man catcher

Description:

Pig Killing Noose, Toda, Hula people, Central Province, Papua New Guinea. Often described as ‘mancatchers’, the anthropologist Michael O'Hanlon has written about these unique objects as an example of the way that Westerners historically misrepresented Pacific people through stereotypes that claimed they were less civilised, more inclined to be violent, and more brutal in that violence. In Victorian and Edwardian books about New Guinea, battle scenes show men using these 'mancatchers' to noose and impale their fleeing victims through the back of the neck. O'Hanlon has convincingly argued that these objects were never used in war. They are much more likely to be hunting tools for safely delivering a killing blow to wild pigs caught in hand-nets; they are used in this way by hunting parties of Hula men from the southern parts of Central Province, PNG. Wild pigs are immensely strong, and can easily gore and kill humans, so their hunting requires great bravery, even with toda to deliver the killing blow. Wood. Late 19th-Century. Formerly in the private collection of W.D. Webster. So-called 'New Guinea Mancatcher', in all probability a hunting weapon used to kill wild pig once they have been tangled in a net.

Format:

image

Collections:

Horniman Museum and Gardens

Content partner:

Horniman Museum and Gardens

Availability:

Not specified