“To shoot cassowary, you make a small hut by the tree where the fruit drops and wait for the cassowary to come. You must not move. If you move, they run away.”

The lake’s water level varies by up to 6 metres annually; when it is shallow, fishing is easy and the exposed mud attracts a large number of birds, of varying species.

Sago is the staple carbohydrate consumed at Lake Murray. The sago tree is planted, grown and harvested in creeks and swamps in the forest. It is painstakingly pulped and prepared into flour, which is cooked in different ways. To make a type of pancake, the sago flour is sprinkled in the pan, and as it cooks, the centre gelatinizes. The ‘pancake’ is chewy, dry and incredibly filling. This staple is often eaten with meat or a stew.

Sago is sometimes cooked in a stew itself, or placed, together with meat, inside bamboo poles or banana leaves. A delicious and rich dessert is sago and banana cake made by creaming banana and sago together and baking it inside a banana leaf on the open fire. It’s somewhat similar to a sticky pudding.

Fruits – particularly bananas and coconuts – are harvested from the forest. Guavas, oranges, limes and grapefruit can also be found, though not in abundance. Vegetables such as taro, sweet potato and snake beans are grown on islands, so the wild pigs can’t ruin the gardens.

When the villagers have money, rice, flour and tin fish (tinpis) are high on their shopping list.

But things are changing on Lake Murray. People speak of fish stocks dwindling and increasing sediment in the lake. Even the sago crops are suffering. “Before the fish and sago were okay, but when Ok Tedi and Porgera started dumping waste through the rivers, it's reaching the lakes,” says Stephen Yatamala, chairman of tree possum (Cuscus) clan of the Kuni tribe.

Lilly Kozap from Kubut says the sago trees are mysteriously dying. “We don’t know why. Now it’s very hard, we buy sago because we don’t have sago swamps. Even the garden food dies when the high tide comes.”

Bush medicines

Traditional medicines from the bush are used for a range of ailments.

Nathalai Sep from Kubut says some leaves are dried and placed around your neck, for healing. Pawpaw leaves are boiled in water, then the liquid is drunk to soothe aches and pains. The juice of a young pawpaw can be used directly on your skin for cuts and abrasions.

The bark of the ambuqana tree is wrapped in a leaf and heated and applied externally to ease pain in the body. The vine mavim is used like this too.

The seed from the fruit of the zaezaez, a fern like tree, is used for sores.

For headaches, new shoots and leaves from the wild yam are cut, twisted and rubbed into small cuts made on the forehead.

The tulip tree is a rich source of medicine. The sap is used for sores, as it dries them out and prevents infection. A drop of juice from the tulip shoot is used for eye problems.

The tulip tree is versatile. The orange tulip fruit can be eaten as can the green leaf, which is often used in soups. Kuni people make arrows from the tulip tree itself, and the neighbouring Yongam people use the bark to make billums – the traditional woven bags that are worn with a strap slung across the carrier’s forehead.