Paper short abstract:

<strong>Wed 14th Apr, 09:30</strong> Mwadale,the feast for the Collective Dead, in Sewa, Normanby Island, PNG, is extraordinary for its 18 large yam houses, mwadale, and huge platform built over the village centre, gamwana (stomach). The film explores the functions of the feast, which includes masking.

Paper long abstract:

Mwadale is the feast for the collective dead in Sewa, Normanby Island, Papua New Guinea. Eighteen tall yam houses were built in a circle in Biabiaunina village centre, the gamwana (stomach), the traditional burial ground. The yam houses, mwadale, are likened to birds, hornbills (binama), and are also seen as vulval and phallic. The spirits of the recently dead are called back to the village gamwana and oversee the feast.

The feast has broadly four main functions. First, it celebrates the recent collective dead; after the mwadale the spirits will return to Mount Bwebweso forever. Second, it represents closure, the real and final 'joining', on all the marriages of the village - divorce is very difficult for any couple after a mwadale has been made for them. Third, it's the one opportunity for ayai, outsiders to the village, to say what they really think about their in-laws. And lastly, mwadale epitomises the Sewa's strong resistance to the cultural dominance of their neighbours, the Dobu. Dobu is the lingua franca of the area. Though the Sewa have been converts to Christianity for about seventy years, the majority of them still hold to their traditional beliefs and customs.

Masking is generally thought (wrongly) to be absent from the Massim; and it is here examined. Before the handing down of the gifts of pork from the large central platform, which is built over the gamwana, two 'witches' - masked men - engage in mock battle