Kerewo

Kerewo country lies around Goaribari Island and the mouths of the Kikori and Omati rivers on the Gulf of Papua. Mangroves and tidal waters make the delta a difficult place for gardens, yet its position gave its inhabitants access to river routes into the interior. Kerewo villages were organised around large men’s longhouses divided into sections belonging to different clans. Oral traditions recall Otoia on Goaribari as an ancestral village from which clans established other settlements. Pottery arriving through exchanges from the east could be redistributed inland, while stone and plant foods came downriver.