{"id":"BOELAARS1953-001","label":"Keisa's decoy Ezam","people_or_site":"Keisa (Kaisah) village, Kumbe River (Marind)","country_current":"Indonesia","historic_region":"Kumbe River, about 50 km south of Muting, Merauke, South Papua","macroregion":"Oceania / New Guinea","local_name":"Ezam; Uzum","source_term":"bromhouten (bullroarers); Ezam","source_language":"Dutch","object_description":"Several carved wooden bullroarers, the village's Ezam, closely resembling those of Mandum but with different incised figures.","function_summary":"The secret instruments of Keisa's Ezam-Uzum cult, hidden from visitors behind a staged procession of two animal figures; when Mandum bullroarers were shown, the crowd fell silent and several women dared not look. Two months later the villagers disclosed the rite and surrendered their bullroarers.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"boelaars1953_keisa_ezam","source_type":"published_account","source_url":"https://www.papuaerfgoed.org/sites/default/files/collectie/files/2002-05/Boelaars_1953_Nieuw.pdf","page_or_plate":"pp. 74-75 (PDF pp. 87-88)","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Kumbe River reach labelled within present-day Kaisah village (OpenStreetMap, Ifuleki Kumbe segment at -7.82, 140.53), about 55 km south of Muting, matching Boelaars's \"a kampong on the Kumbe, fifty kilometres south of Muting\".","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"When the bishop's party reached Keisa on the Kumbe River in 1951, the village offered to perform its Ezam-Uzum rite. Toward evening a painted, shouting crowd of men and women danced in from the back of the village. Two men carried animal figures on their heads and laid them on a bench before the teacher's house; an old man waved a branch and led the songs to the drum. That, they insisted, was the whole rite. Then one of the visitors brought out bullroarers from Mandum on the upper Bian. A dead silence fell, almost everyone sat down at once, and several of the women dared not look. Two months later the Keisa men confessed the ruse and handed over their own bullroarers. Their carvings differed, they said, but the instruments were the same and so was the story of Babé: wherever people believed in Ezam, they had these blades.","pull_quote":"Het pakje, dat van deze brief vergezeld ging, bevatte inderdaad enkele bromhouten.","pull_quote_translation":"The package that came with this letter did indeed contain several bullroarers.","pull_quote_cite":"J. Boelaars, Nieuw-Guinea, uw mensen zijn wonderbaar (1953), p. 74","term_gloss":"Ezam and Uzum: husband and wife, the paired spirits of the Marind Ezam cult, whose names the bullroarers carry. Babé: the being whose coming the cult celebrates in the Mandum story Keisa claimed as its own.","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["spirit_voice","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"J. Boelaars, Nieuw-Guinea, uw mensen zijn wonderbaar (1953), pp. 74-75","url":"https://www.papuaerfgoed.org/sites/default/files/collectie/files/2002-05/Boelaars_1953_Nieuw.pdf"}],"source_citations":"J. Boelaars, Nieuw-Guinea, uw mensen zijn wonderbaar (1953), pp. 74-75","source_display":"J. Boelaars, Nieuw-Guinea, uw mensen zijn wonderbaar (1953), pp. 74-75","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"Several carved wooden bullroarers, the village's Ezam, closely resembling those of Mandum but with different incised figures.","function_display":"The secret instruments of Keisa's Ezam-Uzum cult, hidden from visitors behind a staged procession of two animal figures; when Mandum bullroarers were shown, the crowd fell silent and several women dared not look. Two months later the villagers disclosed the rite and surrendered their bullroarers.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"keisa","display_name":"Keisa's decoy Ezam","image":{"full":"assets/objects/PNG18_reche1913_taf65_fullplate.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/PNG18_reche1913_taf65_fullplate_thumb.jpg","alt":"Reche’s Plate LXV: carved Middle Sepik blade H.S. 6596 with repeated ring and line motifs, beside a human skull and netted pouch.","credit":"O. Reche, Der Kaiserin-Augusta-Fluss (Hamburg, 1913), Taf. LXV fig. 1","license":"Public domain (published 1913)","source_page":"https://books.google.com/books?id=I9g4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA350","rehosted":true,"representative":true,"caption":"Reche’s Plate LXV, including carved Middle Sepik object H.S. 6596","pool_id":"auto-PNG18_reche1913_taf65_fullplate","auto_assigned":true,"last_modified":"2026-10-19"},"slug":"boelaars1953-001-keisa-kaisah-village-kumbe-river-marind"}