Students celebrate indigenous cultural values and traditions at Divine Word University - Madang

By PETER KINJAP | THE NATIONAL NEWSPAPER

THE Divine Word University (DWU) community in Madang is always pleased to host the DWU Cultural Festival every year in the third week of August.

It is a lively event with traditional songs and dances as students take the centre stage with those from neighbouring Solomon Islands also showcasing their culture. A musical group from Fiji performing at the last festival made it a somewhat Melanesian event.

The students from all 22 provinces in the country usually participate. The public in Madang and visiting tourists and the growing expatriate community of Chinese, Filipinos and Europeans usually take the chance to see a sampling of the diverse cultures and traditions of Papua New Guinea and the Pacific.

Many students have their parents, guardians and extended relatives on campus to assist them with the preparations and performances as well.

A Simbu student in his traditional attire. 

The inclusion of mostly highlands parents is a testament to the level of pride and support they have for their sons, daughters, nephews and cousins.

The highlands students usually appear more spectacular when their elders put the finishing touches on the face painting and traditional attire.

The annual festival is set by the university administration for the students to acknowledge their indigenous roots in traditional song, dance, costumes and folklore.

A Welda-female student from Western Highlands Province. 

Former president of the Divine Word University and now Higher Education Secretary Fr Jan Czuba said the cultural day was not a “show” but a day the students must be given a chance to reflect on the importance and values of the indigenous cultures of Papua New Guinea amidst the influences of modern ways.

Living up to the university’s slogan “Valuing our culture and heritage through collaboration”, students from various provinces in PNG put on a lively display of their cultural heritage through their bilas (traditional regalia), dancing and singing at the Madang campus.
During preparations on the day, if you go around the university, you would see parents and relatives crouched over seated students to get the arrays of beautiful feathers aligned.
It’s a proud moment for parents and relatives to see their young ones take to the arena to promote their culture.

The event has now no doubt become part of the Madang calendar and is one of the national cultural festivals with recognition from the Government through PNG Tourism Promotion Authority.

New Ireland females students waiting for their turn.

DWU, a keen promoter of Melanesian culture, encourages students to value their traditions and cultural heritage. In 1996, it was declared a university by the Government thought then Prime minister Sir Julius Chan, from Divine Word Institute.
The annual cultural event provides the avenue to get together to share heritage through songs, dancing and enactments of ceremonies.

You would be captivated by the colours of the costumes, the differences in their attire and also some of the dances you have never seen before.

There is a wider range of singsings than other cultural events in the country.
You can take as many photos as you could and there is no restriction – you might run out of space in your memory card. Note to take extra batteries and cards for your cameras if you are photographing.

On their way to the field these lasses from Central Province are happy to stop and pose in their traditional finery.

DWU as a tertiary institution is a special place for students from different backgrounds to come together and study and engage in peace and harmony with each other as Jesus Christ the “Divine Word” has taught us.

DWU has remained a beautiful campus, carefully tended and well-known as a safe, peaceful and pleasant environment in which to pursue one’s higher education.
The university also has a heart, a soul, a spirit, a social, spiritual and cultural environment in which academics can easily transmit knowledge and students can grow in wisdom and grace.

Siassi Cultural Group from Morobe warm up.

Many times the international news is not good – wars, suicide bombings, terrorist attack, killing in a school or community, violence in the streets or on a university campus. The list is long. There is too much violence.

The local news is also bad, of tribal fights, murders, rapes, corruption, domestic violence and child abuse. There is too much violence.
What can any of us do about these things, this violence? Perhaps, we think, not much – except for each of us to build a habit of nonviolence in our own hearts, in our own personal behaviour.

A Central lass after a hectic day of celebration.

And, we can influence others close to us to do the same. Every Papua New Guinean should be proud of your ethnic heritage and traditions.
In the country’s political events, let us passionately discuss and debate the issues that face our nation but not allow political rivalries to destroy friendship and the unity of our nation.
Leave anti-social behaviour, such as drunkenness, drug abuse, bullying, manipulation and every kind of violence out.

Students from Enga are crowd pleasers. 

How wonderful it is, how pleasant it is, for God’s people to live together in harmony.

Against the background of his alluring calls comes a cacophony of traditional songs, kundus, the rhythmic beat of the brass band, bag pipers, intermingled with the happy claps and delightful shouts of children and adults.
Culture is a rich tourism commodity. We have our carvings, traditional dances, arts and crafts, contemporary theatre groups and so forth.

Madang dancers in action. 

Culture has a lot to offer to the development of the tourism industry in Papua New Guinea.
While institutions like DWU are trying to promote the cultures, all Papua New Guineans should also ensure that those cultures are protected from exploitation because they are their pride and give them their identity.

Welda girls from Western Highlands 

It is thus important that cultures are maintained and passed on from one generation to the next.

Students from throughout the country including those from Solomon Islands and Fiji, and our Melanesian friends from West Papua attending DWU also display their unique cultures during their cultural festival.

In 2016, Ramu NiCo in Madang also took the opportunity to display its project by way of awareness and reaching out to the public at the DWU cultural festival.

Tolai dukduk dancers from Rabaul.

Ramu NiCo’s participation has been ongoing since its inception in Madang and such involvement is due to the strong relationship between DWU and Ramu NiCo to date.

President of Ramu NiCo, Wang Jicheng with other senior staff also visited the cultural day to experience firsthand unique cultures of the country while also supporting the promotional activities by Ramu NiCo staff during the day.

“I am very excited to come here and see the different cultures of PNG as shown by the dances and the beautiful body decorations,” Wang said.

