d re-create their existing social structures. Social bonds and obligations of the wantok system can provide support for those struggling in new locations but also create heavy demands on the more affluent people who feel obliged to support their kin. The demands of wantoks are often held to be a root cause of corruption. Increasingly there are second or third generations of townspeople who have “mixed marriages” across language lines, who while affiliated with both their parents’ relatives often display a greater sense of nationhood than their age-mates who have less multicultural backgrounds. Intergenerational tensions reflect the stresses of rapid social change in rural and urban contexts.
In both villages and cities, music and dance celebrations often mark important life-cycle events such as birth, death, initiation, menarche, economic transactions (even the opening of a roadway), peacemaking, and religious observances. Traditional expressions are now sometimes mixed with or even replaced by string band music, Christian hymns, or both, primarily reflecting modified influences from the West and from other Pacific Islands areas.
The Papua New Guinea National Museum and Art Gallery in Waigani, a suburb of Port Moresby, has a significant collection of ethnographic artifacts. The government’s National Cultural Commission, the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies, and the National Film Institute record, document, and promote activities associated with traditional cultures, while organizations promoting tourism market aspects of those cultures to potential audiences overseas. In 2008 the Kuk Early Agricultural Site was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site. That land in the Western Highlands has been worked almost continuously for at least 7,000 years, and the site contains even earlier evidence of the beginning of organized agriculture and its subsequent development.
ReImagine Papua New Guinea
REIMAGINE THE DESTINATION YOU THOUGHT YOU KNEW
We asked people what they think about Papua New Guinea, and most believe it’s just remote tribes and coconut trees for days (cannibals also came up a lot too, we’ll admit it). We invite you to discover the unique experiences that most tourists have never imagined – including vivid festivals, delectable dishes, underground events, plantation tours, and hidden secrets found far off the beaten track.
Did you know that Ela Beach is the site of one of the world’s first beauty pageants? Or that you can scuba dive with migrating killer whales in West New Britain? When you go beyond the guided tours and venture past the landmarks you’ll realise there’s so much more to see, taste, and do in the land of a million different journeys. ReImagine Papua New Guinea today.