MASSIM SORCERY FIGURES 121 adults found out what the spatula had done, they burned it. As it was burning, the ginger pieces around its neck exploded and flew to Veri Veri Village and from there spread throughout the Suau area and the Buhutu Valley. This is how magic was acquired by the people living there. The spatula in fig. 2 was bought in 1918 by Edgar Waite, director of the South Australian Museum, as part of a collection of thirty-one items owned by Mrs. Gotham of the Cosmopolitan Hotel at Samarai. Although all of that collection was said to have come from “Kuku or Tauriri 150 miles from Port Moresby or Lake Kemu” (Craig 2007: 176), the spatula is obviously of Massim origin and almost identical to the spatula in fig. 1. Richard Aldridge collected the “lime spatula” in fig. 3 on Buiari, a small island a kilometer off the southern coast of Basilaki Island. He was told it was capable of protecting the house from sorcery and that it vibrated or made a noise in the presence of “evil.” He was also told that the spatula was not used in chewing betelnuts but kept in the house for this protective purpose. The owner told him that it had been carved by Nakan Isi, his grandfather. When Aldridge collected another example of the same design but more elaborately carved (fig. 5), he was told it had the same function. Abel Abel collected the spatula in fig. 4 and was also told that it was used as a house guardian, apparently having the same function as those in figs. 3 and 5. Aldridge revisited Buiari Island in 2011 and was told that if the flying spirits of witches see such a guardian lime spatula in a house at night, they regard it as an instrument of sorcery and leave the house alone. The blade of the spatula in fig. 6 carries an old label reading “Chief’s Lime Knife from British New Guinea. Sydney 26/5/98,” indicating it was acquired in Sydney, Australia, in 1898. It is now in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Sean Mallon, the museum’s senior curator of Pacific culture, advises that there are no obvious saliva stains on the spatula’s blade but that its edge looks worn (pers. comm., Sept. 18, 2012). Hence, the spatula may have had little if any use in the chewing of betelnuts. It is not known where in British New Guinea it was collected, but its Massim origin is beyond doubt. The spatula in fig. 7 was acquired in Port Moresby in 1920 and those in figs. 8 and 9 may also date from the first half of the twentieth century. Cecil Abel,2 the former owner of the spatula in fig. 8, was born in Papua New Guinea in 1903, spent most of his life there until his death in 1994, and could have acquired the spatula early in his life. The spatula in fig. 9, collected by Patrick Glass in 1993, may have been carved long before it was collected. No information accompanies these spatulas that indicates their function. The National Archives of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby may have a record of the court case Swinfield mentioned, which might clarify the identity and locality of the sorcerer, but at any rate, it is agreed that the spatula was used in sorcery. It clearly was also used as a lime spatula on some occasions, as it has slight traces of betelstained FIG. 5: Lime spatula used only for protective purposes. Massim region, Papua New Guinea. Collected by Richard Aldridge in Kalipa Village, Sideia Island. Wood. John and Marcia Friede (Jolika) Collection, New York. Image © John Bigelow Taylor, courtesy of John Friede. FIG. 6 (right): Lime spatula. Massim region, Papua New Guinea. Wood. L: 28.5 cm. Museum of New Zealand Te Papa, FE000755. Gift of Alexander Turnbull in 1913. Image © Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. saliva on its blade. In 1989, Beran showed a photograph of the spatula to villagers in the Buhutu Valley. Three informants recognized the figure on the spatula. Waiba, an old man of Siasiada Village, said that there once had been a man named Sinofo who was so full of magical power that he grew long ears and a long snout. Lagesana, another informant from the Buhutu Valley, also knew of a man with long ears and a long snout and said that when he died he turned into a stone called Bulubulu in Didigana Village, which was abandoned some time ago. When Beran showed Lagesana a photograph of the spatula in fig. 1, he immediately said “that’s the one,” but he did not know the name of the long-eared and longsnouted man. A third informant, Jerricho of Savaia Village on the south coast, said that he had seen a spatula with a long-eared and long-snouted figure when he was small and that spatulas of this type came from the Buhutu Valley, where his grandparents had lived. He said that spatulas of this design represent a man called Seinofo, would normally have pieces of ginger tied around the figure’s neck and would be used for magic. He told the following story, which he had heard from his grandparents. A spatula of this design with ginger around its neck was left on a shelf over the fireplace in the house while the men went hunting and the women went to the agricultural patch, leaving the children behind. The carving came off the shelf and killed some of the children. When the
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