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Art of The Non-Western World

Chapter 10: Oceania

Oceania

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The inhabitants of the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, and the Australasia continent (Oceania) produced a wide range of decorated objects, mostly of perishable materials.

While some parts of the region were settled more than 35,000 years ago when Australia, New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and the Solomons were more accessible due to substantially lower sea levels, more distant regions did not receive settlers before the fourth millennia BCE, and others not until the end of the first millennium CE.

Chapter Learning Objectives

Understand how the arts in Oceania were limited by available means and materials..

Recognize how artists were trained in the different societies of Oceania.

Understand artworks were made according to societal needs or patrons desires.

Recognize the impact of Europeans on the arts at the time of first contact but also in the modern era.

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Australia

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The oldest evidence of humans in Australia is found in the Arnhem Land region of the Northern Territories, where the Malakinanja II rock shelter site has yielded dates as early as 59,000 BCE, suggesting that the first settlers arrived more than 60,000 years ago.

Sea level rise at the end of the last glaciation isolated these early peoples.

Australia, Nawarla Gabarnmang, c. 28,000 BCE

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10.1 Australia, Nawarla Gabarnmang, c. 28,000 BCE. The Nawarla Gabarnmang caves have been in use for thousands of years with new images still being added. The oldest sold red figures represent Mimis or primordial beings from the time of the Dreaming. John Gollings

Nawarla Gabarnmang is a large natural rock shelter formed by millennia of erosion.

The name translates from the local Jawoyn Aboriginal language as “place of the hole in the rock.”

Generations of Aboriginal artists decorated the rock shelter's ceiling and 36 pillars with images of spirits from the time of creation, humans, and animals.

While the oldest paintings date back 28,000 years, new art continues to be added to the shelter to this day.

Australian rock art includes dry pigment drawings, paintings, and rock engravings.

Paint was made by adding water to pigments, such as white kaolin, and mixing in the mouth.

These water-based paints were applied with brushes, which traditionally were made by chewing the end of a twig from the Stringybark tree. Painted images were outlined with the brush and then the insides were done; often the fill paint was applied with the fingers. In some cases, pigments were mixed with binders such as blood, beeswax, or plant resins.

The earliest paintings, in the Nawarla Gabarnmang and other shelters across Australia, are believed to be the stick-like monochrome or “old red paintings,” done in red ochre, blood, or a mixture of both. These red, or sometimes white, yellow, and black, figures represent primordial spirits known as Mimis. The Aborigines recognize Mimi images as the oldest style of painting and they claim that the paintings were done by the spirits themselves. Mimis are often rendered in dynamic postures suggesting leaping or running with weapons; frequently multiple figures are shown in what appear to be ritual dances and kangaroo hunting scenes.

The pillars and ceiling of the Nawarla Gabarnmang also show paintings done in a second and better-known style, termed X-ray style because internal anatomy, bones, and organs, are rendered in a “see through” manner like that of a modern radiograph.X-ray style rock paintings are known only from Arnhem Land sites and the earliest are thought to date from 2000 BCE. These paintings are rendered as partial silhouettes painted in red with some internal hatching; spinal column, rib cage, and digestive track are sometimes depicted. The more elaborate paintings feature a polychrome pallet of red, white, yellow, black, and, occasionally, blue-green.

More recent paintings are also found on the walls, these are easily identified by their incorporation of modern elements such as rifles.

Australia, Murujuga National Park, Petroglyphs. 40,000 BCE- 1600 CE

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10.2 Australia, Murujuga National Park, Petroglyphs. The oldest engravings at the site are thought to be around 40,000 years old but the site was still in use in the 17th century CE, when Aboriginal artists recorded images of European sailing ships. Photo by Marius Fenger distributed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

Although rock engravings or petroglyphs are known from sites across the Australian continent, the Burrup Peninsula in northwestern Australia is a particularly art rich area; the estimated number of images from the more than 2,300 Burrup sites is well over a million.

The dating of exposed rock art images is particularly difficult since they are created by incising, pecking, pounding, or abrading rock surfaces, a process that utilizes harder rocks and abrasives; however, the first Burrup engravings may date to around 40,000 BCE.

Engravings that have been buried under occupational debris have been reliably dated by radiocarbon testing of charcoal samples found at the same depth. The oldest that have been dated in this manner are in Laura, Queensland and are approximately 15,000 years old. Others have been dating based on what is depicted, for example, images of sailing ships would at most be a little more than four hundred years old, the first contact with Europeans having been in 1606.

Engravings are done in both linear and solid fill styles. Subjects depicted are consistent with those found in Mimi-style paintings: spirits, humans, and animals, including some that are thought to represent extinct megafauna.

