The archaeology of cassowary bones in New Guinea

Archaeologically, the presence of cassowary bones is very sparse throughout New Guinea. In West Papua, cassowary eggshells, bones and possible artefacts are found in both Toé and Kria caves (Pasveer Reference Pasveer2004) including several Maluku sites (O'Connor et al. Reference O'Connor, Aplin, Pasveer, Hope, O'Connor, Spriggs and Veth2005). While we have yet to uncover cassowary bones in the archaeological context in East Sepik, partly due to a lack of research, to its west, bones have been reported from Lachitu (O'Connor et al. Reference O'Connor, Barham, Aplin, Dobney, Fairbairn and Richards2011). In the montane region, cassowary bones, bone tools and eggshells have been recovered from Kiowa (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1964; Denham Reference Denham2016; Gaffney et al. Reference Gaffney, Summerhayes, Luu, Menzies, Douglass, Spitzer and Bulmer2021), Aibura (White Reference White1972) and Nombe (Denham & Mountain Reference Denham and Mountain2016; Gaffney et al. Reference Gaffney, Summerhayes, Luu, Menzies, Douglass, Spitzer and Bulmer2021; Mountain Reference Mountain1991; White Reference White1972), bones at Kamapuk (Aplin Reference Aplin1981; Christiansen Reference Christiansen1975) and eggshells at Yuku (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1975; Denham Reference Denham2016; Gaffney et al. Reference Gaffney, Summerhayes, Luu, Menzies, Douglass, Spitzer and Bulmer2021), Kafiavana and Batari (White Reference White1972). Further south in the Gulf, several sites containing bones have been reported (Rhoads Reference Rhoads1980). In the Central Province, bones have also been reported from Oposisi and Urourina (Vanderwal Reference Vanderwal1973), Nebira (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1979) and within the Bootless Bay area (Allen Reference Allen2017, 35). Most recently, research revealed that cassowary eggshells at Yuku (17,500 years old) are earlier than Kiowa (dated to 12,000 years ago), and eggshells at Toé cave are the earliest direct evidence dating to the Last Glacial Maximum for the exploitation of cassowary nests (Gaffney et al. Reference Gaffney, Summerhayes, Luu, Menzies, Douglass, Spitzer and Bulmer2021). Furthermore, recent analysis into cassowary eggshell microstructural variation from the Highlands region has revealed a distinct pattern of harvesting eggs which may reflect human dietary preferences and hunting seasonality (Douglass et al. Reference Douglass, Gaffney, Feo, Bulathsinhala, Mack, Spitzer and Summerhayes2021). Altogether, these sites show evidence of human–cassowary interactions from the Late Pleistocene to Holocene (Douglass et al. Reference Douglass, Gaffney, Feo, Bulathsinhala, Mack, Spitzer and Summerhayes2021, 50–53) which could possibly suggest their bones have also been worked into tools.

Cassowary bone daggers

Cassowary bone daggers are often made out of the tibiotarsus. These daggers’ diagnostic features have been described by various scholars (e.g. Dominy et al. Reference Dominy, Mills, Yakacki, Roscoe and Carpenter2018; Newton Reference Newton1989). Typically, ‘the Sepik cassowary bone dagger has no separate or demarcated grip and no guards’; indeed, it is the length of the actual tibiotarsus bone (Newton Reference Newton1989, 307). The average length is about 30 cm and its widest is 3 cm (Fig. 4; see also Newton Reference Newton1989, 307). As these objects’ intended purpose is weaponry, they are often sharpened at the edge or shaped into a needlepoint at the proximal point of the object. As can be seen in Figure 5, the Auwim cassowary daggers recorded in 2018 are simple, with a smooth surface and with no abstract designs. There might have been earlier specimens with intricate designs, but this has not yet been established from the current local informants and/or museums around the globe. However, Newton (Reference Newton1989, 308, 312, 319) has identified and collated various bone dagger types with designs from other areas of East Sepik.

Figure 4.

A digital tracing showing estimated measurements of the cassowary bone dagger from Pundimbung site. (Original photograph: Hubert Forestier, Papuan Past Project. Digital drawing and reproduction by Roxanne Tsang.)

