Commission pledges K10,000 to show

The National Cultural Commission pledged K10,000 to the Yakkan Mali Cultural Show that will be hosted by Niugini Tribal Heritage in Enga from the July 24 to 26.
This followed the launching of the Yakkan Mali Cultural Show on Wednesday in Port Moresby.
National Cultural Commission (NCC) acting director Steven Kilanda said NCC was the agency mandated by the government to safeguard, protect and promote the tangible and intangible cultural heritage.
Kilanda said cultural festivals must be an ongoing activity and not a seasonal thing.
“We have to make awareness, collect data and talk about culture because culture is a cross-cutting issue in this country. Culture must be talked about in the house, in the family and in the community”, he said.
He said it was crucial for culture to be addressed by the provincial and local level government because our culture and tradition were slowly eroding away.
Kilanda said the Yakkan Mali show would be placed into the NCC calendar.
The Yakkan Mali show is a cultural show which will feature all the Engan Cultural ceremonies like pig killing, bride price ceremony, moka, traditional singsing, traditional salt making and the use of other traditional utensils like bamboo knifes and stone axe.
Newman Dickson from the Niugini Tribal Heritage said their company believed that PNG’s culture and heritage was an important tangible assert that needs to be preserved.
“We are doing our bit in preserving, promoting and creating a digital product out of Enga Heritage. We are piloting in Enga and if funding allows we will take it out to the rest of PNG, said Dickson.
“We want to digitalise PNG heritage starting off with Enga heritage. If we give value to our heritage. We believe thats the best way we can preserve our county’s heritage,” he said.