Some tribes of Northern New Guinea--the Yabim, Bukaua, Kai, and
Tami--like many Australian tribes, require every male member of the
tribe to be circumcised before he ranks as a full-grown man; and the
tribal initiation, of which circumcision is the central feature, is
conceived by them, as by some Australian tribes, as a process of
being swallowed and disgorged by a mythical monster, whose voice is
heard in the humming sound of the bull-roarer. Indeed the New Guinea
tribes not only impress this belief on the minds of women and
children, but enact it in a dramatic form at the actual rites of
initiation, at which no woman or uninitiated person may be present.
For this purpose a hut about a hundred feet long is erected either
in the village or in a lonely part of the forest. It is modelled in
the shape of the mythical monster; at the end which represents his
head it is high, and it tapers away at the other end. A betel-palm,
grubbed up with the roots, stands for the backbone of the great
being and its clustering fibres for his hair; and to complete the
resemblance the butt end of the building is adorned by a native
artist with a pair of goggle eyes and a gaping mouth.
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