Hiri trade cycle

Hiri is the name for the traditional trade voyages that formed an important part of the culture of the Motu people of Papua New Guinea.

The Motu live in a comparative rain shadow – the dry season is unusually harsh, and there are not enough suitable areas for the growing of sago (rabia). On the other hand, the Motu, unlike most people of Papua New Guinea, were skilled in the art of making clay cooking pots (uro).

The traditional Hiri voyages carried the much-prized Motu cooking pots to the people of the Gulf of Papua, and brought back plentiful supplies of sago for the Motu.

Edai Siabo, from the village of Boera, was returning from a fishing trip when a great eel appeared and dragged him under the water. The eel was really the spirit of the sea. He returned Edai to the surface of the sea, after instructing him to build a great lagatoi (sailing canoe), to fill it with cooking pots, and to sail westward, following the south-east trade wind called the laurabada in the Motu language. Obeying the spirit, he built the first hiri lagatoi, named it Bogebada (which means sea-eagle), and had it loaded with pots made by his wife. He and his friends then sailed up the coast into the waters of the Gulf of Papua.

For months, the Bogebada and its crew were away. The villagers were all convinced the crew had perished. They mocked Edai’s wife, and tried to force her to remarry. Before Edai left, he had instructed her to stay within a corner of her house, not to bathe in the sea, to keep a tally of the days the Bogebada had been gone, to keep her fire burning, and to have her skin tattooed by an old woman. Failing to stick to this routine would endanger the expedition and the lives of Edai and his men.

One day, a lagatoi appeared on the horizon and slowly approached the village. It was Bogebada. Edai was arriving back home, a hero. His wife jumped into the sea and washed away her accumulated dirt, put on her finest costume, walked out onto the verandah of the house, hit it with a stick, shouted, ‘Hedihoroha Bogebada!’ and began dancing in joy.

Every year Motu men prepared lagatois (large, multi-hulled sailing canoes) for the hiri, while the women shaped and fired the uro (pots). When the laurabada (south-east trade winds) started to blow, the canoes set off to the west.

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Wikipedia