John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series Torembi and the Sepik A Study of Village Life in New Guinea |
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Topic No. 16: Village Markets ~ Photos 288 - 331 |
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John Tyman's Cultures in Context Series Torembi and the Sepik A Study of Village Life in New Guinea |
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Topic No. 16: Village Markets ~ Photos 288 - 331 |
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| 288. The people who live in Torembi produce most of their own food, but the availability of local markets offers them a more varied and a better balanced diet. The basic purpose of trading is, of course, to obtain items you cannot produce yourself. In most societies today people give cash in exchange for goods, but in earlier years… as in Torembi today … bartering was common. (In Torembi cash is actually needed only for salt, kerosene, matches, and soap: otherwise they can do without money.) Yet the same market forces and environmental factors influence trading here as elsewhere in the world. (Sago, fish , and edible grubs wrapped in leaves) |
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| 289. When you barter you simply swap commodities, exchanging items which are plentiful in your area for the surplus goods of a community with a different set of resources. In Torembi’s case, they swap their extra sago for surplus animal protein produced by fishing villages on the Sepik. And the importance of trading can be gauged from the fact that there is a market of some sort within walking distance of the village every day. (Dried fish and sago) |
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| 290. Thursday’s market is the biggest. It’s held south of the village, half-way between Torembi and the Sepik, in a forest clearing beside the small stream which runs through Torembi 2 and 3 on its way to the Sepik. |
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| 291. The Sepik people travel upstream, in dugout canoes. They tie these to posts stuck in the mud at the bottom of the bank, and climb to the market area above. |
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| 292. The women from Torembi walk in, carrying their produce on their backs in bilums. It took them an hour to get there. |
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| 293. There were a few whole fish available then, but most were cut into small pieces…since you can’t give change when you are bartering. |
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| 294. There were also a lot of shrimps … arranged neatly in piles which in size on that day were considered equivalent in value to a block of sago powder. |
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| 295. The greater bulk of the fish on offer, however, had been smoked and dried…giving it a longer ‘shelf life’ in a hot wet climate. |
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| 296. To top it off, there were a number of juicy grubs available, some of them marketed on skewers, others packed in containers made from leaves. These would provide both flavour and protein to enrich a diet dominated by carbohydrates. |
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| 297. The one thing the women from Torembi had to offer in return was powdered sago, in large lumps … plus a few items from their gardens. The produce was simply spread out on the ground beneath the trees. |
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| 298. As you can see, markets are basically the concern of women …though there are usually a few men who come to watch. The women produce the food, bring it to market, sell it or exchange it there, and then carry their purchases home. |
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| 299.This is not a picture of a woman selling sago but of a woman from the Sepik who had already exchanged some of her shellfish for blocks of the starchy foodstuff from Torembi. |
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| 300. Women selling sago then were at a disadvantage since there was a lot of it available: in contrast, fish was in short supply. The fish sellers, therefore, were able to remain seated while Torembi women had to hawk their wares around. |
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| 301. At the close of market a lot of sago actually remained on hand. Those who been unable to barter away their sago, switched to garden produce. They had a little fruit, and a few vegetables. They also tried to exchange betel nut for fish: but, again, there was a glut of betel, and much of it had to be carried home. (Pineapple and betel.) |
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| 302. When the Torembi people had exhausted the possibilities of bartering, those who had money used it to purchase basic necessities. But though a lot of produce changed hands that day, very little went for cash … most of it in small change, there being 100 toea to a kina. |
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| 303. By late morning when trading was over, the women packed up their gear. Those from Torembi packed everything in bilums, and carried these home on to their backs. |
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| 304. The Sepik people clambered back down the bank, slipping and sliding, loaded their canoes and set off downstream to their homes on the Sepik. |
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| 305. On Tuesday, there was a market further south, at Korogo, on the banks of a billabong near the Sepik. It was similar in some ways, in that sago from Torembi was exchanged for fish from the Sepik, with everything spread out on the ground beneath a large tree. (Also see video extract number 25) |
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| 306. However business was nowhere near as brisk … though this had formerly been the main market for the region. Its decline was due in part to the fact that the local waterways were now choked with weeds, but it was also influenced by rivalry over the ownership of land. |
