This community is near Chambri Lake in Papua New Guinea, in the middle region of the Sepik River. The Chambri comprises three villages: Indingai, Wombun, and Kilimbit. Together, these communities contain about 1,000 people. https://youtu.be/QPw158Z4fAg
When the Chambri first came together, though isolated, they located communities nearby that made it possible for cultural interaction and growth. A neighboring society, the Iatmul people, and the Chambri began trading goods so that each could progress and aid one another. The Chambri have been, and continue to be, a large fishing community.
The fish Chambri caught were traded with the Iatmul to receive sago. For shell valuables, the Chambri traded their handmade tools and products. In later years as introducing European tools began appearing within the culture, the Iatmul no longer needed the Chambri’s tools and goods.
This left the Chambri vulnerable and eventually led to the Chambri society, leaving their island to protect their community from the rising Iatmul military. They returned in 1927 once peace had been restored in their area. Historically known as headhunters and a volatile group, the Chambri abandoned these tendencies once Papua New Guinea came under independent government.
Culturally their society had changed because of European influences, however, the personal interactions and customs within the Chambri had not. They formed new neighboring societies, trade and growth continued throughout the years as anthropologists such as Margaret Mead, Deborah Gewertz, and Frederick Errington visited this tribal location and reported on their findings.
In addition, there is a market held twice a week on Chambri where foodstuffs are available for purchase with money, they also handle marketing, and food preparation while Chambri men, besides their ritual responsibilities, build houses, canoes, and carve artifacts.
Formerly, warfare and production and trade in stone tools were also important male activities, but women have also taken on the responsibility. Mothers also take responsibility for primary Socialization in the Chambari society although, they frequently leave their children with their sisters or with other women when they have work to do, particularly when they go out to fish.
They rarely leave young children with men who, although affectionate and indulgent, regard excrement and urine as polluting. Now a non-violent community, the Chambri still maintains their lifestyle through bartering and intertribal trade. The diet of the Chambri continues to consist mainly of sago and fish.
As an island community, fishing is a staple of this society. The surplus fish that are not needed for the villages’ nourishment is then taken and traded in the mountains for sago. Trade takes its form in the way of barter markets that occur on a six-day schedule.
Barter markets are in the Sepik Hills, and women from the Chambri travel to meet other women from various villages spread throughout the hills to barter their food. Unlike their history with the Iatmul society, the Chambri and the villages they trade with have a more equal status between each.
