Returned laborers, purification ritual: Kent speaks to dead cassowaries dressed as a humans, symbolizing the ancestors, in center are above ground ovens

• July 1962

• Cook, Edwin A.

This digital image is a surrogate of an item from the Edwin Cook Papers (Archive negative 2, Roll 9, Envelope 29-34, Frame 34)

"Kent speaks to the ancestors." Manga Social Organization, p. 307.

"Then the boys themselves had to prepare sacrifices to their ancestors for caring for them while they were away. This is part of that ceremony, picture 8 is also part of this. Here, if you look closely, you will see two cassowaries tied up by the neck to poles. One is to the immediate right of the old sorcerer, Kent, looking out at you and the other is on the right hand side of the picture. The sorcerer is carrying a pig-killing stick. When the birds have been thus dressed up it is thought that the ancestors come and inhabit them and watch the general proceedings. They (the birds) are spoken to as real people." MSS187, Box 44, Folder 9.

• Melanesia
• Oceania
• Pacific Islands
• Papua New Guinea
• Western Highlands Province (Papua New Guinea)

• Ancestor worship
• Cassowaries
• Cookery
• Narak (Papua New Guinean people)
• Rites and ceremonies
• Shell money
• Shrines

• image

Online finding aid

• Edwin Cook Papers

• UC Regents

[Title, Date]. Edwin Cook Papers. MSS 187. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. [Digital Object URL]

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2021-11-17