ally speaking, they are representations of a bird
holding a male or female fi gure with its feet, but
in some cases there is no body but only a human
head is present (Reche, 1913: plate XXXIV, fi g.
2; Kelm, 1966, vol. I: 367–368, 371). The latter
evokes the myth mentioned above. However, gable
sculptures of birds grasping complete male
fi gures are far more numerous than any other
type. The gables of the ceremonial houses of the
villages of Kabriman, Kuvenmas, and Kreimbit
each display a sculpture of a bird with its wings
spread clutching a male fi gure that is holding a
spear in his right hand (fi g. 9). It is likely that
these sculptures refer to a different myth. In
some other villages, the sculptures represent the
bird alone. In all cases, the base of these more or
less voluminous sculptures is hollow. The oldest
examples have a fi gure that appears to emerge
from this base (fi g. 11), among them the one in
Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin (Eichhorn,
1929: 73) and the one in the Chinnery Collection
(Bateson, 1932: 453 and plate VIII). The
wings are often spread but sometimes they are
folded along the body, as they are on the examples
from the Wolimbit house in Kanganaman
and the Nyanglambi house in the neighboring
village of Yentchen. When the wings are spread,
they often display ocellus designs on their inner
surfaces similar to those seen on “canoe prow
shields” (Kelm, 1966, vol. I: 489 and 496). The
97
Could you fetch me and bring me up to your
nest6 high up in a great elema tree?”7 The two
brothers perform this mission8 and then bring
her the cadavers of their victims. These myths
are apparently specifi c to the central and western
Iatmul areas from which several variants
are known, but with different birds in the villages
of Yentchen, Kanganaman, and Nangosap
(fi g. 8). In a myth told to Milan Stanek (1982:
121–122), the two brothers bring their mother a
human head which they present as a breadfruit.
In a myth obtained by Wassmann (1991: 194),
the two eagle brothers kill their mother and devour
her entire body except for her skull. Mandawa’s
myth (Coiffi er, 1994: 325), which evokes
a woman replacing her human head with that of
an egret (Egretta alba) to catch many fi sh, could
also be the origin for certain types of gables.
TYPOLOGY AND AESTHETICS OF GABLE
SCULPTURES
Analysis of early photographs of ceremonial
houses reveals various types of wooden gable
sculptures that existed throughout the middle
Sepik River region. Some of them remain today
on edifi ces that still stand (fi g. 13). Most of these
sculptures are more than a meter high. Gener-
FIG. 16 (facing page,near
left): Placing a gable
sculpture atop the Païembit
ceremonial house in the
Iatmul village of Palimbei.
© C. Coiffi er, 1987.
FIG. 17 (right): First page
of the article by August
Eichhorn in Cahiers d’Art,
1929.
FIG. 18 (below): Front view
of the Païembit ceremonial
house in the Iatmul village of
Palimbei showing the waak
mound planted with a palm
tree.
© C. Coiffi er, 1988.