Bark Painting

The earliest record of the use of bark painting dates from the first years of the 19th century when explorers trekking across inland Australia noted that the Aborigines made simple lean-to shelters or “gunyah” of sapling frames covered with decorated sheets of Stringybark.

Mention is also made of bark paintings being set up as markers over Aboriginal graves.

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The first major collection was amassed during the first decades of the 20th century by Walter Baldwin Spencer, an ethnographer, who encouraged Aboriginal artists to produce paintings. Spencer made several trips into central and northern Australia, ultimately collecting some 200 paintings.

Among most Aboriginal groups, bark painting was the province of male artists who underwent a long apprenticeship to learn to properly paint ancestral subjects.

The creation of a bark painting begins with stripping a horizontal section of bark from a Stringybark (Eucalyptus) tree. After the outer bark has been scraped off, the bark sheet is dried and flattened over a fire and then buried in hot sand for several days to allow the sheet to set. The designs are painted employing the same pigments used in rock art: pipe clay for white, red and yellow ochres, and charcoal for black.

Traditionally the pigments were mixed with water and various weak binders, determined by what is locally available, but the most common were beeswax and honey, sea turtle egg yolk, and sap obtained from the bulbs of orchids. Since the 1960s these natural binders have largely been replaced by commercial wood glues, which offer greater permanence. The pigments are applied using brushes made from Stringybark twigs, human hair, feathers, or more recently, commercially available artists’ brushes.

The bark sheets are laid flat on the ground and given a base coat of red or yellow ochre before the designs are added. The bark panel remains flat during painting so the artist can move around it. As a result, traditional bark paintings have no particular orientation as to up or down.

Australia, X-Ray style Bark Painting, 19th to early 20th century CE, pigment on Eucalyptus bark.

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10.3 Australia, X-Ray style Bark Painting, 19th to early 20th century CE, pigment on Eucalyptus bark. X-Ray style paintings take their name from the artist’s depiction of the animals bones and organs. Musée due Quai Branly

The motifs on bark paintings had meanings and were not selected at random. Images, cross-hatching or “rarrk” patterns, and even some colors were considered to be the property of certain clans; artists from other groups could not use these proprietary designs without permission of the owners.

Traditional bark painting designs were either figurative or geometric. Geometric paintings were typically ceremonial and featured lines, circles, and dots, often on a framework of diamonds, rectangles, or triangles. The designs reference and manifest in the present creation stories that recount the action of Ancestral Spirits during The Dreaming. During the Dreamtime, spirits formed the land and travelled across it creating the rivers, waterholes, and mountain ranges. The elements in the paintings reference these features and the “songlines” or paths that the Ancestors took as they moved over the land. At the same time the designs also reference body painting motifs worn in related ceremonies or painted on sacred wooden sculptures.

Figurative designs, including depictions of animal and human forms, such as the Female Kangaroo painting, c. 1915, can be either secular or ceremonial depending upon how the infill is handled.

Anthropomorphic figures may represent Ancestral Beings who have transformed from their animal to human form, the lightening spirit, water spirits, lesser spirits such as Mimi, and ordinary humans.

Zoomorphic images typically describe four categories of animals: fish, birds, crocodiles, and marsupials as well as others classified as “meat.”

The proper rendering of these forms requires that care be taken to master the iconic outline of the animal as well as anatomical peculiarities that identify species and gender. Animals that have typical X-ray features, such as the female kangaroo, or those divided to show the favored portions of flesh represent game animals. Those that have white outlines and no color or show only bones are dead. Animals infilled with geometric designs represent Ancestral Beings in zoomorphic form as well as ceremonial dances related to the species.

The Hermannsburg Painters (1934-1960)

Reginald “Rex” Battarbee settled near the Hermannsburg Mission in the 1930s and began giving watercolor to the Aboriginal men at the Lutheran mission.

His students included Albert Namatjira and his five sons; the three Pareroultja brothers, and Walter Ebatarinja.

Battarbee promoted their work, arranging exhibitions and sales of their paintings.

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The Hermannsburg Mission 75 miles west of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory was established in 1877 by two German Lutheran missionaries. The mission was set up to convert the local Arrente people to Christianity and frequently served as a sanctuary against local ranchers and police who regularly massacred Aborigines suspected of killing cattle.

The completion of a railroad spur line from Alice Springs in the 1930s brought tourists and artists to the region to see and record its scenic landscapes. Among those artists was Reginald “Rex” Battarbee, whose views of the local landscapes fascinated the Aborigines at the mission.

