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Article Excerpt
In memory of Donald F. Tuzin (1945-2007)
INTRODUCTION
Manbon siria, 'crocodile song-dance', used to be the first and the most secret phase of Ambonwari initiation ritual (1) during which the men's house was 'warmed up', the spirits 'woken up' and told about the forthcoming event, and the doors of the most remote and sacred past opened: the doors that also led to the future. The order of sequences in every part of the ritual and the precision in reproducing appropriate expressions had to be taken seriously into account. Specific taboos on sex and consumption of particular foods, and rules regarding arrangement and ritual steps of the dancers had to be observed. The boys who were about to be initiated (aged between seven and sixteen years old) were still in the houses of their parents unaware that they would be soon taken away from the hearths of their mothers. Lacking understanding of the socially expected ways of doing things, they were 'not yet Ambonwari' on their own, but existed only as extensions of their parents' social being (Telban 1997a). To ease their parents' grief at their impending loss, other villagers had already performed yam[begin strikethrough]i[end strikethrough]n siria, 'house song-dance', which praised the households that would surrender their boys to initiation. (2)
Male initiation involved enacted killing, impregnation and rebirth of the novices. The men performing manbon siria were preparing for this. It was not, however, simply a question of uninitiated boys dying first to be reborn again as initiates at the end of initiation but rather the question of embracing life and death as inseparable dimensions of Ambonwari life-world. Initiates were to become cosmological and, consequently, social beings who would embody their ancestors and successors, the dead, the living and the as yet unborn. They had to experience both the duality of the cosmos and its oneness. By being brought into the men's house, they were about to become the principal participants in the cosmogonic event that would not only 'mould' them into Ambonwari men but would recollect, reconstruct and reconfirm a remote past and the life-world of the whole village (Telban 1997a). However, during the first stage in the men's house, at the time when senior Ambonwari men in their full decoration were participating in the crocodile song-dance, the future initiands, as the men liked to say, were still happily living their innocent childhood dreams.
The men who were in charge during the last initiation ceremonies explained that when the singing and dancing of manbon siria finally came to an end after several nights the dancers were exhausted. They had lost weight and their eyes were red with dark circles under them. The boys' mothers' brothers and fathers' fathers then brought the novices to the men's house. The men there threatened them with the carved spirit-crocodiles, shaking them and thrusting them towards the novices. Each boy, called sar-wapuk (a 'sitting-boy' or a 'held-boy'), could be protected by his wasamari (father's lather), war[begin strikethrough] i[end strikethrough]mbar (dancing partner), and wi mbay ('one name', namesake), each of them 'being' the boy himself (see Telban 1997a, 1998). Father's father, however, was the principal protector. Away (mother's brother) had a dual function: he was both the protector and the aggressor. On the one hand, as Ambonwari say, he felt sorry for his sister's son while on the other he was 'angry' as the boy would be severed from his mother and himself. The dancers against whom the boys were protected would put small bamboo knives on their fingers (as extension of their fingernails) and spread their arms (emulating the soaring eagle) to threaten the novices, cutting those who would cry, protest or disobey. During the first nights of seclusion the men played flutes and performed sanggut siria, 'song-dance of a flute/beautifully decorated man'. During a break in the middle of one of the nights the men delivered wanyak[begin strikethrough] i[end strikethrough]r mariawk, the 'talks of a knife'. Then, 'song-dance of a flute' continued.
The boys stayed in the men's house for two, three or more months, until they were finally initiated. The length of stay depended on the food which needed to be collected and caught for the days of the final celebration. During their seclusion the senior men gave directives to the boys regarding the life of men and their relationships with spirits, told them myths, legends and stories with the intention of explaining certain practices and behaviour in everyday life, and instructed them about the relationships between men and women. Carvings on the posts (Telban 1998:180-9) provided visual illustrations for several stories which were told during the period of seclusion. The last stage of the initiation ritual was kamb[begin strikethrough]i[end strikethrough]n siria, 'song-dance of a shield' with its special part telling of death and how the spirit of a dead person traverses the border between the living and the dead. These song-dances, together with masungun siria, 'song-dance of an enemy' and yam[begin strikethrough] i[end strikethrough]n siria, 'song-dance of a house', represent all important stages in the passage of a man from his birth to his death. (3)
When the boys were released after several months of isolation their backs--and the backs of their guardians and sometimes even of their future wives--were cut with bamboo knifes or, more recently, with razor blades. It was the future wife's brother (mas[begin strikethrough]i[end strikethrough]n) who cut the skin of his sister's future husband (sakuri) so as to resemble the hide of a crocodile. A special sap was rubbed into the sores to prevent them from healing easily and to secure conspicuous and permanent scars. In this way, the men, Ambonwari thought, finally became crocodiles.
