The Poetics of the Crocodile: Changing Cultural Perspectives in Ambonwari

Abstract

Ambonwari people from the East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea, had a rich repertoire of song-dances, each of which was associated with specific events and the birth of something new. Together they represented the entire human life cycle as well as the cosmology at large. Visual, verbal and tactile modalities of singing and dancing were tightly interwoven; images and symbols were enacted by the dancers, in their decoration, arrangement, movements and in the whole ceremony and were firmly situated in their landscape. Accordingly, song-dances were also an important practice in male initiation ritual. The first song-dance of the ritual was the crocodile song-dance. This article analyses different transpositions of images and meanings which can be decoded from the dance, from the objects that were part of the initiation rite, and from the parallelism and rich allegory of verses. These transpositions operate at different levels until they converge upon the existential facts of birth and death. In the new millennium and under the influence of a Catholic charismatic movement, however, Ambonwari broke off their relationships with spirits, abandoned the men's houses and stopped talking about male initiation ritual. Along with other traditional song-dances the crocodile song-dance has been taken over by the song-dances of the Holy Spirit. These changes in social and cultural perspectives, which are still taking place, are at the same time products and producers of the changes in their relationship to 'space' and 'time' which are at the same time changes in visual and auditory perception and expression of their lifeworld. All these changes should not be seen merely in some abstract or symbolic terms but as tangible processes generated by people's action.

Explorations in Semantic Parallelism

“…The use of parallelism is also reported in various New Guinea languages. Documented examples of parallelism are to be found in spells and in some song poems among the Foi (Weiner 1991), in the narrative genre known as Tom Yaya Kange among the Ku Wara in Highland New Guinea (Rumsey 2001(Rumsey , 2002(Rumsey , 2010 and in the poetic song traditions of the Ambonwari in East Sepik (Telban 2008).…”

A battle of languages: Spirit possession and changing linguistic ideologies in a Sepik society, Papua New Guinea

“…This movement arrived in the villages of the Amboin Parish (Fig. ) in December 1994 when a wooden statue of the Virgin Mary was brought there from the provincial capital Wewak (Telban : 229; 2009: 133, 144) . The movement was brought to Kanjimei by three local men who happened to attend a Charismatic seminar in the faraway coastal city of Lae, where they received the gifts of the Holy Spirit: the gifts of healing and speaking in tongues (Hoenigman : 67–70).…”

“… Charismatic movements in various Christian denominations throughout New Guinea are commonly characterised by a demand for a radical break with tradition, and therefore with the communities’ past relationships with bush spirits and ancestral spirits, who are now labelled as bad and blamed for illness, misfortune, and lack of development (cf. Telban : 230; 2009 regarding the Catholic charismatic movement in Ambonwari; Eves on Pentecostalism among the Lelet of New Ireland and Robbins : 128 on the Baptist Urapmin). …”

“… While ascribing powers to a statue of the Virgin Mary is common among other Catholics in PNG (Hermkens ), possession by her spirit is not. Most of the literature on Pentecostal‐charismatic Christianity in Melanesia reports on (often female) possession by the Holy Spirit (Robbins ,b, ; Telban , ), but not possession by other Christian figures. One would expect possession by the Virgin Mary to occur among the Catholic charismatics; however, it seems that it might be a feature of the Karawari area (the neighbouring Ambonwari claim to be possessed by Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary during prayer meetings; Daniela Vávrová, personal communication 2 Jan. 2012). …”

Songs of the Empty Place: The Memorial Poetry of the Foi of the Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea

“…43 While performances take place inside some Sepik spirit houses, these often represent or create the voice of spirits, frequently using instruments; such performances can be heard, but not seen, by the uninitiated, and are associated with the presentation of secret knowledge, initiation, and aspects of male ceremonial life-see, for example, descriptions for the Iatmul (Wassmann 1991;Spearritt and Wassmann 1996), Ambonwari (Tabriak) (Telban 1998;2008), and Waxei (Watakataui) (Yamada 1997).…”