Item details
Item ID
DKH01-035_nam_kombonga
Title Nam komboŋa ‘The female mussel’
Description Nam komboŋa ‘the female mussel’ and Oluk komboŋa ‘the male mussel’ are made in a nearly identical way, with only a single move being decisive in whether the resulting figure will turn out as ‘male’ or ‘female’(if the right loop in the ‘loop exchange’ is inserted into the left one, the string figure design will turn into nam komboŋa ‘the female mussel’, and, conversely, if the left loop in the ‘loop exchange’ is inserted into the right one, this will result in oluk komboŋa ‘the male mussel’).
The naming of these string figures has nothing to do with the biological sex of freshwater mussels, which are, just like the names of string figures, called ‘male’ and ‘female’ on the basis of their shape, and are associated with male and female genitals (Hoenigman, forthcom.).
Freshwater mussels are collected for their shells, which the Awiakay burn to make lime (quicklime) to chew with betelnut. In the all-night song-dance cycle Kaunjambi, komboŋa ‘the shell’ is used as a synonym for lime (Hoenigman 2015: 232).

Images:
02: the final design of nam komboŋa ‘female mussel’
03: left: female mussel, right: male mussel.

Hoenigman, Darja. 2015. ‘The talk goes many ways’: Registers of language and modes of performance in Kanjimei, East Sepik Province, Papua New Guinea. Canberra: The Australian National University. (PhD thesis.)

Hoenigman, Darja. Forthcoming. Talking about strings: The language of string figure-making in a Sepik society, Papua New Guinea. Language Documentation & Conservation Journal.
Origination date 2018-08-15
Origination date free form
Archive link https://catalog.paradisec.org.au/repository/DKH01/035_nam_kombonga
URL
Collector
Darja Hoenigman
Countries To view related information on a country, click its name
Language as given Awiakay
Subject language(s)
Content language(s) To view related information on a language, click its name
Dialect Awiakay
Region / village Oceania
Originating university
Operator Tina Gregor
Data Categories
Data Types MovingImage
Discourse type
Roles Darja Munbaŋgoapik : performer
DOI 10.26278/QFCN-VJ95
Cite as Darja Hoenigman (collector), Darja Munbaŋgoapik (performer), 2018. Nam komboŋa ‘The female mussel’. JPEG/MP4/MXF/TIFF. DKH01-035_nam_kombonga at catalog.paradisec.org.au. https://dx.doi.org/10.26278/QFCN-VJ95
Content Files (6)
Filename Type File size Duration File access
DKH01-035_nam_kombonga-01.jpg image/jpeg 609 KB
DKH01-035_nam_kombonga-01.mp4 video/mp4 25.7 MB 00:00:21.396
DKH01-035_nam_kombonga-01.mxf application/mxf 245 MB
DKH01-035_nam_kombonga-01.tif image/tiff 68.7 MB
DKH01-035_nam_kombonga-02.jpg image/jpeg 232 KB
DKH01-035_nam_kombonga-02.tif image/tiff 6.27 MB
6 files -- 346 MB -- --

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Collection Information
Collection ID DKH01
Collection title Awiakay string figures
Description Recordings of Awiakay string figures
Countries To view related information on a country, click its name
Languages To view related information on a language, click its name
Access Information
Edit access Tina Gregor
View/Download access
Data access conditions Open (subject to agreeing to PDSC access conditions)
Data access narrative
Metadata
RO-Crate Metadata
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