Figure 5.

A cassowary bone dagger object at Pundimbung rock shelter in 2018. (Photograph: Hubert Forestier, Papuan Past Project.)

Newton's (Reference Newton1989) work focused on the bone daggers of the coastal and inland plains of East Sepik and their distribution in space associated with language, including their mythological and cultural aspects. He highlighted that they are prevalent near the border in West Sepik and the Ramu River areas (Newton Reference Newton1989, 307). However, he also mentions that they are common in inland East Sepik, but this is as yet under researched. Recently, Dominy et al. (Reference Dominy, Mills, Yakacki, Roscoe and Carpenter2018) analysed bone daggers (both human femur and cassowary tibia) from museum collections. They used computed tomography to scan each specimen collected from the early–mid twentieth century, measured the properties of modern cassowary bones, and then compared their results. Their results suggest ‘that people in the Sepik region … engineered human bone daggers to withstand breakage, and that their prevailing motivation was to preserve intact the embodiment of symbolic strength and social prestige’ which concurs with ‘signalling theory’ (Dominy et al. Reference Dominy, Mills, Yakacki, Roscoe and Carpenter2018, 10). In this context, the human dagger seems to be more powerful considering that ‘emi bun bilong yumi [it is our bones]’, implying that these are their ancestors’ bones and, thereby, give them more strength in combat including tribal warfare (Newton Reference Newton1989, 306).

Cassowary bone daggers are very sparse archaeologically, which may generally relate to the tropical environment conditions in New Guinea (see e.g. Basiaco et al. Reference Basiaco, Urwin and Manne2020) and/or lack of research. The absence of bone daggers could also relate to their being valued and therefore not so readily discarded. At Nombe, White (Reference White1972) briefly reported bone artefacts from his 1964 excavations. Forty-six pieces of worked bone were recovered. Strikingly similar in shape to the current bone daggers from East Sepik are what White (Reference White1972, 134–5, figs. 24b, c, & f) describes as ‘awls’ and the ‘broad flat point’. Six awls of 6.3–8.3 cm long are made from bird or bat long bone, which is rather smaller (in size) than the recently carved daggers. Locals associated the awls with tools for making armlets and orchid fibre, while the 11 broad flat points were considered to be made from splitting sections of long bone. White (Reference White1972, 134–5) indicated that they are probably made from macropod or cassowary bones, although the specimens were fragmented. He cautiously speculated that awls seem to be more recent as they are found near the surface. The broad flat points correspond to Kiowa jabbers (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1966, 102, 106, cited in White Reference White1972, 134), which are commonly found in the lower horizon at Nombe. He argued that the lower horizons of Nombe generally correspond to Kiowa levels 4–8, while the tools in the upper part of Nombe are similar to those of Kiowa levels 1–2, which are older than about 5000 years bp (White Reference White1972, 135). White also speculated that Nombe postdates Kiowa and cassowaries were rarer before, or the absence of cassowary bones at Nombe might relate to different site use (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1966; White Reference White1972, 130). This suggests the possible use of bird bone daggers from 5000 years ago, albeit much smaller in size. Yet the Nombe chronology, in association with the possible cassowary knives from White's work, remained very tentative until Mountain's (Reference Mountain1991) research. Furthermore, recent work has established that the Kiowa site is more reliable and suggests cassowary bone artefacts, including ‘jabbers’, were in production from 9000–1000 years ago (Gaffney et al. Reference Gaffney, Summerhayes, Luu, Menzies, Douglass, Spitzer and Bulmer2021). At Kiowa, 57 per cent of the specimens have been identified to be of Casuarius tibiotarsi, while another 14 per cent are femurs and a further 14 per cent are tarsometatarsi (Gaffney et al. Reference Gaffney, Summerhayes, Luu, Menzies, Douglass, Spitzer and Bulmer2021, 9). Gaffney and colleagues mentioned that tibiotarsus may have been chosen because of the amount of meat perhaps for people's subsistence diet. We speculate instead that it could relate to the extracting of raw materials for post-dietary tool manufacture. However, use-wear analysis would be required to distinguish if they are borers, daggers, or something else. Moreover, while tentative, bone daggers could be a Late Holocene innovation, but further research is needed.

