Sensational and Controversial: Inside the Katuma Sweet Potato Festival on Kiriwina Island

The “Sweet Potato Festival” is a traditional ethnic festival of the Katuma people on Kiriwina island in the Pacific Ocean. (Image / reproduction from the Internet)

The “Sweet Potato Festival” is a traditional ethnic festival of the Katuma people on the Pacific island of Kiriwena. Therefore, when the Sweet Potato Festival approaches, the men on the island are warned and they tremble thinking about how to get away; while local missionaries begin long prayer meetings.

The Kirivina Islands, also known as the Trobriand Islands and the Trobriand Islands, are understood to be located 145 kilometers north of the southeastern extension of the Island of New Guinea in the Solomon Sea in the western south pacific The islands are made low of coral limestone, many islands have atolls. On the island of Kirivina, there are old thatched houses all over the villages that are made up of thatched houses, there is a race called Katuma.

At the Katuma Tribe’s Sweet Potato Festival, women smear their bodies with coconut oil, wear shell necklaces, rattan armbands, colorful grass skirts, go barefoot, and bare their breasts, a ‘ creating a powerful procession, and starting a procession in a traditional way of ceremony, their main food, sweet potatoes, moved from the fields to the village. When they feel that way, they also engage in another traditional practice, that of sexually assaulting men.

Katuma women are not polite to men who enter the land unannounced, they stop the passing men and send them away naked, then push him to the ground and to have sex with one after another. During the Katuma Sweet Potato Festival, women are allowed to have sex with foreign men, so the men on the island get warnings in advance and try to avoid them while the local missionaries began a long prayer meeting.

Whether man or boy, married or single, priest or pagan, any sexually capable male is at risk. “If a man makes us angry, we will sexually assault him,” said Sara, the most powerful tribal leader on the island, nonchalantly. “This will not affect our marriage dear.” It’s fun. And we have to get permission to do it. The leader will only let us enjoy it when the harvest is good.”

In fact, the status of women in the Katuma tribe is not high and they are mainly responsible for giving birth to children, cooking, and taking care of the family. According to idioms, although women are the heads of every house and in charge of all property, they are only responsible and they use the brothers, brothers, sons and other husbands of the women.