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Sing Sings and Penis Sheaths

Adventures in Exotica

By Joyce Dalton

When islands beckon, memory usually conjures up white sand beaches, rum punch and swaying palms. Unless the island is the large land mass situated just north of Australia, comprising the country of Papua New Guinea and the part of Indonesia known as Irian Jaya. Then, it’s penis sheaths, nose bones, carved masks, ancestor poles, jungle rivers and idyllic valleys that rush to mind. For sheer exotica, there’s no better destination on earth. As the Papua New Guinea tourist board slogan once put it, this is “every place you’ve never been.”

Until well into the 20^th century, ritual warfare with spears was accepted practice. That, happily, is in the past, but other customs endure. Spirit houses, bride price ceremonies, sing sings, tribal initiations, and pig feasts remain important aspects of village life and often, tourists are welcome to share these moments so different from our own.

To write that Papua New Guinea, better known as PNG, has been welcoming visitors for more years than Irian Jaya should, in no way, discourage seekers of the exotic. Forget parking lots full of tour buses, multi-lane highways and rows of upscale hotels. Your travels will be by mini vans along mostly dirt roads, dug-out canoes, river “trucks” (which are actually boats) and small aircraft. Lodging will be primarily in isolated jungle-appropriate thatched roof dwellings, but most facilities are perfectly comfortable and often have en suite baths.

After an overnight in PNG’s capital, Port Moresby, my group boarded an Air Niugini flight to Wewak where we transferred to minivans and headed to Angoram, our first stop along the 698-mile serpentine Sepik River. The riverside villages of this northern region make up the country’s artistic treasure house. Tambunum, Kamanibit, Kanganaman, Womberum, village after village proved to be living museums of traditional art. From massive carved wooden masks decorated with shells, bones, feathers, fur, tusks, seeds and human hair to elaborate log drums, cult hooks and canoe shields, there seemed no end to the possibilities of human imagination. Woodcarving is the province of men, who shape the objects with stone adzes and heavy shells, then incise details using boars’ tusks or animal teeth. Some of the finest objects are strictly for ceremonial use; others, however finely made, serve utilitarian household, farming or defensive purposes. Luckily for visitors, many objects are spread on the ground for sale.

Most spectacular of all are the haus tambarans, or spirit houses, that dominate village life. Usually the exclusive province of initiated men, these long structures typically have a fearsome painted mask towering above the entry. In others, entrants pass beneath the spread legs of a carved wooden female figure, which symbolizes rebirth. The drums and artifacts found within play important roles in ceremonies. Some villages allow visitors, including women, inside their spirit houses; others do not.

In PNG, artistic expression doesn’t end with baus tambarans and artifacts. The human body serves as an ever-ready canvas for a variety of media including paint (red, orange and yellow predominate), charcoal, leaves, grass, fruit, seeds and feathers. Large shiny kina shells (for which the local currency is named) hang on many chests. As with the highly prized Bird of Paradise, it’s the males who sport the most vivid adornment, frequently including a boar’s tusk through the nose. No special occasion necessary – this (and very little else) is regular ‘round-the-village garb.

Unless an important ceremony was going on, villagers welcomed us for the novelty we provided. Any purchases we might make seemed secondary. Some performed dances or enacted a story, which often dealt with attempted theft by another tribe and revenge. At Mandjamai, we happened upon a female puberty rite and were allowed stay. Housed in a sort of grass and fiber cage by the water, a lone little girl waited until the ceremony reached the point where a line of elders came for her and led her back to the village where she was showered with attention. The “cage,” it should be noted, allowed for easy escape should she become frightened.

Drifting along the Sepik in our roofed, but open-sided, small boats was sheer joy except for the moments we came to a stop and mosquitoes swarmed. Enveloped by the strange and magical sounds of the jungle, we passed clusters of huts, the occasional dug-out canoe and even a croc or two, which had our boatmen grabbing their spears. The people of the Sepik have a great respect for the crocodile, frequently fashioning the steps of their spirit houses and prows of canoes in its image.

