A rare part of Bundi culture

By VINCENT KUMURA

Bongonogoi is an isolated little village of Emigari in rural Bundi of Madang. At 1,500m above sea level, the place has a perfect spring weather all year around.
The village nestles neatly atop a narrow ridge separated by two huge rivers (Tayowo and Imbrum) from Mt Wilhelm that are feeder rivers to the mighty Ramu River, which meanders through the Ramu valley about 30km away.
From there, one could hear the ever lilting voices of the birds of paradise singing and dancing freely in the evergreen below. Above, crystal clear waters gallop down from the rocks which the locals use for drinking and bathing. And the green all around breathes the freshest of unpolluted air, not to mention the million dollar view overlooking the majestic Ramu plains in the distant north east as the December sun rises to gladden the earth.
The locals of Emigari are dedicated organic coffee farmers. Each farmer has more than 4,000 coffee trees the highest number being 20,000. But due to lack of road and market access, their dreams to improve their livelihood through coffee as their main cash crop fell through. The coffee trees are now part of the forest all around them.
Like many other remote places of Bundi with no proper healthcare and school facilities, many migrated to the popular ‘Bundi Camps’ in the urban areas and settle along the highways in pursuit of a better life and promise for their children’s education and welfare.
However, those who remain and continue to toil the harsh conditions have something very special, a natural product that needs to be developed, marketed and introduced to the rest of the world to help improve their livelihood. That product is marita or komba in the local Gende language of the mountain people of Bundi.
Legend has it that Minike, the juiciest of all red kombas and the last of all komba species to be harvested originated from Emigari.
Realising this, the Kumura Foundation executive team visited Bongonogoi to discuss with the locals the possibility of hosting the first ever “Bundi Komba Festival” at Bongonogoi next year from April 2-4.
The festival would be an initiative of the foundation under its eco-tourism focus to promote sustainable eco-tourism practices and help improve the livelihood of the locals.
The following is the story of the Bundi komba.
Komba is a long pandanus fruit that grows best between 800-1,300m above sea level. There are many kinds. The fruits are very colourful when ripe and come in eye catching red, yellow and orange-red.
The mountain people of Bundi are called Gendes as they speak the Gendeka language and komba forms a very unique and beautiful part of the Gende culture. In fact, the Gendes are always proud of their kombas. They claim they have the biggest, juiciest and most varieties of kombas around. The komba harvest season (November-April) is a very celebrative one.
Chimbus from the Kundiawa-Gembogl area where there are very strong family ties and ancestral trading links will visit Bundi with fresh vegetables from the Gembogl region in exchange for kombas.
Some individuals will gather kombas and call upon their friends or family members who dwell at higher altitudes (1,700+m) of Bundi where komba doesn’t grow to come and take the fruits back to their villages.
In some areas, the komba growing village will collectively gather kombas and call upon an entire non-komba growing tribe of Bundi to come and take the fruits back to their villages. This involves exchanges and dialogues between the two tribal leaders and tasting of different komba dishes cooked in various traditional ways. This can be quite ceremonial.
The komba fruit hangs from its tree at about 2-5 meters above the ground. Once the fruit is harvested from its tree using a stick or bamboo pole, it is split into halves or thirds using domo (cassowary bones), tu ongas (stone axes) or a sharp edged stick to remove the kiyawa, the thick spongy delicate white flesh inside the fruit. Once that is removed, the pieces are bundled together with bush ropes and carried home for cooking.
In a strictly traditional way, komba is cooked in a woko (bamboo) or a garia (ground pot) with water. For a bigger family, the fruits are cooked in several wokos or garias and for a larger gathering, they are cooked in imu (larger ground pits using hot stones called mumu in Tok Pisin.
Today, cooking for a larger audience is made easier using larger introduced aluminum dishes and pots.
Once cooked, the komba is removed and placed in carefully selected beautiful spacious tagis (wooden bowls) and select individuals (usually males for larger audiences) with carefully washed and clean hands will kala (squeeze the bones off from the remaining flesh) to remove the kiyawas from the nutty fruits using sharpened small sticks as makeshift forks.
