Haus Tambaran

Last updated

Haus Tambaran is a Tok Pisin phrase which describes a type of traditional ancestral worship house in the East Sepik region of Papua New Guinea. The most visually recognizable forms are from the Maprik area, with a tall and elaborately decorated front entrance wall where the ridge pole slopes down low toward the back of the building and the roof follows this decline and often continues all the way to the ground. The Sepik people are renowned for their superb artistic ability in painting and carving, which is often exhibited in these religious structures.

Contents

High Commission of Papua New Guinea in Canberra High Commission of Papua New Guinea to Australia June 2016.jpg
High Commission of Papua New Guinea in Canberra

The front entrance of the modern National Parliament (which is sometimes referred to informally as Haus Tambaran) building in Port Moresby is modelled on traditional haus tambaran architecture. It can be viewed on Google Earth at Latitude: 9°25'41.69"S, Longitude: 147°11'33.45"E, and is depicted on the Papua New Guinea 50 Kina note. The High Commission of Papua New Guinea in Canberra, Australia, is also influenced by haus tambaran.

The tambaran culture

The male-dominated tambaran or tambaram culture uses the haus tambaran as a meeting-house and site for rituals and initiations. It is also used in worship for the yam cult, the yam being the staple food for the Sepik people. The women serve primarily as preparers of feasts, outsiders, and spectators. The giant spirit, called Nggwal or Ngwalndu among the Abelam and Southern Arapesh peoples, is personified as noises that can be heard coming from the haus tambaran. Nggwal is the primary ancestor deity, though other cultural heroes are also often depicted in cultural and sacred arts. Ngwalndu are large, flat painted faces that line the inside of the structure. Though they are said to be representations of ancestral spirits, they can also be seen as stylized women's bodies. However, it is important to note that painting is a sacred activity for the Sepik people, and the paintings of the Sepik people are taken very seriously.

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tok Pisin</span> English creole spoken in Papua New Guinea

Tok Pisin, often referred to by English speakers as New Guinea Pidgin or simply Pidgin, is a creole language spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely used language in the country. However, in parts of the southern provinces of Western, Gulf, Central, Oro, and Milne Bay, the use of Tok Pisin has a shorter history and is less universal, especially among older people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Provinces of Papua New Guinea</span> First-level administrative divisions of Papua New Guinea

For administrative purposes, Papua New Guinea is divided into administrative divisions called provinces. There are 22 provincial-level divisions, which include 20 provinces, the Autonomous Region of Bougainville, and the National Capital District of Port Moresby.

Tayap is an endangered Papuan language spoken by fewer than 50 people in Gapun village of Marienberg Rural LLG in East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. It is being replaced by the national language and lingua franca Tok Pisin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Culture of Papua New Guinea</span>

The culture of Papua New Guinea is complex and multifaceted. It is estimated that more than 7000 different cultural groups exist in Papua New Guinea, and most groups have their own language. Because of this diversity, in which they take pride, many different styles of cultural expression have emerged; each group has created its own expressive forms in art, dance, weaponry, costumes, singing, music, architecture and much more. To unify the nation, the language Tok Pisin, once called Neo-Melanesian has evolved as the lingua franca — the medium through which diverse language groups are able to communicate with one another in Parliament, in the news media, and elsewhere. People typically live in villages or dispersed hamlets which rely on the subsistence farming of yams and taro. The principal livestock in traditional Papua New Guinea is the oceanic pig.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Torricelli languages</span> Language family

The Torricelli languages are a family of about fifty languages of the northern Papua New Guinea coast, spoken by about 80,000 people. They are named after the Torricelli Mountains. The most populous and best known Torricelli language is Arapesh, with about 30,000 speakers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arapesh languages</span> Group of Torricelli languages of Papua New Guinea

The Arapesh languages are several closely related Torricelli languages of the 32,000 Arapesh people of Papua New Guinea. They are spoken in eastern Sandaun Province and northern East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea.

