Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
This string figure represents a juvenile freshwater shrimp (Macrobrachium spp). When the level of the Konmei creek is low, Awiakay teenagers spend evenings and nights in their canoes, spearing them. Unlike the adult specimen, called poŋ, which can be a substantial meal and are either given to someone as a gift, or shared within the family, abis are immediately put on the fire and eaten by the children or the teenagers who caught them.
When the design of this string figure emerges, the maker says, ‘this is a shrimp’ and then makes another move which represents spearing.
Images:
02: abis ‘shrimp’ final design
03: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design ‘abis’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-001_abis
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-11-05
End Date
2018-11-05
Description
This string figure represents white cockatoos (Sulphur-crested Cockatoo; Cacatua galerita). This string figure represents white cockatoos (Sulphur-crested Cockatoo; Cacatua galerita). White cockatoos are not eaten, and are one of very few bird species that the Awiakay sometimes keep as pets.
White cockatoo frequently occurs as a character in Awiakay myths. Its feathers are used as head decoration. During the all-night song/dance cycle called Kaunjambi the singers/dancers who put white cockatoo’s feathers into their hair are believed to become spirits of the ancestors (for more on that song cycle see Hoenigman 2015a: 197-253).
When this string figure is finished and the design representing white cockatoos emerges, another move is made and the white cockatoos are said to fly away.
Images:
01: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design ‘white cockatoos’
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing white cockatoos who’ve flown away
rita). White cockatoos are not eaten, and are one of very few bird species that the Awiakay sometimes keep as pets.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-002_aiwa
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-28
End Date
2018-08-28
Description
This string figure represents ambay ‘Victoria Crowned Pigeon’ (Goura victoria), also known as ‘goura pigeon’, or guria in Tok Pisin. Among the Awiakay, the goura pigeon is greatly appreciated for its meat and for its crest, which is used as decoration. It is a highly valued gift to a visitor from another place. Goura pigeon often occurs in Awiakay myths. Seen in an unusual place, especially on a forest path at night, it is believed to be a sanguma ‘assault sorcerer’, which takes shape of the bird.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design ‘goura pigeon’
03: ambay ‘goura pigeon’ final figure
04: Image of a young goura pigeon ‘Victoria Crowned Pigeon’ (Goura victoria)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-003_ambay
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-11-05
End Date
2018-11-05
Description
This string figure represents the Yuat River (in Tok Pisin called Biwat). The Awiakay occasionally intermarry with people from Asangamut village, located on the Yuat River. Asangamut is about 6 hours walk from Kanjimei, and the Awiakay often go there to sell betel nuts, cassowary meat or in to get tobacco and goods from town. The Yuat is a deep, fast flowing river, which carries a lot of sand coming downstream from the torrential Maramuni. The Awiakay describe the Yuat as a white river, to distinguish it from their brown-coloured Konmei creek.
This string figure requires two makers. What everybody knows, but often nobody – other than little children – says out loud is that this string figure will not come up if somebody in the vicinity swallows their saliva. The makers and the audience therefore spit while making the figure (which can be viewed as filling the river bed with water, whereas if the saliva is swallowed, the river will remain dry). When the string figure is finished, the children who have been standing around ‘jump in for a swim’.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-004_amiao
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
This string figure represents a type of red pandanus (Pandanus conoideus). Its oil-rich fruit is an important part of the Awiakay diet. After being harvested, the long fruit is cut into pieces and boiled, with the core removed. Once boiled, the red seeds can be easily removed from the base, which is sometimes sucked out, and then discarded. The seeds are washed with water and eaten with sago or sweet potatoes, either by dipping the sago or sweet potatoes into the red sauce, or by sucking and spitting them out.
The design of this string figure is like a close-up of the seeds of pandanus fruit. Once finished, this string figure can be transformed into yambiam kuma ‘bioluminescent mushrooms’ (64) or into tapuka oluka pokonba mokonan ‘bent-over old man’ (50).
Image:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design ‘red pandanus’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-005_awiaman
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents a flying fox. There are several types of flying foxes on Awiakay land and all are considered food. They are shot with bow and arrows when spotted in a tree, but men would not go out for flying-fox hunting trips. A flying fox bone used to be sharpened and made into a needle for sowing bilums, but nowadays this is largely done with chicken bones. Flying fox often occurs in Awiakay myths.
When the final figure emerges, two strings are held and the rest of the design drops down like a flying fox hanging head-down from a tree. The figure-maker bounces the ‘flying fox’, saying “kisiŋ gauk, gauk, kisiŋ gauk…”, representing flying fox’s calls.
Image:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design ‘flying fox’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-006_aynggwang
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
The Awiakay distinguish between two types of sorcery: tumbi ‘poison’ and emay ‘assault sorcery’. Emay, corresponding to Tok Pisin term sanguma, is a specific form of ‘assault sorcery’ (for more on Awiakay notion of emay and the corresponding Tok Pisin term sanguma see Hoenigman 2015: 31). Like tumbi, it can refer both to sorcery itself or to the one who performs it. By chanting a particular spell, chewing ginger and spitting the resulting substance on their own body, a man or a woman who is familiar with this ritual can invoke the spirits who will give him or her superhuman powers. They will use these powers in order to attack and kill another person. If one has a dispute with someone, this person may resent it so much that they go and find an emay from another village, and ask them to kill that person. Sometimes one does not even know where the resentment came from, so even an apparently innocent person can be attacked. However, a fear of sorcery drives people to try to settle resentments so that they do not escalate into murderous episodes. An emay can change into certain animals or into an unrecognizable person. They can travel long distances in a moment in order to come close to their intended victim. Emay attack a person when he or she is alone in the bush, or even in the house if the person is alone. During the attack the emay turns back into a human, cuts open their victim’s abdomen, removes all the bowels, fills the abdomen with leaves, sews up the wound so that nobody can see it, and tells the person when they will die. This person then returns to the village, but is no longer the same, as their mima maŋga ‘the seat of reason, thoughts and emotions’, has been removed during the malicious operation. They have no thoughts of their own; they can only speak through the power of the emay and they die on the day which was foretold.
After the final design of this string figure emerges, the string figure-maker usually says: “Elakay, emay.” ‘That’s it, sorcerers.’ After that, he/she makes another few moves, and the emay run away. Ambiakan ambla, the Awiakay say, ‘They are running away.’
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design ‘sorcerers’
03: The sorcerers running away
Hoenigman, Darja. 2015. ‘The talk goes many ways’: Registers of language and modes of performance in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Canberra: The Australian National University. (PhD thesis.)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-007_emay
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
This string figure represents breasts, an iconic symbol of a woman (even in Awiakay sign language, a sign for ‘woman’ is breasts), but breasts are also a symbol of belonging, relation and mutual social obligations. Even classificatory children are said to have drank from their classificatory mother’s breasts, meaning that that woman took care of them at some stage of their life as she would of her biological children.
When the final design of this string figure emerges, two of the hanging loops might be shorter, the other two longer. The longer ones are said to be an old woman’s breasts, the shorter ones a young girl’s breasts.
Images:
02: isik ‘breasts’ final design
03: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing ‘the breasts’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-008_isik
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
The bird represented by this string figure is commonly seen on the Sepik River, but does not live on Awiakay land. However, it does have an Awiakay name.
Making this string figure requires two players. When the design is complete, one of the players stretches the design repeatedly, which represents the kakoy bird’s wings moving when flying.
bird represented by this string figure is commonly seen on the Sepik River, but does not live on Awiakay land. However, it does have an Awiakay name.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-009_kakoy
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
This string figure represents a crocodile. There are few crocodiles (Crocodylus novaeguineae) in the upper Konmei Creek past Kanjimei village, but they inhabit lake Muŋam, which is upriver from where Kanjimei village is located, and they sometimes make their way out into the creek. The crocodile is a highly prized kill for its fatty meat, and the Awiakay will sometimes sell the skin of a young crocodile in Angoram or in Wewak.
It is believed that a thunderstorm will arise when someone kills a crocodile in the river, as crocodiles are water spirits
The Awiakay are a society that is closer to the Highlands, and do not have an elaborate crocodile cult like their downriver Karawari neighbours. However the crocodile features prominently in Awiakay mythology.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design ‘crocodile’
03: Kamaŋ ‘Crocodile’ (Crocodylus novaeguineae)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-010_kamang
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-09
End Date
2018-08-09
Description
The bandicoot (Echymipera rufescens) is one of the few marsupials that is also hunted by women, often hit with a stick when spotted in the bush close to the village.
The final design of this string figure resembles the pointed nose of a bandicoot. After this, the figure-maker goes on to make the bandicoot’s stick nest. The animal now needs to be killed, so the string figure-maker cracks his or her knuckles to make a cracking sound, which represents breaking the bandicoot’s neck.
Image:
02: ‘bandicoot’s pointed nose’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-011_kamao
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-09
End Date
2018-08-09
Description
This string figure represents bandicoot's stick nest. The bandicoot from the previous figure now needs to be killed, so the string figure-maker cracks his or her knuckles to make a cracking sound, which represents breaking the bandicoot’s neck.
Images:
02: kamao tawa ‘bandicoot’s stick nest’ string figure design
03: bandicoot’s stick nest in the bush
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-012_kamao_tawa
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-27
End Date
2018-08-27
Description
Kambam is a bottom-dwelling fish with whisker-like barbels round the mouth and a dangerous spike on its back fin, appreciated for its greasy meat with few, easily removable bones.
When the design of this string figure emerges, the maker says they will get rid of the side bones, and slide the design on their thigh, representing how easy it is to get rid of the bones of this fish.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design ‘catfish’
03: Kambam ‘Catfish’ (Echymipera rufescens)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-013_kambam
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-27
End Date
2018-08-27
Description
Kanay is a small bird frequently seen flying above the river. This string figure represents the bird, which is about to jump into the river. After the design is finished, the figure-maker releases the loops from his/her thumbs, and the bird ‘jumps into the water.’
