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Art-Pacific (Carolyn Leigh - Ron Perry): Guide to Artifacts

Malagan and other New Ireland art, Papua New Guinea

New Ireland is famous for funerary art including kulap stone carvings, uli wood figures and malagan carvings and ceremonies.

Figure 1: Malagan wooden mouthpiece with hornbill birdman. It is held in the dancer's mouth like the bird piece on the mask in Figure 3. Photo courtesy of a private collection.

New Ireland is part of the Bismark Archipelago, associated islands include Lavongai (New Hanover), the Tabar and Lihir Islands. Dutch navigators saw the islands in 1616. Germany claimed them in 1884. They are now a province of Papua New Guinea. (Melanesia map)

New Ireland is almost 300 miles (470 km) long. A mountainous spine separates the two sides with villages sheltered along the narrow coast. The hunters are famous for their ability to call sharks to their boats for the kill.

The three main cultural areas and their art forms are:

1. Southern New Ireland had masks similar to Tolai ones from New Britain on the west and bark cloth costumes similar to ones from the Solomon Islands to the southeast.

   Kulap limestone chalk figures were commissioned from carvers in the Rossell Mountains. A carving was brought back secretly to the ritual house and kept with other figures. It held the spirit of the deceased until funeral rites were over and the potentially troublesome spirit returned to the ancestors. Then it was taken far away and broken or sold.

2. Northern New Ireland on the Lelet Plateau and surrounding areas down to both coasts.

   Uli wood figures were displayed in groups of 2 or 3 in small shrines during funerals or fertility rites. They seem to be hermaphroditic. Similar carvings used over-modeled human skulls for the head.(1)

   Livika, the friction block "drum", is unique in the world. The player rubs his hand over 3 wood tongues producing a sound like a bird call. (2)

3. Northeast coast and Tabar Islands are the center of the malagan tradition. This is the only area which continues its ceremonies and carvings. (3)

A malagan subtradition is represented by a carving. It is commissioned by the owner of its copyright, displayed once and then usually destroyed or sold. Once an owner sells a copyright, he can no longer use it. It is the ownership and transfers of these copyrights, not the carvings, that are important.

Each malagan has an ownership history and a story, sometimes a personal name, plus a complex of songs, chants, performances and ritual sites associated with it. Its design is old, but each carver reinterprets it.

When metal tools were introduced, carvers were no longer confined to static stone-carved styles. They created dynamic open fretwork forms whose amazing complexity appealed to European surrealists. Over 15,000 pieces were acquired by collectors and museums during the colonial period.

Figure 2: Malagan display piece with a horizontal base and 3 vertical figures holding birds. Photo courtesy of a private collection.

Central elements are connected to each other by thin parallel rods and fretwork representing totemic animals and plants or the spears used to support a corpse in a death chair. Some extended ears and arms are articulated. Mortise and tenon joints make this possible and are unique in Melanesia. Cat's eyes are snail opercula. Carvings are painted with fine lines and strong colors.

Sponsors of a ceremony need enough wealth, especially pigs, to buy the copyrights, to pay, feed and house the carvers, to hire dancers and masks and to put on a series of feasts during the performance cycle. They usually borrow from relatives with the understanding that they will contribute later to the relatives' ceremonies.

Carvings displayed at the malagan house in the courtyard of the village cemetary include:

• Horizontal sculptures which are the foundation into which other pieces are placed. They are the most important.
• Vertical figure sculptures carved from a light wood, presented singly or as part of a display. Figure 2 combines 1 horizontal with 3 vertical elements.
• Vertical sculptures with multiple stacked figures topped with a clan totem like the sea eagle. Combined funeral ceremonies are often held for several people, so each figure commemorates the life force of a one of the deceased.
• Solid wooden heads displayed on bush material bodies or tied to posts.
• Panels and other architectural elements, plus painted bark and woven fiber pieces, to further elaborate the display.

Figure 3: Malagan helmet mask (tatanua). The crested hairstyle used to be worn by young men. Masks are different on each side so when the line of dancers turns, they present a whole new appearance.