After several painting expeditions during the 1930s, Battarbee settled permanently in the area and began teaching the basics of water color to the Aboriginal men at Hermannsburg. His students included Albert Namatjira and his five sons; the three Pareroultja brothers, and Walter Ebatarinja. Battarbee promoted their work, arranging exhibitions and sales of their paintings.

Australia, Albert Namatjira, Ghost Gum, c. 1945, watercolor over pencil, 14 x 10 in.

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10.4 Australia, Albert Namatjira (1902-1959), Ghose Gum, c. 1945, watercolor over pencil, (35.4 x 25.5 cm), Collection National Gallery of Australia. Namatjira learned to paint in watercolors from European artists visiting the Hermannsburg Mission. His paintings reflect and understanding of the landscape as something far beyond scenery. National Gallery of Australia, Gift of Gordon and Marilyn Darling, Ghost gum c.1945. Place made Hermannsburg, Northern Territory, Australia, Materials & Technique drawings, watercolours, painting in watercolour over pencil. Support: paper. Primary insc: Signed lower right. Dimensions image 35.4 h x 25.5 w cm. Acknowledgement: Gift of Gordon and Marilyn Darling, celebrating the National Gallery of Australia's 25th Anniversary, 2009. Donated through the Australia Government's Cultural Gifts Program. Accession no NGA 2009.992. Image rights: © Namatjira Legacy Trust/ Copyright Agency. Ghost gum, c.1945 (w/c over pencil on paper), Namatjira, Albert (1902-59) / National Gallery of Australia, Canberra / Gift of Gordon and Marilyn Darling, celebrating the National Gallery of Australia's 25th Anniversary, 2009. Donated through the Australia Government's Cultural Gifts Program / Bridgeman Images

One of the first Hermannsburg painters to receive national and international recognition was Albert Namatjira. He was thirty-two when he met Rex Battarsbee and served as his guide on the first of what would become several painting expeditions in the Northern Territory.

After Battarsbee’s exhibition of his work at Hermannsburg, Namatjira asked him for paints and paper so he could make his own paintings. On subsequent painting trips, Battarsbee taught Namatjira to paint and was astonished by his aptitude.

In 1936 Battarsbee arranged Namatjira’s first exhibition Melbourne, followed by others in Sydney and Adelaide. The successful sale of his paintings brought Namatjira a good income and in 1951 he attempted to build a house in Alice Springs but was prevented under the terms of the Aboriginals Ordinance, which prohibited Aboriginals from owning land.

In 1957 Namatjira became the first Aborigine to be granted full citizenship; he could then live where he wished, vote, had rights to his children, and could purchase alcohol. The following year he was charged with giving alcohol to Aborigines, a crime, and sentenced to two months in prison. He appealed the sentence but a higher court denied his appeal. He died of a heart attack in 1959.

In works such as Ghost Gum, Namatjira responds to the stark desert landscape of the Northern Territories with the keen sensitivity of a person for whom the environment is not just an everyday reality but a spiritual experience.

Much has been written about the Aborigine’s connection to the land and their art as an expression of The Dreaming, and while Namatjira’s work is certainly grounded in his life experience and beliefs, he is also a highly competent watercolorist with a keen understanding of composition and color.

The brilliant white trunk of the Ghost Gum dominates the foreground, while in the distance, purple hills and valleys roll across the bright, light-filled land. Namatjira’s detailed handling of form, light and shade, atmosphere and perspective equal or exceed the handling of the same elements by Euro-Australian artists working in this genre during the period.

However, because of his ethnicity, his work was often criticized as being inauthentic and derivative because he worked in a medium and realist style seen as the province of European artists.

The Western Desert Art Movement (1972- )

The Western Desert Art Movement, also known as the “dot painting school,” originated in the Papunya resettlement community, located in a remote area northwest of Alice Springs.

Papunya had been established in 1960 as a place to warehouse and assimilate Aboriginal peoples from the Pintupi, Luritja, Walpiri, Arrente, and Anmatyerre groups whose traditional lands were wanted by Euro-Australian cattle ranchers.

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The Western Desert Art Movement, also known as the “dot painting school,” originated in the Papunya resettlement community, located in a remote area some 149 miles to the northwest of Alice Springs.

Papunya had been established by the government in 1960 as a place to warehouse and assimilate Aboriginal peoples from the Pintupi, Luritja, Walpiri, Arrente, and Anmatyerre groups whose traditional lands were wanted by Euro-Australian cattle ranchers.

The groups sent to Papunya spoke different languages and had different customs; what they seemed to share was the disheartening effect of having been ripped from the ancestral lands that were an integral part of their personal and ceremonial identity.

