The Trobriands are a scattered and very isolated group of islands and atolls in the Milne Bay Province. The islands were made famous by Malinowski, an anthropologist who published many studies of the Trobriands culture in the early 1900s. The social structure of Trobriands communities is very different from anywhere else in Papua New Guinea, and the annual village social calendar is based on the cultivation cycle of yams, the staple food.
GETTING
THERE: Losuia airfield on Kiriwina, the largest of the
Trobriand Islands, is 90 minutes by Dash-8 aircraft from
Port Moresby. Flights are operated twice a week, currently
Mondays and Fridays. The aircraft continues on to Alotau
and Misima before returning to Port Moresby along the same
route. See
map. There is a weekly ferry service from Alotau
operated by Star Ships, but it does not always operate on
the same
day of the week
and
is subject to cancellation if there is bad weather, mechanical
problems with the vessel or simply not enough passengers
booked. Small workboats that carry copra, bechedemer and
a few passengers operate infrequently from Alotau to all
the islands in the Milne Bay Province - you need to have
a lot of time on your hands to travel this way, because
you will do a lot of waiting for the vessel to depart Alotau,
and waiting for the boat to load and unload cargo at each
island.
From Losuia airfield it is a 5 minute walk to Butia Lodge.
To get anywhere else on the island, you'll need to arrange
transport because Losuia township is about 20 minutes drive
away (2 hours walk) and the nearest villages are about an
hour's walk from the airstrip.
The first thing you notice as you descend for landing at
Losuia is how flat and dry the island of Kiriwina is. The
flatlands become swampy during wet weather but most of the
time the island is dry and brown. There are no creeks or
rivers. Water comes from underground springs and wells.
Kiriwina
hosted an American air base during World War 2 and there
are a number of abandoned military airstrips on the island.
The villages are pretty and have coconut trees and gardens
planted,
but the rest of the island is quite barren, with very little
forested area. This contrasts with the smaller islands
and atolls in the
Trobriands group which are invariably in the tropical paradise
category, such as Simsim Atoll shown at right.
Getting
to the smaller outer islands of the Trobriands - where the
culture is purest and westernisation has had least
impact - is very difficult. There are no scheduled boat
services,
only the occasional workboat buying dried bechedemer (see
left) and the sailing canoes and outboard motor powered
"banana boats". Travel on the open sea out of
sight of land in a
tiny canoe is not Ecotourism Melanesia's definition of safe
travel for tourists and we decline to organise such trips.
Up until recently there was a small adventure cruiser that
operated tourist trips to the remote islands ex-Madang (the
MV Melanesian Discoverer) but this tourist boat has now
been sold overseas and the service no longer operates. There
are workboats available for charter in Lae and Alotau and
we can arrange customised trips accordingly but operating
scheduled no-frills cruises to the Trobriands and
other
remote Milne
Bay islands
is still on our "to do" list.
GENERAL
INFORMATION: 
The
Trobriand islanders
have both Melanesian and Polynesian features and are thought
to have arrived by sea from Polynesia at least a
thousand years ago. The Trobes are known as the "islands
of love" because of
the
islanders' custom of encouraging young males and females
to engage in romantic behaviour soon after puberty. This
is
widely misinterpreted by westerners as promiscuity
but it is actually a form of courtship and marriage ritual,
its
purpose is
to
help
the young
men and
women
quickly
decide
on
a partner
and settle down. However there is also said to be a tradition
that, during the annual yam harvest celebrations, married
or betrothed
couples
are permitted to have a fling with other partners with impunity.
The romantic customs of the Trobriand Islanders do not extend
to outsiders ("dimdims") and visitors who come to the island
hoping for
a bit of nookie are sorely disappointed. The
Trobriand Islanders are a very proud people and they value
the maintenance of their genetic lines and they disapprove
of relationships between islanders and outsiders.
As
you fly in to Losuia you will observe from the air that the
houses
in Trobriands villages are arranged in concentric circles.
When you visit the villages on the ground you will soon realise
that the houses are built around a central yam house which
is the repository of the chief's yams. The size and number
of yams produced by a village and accumulated by its chief
is a matter of great pride for Trobriand Islanders. The bigger
the yams, the large the crop, the greater the status of the
village in the Trobriand Islands world.
