Flute Stopper

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.
Explore the entire collection
oceania
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | New Britain
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | New Ireland
oceania | New Zealand
oceania | New Britain
oceania | New Ireland
oceania | New Ireland
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | Torres Strait
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | Admiralty Islands
oceania | Vanuatu
oceania | Samoa Islands.
oceania | New Caledonia
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | Admiralty Islands
oceania
oceania | Fiji
oceania | New Caledonia
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | New Ireland
oceania | Admiralty Islands
oceania | Marquesas Islands
oceania | Tonga Islands
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | New Ireland
oceania | Australia
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | Austral Islands
oceania | Fiji Islands
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | Australia
New Acquisitions | Australia
New Acquisitions | Papua New Guinea
New Acquisitions | Papua New Guinea
New Acquisitions | New Zealand
oceania | Chuuk Islands
oceania | Chuuk Islands
oceania | Solomon Islands
oceania | Papua New Guinea
oceania | New Britain
oceania | New Caledonia
oceania | Fiji Islands
oceania | Marquesas Islands
oceania | Fiji Islands
oceania | Nepal
oceania | Papua New Guinea
Discover our collections
CoLLECTIoNS
Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter