Middle Sepik Spirit Flutes and Spirits

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 aWestern 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 ornamental flute stoppers.

Sacred flutes are clan property, kept in the men's cult house. They are invariably made of bamboo and are side blown, each having a different but complimentary note. They are played in pairs, though sometimes several pairs of flutes are played in order to construct a continuous melody. The sounds are believed to be the voices of certain spirits whose names are given to the flutes. The flutes have wooden stoppers at the proximal end carved in the form of animals, birds or humans representing clan totems or ancestors.

Some of the finest flute stoppers are produced in northeast New Guinea. Those flute stoppers typically portray, like the examples here, stylized human images with small bodies and large heads with extremely high domed foreheads. Although they depict human figures, the stoppers adorned ashin, flutes associated with crocodile spirits. Ashin flutes were used, in part, during initiation rites in which novices crawled into the mouth of a large crocodile effigy to be cut by its teeth. The teeth, actually sharp implements wielded by the initiators, made cuts that healed into permanent scarification patterns on the novices’ bodies, marking them as initiated individuals.

Wood, bamboo, rattan, cord, cassuari feathers, pigment; stoppers 42 x 9cm; flutes 89 x 6 cm.