Images:
02: a small bird, kanay
03: ‘the small bird’ is flying away (Darja Munbaŋgoapik)
04: ‘the small bird’ has flown away (Darja Munbaŋgoapik)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-014_kanay
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
This string figure is sometimes called kaŋgam ‘Lesser Bird of Paradise’ (Paradisaea minor) and sometimes kaŋganam, most likely ‘Twelve-wired Bird of Paradise’ (Seleucidis melanoleuca) whose female is called oloŋ. They are the most common bird-of-paradise species living in Awiakay forests, both featuring either prominent tail plumage (kaŋgam), or a conspicuous tail dance (kaŋganam). This is an important feature of this string figure, in which a second string is used only to represent the tail.
Along with the hornbill (in Awiakay land this is Blyth’s Hornbill (Rhyticeros plicatus), called kyakwi, or in Tok Pisin kokomo), the bird of paradise is one of the most important birds in Awiakay mythology. It is in most cases anthropomorphised, appearing as one of the main characters in several myths.
One of the myths explains where the bird of paradise got his beautiful plumage. He used to be a ‘dull-looking’ bird until one day when he went to wash with an embay ‘the Greater Black Coucal’ (Centropus menbeki). They both took off their ‘grass skirts’ before jumping in the river, but the bird of paradise quickly went out, saying he needs to go for a poo. He took away with embay’s ‘grass skirt’ and is now dancing in it, while the poor embay keeps walking around, crying for his beautiful plumage. That is why his eyes are all red.
For the Awiakay, the movement of the grass-skirts in dancing has always been associated with bird-of paradise tail feathers and courting displays. The dancers need to make very particular swaying motions in order to make their grass-skirts move in a way that is considered particularly sexually attractive.
The same holds true for bird of paradise feathers: they are highly valued decorations, sometimes stuck into the armbands and sometimes into head dresses. Their movement, too, contributes to the sexual appeal of a dancer (either male or female). When not in use, bird-of-paradise feathers are kept in hollowed-out bamboo pipes and stuck under the roof, out of reach of children. Bird of paradise feathers themselves, or any decorations made from them are a valuable gift.
Two strings should be used for making this string figure, one comes to represent the tail, the other one the body of the bird. When the design is finished, the maker moves it, so that the strings representing the tail feathers dance.
Images:
02: ‘bird of paradise’ final design
03: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design of ‘bird of paradise’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-015_kanggam
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
This string figure represents a small knife. While metal knives were first brought to Kanjimei in the 60s and 70s by patrol officers and by Awiakay men who returned from work on plantations, traditional knives were made from bamboo. The older men report that these bamboo knives were so sharp that men could shave with them. The Awiakay term kapay remained in use for the newly-introduced small metal knives, however, it is likely that this string figure originated before contact.
At a certain stage in the making of this knife, the string figure maker asks another person to hold the strings, however, this is not necessary, and skilled makers can do it by themselves. When the ‘knife’ emerges, the figure maker moves the design repeatedly, saying the knife is cutting fish.
Image:
02: kapay ‘small knife’, final design
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-016_kapay
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-11-05
End Date
2018-11-05
Description
This string figure requires two string figure-makers, and a number of bystanders.
When the string figure is finished (which is when ‘bananas’ ripen), it develops into a make-believe game (cf. Goldman 1998 for a discussion of make-believe in Huli children’s play).
When a bunch of bananas is brought from a garden and hung in the house, it takes a few days before the fruit ripen. They start ripening one by one, and while people wait for them to be ready, rats take their share at night. As a result, most bunches of bananas have the best fruits partly eaten by rats.
While the string figure-makers are finishing the figure, one of the bystanders prompts a child to go and get some ashes from a fireplace. The game continues with the string figure-makers pretending to go to sleep, which is when a group of children (the ‘rats’) come and steal their string (the ‘bananas’). When the string figure-makers ‘wake up’, they look for their ‘bananas’, wondering who might have taken them. They continue playing the game, describing a situation which is all too familiar to every Awiakay child: when they wake up and want to eat ripe bananas, they are nowhere to be found – all that is left are the ‘torn bags’ where bananas were hidden.
In the meantime, the ‘rats’ are eating the stolen bananas, indicated by the children untangling the string. The younger children are excited at the thought of doing something forbidden, namely eating the stolen ‘bananas’ before people come to chase them, while the older ones act like adults, repeating the often heard phrases such as waoaniŋeŋ ‘don’t fight over food’, or aka muim, menda kumbrakanay ‘don’t look at him while he’s eating, he might bite his tongue’.
The string figure-makers now spot the group of ‘rats’ and pretend to take a spear to kill them. When all the ‘bananas’ are eaten (that is, when the string is untangled), the ‘rats’ need to go and return the empty stem. The ‘angry people’ (the two string figure-makers) are waiting for them, promising to take their revenge by impaling the thieving rats with fishing spears and embellishing their words with details drawn from real life. The more detailed the descriptions of what they’ll do to the ‘rats’, the more laughter they elicit from the audience. When the ‘rats’ finally get the courage to come and return the bare banana stem, the people take their revenge by blowing ashes into their faces.
(For a more detailed analysis of this string figure see Hoenigman, forthcoming).
Image:
02: The ripest bananas in the bunch are usually eaten by rats at night.
Hoenigman, Darja. Forthcoming. Talking about strings: The language of string figure-making in a Sepik society, Papua New Guinea. Language Documentation & Conservation Journal.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-017_kas_mundia
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
There are two species of cassowary on Awiakay land. The cassowary found in the mountains, in Awiakay called yapyap kayma, or keŋgepeñ, is smaller, presumably the Dwarf Cassowary (Casuarius bennetti). The Awiakay describe it as a ‘fighter’, much more so than the larger one, kumbun ‘the northern cassowary’ (Casuarius unappendiculatus), which is found in the lowlands of Awiakay land. Although more less frequently caught than a wild pig, cassowary is another large and highly desirable game that the Awiakay hunt for. Being closest in their size to man, both cassowary and pig are ascribed the most human characteristics and hunting for either of them is considered by the Awiakay equal to a duel (Hoenigman 2015: 229; see also Bulmer 1967: 12). The cassowary is often hunted with dogs and killed using either a bow and arrow or a spear. Sometimes it is lured into a trap or targeted by a hunter from a canoe while it eats grass on the riverbank (Hoenigman 2015: 15). Being able to kick forward, a cassowary can be a dangerous adversary. It is known to fight with dogs, and there have been several cases of a dog being killed by a cassowary inflicting a lethal wound with its 12cm long dagger-like medium toe claw.
The cassowary is not classified as tiñe ‘bird’ in Awiakay taxonomy. It regularly appears in Awiakay myths in which it is always anthropomorphised, as well as in the all-night song-dance cycle Kaunjambi, where it is paralleled not only with pig, but also with the brown-collared brush turkey – another creature with feathers which is not perceived as bird (Hoenigman 2015: 299).
One of the myths (Hoenigman 2009: 310-315) explains why the cassowary stays on the ground. One day in the faraway past, Cassowary and Hornbill walked along the bush and decided to compete which of them can get higher on a tree. But when Cassowary jumped on a branch, it broke under his weight, and he fell to the ground, breaking his hip. That is why cassowaries have a ‘broken’ pelvis. He tried again, but it hurt too much, and as he couldn’t fly, he kept jumping on the ground. Hornbill was more successful, he jumped from one branch to another, and soon reached the tops of the trees. On the go, he was pulling off fruits and seedpods with his bill, throwing them down to the cassowary. “I’m going to the other trees,” he said to Cassowary, “just follow my calls, and I will keep throwing down the food for you.” That is why cassowaries walk on the ground, picking up fruits and seeds that hornbills throw from the trees. Their backside is too heavy, and they have no wings to fly.
The Awiakay use cassowary feathers to make highly valued head-dresses called saŋgima, and the creature’s tibiotarsus are shaped into daggers (cf. Dominy et al 2018). In the past they were a sign of prestige, nowadays they are often carried to town for personal security.
Cassowary eggs are a rare treat. When one finds one, the Awiakay believe one must jump away without touching it, and scream: “Apuria, apuria!” ‘Wasps, wasps!’, then slowly come back and there will be at least three eggs in the nest (cassowaries usually lay 3-5 eggs).
The word for cassowary, kayma, used to be taboo when the Awiakay travelled in the mountains, and would be replaced by an avoidance term, tumanjiŋge ‘the hairy one’, lest ‘mountain spirits’ harm the men hunting in their territory (for more on kay menda, the avoidance language register the Awiakay used to use in the mountains, see Hoenigman 2012).
When the final design emerges, the maker usually points to the cassowary’s long neck. After that he/she releases the string from the index fingers, and the ‘cassowary’ is ‘shot’.
Images:
02: ‘cassowary’, final design
03: ‘cassowary’, final design, string figure-makers’ view
04: cassowary’s long neck
05: kayma ‘the northern cassowary’ (Casuarius unappendiculatus)
Bulmer, Ralph. 1967. Why is the Cassowary Not a Bird? A Problem of Zoological Taxonomy Among the Karam of the New Guinea Highlands. Man 2(1): 5-25.
Dominy NJ, Mills ST, Yakacki CM, Roscoe PB, Carpenter RD. 2018 New Guinea bone daggers were engineered to preserve social prestige. R. Soc. open sci. 5: 172067. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.172067
Hoenigman, Darja. 2009. Awiakay tapescripts 2009-1. Field notebook AT1_2009. 310–315.
Hoenigman, Darja. 2012. From mountain talk to hidden talk: Continuity and change in Awiakay registers. In Evans, Nicholas & Marian Klamer (eds.), Melanesian languages on the edge of Asia: Challenges for the 21st Century. Language Documentation & Conservation (Special Publication 5). 191–218.
