Authentic New Guinea Art - Gourds as Phallocrypts, Cassowary Bone Knives, and Bila Ornaments from Papua New Guinea

Before the arrival of Europeans, the people of tropical New Guinea got by with minimal clothing. Grass skirts, tapa (bark) cloth capes, bark string laplaps and phallocrypts made of gourds did the job.

Now most New Guineans wear westernized clothes. T-shirts are everywhere. In the villages, laundry facilities are limited to river water. Soap must be purchased in town with limited cash, so it's often impossible to keep even a few clothes looking very clean. Many of the recent photos of villagers unfortunately look as if everyone runs around in dirty T-shirts and shorts.

In Indonesia, the government does not like the primitive appearance of traditional dress or undress as they see it. If a person has business with a government office, they must appear in western clothes. However, the Baliem Valley and surrounding mountain areas of Irian Jaya are one of the few places where men still routinely wear phallocrypts. Although the gourd phallocrypts are a hot item for tourists in both Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya, they are just everyday wear in the mountain villages.

Figure 1: Man is bargaining with Ron over a bark string woman's laplap. His phallocrypt is made from a discarded yellow flashlight. Several men routinely come into Wamena to sell items to tourists and this man is one of these traders. The people on the Papua New Guinea side of the island have retained a strong feeling for their traditions, even if they wear store clothes for everyday use. For ceremonies and dance, they dress as their ancestors did and are proud of it. The Sepiks in Papua New Guinea turn out a large number of gourd phallocrypts for sale to tourists. Recently, they have been elaborating on these with woven faces and lots of dangling shells and seeds on bigger and bigger gourds. There's a lot of joking going on when these are sold.