The Flute Spirit

The sacred flutes are among the most closely guarded objects of the Angan male cult. Their sound is understood as the voice of a female spirit-being, and a myth told among the Sambia, recorded by Gilbert Herdt, and the Baruya, recorded by Maurice Godelier, holds that the flutes and the powers that go with them once belonged to women and were taken from them by men. Heard by the uninitiated as the cry of a bird or spirit, the flute-being embodies a female generative power appropriated for the making of men; boys meet it for the first time during initiation.

Domains

• initiation
• sound music

Powers

• sounds as the voice within the flutes
• embodies a female power taken over by men

Relations

• companion: Numboolyu
• ally: The Cassowary

Sources

• Herdt, Gilbert H. Guardians of the Flutes: Idioms of Masculinity. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1981.
• Godelier, Maurice. The Making of Great Men: Male Domination and Power among the New Guinea Baruya. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.