Mother Purari and her guardians
24 August 2012
JOHN FOWKE
WHAT A LOT OF WELL-EDUCATED female members of the Evara family there are (see comments posted under Locals ‘know nothing’ about Purari scheme).
And all with an interest in the very old proposal - recently revived - regarding damming the Purari at a point called Wabo.
Here, variously, Comalco and later the Commonwealth Works Department maintained a stream-gauging station with the object of collating data before drafting an engineering plan for a dam and linked hydro-electricity generation.
This was to be the power-source, via undersea cable, for an alumina smelter to be built near Weipa on Cape York. As we all know this eventuality never emerged and Weipa sends its alumina to Gladstone for smelting. The proposal was awakened from a long slumber in 2010.
Assuming that the Evara girls are the grand-daughters of the late Evara Bai'i, a very grand old man of the Purari Delta ( but not of the Upper Purari watershed and proposed dam-site at Wabo), a real "big-man" in Koriki or coastal Purari society of the time, then they certainly are stakeholders in any discussion and outcome.
Like their granddad, they are apparently outspoken and firm of purpose. But, ladies, and all others of the Purari Delta villages from Alele to Kaimari to Baimuru and Ipiko, let us not forget the alacrity with which quick-witted people leap onto timber-and-resource-related bandwagons for reasons of personal enrichment.
All the people of the Purari Delta have a stake in any proposed enterprise involving the damming of the Purari, but the landowners of the dam-site and its catchment are the people known for the past 70 or 80 years as Pawaia. Let’s be clear on this.
As to the effect and distribution of appropriate benefits, all the Purari people, coastal and inland, must share in them. Just let’s avoid confusion of the place of Pawaia, they being a very small linguistic and cultural group, numbering only a few hundred individuals. They have no ethnic, cultural or close historical links with the people of the lower, tidal delta rivers.
Discussions of the purchase of timber-rights by the then-new Wame Sawmill - located across the river from today’s Kapuna Hospital (and now relocated and known as Baimuru Sawmilling Co.) - held in 1927 between Pawaia and I’ai or Old Iari people with the then Resident Magistrate from Kikori are relevant- and available to see- where any dispute over rights to land along the mid-to-upper part of the Purari is concerned.
The clans from Uraru village above the Wabo site are the "owners" and it was at their invitation that the people of Wabo Village, which is diagonally opposite the old stream- gauging site, and on the mouth of Wabo Creek, came and settled there in 1960.
These people moved down onto the river from inland Pawaia villages named - as I dimly remember - Ha'u and Haia. But I may have these names wrong.
At any rate, led by an influential man, they obtained approval from the riverine Pawaia clans (no comment, let alone dispute, from lower down the river) and then sought government approval to build a permanent settlement at Wabo.
Their leader was appointed as their Village Constable and an initial census done. Soon after, Pastor Martin of the SDA Mission at Belepa visited Wabo and placed a pastor/teacher there.
In much later times I encountered some ex-Wabo SDA school-students at the SDA high school at Kabiufa in EHP, so one hopes that there must by now be a generation of secondary- and tertiary -educated Pawaia men and women to make the Pawaia case heard.
I don’t really know, but I have the strong feeling that opportunists, black, white and Asian, have figured in the forestry activities which have spread a very wide shadow of destruction across the hinterland of the Vailala, Purari, Era and Kikori/Turama river systems.
Areas with small populations which have never had a voice in politics, and which, whilst I don’t know for a fact, I nevertheless believe have been ignored and thrust aside by the exploiters of these vast and valuable resources.
Let’s hear a united and responsible voice from the people of both the coastal and the inland areas of these western Gulf Province river deltas. They have lived in virtual obscurity for too long to spoil any chance for modernisation and a rise in standards of services and enjoyment of life, to waste it in selfish so called "ethnic" squabbles and shady dealings with crooked entrepreneurs.
I was approached by a man of this sort representing a mixed PNG/expatriate group about deals on the Purari about three years ago. I obviously didn’t match his hopes or aspirations during our first and only meeting.
With the exception of the area served by the relatively small Baimuru Sawmill, over which landowners still have influence, the huge timber resource of much of the Gulf has been ripped out with very little re-investment, if any at all, visible to the ordinary villager.
