raonraonpng: The Survival of the Engan Traditional Dance

ABSTRACT

The traditional Enga dance (Mali) is one of the traditional rituals that is gradually dying away at present due to non recognition of its significance from both modern and traditional context and there is a shifting phenomenon in cultures and languages. Previously, the traditional Enga dance (Mali) was hosted for reasons that cannot match today’s purposes.

Furthermore, the importance of Mali from both modern and traditional perspective is not understood by majority of the Engans at present due to the current trend existing between modernity and cultures, traditions or customs. Currently, Mali is one of the major tourist attractions in Enga getting popular with the annual Enga Cultural Show with its bandwagon ‘Sili Muli’, an all women dance (Mali) group.

However, there are certain shifting cultural factors that have influenced the Engans to overlook the significance of the Mali and the authenticity of the associated cultures, traditions and customs or such of the Mali does no longer exist. The interest and eagerness to participate and learn has been minimal among the youths and the Mali is losing its purpose and authenticity.

The shifting in the cultures and languages seems to have highest impact in the lives of the younger Engan generations and the focus in cultures traditions and customs get minimal attention.

As a unique culture and tradition the Mali needs to be maintained and preserved at these times through promotion by engaging tourism and creating awareness in the best possible ways to sustain and create interest among youths to rejuvenate and protect Mali from losing its values.

Enga Province has minimal economic activity and with the support of the Provincial Government with funding in awareness, cultural promotion and preservation through tourism activities. There are possibilities of encouraging younger generations to learn how to preserve and sustain the Mali dance to help understand and values of the cultural and traditional aspects of Engan life. Thus significance of the traditional dance is distinguished from the modern and contemporary dance to ensure the discussions and findings of the research to propose certain mechanisms to help maintain and sustain Mali from dying away silently through modern influence.

Overview

It is interesting to see that through the influence of the one language spoken throughout the province, the cultures and customs practiced in the traditional societies are same throughout also in Enga Province unlike other provinces in the country.

However, through church, education, employment and rural to urban migration have much influence on the Engan Mali and its unique cultures, customs and traditions. Hence, among the cultures, traditions and customs, Mali is one of the significant part of the Engan tradition and culture which is silently dying away.

Though there are some Mali dance performances in the events with contemporary costumes, the authenticity and pride on the Mali dance seems to have lost its value. Out of the Mali analysis the same detrimental factors are identified to have greater impact on the traditions and cultures of Enga and there is no exception to other cultures and traditions of PNG amid the 800 plus language groups that are dying away in the similar manner.

Traditional dance or Mali is seen as a cultural event but its purpose and significances to host this event varies. This view is sported by Akii Tumu’s views on his book titled ‘View of The Enga Culture’ which stated that, in the past most singsings (Mali) took place to gather people to discuss upcoming feasts or exchanges, but today they are held primarily to raise money for the public facilities, to celebrate holidays or other important events (Akii Tumu et al, 1989:47). That means Mali is losing its cultural values and significances but into commercialization with contemporary costumes which simply means imitating the authentic Mali Dance but of no substance of pride and cultural values into the Mali.

Background and Context

PNG Cultures and its Shifting Cultures and Languages

Today in most PNG Societies seems to have the oral tradition as a historical source but the reality of the full traditional ways of life are dying away silently as we all shifting our focus to modernity and developments in the country. The concept of imparting skills and knowledge, learning and imitating of traditions and customs from the great ancestors of the tribes or clans seems not to exist these days.

The children are living far away from their villages, parents and families for education or work and unable to participate in few of the cultural activities that happen in the village to learn and understand. The language seems to be one main barrier to learn as most of the people now seem to communicate with English, Pidgn and Motu.

The chances to teach the traditional cultures and customs to the younger generation seem to be narrow leaving a gap for most of the traditions and cultures which can be helped revived and sustained. In Enga, the way of doing things which were passed down the generations to generations are at risk of bridging and living through these days when everyone’s focus is into modernity (Wiessner & Tumu, 1998:27).

