FLY RIVER, PAPUA NEW GUINEA

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Magical belief and practice were long deeply ingrained in Melanesian society, and echoes of them are still felt in the island complex in the present era. Traditionally, sorcery was used for both harmful and helpful ends, both of which might require the use of an enchanted object. Those who possessed the necessary expertise could create one through the application or insertion of powerful substances like blood or beeswax. In order to heal, a sorcerer could use a magical implement to find and return important things that were missing or stolen, such as the soul of a person afflicted with illness. Or, with harmful intent, they might utter a spell over the item and symbolically ‘shoot’ it into a victim to bring sickness or death.

This is a very rare example of just such an implement. Shaped from a crocodile tooth, it is carved in the form of a stylized bird’s head, possibly a Papuan hornbill. The fusion of land, water, and air symbolism in this object possibly granted its user the ability to travel through and between both the physical and spiritual realms. For a similar example, possibly collected from the same village, see object number 61:2000 in the St. Louis Art Museum and featured in Tribal #101, August 2021.

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