Chapter 4 Life-Cycle Rituals: Female Puberty (Nuhune Pinamou) |

Chapter 4 Life-cycle rituals: female puberty (nuhune pinamou) 4.1 introduction Although there is no generic term for ‘puberty ceremony’ or ‘initiation’ in Nuaulu language, there is a clear conceptual affinity in the minds of all participants between the ceremonies for males (matahenne) and those for females (nuhune pinamou). The two ceremonies well exemplify the re- spective roles of the two clan sacred houses, that of the chief and that of the kapitane – the first being the locus for female puberty rites, and the second the locus for male rites. As in the birth ceremonies, ritual unifies the two halves of the clan – the two houses – and intertwines the two lines of descent. In particular the male ritual stresses descent and ancestral continuity (reflected in a mountain focus), while female ritual emphasizes continuity in the role of the ancestors through biological reproduction. These symbolically complex ideas are embodied and physically constituted in movements and relations along the geographic mountain-seaward axis, and for most participants it is these actions that have a memorate primacy and significance over words and meanings. Both sets of ritual show that life is a movement to and from ancestral union: the neophytes receive ancestral approval, which establishes their role in society as potential vehicles for reproduction – pinamou in the case of a girl, who becomes a tanaite (taken wife) in her father’s house; and matahenne in the case of a boy, who becomes a hanahanai (given husband) in his father’s house. I describe these ceremonies as ‘puberty’ rather than ‘initiation’ rituals, mindful of the strictures made by Allen (1967:5), but it will be evident that the male ceremonies do provide an opportunity for peer-bonding and display features of collective age-set behaviour reminiscent of some of the descriptions in the Melanesian ethnography. Roy Ellen - 9789004253452 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:36:26PM via free access | Nuaulu Religious Practices I have witnessed two full sets of female seclusion rituals, and recorded some secondary descriptions. Rosemary Bolton provides an account of the ritual for Hunahatu Matoke (1992) and a full description of the combined ceremonies for Maleha and Wanaa Soumori held in Rouhua in February 1992. 4.2 first menstrual seclusion It is usual for a girl to mention to her mother when she has her first menstruation and then go to a menstrual hut (posune) on the edge of the village, an action that is not otherwise ceremonialized. Before she is formally ‘entered’ into a special hut, the posune pinamou, she can only consume uncooked food. This biological event is sometimes referred to as the time from which a girl needs a rembetai, or menstrual cloth, traditionally attached to the kaponte, or girdle, of a first-menses female. From this moment onwards, until she marries, a girl is referred to and addressed as pinamou. Her personal name is not used, and she becomes the special responsibility of her nuhune upue, or guardian, who mediates between her and her nuhune spirit. The female guardian is usually the wife of the head of the complementary clan section or ‘house’, or what Tongli calls her ‘mother-house’. Although the term nuhune upue may refer to both male head and his wife, it is also used here to refer to the wife alone. Structurally, this is the female equivalent of the morite relationship in male puberty ceremonies, which will be discussed in Chapter 5. What this amounts to in experiential terms is perhaps best captured in my fieldnotes from 1973: On 31 August Pinaone had her first menstruation. When she recognized it she immediately went to a tree behind the posune and sat there. Young children came and mocked and joked with her that she had had her first menstruation and was now a pinamou, no longer a child. The first period is known as wo niai, short for worono nihahai or worono niane nihahai, which refers to the inside of the ancient village of Ouh, located on a ridge behind Rouhua and marked by stones. This appears to be a euphemism for the inside of the vagina, the contents of which have come out – the first menstrual blood. A temporary shelter has been erected around Pinaone 108 Roy Ellen - 9789004253452 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:36:26PM via free access Chapter 4 Life-cycle rituals: female puberty (nuhune pinamou) | in which she must stay until a proper posune is constructed. She eats young coconut flesh until other food can be arranged for her. As soon as possible after first menstruation a mother will approach the nuhune guardian in order to seek permission to construct the menstruation