The Marsh Dwellers Of Papua New Guinea
Deep in the remote swampy marshlands of Papua New Guinea lives a small tribe of people called the Chambri. Not only does this primitive community still live off the land today, they also continue to live among one of the world’s most dangerous creatures.
And in order to keep themselves protected from the terrifying beast, the Chambri partake in a very long and painful sacrificial ritual.
But while this may sound like the worst part, there is something that terrifies Chambri men more than the beast they share a home with.
Who Are They?
The Tchambuli, now known as Chambri, are a small tribe living in remote areas of the Chambri Lake region of Papua New Guinea. They number about 1,000 people, and live in traditional, primitive villages—even today.
What Is Their Homeland Like?
The Chambri live in small remote villages along the shoreline of Chambri Lake, and in the marshy areas consisting of swamps and shallow water canals that are fed by the Sepik River—which usually flood during the monsoon season.
Living in a wetland may have many perks—but there is also one major challenge that has become a huge part of the Chambri’s cultural identity.
David Bacon, Wikimedia Commons
Who Shares Their Territory?
Neighboring tribes can often pose a threat to safety and security, and while there are other tribes living in the region, there is also one other “neighbor” who lives amid the Chambri, and they’re possibly the most dangerous of them all—crocodiles.
That’s right, the Chambri don’t just live near crocodiles, they live among them. But instead of fearing the deadly creature, they worship them.
Why Do They Worship Crocodiles?
The Chambri, who are commonly called The Crocodile Men of Papua New Guinea, believe that humans evolved from the prehistoric river predators—and therefore, the crocodile is sacred.
As we’ll later learn, they pay homage to the fearsome animal through an incredibly intricate—and painful—ritual.
Unknown Artist, Wikimedia Commons
What Is Their Lifestyle Like?
The Chambri people are traditional hunter-gatherers, even today. And while you might assume they hunt and eat crocodiles, which happen to be in abundance and would be excellent protein—you’d be wrong. Since they equally fear and worship the animal, they stick to other water creatures instead.
Weli'mi'nakwan, Wikimedia Commons
What Do They Eat?
The Chambri rely greatly on the Chambri Lake to support their lifestyle, and so their diet mostly consists of only two foods: fish and sago. Traditionally, they used spears for fishing, but today they use modern tools and traps.
Even though fishing and gathering sago are virtually unchanged practices, in recent years, the Chambri have transitioned to trading and bartering with neighboring tribes.
Dick Culbert from Gibsons, B.C., Canada, via Wikimedia Commons
What Do They Trade?
Since fishing is a trademark of their tribal culture, the Chambri use fish as one of their primary trading items. In return, they usually receive sago—which is used as a starch in their diet.
Historically, the Chambri bartered with the Iatmul people, trading fish and handmade tools for sago and shell valuables—that is, until the Iatmul turned on them.
What Happened With The Iatmul People?
When the Chambri first came together, they looked for other communities nearby for interaction and growth. The Iatmul people were just what they needed, and the two groups had an understanding—until the arrival of Europeans.
As soon as the Iatmul people acquired modern tools and weapons from the Europeans, they no longer had a need for the Chambri—and they no longer feared them either.
Eksilverman, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
What Were The Chambri Known For?
The Chambri were historically known as volatile headhunters—people who hunted other humans and collected the severed heads as trophies. They had a strong warrior group and excellent leaders in battle—and were often feared by other tribes.
But this terrifying reputation didn’t stick.
Rites of Manhood: Crocodile Scars | National Geographic, National Geographic
How Did The Chambri People Change?
Not long after the Europeans influenced the Iatmul people, Papua New Guinea had come under independent governance and the Chambri people abandoned their violent tendencies.
Culturally, their society had changed due to European influences, however the personal interactions and customs within the Chambri tribe had not.
Rites of Manhood: Crocodile Scars | National Geographic, National Geographic
What Do The Chambri Wear?
The Chambri people are expressive in their appearances—especially during ceremonies and rituals. They paint their bodies with bright colors and designs, and they wear grass skirts, feathered headdresses, and hand-crafted masks.
For an everyday look, many Chambri today have acquired modern clothing like shorts and t-shirts, but still like to paint their bodies and accessorize with handicrafts.
Ron van der Stappen, Shutterstock
What Else Do They Make?
As a fishing community, the Chambri typically fish close to shore. But they do handcraft canoes and small boats for transportation. Traditionally, they made all of their own tools, weapons, and household items using materials from their environment.