It’s not only a long-house-building, spirit-house-centred, canoe-born, sago-consuming way of traditional life which binds these Gulf river-dwellers to those of the East and West Sepik provinces.
Both seem to have suffered under the same scourge, often held and wielded by their own kind in conspiracy with foreigners.
Pawaia is one of the tribes of the Baimuru local level government in the Kikori district.
The Pawaia drive is now divided into two which we call Lower Pawaia and Upper Pawaia.
Lower Pawaian villages:
1. Uraru
2. Wabo/Ura
3. Subu 1&2
4. Poroi 1&2
Upper Pawaian villages:
1. Zurumatu/Japramaru
2. Taiswara
3. Pujano
5. Haia
6. Toiari
7. Soma
Wabo is the main centre of Lower Pawaia and Haia is the main centre of Upper Pawaia.
All the basics of government are there, and both have airstrips used by small one-engine planes from Goroka.
Lower and Upper Pawaians share a common culture, speak the same language and have the same staple food --- sago.
But Upper Pawaian villages are looked after by both Simbu Provincial Government and Gulf Provincial Government.
The Lower Pawaian villages are looked after by Gulf Provincial Government.
This makes life a bit complicated and most government services are not in existence, hence the people of Pawaia struggle every day to try to access basic government services through Baimuru or Karimui.
Almost 99% of the people are illiterate, which is a result of them not having a formal education.
I'm the only Pawaian to reached Grade 12, I was able to go as far as the University of PNG and currently work with Gulf Provincial Government. Jacob John Benai from Haia.
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Hi Jacob - Thanks for that interesting account of the Pawaia area and compliments on your educational attainments. Perhaps one day you'll be in a position to ensure the Pawaian people get their fair share of benefits from the government - KJ
Posted by: Jacob John Benai | Haia, Upper Pawaia | 29 October 2024 at 02:28 PM
The Pawaia people are not the original inhabitants of Purari. They escaped from the Eastern Highlands from a brutal onslaught from their own tribesmen and sought refuge in the Gulf region.
My ancestors gave them the blessing to live there until today. My ancestors let them look after the land and moved south.
The entire people scattered across the land today called Kouri. About half of the tribe crossed the Purari River using the stone bridge currently sitting across the river.
The others moved even further south to the current Popo Ihu coast or went north and occupied the hinterland of the Purari's east bank towards the Vailala hinterland.
Anyway, I will stop here. [email protected]
Posted by: Junior Mava Hape | 21 September 2024 at 12:30 PM
The Korikis are the original inhabitants of the upper Purari. We have historical stories passed down from our ancestors. And we know our spiritual and historical sacred sites from Subu down to Poroi and our journey down to the coast.
We will not be denied our historical birthright to the present. We the Korikis and the Pawaians do know ourselves as from the past and where we stand from each other.
We have sacred sites and settlements established in the past from Subu to Poroi down to the coast. From the past till now we travel up to our ancestral grounds and hunt, cut trees, gather food and say hello to our ancestor spirits.
Apart from us, anybody else has restricted access and that is from our ancestor spirits. Not even the Pawaians will have access and they know it.
Posted by: D Kotopala | Koriki Tribesman | 17 February 2015 at 03:56 PM
Here's a quote from a Social Mapping Study that Leo Bera and I did for a geology survey just down from Wabo near the mouth of the Subu River in 2001.
"The people in the survey area are called GOEHEAE, rendered roughly as GOI'HENGAI. Earlier reports refer to them as PAWAIA. This is the name of an early 'village' south of the present POROI village.
The name of the village seems to have been adopted by early government officers and used to describe the people. This distinction may be why references to Pawaia people do not appear in early reports of patrols, especially those coming in from the north or northwest.
The GOEHEAE refer to their southern and eastern neighbours as PUHEAE. This is rendered as PUNG'AI. These are the people who refer to themselves as KAURA or HAURA. To the southwest are the KORIKI.
To the north are the KAMEA (KUKUKUKU). POROI as a village name now generally replaces the old PAWAIA 1 and 2."
As an aside, isn't it curious how so many wealthy politicians made their money ripping off their own people's forests and logging rights.
Posted by: Phil Fitzpatrick | 25 August 2012 at 09:46 AM