Nat Karamwang

Wogeo · demigod · Wogeo traditional religion; continuing · demigod

Nat Karamwang, whose name Hogbin renders 'man locust' and which Anderson transcribes Nat Kadamoanga, is the Wogeo culture-hero of the secret flutes. Conceived by a heroine of Maluk village who died during pregnancy and was buried beneath her parents' house, the unborn child kept itself alive underground by sucking the white sap from the roots of a breadfruit tree; hearing it cry, the old couple dug it up and reared the boy. In the central episode of the myth he overhears two women who, in a dream, had followed flutes that played by themselves, and he seizes the instruments and blows them. The women thereupon surrender the flutes to men forever, decreeing that the flutes will no longer sound unaided but must be filled with a man's breath. The narrative grounds the men's flute cult and the gendered transfer of generative power that pervades Wogeo religion. Sources differ on the exact spelling of his name, but agree on his role as the hero through whom the flutes passed from women to men.

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