Pig festival, wig ritual, Tsembaga: man's hair is pulled through wig frame

• October 1963

• Rappaport, Roy A.

This digital image is a surrogate of an item from the Roy Rappaport Papers (Archive negative 2, Roll 44, Envelope 26-31, Frame 30)

"When all but the final preparations at the raku are completed some of the young men undergo ritual dedication to the red spirits. The initiates are secluded in the men's house enclosure behind the pave and their hair is worked into constructions called mamp gunc. Round frames, about six inches high, made of the bark of the kirim tree (Lauraceae sp.) are placed on their heads like crowns. The hair, which has remained uncut since puberty, is pulled up through the center and down over the sides of the frame, hiding it completely. The melted sap of an unidentified three called gunc, which gives the construction its name ('head gunc'), and which upon cooling, leaves the surface hard, is then applied. Finally, the headdress is dyed red, with trade pigments now" (Roy Rappaport, Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People, Rev. ed., Yale University, pg. 202).

• Madang Province (Papua New Guinea)
• Melanesia
• Oceania
• Pacific Islands
• Papua New Guinea

• Dwellings
• Maring (Papua New Guinean people)
• Rites and ceremonies
• Wigs

• image

Event ID: Rappaport roll number: RRC13

Online finding aid

• Roy Rappaport Papers

• UC Regents

[Title, Date]. Roy Rappaport Papers. MSS 516. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. [Digital Object URL]

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2021-11-16