hut where the girl will be secluded until her kin are ready to conduct a formal puberty rite. But before that, a temporary hut must be found or built, generally one that has not already been used by a birthing mother or another girl for her first menstruation. They may be from another clan or from the opposing house within the girl’s clan. Where the hut has been built by someone from another clan, the person responsible must be given a plate in advance of the ‘entering ritual’. The permanent hut occupied by a first-menses girl is constructed by her sister’s husband or his son, in other words, men from a different clan, though it is often the case that a girl’s sister or other female relatives will assist (Plate 4.1a). The hut is built in a seaward and sunset direction, and is generally larger than a conventional posune, with a surrounding wall (koka) of up to two metres from the hut on each side, creating a kind of yard. This provides extra space for cooking and exercise during seclusion. One that I measured in 1971 was 720 cm long by 540 cm wide, and about 150 cm high. The wall may be made of prepared sections of sago thatch, or in some cases of unprepared sago leaves or coconut fronds. The important feature is that adult men cannot see in, and thereby be contaminated by menstrual pollution. 4.3 entering ritual When the posune pinamou is complete, or a suitable hut has been found and relevant kin been informed and gathered in, a girl is formally ‘entered’. This ideally occurs on the same day as her menstrual period starts, but may be delayed if a hut has to be built, or if the necessary participants are not available. The nuhune guardian goes to the sacred house accompanied by her husband, the brothers of the girl’s mother, other siblings of the parents, the girl’s parents, grandparents, siblings, the wives of her brothers, the clan chief or kapitane and their wives (if these are not also the nuhune guardians), and other women who have taken their husbands from the 109 Roy Ellen - 9789004253452 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:36:26PM via free access (a) (b) (c) Plate 4.1 Female puberty ceremony, Rouhua: (a) Suniapi and Mariam constructing Pinaonai’s first menstrual posune, September 1973; (b) female kin assembling at door of posune for the washing ceremony for pinamou Unsa, July 1970; (c) pinamou Unsa in ceremonial attire after the washing ceremony at the posune, July 1970. Roy Ellen - 9789004253452 Downloaded from Brill.com10/01/2021 05:36:26PM via free access Chapter 4 Life-cycle rituals: female puberty (nuhune pinamou) | clan. The guardian cuts a kokune (Callicarpa longifolia) branch as firewood, prepares sago fibre (hatane nene upone), or nowadays often a plastic sack. In the case of Matoke and Soumori, a ring is also taken. A fire is lit in the fireplace, which is then used to ignite five pieces of firewood. When Pinaone was entered in September 1973, her nuhune guardian (Niniaione Neipane-tomoien) took fire from the clan sacred house to the posune where Pinaone herself lit the fire, cooked and ate sonar monne, ‘sacred sago porridge’. When all are ready, the women accompany the nuhune guardian who, carrying the lit bundle of firewood and other items, leaves by the inland door of the sacred house for the posune. The girl squats just inside the sunset door of the posune, and her guardian stands just outside in front of the other women. Invoking the female nuhune spirit, she moves the lit firewood forward five times towards the girl, who places the bundle down inside the posune. The guardian then moves the ring forward five times, and gives it to the girl, who threads through it a slither of bamboo epiderm which she uses to attach it to the roof of the posune above the fireplace. The ring will protect the girl for the duration of her seclusion, and echoes an episode in the creation myth where two women, discov- ered by the younger brother of the clan founder, wore rings and other items still used in female rituals. The pinamou again squats just inside the sunset door of the posune and the guardian moves the piece of sago fibre (or plastic sack) forward five times and places it on her head. The pinamou makes a fire with the embers she has been given; she prepares to boil water in green bamboo and makes sago porridge. The women present advise her to ensure that the sago doesn’t turn white and that she sleep lightly so that the fire burns continuously for five days. Most of the women, including the guardian, then return to the sacred house and soon afterwards disperse to their separate dwellings. After five days, the nuhune guardian returns to the posune to blacken the pinamou.

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