Hoenigman, Darja. 2015. ‘The talk goes many ways’: Registers of language and modes of performance in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Canberra: The Australian National University. (PhD thesis.)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-018_kayma
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-27
End Date
2018-08-27
Description
With its tangled aerial prop roots resembling tangled strings, the pandanus tree is closely associated with string figures in general, to the point that some Awiakay suggest that string figures are played when people eat pandanus fruit (others, however, deny that; see Hoenigman, forthcom.) This string figure represents the roots of a wild pandanus. When it is finished, it can continue into another design representing yai tokopa ‘pig’s anus’.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing ‘wild pandanus roots’, the final design
03: roots of wild pandanus
Hoenigman, Darja. Forthcoming. Talking about strings: The language of string figure-making in a Sepik society, Papua New Guinea. Language Documentation & Conservation Journal.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-019_kiakay_kunda
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents a wallaby (Thylogale browni), which mostly inhabits the mountainous part of Awiakay land. Wallabies are hunted for food, but do not often appear in myths or songs.
When the string figure is finished, the maker tries to ‘shoot’ the wallaby. If the string entangles, the wallaby is shot, if not, it was missed, and the figure-maker tries again. When the wallaby is shot, the string figure-maker goes on to make ‘fire’, on which to ‘cook’ the wallaby.
Images:
02: Kiandok ‘wallaby’, the final design
03: The wallaby is shot
04: Kiandok ‘wallaby’ (Thylogale browni)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-020_kiandok
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
This string figure represents a stretcher for displaying a dead person. In the past, the body of a dead person used to be decorated with leaves and put on a stretcher built of poles to be displayed in the village for one day. The dead person’s spouse would paint the body with clay and stay with it the whole time (Hoenigman 2007: 59). The Awiakay stopped decorating bodies and thus using such stretchers after embracing the Catholic charismatic movement in the mid-1990s.
Images:
02: Koek ‘stretcher for displaying a dead body’, final design
03: Julius Aymakan with his model of koek with a ‘dead body’ on display
04: Solomon Karuap, koek displaying a dead body, Vincent Kaŋgam and Julian Aymakan
Hoenigman, Darja. 2007. Language and Myth in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. MA thesis, Ljubljana: Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Ljubljana Graduate School of the Humanities.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-021_koek
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
After selling the last few blades to the neighbouring Asangamut who traded them on to collectors, the Awiakay do not have any more stone axes in the village. Accounts of using this tool, however, remain in the Awiakay mythology, songs and oral histories, as well as in the fact that two string figures represent stone axes.
Image:
02: Kokosik anda kamboya ‘A stone axe with the blade facing down’, final design
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-022_kokosik
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-11-05
End Date
2018-11-05
Description
The bright orange-red coloured oily seeds of kombañiŋ ‘annatto tree’ (Bixa orellana) are so frequently used in face painting and body decoration that, for the Awiakay, they are nearly synonymous with ritual, traditional songs and dancing. The seeds are also used as a pigment for colouring the string for making bilums.
Painting faces with kombañiŋ is associated with the excitement and the joyous atmosphere in the village when everyone is preparing for a night of singing and dancing. It is the time of benevolent relations in the village, as dancing never occurs during disputes or when two groups have heavy feelings about each other.
Making this string figure involves two players, and requires two long strings.
Both players make the moves simultaneously. When the final design emerges, the players go in to ‘paint their faces with annatto pigment’.
In the second part of the recording the two players were asked to describe their moves. We can hear them hesitating when doing so, as this is not how they normally talk about string figures. The Awiakay terms are thus used with some improvisation.
Images:
02: The fruits of Annato tree (Bixa orellana) contain the oily seeds which are used as pigment
03: Charles Moyambe painting his face with annato tree pigment (2009)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-023_kombaning
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
Koy kukuplakay ‘[they’re] scraping a coconut’ is one of the string figures representing people’s activities. As the Awiakay used to live further upriver, in Marinyam, where the land is even less appropriate for growing coconuts than in Kanjimei (their present village), it is likely that this is a newer string figure, which was either adopted or created after contact, when the Awiakay moved to their present site and coconut scrapers were introduced. Cooking with coconut milk is still not as frequently done as it is, e.g., in the neighbouring Ambonwari, or in other parts of New Guinea where coconuts are plentiful.
This string figure is made with the help of a knee.
Image:
02: ‘Scraping a coconut’ final figure
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-024_koy_kukuplakay
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This figure represents an old woman urinating. In the past, when women wore grass skirts, they had a special way of moving them both when they sat down in the house, or when they went to urinate. The fringes of the grass skirt were carefully lifted with a special, recognisable move when a woman crouched to urinate, and then patted back down after she stood up again, which the string figure-maker tries to imitate by patting the ’fringes’ in the string figure. As mentioning female urination, let alone seeing a woman doing it, used to be a strict taboo, and is still not a topic of conversation, making this string figure always invokes loud laughter, especially because the figure-maker also makes the sound “sssss, ssssss” – alluding to the sound of urination. These are the same sounds with which people try to teach babies to pee when they lift them out of their baskets, sometimes holding them over the edge of the canoe, so that they urinate into the river. Using this sound in connection with an adult person makes it even more amusing. This string figure is also called ‘the front fringe of a grass skirt’, to avoid uttering the word for urination.
Images:
02: ‘Front fringe of a grass skirt’
03: ‘An old woman peeing’
04: Nancy Yoŋgondam demonstrating how women had to lift the front fringe of their skirts when urinating
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-025_kuna_pasa
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
There are various types of eel in Awiakay creeks, and they are highly appreciated for their fatty meat and lack of bones. As an important part of the Awiakay diet, eels often occur in myths and songs – not anthropomorphised as game or birds, but always fished for, eaten, or shared with those to whom the hunter has traditional obligations of giving and sharing. They are not classified as fish, but have a special place in Awiakay taxonomy.
When the design of the string figure is finished, the ‘eel’ wriggles out and swims away. For the Awiakay, this string figure feels right only as a combination of the string design, verbal language, gesture and a sucking sound made with pursed lips, which denotes the disappearance of the eel. Without this sound the string figure would simply not ‘feel’ right. This is an example that shows that the actual design made of strings is only part of the string figure (cf. Hoenigman, forthcoming).
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing ‘an eel’, the final figure
03: The ‘eel’ is wriggling
04: The ‘eel’ has slipped away
Hoenigman, Darja. Forthcoming. Talking about strings: The language of string figure-making in a Sepik society, Papua New Guinea. Language Documentation & Conservation Journal.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-026_mamgway
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
Pandanus (Pandanus conoideus) is an endemic plant of New Guinea. When referred to in Tok Pisin, people from the Sepik call it karuka, while the Highlanders use the term marita. Its oily fruit is an important part of the Awiakay diet, eaten either with sago pancakes or with sweet potato, when the latter is available. As a source of oil it is even more important for the Meakambut.
Pandanus fruit cluster, which has a tapered cylindrical shape, is up to 1m long and can weigh up to 10kg. It is green when unripe, and turns red to dark-red, or yellow to yellow-orange (depending on the type of the pandanus) when ripe.
The fruit cluster consists of many fruits, attached to an inner pith, which can be either white or yellow. The fruits consist of a seed and the surrounding pulp. The Awiakay and Meakambut eat both, the pith and the fruits.
As the length of the fruiting season depends on the temperature (and therefore on the altitude), at lower altitudes, fruits are available more or less throughout the year (Walter and Sam 2002: 210). The Awiakay and the Meakambut always check pandanus trees on their way to bush camps, while hunting, etc., and when they notice that a fruit cluster is poking out of the leaves [the fruit has developed and become visible], they know it is ready to be harvested.
When ripe, the fruit cluster is harvested from the tree, often with a help of a long stick, and brought to a camp or to the village, where it is cut into smaller pieces, to fit into a pot. It is then boiled in water, which softens the hard fruit cluster enough so that the fruits can be extracted from the pith.
The pith, which becomes soft when boiled, is eaten by itself, but is not considered ‘real food’. People bite into the pieces from which the fruits have been scraped, and partly swallow them, partly suck them out, and the fibrous core is chewed out and discarded.
The oily fruits, however, are the most desirable part of pandanus. They softened during cooking, so the oily pulp can now be removed from the seeds. This is done by pouring cold water over the fruits and grinding and mixing them with hand. The person who does it (among Awiakay and Meakambut it can be either a man or a woman, but in other parts of PNG this work can be gender-specific. Bonnemère (Walter and Sam 2002: 211) reports that among the Ankave this is exclusively men’s job) then puts the remaining seeds in the mouth, sucks off the remaining pulp, and spits them out. The so prepared pandanus sauce (called karuka in the Sepik and marita in the Highlands variety of Tok Pisin) is very rich and oily, and usually eaten with sago pancakes or sweet potato. Its intense red colour dyes one’s faeces, and when eating pandanus sauce, the Awiakay often joke with the kids: “enmen pawinay” ‘your poo will be red’. As dogs often eat the seeds that people spit out after sucking off the pulp, as well as any leftover sauce and sago, we often see that dogs’ excrements are red and full of undigested seeds a day after people ate pandanus.
Excessive consumption of pandanus sauce can cause diarrhoea.
Pandanus oil has a strong pigment, and it is hard to hide that one has eaten it. In the best case scenario one ends up with bright orange-red lips and tongue (see Plate 10).
If the ripe fruit cluster has not been harvested, it goes into ‘over-ripe stage’: the bright red grains start to darken and falling off the core.
As the tangled aerial prop roots of pandanus trees bear a resemblance to tangled strings, the Awiakay closely associate pandanus with string figures in general, to the point that some Awiakay suggest that string figures are played when people eat pandanus fruit (see Hoenigman, forthcom.). At altitudes below 1000m, however (which is most of Awiakay land apart from their highest mountains), the fruiting season almost never stops.
This string figure represents the three stages in the ‘life’ of a pandanus fruit. In the first stage the string figure-maker makes the fruit cluster. As she proceeds with the figure, she explains how the fruit is ripening. The second stage represents a ripe fruit. From now on, a reverse process starts taking place, as the figure is being undone. This represents the ripe fruits gradually falling off the cluster until the core is left bare.