Masks used in a malagan ceremony include:

• Burial or funeral masks made with bark cloth and feathers.
• Heavy carved wood masks which are carried or worn but not danced. These remove major taboos.
• Lighter carved wood or bark cloth masks worn by different groups. Some lift lesser taboos. Others gather food or demand donations. Sometimes called ges or pi. Some are used on figures in the display.
• Helmet masks (tatanua) are danced in pairs or by groups of line dancers. The spirits of the ancestors come into the mask and the dancer during the ceremony. Only the strongest can wear the mask, perform properly and ward off sorcery spells from rival visitors.

Initiation ceremony paraphrased from Michael Gunn's forward to Peter Hallinan's Revelation of the Malagans:

At dawn, masked warriors arrive from the sea. They guard the bearer of a heavy, towering mask whose spirit purifies the graveyard and Malagan house for the public ceremony. Malagan sculptures are taken out and fastened to the display house. Each owner must call out his ownership rights back through the generations. When all the Malagans are accepted and displayed, ancient songs belonging to each one are sung.

The slit-gong drum is struck. A fence falls away in front of the Malagan house revealing a raised platform with the central Malagan sculpture and 2 senior dancers wearing feather masks of the dead. As they rise, shaking their rattles, the drum sounds again. Below, the two rows of initiates began their dance, accepting their responsibilities in their culture, for the living and for the dead.

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SEE ALSO:

Links in this site:

• The Solomon Islands are at the opposite end from New Ireland in an arc of cultures which seem to have influenced each other in this part of Melanesia.
• East and West New Britain Provinces, PNG: Malagan carvings are believed to have influenced some masks of the New Britain Sulka and their Mengen neighbors. There also seem to be links with the Tolai.

Books used to research this series.

• Art and Performance in Oceania
  edited by Barry Craig, Bernie Kernot and Christopher Anderson, published by Crawford House, 1999, ISBN0-8248-2283-8, includes two detailed research articles with photographs:
  
  • "The significance of the tantanua dance within the Verem malagan", by Noah J. Lurang
  • "Taxonomic structure and typology in the malagan ritual art tradition of Tabar, New Ireland", by Michael Gunn

• Assemblage of Spirits, Idea and Image in New Ireland
  edited by Louise Lincoln,
  Published by The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, 1987, ISBN 0-8076-1187-5,
  George Braziller, Inc., 60 Madison Ave. NY, NY 10010 USA.
  Essays on malagan ceremonies and carvings, historical background and contemporary carvers, color photographs of sculptures from many collections.

• Revelation of the Malagans, the Ritual Art of New Ireland
  by Peter Hallinan
  published by Tribal Arts Gallery, 1990, ISBN 0-7316-9723-5
  Queensland, Australia
  Catalog with short introduction to malagan ceremony and carving, black and white photographs.

• Ritual Arts of Oceania, New Ireland, in the Collections of the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva, Switzerland,
  by Michael Gunn, Published by Skira editore, Milan, Italy, 1997
  Introduction to cultures and art of the Bismark Archipelago including main section on malagan ritual art. Black and white archival photos, color plates of collection with more text, maps include a detailed one of New Ireland on p. 38, bibliography.

Notes 1-3: New Ireland has many language groups. These terms appear in the literature, but many different ones are used.

• uli figures: nalik
• friction block drum: livika, lunet, nunut, lunuat, lapka
• malagan: malanggan, malagene (Similar traditions exist in other parts of New Ireland and the name is also used by the Tolai in New Britain.) Some terms used for malagan carvings and masks include:
• vertical figures: kobokobor
• horizontal figures: marumarua
• stacked figures: eikuar
• helmet masks: tatanua, miteno, wanis

Order now: Art Dealer in the Last Unknown, Ron Perry and New Guinea Art, the early years: 1964 - 1973 by Carolyn Leigh and Ron Perry, 320 pages of adventure, over 450 early photographs - join Ron in the jungles of New Guinea on his search for tribal art.

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Figure 4: Art areas of Melanesia (map of New Guinea and adjacent islands), New Ireland Province, PNG is at 2. Link to the article for explanation of other numbered areas.

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