Spirit Cry Flutes and Bamboo Jews Harps from Papua New Guinea:
Eastern Highlands and Madang.
Recorded by Ragnar Johnson and Jessica Mayer.
The recording of a male initiation ceremony with sacred flutes, bullroarers and 'crying baby' leaves was only possible after fifteen months residence during anthropological research. From the same Ommura villages in the Eastern Highlands there are bamboo jews harps, yam fertility flutes and singing. Nama ('bird') sacred flutes were recorded in a Gahuku Gama village in the town of Goroka. There are Mo-mo bamboo resonating tubes and singing from the Finisterre Range of Madang. From the Ramu Coast region of Madang there are: Waudang flutes, garamut slit gongs and singing from Manam Island, Maner flutes from Awar village and Siam and Guna flutes and garamuts from Nubia Sissimungum Village. These previously unreleased recordings were made in 1976 and 1979.
Third release in a trilogy of double LP and double CD documents of the invaluable ethomusicological research of Ragnar Johnson and Jessica Mayer in Papua New Guinea from the 1970s.