Lewis/Wara Gallery: Papuan Gulf

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The Papuan Gulf Region

The Papuan Gulf region is a flat, swampy delta between the Fly River and Cape Possession on the south coast of Papua New Guinea. Villages are built either directly on the seashore or inland in the mangrove forests. Although there are no organized tribes in this area, regional divisions are discernible; villages which have been in close contact with one another often share common traits. Food cultivation, fishing and sago palms are the main sources of sustenance for the population. Before outside contact, ritual head hunting and cannibalism played an important role among the Papuan Gulf peoples. Trade occurred via the many rivers in the region as far inland as the valleys of the Central Highlands, as well as over the Coral Sea with the Massim people in the east. Thus peoples living along the Gulf of the Papua, far from isolated, were exposed to as many cultural influences as other peoples of New Guinea.

Two dimensional works predominate the art of this area, superseding three dimensional sculpture in importance. Painting and relief carving is comprised of mostly symmetrical, curvilinear and chevron forms; red, black, and white compose the color scheme. Papuan Gulf art also shares stylistic elements with the central Sepik area and the northeast, suggesting a possible cultural link between these areas.

Rituals practiced in this region are intended on the one hand to communicate magic powers to the whole community and on the other, to introduce adolescent boys to religious life. The center of religious activity is the huge (often 100 feet long and fifty feet high) ceremonial house or "daima", which only men are permitted to enter and where important ritual objects, including clan fetish sculptures, masks, bull roarers, and stylized crocodile forms are kept. Almost every ceremonial house contains large numbers of oblong oval boards, with one side decorated with painted reliefs. Each of these gope boards is closely linked to a person or a special event; they represent the creative powers which made possible the particular persons or events celebrated. These are displayed in the daima with skulls of victims of head hunting rituals, either to protect clansmen from vindictive spirits of the enemy trophy heads or to enslave the spirits of the victims to the spirits of the gope.