Gogodala

The Gogodala are a Papuan people of the Middle Fly District in Western Province, Papua New Guinea, on the floodplain between the Aramia River and lower Fly, villages set among swamps and lagoons. They speak Gogodala, a Trans-New Guinea language of the Gogodala-Suki family, closest to Ari.

Dugout canoes are central to their life, used for fishing, hunting and carrying sago and house posts along the rivers, and they describe themselves as people who stand inside their clan canoe. Their origin story tells of ancestors arriving in great canoes and Ibali, father of the Gogodala, giving a canoe to each of his eight sons, founders of the eight clans.

Sub-clans are named as canoes, and marriage follows a set clan exchange. Villages traditionally centred on one communal thatched longhouse, and sago from swamp palms, normally worked by women, was the staple.