Cultural exposure through handicraft
At the once-a-month craft market, one is confronted face to face with an array of tribal artistry. ALFREDO P HERNANDEZ writes.
The National, Papua New Guinea
BROWSING for the first time the handicraft items on offer at the Port Moresby craft market at Ela Beach is like seeing a lot of things I am very familiar with back home in Manila, but with some perks. Here, I get hands-on exposure to diverse cultures of Papua New Guinea, the “land of the unexpected and things to expect”.
The decorative woven baskets, the wood carvings and sculptures, the colourful coral reefs and shell craft, the woven thread sling bags called “bilum”, the pottery, the ready-to-wear “duster” or housedresses locally-called “meri-dres” (women’s dress), the brass art and more – all these were items that I would normally see whenever I rummaged through the stuff sold under the Quezon Bridge in Quiapo, Manila
Or at native craft fairs occasionally held in the city where ethnic items from Benguet in the highlands of northern Luzon, in the Philippines, like the popping penis (aka the Barrel Man), down to Magindanao’s (Mindanao) intricate brass jars, gongs and pots were on sale.
But since I’m here in PNG and being confronted face to face with this tribal artistry, all I could do is lose myself for a moment to the frenzy of “sing-sing” revelry as the traditional dancers gyrate deliriously to the wild beats of the “kundu” drums – just imagine yourself as one of them. The “sing-sing” group’s presence at the craft fair aims to overwhelm your senses with its awesome turns and jumps – a social interaction kept alive for generations by the village that cuddles it.
It is quite amusing because the items on offer, although a bit similar to Filipino’s hand-crafted wares in terms of motif, are unique and elegant by themselves.
Say, for instance, the blackened sculpted masks looking more grotesque as your eyes jumped from one figure to the next. I was told each item represented the unique culture of a particular tribe in PNG. Amazingly, this country boasts of at least 800 ethnic groups, each one with distinct dialect but communicating among themselves – at least for the majority of them – in one common tongue: pidgin.
You would somehow ask yourself how the woodcarvers came up with such concept in their designs – exaggerated mouths made more looked menacing with Peter Benchley’s Jaws-like set of teeth or elongated heads rivalling that of Sigourney Weaver’s Alien creature – or why they gave heavy emphasis on the genitals of the male deities and tribal gods they were trying to resurrect in their pieces.
The answer, you would soon realise, lies in the finished product itself: although the artists obviously belonged to the third or fourth generation village woodcarvers and sculptors, they have an unspoken task of perpetuating through their craft the beliefs and traditions of their people, something that had been handed down by their ancestors. And that they have to hone their artistry under the guidance of the ageing master before being allowed to expose to the world beyond the perimeters of their village their own interpretation of such tradition through art.
These things and more are the cultural perks drawing a fairly huge crowd of expatriates and tourists whenever the market is held on the last Saturday of the month.
And for this year, the half-day event kicked-off last February 25 in its permanent home at the Ela Beach International School with the usual spectacle: an array of multi-coloured handicraft products sprawled all over the school grounds with Malaysians, Filipinos, Singaporeans, Indians, Indonesians, Caucasians, Australian and Japanese expatriates closely scrutinising each item of their choice while vendors eyeballed them in great anticipation, hoping their wares would earn them some kina.
But of course, the expatriates are always looking for knickknacks they can send back home to enliven a part of their walls or to bring home as cultural treats to hi-tech cosmopolitan friends. In short, there would always be something to be sold and kina to be earned.
For this year’s opening fair, the village craftsmen delivered with vengeance items like “lap lap” (wrap skirt), “Kundu” (long bongo-looking drum that used crocodile skin for its beating head), basket wares, bark clothes, shell carvings, coral reefs of various shapes and colours, woodcarvings and sculptures, household and personal ornaments, countless of small items that would make ideal gifts or souvenirs, particularly the penis gourds of all sizes – from small to jumbo – from Sepik province. Not to mention potted interior and exterior ornamental plants and Birds of Paradise orchids.
One thing that Filipino bargain-hunters learnt to their utter dismay was that the vendors never gave in to lowering their prices. When they said “five kina (K5= 16 pesos) for a certain item, they will stick to it – there’s no way for the “Pinoys” to haggle down the price.
And vendors’ reason was obvious: with the prices of basic commodities rocketing tenfold over the last five years, their only way to buy enough food for the family was to jack up the prices of their humble wares.
But being a Filipino, I knew my expatriate “kababayans” would like to haggle as much as they could over a few kina and this was something that didn’t impress the locals. Just like when I tried to offer K25 for an intricately-done up tribal painting being sold for K45. In the end, I ended up buying something else instead, although earlier, I threatened to come back for it much later in the day.
But the prices of the items were still considered a bargain, said a Filipino-Australian lady friend whom I accompanied to the craft sale last December – the last event for the year. In fact, she immediately snapped up a large cardboard on which shell earrings shaped from A to Z were stuck.
She said a richly colourful and awe-inspiring painting could cost a mere fraction of the four figures it would otherwise fetch in Sydney.
There were times in past market fairs when the artist himself was around to sign his canvas to the delight of the buyer. Watching the artist signed his work was an added bonus to the new owner of his painting.
The management of the craft market said the monthly affair attracted from 200 to 250 vendors who paid a gate fee and an amount equivalent to 10% of the day’s gross sales as commission. Gate fee for buyers is K1.
The permanent sellers who paid in advance a lump sum to cover the whole year’s fee were allowed choice spots for their wares.
With several security guards posted all over the place and strict check at the gate, everybody would feel safe that no “raskol” would dare doing their nasty thing right inside the compound. However, safety outside the craft market was another thing to really worry about once you start to drive off home.
THE craft market has been considered a mainstay of Port Moresby’s budding tourism industry because of the big crowd it draws every craft fair.
Jim Shearing, an Aussie expatriate teacher told a fellow expatriate journalist sometime ago: Here (at the craft market), you get unique, beautiful, painstakingly handmade traditional handicrafts.
“At the same time, you get cultural exposure from those alone and also traditional entertainment from the children’s ‘sing-sing’ groups that perform tribal dances from various provinces.”
Mr Shearing said when they come to the fair every month the visitors are helping keep the various PNG traditional arts and cultural dances alive, at the same time providing a source of livelihood to the locals.
My good friend Ian Boden, a long-time Aussie expatriate-resident and a journalism lecturer at the Divine Word University in Madang, has this to say:
“Let’s give PNG arts the support it deserves by thinking quality local instead of cheap Asian imports … dare to be different …”
Em nau …!
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