The Border or Upper Tami languages are an independent family of Papuan languages in Malcolm Ross's version of the Trans–New Guinea proposal.

The Ramu–Lower Sepika.k.a.Lower Sepik–Ramu languages are a proposed family of about 35 Papuan languages spoken in the Ramu and Sepik river basins of northern Papua New Guinea. These languages tend to have simple phonologies, with few consonants or vowels and usually no tones.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sepik languages</span> Papuan language family

The Sepik or Sepik River languages are a family of some 50 Papuan languages spoken in the Sepik river basin of northern Papua New Guinea, proposed by Donald Laycock in 1965 in a somewhat more limited form than presented here. They tend to have simple phonologies, with few consonants or vowels and usually no tones.

Haus is a Germanic word meaning house. It may refer to:

The Ndu languages are the best known family of the Sepik languages of East Sepik Province in northern Papua New Guinea. Ndu is the word for 'man' in the languages that make up this group. The languages were first identified as a related family by Kirschbaum in 1922.

The Papuans are one of four major cultural groups of Papua New Guinea. The majority of the population lives in rural areas. In isolated areas there remains a handful of the giant communal structures that previously housed the whole male population, with a circling cluster of huts for the women. The Papuan people are Melanesian people composed of at least 240 different peoples, each with its own language and culture. Sago is the staple food of the Papuan supplemented with hunting, fishing and small gardens.

In 1994, Jim Mason, a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University, arranged for two groups of men from the Sepik River region of Papua New Guinea to carve the New Guinea Sculpture Garden at Stanford University. The men were from several communities or villages of the Iatmul people and the Kwoma people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lower Sepik languages</span> Language family of Papua New Guinea

The Lower Sepik a.k.a. Nor–Pondo languages are a small language family of East Sepik Province in northern Papua New Guinea. They were identified as a family by K Laumann in 1951 under the name Nor–Pondo, and included in Donald Laycock's now-defunct 1973 Sepik–Ramu family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sepik Hill languages</span> Sepik language branch of Papua New Guinea

The Sepik Hill languages form the largest and most ramified branch of the Sepik languages of northern Papua New Guinea. They are spoken along the southern margin of the Sepik floodplain in the foothills of Central Range of south-central East Sepik Province.

The Hewa are an indigenous people that live in the Koroba Lake Kopiago Electorate of Hela Province of Papua New Guinea near the junction of the Strickland River. They were one of the last peoples in Papua New Guinea to come into contact with the outside world. They number about 2,000 persons, and their rugged rainforest terrain comprises about 1,000 square miles (2,590 km2), some of which was unexplored until 2008. Their language belongs to the Sepik Hills family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sepik</span> River on New Guinea

The Sepik is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun and East Sepik, with a small section flowing through the Indonesian province of Papua.

Kwoma is a Sepik language of Papua New Guinea also known as Washkuk. The word 'Kwoma' means "hill people". Washkuk is a government name for the people of Kwoma. Linguists have the given the name 'Kwoma' as the primary name of the language, but 'Nukuma' is the specific name for the Northern dialect. Nukuma means people who live along the upper reaches of the Sanchi River. The speakers of Kwoma are located in the Ambunti district of the Sepik River region. There are two dialects known as Kwoma (Washkuk) and Nukuma. The Kwoma dialect or "hill people" is located in the Washkuk Hills which is a range of mountains on the north side of the Sepik. The Nukuma dialect or "headwater people" live to the north and west of the Washkuk range along the Sepik River. Kwoma is considered an endangered language with an estimated 2,925 native speakers worldwide.

The Wogamus languages are a pair of closely related languages,

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Traditional architecture of Papua New Guinea</span>

The traditional architecture of Papua New Guinea (PNG) reflects the diversity and ingenuity of this Pacific Island nation, with over 850 different ethnic groups each with its own distinct architectural styles, techniques, and materials. Their typical buildings range from houses on stilts to ceremonial and spiritual centers.

References