Crocodile Festival features Sepik life

The National Weekender

By PETER S KINJAP
THE famous Sepik River remains one of the largest rivers in the Asia-Pacific region, which uncoils like a snake for more than 1,000km along the Sepik plateau. It is home to some of the world’s largest freshwater and saltwater crocodile populations and the main transport route and source of food for the Sepik people.
Located in East Sepik, it is one of the most remote and isolated regions of Papua New Guinea. It is a world where time seems to be frozen in the past and where traditions, customs and culture still remain intact as evidenced by the Sepik River Crocodile Festival.
Although crocodile hunting is part of Sepik people’s live, men and crocodiles maintain a close relationship, and the Crocodile Festival highlights a special bond between men and the reptiles.
The crocodile festival started in early 2007 with initiatives of World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Papua New Guinea to highlight the importance of conservation and preservation of the wild crocodile population in their natural habitat along the Sepik River. WWF also initiated the Kutubu Kundu and Digaso Festival, another cultural event annually in the name of conservation and preservation.
Every year in August the performers from different communities across the region would gather together for this annual event dressed in their exquisite traditional attire, proud to showcase their unique culture. Far away villagers spend two days or more traveling in canoes to reach the festival grounds.
A sparkle of colours and beats of kundu, the famous traditional drums, stunning shields, bows and spears, frenzied dancing and enchanting singing, painted faces and exquisite traditional attire are the main features of the festival expect.
The local tribes proudly wear the best of their bilas (body decoration), which includes sea shells, crocodile teeth necklaces, grass skirts, and feathers of cassowary and bird of paradise. The traditional attire of Sepik people, with its intricate details, is unique and found nowhere else in the country and the world over.
The crocodile and related items are everywhere at the event with the crocodile teeth worn with pride by the locals. The Sepik River Crocodile Festival pays tribute to crocodiles, the feared creatures considered sacred and known in Tok Pisin as Pukpuk.
The Sepik people are culturally and spiritually linked to these iconic reptiles, which are featured in legends, beliefs, traditions and rites of the Sepik people. Crocodiles are the important part of the Sepik culture and the source of their identity.
The dances would accompanied by the unmistakable sound of garamut (traditional slit drums) made of long hollow tree trunks and carved into the shape of totem animals.
When a Sepik man removes his shirts, you would literally see on their back the scars running from shoulder to hip, which resemble scales of crocodiles, a symbol of manhood, strength and power. These scars clearly identify him as Sepik man.
The Sepik people are known for their crocodile worshipping and skin-cutting initiation ceremonies, which still continue among Sepik River communities. During the initiation ceremony, the young Sepik boys spend several months in seclusion in the haus tambaran, the exclusively male domain, get educated in Sepik values, traditions and culture, get taught hunting, fishing, carving and other skills, and have their backs and chests deeply cut in a pattern that imitates crocodile scales.
Tree oil and clay are rubbed into the lesions both to disinfect and to ensure that the cuts heal as raised keloid scars, which mimic crocodile markings.
If you had a chance to speak to a cultured Sepik man, he would tell you that the initiation process is very painful but it makes them as men out of boys – a manhood transition initiation. It is believed that initiated boys inherit the strength and fierceness of crocodiles.
The Sepik people are not only known for their initiation ceremonies and spirit houses with soaring gabled roof haus tambaran, but also for elaborate wood carvings and clay pottery.
There are improvised stalls on the ground selling and a wide range of crocodile-themed handicrafts such as carvings, necklaces, masks, canoe prows and many others. The sacred bond between the Sepik people and crocodiles is clearly seen in the carving made by local artisans, who are highly revered in their communities.
The river side sleepy little town of Ambunti, is where the festival is hosted. This year the festival attracted a K100,000 from the Government.
From humble beginnings it is today the only major cultural festival in the Sepik River region providing much need revenue through tourism directly to the local people along the main Sepik River and all its many tributaries.
Papua New Guinea Tourism Promotion Authority are the naming right sponsor for the two day event from Aug 5 to 7 this year.
Festival chairman Alois Mateos said the people of the upper Sepik would be showcasing their traditional dances and the communities’ relations with the crocodile.
He said the people would showcase everything about the crocodile and how it related to them, as well as marketing aspects of the event to the rest of the world.
“After the demonstrations and killing, crocodile meat will be cooked and offered to visitors for a treat,” Mateos said.
Tourism, Arts and Culture Minister Emil Tammur said a top quality crocodile belt costs about K600, but it was quality that international visitors wanted to buy.
If you read this to be exotic and reconnoitering, save the date and experience the culture and beauty of one of Papua New Guinea’s fascinating tribal heartlands.
Coupled with a glimpse into the lifestyle on the Sepik, on this tour, you would have a very rare and real experience of a skin-cutting ritual done by the men.
The memories of this unique festival held in a relaxed rural atmosphere, the untouched beauty of its surroundings, and especially the memories of friendly and welcoming Sepik people with their extraordinary culture is worth spending your hard earned money. Come and enjoy yet another colorful cultural moment in the land of amazing tribes.