Kundiki and Kisipini consider themselves to be brother tribes even though they have somewhat different origin myths. Both claim to have originated near Tipinini; their oral histories go back approximately nine generations. Kundiki and Kisipini, like a number of other surrounding tribes around the Auakuma mountain range such as Tiwini and Yangutini, trace their general ancestry back to Tombeama, a forest being. Their exact relation to Tombeama is vague and mythical. Let us first take a look at Kundiki history.
Kundiki
Some say that Kundiki was born from cane grass (sambai) and others that he was born from Papaiakali Lemeane, a descendant of Tombeama. Papaiakali Lemeane is a well-known figure throughout the Porgera area due to the myth that associates him with the formation of the impressive waterfalls on Mt. Kaijende near Tipinini. This myth has different versions and purposes. First, it is a myth explaining the origin of the waterfalls, and second, a myth for the Kundiki tribe’s origin and third, a myth that accounts for the spread of the highly sacred tondaka or awalo ritual into the Porgera area. Here is one version of the Papaiakali myth:
“I will tell you the story of how the forefather of Kundiki disappeared into the clouds. Once there were two people, a man named Papaiakali who was at his home near Tipinini and a Kyoo woman named Litimi. (Kyoo is a term usually applied to people of a different language group, in this case perhaps Nete.) Litimi was ready to hold a pig feast at her home far to the north at Enopya near Lyeimi, but she had nobody to slaughter pigs for her. She came all the way to Kumbate near Tipinini to ask Papaiakali to help.
Before leaving for Enopya, Papaiakali went down to Ipali where his wife Tapu and his sister Lakeame lived to tell them where he was going. It was during a dry spell and Papaiakali was the only one who knew the secret place to get water, so he took ten bamboo containers, filled them with water, and brought them back to the house. He told them,
“I will be gone for a while, so do not go anywhere while I am away. Just stay in the house. If you are thirsty, there is enough water in the bamboo containers to last you until I return.” With those words he left for Enopya accompanied by Kyoo Litimi.
After Papaiakali left, his wife Tapu did exactly as he said and remained in the house. She did not even have to go out to search for water, because he had left enough to quench her thirst. However, Papaiakali stayed away longer than she expected and gradually the water supply ran out. It was a very hot and dry period, and she became increasingly thirsty as the days passed. She had no idea where to look for water during such a dry spell and desperately searched the area around her house but with no success. Then she had an idea. She looked for the path that Papaiakali took to get water and found it.
Pleased with her success, she followed the path up the steep slopes of Mt. Kaijende. She had not gone far when she came across a pandanus tree. From the tip of a new root which had not yet reached the ground, she saw water dripping. She blinked several times to make sure it was not a dream, but the water was indeed there. As she came close to the tree trunk, she realized that there was a small opening plugged up with aiyoko leaves. She unplugged the hole, drank from the water that gushed out, and then tried to plug up the hole once more. The torrent of water that rushed out washed away the plug and try as she could, she could not close up the hole. Soon she was standing knee deep in water and her house and garden were flooded. She could see the water below her rushing everywhere and became desperately frightened.
While Tapu was watching as the whole area became flooded, she noticed a small black beetle called a kutubu. She tied a small piece of the grass from her skirt to it and sent the beetle off to the north, telling it to warn her husband that something was wrong. The beetle arrived at Enopya where Papaiakali was in the middle of slaughtering pigs while talking and joking with the men around him at the feast. The beetle landed on Papaiakali, climbed up to his ribs and bit him. He jumped and screamed with pain and looked to see what had bitten him. He found the beetle lying on the ground with the piece of grass skirt tied to it and immediately realized that something was wrong at home.
“The world has come to an end. I am going home,” he announced to the crowd, and saying no more, he took the kidney of one of the pigs and put it in in his net bag. Then he took a white pig that was bound by its feet to a stake and began his long journey home. (In other versions of the myth, the pig is a brown one.)
Papaiakali walked for the rest of the day and when evening fell, he still had a long way to go. He stopped, made a bundle of dry sticks to use as a torch, and continued on his way. Weary and exhausted and guided only by the light of his torch, he finally reached home. He saw that the house and garden were almost completely under water and realized what had happened. He knew that his secret spring had been discovered.”
