Ceremonial spears

Ornately decorated spears are used by the Gunantuna people for many different ceremonial occasions. Made primarily from palm wood and adorned with feathers and other materials, including Diwarra (shell money), the final choice of materials always depends on the spear’s intended use.

The spears made to accompany the Tutana are initiation spears. The highest form of initiation that Gunantuna men are subjected to is the ‘Nidok’. During the Nidok, spears principally symbolise the fee that a person will pay to the spirit figure that is conducting the ceremony. Known as a Tabuan, this figure represents a clan’s secret society. Each spear is decorated with the fee that the initiate would pay.

Today, commercially available ropes and coloured wools are also used to decorate the spears. In the context of the Nidok ceremony, these synthetic adornments do diminish the spear’s power, which resides firmly in the shell money it carries, limiting the spear’s ritual use as the incantations made to confer its special powers.

— Gideon Kakabin