66
Outer plain covering removed from ceremonial hat
The photographs, taken in 1975, were of three young men who first had plain hats on. After the first set of pictures were taken, two of the older men present removed the outer plain covering of the Upes to reveal
beautifully and colorfully designed hats. We had taken every precaution to be where no one else could see what was happening, especially the women and girls.
The second set of pictures, taken several years later, were of a friend’s two teenage sons. The friend had made both Upe hats himself and was pleased to have the pictures taken. Again, it was done in secrecy behind
the buildings of the hamlet. Initially, the boys had cloth covering their hair. They went into a small building and put on their ceremonial hats for the photographs. After the pictures were taken, the hats were removed and
I was allowed to take pictures of their shoulder-length hair. It had been smeared with coconut grease and soot, in order to make it appear very black and shiny. The younger son said that he had had his hat on since 1975,
which I questioned because of the relatively short length of his hair.
The Upe hat is made so that the mass of uncut hair accumulating over the months and years holds the hat in place on the initiate’s head. Nowadays, until the hair is sufficient to hold the hat in place, the Upe boys
cover the thickening mass of hair with cloth bandannas. In the past, they spent this initial time away from the village and out of sight. Once the hair has grown sufficiently to hold the hat in place, it is called by a special
term geegeru which pertains only to the long hair of Upe initiates.
After having his photograph taken, one of the two boys explained about his hair. He said that an evil spirit tugarato resided in it. If I were to sit on his hair, the evil spirit would cause feces to come out of my nose and
from underneath my fingernails and toenails. He attributed the spirit being to the Upe leaders who had “gathered” it from the jungle.
5.4 Related Taboos and Rites
In the past, the choosing of the initiates took place at a special village ceremony. Invitations were sent out, taro gardens were checked for adequate amounts of available food, and pig meat was secured. During a part of
the ceremony, the boys were taken to the boy’s house avata, chosen, their hair combed sipari, and their noses pierced avui. They were then returned to the feast and subsequent singsing. Following this, the boys
were isolated toropo pie in the jungle and the training commenced.
Recently, a mother told us that the leaders had asked that her son be initiated—Rera upeive. They would upeinitiate him. But she said, “no”, and he ran away to avoid them. He was subsequently accepted back in the
village. No effects of avoiding the Upe initiation have been noticed in this young man’s village life. As has already been mentioned, during the period of the Upe initiation, no one is allowed to cut the boys’
hair; neither is anyone allowed to wash it. In the past, the hair would sometimes grow to knee length. Today, the hat is more often removed and the hair cut before it grows to that length.
67 A second significant taboo governs the initiates and parents. During one portion of the training period,
food is prepared by the mother in the village, but taken to the boy only by the father. Our friend’s son said that every Friday afternoon, his father would bring him papaya and a coconut concoction. A specially-prepared
soup, held in the laps of picked members of the Upe group, is also part of this special diet. During part of the initiation period, the parents have to follow the same diet restrictions as their son.
When the boys are further from home and more isolated in the bush, the older men prepare other special foods for the initiates from various trees and shrubs. This food is to give the boys the power gorua which
comes from a spirit being tokarasi, mentioned earlier. The spirit is represented by an “idol” from which the power comes to perform white and black magic. The boys’ bodies grow strong. A demonstration of the
strength gained has already been mentioned in section 5.2. This supernatural act, called erako purisi, involves breakingcutting down in some way a large tree by means of the tokarasi’s power.
While on the restricted diet mentioned above, the boys lose a significant amount of weight, one of the mothers said. She stated that the Upe leaders “spoil” the boys’ bodies even though the purpose is to cause
them to be strong and well developed. This period of restricted diet is called the “fast” aio kavu. During this time, the boys cannot touch the food prepared for them, but must eat it from a frame trough without handling
it.
During this time, special hunts take place. The boys are not allowed to eat or drink just prior to hunting the animals. When the opossum is found, the boys are not allowed to touch it, but have to handle it in some way as
to insulate popota the animal from their hands. The fathers, who sometimes accompany the boys, are responsible for bagging the game.
Aukueto cliff located high in the Emperor Range
Part of the taboo involves the period away from parents mainly the mother, during which the boys are under the care and discipline of the Upe leader. In the past, the leader was said to be a spirit being. He created a
thick fog to cover his identity when he came to get the boys from the village. In another story, the spirit being appears to the parents of the boy and tells them to get food and a small house ready for him. In yet another
68 story, the Upe leader is named Aukueto, and it is said that he lives in the hole of a large stone. Once, while
crossing the Emperor Range, we passed by Aukueto cliff, located high in the interior where this spirit being is said to have his abode. His name means “spirit of the stone” or “spirit of the boys’ house”.
In the past, under the leadership of Aukueto or nowadays a respected older man knowledgeable in the ways of the Upe there were four older boys who served as assistants. Two of the boys chosen from the two
dominant clans were of higher rank than the two from subclans. These four assistants were entrusted with the routine care of boys from their opposite clan groups. The initiates were grouped according to their four clan
groups [see chapter 6 on the Clan system]. The “leader boys” were in charge of distributing the food chosen by the main leader. They were also responsible for leading their groups into the bush during the training period.
