Kanganamun

We woke up and had breakfast. We prepared and got into the canoe to explore the area. We first went around Kanganamun which is a beautiful village with really nice huts and an over 300 year old spirit house.
First we went to a village called Palimbe. We got there via some shortcuts through reed and swamp. The first stop was the spirit house. Every village in the area has a spirit house (or “Haus Tambaran”) which is basically where all the guys hang out and chill all day long while the women work. The tribes around Sepik river also had their specialties: women in their view to them are dirty especially during their period. The guys basically live alone and the women only once a day bring them food and take care of all the annoying things.
The kids grow up with them until they turn 14: then, boys move out to the spirit house and get their crocodile skin during a crazy ceremony. Basically what happens is that somebody takes a razor blade and makes hundreds of cuts on the boy’s back until it’s bleeding as hell. They would do that multiple times within a month on each spot so that they get scars all over their back which looks like crocodile skin. After a month in the spirit house they become officially reborn as men and move to their dad’s place.
Once we arrived we had to put off our hats, next to women not being allowed to enter probably being the only enforced rule here. In the spirit houses the guys pretty much just create art and carve woods. Two guys performed a little concert on some kind of a wooden drum. We checked out the local art: mostly wooden carvery and masks that looked super crazy. We hung out with them and bought a few items, Lio got a massive mask with straws coming from the sides.
Afterwards, we went around the villages and ended up in the spirit house of Kanganamun. This definitely is the most impressive one being several hundreds years old. Not much has changed since then. In the 20th century the Germans came to the area and taught the tribes how to handcraft proper floors and some basics in medicine. But that’s pretty much it. We had a nap here and Lio shopped some more art.
We went for lunch back to the house and returned next to the spirit house. A few guys were carving new canoes for their children. During wet season the villagers do that because it’s a lot easier to carry the logs around (basically, just make them float over the water). And also, there’s pretty much nothing else to do during that period as you can only hang out in the houses. It takes 2-4 weeks to create a canoe. We were chilling the whole afternoon with the guys in the sun while they built their canoe. In the meantime, some guy climbed up the palms to get coconuts for us that we ate and drank. The vibe was really chill and the guys did enjoy our Spotify playlists a lot that we put via the UE Boom.
In the early evening we went back to the house and had dinner. This time, a few fishes that the women had caught during the day on the nearby lake together with some sort of local pancakes made out of palm trees. Albert instead grilled a turtle that he had gotten from the women that day. He ate literally everything which was really disgusting. Lio and me tried as well, tasted somewhat like chicken.
Afterwards we had a “shower”. So the villagers use their river for everything - literally. They fish their food from there, they use it as transportation, they use it as their toilet (remember, the toilet just went straight to the river) - as well as their shower. Basically you either jump from a tree in the river or just get in and wash yourself with a little bit of soap. The bottom is of course really muddy.
This whole situation was even more disturbing, because just after that, when it was finally dark, we went for a tour to catch crocodiles. Equipped with nothing else but a spear, a canoe, some sticks for moving forward and flashlights we left the house together with the neighbor and his kid. The little kid and Albert started imitating crocodile noises to spot crocodiles. Just after a few minutes a few meters away from the house (where we just before have had the shower) we stopped for the first time. Lio and me weren’t sure what was happening but apparently the guys had seen something. We got closer to some reed and suddenly the man went with his speer in the water and pulled out a fucking baby crocodile. He threw it alive into the canoe and the little kid grabbed it and kept it in his hands from there on. They wanted to use it as a bait. Now the kid did some things to the croc so that it makes some noises so the bigger crocs could speak up. We caught it just a few metres away from where we had just showered in the river.
We kept going through the wilderness. The silence was only interrupted by jungle and animal noises as we went through swamp, reed and jungle forest. A few times we spotted the noises of crocodiles. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to actually catch a big one. They were going for crocodiles of multiple metres of size - with only a canoe and a spear. After roughly two hours we returned. The little crocodile was released again to nature and we went to bed.Read more