Tami Islands

The Tami Islands are a small island group located 13 km SSE of Finschhafen in the Huon Gulf (see also Solomon Sea). It is part of today's Morobe Province, Papua New Guinea.

Its people were known throughout the Solomon and South Sea islands for their distinctive wooden bowls, their religious figure carvings, and their ceremonial masks. During World War II, the islands were briefly occupied by the Japanese; Tami Islands were secured after the landings and Nassau Bay, Lae and Nadzab.

The Tami Islands include four atolls, two of which are very small, and one so small it is not much larger than a strip of sand. On the two largest islands there are two villages that face each other across a volcanic cove. The islands form a circle around a lagoon, which at its center is 21 metres (69 ft) deep. The cove attracts snorkelers and divers who explore the reefs, including day-trippers from nearby Lae, on the main island of Papua New Guinea. The reefs contain Spanish Dancer jellyfish, Blue See Stars and varieties of colorful Pelagic fish, both predators and prey. At its widest, the largest island is not more than about 80 metres (262 ft) across.

Islanders specialized in elaborately carved bowls. These were often used for bridal wealth payments throughout the islands, part of a 200 miles (322 km) regional exchange reaching as far as the Caroline and Solomon Islands. The islanders still make their living through fishing and the production of these bowls, intricately woven sleeping mats, and delicate carvings, and tourism. The evidence of the regional trade is visible in the physiognomy of the inhabitants, who resemble in their facial structure the islanders of New Britain. Islanders decorate themselves with blue and pink paint.

The Tami role in the trading cycle is evident from the bowls, which appear throughout the archipelago, and the Siassi islands. Bowls would be exchanged for dogs' teeth (used for carving and wood working, as well as for jewelry), sweet potatoes, reeds, pigs, bows, arrows, feathers and the betel nut. The Tami bowls are distinctive not only for their specific decorative designs, but because they are made of wood, not of clay; most Papua New Guinea pottery is clay, but the Tami Islands have no clay deposits.

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Wikipedia