Iatmul Ceremonial Lime Container Christian Coiffier (Lecturer at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris) Betel chewing (keserangu) plays an important role in the Iatmul culture of Papua New Guinea. It is in fact intimately connected with the spiritual and ritual life of the local people. This is especially true of lime, one of the betel chew’s three components, along with Areca nuts (Areca catechu) and the betel blooms (Piper betle) which constitute its active ingredient. This lime obtained from burnt shells of freshwater mussels was formerly stored in various kinds of containers made from hollowed out and dried gourds, bamboo segments or pottery. Betel chewing causes a kind of intoxication that is believed to enable a man to communicate with his ancestors. The container presented here is called mbandi yavu (lit. initiate/container) in the Middle Sepik River area. It is very similar to the oldest known similar objects (Reche, 1913: 263). This particular type of container was not used on a daily basis, but only during the final stage of the young men’s initiation ceremonies. This yavu mbandi consists of three main parts: a bamboo tube (kain yavu) that contains lime and a wooden sculpture that functions as a stopper at one end of this tube. This sculpture is attached to the tube with a ring (ao) made of a woven rattan (kuvu). These three components and the materials they are made of have special local meanings. The bamboo tube is considered a vagina and the lime powder it contains is likened to semen. The rattan ring is an evocation of the umbilical cord. Some similar objects (Wardwell, 1971: 67) have a second rattan ring at the other end of the bamboo tube which is used as a loop for suspension. A small carved wooden cap (ngungun) then closes this opening of the tube through which users could bring out the lime for their chew with help of a stick or spatula (tàp) made of wood or cassowary bone. The upper part of this spatula was most often carved in the shape of bird’s or cockatoo’s head. The wooden carving was then facing downwards and this inversion probably had a special meaning. Warriors who had killed could hang red and white feathers attached with chains of rattan rings to the carving and that indicated the number of enemies slain. A myth evokes how the spatula of the Suikumban warrior pig ancestor led to dividing humanity into two halves: nyawinemba and nyamenemba (Coiffier, 1994: 812). This is how dualism among the Iatmul became more of a factor in the organization of their society as well as a key concept in the creation of numerous objects in their material culture. The wooden sculpture is an evocation of the young initiate’s dual ancestor spirits (paternal and maternal) called wagan. The object is, as a whole, a guarantor for the transmission of the family lineage’s strength and fertility. It was prepared and given to the new initiate by his wau (maternal uncle) on the day of the initiation cycle’s closing ceremony. The young man could then parade in front of all the village members, adorned with his most beautiful finery, on the dance area in front of the large ceremonial house at the top of whose facade the iconic bird-man gable figure presided. The mbandi yavu was an object of prestige that could sometimes be transmitted from generation to generation. There are a number of quite similar mbandi yavu in museums and private collections (Luschan, 191: fig. 23, 24 and 25; Kelm, 1966: 428-429 and 432 to 437; Greub, 1985: 42; Kjellgren, 2007: 86; Conru, 2014: 120-121), but not all of these objects are of the same aesthetic quality as the one presented here. The birds can be different, rooster (nyaaka) or eagle (ngawi), as seen on two containers from the collection of the University of Pennsylvania Museum in Philadelphia (Linton and Wingert, 114). Sometimes the bird may have a crocodile head (nambu waal) with an eagle beak (Herreman, 2008: 60). This latter example indeed represents a mythical half-crocodile half-
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Michael Hamson Oceanic Art
