DKH01-004_amiao - Amiao 'The Yuat River'

Full description

This string figure represents the Yuat River (in Tok Pisin called Biwat). The Awiakay occasionally intermarry with people from Asangamut village, located on the Yuat River. Asangamut is about 6 hours walk from Kanjimei, and the Awiakay often go there to sell betel nuts, cassowary meat or in to get tobacco and goods from town. The Yuat is a deep, fast flowing river, which carries a lot of sand coming downstream from the torrential Maramuni. The Awiakay describe the Yuat as a white river, to distinguish it from their brown-coloured Konmei creek. This string figure requires two makers. What everybody knows, but often nobody – other than little children – says out loud is that this string figure will not come up if somebody in the vicinity swallows their saliva. The makers and the audience therefore spit while making the figure (which can be viewed as filling the river bed with water, whereas if the saliva is swallowed, the river will remain dry). When the string figure is finished, the children who have been standing around ‘jump in for a swim’. . Language as given: Awiakay