characterized by a “hooked,” or “beaked,” style, with an elongation of the nose, and there is also a tradition of modeling faces in clay on human skulls. These arts are most fully developed in the lower reaches of the river and

in adjacent areas of the lower Ramu River. Each village has a unique style and every villager is an artisan. The people of the ecologically diverse Sepik region speak more than 250 languages and are knitted together in systems of trade and cultural interaction. Ritual, genealogical and historical knowledge defines one group from another and maintains the distinctions that facilitate trade. We experienced by canoe a few of villages along the Kawarari, revealing that their livelihood depends upon the river. Men paddled narrow dugout canoes full of goods for trade, women fished or spent long hours making sago and children joyfully swinging from trees to cannonball in the river. The staple foodstuffs are fish and sago flour, extracted from the pith of the sago palm, an extremely labor-intensive process of pounding the pith or heart of a palm trunk, then straining with river water to create a flour. Warfare and head hunting was a river culture practice in the Sepik area in the past, and young men could only come of age in these regions by taking a head. Before the advent of missionaries spreading the gospel of Jesus love for them, warfare and spiritual fear of the demonic realm dominated the culture. The Latmul people of the Sepik would take the heads in battle, boil away the flesh and hang the painted and decorated skulls as trophies in the men's houses. The head hunters were not necessarily cannibals, but many were. Human flesh was eaten until fairly recently and

some of the older men from villages remember tasting it as children, they will tell you that it tasted a little bit like chicken. The men's house is the place where important decisions regarding the village are made. Descending from traditionally male-dominated warrior cultures, the men still congregate in

Villages above and below Karawari lodge representing an unchanged lifestyle tied to transportation by canoe, and traditional houses built on stilts, and cultural ties between villages.

intricately carved “spirit houses,” to debate village matters. The spirit house had red and white faces painted all over it, along with bird sculptures, and other regional deities. The

artisans who carve the house posts, orators’ stools, ceremonial hooks and other features found within the houses are honored within their tribes. The Haus Tamberan is also where boys are initiated into cultural manhood, including the painful circumcision rite, and ceremonies are performed to appease their belief in spirits. Here the crocodile is worshiped as the water spirit, and crocodiles feature prominently in the legends and rites

Kawari River. Two separate ceremonial circumcision rites. One I was not allowed into the Haus Tambaran, the Lowest photos I was able to witness the beginning. The men in pandanus palm skirts jumped around and said to be the guardian spirits of the longhouse. The young men had been prepared with whipping, sleep deprivation, then covered with ash, and their backs cut with a razor and ash rubbed into resemble crocodile scales. In great pain they were ashen grey as they anticipated the actual circumsion, which I did not want to see.

of passage of various Sepik tribes. Stories may vary from village to village, but there is a shared belief in ancestral ties to the crocodiles and a practice of ritual scarring of initiated men. In excruciatingly painful ceremonies young men have their backs cut to resemble the markings of the crocodile, which is a symbol of strength and power. I was privileged on my own to witness the ceremony of several young men, who were covered in grey fire ash, and escorted to the haus tamberan with yelling, jumping by men wearing large masks covered in a sago leaf grass skirts. They were given the title of protectors of the spirit house. The man inside the outfit is believed to be possessed by spirits that protect the area and are an important part of the manhood ceremony.

We had to ask their permission before entering the house. Inside its sacred spirt house is an assortment of costumes, statues and masks all heavily painted in vibrant colors. Delve deeper into the house and you will crawl into a room dedicated to the local god. He stands six feet tall with his palms stretching forward. His eyes and face are brightly colored and is surrounded by shell jewelry. The slit drums were hammered on by elders with the blunt end of sticks, and long notes from unseen flutes, their belief in the call of their ancestors, filled the haus. Each of the young men to be initiated waited while one in their group was worked on by the village elder. He cut small slices on the young man’s back and rubbed the ash in to scar. The young man didn’t whimper, but you knew he was in great pain. He had not slept in several days, and were not fed to endure their ceremony, which would culminate in circumcision. This was difficult to know this still happens today in the Sepik River culture, and I personally would be glad to see it lost in the New Guinean definition of manhood.

Women were treated poorly in their culture, and on one occasion on my own in the highlands I had witnessed an older man brought to the plane in the grass airstrip, shackled in chains. He was from a remote village, and word ‘ass grass’ or the pandanus palm skirt. He had murdered his wife with an axe, over a reason I did not know. In the same way two tribes near Kundiawa after I left in the 1980 (2010) have been at war with each other over rights to coffee plantations. There had been many deaths and

paybacks, where anger can still surface because of old traditions, but also because of the heart of man. I met so many wonderful Papuans, who will give you the shirt off their back, but then there is another side, as there is in all of us when offended, or one of our family members is harmed. It is a chance for the gospel of Jesus Christ to truly fill their hearts. I have seen such anger and hatred in so many situations where there is unforgiveness, lack of trust, and wanting to payback harm that has been done, whether in Rwanda, India, Indonesia or my home in the US. My hope is for Christ to fill with forgiveness and understanding, love and acceptance. To know the Fathers heart for us all. That is my hope, and my hope for Papua New Guinea, a country whose people I have grown to love.