| Description |
This string figure requires two string figure-makers, and a number of bystanders.
When the string figure is finished (which is when ‘bananas’ ripen), it develops into a make-believe game (cf. Goldman 1998 for a discussion of make-believe in Huli children’s play).
When a bunch of bananas is brought from a garden and hung in the house, it takes a few days before the fruit ripen. They start ripening one by one, and while people wait for them to be ready, rats take their share at night. As a result, most bunches of bananas have the best fruits partly eaten by rats.
While the string figure-makers are finishing the figure, one of the bystanders prompts a child to go and get some ashes from a fireplace. The game continues with the string figure-makers pretending to go to sleep, which is when a group of children (the ‘rats’) come and steal their string (the ‘bananas’). When the string figure-makers ‘wake up’, they look for their ‘bananas’, wondering who might have taken them. They continue playing the game, describing a situation which is all too familiar to every Awiakay child: when they wake up and want to eat ripe bananas, they are nowhere to be found – all that is left are the ‘torn bags’ where bananas were hidden.
In the meantime, the ‘rats’ are eating the stolen bananas, indicated by the children untangling the string. The younger children are excited at the thought of doing something forbidden, namely eating the stolen ‘bananas’ before people come to chase them, while the older ones act like adults, repeating the often heard phrases such as waoaniŋeŋ ‘don’t fight over food’, or aka muim, menda kumbrakanay ‘don’t look at him while he’s eating, he might bite his tongue’.
The string figure-makers now spot the group of ‘rats’ and pretend to take a spear to kill them. When all the ‘bananas’ are eaten (that is, when the string is untangled), the ‘rats’ need to go and return the empty stem. The ‘angry people’ (the two string figure-makers) are waiting for them, promising to take their revenge by impaling the thieving rats with fishing spears and embellishing their words with details drawn from real life. The more detailed the descriptions of what they’ll do to the ‘rats’, the more laughter they elicit from the audience. When the ‘rats’ finally get the courage to come and return the bare banana stem, the people take their revenge by blowing ashes into their faces.
(For a more detailed analysis of this string figure see Hoenigman, forthcoming).
Image:
02: The ripest bananas in the bunch are usually eaten by rats at night.
Hoenigman, Darja. Forthcoming. Talking about strings: The language of string figure-making in a Sepik society, Papua New Guinea. Language Documentation & Conservation Journal.
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