Many Awiakay say that mañ ‘red pandanus’ is the most difficult figure to make, because of all the twisting it involves. It was the only Awiakay figure for which I could not describe the entire process of making – I never managed to get beyond the ‘green fruit’.
Images:
02, 03, 04: Darja Munbaŋgoapik making a string figure called mañ ‘red pandanus’, representing three stages of its fruit: 02: unripe fruit; 03: the ripening of the fruit; 04: the over-ripe fruit falls off the fruit cluster, leaving an empty core
05: mañ ‘the red pandanus’
06: wakoñ ‘the yellow pandanus’
07: making red pandanus sauce by mixing the boiled fruits with water
Hoenigman, Darja. Forthcoming. Talking about strings: The language of string figure-making in a Sepik society, Papua New Guinea. Language Documentation & Conservation Journal.
Walter, A. and C. Sam. 2002. Fruits of Oceania. Canberra: Australian Centre for International Agricultural research (ACIAR). pp. 210-211
https://aciar.gov.au/node/8516 (accessed 23 June 2020)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-027_man
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-27
End Date
2018-08-27
Description
Among the spirits who inhabit Awiakay land are manjime, bush spirits who dwell in fig-trees. Before felling a fig tree, the spirit of the tree needs to be informed, and all the climbing plants and roots carefully cleaned, lest the person who is felling the tree be punished by the spirit by being bitten by a snake, cutting their leg with an axe, buried by another falling tree, etc.
It is not part of Awiakay understanding of manjime that these spirits would need any kind of ladders to get to the fig-trees where they live. However, string figure designs, which are like vignettes of Awiakay cosmology, utilise artistic expression, and thus often step into the imaginary.
When the final design of this string figure emerges, the figure-maker moves it up and down indicating the fig-spirits throwing down (and pulling up) their ladder.
Image: Darja Munbaŋgoapik, ‘the ladder of a fig tree spirit’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-028_manjime_kausanga
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
Mema injua kumapa is most accurately translated as ‘a huge cunt of a dead woman’s spirit’. For the Awiakay injua is felt to be the most obscene word, roughly corresponding to (yet felt to be worse than) the English word ‘cunt’. The phrases deriving from it are the most damning insults one can throw at someone. Nevertheless, people use them on a daily basis in abusive rants at those who make them angry, which often results in serious all-village fights. However, at the same time, abusive words are reserved only for certain social situations, and using them in a wrong register is considered sinful, so people prefer not to use them at all (for more on shaming and abusive language among the Awiakay see Hoenigman 2015).
There are some Awiakay myths about the vulvas of dead women’s spirits acting on their own, as if detached from the rest of the body, having their own mind, and being as malicious as the spirits of the dead themselves can be. While speaking of spirits’ genitalia is more acceptable than speaking of human genitals, it is still limited to specific contexts.
The final design of this string figure resembles the labia, and moving the strings resembles what the Awiakay call wasingakapla ‘opening the vulva’ usually by prising the labia apart with hands. While the ‘spirit’s vulva’ is ‘opening and closing’, the string figure-maker is saying waŋguru-siŋguru, waŋguru, siŋguru… words that do not have any other meaning in themselves, but are associated with the contracting vulva of the spirit. The Awiakay have no problem whatsoever making this figure, but teenagers are very embarrassed uttering its name. The Awiakay, however, insist that if an obscene sounding word is used in a myth, a song or anything associated with ancestral ways, it should not be replaced with a more ‘acceptable’ synonym.
Images: Opening and closing the ‘dead spirit’s vulva’
Hoenigman, Darja. 2015. ‘Are my brothers fucking your sister?’ Shaming and being (a)shamed in a Sepik society. In: Bree Blakeman and Ian Keen (eds.) Language, Morality and the Emotions. The Australian Journal of Anthropology 26(3): 381-397.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-029_mema_injua_kumapa
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
This string figure represents lightning and thunder, the elements that feature in most mythologies.
It is one of the Awiakay string figures that invite the use of onomatopoeic expressions, in this case tsiŋ-paa! representing lightning (tsiŋ) and thunder (paa!). Even shy performers utter 'tsin-paaa!' very loudly while moving the final design between the one representing the lightning and the other representing thunder.
Images:
02: ‘thunder’
03: ‘lightning’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-030_memek_pokolung
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
When the design of this string figure is finished, the string figure-maker puts it in front of his/her mouth and imitates whatever the person in front of them utters. The Awiakay say that this is a ‘bad figure’, as it tends to make the person whose speech is being imitated angry. The string figure-maker is supposed to be stubbornly persistent, so, not being able to stop them any other way, the person whose speech is being repeated often just walks away, annoyed. The spectators, however, find this very amusing.
The word mimbikiñ is derived from mimbia ikiñ ‘imitate the talk’ in the second or third person and is therefore best translated as ‘the one who imitates the talk’ or ‘the imitator’. At the same time, mimbikiñ is also the Awiakay name for pygmy parrots (curiously enough, these parrots do NOT imitate speech. For a discussion on this, see Hoenigman, forthcom.).
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design of mimbikiñ ‘the imitator’
03: Mimbikiñ ‘Pygmy parrot’ hatchlings
Hoenigman, Darja. Forthcoming. Talking about strings: The language of string figure-making in a Sepik society, Papua New Guinea. Language Documentation & Conservation Journal.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-031_mimbikin
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
The Awiakay paddle upriver and into the smaller creeks to go fishing, or to their bushcamps to hunt or to process sago. A paddle is therefore used on a daily basis. While the Awiakay’s downriver neighbours, the Ambonwari, have differently shaped male and female paddles, the Awiakay do not make such a distinction either in naming paddles, nor in their shape. The only difference between Awiakay paddles is in their length; a shorter one is usually used by a woman who sits in the back of the canoe, whereas the man who steers the canoe is standing in the front, using a longer paddle. Awiakay paddles are not as exquisitely carved or decorated as are those of their downriver neighbours, the Karawari and the Sepik people, but are modestly carved at the top. However, along with killing a pig and making a clearing for a garden, making his own paddle used to be considered important for any young man who was about to get married.
While this string figure is called ’a paddle’ it actually represents the action of paddling. When the design is finished, the maker invariably starts ‘paddling’ with it, marking the function of this object.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design of monaŋ ‘a paddle’
03: monaŋ ‘a paddle’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-032_monang
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
Munmeri is Tok Pisin for ‘moon woman’ or ‘moon girl’. Only occasionally is it called tepa nambay, which would be an Awiakay translation. This string figure continues into sisis ‘scissors’. When the second figure emerges, the maker makes an action of cutting someone’s hair with it.
The Awiakay say that this is an Imanmeri string figure. Given that it is one of rare figures that represent an introduced object, and that the names of both stages of the figure have Tok Pisin rather than local names, it is clearly a post-contact borrowing.
This string figure requires (at least) two makers. There are two times in the process when the second maker comes in to take off the figure from the first maker’s hands. Skilled string figure-makers manage to do it on their own.
Image:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design of munmeri ‘moon woman’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-033_mummeri
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
This string figure is transformed from the previous one (munmeri). When the final design emerges, the maker makes an action of cutting someone’s hair with it.
The Awiakay say that this is an Imanmeri string figure. Given that it is one of rare figures that represent an introduced object, and that the names of both stages of the figure have Tok Pisin rather than local names, it is clearly a post-contact borrowing.
This string figure requires (at least) two makers. There are two times in the process when the second maker comes in to take off the figure from the first maker’s hands. Skilled string figure-makers manage to do it on their own.
Image:
02: sisis ‘scissors’, final design
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-034_sisis
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
Nam komboŋa ‘the female mussel’ and Oluk komboŋa ‘the male mussel’ are made in a nearly identical way, with only a single move being decisive in whether the resulting figure will turn out as ‘male’ or ‘female’(if the right loop in the ‘loop exchange’ is inserted into the left one, the string figure design will turn into nam komboŋa ‘the female mussel’, and, conversely, if the left loop in the ‘loop exchange’ is inserted into the right one, this will result in oluk komboŋa ‘the male mussel’).
The naming of these string figures has nothing to do with the biological sex of freshwater mussels, which are, just like the names of string figures, called ‘male’ and ‘female’ on the basis of their shape, and are associated with male and female genitals (Hoenigman, forthcom.).
Freshwater mussels are collected for their shells, which the Awiakay burn to make lime (quicklime) to chew with betelnut. In the all-night song-dance cycle Kaunjambi, komboŋa ‘the shell’ is used as a synonym for lime (Hoenigman 2015: 232).
Images:
02: the final design of nam komboŋa ‘female mussel’
03: left: female mussel, right: male mussel.
Hoenigman, Darja. 2015. ‘The talk goes many ways’: Registers of language and modes of performance in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Canberra: The Australian National University. (PhD thesis.)
Hoenigman, Darja. Forthcoming. Talking about strings: The language of string figure-making in a Sepik society, Papua New Guinea. Language Documentation & Conservation Journal.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-035_nam_kombonga
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
This string figure represents a grouper (in Tok Pisin called bikmaus), a fish that s commonly caught in the Konmei creek.
Image:
02: nambok ‘grouper’, final design
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-036_nambok
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
When the design of this string figure emerges, the strings that form the four ‘young girls’ may make some of the figures appear to have ‘a belly’. The string figure-maker and the audience are always excited to see what will emerge, and say e.g. Nambokoyn. Kondamiñ wanjiŋ. ‘Young girls. Two are pregnant.’
Every Awiakay girl knows the consequences of being discovered to be pregnant. If she is not married, she will be pressed by her family to reveal the name of the man with whom she had sex. When she does, the two lovers will go to the village court and will either decide to get married or have the man pay compensation for each time they had sex. Under the pressure to tell who impregnated her, a girl sometimes gives a wrong name, and thus pushes an ‘innocent’ man/boy into marrying her. The boys/men who would often prefer to stay single, usually deny having had anything to do with the girl, but eventually give in to the pressure.
