The Canoe Festival

There are a few big events in Milne Bay each year – the Yam Festival on the Trobriand Islands, Independence Day (country wide), the Kula Cup (a soccer event – Milne Bayans are mad on soccer), and, of course, the Canoe Festival. This year was only the third year of the festival, but you would never have guessed from the familiarity with which it is discussed.

The basic idea is that each year, people from all over Milne Bay (and some other provinces as well, such as the Western Province) bring themselves, their families and their canoes together for a festival. Sure, there is a bit more to it than that. Stalls are set up everywhere selling food (yum, lamb flaps!) and handcrafts. Many different cultures dress in traditional dress, dance and exchange food (not always traditional food – it is rather funny to see someone in a grass skirt carrying a box of tinned fish on their shoulders).







In terms of the events, some sail on their sailaos, basically a canoe with sails, from the outer islands and have distance races. These are pretty amazing water crafts, as when they want any significant change in direction they simply swing the whole sail and boom around with the boat stationary in order to head in the other direction. Rather like a push-pull Manly ferry. It’s a pretty amazing operation, and looks quite difficult. (In this long shot you can see various craft at various stages in the process)



But we were particularly impressed with the war canoes and thier races. The canoes themselves are beautifully painted and show a real cultural pride.





The races involve groups of 18 or 22 (depending on the event) men in traditional dress paddling their hearts out and looking fairly intimidating. They blow the conch shell a lot, bang their paddles (which are very pointy and double as spears) on the boat at every stroke and occasionally sing. As I said. War canoes. Being war-like. We’ve heard that in the past there have been some punch ups after the races, but (much to my relief) not this year.



Unfortunately the weather was wet and drizzly, but the festival was still awesome, and everyone seemed to have a good time. Cam and I figured we probably wouldn’t get to the Western Province any time soon, so it was great to be able to see such a demonstration of their crafts and culture. Cam ended up making friends with these guys as well. It was from them that we bought some paddles (featured in one of the pictures from our last entry hanging on our wall), and a kundu drum, which is the frequent accompaniment to anything happening in our house at the moment.



We also used the festival as a kind of a stage. As you may have read at some point before, I (Jane) am in the midst of training a drama group. And we held our first performance at the Canoe Festival. Of course, it was an Invisible Theatre piece, so no-one actually knew it was happening except the group members. But some good conversations were started, and it was a good experience for the members of the group. And the whole idea of this type of theatre is to make people think about their society without knowing that they are being manipulated (in the positive sense of the word) to do so.

The other event worthy of some small attention was the Crazy Raft competition. Evonne and Rebecca were part of the team that won this event, due to the fact that there was only one entry. The team, named the Desperate Housewives (all women), were accompanied by ‘the Plumber’ who was blowing the conch shell, and dancing Trobriand style in his arse-grass. What a sight (left off the blog to protect the innocent)!