Papuan Pig Feast - a photo on Flickriver

Papuan Pig Feast

Dani women with carrying nets prepare a traditional Melanesian cooking pit lined with grass and heated stones of fine grain limestone. The occasion is a traditional pig feast inside the oval courtyard of a Dani compound, set high in a remote corner of West Papua's central highlands at 1600m/5200ft above sea level. Irian Jaya, Indonesia. Digital film scan, semi-automatic Pentax point-and-shoot pocket camera, circa 1996.

The main steam bundle was built up with alternate layers of wet long grass, pork, a whole pig skin with its heavy layer of fat, vegetables, ferns and more heated rocks. Water was poured on the rocks from a gourd to make more steam. Banana leaves were added to several of these layers to help capture the steam.

Smaller grass-wrapped steam bundles containing sweet potatoes, vegetables and other greens from the elaborate gardens nearby were also placed in the pit. One of the small steam bundles can be seen at the centre of activity around the smoldering pit.

This preparatory process took about an hour, then another hour or more for the cooking, and several more hours for food distribution and feasting. The entire process took close to a full day that included a ritualized killing of the piglet with a bow and arrow, a gathering of materials for the earth oven (wood, grass, stones, food), making the fire, and heating the stones.

It is the men's role to kill the pig, make the fire, prepare the heated stones, undo the steam bundles, cut the pig skin into strips with a sharpened bamboo knife, and distribute the food according to a predetermined pattern of exchange and reciprocity among members from this and several other neighbouring compounds.

© All rights to these photos and descriptions are reserved. Any use of this work requires my prior written permission. expl#201

Rethinking Portraiture | Social Documentary | BodyArt

Taken in: Indonesia / Papua / Kurulu (show map)

Taken on: January 1, 2024

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