Toward the end of the very disciplined, restricted diet, a special meal is prepared, called sururu aio. Unfortunately, we don’t know much about it. A mother said that streams known as sururu kara are taboo to the
women. These streams are up near the top of Mt. Balbi, between the Rotokas and Keriaka sides. She said that a Keriaka man had come to this area on December 15, 1976, in order to make sururu aio for the initates. This
special meal is not to be eaten hastily. Neither is the food to be supplemented by any other foods, lest the initiates “spoil” their own bodies.
There are various “trials” which the boys have to go through during this period of isolation in the vuavuriko-ia area in the jungle where training takes place. They sleep with little or no coverings on beds
located close to appealing, but prohibited, food. The main leader can choose to restrict both food and water for periods of time at his discretion. The total length of this isolated period of training is up to this same leader. A
recent session was five months long.
If an initiate stays back in the village area, thus breaking the taboo, one of the four leaders is told and appropriate discipline is administered. These leaders are later paid for their services by the fathers who belong
to their particular clan. If the breaking of initiation-related taboos are not punished by one of the four leaders, it may well be
punished by supernatural means. In fact, the boys are told that a limbum palm katokoi will splinter and fall on them, if they are disobedient.
Younger boys in their early teens can eat papaya, but this fruit is prohibited for older teenagers. If the boys do eat the prohibited foods, they become susceptible to the outbreak of “many sores”, some of which are
“everlasting sores”, in the words of a young friend. There are two cases in Togarao that this boy attributes to the eating of taboo foods. The first is a fairly recent incident, during which a man teased his brother about
eating pig, which he was prohibited to eat as an Upe initiate. The brother asked the initiate what he had done with the pig meat, and the reply was that he had tossed it away. He had, however, eaten the meat. Not long
afterwards sores began to appear. In time, “one of the legs was so badly infected that it had to be amputated.”
The second person was an old friend whose sore we had tried to treat on several occasions without success. Eventually, the man’s leg was amputated just below the knee. In our opinion, it was due to a severe
tropical ulcer. My friend attributed it to the man’s eating of pitpit kukara, which was on the prohibited list of the Upes’ diet.
In the past, there was a certain degree of protection from the evil spirit’s wrath for the initiates. In the area where the rituals and meals took place, a carved wooden mask called an uvaruto was placed. If a protective
“medicine” wasn’t worn upon entering this area, then injuries, sickness, sores, relatives’ miscarriages, etc., would result. The Upe boys carried the medicine on their bodies. When the initiate finally removed the hat for
the last time, these medicines were also removed in a ceremonial washing usually just prior to marriage.
The taboo related to the feminine sex has already been mentioned. To facilitate this prohibition, the initiates’ house avata was built on the edge of the village, away from the main population areas. This is true
today, as well. One of the young women in the village of Togarao could not even eat some grapefruit we offered her. The reason, we found out later, was that the grapefruit had come from a tree growing near the Upe
boys’ house.
At the time the new United Church building was being planned in Togarao, the layout of the floor called for a separate walled-off section for the Upe initiates at the rear of the building. Later, this was not
incorporated in the building and the initiates merely sat in the very back of the building, several rows behind any women.
In the past, the breaking of this taboo by either sex could be extremely severe. An older friend had run his spear through the abdomen of a young woman made pregnant by an Upe initiate. The fetus was killed. The
initiate ran away and escaped punishment. Women and girls could be killed or beaten severely if they were to cross the paths of Upe initiates. If hats
were seen off the heads of the boys, or if the boys were seen without their hats on, the woman or girl could be
69 killed. The reason was said to be so the women would not see the initiates before the boys’ bodies were
“ready.” Today, the severity of the punishment is much less. In fact, we can’t remember any woman or girl being
punished to any degree for having been too close to initiates. A Catholic priest told of one older woman who crawled on her knees out of “respect” past an Upe initiate
while leaving the service one Sunday morning. This was at Asitavi in a relatively large Catholic church building.
Even a young man felt that it was not wise to go too near the Upe initiates, since they had only recently returned from their time in the bush, a five-month period. They were still on a restricted diet of sweet potato
only. He felt it was not safe for him to be in their immediate vicinity, lest he become contaminated and “spoil” the body of a village child, if he should inadvertently touch it this was in 1976.
In the past, the punishment of an initiate who prematurely removed his Upe hat could result in the death of the parents. In 1981, the punishment was monetary. The boys had to pay K20 if they removed their hats
without authorization. At that time, the Youth Group leaders of the United Church were being charged in the village court for allegedly having “persuaded” initiates to take off their hats and quit the initiation rituals.
Later, the government in Arawa declared that there had been no law prohibiting this kind of persuasion whether or not they actually had done so, and therefore, the K60 fines each were illegally imposed.
Although optional, an important part of the Upe rituals has to do with the renaming of the initiates and their parents during the initiation period. At the time of the fast aio kavu, the names of the boys are changed.
The purpose of the special food given at this time is to cause a “rebirth” of the initiate through the power invested in the food. The boy has a new start in life. The name change symbolizes what takes place. The
parents are free to choose whether or not to change their names at this time, as well. One friend decided not to change his own name when his son did. Some of the new names once belonged to powerful leaders of bygone
days.
In the past, there were often problems with keeping names straight on government census rolls. A boy’s name might have been changed twice due to the initiation practices, resulting in three different names for the
roll: 1 birth name, 2 name change at time of Upe fast, and 3 if chosen to be an Upe group leader, the name was changed once more. For the same reasons, parents might have two name changes, as well. The name
changes occurred only during the first son’s initiation. The initiation of following sons did not affect the names of the parents.
5.5 Divining