Aware of the consequences of being discovered to be pregnant, the young female string figure-makers are sometimes embarrassed to say that any of the ‘young girls’ in the figures are ‘pregnant’, and just say “young girls”, or even deny that any of them looks pregnant. The young man who helped me transcribe the video footage, bitterly objected when he heard the string figure-maker in the video say that none of the young girls were pregnant. To the young man, it was clear that two of the girls represented in the string figure were ‘pregnant’, and he was thus acting in the way people in the village do when they deliberate about whether or not a young girl is with child.
For the Awiakay, the meaning behind the string figure ‘young girls’ is therefore deeply embedded in their lifeworld: it is charged with social attitudes and personal memories of concrete cases.
A stage in the making of this string figure is named ekia kopa ‘belly button’ (Hoenigman, forthcoming). Although traditional pollution taboos are no longer as strictly observed as they used to be, childbirth and anything connected to it, including words denoting placenta (poŋaya), umbilical cord (ekia) and the baby’s navel (ekia kopa, lit. ‘head of the umbilical cord’), is still not a topic of conversation in the presence of men. However, the string figure-maker who makes ‘young girls’ does indicate when ekia kopa ‘the belly button’ stage is reached, often with some relief, as if to indicate that the ‘young girls’ will soon emerge. Just as being entangled with the umbilical cord can be fatal for a baby, entangling the strings before the ekia kopa stage may mean that the string figure will not come up.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design of nambokoyn ‘young girls’
03: nambokoyn ‘young girls’ viewed from the string figure-maker’s perspective
Hoenigman, Darja. Forthcoming. Talking about strings: The language of string figure-making in a Sepik society, Papua New Guinea. Language Documentation & Conservation Journal.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-037_nambokoyn
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
For the Awiakay, hearing a cicada (in Tok Pisin called lailut) invariably triggers a nostalgic feeling. While one can occasionally hear a cicada close to the village, their shrill sounds dominate the scene closer to the mountains, where the creeks are clear and white stones replace the mud around the banks. The sound of cicadas reminds the Awiakay of freedom, which they feel when they stay in upriver bushcamps, away from their social obligations and the daily tensions in the village. It is this sound that the Awiakay start missing when in town and longing for the bush. Some Awiakay songs sing about the moving feeling of coming back to a place where one can hear cicadas.
Image:
02: nerut ‘cicada’, final design.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-038_nerut
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
After selling the last few blades to the neighbouring Asangamut who traded them on to collectors, the Awiakay do not have any more stone axes in the village. Accounts of using this tool, however, remain in the Awiakay mythology, songs and oral histories, as well as in the fact that two string figures represent a stone axes.
A closely related figure kokosik anda kamboya ‘stone axe with the blade facing down’ is a mirror image of this one.
Image:
02: nok anda kamboya ‘an axe with the blade facing up’, final design.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-039_nok
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
Oluk komboŋa ‘The male mussel’ and Nam komboŋa ‘The female mussel’ are made in a nearly identical way, with only a single move being decisive in whether the resulting figure will turn out as ‘male’ or ‘female’ (if the right loop in the ‘loop exchange’ is inserted into the left one, the string figure design will turn into nam komboŋa ‘the female mussel’, and, conversely, if the left loop in the ‘loop exchange’ is inserted into the right one, this will result in oluk komboŋa ‘the male mussel’).
The naming of these string figures has nothing to do with the biological sex of freshwater mussels, which are, just like the names of string figures, called ‘male’ and ‘female’ on the basis of their shape, and are associated with male and female genitals (Hoenigman, forthcom.).
Freshwater mussels are collected for their shells, which the Awiakay burn to make lime (quicklime) to chew with betelnut. In the all-night song-dance cycle Kaunjambi, komboŋa ‘the shell’ is used as a synonym for lime (Hoenigman 2015: 232).
Images:
02: the final design of oluk komboŋa ‘male mussel’
03: left: female mussel, right: male mussel.
Hoenigman, Darja. 2015. ‘The talk goes many ways’: Registers of language and modes of performance in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Canberra: The Australian National University. (PhD thesis.)
Hoenigman, Darja. Forthcoming. Talking about strings: The language of string figure-making in a Sepik society, Papua New Guinea. Language Documentation & Conservation Journal.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-040_oluk_kombonga
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents a garfish, in Tok Pisin called long nus pis ‘the long-nosed fish’, which is commonly caught in the Konmei creek. When the river level is low and the Awiakay ‘poison’ the river with the sap of the Derris vine to stun the fish, this up to 20cm long thin fish is more affected than bigger fishes, and therefore relatively easy to spear. As it does not have much meat, is not highly appreciated as food.
When the string figure-maker finishes the final design, he/she says: “I’ll spear it now”, at which point they release the loop from their right index finger, which results in the figure being undone – and the fish is speared.
Image:
02: the final design of omboyn ‘garfish’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-041_omboyn
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-10
End Date
2018-08-10
Description
This string figure represents a pigeon (TP balus). The pigeon most commonly found on Awiakay land is Zoe Imperial Pigeon (Ducula zoeae). Along with several other birds which are occasionally shot for food, pigeon is mentioned in one of the songs of Kaunjambi, the iconic Awiakay all-night song-dance cycle (Hoenigman 2015a: 229).
This string figure can be made in two different ways, each involving a transformation from another figure.
At the beginning of the video we can see the maker starting with the design of a pig (yay). She then continues ‘to hold the pigeon’ (the name of a certain stage in string figure-making), after which the design of a pigeon (opum) emerges.
The second part of the video shows the other way of making the ‘pigeon’, this time starting with the final design of mema injua kumapa ‘the enormous vulva of a dead woman’s spirit’, then transforming it into opum ‘the pigeon’, which is later turned into wanday ‘the chicken’.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design of opum ‘pigeon’
03: opum ‘Zoe Imperial Pigeon’ (Ducula zoeae)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-042_opum
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
The Awiakay never have any reservations mentioning a person’s physical handicaps, which often triggers laughter (cf. Telban 2007: 101). The string figure ‘crippled leg’ represents a one-legged person.
Image:
02: panba kañandakay ‘crippled leg’, final design
Telban, Borut. 2007. Otroške igre v novogvinjeski skupnosti [Children’s games in a New Guinea community]. Etnolog 17. 87–107.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-043_panba_kinandakay
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
This string figure represents a hand drum, or the so-called kundu (Tok Pisin). Hand drums have a great cultural significance for the Awiakay and are, together with decorations, perceived to be an inseparable part of singing, especially in the all-night song/dance cycles (Hoenigman 2015: 197–253). As the Awiakay identify themselves very closely with these songs, hand drums are felt to be part of their identity.
When the final design of this string figure emerges, the maker imitates hitting the drum, sometimes adding the sounds.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design of punjm ‘hand drum’
Hoenigman, Darja. 2015. ‘The talk goes many ways’: Registers of language and modes of performance in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Canberra: The Australian National University. (PhD thesis.)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-044_punjim
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents a frog. As the string figure-maker tightens and loosens the string between his/her thumbs and the index fingers, he/she keeps saying: pos pos, pos… ‘croak croak, croak…’ as ‘the frog’ jumps until the loops fall down, which is when the frog ‘disappears’ and the string figure is finished.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design of puriŋ ‘frog’
03: puriŋ ‘frog’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-045_puring
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
Taka (Spilocuscus maculatus) is one of the many types of possums on Awaikay land, collectively called pawia meŋgea ‘the red meat’. Taka is a smaller white possum. Some Awiakay call this figure taka tisay ‘possum’s anal glands’, others taka kunma ‘possum’s tail’, which wriggles away as the string figure-maker pulls the final figure. It is possible that this figure used to be connected with another one (or had another part to it) which would be associated with possum’s anal gland, but that with time that one became forgotten. All adult possums have a specific odour, which they produce in their anal glands. While some people are disgusted by it, they say that in the past the big men would collect the matter produced in possum’s glands and smear their skin with it.
Images:
02: taka kunma ‘possum’s tail’, final design
03: possum’s tail loosening
04: taka tenja ‘young white possum’ (Spilocuscus maculatus)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-046_taka_kunma
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents two women dancing at the roots of a yam. The Awiakay say that it was a spirit woman who planted this yam, and now two women are dancing at its roots, so that it will grow faster. They also say that this string figure must be from elsewhere, as it was very rare that their ancestors would plant yam. Even when they did, it would be individual plants, never whole gardens.
When the string figure-maker finishes the design, she/he starts moving the loops that represent women, saying that they are now dancing. They emphasise that they are ‘dancing on the spot’. In all-night dances, in which the Awiakay dance in a clockwise direction rounding the main house post or another post they stuck into the ground for the dance, the rounding regularly stops, and the dancers dance on the spot. This is when the swaying of their grass-skirts is observed by the bystanders. One’s dancing skills are largely judged by the movement of one’s grass-skirt, which is considered sexually appealing. This association, and her intimate experience of all-night song-dance cycles where people are making comments about the dancers, makes the teenage girl in the video giggle when she says: “Just look at these two woman, the way they dance at the roots of yam” (for more on aphrodisiacal properties of Awiakay all-night song/dance cycles see Hoenigman 2015: 203-204).
The Awiakay also say that the part of the design which they call ‘two women dancing’ is interpreted as ‘two dogs’ in Asangamut.
Images:
02: tandam kundambaŋ umboyaplakay ‘dancing upon the roots of wild yam’, final design
03: tandam wild yam
Hoenigman, Darja. 2015. ‘The talk goes many ways’: Registers of language and modes of performance in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Canberra: The Australian National University. (PhD thesis.)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-047_tandam_kundamba
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
This string figure represents a spear which people use(d) in fighting and for spearing a pig. When it emerges, the string figure-maker moves the strings and says that they are now fighting.
