page_title: Tami Islands
section_title: Regional trade
hierarchical_section_title: Tami Islands / Regional trade
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Figur auf Stab, Tami-Inseln, Ost-Neuguinea; Südseeabteilung, Ethnologisches Museum, Berlin (Sammlung Pfalzer, 1907) English: Figure on a stick, Tami Islands, Eastern New Guinea; South Seas Department, Ethnological Museum, Berlin, Germany (Pfalzer collection, 1907)
context_page_description: The Tami Islands are a small island group located 13 km SSE of Finschhafen in the Huon Gulf. 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.
context_section_description: 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.
  In addition to the rectangular bowls, Tami art also appears in representations of religious figures, some of them massive. Images are full-length and standing, and the head is placed directly on the torso (no neck). The head usually has a headdress, often very ornate, and the arms fall to the side, like a figure almost at attention. Tami carving places circular eyes directly under the forehead. Tami sculpture also has two incised triangles pointing at the centre of the face. Tami masks also appear as products of trade. The depiction of facial figures resembles the style of carving found on the human figures. Tamis depict a variety of animal figures, equally as stylized as the human ones, on wooden bowls, hooks, spatulas, canoe prows, paddles, and other useful tools.
  Tami canoes, although outriggers like most of the neighbouring styles, are unique in design and decoration.
   "It was about 30 feet long, carved from a very straight log, with ...curved ends and carved heads... The sides were built up with wide, hand–hewn boards, each board at least 20 inches wide and running the length of the canoe in a single piece. These sides were painted in interesting designs of red and white, and the whole canoe bound together with plant fiber of some sort and the joints filled with tree gum. The outrigger was bound with the same strong fiber, and there was not a nail or a piece of metal in the whole job. Neither did any of the parts show marks I could recognize as having been made with modern tools."
  The distinctive Tami Island outrigger canoe prows have finer and more rectangular structure than those of other south Milne Bay islanders, although they are similarly painted with shields.
caption: Figure on a stick, Tami Islands (Ethnological Museum of Berlin, acquired in 1907)
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