Long way from the river

Telling the story of a Sepik River canoe

A 13-metre dugout canoe suspended from the ceiling is the centrepiece of the museum’s new gallery Under Southern Skies. The huge wooden craft with a carved crocodile-head prow is from the Sepik River in Papua New Guinea. Helen Anu and Dr Stephen Gapps trace how it came to join the museum’s collection.

AUSTRALIANS HAVE BEEN INTERESTED in cultural objects from Papua New Guinea (PNG) ever since early anthropologists began collecting material there in the late 19th century. Australian soldiers during World War I were infamous for almost wiping out species of the famous bird of paradise for souvenir feathers. By the late 1960s, there was still a strong interest in collecting ‘exotic’ artefacts from PNG, and at an annual ‘Papua New Guinea Week’ event in Sydney in 1969, a Sepik River canoe was paddled around Sydney Harbour as a highlight of the celebrations. After this event, it seems that many of the PNG objects were sold. The canoe, along with other items, was purchased for a ‘Pacific-themed’ restaurant in North Sydney. By the mid-1990s, new owners of the restaurant decided to offer the artefacts to the Queensland Museum, but the huge canoe remained. Despite some initial hesitation from curators about the canoe’s relevance to Australian history, the Maritime Museum was seen as a natural place for such a majestic watercraft.

From restaurant to museum

Since 1999, the canoe has been in the museum’s collection. For many years it remained in storage, cared for by conservators but neglected by curators. Visitors on behindthe-scenes tours would remark on it, but its stories of origin and cultural belonging went unheard. The canoe was collected at a time when cultural objects from places such as Papua New Guinea were considered as decorative curiosities rather than items that held historical and cultural import for the people who crafted them.

In 2020, with the development of a new exhibition on voyaging and navigating in and around Australia’s oceans, it was finally considered for display. There were many logistical issues in moving, suspending and caring for the canoe on display. Importantly, the first hurdles were to understand the canoe’s history, meanings and current connections with the Sepik River communities where it originated.

Detail of the carved crocodile-head prow of the Sepik River dugout canoe in the exhibition Under Southern Skies. 00043515 ANMM Collection Gift from Wieland Consumables and Colman Chan. Image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

01 Sepik river canoe, 1952, from Percy Cochrane’s colour slides 158–184 on recording patrol in the Sepik District, Papua New Guinea. Image University of Wollongong Archives, collection D160/03/158 02 A framed copy of the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald of 17 September 1969 showing the canoe being paddled in Sydney Harbour. SMH image used with permission. ANMM Collection, image Andrew Frolows/ANMM

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Tracing connections through time The Indigenous Programs staff and curators at the museum began to research the canoe’s history and to contact the communities of which these canoes were once a major cultural and economic part. The mighty Sepik River is one of the great rivers of the world, stretching 1,126 kilometres, and one of the largest and most intact freshwater basins in the Asia–Pacific region. It is generally divided into three areas – the Upper, Middle and Lower Sepik. Important waterbird and crocodile populations are supported by 1,500 lakes and other wetlands associated with the river basin. These diverse habitats are globally significant for their biodiversity. Local villagers have used the Sepik River since ancient times for water, fishing and transportation. These days, fibreglass dinghies equipped with 40-horsepower outboard motors are a common sight along the river, but dugout canoes are still being made and paddled where fuel supplies are scarce and engine maintenance unviable. Women travel in canoes with children and infants to sell fresh produce and woven baskets at markets, and skilled youngsters propel their own little dugouts while fishing along the river. Tourists from around the world seeking an ‘authentic Sepik adventure’ have also – perhaps ironically – contributed to the continued construction of dugouts. Dugout canoes are carved out of a single tree trunk using a stone adze. Large ones such as the museum’s example could be paddled by as many as 25 people. The hull would also be burned out with fire to seal it and to destroy any pests. The Sepik people are renowned for their carved wooden art, and this vessel was elaborately decorated with a prow in the shape of a crocodile’s head, in the tradition of the area. The Sepik people’s connection to the river is deeply spiritual and central to their lives. They share a totemic connection with crocodiles, which play an important role in the art and culture of Middle Sepik River communities and are carved on many of their canoes. Some of the stories of these people, who are often now called the latmul, describe how the world was once covered in a single ocean into which a crocodile dived and brought back mud from deep under the sea. This mud became the first land. The land slowly grew, resting on the back of the Ancestral Crocodile, who still sometimes moves, causing earthquakes. The ancestors of the Middle Sepik people embarked on a series of historic ocean migrations, naming all the trees, mountains, villages, winds and stars.

A long history of trade The Middle Sepik River is a long way from the ocean, but similar large dugout canoes from coastal areas of Papua New Guinea, often made into outriggers, were capable of ocean-going voyages. In this way, the people of PNG developed extensive relationships with those of the Torres Strait Islands to the south, and the Torres Strait Islanders embarked on diplomatic missions to PNG to acquire tree hulls for their water transport. Historical and archaeological records document movement between the Torres Strait Islands and Papua New Guinea spanning generations. Items of exchange could range from cultural items for use in ceremony, such as bird plumage, kundu drums, snake skins and woven mats. Other items such as yams, spears and seafood were also exchanged, as they continue to be today. This resource bartering was a foundation of the Torres Strait Treaty, a unique international agreement between PNG and the Torres Strait Islands that allows free movement (without passports or visas) between Australia and PNG for traditional activities. It applies only to Torres Strait Islanders and coastal people from PNG who live in and keep the traditions of the region. Importantly, there is also continuous oral evidence of the longdistance exchange voyages and canoe trades between the Torres Strait and river estuaries of PNG. These oral traditions record the patterns of people’s journeys as both traders and migrants. They also document movement between Papua New Guinea and the Makassans of Indonesia before the London Missionary Society arrived in the Torres Strait in 1871, rupturing these exchange patterns. Islanders recount these histories through song and dance, with such items as large feathered headdresses and bows and arrows often used in storytelling. The story of the museum canoe’s life is also important. From the beginning the tree was identified for harvesting, and songs would be sung as it began its journey to the community for building. The canoe would then cross many hands to its new place in different waters – sometimes hundreds of kilometres away across the ocean. Islanders’ observances of the seasons – including their understanding of the turbulent current that flows throughout the Strait from the Coral Sea to the Timor and Arafura seas – would dictate when journeys would take place, and a naming ceremony and other protocols would occur before a vessel was launched.

Under Southern Skies These overseas connections with northern Australia are a focus in the museum’s new permanent exhibition Under Southern Skies. The oceans around Australia were a swirl of cultural contact long before the first Europeans arrived. From Torres Strait Islanders to Muslim Makassan traders, and from Polynesian sailors to Europeans observing the transit of Venus, ocean voyagers have been navigating the seas, islands and coasts around Australia for millennia. The Sepik River canoe, which once adorned a restaurant, now has a new life in a gallery that tells the stories of Indigenous and European navigators united by a common thread – the planets and stars of the southern skies. A symbol from the past, the canoe also brings us into the present, where steps are being taken to rebuild the integrity of its story. Importantly, the canoe draws Australian, Pacific and other First Peoples into conversations about their histories, stories and relations across the oceans.

With thanks to Dr Michael Mel, Manager, Pacific Collections Australian Museum.

Helen Anu is the museum’s First Peoples Project Curator in Indigenous Programs. Dr Stephen Gapps is the acting Head of Research.