Image:
02: tanguŋ ‘spear’, final design
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-048_tanggun
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
This string figure represents an old man climbing up a coconut tree. The figure itself is especially entertaining because the figure of the ‘man’ is moved up and down the ‘trunk’. The string figure-maker says that the man is climbing the coconut tree, reaches the top, pulls off a coconut, and climbs down again. As this ‘climbing’ with the figure is a lot of fun, the string figure-maker does it several times, saying: “… and he’s going up again…”
Image:
02: tapuka oluka koy kuriapongon ‘old man climbing a coconut tree’, final design
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-049_tapuka_1
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
Just like the ‘crippled leg’, ‘a bent-over man’ is another string figure representing a physical characteristic that is pointed out without reservations.
This string figure may be made from scratch or can follow from awiamañ ‘red pandanus’. It involves the subprocedure called tasam kola ‘grasshopper’s legs’ (also known as ‘loop exchange’).
Image:
02: Tapuka oluka pokomba mokonan ‘Bent-over old man’, final design
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-050_tapuka_2
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
This string figure represents grasshopper’s legs (literally, grasshopper’s hands). At the same time as being a distinct string figure design, tasam kola is also an indigenously recognised and named sub-procedure.
As a sub-procedure it is performed in the following way:
pull the outer (dorsal) sides of 2∞ a little bit away from the fingers, insert R2∞ into L2∞ and swap the loops (L2∞ is hung on R2 and R2∞ is hung on L2), then pull palms apart again
Images:
02: tasam kola ‘grasshopper’s legs’, final design
03: tasam grasshopper
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-051_tasam_kola
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
While water spirits are feared for their ability to harm people, the Awiakay say they are just like people, having families, social relations and obligations, as well as physical possessions, which are in their homes under water. This string figure represents the fireplace of a water spirit. It follows from the string figure called yomgoŋ ‘a turtle’.
Images:
02: tasia aplasa ‘a water spirit’s fireplace’, final design
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-052_tasia_aplasa
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
Tawak ‘sago pounder’ is one of the most frequently used locally made tools.
The trunk of a fallen sago palm is cut into shorter sections of no more than 3m, which are usually divided between relatives. Part of the trunk is the taken to the nearest creek, to a site where the starch can be extracted, and split into halves. The soft, fibrous pith is then pounded with tawak, a wooden adze whose end is reinforced with a piece of pipe. In pre-contact times, a stone blade was fastened to the wooden haft.
Tawak is made by men, but as it is customary among the Awiakay that men help women pounding sago, it can be used both by men or by women. It can be found in every house in Kanjimei, and being such a common tool it is often mentioned in myths, as well as in songs. When people make drawings, they often draw a man and a woman going to pound sago, the man carrying bow and arrows, and the woman carrying the sago pounder.
When the final design of this string figure emerges, the maker imitates pounding sago, saying “tay waroŋ, tay waroŋ, kisi waroŋ, kisi waroŋ, mambo ariŋ, mambo ariŋ…” While tay waroŋ means ‘pounding sago’, the rest is nonsensical, and therefore untranslatable.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik demonstrating pounding sago with the pounder_01
03: Darja Munbaŋgoapik demonstrating pounding sago with the pounder_02
04: tawak ’sago pounder’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-053_tawak
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents temgwayn - the kina shell decoration which is hung from the neck and used in dancing. Shell decorations are passed down from one generation to another, and used to be valuable gifts given to or received from people from other groups.
In past times they were also used as important decorations during the female initiation ritual, which took place at a girl’s first menstruation. The girl was put into a protective enclosure, timbin. When she stopped bleeding, she would come out to be washed and decorated. After her mother’s brother washed her with grass, women would paint her face and decorate her with temgway ‘kina shell decorations’ (Hoenigman 2007: 56).
When the final design of this string figure comes up, the string figure-maker usually hangs it on their neck to represent the decoration.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design of temgwayn ‘kina shell decoration’
03: temgwayn ‘kina shell decoration’
04: Didimas Andikay wearing his father’s Aymakan’s temgwayn ‘kina shell decoration’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-054_temgwayn
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents the moon. According to the Awiakay myth about the origin of the sun and the moon (Hoenigman 2004: M011-1, M-038), both the sun and the moon used to be so close to the earth that people had to walk around bent over. It was very hot. When a woman went to pound sago, her husband stayed at home to look after the children. He cut off his daughter’s head, stuck it onto the spear and shot it towards the sun, so the sun went far away up into the sky, with a human head in it. Then the man cut out his daughter’s vulva, mounted it onto a spear and shot it up towards the moon. And so the moon rose. The girl’s head became the sun, and her vulva became the moon. Everybody could see a red thing in the morning as the sun rose up to the sky. In the evening they saw another red thing rising to the sky – this was the moon. But the moon was as hot as fire, so people fetched water and washed it. They cooled down its heat, now only the sun is hot.
String figure makers often prefer to make this string figure with a shorter string. If they feel the string is too long, they simply double it.
Image:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik showing the final design of tepa ‘moon’
Hoenigman, Darja. 2004. Awiakay book of myths. Fieldnotes: transcripts. Unpublished manuscript.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-055_tepa
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents tepuŋ ‘a side-blown trumpet’.
Such a trumpet can either be made of bamboo or of wood, or can even be a conch-shell (the Awiakay used to have a shell trumpet, probably obtained through trading or by one of the men bringing it back from their work on a plantation in the Rabaul area, but it was broken, and there are currently none in the village). The name tepuŋ is used of the instrument based on how it is played, rather than on what it is made from. That is why there is slight confusion when the Awiakay translate tepuŋ into Tok Pisin: sometimes it is called mambu 'bamboo' (like the bamboo flutes) and sometimes kina wusil (Among the Awiakay, the TP word kina, originally referring to large mother-of-pearl shell, is extended to all shells, and TP wusil 'whistle' is just an approximate translation of Awiakay upiak- which refers to all types of blowing (into something, including an instrument).
Tepuŋ is side-blown, because there is a hole on the side of the instrument (rather than at the end) into which the player blows and vibrates his lips. This vibrating of lips makes it a trumpet and not a flute where the player would direct a stream of air against an edge (Don Niles, personal communication by email, 5 June 2020). Although tepuŋ is always played by men, there are no prohibitions on women and girls doing it as part of the make-believe of string figure-making. In the Middle Sepik large wooden side-blown trumpets used to be blown for fighting, or head-hunting or both. For a variety of side-blown trumpets in Papua New Guinea, see Niles (in prep.).
In the video recording of this string figure we can see that when Munbaŋgoapik first starts to blow (1:01) she makes a higher pitch sound and then giggles, and then repeats this, giggling again. But when she stops giggling (1:10), she makes a lower pitch sound a few times. That lower pitch sounds much more like a trumpet, So, this girl actually does a fine job, indicating that even women who do not play instruments, know exactly what they should sound like. Of course, she eventually starts giggling again, but every time she goes back to making the sound it is the lower, sustained sound, typical of a trumpet. It is much harder to get different pitches out of such instruments when they are played as a trumpet, than that can be done with a flute (Don Niles, pers. com. by email, 5 June 2020).
Images:
02: tepuŋ ‘side-blown trumpet’, final design
03: Darja Munbaŋgoapik demonstrating blowing into tepuŋ ‘side-blown trumpet’
04: Justin Taypay with a wooden tepuŋ ‘side-blown trumpet’
04: Stenli Pamuapan with a bamboo tepuŋ ‘side-blown trumpet’
Niles, Don. In preparation. Visual Guide to the Musical Instruments of Papua New Guinea.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-056_tepung
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents the roots of tomba, a large swamp forest canopy tree Campnosperma brevipetiolata (Anacardiaceae), in Tok Pisin oil diwai ‘the oil tree’, sometimes also known as ‘tigasso’.
The Awiakay tap the tree for its oily substance known as ‘tigasso oil’, which is used for impregnating bows and arrows (Hoenigman 2007: 86), as well as a remedy for healing wounds. As such it was also used in female initiation rites, following a girl’s first menstruation. After the time spent in a protective enclosure, her mother’s brother would take
the girl back into the house, where her mother’s classificatory brother would scarify her chest or back, as well as his own chest. The cuts were deep, and some flesh was cut out. The purpose of this custom was that substantial bleeding would mean the girl would lose the blood she got from her mother while in her womb and make place for the new blood to develop. It was considered that the skin was cut by spirits. The wounds were then rubbed with tomba oil and with betel pepper (Piper betle), which prevented infection (ibid.: 56).
The oil tree has a prominent place in Awiakay mythology where it often symbolizes the men’s house. According to one Awiakay myth, there were only women at the beginning of time and they married dogs. When one woman found a man by seeing his reflection in the water, she kept him for herself, but later this man created other men. He closed them into a tomba tree, which is a symbol for a men’s house, where they were to mature, and become ready for marrying women (ibid.: 41). When they all came out, this tree (the first men’s house) turned into a stone, and gave name to a place Tombakopa, nowadays the main camp of the Meakambut people.
Images:
02: tomba kunda ‘roots of the oil tree’, final design
Hoenigman, D. 2007. Language and Myth in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. MA thesis, Ljubljana: Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Ljubljana Graduate School of the Humanities.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-057_tomba_kunda
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
Paper wasps are feared and their nests are avoided in a big circle when spotted in the bush, but are not considered as dangerous when they make nests in people’s houses, as the village-dwelling ones are said to be used to people. Their nests are sometimes nevertheless destroyed and removed from the sago-stem walls or from the sago thatch shingles of the roofs.
This string figure represents a paper wasp building its nest. While making the string figure, a talkative string figure-maker would tell a story of a paper-wasp who’s building a nest in order to lay eggs and have young ones. But when she’s done, people come and disturb them. The wasps start swarming and buzzing angrily, and are ready to run away. The string figure-maker says that they will sting people. At this point she/he starts undoing the figure, which means that wasps are flying out one by one, running away from perceived danger. When all the loops are undone, the string figure-maker tells that all the wasps have run away.