Within
each village, each family lives in a cluster of little huts
instead of
one large hut. Each member of the family has his or her own
separate sleeping hut. There is a communal outdoor campfire
or lean-to where the family gathers to socialise. Visitors
staying in the villages for a cultural experience are also
given their own private sleeping hut. Daily activities in the
village are focused on subsistence: toiling in the gardens,
catching fish, collecting shellfish from the floor of the lagoon
and harvesting coconuts and bananas. Cash incomes
are
derived
from
collecting
bechedemer (sea cucumbers) from the reefs, and prolific production
of handicrafts such as woven mats and high quality carvings
(wooden bowls, walking sticks, figurines) carved from kerosine
wood
and ebony
wood - largely imported from other islands these days, as there
are not many such
trees
left on Kiriwina. The handicrafts are mainly shipped to Port
Moresby and Lae for local sale. Many Trobriand Islanders have
migrated to other Milne Bay islands such as Misima, which is
why Trobriands-style carvings are widely available throughout
the province.
Tourism is rather a non-event in the Trobriands, because the accessable islands like Kiriwina are not beach-and-palm-tree tropical paradises where you might like to build a Club Med, and
ACCOMMODATION:
There
are two and a half places to stay in the Trobriands, apart from
the villages. Kiriwina Lodge (about 30 years old - see left)
is situated on the edge of Losuia township, on the sea side.
It attracts mainly
business and government travellers. Butia Lodge (no pic) is budget
motel-style accommodation located next to the airstrip and mainly
attracts
tourists and
other travellers.
It is not unusual for either of these lodges to be empty, there
are so few visitors to Kiriwina. 
The
"half" place to stay is Bweka Lodge, located about halfway between
the airstrip and the
town, next to the Bweka underground spring. This lodge was originally
built to accommodate the Melanesian Spear Head summit (meeting
of the prime ministers of Fiji, Vanuatu, Solomons and
PNG) in 1997 and thereafter only seems to be open "half" the
time. Bweka Lodge has some small single rooms in
the main,
modern-style
building
that houses the kitchen, dining room and meeting room and some
self-contained bungalows built in Trobriands-style (see picture
at right). All
lodges
on Kiriwina
are about 2 star
standard.
The
lodges can
arrange
tours
but typically
they need a couple of days notice to organise something properly
and you can expect things to go wrong if you rely on last-minute
arrangements. There are many logistical challenges in the Trobriands
such as phones that don't work most of the time, limited number
of roadworthy vehicles, frequent prolonged periods of no electriity
when diesel fuel supplies run out, and periodic unavailability
of other fuels like gasoline and outboard fuel.
ACTIVITIES:
1. Village visits / tours. On Kiriwina these must be arranged beforehand
- the village people consider it ill-mannered for tourists to
just show up at their village and expect somebody to drop what
they are doing and show them around. There are certain protocols
to be observed when visiting Trobes villages and it is important
to make advance arrangements and have a local guide with you
when you go to the village. However, once everything is arranged
and you arrive at the village, you can be assured of a warm welcome
and an intimate cultural experience.
2. Swimming and snorkelling - available at some seaside villages
- must be arranged through the village people beforehand, you can't
just turn up in your bathing costume and plunge into the water. In
the Trobriands every bit of beach and reef is owned by somebody and
you have to get permission. Some parts of the beach are used as mens
and womens toilet areas and you will offend people if you walk off
in the wrong direction. There are no scuba diving facilities in the
Trobriand Islands.
3. Fishing:
go spearfishing or line fishing with the villagers.
4. Gardening: accompany village people on trips to the gardens
to see how they cultivate their traditional vegetables especially
the yams.
6. Guided hikes. Guides can accompany you on a choice of half-day,
full day or 2-3 day walks. See our Tufi
Fjords Hike and Paddle itinerary.
7.
Birdwatching: observe coastal and seabird colonies from a canoe
or hike into the bush to see colonies of Bird of Paradise. Hornbills
abound in the high trees on either side of the fjords and there are
many varieties of birds in the low, medium and high foliage. Birds
of Paradise can be viewed near Orotoaba.
8. Hear village elders recount the legends of Tufi, translated by
your hosts (priceless, but free).
9. Take
a day trip around the fjords by motor boat - great views of waterfalls.
10. Take a day trip to Wanigela and Uiaku villages: see potters
at Wanigela moulding clay pots and firing them on the beach (most
of
the claypots used in villages in the Tufi district are made at
Wanigela) and Uiaku people beating, cutting and painting tapa cloth
made from
the bark of the mulberry tree (most of the province's tapa cloth
is made by the Maisin people at Uiaku)
MORE
INFORMATION
EM2
Trobriand Islands 3, 4 or 7 night packages for independent travellers
Map of Milne Bay Province