Supporting Local Talents - PNG Snakeman

I just want to bring to the attention of my readers the amazing things this family is doing, and I'm referring to the original snakeman of PNG.  The leader, their father is known by many as Patsy and hails from the North-East Coast of Morobe Province.  He has a family of six, a daughter and three lovely sons including his wife.

I paid a visit to his village and the purpose of my visit was to find possible ways where I could assist him in promoting his talents.  I've heard so many stories about him previously but wanted to visit him by person so I can propose some of my support to him in the areas of Digitization.

Patsy performing with his python during my visit

I first met him in 2007 at his home village in Buingim, about 2 hours ride by dinghy from Lae city.  It was on a Thursday afternoon when I arrived there and realized that he was attending a funeral service so I thought I should return back to my village which is about 4-5 hours walk, however when he heard of my visit, he sent a message requesting me to stay until the next day so he can have a chat with me.  

I slept with some relatives in the neighboring village (Busung) that evening and around 12pm the next day (Friday) he sent his villagers to get me.  I didn't know he had been preparing the whole morning.  I travelled with my home-crew members since I had a video camcorder and a digital camera to get few shots prior to documenting his story, so they followed me to his place.  Before I actually met him, I got a clear picture of who he really was.  Patsy is a true "Kalsa Man"(cultural promoter) and these were evident from the moment we arrived at his village.  He made an official welcome, treating me and my home-crews as VIPs with the pure traditional welcome ceremony.  His cultural group (Bongalic Culture Group) lead us into their backyard as they danced (traditional singsing) and upon arrival his family gave us warm welcome by pouring us kulau wara (coconut juice) with scrapped coconut meat for us to eat.  This is the traditional welcome practice normally done by our ancestors.  The family later brought a huge bundle of betel nut and some cigars (Brus) to us.  We were told to accept those gifts as a custom whether or not we chew or puff cigar.  We rested for a few minutes then Patsy lead us to an open area to stage a short performance which was organized by his family.  

This was the first time I met him and his cultural group comprising his own family members.  Before the performance, he didn't mention to me of what he intended to display.  He only said briefly that he had a surprise for me and my visiting team.

Patsy dancing with his kids during their performance

He gave us an entertaining and dramatic performance which is surly scary for a lot of people.  He did some crazy things like swallowing a snake while dancing, then releasing the snake out of his mouth.  Grabbing the head of his python in his mouth for some minute while dancing.   He even, swallowed the poisonous centipede while dancing with mouth closed then opened his mouth as it crawled down his beard and he touched the sting-bees in their hive with his bare hands.  All of his performance were unbelievably crazy. His performances that day included;

- Playing with snakes

- Playing with the centipedes 

- Playing with the sting-bees

- Displaying of natural herbs.

I wasn't prepared to film him that moment however had no choice but to use the camcorder to capture some footage.  After their performance, we sat down and discussed some ways to promote his skills and some of the things his family's culture group does.  I promised him that I would do a quick editing of the footage I took and send it back the following christmas so I did.  He was very happy when I gave him a production of his raw performance.  It was pure and traditional.

In the beginning of July this year (2012), me and my team remixed the edit and re-produced a later version of his raw performance.  I contacted Patsy and sent over 200 CDs and DVDs for him and his family to sell and generate some finance to start their fundraising for a major production sometime this year.  These were all done as part of my support to encourage and promote the local talents.  Patsy is not the only one I have supported in one way or the other.  I've worked with couple of other local groups in Lae and Madang assisting them with technical advice, tips and technical support for them to push further.  

We will be working on his major production when we raise enough funds so that we can create class to his creative work and importantly create a stepping stone for other village groups to be engaged in similar cultural productions at the village level.