Academics John Imbal and Nathaline Murki from the DWU’s tourism and hospitality department also did a paper on the cultural festival.
Their study reports on an assessment of the 2010 Cultural Day event and implications for management of cultural events.

Western Highlands young girls. 

It investigated the opinions and reactions of a sample of visitors to the cultural day celebrations and provides information on aspects of the promotion and programme for the event, the economic impact of the event and visitor demographics.

The assessment is intended to provide useful information as a guide for improvement of this event through promotion strategies; planning the programme, services and facilities; income generation; and economic impact.

The study should be of interest to stakeholders and the organisers for ongoing development and improvement of cultural event management.
The university student representative council (SRC) cultural committee facilitates and organises the event.

Goroka Asaro madman. 

SRC secretary Lavina Lore, a third year Tourism and Hospitality student says the festival is scheduled for August 17 this year.

For more information about the festival and the tour packages, contact via email: pngattractions@gmail.com

Mt. Hagen Cultural Show is bigger and better this year - 2019

By PETER S. KINJAP | The NATIONAL NEWSPAPER | Weekender Edition

PAPUA New Guinea’s cultural events are a relatively unspoiled resource with great potential for drawing the tourist dollar.

From the beginning to the end, there is a festival for PNG every year.
In Western Highlands, the famous Mount Hagen Cultural Show is showcased every year in the first of week of August.

With a history that dates back almost 60 years, the Mount Hagen Cultural Show is one of Papua New Guinea’s finest and most popular cultural events.

The show draws tribes from all over the Western Highlands and neighbouring provinces for cultural performances, singing and ancient rituals.

It’s a vibrant display of colour, culture and crafts. The cultural event was first hosted in 1961 long before Papua New Guinea’s independence in a bid to peacefully share and preserve the region’s traditions.

The rhythmic thumping of kundu drums is the first hint of the festival that lies ahead if you are around Mount Hagen city.

When the last of the early morning fog is yet to lift, the field behind the Kagamuga showground is usually a sea of towering headdresses, colourful flora and painted faces.
The Mount Hagen Cultural Show performance preparation and dress rehearsals by each tribe would take at least two hours. Across the field, you could see hundreds of people are in various states of dress (or rather, undress) – tucking leaves, arranging feathers, painting bodies, consulting mirrors.

Kagamuga local Jack Boni said, “When I was a boy, I used to climb up to the treetops so I could see over the fence and watch the festival. That was the 1970s.

“We are very proud; we love to present our culture. But it is dying out because of Western influence,” he added.

Usually held over two days, the Mount Hagen Cultural Show is one of the biggest singsings (traditional ceremonies) of the year in PNG.

Villagers from all over the region come to showcase their costumes, music, dance and art.
For visiting tourists, both domestic and international, it’s an opportunity to experience first-hand the customs of about 1,000 tribes in one of the most culturally intact places in the world.

If you happen to be one of the first to turn up at the Kagamuga showground on that day in August, you would watch the sun’s rays catching the morning dew on a black, red, yellow painted faces usually by older man. All the men, from the smallest to the biggest honour their ancestors by dressing as old men, with beards and legs daubed in white clay.
When they dance – holding their hands together and jogging on the spot in several layers of lines – the rattling of shells, bones and seed necklaces would form a mesmerising percussion to their low chant.

War-like cries and whooping sounds would draw attention of the crowd, marching in somewhat a coordinated direction – going round and round in the field forming a circle with spears and traditional axes pointing out.
Curious onlookers would be chasing one another and mock-threatening tourists with spears and axes.

Many costumes evoke ancestral spirits although most performers won’t initiate conversation.

“When you open up to people, they open up to you. If you walk with your arms folded, saying nothing, they will say nothing, too,” says Daniel Kaua, a Mount Hagen resident and show organising committee volunteer.

The Mount Hagen Cultural show committee invites tribes from nebouring provinces. The Foe tribesmen from Lake Kutubu in the Southern Highlands, only “discovered” by the West in the 1930s are among the regulars to the festival.

While Foe men are renowned for their knowledge of how to extract the highly valued viscous oil of the kara’o tree, the Foe believe the first kara’o trees sprang up from the menstrual blood of two women who once travelled the land.

The gushing oil is said to be the tree’s menstruation. The oil is mixed with charcoal or plant dye to create the paint used in celebrations and rituals: black for warriors, red for mature men and yellow for initiates or men in training.

One can’t stand the heat of an explosion of colour and rhythm, a brief of pounding feet and bouncing heads. Deep chants would run fingers down your spine and the beat of kundu drums would throb deep in the chest.

Tourists using oversised cameras would duck and weave between performers, jostling for the best angle, snapping selfies – and snapping at other tourists to get out of the way.
For their part, performers would seem proud to be celebrities for a weekend, admiring and posing with endless patience.

Every party has its foot-draggers and this one is no different. It’s a feast in the highlands.
In almost every corner of the field, performers would continue to stamp their feet and shake their arse gras (the leaves tucked into the back of their belts).

When finally all the performers have left, the showground gates are opened and locals – who have spent the day straining to see, would mingle to dance and to sing – at long last. It is their turn to stream onto the field, laughing as they soak up whatever is left of the party.
They would usually get into groups and start chanting out a momentum.

It’s the closing dance for the day known as Waipa, and usually by youngsters (both male and female) into courtship mood, filtering and giggling as they hold hands tightly and joggling in a clockwise direction chanting descants of love and acquaintances.

For this year the exotic cultural event is tentatively booked on the weekend of Aug 17 and 18. It’s different this time; much bigger and better!

For trip advisory, bookings and local tour experts, contact Niugini Exotic Tours via email at: pngattractions@gmail.com