The ethnography of cassowary bone daggers

Cassowary bone daggers are rarely discussed in the ethnographic records. For those areas with some ethnographic data, bone daggers have only been mentioned or briefly described. These brief ethnographic reports show varying use of cassowary bone daggers, which reflects their representation following specific cultural norms that differ from place to place. Along the northeast coast of PNG (Vanimo to Madang), a tentative study of 150 bone dagger samples indicated that they were made out of the distal portion of the cassowary's tibiotarsus and rarely traded (Terrell & Welsch Reference Terrell and Welsch1990). In the Telefomin region of West Sepik, cassowary bones are utilized for other purposes. For example, the round end of the cassowary femur is used as a chisel for wood carving. Their quills are used as decorations, bone gouges are used for carving softwood and preparing the Marita pandanus fruit, and its breast-bone has been observed to hold red ochre (Cranstone Reference Cranstone1971, 136, 140). Further south in the Papuan Gulf, ethnographic reports from the twentieth century indicated the use of bone daggers as weapons between 1910 and 1912 (Dominy et al. Reference Dominy, Mills, Yakacki, Roscoe and Carpenter2018, 3; Landtman Reference Landtman1933); however, it is not known what these weapons were made out of. Others have reported that cassowary long-bone daggers were used to slaughter pigs for important social and ceremonial occasions (Williams Reference Williams1940, 319, cited in Basiaco et al. Reference Basiaco, Urwin and Manne2020, 226–7, 229, table 1).

Various narratives and cultural beliefs associated with cassowaries have been reported. For example, narratives have been recorded from the Karam (also spelt Kalam) of the inland Madang region (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1967; Pouwer Reference Pouwer1991), the Mianmin of inland West Sepik (Gardner Reference Gardner1984), the Sambia of East Highlands (Herdt Reference Herdt1981), the Goodenough Island in Milne Bay (Ker Reference Ker1910) and the coastal mountains and inland plains of the East Sepik region (Newton Reference Newton1989). It is worth describing Ralph Bulmer's (Reference Bulmer1967) first-ever record of the ethno-taxonomic features of cassowary which inspired later researchers. For the Karam-language-speaking horticulturalist group in the Upper Kaironk Valley, cassowary is not considered a bird as it is their cross-cousin. The zoological taxonomy is discriminated into two main groups: ‘primary taxa’ and ‘terminal taxa’. These taxa are determined from the cultural perspective which has little correspondence to either zoology or western concepts of taxonomy. To analyse the Karam taxonomy of cassowaries, Bulmer (Reference Bulmer1967, 8) focused on some logical categories: first, gross morphological similarities and differences (e.g. winged versus wingless) and second, the habitat (e.g. terrestrial and ‘of the forest’). Bulmer (Reference Bulmer1967, 9) ‘show[ed] that it is not so much wrong as inadequate for indicating significance which certain of these animals have in Karam thought’.

He went on to describe the ‘physical’ and ‘biological’ differences between cassowaries and other birds, and bats. Cassowaries are flightless, wingless, terrestrial, larger than other birds, and have heavy, strong and very human-like leg bones, whereas Karam emphasize that they have ‘hair’ and their ‘head is all bone, with no brain’. The other five morphological characters are size, absence of wings, heavy human-like leg-bones and unique pelage and cranial structure. Bulmer elaborated that, to understand why cassowaries receive special taxonomy for the Karam, we ought to understand their relationship to humans (i.e. how, when and by whom they are hunted, how they are used, and how their hunting and utilization are regulated) (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1967, 11). In Mount Hagen, where cassowary is common, hunting is carried out by a lot of people, and they either snare, stalk or capture chicks for semi-domestication (Bulmer Reference Bulmer, Sieveking, Longworth and Wilson1976, 11). However, the Karam had to follow rules and prohibitions to hunt cassowaries because these are very scarce ecologically (see also Bulmer Reference Bulmer, Sieveking, Longworth and Wilson1976).