Images:
02: Toŋgayk tay ‘Paper wasp’s nest’, final design of the string figure
03: toŋgayk tay ‘paper wasp’s nest’,
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-058_tonggayk_tay
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
Umbuŋ or TP garamut ‘slit-gong’ is an ideophone, made from the hollowed trunk of a tree with the same name. Umbuŋ, TP garamut (Vitex cofassus) is a tree with hard rot-resistant wood. It is also one of the few woods that are not eaten by termites. That is why we can see very old slit drums around in the villages, and in Awiakay land also in bush camps and in ancestral places.
For the Awiakay, a slit-gong can be just an object, or it can embody a spirit, usually the main spirit of a clan’s men’s house. In such a case a slit-gong has a name, such as Wasim umbuŋa ‘Wasim spirit slit-gong’. In warfare times the Awiakay used to make cuts on their spirit slit-gongs, each cut representing a killed enemy. In this way the killed enemies were ‘offered’ to the spirit who’d given the Awiakay warriors the strength to kill them. In 2009 such marks could still be seen on the oldest slit-gong in the village.
The spirits of slit-gongs remain present even if the physical object no longer exist. However, people can, at any point, decide to carve another slit-gong in place of an old or destroyed one, and perform a simple ritual in which to ‘redirect’ the spirit into the new slit-gong.
People’s recent alienation from spirits (following the uptake of a Catholic charismatic movement in the mid 1990s) has also meant a decline in the importance of objects connected with the spirits. Apart from slit-gongs these were also bamboo flutes which were played in the men’s house during the initiation rite to represent the sound of spirits, and posts in the men’s house. Such objects have been left to decay, with new ones usually made just for everyday use.
While communities of the Middle Sepik are renowned for elaborate wood carvings, Awiakay artifacts are less ornate. Only some older slit-gongs are elaborately carved, usually ones that are the embodiment of spirits and carry their names, while others have simpler (if any) carved designs.
Slit-gongs are used both for signaling and in singsing (singing and dancing). The most common signal is that of an upcoming announcement, which reminds people to pay attention to what will be said. Another common signal calls people for a meeting, these days even for church services. However, slit-gongs are not only used for simple in-village announcements. As they can be heard far away, reaching far into the mountains in the south of Awiakay land, they can convey more elaborated messages to people in bush camps. Each totemic clan has its own drum signal, which is beaten on a slit drum to send a message to those who are in the forest. In addition to that, there are signals for men and for women, those announcing death, or the arrival of enemies. There are only few people left who know all the signals, people in a bushcamp sometimes misinterpret a slit-gong message from the village. However, they all recognise the sounds for death and danger, both of which mean that they must immediately return to the village.
In the past, slit-gong signals were also used in post-mortem divination, when the spirit of the deceased was contacted in order to find out who was responsible for his or her death (for details on Awiakay slit-gong signals see Hoenigman 2007: 213-214; see also Telban 1998: 189-93).
This string figure represents a slit-drum. Some makers ‘play’ it when the figure is finished, and then tell that they are now turning it into Wasim spirit drum.
Images:
02: umbuŋ ‘slit drum’, final design of the string figure
03: Nason Olomaŋey with a slit drum
Hoenigman, D. 2007. Language and Myth in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. MA thesis, Ljubljana: Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Ljubljana Graduate School of the Humanities.
Telban, Borut. 1998. Dancing through Time: A Sepik Cosmology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-059_umbung
- Countries
- Papua New Guinea - PG
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
Umbuŋ or TP garamut ‘slit-gong’ is an ideophone, made from the hollowed trunk of a tree with the same name. Umbuŋ, TP garamut (Vitex cofassus) is a tree with hard rot-resistant wood. It is also one of the few woods that are not eaten by termites. That is why we can see very old slit drums around in the villages, and in Awiakay land also in bush camps and in ancestral places.
For the Awiakay, a slit-gong can be just an object, or it can embody a spirit, usually the main spirit of a clan’s men’s house. In such a case a slit-gong has a name, such as Wasim umbuŋa ‘Wasim spirit slit-gong’. In warfare times the Awiakay used to make cuts on their spirit slit-gongs, each cut representing a killed enemy. In this way the killed enemies were ‘offered’ to the spirit who’d given the Awiakay warriors the strength to kill them. In 2009 such marks could still be seen on the oldest slit-gong in the village.
The spirits of slit-gongs remain present even if the physical object no longer exist. However, people can, at any point, decide to carve another slit-gong in place of an old or destroyed one, and perform a simple ritual in which to ‘redirect’ the spirit into the new slit-gong.
People’s recent alienation from spirits (following the uptake of a Catholic charismatic movement in the mid 1990s) has also meant a decline in the importance of objects connected with the spirits. Apart from slit-gongs these were also bamboo flutes which were played in the men’s house during the initiation rite to represent the sound of spirits, and posts in the men’s house. Such objects have been left to decay, with new ones usually made just for everyday use.
While communities of the Middle Sepik are renowned for elaborate wood carvings, Awiakay artifacts are less ornate. Only some older slit-gongs are elaborately carved, usually ones that are the embodiment of spirits and carry their names, while others have simpler (if any) carved designs.
Slit-gongs are used both for signaling and in singsing (singing and dancing). The most common signal is that of an upcoming announcement, which reminds people to pay attention to what will be said. Another common signal calls people for a meeting, these days even for church services. However, slit-gongs are not only used for simple in-village announcements. As they can be heard far away, reaching far into the mountains in the south of Awiakay land, they can convey more elaborated messages to people in bush camps. Each totemic clan has its own drum signal, which is beaten on a slit drum to send a message to those who are in the forest. In addition to that, there are signals for men and for women, those announcing death, or the arrival of enemies. There are only few people left who know all the signals, people in a bushcamp sometimes misinterpret a slit-gong message from the village. However, they all recognise the sounds for death and danger, both of which mean that they must immediately return to the village.
In the past, slit-gong signals were also used in post-mortem divination, when the spirit of the deceased was contacted in order to find out who was responsible for his or her death (for details on Awiakay slit-gong signals see Hoenigman 2007: 213-214; see also Telban 1998: 189-93).
This string figure represents a slit-drum. Some makers ‘play’ it when the figure is finished, and then tell that they are now turning it into Wasim spirit drum.
Hoenigman, D. 2007. Language and Myth in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. MA thesis, Ljubljana: Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Ljubljana Graduate School of the Humanities.
Telban, Borut. 1998. Dancing through Time: A Sepik Cosmology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-060_wasim_umbunga
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
For the Awiakay, chicken is a post-contact domestic animal. While domestic chickens were brought to Papua New Guinea by Austronesian settlers some 2000-3000 years ago, they were for a long time distributed only on the north coast and on the islands, later spreading up the Sepik river. Most highlands and inland societies did not have chickens until at least 1950s (Quartemain 2000: 304).
These days, a chicken is killed for an important guest, and would sometimes be given as part of compensation in reconciliation rituals. Chickens are often a cause of disputes, either because they were stolen, shot or wounded, or because they destroyed something belonging to a person who is not their owner, e.g. eating someone’s fishing hook, coming into someone else’s house, etc. Their white feathers are highly appreciated and are used in head decorations.
The string figure representing the chicken can be done in two ways: either starting as a separate string figure, or continuing from opum ‘a pigeon’ (which itself can be transformed from mema injua kumapa ‘the dead woman’s spirit’s vulva’).
Images:
02: wanday ‘chicken’, final design of the string figure
03: wanday ‘chicken’
Quartemain, A.R. 2000. Non-commercial poultry production in Papua New Guinea. Asian-Au. J. Anim. Sci 13. 304-307.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-061_wanday
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
Sago grubs are a delicacy, and an important part of the Awiakay diet. While they are usually boiled and eaten with sago pudding, they are sometimes threaded on a rope and smoked. Preserved in this way they last longer, and can be taken to another bushcamp, or to another village for trading.
This string figure represents threading the grubs. When it is finished, the maker says: “I’m pulling them off now”, and pulls the string to undo the pattern, as if pulling the sago grubs off a skewer, one by one.
Images:
02: wao toiplakay ‘thredaing sago grubs’ string figure design
03: wao ‘sago grubs’
04: wao toimba ‘threaded smoked sago grubs’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-062_wao_toiplakay
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
Up until recent times, the Awiakay used to make fire by pulling a string under a piece of wood. While they got the first matches and firelighters from Australian patrol officers, and later brought them back from town themselves, their trips to town were not so frequent that everyone could have their own. While lighters are much more easily obtainable these days, it still happens that one does not have a lighter (or it may have been lost, the fuel may have been used up, the flint may have fallen out…), and when not in the village where one can easily borrow fire from someone else, people still make it in a traditional way.
Fire being of such great importance to man, both in a practical way and ritually, it is understandable that it features in several myths.
The origin of fire is explained in the Awiakay Myth of Origin. At the time of creation, Puŋgim, the creation spirit, taught some people how to make fire, and sent them away, but the Awiakay and others who stayed closer to the place of creation, did not get this knowledge. They would dry their kill in the sun and eat raw meat. But when they were on a mountain, they saw tongues of flame from afar, and one man decided to go and get fire from the yamkopa ‘firehead’ (a person who has the knowledge of making fire) in Imanmeri, which was at the time an enemy place. But the Imanmeri did not kill him, and their yamkopa taught him how to make fire by pulling a string under the right kind of wood, and how to get it going with dry fibres of a coconut shell. But at the time there was no smoke yet. The yamkopa taught him many other things, and even gave him a stone axe to take back to his place, but just before he came back home, his joking partner jumped from behind a tree to scare him, and the fire the man was carrying fell into the river. Smoke rose, and this was how smoke came into being. The Imanmeri regretted not having killed the man who now threw their gifts into the river. But when he returned to the village, he made fire in the way the Imanmeri yamkopa taught him: he cut a stick for making fire, collected dry coconut fibres, pulled the string, and the fire started. At the same time, smoke rose (Hoenigman 2007: 274–302).
Another myth tells about how snakes taught a man how to make fire under his armpits (some varieties of this myth talk about lightning).
