Mythologies of the Orokaiva Tribes

The Orokaiva are a people indigenous to Papua New Guinea. In 1930, they were reported as being speakers of Binandere and divided into three groups: the Umo-ke ("River People"); the Eva-Embo ("the Salt-Water People"); and the Pereho ("the Inland People"). The Orokaiva occupied what is now Oro Province and the periphery of the area they inhabited was marked by the Owen Stanley Range in the south, German New Guinea in the west, and the Hydrographers Range in the south. The people of Orokaiva have traditionally stories that some of their ancestors were giants. These can be proven by traditional artifacts of the past kept by knowledge keepers and modern generations of Orokaiva people. The stone axes, spears and arm bands are not normal sizes but giant sizes. These people are great Warriors and fighters who battle and won many traditional wars to protect their land. The rite of passage through which a child becomes an adult in Orokaiva society is largely exceptional among the peoples of Papua New Guinea, involving both girls and boys. It begins with masked figures, dressed in bird feathers and pigs' tusks and representing ancestral spirits, entering the village as if on a hunt, and herding up the children who are to go through initiation. The figures shout out "Bite, bite, bite," and physically assault pigs, trees and children, before taking the children away by force to a platform that is very much like that used for killing pigs, in a symbolic killing of the children. They then take the children into the forest, where the children are left, blindfolded, in an isolated hut, in silence - and they are then told that they have now become the spirits of the dead. In the hut they are told the symbolism of the different feathers and the nature of sacred dances. Following this, they return to their village, this time acting as hunters, just as their captors had originally done.

"Orokaiva" is the name for a number of culturally similar tribes in Papua New Guinea who speak mutually intelligible dialects. Although the tribes did not have an inclusive name for themselves until "Orokaiva" was introduced by Westerners, they generally distinguished among themselves as the river people (UMO-KE) saltwater people (EVA'EMBO), and inland people (PERIHO). The Orokaiva reside in the Oro Province of Papua New Guinea and are concentrated in the Popondetta district in an area reaching from the coast at Buna Island to the northern slopes of Mount Lamington and in the regions to the north of this general line. This area is a humid tropical lowland, and uniformly high temperatures and rainfall provide a year-round growing season. The wet season, from December to March, is characterized by northeasterly or northwesterly winds, high temperatures and humidity, and late-afternoon thunderstorms, while the dry season, from May to October, produces northeasterly winds, lower temperatures, less cloud cover, and less-predictable rainfall. The indigenous population of the Popondetta district totals some 36,500, of whom 26,500 are Orokaiva in the central lowland area. The number of Orokaiva at the time of Western contact is not known. Orokaiva, the most representative language, is classified in the Binanderean (or Binandere) family in the non-Austronesian Trans-New Guinea phylum languages spoken in most of the more densely populated parts of Oro Province. Orokaiva is spoken by about half of the population in the Orokaiva-Binandere area. Dialect divisions within the Orokaiva language area are minor; the boundaries of the area coincide with those of the region administered by the Higaturu Local Government Council, which covers the Saiho and most of the Sohe-Popondetta census divisions. While there are considerable vocabulary differences between the Binanderean languages, there is a close resemblance in grammar and enough similarity in vocabulary to make a limited degree of communication possible. In response to Australian pressure, the British government annexed Papua in 1888. Gold was discovered shortly thereafter, resulting in a major movement of prospectors and miners to what was then the Northern District. Relations with the Papuans were bad from the start, and there were numerous killings on both sides. The Protectorate of British New Guinea became Australian territory by the passing of the Papua Act of 1905 by the Commonwealth Government of Australia. The new administration adopted a policy of peaceful penetration, and many measures of social and economic national development were introduced. Local control was in the hands of village constables, paid servants of the Crown. Chosen by European officers, they were intermediaries between the government and the people. In 1951 an eruption occurred on Mount Lamington, completely devastating a large part of the area occupied by the Orokaiva. Survivors were provided with food, medicine, and other relief by the government and were maintained in evacuatio n camps. Large-scale, expertly planned social, economic, and political development began in Papua around 1960 with the introduction of cash crops, agricultural extension work, land-title improvement, road improvement, and educational development.