Six rules govern cassowary hunting for the Karam. These include practice avoidance relating to language used during hunting; cassowary blood must not be shed, which means they are captured through snares, or despatched with techniques using blunt weapons; the hunter or killer is obligated to eat its heart; those who killed/ate the cassowary are in ritual danger; cassowaries should be cooked and eaten in forests and should not be brought to settlements or near taro gardens; and lastly, live cassowaries must not be brought into homesteads and gardens as pigs, banana and taro gardens will not flourish and such birds could not be domesticated (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1967, 12). Other restrictions include that only two men can hunt cassowaries, and community members are prevented from eating cassowaries during taro-planting season and several months after while crops are growing and need tending (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1967, 12), as taro is a ceremonial crop for the Karam (for more details, see Bulmer Reference Bulmer1967, 12–14). Thus, ‘cassowary is equated with a man’ (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1967, 17). They are considered ‘cross-cousins (i.e. father's sister's children) and their descendants to men’ (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1967, 18). Cassowaries’ special place for the Karam is related to their thinking of between ‘forest’ and ‘cultivation’. Several important strands drawn from this idea are cassowaries’ relation to taro, pandanus nuts and seasonal cropping, forest cultivation linked with kinship roles and rights, and relationships between brother-sister and cross-cousins (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1967, 19). Lastly, while Karam cassowary beliefs isolate cassowaries in several ways, they are equal to other big game animals in the Highlands region (Bulmer Reference Bulmer1967, 19).

Later, Gardner (Reference Gardner1984) and Pouwer (Reference Pouwer1991) expanded Bulmer's (Reference Bulmer1967) work by emphasizing the local knowledge on species taxonomy. The local knowledge is said to differ because of people's secrecy in ritual life and that the cassowary's physical characteristics indicate its importance in local cosmology. As a tribute to Ralph Bulmer, Pouwer (Reference Pouwer1991) used data from Majnep and Bulmer (Reference Majnep and Bulmer1977) on cassowaries in Western Highlands compared to those in inland Madang, with an emphasis between domesticated and wild cassowaries reflecting the nature–culture divide.

Other researchers, such as Newton (Reference Newton1989) and Dominy et al. (Reference Dominy, Mills, Yakacki, Roscoe and Carpenter2018), have focused on specific aspects of the bone daggers from East Sepik. The former emphasized that generally bones are connected with the supernatural world and in this respect are commonly used in communication and enrichment for rituals, and myths surrounding cosmology. Broadly, Newton (Reference Newton1989, 309–10) describes two important versions of East Sepik myths about cosmogony. The story is about two human brothers being the creator of humankind and the hero being a female cassowary. There are two major versions (including sub-versions) of the cassowary creation story. The first involves the transformation between being human and cassowary through the feathers, and the second involves the manifestation of cassowary into humankind (Newton Reference Newton1989, 309–10). Essentially, this highlights that the cassowary is an important aspect of the Sepik's cosmology expressed through various narratives and that they are the creator of humans and their surroundings. Other parts of New Guinea have a widespread belief of the cassowary being an indigenous creator being (e.g. Lattas Reference Lattas1989).

Ethnographic reports also suggest that cassowaries were hunted for their tibias. The tibiotarsus is carved into a weapon generally known as the bone dagger, although we have yet to determine its traditional name. Indeed, Dominy and colleagues have demonstrated that bone daggers are considered to represent male hunting ability, physical and ritual strength and status (Dominy et al. Reference Dominy, Mills, Yakacki, Roscoe and Carpenter2018, 5). Also, in the Upper Karawari-Arafundi region, peacemaking ceremonies include the exchange of cassowary bone daggers, bows and shells, which highlights the value of these portable objects (Dominy et al. Reference Dominy, Mills, Yakacki, Roscoe and Carpenter2018, 3; Roscoe & Telban Reference Roscoe and Telban2004, 106).

