From the journal
A Nianduhu officiant’s 2016 account remembers a route in which performers crossed walls and avoided repeating their path.
In Nianduhu village, Awu held a particular role in Utug, a Tu ritual practiced there. A 2016 field interview identifies him as a village religious officiant and says that, after his father died, Awu inherited the village officiant role from his father.
That family connection locates the ritual in a particular community and in the responsibilities handed from one person to another. Awu’s account gives the practice a human center: the officiant who organizes and leads it.
Awu described a movement rule for performers: they could not enter a home through its main door or repeat a route; they had to cross a wall. In his account, village architecture shaped the ritual path, turning a wall into a threshold between the lane and a household space.
The rule links movement to place. A doorway that normally welcomes people is avoided; a wall becomes the required passage. Awu’s description makes the village itself part of the ritual’s choreography.