# Haus Tambaran

> Sepik spirit house of Papua New Guinea: a men’s ceremonial house with a towering painted gable and a thatched roof sloping to the ground.

- URL: https://roof.wiki/haus-tambaran/
- Topic: Roofing Around the World
- Also known as: Spirit house; Haus tambaran; Korambo; Abelam ceremonial house; Sepik men’s house
- Regions: Oceania
- First published: 2026-11-02 · Last reviewed: 2026-11-02
- Cite as: "Haus Tambaran." roof.wiki. https://roof.wiki/haus-tambaran/

## Key facts

- **Region:** Sepik, especially Maprik (Abelam), Papua New Guinea
- **Height:** Up to about 25-30 m (82-100 ft)
- **Roof covering:** Sago palm frond thatch
- **Structure:** Timber posts, massive ridge, bamboo rafters, vine lashing; no nails
- **Modern echo:** National Parliament House, Port Moresby (1984)

A *haus tambaran* (Tok Pisin, "spirit house") is the ceremonial men's house of the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, used for initiations, meetings and rituals connected with ancestral spirits. The best-known forms come from the Maprik area of East Sepik, home of the Abelam people, where the house is essentially a giant roof: a tall, painted front gable from which a ridge slopes down to the rear, with the thatch often continuing all the way to the ground.

## Form and structure

Ethnographers Anthony Forge and Donald Tuzin, summarised by architects Mike Austin and Jeremy Treadwell, describe Maprik ceremonial houses as built directly on the ground on a triangular plan, with no walls, no floor and no central ridge post. Heavy wall plates sloping to the rear sit on posts sunk about 3 m (10 ft) into the ground. The massive ridge pole is raised, usually at dawn, onto temporary supports in a task that is both structural and ritual. A framework of slender bamboo rafters is then fixed in place and acts as a diaphragm; when the temporary props are removed, the rafters bow slightly under the ridge, giving the house its characteristic hunched profile.

Anthropologist Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin records that Abelam ceremonial houses often reached heights of up to 30 m (about 100 ft) and were built by communal labour without nails, their members bound with vines and liana ropes. Another account gives heights of up to 25 m (82 ft) for the Abelam *korambo* and notes that its roof is thatched with sago palm fronds over a timber and bamboo structure with elaborate lashing. Only major hamlets had one, standing in front of a large ceremonial ground.

## The gable

The front gable is the building's face. It is clad with richly painted bark panels that tower over the surrounding courtyards, and the interior is lined with large flat painted faces, *ngwalndu*, which represent ancestral spirits. The Sepik peoples are known for painting and carving, which are often displayed on these buildings.

## Change and survival

Haus tambaran have become less common as Christian fundamentalism has spread in the region. Their form has nevertheless become a national symbol: the entrance of the National Parliament House in Port Moresby, opened on 8 August 1984, is modelled on haus tambaran architecture and appears on the 50 kina banknote, and the Papua New Guinea High Commission in Canberra also draws on the form.

## In museums

- A haus tambaran from Apangai, Maprik District (1984), is held by the National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden.
- The gable wall of an Abelam ceremonial house, taken down around 1975, was shipped to Germany, restored and displayed at the Naturhistorisches Museum Nürnberg.
- The Humboldt Forum in Berlin displays a replica Abelam cult house with a painted gable and two initiation chambers.

## Roofing significance

The haus tambaran shows how a lashed bamboo and timber frame, with no metal fixings, could span and roof a very tall, steep structure in a high-rainfall climate, and how a roof can carry a community's religious and social identity.

## Sources

1. Haus Tambaran — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haus_Tambaran
2. Constructing the Pacific Hut (Austin and Treadwell) — Interstices. https://interstices.ac.nz/index.php/Interstices/article/download/360/359
3. Ceremonial houses of the Abelam, Papua New Guinea (Hauser-Schäublin, 2016) — University of Göttingen. https://publications.goettingen-research-online.de/handle/2/93823
4. Abelam - Settlements — Countries and Their Cultures. https://www.everyculture.com/Oceania/Abelam-Settlements.html
5. Bamboo and Palm Leaf Cathedrals — Naturhistorisches Museum Nürnberg (museum.de). https://www.museum.de/en/audioguide/65/52/EN/0
6. More than a roof over one’s head — Humboldt Forum. https://humboldtforum.org/en/buildings-from-oceania
7. National Parliament House, Port Moresby — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Parliament_House,_Port_Moresby