Safeguarding Abelam culture
By DR JACOB SIMET
MY FIRST encounter with Abelam art was in 1974, when a group of men from the Maprik district of East Sepik province came to the University of PNG to paint a facade at the University Library, now the Sir Michael Somare Library.
In 1978 I had the next encounter with Abelam art, when I commenced post-graduate studies at the Australian National University (ANU), and met my program supervisor, Professor Anthony Forge, whose area of interest and expertise was Abelam art.
From the understanding I have developed over the years of Abelam art, it is one of the most intricate, elaborate and spectacular in the country. This art culture is now becoming iconic to Papua New Guinea.
Thus it was with some alarm that we received the information that Abelam culture of the Maprik district was on the decline; and this elaborate and spectacular form of cultural expression of Abelam culture was in jeopardy.
This information did not surprise us that much as we had known for some time that the cultures of the Maprik district had been under threat since the fundamentalist churches entered the area some twenty years ago and seemed to have a negative view about the cultures of the people.
This was evident when we attended the opening ceremony of a haus tambaran (spirit house) at Nindikum Village. But it was also pleasing to see that despite the many years of cultural inactivity in Nindikum Village, the people still built a haus tambaran, with the appropriate designs and the associated festive performances.
The new fundamentalist church groups had arrived in the area about twenty years ago and managed in the main to displace the established mainline churches. Although they did not have very specific policies against traditional cultural practices, they made it difficult for people to be members of their churches and continue to live their traditional ways of life. This also happened in many other parts of the country as well.
In the early years of contact, it was the mainline churches which brought the gospel to many parts of PNG; then carved up the country into separate areas of influence and dominance; in some respects similar to way the world had been carved up between the Colonial powers of the time. This concern with territoriality by the churches was not surprising, as these early churches were sometimes seen to be the “maiden-hand” of Colonialism.
Clearly, the early churches considered much of the peoples’ traditional ways of life as contrary to the life they had brought with them, and needed to be changed.
Anything which appeared to be religious in any nature was considered to be heathen, and was discouraged as much as possible.
In some parts of the country, people were banned from participating in cultural activities and if they disobeyed they were ostracized from the church. This was then supported by colonial Government policy which either banned or limited peoples’ participation in these activities.
For instance on New Britain, men were banned by a particular church, from participating in the ceremonial activities associated with the tubuan society, as the tubuan itself was seen from the outside as an object of worship.
Although for slightly different reasons, the then colonial Administration supported the church’s position by restricting tubuan related activities to only certain parts of the year. In the Gulf of Papua, the teachings against indigenous peoples ways of life, particularly their religions, was so strong it resulted in the open destruction of traditional institutions which embodied elements of traditional religion.
This was demonstrated in that destructive action known as the Vailala Madness, which swept along the Gulf coastline and involved the burning of eravo (spirit-houses) and all their contents.
However, sometime later; particularly after PNG gained political Independence, the early and mainline churches seemed to have relaxed their positions in relation to the local peoples’ ways of life and their cultural practices. They no longer saw these as contradictory to their teachings and did consider those with any religious connotations as being heathen. Some of these churches now incorporate some traditional motifs such as in the artwork and in their liturgies. It was not uncommon then, to see traditional dances being performed at religious occasions and even in the church buildings. There seemed to have been a general acceptance of the indigenous peoples’ cultures and including those things that might have been suggestive of religion.
Only in the last twenty years there seems to have been a change in attitude towards indigenous peoples and their ways of life by the newly arrived fundamentalist churches. This attitude seems to be a reversion to the attitude of the early churches of the mid- and late 1800s, when they first arrived. This seems to be that; things to do with traditional cultural ways were contrary to the gospel and anything which looked religious was heathen. This is the attitude which swept the Maprik District about twenty years ago and arrested traditional cultural life in the area to a standstill. Given this situation, it was with some difficulty that the people of Nindikum Village attempted the re-building of a ‘spirit house’.
The idea of rebuilding a haus tambaran was difficult as it was such a long time since many people had been involved in the construction of one. At the same many of the people who had the knowledge of building such houses had died.
Thus the re-building of such a house involved some searching for those surviving few who may have had the knowledge. Even the knowledge of the ceremonial and ritual performances associated with the house could not be readily located with people as the last performances had taken place many years before.
In the end the appropriate people were found and willing to undertake this project and the building got off the ground and the people with the performance knowledge came forward with their contributions.
The result of many weeks of preparations was the haus tambaran which stood in the middle of Nindikum Village, a little smaller than the normal size building but it was a major achievement for the people, many of whom had thought they would not participate in the construction of one.
Many of them admitted that they were not sure whether they had the correct knowledge to undertake, and complete the building.
The building was at ground level, unlike other spirit houses in other parts of the Sepik, particularly the River, where such buildings are usually on high stilts. The front of the building bore the elaborate facade artwork of the Abelam, for which they are so well-known, while the lower part was decorated with bilums and shell-valuables.
Unlike other spirit-houses elsewhere, this house did not have a door. Instead there was an opening at the very bottom of the front of the building, at ground level so that entry into the interior was by literally crawling on the ground.
A number of performances were performed by villagers on that day.
For many, the building of the haus tambaran and the rehearsals of the dances and other performances were learning processes which enabled them to make connections with a culture which they thought had been lost.
It was a process in which they were successfully guided by the handful of adept old man and women who were happy that they had passed these skills and knowledge to those who came after them and hoped that they would in their turn pass these onto those who came after them.
Amongst the knowledge which has now been passed on is that knowledge of the spectacular Abelam art and the skill in its re-creation. It is such an important part of the traditional cultural expression of the culture; Abelam culture would not be complete without it.
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