Thus the Enga traditional dance followed the same pattern of sharing, teaching and imparting knowledge to save and preserve the historical and traditions values, genealogies of historical narratives which became the basis of its existence but the current shift in cultures and languages will have much influence on the younger generation to lose their focus into the traditional values which need to preserve and own by virtue or lose it entirely forever.

Yet the practical sides of most cultural and traditional ways of doing things in the country are diminishing as a result of shift in the tradition cultures and languages into modernity and Enga is no exception to losing its cultures and traditions which dominates the province as a monolingual society which is significant to the Melanesian cultures.

PNG Tourism Promotion Authority’s View on PNG Culture from Tourism Viewpoint

The PNG Tourism Promotion Authority (PNGTPA) identifies cultural tourism as a significant source for national tourism growth due largely to the fact that authentic cultural experiences are Papua New Guinea’s biggest selling tourism product.

The UN World Tourism Organization stated that cultural tourism accounted for 37% of global tourism and forecasts a growth rate of 15% per year. This is particularly true for Papua New Guinea as travel statistics show increased arrivals during the months of July to September as a result of cultural festivals staged in various parts of the country, especially the Mask Festival, Hagen Show, Hiri Moale and the Goroka Show, other cultural festivals, village tours and homestays that were worked into the travel itineraries always prove attractive for tourists and are a common feature in many successful tour operators’ packages for PNG.

PNGTPA’s major challenge in cultural tourism marketing and promotion has been aligning the modern or ‘Western’ concept of tourism as a business with the Melanesian cultural practices of shared resources and land ownership. The cultural norms and practices are of values that does not need forced interaction with the outside world (eg tourism) but rather respect and adherence.

Hence, PNGTPA works closely with tour operators, industry players and tourism industry associations to help reinforce, support and preserve the local communities and their culture. Partnerships in tourism are vital for Papua New Guinea especially in the preservation of culture and the natural resources of a particular community where our lives are connected to.

PNGTPA’s most successful partnership projects with the community have been the Surf Management Plan headed by the Surfers Association of PNG (SAPNG). This project aims to ensure that the sites or communities that comes under declared surfing sites receives shared benefits through fees and implement rules that limit the number of surfers to protect the environment and maintain sustainability.

The Perceptions, Experience and Lessons on the Research

As a passionate citizen promoting cultures and traditions of the country, I was always interested to learn and discover the various cultures and traditions in PNG. Reading from the books, hearing and learning from schoolmates or by visiting places have always inspired me to know a bit of different culture and tradition but those seemed to have been only stories to me.

I have intended to understand in detail if those cultures do exists in its full contexts today and still being practiced. Sadly, the values on cultures and traditions have changed and the contemporary cultures have dominated what used to be a way of life and authentic culture, tradition and customs. I have came to known that, throughout the verbal interviews for my research most of the youths I met could not speak any native languages from either of their parent’s side but English and Pidgn were the only languages most of them seems to know as first and second languages.

Undeniably, most of the traditions and cultures are native and the ways of teaching, learning and imparting is only with native languages because some of them are scared and to understand full, one should be native and fluent with the native languages to know and understand better. It was a good lesson to discover that native languages plays pivotal role in maintaining and preserving cultures for it is the only channel to know and understand cultures, traditions and customs. Hence, the language is part of the cultures and traditions of most people in PNG and losing the knowledge and understanding of language is directly loosing the tradition and cultures.

Contribution of Research Paper and Recommendations

The research contributes to the remarkable work done on the Enga culture and traditions by Aki Tumu, Alome Kyakas, Associate Professor Roderic Lacey, Polly Wiessner, SVD Missionary Philip Gibbs and few others who have done a tremendous research into the unique cultures of Enga.

Their early efforts and contributions have set foundation for a lot of quality research in the field of Enga culture and traditions. Hence, my research is also a contribution to their endless efforts as they paved the way for such specific research into traditional Enga dance (Mali) to happen.

This specific research on Mali contributes towards the aims to preserve the traditions and cultures of Enga initiated by some of the mentioned authors and researchers. My research was broad in nature but other researchers in the future will have to focus more specifically into cultures, customs and traditions to uncover the underlying factors of its extinction and find solutions to rejuvenate and set up a concept that will not only help Enga but other dying cultures in Papua New Guinea as well.