Oil Search Pacific Games Relay on the Sepik
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| Oil Search Pacific Games Relay in Sepik. Photo credit:madNESS Photography |
The villagers welcomed the Baton warmly at their ‘Pania’ spirit house and introduce the Relay team to their Kerwasa spirit following which they run a short relay with their village sports people.
From there the Baton heads into the wetlands off the main river, pushing through through reeds and weeds into the village of Tangujamb.
The relay team walk into a towering sago garden resembling a cathedral as they curve gracefully above the team. The Baton is the welcomed by the traditional singsing groups and spirit dancers and the Baton is shared around the market and all the villagers line up along the pathways through the village.
The Relay then heads downstream to the middle Sepik of Palambe overnight amongst the largest mosquitos the team has ever seen.
Today was a long day of travel, in the pouring rain, down the Sepik to Angoram. We stop along the way at scheduled villages and schools to share the Baton and also glide by past small villages and houses along the way, where all come out to wave hello and see the Oil Search Pacific Games relay go by.
Some of these stops are incredibly isolated tributaries only a metre wide and clogged with floating hyacinth and logs. The team push through sometimes having to get out of the canoe to make their way forward.
The Relay team are then treated to some magnificently built spirit houses, the crocodile masks of the Sepik at Yenchan Village and a young villager named Jason who shared his traditional crocodile tattoos. Then it was on to the village of Kanganamun and a fantastic cassowary dancer representing his clan, welcomed the Baton.
The relay’s final stop for the day was at Kambaramba Village where the houses sit over a tributary of the Sepik and the kids came out as crocodile runners to greet the relay.
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