Dr. JACOB L SIMET
YAMS are grown in different parts of the world and are an important staple for many people.
There are many different varieties of yam grown in many different ways. There are some with tubers which grow at the end of vines underground and others that hang from the vine like fruits. In some parts of PNG we commonly refer to yam in the Tok Pisin terms; iam and mami, in most cases iam referring to the tubers and mami meaning those that hang from the vine. .
In PNG while this vegetable is mostly just food, in some places yam is a very important cultural object and is the center of elaborate ceremonies. The better known of these are the yam harvest ceremonies of the Trobriand Islands and the yam festivals of the Maprik people.
Further, in at least the Trobriand and Maprik societies, the yam is of the status as item of cultural value. It is a store of value and it is used in ceremonial situations in the same way as some other valuables such as the cowrie which was once used in the Highlands of PNG, the tabu-shells of the Tolai of New Britain and the dogs’ teeth as used by the Manus people.
Recently we were approached by a young man from the Maprik area in East Sepik province for assistance to safeguard their traditional cultures from further erosion and possible eventual disappearance.
In his letter to us the young man wrote; the culture of the Aabelam is disappearing at an even faster rate than before. The young do not seem to be interested in their culture and this is the cause of many of the social problems we have in our district”. His plea was mainly that we document what is left before the old people disappear and then to store this information for future generations.
Maprik culture is part of that culture area known as Abelam. One of the cultural practices which is mentioned by the young man as being under threat of disappearing is the yam culture. The mention of this aspect of Abelam culture reminded me of a Yam Festival which I attended at Naligum Village, outside of Maprik Town. This was an occasion which we would never be able to see anywhere else in the world.
It occurred to me that if this aspect of Abelam culture were to disappear, it would be a great loss not only to the Abelam, but also to Papua New Guinea and humanity as a whole. Very simply, the ceremonials surrounding the yam are unique and also importantly, no one grows yams as long, as big and as heavy as they do in the Maprik area.
The yam festival at Naligum Village took over a week, with the garamut being beaten every night, under the shelters where the yams were being kept, out of sight from everyone except for a few old men. Every night during the week, new yams were brought in to the shelter, in wait for the day when they were to be brought out to be publicly paraded and compared to each other. In accompaniment to the beat of the garamut, performing groups from both local villages and visitors sang and danced all night.
On the day before the revealing of the yams, two tumbuan emerged in the village and took their place near the huts where the yams were being stored in secret. The beat of the garamut resounded from under the huts and the tumbuan began to dance. This dancing continued into the night and the tumbuan were replaced by groups of men and women dancing to the beat of kundu. At midnight there was a feast of boiled yams and pork and the dancing continued well into the early hours of the next day.
On the afternoon of the next day the two tumbuan appeared again near the shelters, being accompanied by a group of dancing men. After a long dance performance, the tumbuan ushered the first yams out from under the shelter and they were finally brought into the open to be paraded for all to see.
Each yam is strapped to a pole and is carried by a number of men, depending on the length and weight of each yam. All of the yams brought out of the shelter were long and heavy; most of them more than six feet five inches long and weighing between forty and fifty kilograms. Yet they were treated as very delicate objects; the men carrying them having to walk very slowly and making sure that the yam does not fall from the pole. Eventually all of the yams were laid against a cross-bar, for inspection. Each yam was elaborately decorated with plumage and other decorations, with a mask affixed to the top end. The mask meant that each was a person, rather than just being a mere vegetable.
The longest yam of this day was seven feet and nine inches in length and it weighed 48 kilograms. Apart from its massive size, it was acclaimed to be the best in appearance, which meant that it had been looked after very well.
The parading of yam for inspection and evaluation among the Maprik is not entirely about the yam itself. Yes, it is about the length, the size, the weight or the general appearance. However, at the same time this evaluation is about the person who had grown the yam. It is about his life generally; whether he has followed the rule of abstinence from his wife during the gardening period. It is an important taboo that a man has to abstain from sexual relations with his wife while he is tendering his yam garden. Violation of this rule will show in either poor quality of his harvest or it will be shown in some odd forms on his yams; such as lots of holes on the crop. At the same time the infidelity of a man during the garden period will also be manifested in some form in the appearance of harvested crop; such as the shape of men’s genitals. The appearance and quality of a man’s yams also shows the state of his relations with other people; whether he is greedy or generous. Also importantly, the quality of his yams is a statement about the power of his magic. While much of growing yams is traditional knowledge related to gardening techniques and some of it being in fact scientific; local thinking in-fact attributes the results to magic. The magical prowess of a man in yam gardening suggests that he has powerful magic in other matters.
There are many cultural forms belonging to the indigenous people of this country which are unique only to Papua New Guinea. Unique, meaning they cannot be found anywhere else around the world; in the past or at the present. The better known of these are the tumbuan masks of the New Guinea Islands, MOMASE and Gulf Province; the elaborate body decorations and head plumage of the Highlands region; the ocean-going canoes of Milne Bay and nearby areas of the southern region and of course the chieftan yam houses of the Trobriand Group of Islands. The uniqueness of these cultural forms puts Papua New Guinea on the map and are worthy of protection and preservation.
No one anywhere else around the world grows yams as long, as big and as heavy as the people of Maprik. This then puts the yam culture of the Maprik people as one of the unique cultural forms of Papua New Guinea and is worthy or protection and preservation as pleaded by the young man in his letter to us. We hope we and other authorities are in a position to respond positively to his plea.

 

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