Ceremonial Payback Angoram Dancing Dagger Sepik Papua

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All our handcrafted or rare collector items come with pages and pages of research, about provenance, with history of the tribes and photos as well, depending on item and whenever possible.

Rare ceremonial dancing dagger from the East Sepik river, collected on the premises from a tribesman, in Angoram village. Size: 20 X 8", hand carved and hand painted with natural pigments to represent traditional tattoos, inserts of Nassa and other shell decorations and cassowary feathers as a crown.

Ceremonial daggers are never used as a weapon although some people refer to them as such. These daggers are used to control debates that are not in the Haus Tambaran and sometimes in dances. The legend has it that depending on who you ask the dagger either moves through the ground or turns to face the man with the "strongest talk" and this man has his say until the dagger chooses someone else. Actually what happens is that the dagger is pushed into ground in front of the man who is about to talk. As in the Haus Tambaran, quite often, there is a background level of discussion, the power coming from this object gives the speaker the confidence to talk above everyone else. Such instruments also have a power as payback tools.

The payback or ceremonial bone or wood daggers have clay or wood carved heads painted with clan designs. In the case of a payback use, the face represents the person to be avenged in the payback or wantok ceremony. The payback account is usually settled with the killing of an animal or a bird or in the past, a man. Mask above bears clan motifs which are similar to the designs painted on the participants' faces during ceremonies.

Wantok keeps a tribe together (Pidgin for “One Talk”). Wantok means “tribe”: people from the same tribe must be loyal to each other. The positive side of this system is that there are strong family ties & members of the tribe help each other out, but on the negative side, there is a problem with favoring members of the same Wantok in official issues. Wealth & power is also very important. The Bigman (chief) will show his wealth in the form of shells, boar tusks & wives.

The wantok payback system is one of collective retribution, a practice that generally has all the outward appearances of preparation for war. Men in war paint and a special array of feathers face off in a field or clearing, wielding their clubs and spears and bows and arrows. Wantok may, in fact, lead to all-out clan warfare, but its function is more nearly that of a primitive judicial system. The collectivized "tooth for a tooth" tradition, like that in Appalachia's legendary Hatfields and McCoys feud, held that a transgression--anything from minor theft to murder--by a member of one clan against a member of another was to be paid back in kind, but against any member of the offending clan, rather than necessarily against the one guilty of the offense.

Papua' s most spectacular bird would have to be the cassowary which feathers are mounted into this piece. These birds are up to two meters tall, covered in coarse black double stranded feathers, with brilliant colors of red and blue on its neck and head. The cassowary (Casuarius casuarius johnsonii) has been wandering around this planet since before the super continent Gondwana broke up in to several continents, and they have relatives in several distant continents. They belong to a family of birds called ratites and are related to the Emu, the Ostrich, the Rhea & the Kiwi. This bird has a razor sharp spur on its foot that can kill a man in an instant if kicked. The feathers are prized because of the difficulty in finding and hunting these dangerous animals.

Our prices are very low as we sell mostly wholesale and we go straight to the source to find these treasures, so you are getting the advantage of that saving as well as the advantage of the wholesale price without having to purchase multiples for a little while longer while we are making room.