Harry A. Franklin, Bevꦑerly Hills, acquired by 1967

PUBLISHED

Ralph C. Altman et al., Art of New Guinea: Sepik, Maprik and Highlands, Los Angeles, 1967📖,🎶 p. 52, cat. no. 161, figs. 161 and 161 A

Allen Wardwell, The Art of the Sepik River, Chicago, 1971, p. 77, cat. no. 160 (listed)

George R. Ellis, Oceanic Art: A Celebration of Form, San Diego, 2009, p. 94, cat. no. 74

The Ethnic Art Galleries, University of California, Los Angeles, Art of New Guinea: Sepik, Maprik and Highlands, November 6 - December 30, 19♈67; additional venue: University Art Museum, University of Texas 🔯at Austin, circa April 1 - 30, 1968

The Art Institute of Chicago, The Art of the Sepik River, October 16 - November 28, 1971

San Diego Museum of Art, Oceanic Art: A Celebration of Form, January 31, 2009 - January 3, 2010

A PAIR OF SACRED FLUTE FIGURES

By Philippe Peltier 

One of the uncanniest experiences for those who visit the villages of the Sepik River Valley in Papua New Guinea is suddenly hearing the sound of flutes being played. The indistinct origin of their grave and unreal sound adds to the supernatural effect of their music and the village, dominated by the impressive men's houses, becomes tinged with an impalpable༺ and magical presence.

Traditionally flutes are instruments that belong to the sphere of secrecy. A myth tells that they were invented by women but that men, seduced by their melodious songs, seized them. Since then, they are played out of the sight of women and children in the confinement of an enclosure. Beyond the need to memorize the melodies – for nothing is written in the Sepik – playing these flutes requires from the instrumentalist both great technical mastery and formidable endurance. Two men, facing each other, alternately blow into the instrument, a long bamboo tube which is pierced with a hole at its end, creating a continuous and unusu൩al sound. The songs mimic those of the birds. The sounds are said to be the voice of the ancestors who manifest their presence during ceremonies, especially during the initiation of the young boys.

A carved wooden stopper is placed at the end of the instrument. The motifs vary by region and within particular villages, depending on the family group that owns the pair of flutes. The mythical ancestors of each family appear in human or animal form on the stoppers, and thus several pairs of flutes could be kept in the same village; t🅰he result is that these stoppers display a sta🦋ggering number of different forms.

The present two stoppers, with their somewhat surly faces, belong to the most realistic type. Their sculptural quality makes them stand out as rare and accomplished examples of Middle Sepik art. They were chosen by the connoisseur Allan Wardwell to appear in ꦅthe important exhibition on the art of the Sepik which he organized in Chicago in 1971. To correspond with the sex of the flutes one of the figures is female, the other male. The latter carries a pendant, which is carved to represent the pig teeth pectoral ornament, a badge reserved for the greatest hunters and the powerful and formidable figure of the mythical ancestor.

A Note on Attribution

The 1967 catalogue in which this pair of flute stoppers first appear indicates that "near Yuat River" is their origin; geographical and cultural attributions do not appear for most objects in the publication, which may suggest that this pair was once accompanied by some specific collection information (Ralph C. Altman et al., Art of New Guinea: Sepik, Maprik and Highlands, Los Angeles, 1967, p. 52). In the catalogue to his important exhibition on Sepik art, Allen Wardwell lists the pair in the "Middle Sepik, Iatmul Group" section of his catalogue (Wardwell, The Art of the Sepik River, Chicago, 1971, p. 77).

Friede notes that the Franklin pair offered here is "somewhat similar" to a similarly rare pair of flute ornaments in the Jolika Collection (see Friede, ed., New Guinea Art: Masterpieces from the Jolika Collection of Marcia and John Friede, San Francisco, 2005,, Vol. 1, p. 280, cat. nos. 249 and 250 for illustration, and Vol. 2, p. 122, text to cat. no. 250 for comment). Friede's attribution for the Jolika pair is "probably Sawos" (Vol. 2, ibid.). One may also note some resemblance between the Franklin pair and another flute ornament from the Jolika Collection, identified as Iatmul (see Friede, ed., ibid., Vol. 1, p. 207, cat. no. 176 for illustratiཧon, and Vol. 2, p. 111, text to cat.♓ no. 176).