Bone dagger stencils in rock art

In New Guinea, there is very limited literature on the presence of stencilled objects. For west New Guinea, there is as yet no current evidence of bone dagger imagery in the rock-art assemblage, although other objects such as stone axe, bronze axe and boomerang stencils have been reported (Arifin & Delanghe Reference Arifin and Delanghe2004; Röder Reference Röder1959). These stencils are significant as they show that highly valued objects with a lot of labour and skill involved in the production were stencilled on the cliffs/cave walls. Bronze axes were thought to be exotic trade objects from Vietnam, imported in exchange for bird-of-paradise plumes (Swadling et al. Reference Swadling, Wagner and Laba2019, 53–8). Boomerang stencils are prevalent in the Berau Gulf including other parts of West Papua and are similar to those in northern Australian sites (e.g. Arnhem Land) (see Arifin & Delanghe Reference Arifin and Delanghe2004, 89–91). However, locals in the Berau Gulf no longer use these material objects and as well as there is no available ethnography relating to their use (Arifin & Delanghe Reference Arifin and Delanghe2004, 90). For east New Guinea, the closest object to boomerang stencils is bone dagger stencils. However, the bone dagger stencils may be much more recent, especially as there is contemporary ethnographic information about them.

Elsewhere in PNG, cassowary rock art (stencils, paintings or engravings) is quite rare. On Goodenough Island in Milne Bay, some boulders are said to be elements of a cassowary narrative about a woman's anger with her husband about food. The woman transformed into a cassowary and ran into the bush, provoking her husband to throw stones at her (Ker Reference Ker1910, 90–92, cited in Egloff Reference Egloff1970, 150). The boulders are said to be the cassowary stones, which is an uncommon narrative from this region; however, it is perhaps linked to earlier connections with mainland New Guinea. The only report about rock art from the early twentieth century revealed a painting of cassowary from the Bomana area outside of Port Moresby (Strong Reference Strong1923), but a detailed description was not undertaken. In New Britain, an engraved drawing of C. bennetti among other megapodes recorded in the early 1960s has recently been reported (Specht et al. Reference Specht, Torrence and Mulvaney2021). From the Upper-Karawari-Arafundi region of East Sepik, six bone dagger stencils were reported in 1987 from one site, Pundimbung (Gorecki & Jones Reference Gorecki and Jones1987a, 10; Reference Gorecki and Jones1987b) but it has yet to be determined how many are of daggers made from human versus cassowary bone.

The Pundimbung site (Fig. 6) is a 60 m long open overhang (or cave) with cliff edges. The site once functioned as a sacred, ritual and/or ceremonial cave and contains both stencils and paintings. Stencils constitute 97 per cent (n = 562) of the motifs with only 3 per cent paintings (n = 18). Of these, the stencils include 514 hand and foot motifs (left and right hand, hand, left and right hand+arm+forearm, hand+arm+forearm, left and right foot, foot and finger arrangements), 23 shell ornament motifs (kina and baler shells and shell rings), 11 bone motifs (bone dagger, bone spoon, flying fox bone needle ornament, and turtle bone), five animal body-part motifs (cassowary leg, megapode foot, dog paw+leg), five leaf motifs, three unknown objects and one steel bush knife motif (Gorecki & Jones Reference Gorecki and Jones1987a, 10, table 1; Reference Gorecki and Jones1987b, 10, table 1). Eighteen paintings include three handprints, one kina shell, two cassowary tracks, three complex figures, eight parallel lines and a stain reflecting an indeterminate motif (Gorecki & Jones Reference Gorecki and Jones1987a, 10, table 2; Reference Gorecki and Jones1987b, 10, table 2). The site also contains evidence of superimposition, exfoliation and repainting on hollowed surfaces (Gabriel & Gorecki Reference Gabriel and Gorecki2014; Gorecki & Jones Reference Gorecki and Jones1987a,Reference Gorecki and Jonesb; Tsang et al. Reference Tsang, Pleiber and Kariwiga2020).

Figure 6.

East Sepik, showing locations of sites mentioned in the text. (Adapted from © Google Maps by Roxanne Tsang.)

