NGUINEA-004 - secondary catalog
Kambrambo
Papua New Guinea - Lower Sepik, East Sepik Province - Oceania - Melanesia
Restricted
Felix Speiser reached the large stilt-village of Kambrambo, on a Sepik lagoon, on 13 November 1930 and was rowed into the ceremonial house to watch the closing phase of a boys' initiation that had already run for six months; he filmed it (released only in 1963 as Encyclopaedia Cinematographica E 502) and described it in print in 1937. In the fenced yard where the secluded novices were kept, the bull-roarer was whirled for about half an hour alongside the paired sacred flutes; on the morning of the great rite all the women but a few very old ones were driven from the village, the drums sounded, and "now and then the bull-roarer could be heard." Three ten-metre crocodile effigies of bark-painted cane then swallowed the boys one by one through their working jaws; the novices, "counted as dead," were bled by rubbing with crocodile-jaw teeth and thorny lianas, the effigies were burned, and at the end the bull-roarers were swung and the flutes blown again before the crowd dispersed. The whole performance was glossed for the women as the boys being eaten by the crocodile, which would surrender them only in exchange for pork.
Etwa eine halbe Stunde wurde im umzäunten Hofe das Schwirrholz geschwungen, ebenso wurden paarweise heilige Flöten geblasen. ... Schon vor Tagesgrauen hatten alle Frauen, außer einigen sehr alten, das Dorf verlassen müssen ... Schon seit langem wurden die Trommeln geschlagen und gelegentlich ließ sich das Schwirrholz hören.
For about half an hour the bull-roarer was whirled in the fenced enclosure [where the secluded novices were kept], and sacred flutes were blown in pairs. ... Before daybreak all the women, except a few very old ones, had had to leave the village ... The drums had been beaten for a long while, and now and then the bull-roarer could be heard.
Felix Speiser, "Eine Initiationszeremonie in Kambrambo am Sepik, Neuguinea," Ethnologischer Anzeiger IV/4 (1937), pp. 155-156, as reprinted in C. A. Schmitz, Film E 502 companion text (IWF, Goettingen, 1964), pp. 5-6
- Object
- Bull-roarer used in boys' initiation rites at Kambrambo village, lower Sepik; filmed ca. 1930 by Basel ethnographer Felix Speiser (1880-1949), published 1963 as Encyclopaedia Cinematographica E 502.
- Function
- Whirled during initiation alongside sacred bamboo flutes, crocodile-effigy 'swallowing' of novices, and ritual bloodletting.
- Map confidence
- high - approximate territory centroid (mining 2026)
- Source location
- Speiser 1937:153-157, reprinted in Schmitz 1964 (E 502 companion text) pp. 3-7 (Schwirrholz at pp. 5-6); film synopsis ("Filminhalt") pp. 7-8
- Spirit voice
- Initiation rite
- Death and rebirth