For major traditional komba gatherings in Bundi, the eating of the kiyawas is the most significant part, which also requires a lot of preparation. Everyone in the host community will gather firewood, stones, bamboos, greens, sweet potatoes, bananas, tagis, water in bamboos and kombas. They will also build norm kwaitike (a temporary long house to store the kombas) at the celebration area. A select group of hunters will venture into the forest and rivers for a week or two before the event to hunt and gather wild boar, cuscus, fresh water eels, fish and eggs of wild fowls and cassowaries.
These different types of meats and eggs are prepared in carefully chosen intricate traditional ways using only local recipes. They are then cooked.
Once cooked, they are brought into the central area of gathering. The village chief then acknowledges the visitors, the hunters, the hosts and remarks on the essence of the event. The various meats are then shared with the visitors along with the komba kiyawas. The whole community celebrates by feasting on the komba kiyawas.
While everyone feasts on the kiyawas, the select individuals who squeezed the komba will add little fresh water to the komba and start tuke (milking) the thick red, yellow or reddish-orange creams onto the tagis from the nutty fruits.
After milking, another select group of individuals from within the host community will prepare five to 10 different dishes of komba using the komba mondu (milked cream) and start cooking using bamboos, ground pots or hot stones in ground pits.
The reason individuals are selected is because according to Gende culture, most men won’t eat komba dishes milked and prepared by women, but women can eat komba dishes prepared by both men and women.
Finally, once everything is cooked, they are then piled onto the tagis for the invited visitors (tribes, villages, groups of families and friends) from far and near to relish the delicious local komba dishes with sweet potatoes, bananas and other starches cooked in the mumu.
To flavour the food, local salt is produced using a very strenuous process, but now with introduced salt, this process seldom exists today. Sitting around the tagis in groups, visitors would relish the food with bare hands or with the makeshift forks.
What follows after all the eating and feasting is the cream of the traditional komba culture. The host community will put on some performances of local traditional dances and folklore music. Everyone sings and dances to the beat of the kundu drums, sounds of nakai wokos, pumengies (bamboo flutes) and tambares (jaws harps) till daybreak. The host community could feed and host up to 500 people for such a festival.
One of the most fundamental reasons for this komba festival is the long inherited strong-held belief that if you share and celebrate in such a graceful manner, mother nature will continue to bless your komba gardens with more good kombas in the ensuing years.
Other good things also eventuate from this cultural festival. Family ties are strengthened, tribal links are forged, peace agreements are reached between warring tribes and for some, courting, which marks the beginning of wonderful relationships.
As generations passed, sadly, this colourful and a very unique part of Gende culture around komba is slowly fading away. Therefore, Kumura Foundation is working with the locals of Emigari to host the first-ever formal Bundi Komba Festival at Bongonogoi, Emigari from April 2-4, 2019 to not only revive that wonderful culture, but also to develop it as a tourism product in PNG and help improve the livelihood of the disadvantaged locals in this remote part of Madang.
April is the final month for the komba Minike, the creamiest of all the red kombas in Bundi that is commonly used for major komba kiyawa celebrations from generation to generation.
Today, the number of people living outside of Bundi is twice those living in the villages. Likewise, the number of kombas outnumber the local population and thus, most of the ripe fruits are left alone on their trees to rot. Some become food for wild animals such as the beautiful birds of paradise.
As I sat on the balcony of my eco-friendly cabin at Snow Pass and gazed back at the direction of Emigari, patches of circular white clouds hovered the little isolated village of Bongonogoi in the cool of the day. I could picture hundreds of smiling faces with red komba sauce on their lips.
I couldn’t wait to experience one of the most beautiful and celebrative part of the Gende culture in April, 2019.
There may be a better reason for the few who have remained and toiled the harsh conditions of Emigari over the years.

•  Vincent Kumura is the founder and director of Kumura Foundation Inc. He is the 2016 Digicel PNG Foundation Men of Honour Community Ingenuity awardee.