The Spirit World of Tidikawa (1972)

Overview

Filmed among the Bedamini people of the Great Papuan Plateau, this documentary focuses on Tidikawa, a spirit medium whose role is to communicate with ancestral spirits during trance. Set within longhouse communities that periodically relocate to clear new gardens, the film records subsistence activities such as hunting, gardening, sago gathering, and timber cutting, alongside moments of domestic life and loss. Ritual practices are documented in detail, including a séance involving Tidikawa’s spirit child and the Golyagi initiation ceremony marking the transition of seven boys into adulthood.

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