Between 2012 and 2018, I travelled to remote communities along the Sepik. I found my way by word of mouth, through extended families, following their stories. I joined my hosts working sago, catching fish, hunting, trading crocodile skins and gold-mining. I attended ritual ceremonies, watched trials for custom-breaking and sorcery, witnessed wife exchanges and listened to every-day issues mixing old taboos and nowadays solutions.
Several elders and young artists were receptive to share their stories with me.
Tag: Abau
Glossary for Sepik folk tales
I wrote this glossary with photos to explain some of the words and expressions which appear frequently in the stories. It’s not meant to be an extract of a PNG Pidgin – English dictionary, but to give a little bit of context related to the environment where I collected the folk tales. Bilum – means bag or sac. Traditionally it’s […]
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Pukpuk – crocodile hunters on Sepik River (West Sepik, PNG)
Manu, a young guy from the family I lived with, and his father were hunting and trading crocodile skins. The money, sometimes the only income in the community, was used for buying small things for the house and most of it was saved to buy an engine for their dug-out canoe and to pay the boarding school fees for Manu.
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In the swamp (West Sepik, PNG)
During the weeks I spent with the people from West Sepik villages, I joined them in the swamps, to catch fish.Armed with baskets made of bush-ropes, cane spears, fishing nets, machetes, and smoking logs – for chasing away mosquitoes, drying tobacco and light cigarettes, we hopped on canoes and paddled along the Sepik. When the canoes were pulled aside, we […]
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West Sepik to Vanimo (PNG)
On the Sepik bank, the Abau people, from Baio, were watching the boats passing by, trying to seize their cargo and guess where they were coming from. This bustling activity didn’t seem to have much impact on their lifestyle yet.
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