From the remoteness of the Sepik, small aircraft transported us to the densely populated and agriculturally rich Central Highlands region. Villages here provided their fair share of cultural experiences, as well. Traveling along a dirt road in search of adventure, someone spotted a group of men seemingly attaching paper money to a pole. Our guide, Keith, an Australian with long years of experience among the people of PNG, knew that was exactly what we were seeing. Men of a groom’s village were preparing a money tree and a money wheel to present to the bride’s village. We ended up joining their procession, while two women brandishing spears danced in front to protect the bride price. Others proudly carried the pole and the enormous wheel festooned with kina notes and black feathers of the cassowary, a large flightless bird, as well as slabs of pork and several colorful Birds of Paradise sorrowfully speared on sticks.

Meanwhile, women of the bride’s village were busy cooking in huge metal drums, painting the bride’s face and breasts a brilliant red, and sticking kina notes into the waist band of her grass skirt. Pride is everything to the people of the Highlands and they will scrape together every possible bird, animal fur, pig and kina note, not to appear poor or be outdone by their neighbors.

When the groom’s group arrived, the headmen loudly engaged in a bit of rival repartee, designed to show their village off and the other village up. For example, when the birds were presented, the recipient’s spokesman scorned them, saying, “You call those Bird of Paradise? I’ve seen better feathers on an old hen.” To which, the groom’s spokesman retorted, “Well, that’s all we’re getting – an old hen.”

For sheer spectacle, it would be hard to top the Highlands Sing Sing, held alternate years in Goroka and Mount Hagen, usually in late August. Upwards of 50,000 Highlanders, decked out in their best feathers, shells, bones and paint, converge for the event, each tribal group vying to outdo the others in plumage and dance. Some sport lengthy strips of bamboo hanging from neck bands. Each strip represents a loan made to a fellow tribesman, so the more bamboo pieces, the richer and more prestigious the wearer. Others are weighted down by great masses of seed necklaces covering head and chest. Known as Job’s Tears, they express mourning for a deceased relative. Always popular with the crowd, especially photographers, are the Wigmen, sporting thick wigs shaped like triangular hats topped by Bird of Paradise feathers, and the Asaro Valley Mudmen, their bizarre masks and bodies turned a ghostly gray to represent ancestral spirits. The Sing Sing guarantees sensory overload, plus the chance to hear most of the country’s 750 indigenous languages.

If  PNG is a step into the distant past, Irian Jaya is a giant leap. People may be less flamboyant in their dress and celebrations, but they offer glimpses into a way of life barely influenced by the past millennium.

Getting there isn’t all that difficult, at least theoretically. From the Indonesian island of Biak, it’s a short hop to Jayapura, the provincial capital, then a one-hour flight over mountains and jungle to Wamena, administrative hub of the Baliem Valley, which is virtually every tourist’s destination in Irian Jaya. However, flights often are canceled due to diversion of aircraft or weather conditions over the mountains. My friend and I got lucky. Although the Wamena flight had been canceled the day before and the airline substituted a 14-passenger Twin Otter for our scheduled 42-seat Fokker, we were among the fortunate fourteen. Beneath our little plane, the scene was a green world of mountains and jungle.

After a quick stop at our perfectly comfortable hotel, with units fashioned in traditional thatched, roundaval style, we headed for Wamena’s market for immediate cultural immersion. Male attire ranged from jeans and T-shirts to nothing at all except for a penis sheath, or gourd, worn at an extremely elevated angle and supported at the waist by a thin fiber. The most popular fashion in sheaths was a tapered gourd about two feet long, but thicker models also were in vogue. The latter served a secondary purpose, as a tote for money and cigarettes in the free end. Many women favored knee-length skirts of dried grass or a heavy, but skimpy, number made of multiple loops of narrow dyed fibers. The latter version began just about where the wearer’s hips end. Only a few women topped their skirts with a T-shirt. As in PNG, colorful woven bilums, large woven carry-alls, hung down most female backs, supported by a strap anchored on the woman’s forehead.

About 70,000 members of the Dani tribe live in the cloud-shrouded, idyllic Baliem Valley, usually in rectangular compounds or two to five families. A round hut housing men and boys faces the entrance. Mud and thatch dwellings for women line one side, and a long structure for pigs and cooking stands on the other. Many villages are accessible only to trekkers, though several can be reached by jeep from Wamena. Visitors typically can count on a warm welcome.

