Old Lady Sings, Oro Province, PNG, 2009

Here is a short selection of recordings I made of this lady while I was last in PNG. She figured herself to be around 90 years old, which is probably one of the oldest people I have met there. She was sitting around singing songs to two of her great-grandchildren. She was spending the night at her granddaughters house, before moving on to stay with another grandson who lived in the area. From what I was told, her life consisted of moving around the country, visiting all her various children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren (and possibly even great-great-grandchildren)

The percussive sound, which sometimes sounds like a kundu (hand-drum) is actually just her keeping rhythm on the wooden platform she is sitting on. I love the short rhythmic endings she performs at the end of each song.

After she had finished singing her songs she asked if she could listen to what she had done. I placed the earphones around her ears, and then as she sat there listening and clapping along she asked if I would take her photo. I did and she then asked to see it. She took the camera from my hands and stared at her image for a long time. She then spoke to her grand-daughter, who translated for me;

"Aio! So old already! I used to be a young girl! Singing on the beach! I haven't seen myself for 30 years..."

download link:

http://rapidshare.com/files/285892739/__ah_puch__-_Old_Lady_Sings__Oro_Province__PNG__2009.zip

Where is ¡ah!puch!?

Just now I am learning of some of Puch’s other incarnations. This time as a villain in the superhero comic Thor. I think back to the first time I saw Ahpuch depicted in visual form; a skeleton adorned with bells in The Dresden Codex, which is thought to be the earliest known book from the Americas, and the most intact and complete of the Mayan Codices surviving today. Sometimes he is depicted with the head of an owl. Supposedly to this day some Mexicans of Mayan descent believe that an owl's screeches signify imminent death; “Cuando el tecolote canta ... el indio muere; When the great owl sings, the Indian dies.”

So I say ah!puch! But sometimes it sounds like ah!Pook! And sometimes it only sounds like breath escaping between my teeth.

Ah!Puch! has many different forms, and it is rare I ever see him look the same…I am often surprised that I recognise him at all. And of course I use the name Ah!Puch, as a person who adopts a stray cat gives it a name. I call the cat Fritz even though I know that that is not its name. I could just as easily call Fritz Herbert, Frank, Nanuknuk, Taco, Sketch…And so Ah!Puch! knows other names, other forms: Yama, Mot, Yanluo, Anubis + Osiris, Ghede, Azrael, The Grim Reaper…Ah!Puch!

From:

Bradfield Lochie

<+61418xxxxxx>

“Ah!Puch! is here…”

Date:

01/10/2008

Time:

8:44pm

From:

Ishita

<+61421xxxxxx>

“Where?”

Date:

01/10/2008

Time:

9:01pm

Where is Ah!Puch?

Ah!Puch! is here.