Gorecki and Jones (Reference Gorecki and Jones1987a,Reference Gorecki and Jonesb) were told that these sorts of stencils were usually daggers made of cassowary or human bone and that the originals were used in homicide events (Gabriel & Gorecki Reference Gabriel and Gorecki2014, 25). The local informants were not forthcoming with further information. For cassowary bone daggers in rock art, our new results from Auwim in the Upper Karawari-Arafundi region of East Sepik provide further evidence for the cultural context of cassowary bone daggers and their role in rock-art assemblages.

New evidence from Auwim

In 2018, our team spent two weeks in Auwim, East Sepik (Fig. 6) working with local community members to document rock-art sites and record associated cultural information (Fig. 7). Using informed and formal methods (Taçon & Chippindale Reference Taçon and Chippindale1998), five sites in total were documented (Apuranga, Akuansam, Kundumbue, Pukan and Pundimbung). Of these, Apuranga and Pundimbung sites contain at least one bone dagger. A total of 12 bone dagger stencils were documented at Pundimbung (Figs. 8–9) and only one plain tibiotarsus or long-bone stencil (possibly human) was recorded from Apuranga. Information on the bone stencil from Apuranga was not collected due to time constraints, but the rock-shelter is similar to Pundimbung in relation to altitude, site orientation and stencil motifs (e.g. the site contains hand stencils, hand-and-arm stencils, foot stencils, material object stencil—i.e. bone and leaf stencils). However, the Apuranga stencils were only made in 2018 and also first recorded archaeologically at this time (see Tsang et al. Reference Tsang, Brady, Katuk, Taçon, Ricaut and Leavesley2021), whereas Pundimbung was initially reported more than 30 years ago (Gorecki & Jones (Reference Gorecki and Jones1987a,Reference Gorecki and Jonesb).

Figure 7.

Recording rock art at Pundimbung rock-shelter, 2018. (Photograph: Hubert Forestier, Papuan Past Project.)

Figure 8.

Seven bone daggers recorded in 2018 at Pundimbung rock-shelter. Bone daggers that are not clearly visible are highlighted in black rectangles for clarity. D-Stretch (b, d, f, and h colour filters: yre, lrd, yuv, labi, respectively). (Original photographs: William Pleiber, Papuan Past Project; enhancement by Roxanne Tsang.)

Figure 9.

Five other bone daggers recorded in 2018 at Pundimbung rock-shelter. Bone daggers that are not clearly visible are highlighted in black rectangles for clarity. D-Stretch (j, l, n, and p colour filters: yxx, lre, ybk, and crgb, respectively). (Original photographs: William Pleiber, Papuan Past Project; enhancement by Roxanne Tsang.)

Following Gorecki and Jones (Reference Gorecki and Jones1987a,Reference Gorecki and Jonesb), who previously identified this object with local assistance, we interpreted the stencilled objects depicted in Figures 8, 9 and 10 as ‘cassowary bone daggers’. Forty-two per cent of the daggers (n = 5; Fig. 8a–f) are located at the beginning of the rock wall (i.e. panels 1–3), 16 per cent towards the middle (n = 2; Fig. 8g–h) and the other 42 per cent (n = 5; Fig. 9i–p) in the middle panel of Pundimbung rock-shelter (Fig. 11). Generally, their location across the shelter is sporadic, although panels 1–3 at the entrance of the rock-shelter towards the middle seems to contain more than the others (Fig. 11). This may suggest that these sections of the cave are dedicated to the bone dagger events, which could be linked with men and boy's initiation sections of the rock-shelter, but further fieldwork is required for clarification. Also, measuring each motif specimen could determine if the same bone dagger was stencilled, although this has not been conducted due to Covid-19 travel constraints. However, visually, some bone dagger stencils are comparable to an actual dagger found in the rock-shelter at the time of our visit in 2018 (compare Figure 5 with Figure 10), but there are also smaller-sized dagger stencils present (e.g. compare dagger imageries in Fig. 8e–f). The smaller-sized dagger stencils could also possibly represent other megapode or flying fox needle bones as initially identified by Gorecki and Jones (Reference Gorecki and Jones1987a, 10; Reference Gorecki and Jones1987b, 10). Given the presence of bone dagger ornament and rock-art imageries, interviews were then conducted with local Auwim elders.

