BAMFORD2004-001 - primary ethnography

Titamnga mautwa kept by mothers

Papua New Guinea - Titamnga - Kapau-Kamea territory - Oceania - Sahul

Restricted

Before the boys go into the forest, the men hand the mautwa to the boys' mothers — wrapped in leaves and bark cloth so that only the tip of one end shows — with instructions to watch over them carefully. Then the mothers enter their own seclusion house, and the guarding begins. “The only thing mothers can do is sit in the house,” one Kamea man said. “If they leave it, the noses of their sons will break.” At the first stage of the rites the men take the bundles back, unwrap them, and show the novices what their mothers had been holding.

The only thing mothers can do is sit in the house. If they leave it, the noses of their sons will break.

A Kamea man, quoted in Sandra Bamford (2007), p. 100; cited in Pascale Bonnemère, Acting for Others (HAU Books), p. 106

Object

Bullroarers wrapped in leaves or bark cloth with only one tip exposed.

Function

Wrapped bullroarers are entrusted to the novices' mothers to guard through their seclusion; the men reclaim them at the first stage of the rites and reveal them to the boys.

Source

Bamford 2004 Titamnga field account quoted by Bonnemère 2018; Blackwood gives contrasting village rule

Source location

pp. 106–107

Source confidence

low to medium Representative Kapau-Kamea/Titamnga anchor.

• Initiation rite
• Forbidden to women
• Women-linked

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