They also have a knack for the arts—particularly following a specific theme.
David Bacon, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
What Do They Craft?
Since the women are usually the breadwinners, the men like to dabble in the arts—especially when it involves anything to do with a crocodile, of course. Chambri people spend a great deal of time making crocodile replicas out of woven reeds and twigs. They use clay, rock, and paint to make crocodile sculptures, and use crocodile teeth to make elaborate necklaces and headpieces.
These art pieces are used in their Spirit Houses, and to decorate the areas involved in their rituals.
Cangadoba, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
What Are Their Villages Like?
Even after the arrival of Europeans, the Chambri continued to live their traditional lifestyle, avoiding as many modern amenities as possible. Their community consists of three villages: Indingai, Wombun, and Kilimbit. Each village numbers about 250-350 people.
Eksilverman, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
What Are Their Homes Like?
Their huts range in size, depending on how many people they house, and are built using bush materials, found in their immediate environment. This usually means timber, bark, leaves, and grasses. They are often built up on stilts since the ground is either wet, or flooded.
As primitive as that may be, it’s not all twigs and leaves in the Chambri village—they save their best designs for more important structures.
The Spirit Houses
Each village has five Spirit Houses (sometimes called the men’s houses), which are impressive two-story structures with high gable ends, large oval second-story windows, and elaborately carved and painted interior posts and other heavy timbers.
These houses play an important part in their religious rituals, particularly in initiation ceremonies. Spirits are said to inhabit every element of the structure.
Eksilverman, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
What Are Their Religious Beliefs?
The Chambri people have a high spiritual belief that power is related to their ancestors. Their religious practices have to do with appreciating or embodying the power of their ancestors through secretive ancestral names that connect them to the dead.
Also, they believe power can also be sourced from items like stones, trees—and crocodiles.
Rvalette, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
How Is The Crocodile Significant?
The Chambri people believe they descended from the crocodiles that migrated from the Sepik River. And even though they’ve slowly become Catholic, their rituals surrounding the crocodile is one tradition they refuse to give up.
In fact, their cult-like practices to worship the crocs is often considered strange and barbaric.
Ron van der Strappen, Shutterstock
What Is Their Most Important Ritual?
The Chambri pay their respects to the crocodiles every four to five years in an intricate initiation ceremony involving body scarification. During the ceremony, young men aged 11 to 20 take part in a rite-of-passage that transitions them from boyhood to manhood.
The ritual is so intense that the boys must prepare for it by being away from home for an extended period of time. Actually, "intense" is an understatement—not everyone makes it out of this alive.
Naliman Mask Group from the Chambri Lakes at East Sepik Province, Mikronesien05
What Is The First Part Of The Initiation Ceremony?
The first part of the initiation process is seclusion. The boys are sent to live in the Spirit House for 6-8 weeks. The Spirit House is filled with culturally significant objects such as paintings and masks. The boys are required to follow a series of rules, from where they sit and when they eat, to how they behave and when they can be seen in public.
But there is one extremely important rule they must never disobey.
Michael tanur, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
What Is The Most Important Rule?
The boys taking part in the initiation ceremony are forbidden from having any access to women. They aren’t even allowed to look at them. Women are not permitted to enter the Spirit House under any circumstances. Technically, the boys aren’t allowed to be seen in public during this time, so avoiding women is fairly easy—but not to be overlooked.
It is the intention of the ritual to “divorce” the men from the “world of womenfolk” and fill them instead with the power of the crocodile spirit.
Rites of Manhood: Crocodile Scars | National Geographic, National Geographic
What Happens To The Boys In Seclusion?
During these weeks of seclusion, the boys must also submit to their male peers. Similar to hazing done in Western Universities, the Chambri boys have to endure taunting, being pelted with food, and many other humiliating injustices. This is said to build strength and character.
Once they’ve paid their dues inside, the initiation ceremony begins—and it’s anything but pleasant.
Rites of Manhood: Crocodile Scars | National Geographic, National Geographic
How Do The Boys Sacrifice Themselves?
The purpose of this ceremony is for the boys to sacrifice themselves to the crocodiles, which then gives them power.
During the ritual, elders use sharp bamboo slivers to cut deeply into the boys’ backs, chests, and buttocks to make the skin appear scaly—like a crocodile. The marks are meant to represent tooth marks from the crocodile as it “swallows” the young men during the ceremony. This process is called body scarification.
*christopher* from San Francisco, USA, wikimedia commons
How Do The Boys Manage Pain?
