{"id":"PNG17","label":"Avatip","people_or_site":"Avatip","country_current":"Papua New Guinea","historic_region":"East Sepik","macroregion":"Oceania / Sahul","local_name":"","source_term":"","source_language":"English","object_description":"bullroarer occurrence; bullroarer use; slit-gong occurrence; slit-gong use","function_summary":"Belonged to the graded men's cult, from which women were barred.","attestation_type":"ethnographic_attestation","source_key":"gourlay1975_sound_producing","source_type":"source_catalog","source_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.30000082089644","page_or_plate":"Table 1, row 17; Newton 1971, pp. 67–68","map_confidence":"high","plot_status":"plot","coordinate_basis":"Avatip village on the middle Sepik (GeoNames 2100277).","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"Avatip is the largest of the Manambu-speaking villages on the upper reaches of the middle Sepik, and Simon Harrison's study of it describes a graded men's cult through which boys and young men were initiated in successive stages, each stage taught more secret and more powerful ritual knowledge than the last. The whole system rested on concealment: the cult barred women entirely. Both the bullroarer and the slit-gong belonged to that hidden world. In the wider Manambu ceremonial-house cult, the yam-harvest rites displayed clan pythons through poles and lianas. Sprinkled with pigs’ blood, their representations gave way to spirits returning to coil around the houseposts.","pull_quote":"The male cult, like most such cults in Melanesia and elsewhere, debars women and involves the deliberate hoaxing and deception of women and children.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Harrison, Stealing People's Names: History and Politics in a Sepik River Cosmology (Cambridge University Press, 1990), ch. 5 \"Male initiation\"","term_gloss":"","cls":"restricted","class_label":"Restricted","color":"#A43C2F","is_candidate":false,"flags":["snake","initiation","women_taboo"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":true,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":true,"sources":[{"citation":"K.A. Gourlay, Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society (1975), Table1, entry17","url":"https://hdl.handle.net/2027/inu.30000082089644"},{"citation":"Simon Harrison, Stealing People's Names: History and Politics in a Sepik River Cosmology (1990), chapter5, Male initiation"},{"citation":"Douglas Newton, Crocodile and Cassowary: Religious Art of the Upper Sepik River, New Guinea (1971), pp67–68; ceremonial-house and clan-python context","url":"https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16028coll15/id/2618"}],"source_citations":"K.A. Gourlay, Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society (1975), Table1, entry17; Simon Harrison, Stealing People's Names: History and Politics in a Sepik River Cosmology (1990), chapter5, Male initiation; Douglas Newton, Crocodile and Cassowary: Religious Art of the Upper Sepik River, New Guinea (1971), pp67–68; ceremonial-house and clan-python context","source_display":"K.A. Gourlay, Sound-Producing Instruments in Traditional Society (1975), Table1, entry17; Simon Harrison, Stealing People's Names: History and Politics in a Sepik River Cosmology (1990), chapter5, Male initiation; Douglas Newton, Crocodile and Cassowary: Religious Art of the Upper Sepik River, New Guinea (1971), pp67–68; ceremonial-house and clan-python…","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"","function_display":"","confidence_display":"high","attestation_label":"ethnographic attestation","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"avatip","display_name":"Avatip","image":{"full":"assets/objects/PNG17_reche1913_taf65_fig1.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/PNG17_reche1913_taf65_fig1_thumb.jpg","alt":"A long narrow bullroarer from Mụåńgêm village, with pale paired-circle, elongated face and geometric motifs arranged along its face.","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":"Richly carved bullroarer from Mụåńgêm village."},"slug":"png17-avatip"}