Two exchange partners went into the bush to get a little hornbill from its nest on a tall ironwood. One of them climbed the tree, killed its mother and threw it down, then reached the baby hornbill. When he threw the baby down, his partner cut off the rope, so that the man on the tree didn’t have a way to come back down. He had sex with his exchange partner’s wife, then took the hornbill and left for the village where he and his partner’s wife ate it together. The man in the tree had no way of coming down, but survived for a long time by eating his armbands, the leaves that covered his backside (TP astanget), and even his own hair. Eventually he was saved by snakes who gave him real food as well as the power to make fire come out of his armpits. He went back to the village and saw his wife sleeping with his exchange partner. He lifted his arm and the fire came out and burnt them both (Hoenigman 2004: M004).
Yet another myth touches upon one of the male initiation practices involving fire, talking about ‘flying foxes’ whose wings need to be burnt before they can fly (Hoenigman 2004: M035).
This string figure is often made after kamao ‘a bandicoot’, the string figure-maker saying that now they need to make fire to cook the bandicoot on it. However, technically the string figure is not connected to the previous one, the maker releases the strings and starts anew to make ‘fire’. When the final design emerges, the maker says: “I’m blowing onto it now”, and starts blowing onto the ‘fire’, as people do all the time to keep their fires going.
Images:
02: Darja Munbaŋgoapik demonstrating blowing into yam ‘fire’
Hoenigman, Darja. 2004. Awiakay book of myths. Fieldnotes: transcripts. Unpublished manuscript.
Hoenigman, Darja. 2007. Language and Myth in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. MA thesis, Ljubljana: Institutum Studiorum Humanitatis, Ljubljana Graduate School of the Humanities.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-063_yam
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents bioluminescent mushrooms which frequently grow on rotting logs and can be found anywhere in the bush. The hunters sometimes use them as a ‘torch’ when they are in the bush at night. In the past, warriors used them to paint their faces before a night raid of another group’s camp.
Making this string figure starts with making awiamañ. The string figure-makers sometimes stop there, sometimes indicate that that is awiamañ, or sometimes just stop for a while before making the final two moves that produce yambiam kuma.
Images:
02: yambiam kuma: ‘bioluminescent mushrooms’ string figure design
03: yambiam kuma: ‘bioluminescent mushrooms’
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-064_yambiam_kuma
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
Yambuk, in Tok Pisin kombi, is a type of a fig, a fruit of Ficus copiosa or Ficus wassa. It is a very popular snack and people like dipping it into salt before each bite.
Images:
02: yambuk: ‘a fig’, string figure, final design
03: yambuk: ‘a fig’- fruits
04: yambuk: ‘a fig’- a fruit cut in half
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-065_yambuk
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
The word yawiyam refers to young unmarried men. When this string figure emerges, the maker points at the three ‘figures’ in the middle, referring to them as the young men. If any of them looks like it has a belly, they say that there’s a pregnant woman standing there. The final design of this string figure is similar to the ‘young girls’, however, there are four ‘girls’ in that one, whereas only three ‘persons’ appear in this one.
When the design of this string figure is finished, an eloquent maker will pull two strings representing the young men with his or her teeth, hold the two loops between the thumbs and the index fingers, and make them ‘hit’ each other repeatedly, meaning that the young men are fighting now. While doing so, the string figure-maker repeats“yaynmari, yaynmari, siŋganmari, yaynmari, yaynmari, siŋganmari,”. While these are not Awiakay words, and the Awiakay say they do not know their meaning, they sound like words that might have been adopted from (or just phonetically resemble) the neighbouring Karawari language, where –mari is a common ending in male names (for the significance of such untranslatable words in Awiakay songs see Hoenigman 2015: 213–243).
Images:
02: yawiyam: ‘young men’, string figure design
03: ‘young men’ fighting
Hoenigman, Darja. 2015. ‘The talk goes many ways’: Registers of language and modes of performance in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Canberra: The Australian National University. (PhD thesis.)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-066_yawiyam
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
For the Awiakay the most important animal hunted is wild pig (Sus scrofa). There are several different ways of hunting it, the most frequent being tay yawa ‘sago trap’ whereby a pig is lured to an opened sago trunk where it is speared at night by a hunter in a hide built of sago leaves. If the wounded pig escapes, it is followed by dogs and killed when it weakens. Just like in the case of the cassowary, hunting for pig is likened to a duel. There have been several cases of wild boars tearing a hunter’s skin and one of the most important ways for a boy to prove his manhood is to kill a pig. There are several taboos around the hunter, his dogs, and the pig. In the past, magic was used to make one’s dogs better hunters, and spells were cast upon the hunter’s bow and arrows. The hunter was not supposed to eat his own kill, but was obliged to distribute it among his kin. However, in recent years, hunters tend to smoke the meat and keep it for selling, in which case none of their relatives receive any of the meat.
Unsurprisingly, pig plays a very important role in Awiakay cosmology, featuring in most myths and songs. Two Awiakay clans are named after two different types of pig.
Images:
02: ‘pulling out pig’s testicles’: a stage in making the string figure called ‘pig’
03: yay ‘pig’ string figure, final design
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-067_yay
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-27
End Date
2018-08-27
Description
This string figure represents a pig’s anus. When a pig is killed and brought to the village, it is tied on a pole. A fire is lit underneath in order to burn off the hair and the upper layer of skin. During this process the skin tightens, the teeth stick out, and the anus bulges in a very conspicuous way, often passing some faeces.
This string figure is sometimes called yay engamba, which is a slightly more offensive synonym of tokopa, but they are both best translated as ‘arsehole’. Anything connected with defecation, including words referring to anus, used to be a strict taboo among the Awiakay, to the extent that grown-ups still deny defecation (for the neighbouring Ambonwari a denial of defecation only applies to men; see Telban 1998: 37, 39). While both tokopa and engamba are words that are considered dangerous and offensive, it largely depends on the context in which they are used, and are perfectly acceptable when speaking of an animal. Their utterance, however, often invokes giggles among string figure-makers.
In making this string figure, the first design that emerges is kiakay kunda ‘the roots of wild pandanus’. Another move turns the figure into ‘pig’s aresehole’.
Images:
02: yay tokopa ‘pig’s anus’ string figure, final design
03: pig’s anus
Telban, Borut. 1998. Dancing through Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-068_yay_tokopa
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents a freshwater turtle Elseya schultzei, commonly known as Schultze's snapping turtle, a species endemic to northern New Guinea. Turtles are highly appreciated for their meat, and are usually given to children (or to parents for their children). Their shells are never preserved: a live turtle is put on the fire, and when the shell is burnt enough, it is easier to break it to get to the meat.
Turtles also appear in Awiakay myths, usually in connection with water spirits.
Image:
02: yomgoŋ ‘freshwater turtle’ (Elseya schultzei)
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-069_yomgong
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-18
End Date
2018-08-18
Description
This string figure represents two dogs sitting on a bridge. When the string figure emerges, the maker stretches the strings, and ‘the bridge’ collapses.
Log bridges often break under the weight of people, and many Awiakay and others in the area have experienced falling into creeks. Every such occurrence makes everyone around laugh at the person to whom it happened, and as such small bridges are not very high up, such accidents end without major injuries.
The makers of this figure usually say that this is a figure they’ve adopted from Asangamut, but they were happy to add it to the Awiakay string figure repertoire.
Image:
02: ‘two dogs sitting on a bridge’, string figure
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-070_Momay_dok1
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-15
End Date
2018-08-15
Description
This is another string figure from Asangamut, which everybody perceived familiar enough for it to be added to the Awiakay string-figure repertoire, provided I explain that it originated in Asangamut.
The string figure represents two dogs who are waiting in the bush, howling to call their owner who went back to the village, forgetting about them. While telling the story, the string figure-maker makes the howling sounds and clearly empathises with the dogs who were left alone. The Awiakay often use dogs’ vocalisations to tell how the dogs are feeling, whereby they often project their own feelings and values onto dogs. An example of this is a song in Kaunjambi, the all-night song/dance cycle, in which a whole song is dedicated to dogs’ vocalisations (Hoenigman 2015: 232).
For the Awiakay, dogs are perceived to be their owners’ extensions. Evidence for this can be found also in grammar: when the Awiakay speak about their dogs, they apply inalienable possessives to them, as they do to their body parts and their kin. People depend on dogs to a great extent for their help in hunting. A man does not go to the bush without his dogs, and if he does not have them, he often borrows them from his siblings, parents, etc. When a dog dies, the owner cries for him/her as they would for a family member (more on human-dog relationships among the Awiakay see Gillespie & Hoenigman 2013).
Image:
02: two dogs sitting
Gillespie, Kirsty & Darja Hoenigman. 2013. Laments and Relational Personhood: Case studies from Duna and Awiakay societies of Papua New Guinea. In: Stephen Wild, Di Roy, Aaron Corn and Ruth Lee Martin (eds.) One Common Thread: The Musical World of Laments. Special issue of Humanities Research Journal. Vol. XIX No. 3, pp. 97-110. ANU E-press.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-071_Momay_dok2
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Details
Latitude
-4.71979
Longitude
143.6055
Start Date
2018-08-16
End Date
2018-08-16
Description
When a girl first showed this string figure, all the bystanders scolded her, saying that that was not an Awiakay figure. They eventually agreed for her to make this figure, but on the condition that I ‘write in the book’ that this string figure is an Imanmeri one.
Like myths and songs, string figures, too belong to different groups. While it does not matter which totemic clan the string figure-maker belongs to, as long as the string figure is considered Awiakay, every Awiakay person can make it. In the case of the two figures representing dogs (70, 71), which come from Asangamut, it was an Asangamut woman who is married into Kanjimei who first showed them. In case of this figure from Imanmeri, it was a girl whose father was from Imanmeri who made this figure for the recording.
Extended Data
- ID
- DKH01-072_Imanangay_mamgoy
- Publisher
- Darja Hoenigman
- Contact
- admin@paradisec.org.au
- License
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
- Rights
- Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
