Qualla: Sepik

Sepik: Introduction

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Plucas58, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Sepik does not hurry. From the highlands of the interior to the Bismarck Sea it drops almost nothing in altitude, so the river simply wanders - doubling back on itself, spawning oxbow lakes, soaking the forest into swamp at every bend. In a year its level can rise or fall by five metres, and when it rises high enough the villages along its banks become islands, then archipelagoes. This is Papua New Guinea's Amazon, and the people who live along it have the highest concentration of languages found anywhere in the world, carrying traditions in yam cultivation, spirit houses, and garamut drums that the outside world only began to intrude upon in 1885.

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Image: Plucas58 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Sepik: Two Provinces, One River

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Top1963, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Sepik region is really two provinces stitched together by water. East Sepik, with around 400,000 people and the provincial capital at Wewak, is dominated end to end by the Sepik River itself, one of the largest in the world by volume. South of the river the land tilts up into...

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Image: Top1963 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Sepik: The Haus Tambaran and the Yam Cult

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 23 dingen voor musea from Nederland, CC BY-SA 2.0. Nothing tells you where you are in the Sepik quite like a Haus Tambaran. These ancestral spirit houses rise two or three storeys, their facades carved and painted with faces, their ridgepoles often swept up into gable peaks that resemble prows. The finest examples stand around Ma...

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Image: 23 dingen voor musea from Nederland | CC BY-SA 2.0

Sepik: Carvings, Canoes, and Drums

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Top1963 / Tryfon Topalidis, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Sepik is renowned for its artistic output - so much so that Papua New Guinea's first prime minister, Michael Somare, came from this region, and the country's parliament building in Port Moresby was modelled on a Haus Tambaran. Villages along the river carry their own distinct...

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Image: Top1963 / Tryfon Topalidis | CC BY-SA 3.0

Sepik: Islands and Shipwrecks

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 丘崈, CC0. Just off the coast from Wewak lie three small islands - Kairiru, a volcanic peak rising from the sea; Mushu, a coral atoll surrounded by reef fish; and Robuin, uninhabited, which the Japanese used as a fuel dump during World War II and the Allies bombed into memory during the Ait...

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Image: 丘崈 | CC0

Sepik: Getting There and Getting Around

Thu, 09 Apr 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Top1963, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Sepik is not a casual destination. Air Niugini flies into Wewak daily from Port Moresby, Lae, and Madang, and PNG Air connects Wewak with Mount Hagen. Mission Aviation Fellowship keeps twelve aircraft moving across the country, supplying mission stations and remote airstrips....

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Image: Top1963 | CC BY-SA 3.0