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| 307. Since Torembi had recently won a court case confirming its right to lands the Sepik people wanted, the two groups were not on good terms, and few women now bothered walking all the way to Korogo. |
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| 308. Sunday’s market, held in Torembi itself, was very different. It did not involve people from the Sepik but serviced villages close to the mission. |
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| 309. All of these have their own sago, and gardens too, so they use the Sunday market to make a little money, selling their surplus produce to those who are short of food or can afford to buy more. |
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| 310. In other words, it was not a day for bartering, but for hard cash, allowing those making a good profit to order luxury items from Wewak. It was held at, or close to, the mission … much to the disgust of the parish priest! |
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| 311. After the service, the congregation wandered over to an area near the airstrip, where they joined a group who hadn’t been to church…all of them dressed in their Sunday best. |
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| 312. In addition to the fruit and vegetables on offer there were also a few chickens … old ones, destined for the pot. |
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| 313. The market was important socially as well as commercially, with time to talk with folk from other villages. This in large part explained the presence of a surprisingly large number of men. |
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| 314. Those were the markets I filmed during my first visit. When I returned to Torembi a year later, conditions were rather different, as you can see. It had been raining for some time, so it took people longer to get to market on Thursday. The women from Torembi were up to their knees in mud at several points along the way. (Trail to market.) |
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| 315. And since the level of water in the stream was much higher than usual, the Sepik women, paddling against the current, were late getting there also. The only canoe to get there on time had an outboard motor! |
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| 316. They brought with them a supply of fresh and dried fish, shrimps and shellfish, together with some lime (packed in beer bottles), which is used when chewing betel nut. It was produced by burning seashells. (Chewing betel induces a state of mild euphoria.) |
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| 317. The Torembi women were in a better position to bargain this time. Widespread heavy rains had interfered with cultivation elsewhere; but, with the advantage of better drained land, the women from Torembi had a lot of garden produce to barter for fish besides sago. |
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| 318. They bargained hard still, but since there was a surplus of fish this time, they got a better deal. The only problem was keeping things dry…or at least above water! |
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| 319. I also visited Korogo that year, the site of the Tuesday market: but it had ceased to function. There was a lot of weed but no trading. |
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| 320. That same year the gathering on Sunday near the church was bigger than before: even the priest came across after church. The market here had acquired some of the functions of that at Korogo, for the prosperity of retail centers fluctuates in accordance with market conditions in New Guinea like anywhere else. And this was even more obvious when I returned to Torembi eleven years later. |
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| 321. The condition of the Sunday market at the Mission bore witness to recent major flooding. There was a lot of water on the runway. |
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| 322. There were fewer vegetables for sale, and the piles indicating the amount you could buy for 10 toea were smaller than before … though peanuts had been added to the list. |
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| 323. With the higher prices that were inevitable given the shortage of vegetables, business was slow and negotiations protracted: and there were fewer customers than in previous years. (Also see video extract number 29) |
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| 324. The market at Korogo, in contrast, was booming and had regained its status as a major trading centre. |
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| 325. The river channels were open once again, and women from several villages on the Sepik were able to trade here as they had in the past. |
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| 326. As usual, the produce was spread out on the ground in the shade of some large trees and the women ran the show … though there were a few male spectators. |
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| 327. The Torembi region had been badly flooded not long before this so its people had been unable to collect much sago: and since little sago was available it was expensive. |
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| 328. Most of the women with fish to trade set up shop on the side of the clearing closest to the billabong. |
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| 329. The women from Torembi displayed their wares on the other side of the market place closest to the bush. |
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| 330. Though the volume traded was less, a wide variety of vegetables were available. In contrast there was a surplus of both fresh and dried fish. |
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| 331. So it was the women from Torembi who held the upper hand this time. This is how the laws of supply and demand work world-wide. (Also see video extract numbers 26-28) |
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