Women and uninitiated boys may not see an orara, nor an umuruburo. These, together with the madubu and marari, are carried at night-time from the house to the bush, and returned to their hidden receptacles in the end-rooms of the long houses. Between the moguru ceremony and the yam harvest the men make pandean pipes, and every young man carries and plays one.
Fig. 8. Agricultural Charms of Kiwai
(One-sixth natural size)
Three madubu (bull-roarers) for yams, and two umuruburo (female effigies) for sago
I was informed of one fact which may throw some light on initiation ceremonies. The human effigies “look after” sago in the same way as the bull-roarers “look after” yams, sweet potatoes, and bananas. According to some notes made by Ray, the orara is shown to the initiates during the north-west monsoon, at the time when the sago is planted; but the madubu is swung and shown to the initiates when yams are planted in the south-east monsoon.
When food is scarce or of bad quality, if, for instance, a sago palm is split and found to be “no good,” the natives make moguru and put “medicine along moguru for kaikai” that is, perform moguru magic for food. Unfortunately there was not time for me to follow up this line of inquiry, but probably it will be found that the moguru ceremony is primarily a fertility ceremony, perhaps originally agricultural, and later social. The younger members of the community had to be initiated, some time or other, into the processes necessary for producing a good harvest. The time when the lad was growing into a man would suggest itself as being a suitable time for this, and for being instructed about his nurumara, and being recognised as a member of the clan.
In several parts of the world certain rites connected with agriculture were, or are, performed by nude women, and it is possible that these nude female effigies may have an analogous significance. Later I shall allude to the association of girls with the annual agricultural ceremonies in the Hood Peninsula. Probably a secondary sexual element has crept into the significance of these effigies in Kiwai. Similar effigies were said to have been employed as love charms in Murray Island, and I did not find out that there they had any agricultural significance; but this may merely have been due to the fact that a specialisation had taken place, owing to insular conditions.
Fig. 9. Neur Madub, or Love Charm