(Nasa Petaka, Kundiki Kona of Lumbapeke )
Most versions of the myth are similar up to this point with only minor variations such as whether the pig was brown or white or whether the spring was near the house or up the cliff. However, after Papaiakali reached home and discovered the flood, there are several different outcomes to the story. The continuation describes the ascent of Papaiakali into the sky from Mt. Tongopipi and is used to explain the creation of the waterfalls and the origin of the Kundiki tribe:
“Papaiakali kept going, looking for his wife. Following the Tupi creek, he came to Malipa. There he killed his pig, removed its bristles and intestines and went on his way carrying the meat. Kyoo Litimi had followed him all the way and arrived at Kumbate, but he took no notice of her. He kept going for he realized that it was too late and there was nothing he could do about the flood. Not far along the path he came across a waima tree and under it lay the fingers of his wife Tapu. He also found her ears and a parcel of her teardrops. Since he had not come in time, she had cut off her fingers and ears in grief and desperation.
As he stood there looking at the traces of his wife, he heard the howl of a dog and the squeal of a pig. He realized that she must have gone in that direction. He picked up her fingers, ears, and the parcel of her teardrops and followed the howl of the dog. First, he reached Lenani and then he arrived at Mt. Tongopipi. There he came across a cliff that was too hard to climb. Try as he did, he could not climb it and evening fell. He gathered the pieces of burnt firewood left by Tapu, made a fire and cooked the pig’s kidney that he had brought with him. He was about to eat it when a skinny dog appeared out of nowhere. He gave the kidney to the dog who ate it hungrily and wagged his tail. The dog kept looking at him and wagging his tail, but Papaiakali did not understand what the dog was trying to tell him. Then Papaiakali looked at the dog and then at his tail and finally he understood that the dog wanted him to hold onto his tail. He grasped the dog’s tail tightly, and the dog began climbing the cliff. Papaiakali found that he could climb the wall if he held onto the dog’s tail. When he reached the top, he disappeared into the clouds and was seen no more. Somewhere in the world beyond he finally met Tapu in the land of Ipai and there they lived happily.”
In this version of the myth, it is often stated at the end that Papaiakali left descendants behind, one of which was Kundiki. In other versions, Papaiakali cuts a trench which becomes the Tilia river and then the myth ends there. In still other versions, the Papaiakali myth is associated with the spread of the highly sacred and secretive Tondaka ritual from the Yamape tribe in southwestern Kandep to the Porgera area:
One day Papaiakali Lemeane told his sister Lakeame and his wife Tapuenda Ipali that they would ascend to the sky and go to paradise. He told his wife and sister to go ahead, and he climbed a pai tree to cut some branches to protect the house while they were gone. A branch broke while he was climbing and he was killed instantly.
His wife and sister waited for him, but he didn’t come, so they went back to see what had happened to him. They found him lying dead under the tree. They tried to lift him up, but a stalk of cane was wrapped around his neck and held him fast to the ground, so they left him where he was. The place where he died became the sacred ritual site for a branch of the Tondaka ritual in Kandep, which we called the awalo. The round stone beside the spot where Papaiakali died is believed to be the remains of the pig that Papaiakali brought back from Lyeimi. The awalo ritual unlike the Kepele was not held by one clan or tribe, but by all the surrounding tribes.
(Councillor Potawi Mangena, Kuu Yomondaka of Tipinini)
After Papaiakali Lemeane’s death, the two women are believed to have journeyed to the western Kandep area where they disappeared into the cave or hole at the sacred Tondaka site. Along the way, they stopped at Suyane near Porgera station where the Aipakane clan holds the awalo ritual in their memory. They spent another night at Pautete, a site to the west of the Wage River between Karekare and Tari where another small awalo ritual was held.
Since the Papaiakali story is a myth that explains features in the landscape, is used to provide an origin story for Kundiki, and is associated with the spread of the Tondaka ritual, there is no reason to analyze the details of different versions in order to seek agreement.
As far as we currently know, the Tondaka was part of a ritual complex that crosscuts several language groups with a few major ritual sites in each. It is the only ritual in Enga for which it is extremely difficult to get any information because it was so highly secretive. While those recently converted to Christianity speak most openly about other sacred rituals such as the Kepele, even the most devout Christians will not say a word about what was done in the Tondaka in the past. The southernmost site in the Tondaka complex appears to be Dugupe near Komo Mt. Sisa on the edge of the Huli-Dugube boundary. The next are Kelote near Pureni and Pepenete near Dauli both within Huli territory (Joe Mangi, personal communication). The fourth largest site is Tondaka of the Yamape tribe in southwestern Kandep and then come the other four smaller branches in Enga mentioned above, Pautete, Suyan, Tipinini and Lyeimi. The Awalo at Lyeimi is said to be held in memory of where Papaiakali got his pig. Some say that there is also an Awalo site beyond Lyeimi in Hewa territory, but we were unable to confirm this.
