Lot 127 Dα

Douglas Newton, who collected the present lot in the field, records in Crocodile and Cassowary (p.34) that this hook was fastened inside the peak of the roof of the ceremonial house and represents manyura, a thorny vine used in sorcery and healing. The Nggala at the time were a group of about 140 people, cannibals and headhunters, living in a single village at the junction of a waterway running between the Sepik itself and a point a few miles up the April River, and another which, running directly east and west, connects with the western end of a waterway through the Hunstein Mountains. As well as being the name of the people, Nggala is also the name of the village itself. They had very little contact with Europeans before 1953, when an expedition was sent to arrest the murderers of half a dozen people killed in a raid on the neighbouring village of Brugnauwi.