Story Boards, Keram River, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea

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Figure 1: Detail from a large story board showing three couples in their canoe with its crocodile head prow. The large basket is a fish trap.

Three brothers, Ignas, Paulas and Zacharias Waybenang from Kambot Village on the Keram River worked in Angoram during the 1960's. Ignas had a job at a sawmill owned by the expatriate Australian, Jim McKinnon. He gave Ignas off cuts from the mill for their carvings.

The brothers got the idea of carving wood panels using the designs from their bark paintings. They developed this idea into the story boards and taught other carvers from Kambot.

Figure 2: Story board depicting a spirit, possibly a deman.

"Deman ... are malevolent spirits that live in trees called barandama by the Kambot people and used by them for making canoes. Before a tree is felled, a food offering should be placed before the tree to warn the deman to move to another tree. Deman can be of either sex." from Mark Bilong Sepik, p. 39.

In Kambot in 1995, we collected an usual group depicting the Catholic Stations of the Cross. A patron of The Crosiers | American Museum of Asmat Art purchased the 14 story boards for their collection.

Kambot, Chimondo and Bobten Villages on the Keram River all make story boards. Sales pay for school fees, for outboard motors and fuel to navigate the long distances on the rivers. Sago palms, which provide the staple food, are scare on the Keram, so families use carving income to buy rice and tinned fish when the rainy season floods make their gardens unusable.

The Keram River villages remain quite isolated. Only a few men, such as Paulas, bring their carvings into Angoram to sell on a regular basis. The rest rely on the occasional artifact buyer who makes the trip by motor canoe up the Keram.

Figure 3: Ignas laying out a panel at the Mt. Hagen Show.

Some of the Kambots do travel outside of the East Sepik Province. These panels were painted for the Haus Kulture at the l987 Mt. Hagen Show in the Highlands.

The master painters got up early before everyone else to do their layout and fine detail work without distraction. During the day, as people watched, they filled in the colors. Each older man brought a young apprentice, usually a relative, to learn and continue the tradition and to also have the experience of the world outside of the village.

Figure 4: Painter using red ochre mixed in a coconut shell. Finished panels are being assembled in the background.

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SEE ALSO:

Internal Links

• Middle Ramu River Carvings for hunting charm figures from Minias Village on the upper Keram River
• Painted Faces - Beauty and Power and BILAS for photographs of dancers at the Mt. Hagen shows

Books

• Mark Bilong Sepik, a Selection of Designs and Paintings from the Sepik River, Papua New Guinea,
  by Helen and Paul Dennett, Wirui Press, Wewak, PNG, 1975, reprinted 1987. Pages 24-40, 75-81, 84, 85, 88 include Kambot Village, Keram River clan stories and images.

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Photographs, text and maps copyright © Carolyn Leigh, 1996-2010. All rights reserved.
http://www.art-pacific.com/artifacts/nuguinea/storybdo.htm
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Artifacts on this site are collected in the field by my husband, Ron Perry. I take the photographs, do the html, text and maps. More background in Who We Are. Art-Pacific has been on the WWW since 1996. We hope you enjoy our New Guinea tribal art and Indonesian folk art as much as we do. Carolyn Leigh, P.O. Box 85284, Tucson, AZ 85754-5284 USA, Art-Pacific at http://www.art-pacific.com/