Kundiki Expansion
In their early oral traditions, Kundiki’s sons Pepenale, Wauia, Kona and Lakia had land at Tipinini. as well as land across the Auakuma range at Wanepaka between Mulitaka and Tumundane which extended north to the Lagaip and south towards Mt. Tongopipi. As Kundiki groups expanded, some remained near Tipinini, but most settled on their lands at Wanepaka near Tumundane. Kundiki has fewer clans that migrated to other areas than do many other tribes of the Lagaip, although a large part of the Kundiki Wauia clan fled to Lyeimi three generations ago after a fight over pandanus, one Kundiki sub-clan migrated to the Maramuni area and another branch of Kundiki moved to Karekare.
Kisipini
Kisipini claims to be the brother tribe of Kundiki and, like Kundiki, traces its general origins to the forest being Tombeama. It also originated in the Tipinini area. It was not possible however, to find more specific links between Kisipini and Kundiki. Beginning with its tribal founder Sanga, Kisipini has its own oral history and origin story:
There was once a bachelor called Sanga, a descendant of Tombeama, who lived at Tipinini. Nobody knows exactly where he came from or who his parents were. His belt was only made of roughly woven ropes like pig ropes. One day Sanga went southwest towards Tari. It was not told exactly where he was going, but it was during the middle of pandanus season. On the way he met some men and women from Tari who were roasting pandanus nuts. Sanga, upon catching sight of a very attractive young woman, decided to join them. He liked her very much but did not know quite how to approach her so he just stayed with the group.
The next day when the girl and her relatives were beginning to pack up to return to Tari, Sanga had an idea. He lured the girl to the nearby bush, promising to find her tasty pandanus nuts but instead he gave her some mildly poisonous mushrooms. Then they returned to the place where the others were preparing to leave. That evening the girl got sick and began to vomit violently. By the next morning it was clear that she would not be able to join the others on their trip home. Her parents became worried as they had no more food and could not stay any longer in the forest. Sanga guessed what they were thinking and offered to look after the girl until she recovered. He promised that if she died, he would send a message to inform them and if she got better that he would bring her home.
The girl’s parents left them there and went home to Tari. The girl recovered and Sanga took her home and married her. They had a son named Pio at Tipinini. Later they received a message from the girl’s tribe to send the bridewealth from Mt. Yambale, because the bride had gone to Mt. Yambale. They did as the girl’s tribe requested and brought the bridewealth. They then returned to Tipinini and had another son, whom they named Yanana, which means a person with many pigs, and later a third son named Pakala.
(Kambu Aipa, Kisipini Pio, Tumundane)
Like Kundiki, Kisipini had land near Tipinini and on the eastern side of Mt. Maipa (Auakama mountain range) near Tumundane. They moved out of Tipinini and resettled near Tumundane where there was more available land. Today most Kisipini live at Lakaia and Paina near Tumundane with settlements extending north to the Lagaip and south towards Mt. Tongopipi.
Major Rituals
Both Kundiki and Kisipini are part of the Kepele ritual complex which links the Kandep, Lagaip and Porgera areas. The Kundiki kepele site is at Pokalipa between Mulitaka and Tumundane and the Kepele skull houses at Kumbate (Tipinini) and Wanepaka and the Kisipini Kepele house at Paina near the Meso river. The sangai male initiation was held by both Kundiki and Kisipini
CLANS AND LOCATIONS
Kundiki
| Clan | Location | Nearest school or aidpost |
|---|---|---|
| Pepenale | Tipinini & Walya | Tipinini & Walia |
| Kona | Wanepaka | Mulitaka |
| Wauia | Lyaimi | Lyaimi |
| Lakia | Lumbapeke | Lauaka & Tumundane |
Kisipini
| Clan | Location | Nearest school or aidpost |
|---|---|---|
| Pio | Lakaia | Tumundane |
| Pakala | Paina | Tumundane |
| Yanana | Paina | Tumundane |