Some villages are entered via swaying vine bridges, so narrow that one foot must be placed directly in front of the other. When I hesitated, a gentle “la-uk” (hello/welcome) sounded behind me and a strong Dani hand clasped mine. We surely made an unlikely twosome with my helper in nothing by a penis sheath while I, clearly overdressed, sported jeans, shirt, photo vest, rubber boots (jungle paths tend to be muddy), windbreaker around my waist and camera over the shoulder.

The villages of Akima and Sompaima have resident mummies that are brought out for a modest fee. These “smoked chiefs” are irreverently propped on chairs or stools to be inspected and photographed. One we saw was said to be seven generations old. Only the most important men have the dubious privilege of being smoked.

A tradition happily on the wane dictates that a woman’s finger be chopped off when a family member dies and most compounds have a few women who proudly display stubby hands. In fact, finger choppers (sharpened stones with the gripping end wrapped in woven vines) can be purchased as inexpensive souvenirs.

For a not-immodest fee, we attended a pig feast. Far from a staged show, this is a tradition-bound ritual for which the tourists happen to be paying. After milling about the village a bit (unlike PNG, “for sale” objects were conspicuously absent), our hosts got down to business. As two men held the squealing animal, a third shot an arrow into its stretched-out body. Bristles were removed with scrapers made of bone, while ears and tail were cut off with an adze.

Meanwhile, other men dug a circular pit, lining it with bundles of grass. Using split planks about the length of stilts, they carried dozens of hot stones to the pit. Then, the women moved into action. From bulging bilums, they removed long, red sweet potatoes, the staple food, and placed them on the stones. Next, the entire pit was bundled up with grass and tied with strips of rattan. The pig, rather insignificant among the hundreds of sweet potatoes, was placed on top. Excluding cooking, the whole process took about two hours. Nobody minded that we didn’t stay for dinner.

In addition to finger choppers, souvenirs include grass or fiber skirts, penis sheaths, stone adzes, small mouth harps, spears and bows and arrows. High-quality carvings can be purchased in a few Wamena shops, but these come from Irian Jaya’s southern coast where the Asmat people craft objects highly prized by collectors and scholars of traditional art. For a hefty fee, it’s possible to visit this region. The operating word is “possible.”

My friend and I spent more hours than we care to remember sitting in Wamena’s airport, along with a guide and five days’ worth of food and water, waiting for a small plane to come from Jayapura and take us on to Agats, the usual entry point for visiting the remote and untouristed Asmat region. For the third consecutive day, the plane turned back at a cloud-covered mountain pass. Lacking unlimited time (and money), we gave in to the vagaries of exotic travel, forever missing our chance for a few days with formerly ferocious head-hunters and cannibals amid their jungle world of spirits and ancestral bis poles. At least, we could visit the latter in museums, such as New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Our disappointment was acute, but surrounded by the natural beauty of the Baliem Valley and the gentle, warm nature of the Dani, who can stay sad for long?

If you go….

While it’s not impossible to make travel arrangements on arrival in Papua New Guinea, it would be difficult to insure that you’re dealing with a reputable tour operator. It is not advisable to arrive in Wamena, Irian Jaya without firm arrangements. The importance of a guide who is very familiar with the area cannot be over-emphasized for travel in the Asmat region. Some tour operators in major Indonesian tourist destinations, such as Bali and Jakarta, handle travel to Irian Jaya. However, for both Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya, the most reliable course is to work with a reputable tour operator in your home country. The following U.S. operators offer group packages or can make individual travel plans for one or both of these destinations.

Asian Pacific Adventures. (800) 825-1680 or (818) 886-5190. www.asianpacificadventures.com. PNG, Irian Jaya.

Geographic Expeditions. (800) 777-8183 or (415) 922-0448. www.geoex.com. Irian Jaya.

Reef & Rainforest. (800) 794-9767 or (415) 289-1760. www.reefrainforest.com. PNG, Irian Jaya. Focus is on diving but cultural activities are arranged.

Society Expeditions. (800) 548-8669 or (206) 728-9400. www.societyexpeditions.com. PNG included on cruise calling at a number of remote islands.

Travcoa. (800) 992-2003 or (949) 476-2800. www.travcoa.com. PNG.

Zenith Travel International. (800) 223-2070. www.ourmall.info/zenithtravel.com. PNG, Irian Jaya.

Note: Many tour operators now use a comfortable river vessel with en board accommodations while visiting Sepik River villages in Papua New Guinea. 

Images by Joyce Dalton

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