Figure 10.

A cassowary bone dagger stencil at Pundimbung rock-shelter in 2018 (Photograph: Hubert Forestier, Papuan Past Project.)

Figure 11.

Preliminary approximate panel numbers and location of 12 bone dagger stencils at Pundimbung rock-shelter as of 2021 identification. (Original photograph: William Pleiber, Papuan Past Project 2018; adaption by Roxanne Tsang.)

On 8 May 2018, through a conversational and open-ended interview, a traditional narrative of the cassowary was collectively told to RT by SK (Fig. 12), Mark and Peter in Melanesian pidgin, the PNG nation-wide lingua franca Tok Pisin, translated into English and written down. The written version of the narrative was read to SK, Mark and Peter for correction and verbally approved by the participants before the finalized version was considered complete. An interpreted version of the narrative by Tsang (Reference Tsang2018, 16) is as follows:

The narrative as presented above highlights that for cassowary and cassowary bone daggers some information could be shared, as opposed to human tibia and daggers associated with ritual activities and knowledge that is withheld. This reflects a layered knowledge system, because no information about the cassowary origin narrative was disclosed to Gorecki and Jones in 1987.

Figure 12.

Sebastien Katuk (in purple T-shirt) with other Auwim members at Pundimbung rock-shelter in 2018. (Photograph: William Pleiber, Papuan Past Project.)

In Auwim, cassowary husbandry is still maintained today (e.g. Fig. 1). In the nearby Highlands region, cassowary eggshell microstructural analysis has revealed the possibility of avian husbandry to be as early as the Late Pleistocene with a possibility of people collecting eggs to hatch and rear cassowary chicks (Douglass et al. Reference Douglass, Gaffney, Feo, Bulathsinhala, Mack, Spitzer and Summerhayes2021). They have also suggested that New Guinea Highlanders practised the earliest known occurrence of avian husbandry which possibly predates Auwim. While we understand that until recently cassowaries were used for trade, it was not disclosed at the time of the fieldwork whether the cassowary in Figure 1 is being reared for an income, but we believe it may be used for consumption and tool production, given that contemporary Auwim described how daggers are manufactured from cassowary tibiotarsus.

Ethnographic reports suggest that Auwim cassowary bone daggers are made in four main stages. These include (i) hunting; (ii) consumption; (iii) ceremonial cleaning; and (iv) ceremonial drying/smoking (Tsang Reference Tsang2018, 16). Hunting for cassowaries is not only for food (subsistence) and artefactual material, but also has a celebration aspect when hunting is successful. After they consume the meat as protein, they soak the tibia in a nearby creek to get rid of the remaining flesh off the bones via various river creatures (e.g. fish or crabs). The tibia remains in the creek for about two weeks to a month, and then it is removed from the water. The tibiotarsus is then sharpened from the top, at its grip area down to its end (the proximal edge/point) with a bush knife or any other sharp iron tool (prehistorically, their ancestors used a stone axe). It is mentioned that the edge of the tibia has to be very sharp to penetrate the skin or any object with no difficulty. Finally, once it is sharpened, it is smoked and dried over the fire. After that, it is ready to be used for either hunting, warfare and/or as a self-protection weapon (Tsang Reference Tsang2018). This long process highlights the significance of the cassowary and its bones in society today and perhaps prehistorically.

Taken together, the identification of more bone daggers since 1987 and associated ethnography suggest further ideas behind events relating to cassowaries. Once a bone dagger object has been stencilled, it signifies the process from hunting (capturing chicks for husbandry) to consumption, ceremonial and tribal affairs, thus suggesting its cultural significance, relationship and/or connection people have between their landscape and resources, and socio-cultural life. The bone dagger stencil reflects the history of the cassowary from origin narrative to hunted species for food, as well as aspects of the ceremony, the making of important objects from its bones and then the very act of stencilling itself.