oceania | Papua New Guinea
Flute Stopper
Papua New Guinea
Wusear Flute stopper
Biwat/Mundugumor, Yuat River,
Lower Sepik, Papua New Guinea
19th century (C14 dating)
Carved wood, pigments, shell
Height: 43 cm – 17 in.
Provenance
Collected by a Danish scientific explorer between the First and the Second World War
Ex collection School Museum, Hemsterhuisstraat, the Hague, Netherlands
Probably deaccessioned from the museum in the 1970s
Ex collection Mon Steyaert, Brussels
Ex collection Philipp Konzett, Vienna
Ex collection Adrian Schlag, Ibiza
Biwat Flute Stopper 43 cm / Galerie Flak
Price: on request
On the shores of the middle Yuat River, a southern tributary of the Lower Sepik River in the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea, Biwat people used sacred flutes for ceremonial purposes.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York notes that for many New Guinea peoples, flutes are, or were, among the most sacred and important of all musical instruments. Sacred flutes were often made from hollow cylinders of bamboo and played, like a Western flute, by blowing through a hole in the side of the instrument near the upper end. The tops of side-blown flutes were frequently sealed with male spirit figures called Wusear. While wusear were often called "flute stoppers" by Western scholars, this expression is misleading insofar as it reduces these effigies to an ornamental function. Wusear were actually effigies who "spoke" through the flute. It is more appropriate to interpret the flute as part of the wusear than vice versa.
Wusear were associated with the powerful crocodile spirit (asin or ashin) and had supernatural aura. There also seem to be connections with clan ancestry. They were sacred property of a clan, they were honored and received food offerings.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York notes that for many New Guinea peoples, flutes are, or were, among the most sacred and important of all musical instruments. Sacred flutes were often made from hollow cylinders of bamboo and played, like a Western flute, by blowing through a hole in the side of the instrument near the upper end. The tops of side-blown flutes were frequently sealed with male spirit figures called Wusear. While wusear were often called "flute stoppers" by Western scholars, this expression is misleading insofar as it reduces these effigies to an ornamental function. Wusear were actually effigies who "spoke" through the flute. It is more appropriate to interpret the flute as part of the wusear than vice versa.
Wusear were associated with the powerful crocodile spirit (asin or ashin) and had supernatural aura. There also seem to be connections with clan ancestry. They were sacred property of a clan, they were honored and received food offerings.
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