MANBON SIRIA, 'CROCODILE SONG-DANCE'
I wrote down the short song of a crocodile in my notebook in 1991 only after a year of working with Bob Kanjik on Ambonwari song poetry and then only after I pushed him to be sure that there were no other songs, chants or myths which I might have missed. Bob whispered the words and the lines of crocodile-song for he feared that someone--a person or a spirit--might overhear him. The disclosure of this song-poem to uninitiated or uninvited persons, or its misuse, might result in the whole village being severely punished: destroyed by a devastating earthquake, a severe storm, unexpected famine, or by disasters involving poisonous snakes or contagious sickness. The song, being part of cosmological beginnings, belonged to Ambonwari's most secret lore. The cosmogonic ritual could go wrong, turned towards destruction instead of construction. Bob did not allow anyone but his son Dominic to assist with translation. Dominic, though initiated, was still quite young and single and did not understand all the words and lines, nor had he any clue to their meanings. He often replied that they belonged to the ancestors. Bob, anxious to transmit his knowledge, then discussed with me in detail words, names, phrases and particularities. In his expectation that the village might soon stage another initiation ritual of which he would be the head, he did not allow me even to consider discussing the song with anyone else in the village. Now, sixteen years later, the situation has changed. The old men who were still thinking of a possibility of staging another initiation ritual had died, including Bob. The Catholic charismatic movement began to dominate the religious life of the village in December 1994. It started by condemning all traditional rituals, and finally, in 2001, removed all the previously most secret and sacred carved spirit-beings from the enclosure of their men's houses. The men's houses themselves were left to decay or were transformed into recreational 'wind houses' accessible to all: men, women and children. The prohibition on disclosing this song-poem has been lifted. Being an inseparable part of a ritual which has not been practised for twenty-five years it would simply vanish.
To me, as an ethnographer, the song is an important element of ritual and oral history, a fragment of the past that can be analysed to provide additional information about Sepik cosmologies, including cosmo-topographies and conceptualisations of the life-world in this region of New Guinea. A detailed analysis can tell us something about actual pre-history and migrations, about changes (social, cultural, cosmological) that can be compared to those taking place in Europe and elsewhere. For most Ambonwari who are currently uninterested in any version of the past that cannot be used in the present, and who are not concerned with the folkloristic maintenance of traditional practices (they know verses of other, less secret songs that they can perform at regional festivals), dwelling on these poetic words would imply that they could not decide between the ancestral past and the Catholic charismatic future. Moreover, it would return them to an existential insecurity, one compounded by a fear that the spirits, with whom they no longer wish to maintain any kind of relationship, could again interfere with their lives, causing misfortune, sickness and even death. In short, manbon siria is disappearing from the collective memory of Ambonwari men; its images and meanings and its music and rhythm are fading away.
Ambonwari referred to the whole event of manbon siria also by ark[begin strikethrough]i[end strikethrough]n siria, 'singing and dancing of grandparents' or 'singing and dancing of ancestors', a phrase that routinely attached secrecy to it. The men always had their rehearsals deep in the forest away from women and children. Once in a men's house the five stanzas of manbon siria--stanza being used here in a technical sense--were endlessly repeated. The verses in the song were not sung openly as they might be heard outside. The words were often merely indicated and not fully articulated. Eight beautifully decorated dancers danced and sang while two men, in front of the dancers and facing them, beat the floor with a kind of a broom, s[begin strikethrough]i[end strikethrough]pakriya, 'coconut palm leaf stem', as if to chase the dancers away towards the back of the house. In a continuous movement forwards and backwards, just as attacking crocodiles (as Ambon wari men described the dance), they danced night after night. At the same time one man beat a slit-drum with extra vigour and when he grew tired was replaced by another man. This change of drummers was done either during a break or by smooth transition, when both drummers held the stick briefly without losing or changing the rhythm. Because of its specific rhythm people referred to manbon siria also as manbon yimbung, 'the slit-drum of a crocodile'. The singers and other initiated men present in the men's house would breathe vigorously, loud and fast with their mouths open. In the expectation of the novices, who were going to be 'killed', the men were preparing for an attack. (4) They were specially dressed and decorated for the occasion. Whenever any one of them fell into a kind of a trance, his breathing became louder and faster. They were the spirit-crocodiles.
In a ritual context it is quite common practice for people to use particular words from their neighbours or to conceal their own terms by using a kind of archaic language, or by simply modifying certain words, by changing their prefixes or suffixes, for example,...
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