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Sacred Flutes, Fertility, And Growth In The Papua New Guinea Highlands, Terence E. Hays

Faculty Publications

Since Read's (1952) classic study of the nama cult of the Goroka area, ethnographers in the Papue New Guinea Highlands haved focused considerable attention on what I shall refere to as a "sacred flute complex" around which men's cults are organized. The flutes have been seen as acore symbol of male hegemony, and their associated riges and dogma as key factors in the perpetuation of "antagonistic" relations between the sexes, for which that region has long been known. In specific cases ethnographers have provided ingenious and persuasive analyses of the symbolic aspects of sacred flutes (e.g., Herdt 1981, 1982; Gillison …