| Description |
For the Awiakay, chicken is a post-contact domestic animal. While domestic chickens were brought to Papua New Guinea by Austronesian settlers some 2000-3000 years ago, they were for a long time distributed only on the north coast and on the islands, later spreading up the Sepik river. Most highlands and inland societies did not have chickens until at least 1950s (Quartemain 2000: 304).
These days, a chicken is killed for an important guest, and would sometimes be given as part of compensation in reconciliation rituals. Chickens are often a cause of disputes, either because they were stolen, shot or wounded, or because they destroyed something belonging to a person who is not their owner, e.g. eating someone’s fishing hook, coming into someone else’s house, etc. Their white feathers are highly appreciated and are used in head decorations.
The string figure representing the chicken can be done in two ways: either starting as a separate string figure, or continuing from opum ‘a pigeon’ (which itself can be transformed from mema injua kumapa ‘the dead woman’s spirit’s vulva’).
Images:
02: wanday ‘chicken’, final design of the string figure
03: wanday ‘chicken’
Quartemain, A.R. 2000. Non-commercial poultry production in Papua New Guinea. Asian-Au. J. Anim. Sci 13. 304-307.
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