No.1 Neighbour: Art in Papua New Guinea 1956-2016

38 №1 NEIGHBOUR KASTOM Kwatbil, the spirit, lived in the river and supplied magic power. Near the river, there was a garden belonging to a real man called Gumbidiau. The wild pigs always destroyed Gumbidiau’s garden, so he decided to sleep there to watch for them. On the first night, he heard a strange song from deep in the river. Gumbidiau could not believe he had heard it, so on the second night, he asked his younger brother to come. That night, they both heard the song. Early the next morning, Gumbidiau dived into the river and found a piece of coral. He left the coral in the small house where they had slept when they went home. They kept it a secret so nobody in the village would know. During the night, the elder brother had a dream and told his younger brother to build a korumbo (spirit house) to keep the magic stone (coral) within. While the magic stone was in the korumbo, one of the women became pregnant. While everyone was out in the bush gathering leaves and firewood, the spirit Kwatbil came out of the korumbo. At that moment, the korumbo appeared in front of the pregnant woman. Kwatbil asked for everybody in the village, and the woman replied that everybody had gone out to collect firewood and leaves. She told him that they would split the bamboo to operate on her and pull the baby out, and then later they would roast her body like a mumu (pig). Kwatbil asked her to give him some water and aibika, a silvery green plant, to eat. The spirit made these two items magic so the woman would find it easy to deliver the baby. The spirit turned to leave, but he heard the baby cry, so he asked whether it was male or female. The woman replied it was male, so the spirit gave her something for cutting the belly button and leaves for cleaning the blood. He then told her where to keep the waste, so she went to the wild pandanus tree. Finally, he asked her if she knew about the magic song of how to deliver a baby. She replied yes, so the spirit went inside the korumbo, which began to return to its normal state. Inside the korumbo, Kwatbil began to realise that the population had grown in the village, so he requested that they prepare him bale (pigs). At this time, the men provided names for the spirits inside the korumbo. The first spirit to visit the korumbo is the bapa (DukDuk, an ancestor spirit), the one who makes sure things are done. The first carving is of the spirit Ulk’etakwa and the second is of the spirit Kutakwa, both female. The third carving is of the spirit Urungwal. The next to visit is Waptapu and this male spirit stands apart from these carvings. The fourth is Iu and his rule is that you are not allowed to use any bilums (colourful bags) or baskets. The fifth is Wangi, and he is known as the second last chief, who appears in the middle of the painting on the front of the korumbo. The last spirit is Puti, who allows you to have anything that was not allowed before, and also helps you complete the hard work for a bale (pig). THE LEGEND OF THE ABELAM KORUMBO WAIKUA NERA Abelam and Kwoma artists at the Sepik spirit house opening, with the Brikiti Cultural Group’s Korumbo (Spirit house) 2012, APT7 opening weekend celebrations, GOMA, December 2012 / Photograph: Mark Sherwood PP.36–7 Michael Mel in Ples Namel ( Our Place ) performance, APT2, QAG, September 1996 / Photograph: Ray Fulton The Abelam people live in the mountains and rainforests in Papua New Guinea’s East Sepik Province. The story of the Abelam korumbo is the story of the spirit Kwatbil, a giant bird who shielded a pregnant woman beneath its wings. This effected a transformation in the woman’s body, providing her with a previously non-existent birth canal, as well as producing the first korumbo. See Diane Losche, ‘What do Abelam images want from us?: Plato’s Cave and Kwatbil’s belly’, The Australian Journal of Anthropology , vol.8, no.1, 1997, p.43.