During this long and horrifically painful procedure, the boys are held down by other men, and the only pain relief they’re allowed is a mild plant to chew on. The pain is part of the process as it’s believed that if the boy can withstand the pain now, he will be able to overcome pain later in life.
Many witnesses of this ritual say the boys’ painful screams haunt them for some time afterward.
What Happens After The Initiation?
Once the cutting part is done, the bloodied boys sit close to a fire and the smoke is blown into the wounds while they also rub tea tree oil deep into the lesions. Not only does this help keep the cuts “clean”, it ensures that they will heal in a raised fashion, so that the markings resemble skin similar to a crocodile.
Some boys, however, end up with fatal infections as a result.
Rites of Manhood: Crocodile Scars | National Geographic, National Geographic
How Does The Ceremony End?
The ceremony concludes with the boys—now considered men—and other male villagers participating in dances wearing traditional jewelry and headdresses. Not only have they now reached the status of a man, but also a crocodile.
Now, this integral cultural ritual may give you the impression that the Chambri culture is patriarchal—but that is far from true.
Tryfon Topalidis, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
What Are The Women’s Roles In The Tribe?
There is one aspect about the Chambri culture that has fascinated anthropologists for years. In fact, renowned anthropologist Margaret Mead took a particular interest in the Chambri tribe—specifically, the role of women within the community.
Believe it or not, the Chambri women were the powerful individuals within the tribe—not the men.
Unknown Artist, Wikimedia Commons
How Do Women Provide For The Tribe?
Chambri women have always been the primary suppliers of food—including and especially the fishing. Not only that, once they have caught enough fish for their community, they also do the traveling to markets to trade the excess fish for other foods and necessities.
And that’s not all the women do.
John Miller, Wikimedia Commons
How Are Men And Women Different?
The Chambri women are the primary providers for their villages. That means they’re pretty darn good with a spear. They also have incredible patience and endurance—making them beneficial to many aspects of the tribe.
It is said that Chambri women are the “power figures” in the community and are perceived as more dominant and managerial, while the men are viewed as sentimental and emotional.
Rites of Manhood: Crocodile Scars | National Geographic, National Geographic
What Are The Men’s Roles?
While the women are bringing home the bacon—or fish, in this case—the men take care of the children, the household, and the community politics.
In general, though, the Chambri tribe remains very inclusive. Food and resources are collectively shared, and they work closely together to live the most efficient life possible.
But there is one aspect of their culture where power does not exist.
David Bacon, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons
What Is Marriage Like?
In marriage, neither the male or female has the power. While the marriages are usually arranged by men in the bride’s family, the woman still has a say in who she marries and usually works with her male family to choose a man with decent ancestral power.
However, men and women are not submissive to each other. They are seen as equals in marriage, and in life—well, except for one part.
Sergey Uryadnikov, Shutterstock
What Are Men Afraid Of?
The Chambri claim to see each other as equals, but then within marriage, women have certain stereotypes with which they’ve been labeled. It’s actually common for Chambri men to fear their wives. This is because men are given “secret names” that they are forbidden to voice out loud.
Men often worry that they will talk in their sleep, and accidentally reveal their secret name to their wives. But that’s not even the worst of it.
Sergey Uryadnikov, Shutterstock
Why Are Men Afraid Of Their Wives?
Men are also afraid that their wives have easy access to things like their hair and their bodily fluids—which they might give to a sorcerer.
At the same time, the men believe that if their secret names are worth stealing by their wife, then they must be important and powerful enough for this kind of deceitfulness to have taken place. The silver lining, perhaps.
Top1963, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
How Do They Live Today?
Today, the Chambri people continue to live a mostly traditional lifestyle. They still live in remote villages in swampy marshlands, build structures out of bush materials, wear grass skirts, and worship the crocodile. They don’t have utilities, and they still use fish as currency.
Even with knowledge of the modern world, the Chambri tribe continues to hold their culture close, living as traditionally as possible.
Tryfon Topalidis, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Can People Visit Them?
Yes. While the Chambri people used to prefer isolation, they have become more open to tourism in recent years. Immersion tours of the Sepik region are available—but the windows of opportunity are small.
It’s a very costly trip, and also very dangerous as you’d be traveling into the remote areas of the jungle—where cell service is non-existent, and as now know, crocodiles reign.
You May Also Like:
Photos of the Endangered Island Tribe in India
The Smallest Primitive Tribe in the World
The Ghost Tribe Of Papua New Guinea, Caught In Photos
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}
.jpg){kind=link}