John Tyman's
Cultures in Context Series
Torembi and the Sepik
A Study of Village Life in New Guinea
PART THREE: OTHER NEEDS
Topic No. 11: Entertainment, Music and Art
www.johntyman/sawos
.
Click for full-screen images..
180. Children here are never tempted to sit in front of a TV all day.  There is no electricity and the closest TV transmitter is in Port Moresby, on the other side of the mountains.
.
181. Instead, those who can afford batteries, listen to music on a radio or tape recorder. New Guinea stations broadcast pop music together with the sounds of local string bands.
.
182. Most children organize their own fun, though, and those young enough to need toys, make their own … or at least improvise, using string to replace the broken mechanism of a model car included with a parcel of clothes from Australia.
.
183. Some games are universally enjoyed … like jacks (or knuckle bones) played here in the corner of a classroom after school.
.
184. Young boys play for hours on the riverbank: but girls have to help their mothers much of the time.
.
185. The teenagers play volleyball on Sunday afternoons … and soccer, too, now. (Also see video extracts 21 & 22)
.
186. Most forms of artistic expression here are controlled by men.  This is not because women are too busy working (though they are), but because music and art are bound up with religion. (Bamboo flute)
.
187. The authority of the men is based on their claim that they alone understand the ways of the Spirits.  The secrets of the haus tambaran are, therefore, jealously guarded; and only boys are taught to play musical instruments, or how to carve and paint. (Men impersonating ancestral spirits.)
.
188. Music actually plays an important part in the ceremonial life of the community and a ‘sing-sing’ (which is really a dance) is a major event …  involving both men and women.
.
189. The string bands organized here recently by teenagers, use guitars and home-made ukuleles, plus a bass made from a broom handle, a tea chest and a piece of string.  Their songs are a cross between Country Western and the music of the Pacific Islands. 
.
190. Traditional music here was (and is) played either on flutes or drums.  The big drums, called garamut, are made from hardwood logs, which have been partially hollowed out with an adze to form a ‘slit-gong’.
.
191. They are played by men, usually in pairs, who strike the outside of the log with heavy wooden sticks.
.
192. All such drums are shaped by hand and they are decorated with carvings …  usually of the ‘totems’ or natural spirits with which each clan is identified.  Among the Sawos the commonest totem is the ‘pukpuk’ or crocodile.
.
193. Besides being used to make music, the garamut is also an important means of communication. Messages are passed between villages using drums, and every Spirit House has at least one … usually two.
.
194. Some families keep a small drum by their front door, which they use to contact family members in the bush, Everybody has their own call sign or’ tapet’. (The drum here is in the shade to the left of the door.)
.
195. The other type of drum used here is the ‘kundu’.  It is much smaller, and has a covering of lizard skin stretched over a hollow log.  They are carried by dancers, and beaten with the hand, not drumsticks.
.
196. They also have many flutes in Torembi.  Some of these are several metres long; others are much shorter.  They all function as mouthpieces for ancestral spirits.
.
197. So, since religion is the responsibility of men only, the long flutes are hidden in the roof of the men’s house, where women never see them.
.
198. Both types of flutes are made from bamboo, usually about 5cm in diameter.  The short ones are played like a trumpet: the player holds the end in his mouth and sings into it.
.
199. The long ones are played in much the same way as conventional flutes, by blowing across the hole.
.
200. And this is also true of pan pipes … made of lighter bamboo. (Also see video extract number12)
.
201. Though string bands are a recent development, there is one type of traditional string instrument here.  Like most things in the village it is made from local materials -- in this case from pangal, the stem of a sago palm leaf. A thin piece of the surface layer is cut away from the rest to form a string.  This is then stretched using pegs made of similar material.
.
202. The position of the pegs is calculated to produce a series of notes …  which explains the extra holes you can see here, which were made during tuning. The instrument is then played by tapping the string with a small stick cut from the same piece of wood. With small pangals like this the mouth is used as a resonator to improve the sound … rather like a Jew’s harp.  It took an hour to make and it cost nothing. 
.
203. Like many things in Torembi, the mouth pangal was the product of traditional skills applied to local resources.  And much the same could be said of their carvings until recently, since the materials involved were obtained locally …  including the paints. (Totem at head of garamut)
.
204. Some dyes were made from soil; others from juices gathered in the forest. To prepare red paint, for example, bark is scraped from the root of a certain type of tree, crumbled up and soaked for a while in a leaf-lined coconut shell.
.
205. Next they add powdered lime, made from seashells and obtained through trade.  This has the same effect as it does when mixed with betel nut in the mouth, turning the mixture a bright red.
.
206. The paint is then applied using a twig crushed at one end … a broad brush for large areas, and a finer one for details.
.
207. Shells, tusks, feathers and string (even human hair) may then be used to finish things off.
.
208. Unfortunately, from the viewpoint of old crafts, which may now disappear, oil paints have recently appeared in the village …  by way of a hardware store in Wewak. So again, things are changing.  The old forms remain but their outward appearance conflicts with tradition.


Back to Cultures in Context Intro: Photos & Recordings


Text, photos and recordings by John Tyman
Intended for Educational Use Only.
Copyright Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University, 2010.
Contact Dr. John Tyman for more information regarding licensing.

Photo processing, Web page layout, formatting, and complementary research by
William Hillman ~ Brandon, Manitoba ~ Canada
www.hillmanweb.com