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This is another string figure from Asangamut, which everybody perceived familiar enough for it to be added to the Awiakay string-figure repertoire, provided I explain that it originated in Asangamut.
The string figure represents two dogs who are waiting in the bush, howling to call their owner who went back to the village, forgetting about them. While telling the story, the string figure-maker makes the howling sounds and clearly empathises with the dogs who were left alone. The Awiakay often use dogs’ vocalisations to tell how the dogs are feeling, whereby they often project their own feelings and values onto dogs. An example of this is a song in Kaunjambi, the all-night song/dance cycle, in which a whole song is dedicated to dogs’ vocalisations (Hoenigman 2015: 232).
For the Awiakay, dogs are perceived to be their owners’ extensions. Evidence for this can be found also in grammar: when the Awiakay speak about their dogs, they apply inalienable possessives to them, as they do to their body parts and their kin. People depend on dogs to a great extent for their help in hunting. A man does not go to the bush without his dogs, and if he does not have them, he often borrows them from his siblings, parents, etc. When a dog dies, the owner cries for him/her as they would for a family member (more on human-dog relationships among the Awiakay see Gillespie & Hoenigman 2013).
Image:
02: two dogs sitting
Gillespie, Kirsty & Darja Hoenigman. 2013. Laments and Relational Personhood: Case studies from Duna and Awiakay societies of Papua New Guinea. In: Stephen Wild, Di Roy, Aaron Corn and Ruth Lee Martin (eds.) One Common Thread: The Musical World of Laments. Special issue of Humanities Research Journal. Vol. XIX No. 3, pp. 97-110. ANU E-press.
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