Your Kamoro Corner

Your Kamoro Corner is your space to share with us, the Kamoro and others, the joy that you have discovered now that you’ve come in know the Kamoro. We’d love to hear from you so please email us at froufrousg@gmail.com

When Melanie Higgins walked into Ted Osius’¹ house last year she walked straight into the second man of her dreams, one that even her husband approved of and they finally took home. He’s a strapping 2.5m tall Kamoro darkly handsome, with strong unique features and an unshakeable demeanour. He doesn’t have a name, but traditionally in Kamoro is respectfully referred to as ‘Wemawe’. The Higgins home has become his for the past year and he has embraced them and they him as family. He partakes in their lives in every way just as Melanie and her family have eagerly immersed themselves in the rich cultures of Indonesia. His journey into American culture does sometimes take him down quirky lanes but he finds them really no different sometimes except for the finery…… which he rather likes.²

—EDITOR

¹Ted Osius is the Deputy Chief of Mission of the US Embassy. He hosted a Kamoro Exhibition and Sale at the Residence in 2010.

²The Kamoro men like in many other Papuan cultures are the more colorful and decorated of the two sexes. The females are generally dressed in drab earth tones while Papuan males are encouraged to preen in the brightest of colours using flowers, leaves, face and body paints and recently, fancy sunglasses, headbands and any body ornaments that will allow him to outshine his fellow man.

Cross-Cultural Kamoro Totem
by Melanie Higgins

Sometimes a piece of art comes into our lives which transcends culture. For example, in our dining room, we have three silk paintings of traditional Bosnian medieval gravestones. The artist was a Bosnian who fled the war in her country in the 1990s and came to Indonesia. Here, she spent five years studying with Indonesian artists and learning the traditions of Indonesian art, including silk painting. She then took those techniques back to Bosnia after the war and combined them with her traditional Balkan culture to create art that blends both the cultures in a unique way. My husband and I bought three paintings from her when we lived in Sarajevo seven years ago and perhaps never imagined that we would later come to the country where the artist so fondly recalled as the crucible of her artistic development.

Our Kamoro totem has also crossed cultural lines since he (for surely it is a male totem) joined our household. We bought the seven-foot totem of a Kamoro playing a traditional Papuan instrument last October when we attended a Kamoro art exhibition. The totem is displayed against a wall in the center of our living room, in a spot which allows guests to get the full view of him. He proudly sites next to a four-foot tall African batik painting of a Cameroonian drummer beating away at his instrument. Taken together, the African drummer and the Kamoro musician appear to have struck up an impromptu two-man, cross-continent jam band -- right in the middle of our living room! And —although these two pieces of art come from very different parts of the plane —they seem to look quite at home side-by-side amongst our American furniture and other nick-nacks from around the world..

Our Kamoro totem also knows how to join in American celebrations —which is entirely appropriate. My husband and I recently hosted a Mardi Gras party —a festive event at which people dressed up in feather masks with plastic beads around their necks. We had food and drink in the New Orleans tradition to celebrate "Fat Tuesday," the last day before the Christian season of lent begins. Our Kamoro totem once again showed that he could cross cultures during the event. He came dressed for the occasion —sporting beads and a feather mask that somehow looked just right on him. And of course he was the center of the party, with folks posing for photos next to him throughout the night. I think the totem enjoyed it. And he looked totally at home —stepping out of a traditional Kamoro setting to spend some time with his American friends. Who knows what he will wear to our Halloween celebration? We look forward to finding out.

The Kamoro of Timika Pantai
by Kim Godbold

Kim Godbold, Timika, February 2011

Winding estuaries, mangroves, abundant wildlife, canoes pulling alongside to have a cigarette and discuss river journeys; this was the road to Timika Pantai, Papua Indonesia.

Welcoming smiles and willing hands reaching out to help carry your goods and help you from the river boat which you have spent three hours in, sheltering from the sun.

A funeral, the constant sound of the tifa (drum) and the constant droning of men ‘bringing forth the song’, remembering the dead through songs of happiness and songs of sadness; dancing, laughing and tears.
Canoes carrying men, their paddles flashing wearing ‘traditional’ dress of feathers, beads, shells, wearing body paint; the sounds of war cries of victory, canoes as one pulling into the river bank with shouts and dancing on the shore. Men dressed in Western style clothing, shorts and T-shirts, talking quietly, watching over the young with gentle hands and voices soothing the falls and arguments.

Fishermen presenting fish and octopus, knowing that these offerings will be your next meal. Jeffery, bent over his small kitchen fire cooking fish in its embers. Women wielding axes on mangrove logs gathering a giant bi-valve, stretching over a foot long, valued for its aphrodisiac properties. Women using pounders to remove the pith from the Sago tree to extract the edible starched to become a form of bread grilled over an open fire. The simple act of weaving balls from palm fronds in the shade of a group of trees, the women create a toy for the village children. The hands of women reaching out to hold my hands, to stroke and marvel at my ‘whiteness’, the novelty of white on black, the same but different.

Children were jumping from moored canoes their laugher and song carrying across the still river waters; mothers coming to gather the young for everyday jobs, dinner and bed. The simplicity of children at play with games of hopscotch and art work emerging under their fingers in the sand.

Impromptu shopping for carvings placed on makeshift railings, the quiet ritual of exchanging money for carvings; the pleasure of selling a piece of timber, drift wood transformed into an exquisite piece of artwork.

Sleeping in a hut under a mosquito net, the quiet sounds of murmurings of families night time rituals and the wind through the palm trees…. These are the people of Timika Pantai… the Kamoro.

Thank you Kal, thank you Jeffery and thank you, the Kamoro people for a small glimpse of your of life and land, and thank you for the images indelibly stamped in my memory.