Namau - Religion and Expressive Culture

Religious Beliefs. The central concept in Namau religion was imunu, an all-pervading force (like mana elsewhere in Oceania) that took a different form in each kind of being or object. Thus river spirits were regarded as the mythological sources of the river clans, and other natural phenomena and local fauna were believed to have their own spiritual forces. Vengeful ghosts or spirits of slain warriors as well as the spirits of ancestors were thought to be able to trouble the living.

Religious Practitioners. Traditional Namau ritual life was a male province; women were not initiated into the esoterica of a patrilineage's river spirit or totem. Each ravi had two or more hereditary priests, who presided over ceremonies. Sorcerers, too, were thought to be men, characterized by an excess of ambition, willful failure to fulfill kin-based ritual obligations, and a lack of generosity.

Ceremonies. Large wickerwork masks and effigies featured importantly in traditional ceremonies, which were held for boys' initiations and other life-cycle events as well as to secure success in or celebrate victory after wars. Marriages, however, do not seem to have been marked by a particular ceremony.

Arts. The most dramatic of all Namau artistic productions were the woven masks, of which there were two types: the large kanipu, which were maintained in the men's house; and the aiai masks, constructed for specific ceremonies and later burned. The dominant motif on masks as well as in most Namau carving (of bowls and spoons, canoe prows, etc.) is the stylized representation of a face. Other Namau decorative arts include carved bark ceremonial belts, carved combs and drums, and pearl-shell breastplates. Noseplugs, earplugs, scarification, shaving heads, and hairdressing were elements of bodily adornment.

Medicine. Namau traditionally believed that all illness and misfortune ultimately resulted from the activity of spirits, with or without the involvement of a human agent through sorcery. Cures thus centered on entreating or cajoling the responsible spirit to stop the attack. For this a ritual specialist, versed in the skills of communicating with the spirits, was called in. In 1949 the London Missionary Society built a hospital in the region, and each of the larger village-style Namau settlements now has a local clinic dispensing Western-style health care.

Death and Afterlife. In the past, kin expressed mourning by observing food taboos and covering themselves with mud and dirt. Usually the deceased was wrapped in a mat and left to decompose in its house (now abandoned) with the bones later kept as relics or charms; sometimes, especially under mission influence, the corpse was buried in the village. A Ritual feast for the dead brought together all members of the tribe; food was accumulated by the relatives of the deceased and the spirit of the latter was thought to extract the essence of the food, leaving behind its physical form to be shared by mourners and guests. The feast officially released mourners from their external forms of mourning and the associated food taboos. It was thought that the spirit of the deceased stayed in the vicinity and might return as a ghost to annoy or harm its kin.