The catalyst for change at Papunya was Geoffrey Bardon, who arrived in 1971 to take a post as an elementary art teacher. Prior to studying art education, Bardon had studied law.

Bardon encouraged his students to paint a mural based on traditional sand painting and body painting designs. When the elders of the community saw the students’ work, they decided that the project was more appropriate for the senior men.

The men created a mural depicting the Honey Ant Dreaming, which was related to the Papunya area as the place where ancestral songlines converged.

The government administrators had the mural painted over as a way of countering the resurgence of Aboriginal identity and pride that it inspired. Bardon was later dismissed by the administrators but not before he helped the men form The Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd, an Aboriginal artists’ collective, to market their work.

The works of the Papunya painters arrived on the Australian art scene just as Abstract Expressionism, Conceptualism, Minimalism, and Op Art were dominating the Art market in Australian and elsewhere.

The Papunya works, painted in acrylic on board and canvas, and often recounting multiple Dreaming narratives on one work, resonated with Australian collectors.

Australia, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, Bush-fire II, 1972, synthetic polymer paint on composition board, 24 x 17 in.

It tells the story of the bushfire at Warluglong started by the blue-tongued lizard Lungkata.

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10.5 Australia, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1932-2002), Bush-fire II, 1972, synthetic polymer paint on composition board, (61 x 43 cm), Collection of the National Gallery of Australia. In this painting the artist uses the colors of traditional bark painting to tell the story of Lungkata, the blue-tongued lizard. Australia, Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri (1932-2002), Bush-fire II, 1972, synthetic polymer paint on composition board, (61 x 43 cm), Collection of the National Gallery of Australia.Image rights© the estate of the artist licensed by Aboriginal Artists Agency Ltd

Clifford Possum Tjapaltjarri, a member of the Anmatyerre people, was born at Napperby Station, about 125 miles northwest of Alice Springs in the Northern Territories. He began working as a stockman at age 12, moving between several stations in the territories, and in the process learning six native languages and some English. In the 1970s he was living at Papunya station where he was a founding director of the Papunya Tula Artists collective, and served as its chairman into the early 1980s.

Although painted with acrylic paints on canvas, Bush-fire II uses the colors of traditional bark painting to tell the story of Lungkata, the blue-tongued lizard, who, to punish his sons for eating a sacred kangaroo, started the ancestor of all bushfires at Warluglong (a site about 300 km northwest of Alice Springs).

Tjapaltjarri inherited the right to this Dreaming through his mother’s family. The painting depicts the origin point of the fire and its spread to the south and southwest. Concentric circles represent camp sites, some of which have been burned; arrangements of black bars are used to form the tracks across the land of an ancestral Possum.

In this way the painting functions not only as a narrative painting but also as a map of the landscape. Areas of brown dots represent the smoke and scorched land of the burned areas, while white dots suggest the clouds of ash thrown up by the fire.

In addition to animating the surface of the painting, the dot patterns shield the sacred parts of the story from uninitiated males, women, and outsiders, revealing to them only the secular elements.

Under traditional Aboriginal law, sacred Dreaming knowledge was to be shared only with initiated men. Tjapaltjarri’s dot screen solution was adopted by other Papunya painters and ultimately by other Aboriginal artists across Australia.

Utopia Settlement and Women Painters

The success of the Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd. inspired other Aboriginal communities to form painting cooperatives.

A group was started in the Utopia region in the late 1980s; with few exceptions its members were women.

In the 1970s Indonesia silk batik techniques were taught to the Utopia women as part of a program to combat poverty.

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The success of the Papunya Tula Artists Pty Ltd. inspired other Aboriginal communities to form painting cooperatives. One such group was started in the Utopia region in the late 1980s; with few exceptions its members were women. In the 1970s Indonesia silk batik techniques were taught to the Utopia women as part of a program to combat poverty.

The batik program received critical acclaim but did little to boost the local economy. In the late 1980s acrylic paints and canvas were brought to Utopia.

The paintings produced by the women drew on their experience with batik designs and on body painting patterns used in the Awelye or “Women’s” ceremonies.

As was the case of the Papunya artists, the paintings were enthusiastically received by the mainstream art community in the major Australian cities and internationally.

Australia, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Emu Woman, 1988-89

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10.6 Australia,, Emily Kame Kngwarreye (c. 1910-1996), Emu Woman, 1988-89, Synthetic polymer paint on canvas, (92 x 61 cm), The Holmes à Court Collection, Heytesbury. This painting recounts the Dreaming story of Bohra the Kangaroo and his emu wife, Dinewan, and how he created daylight. The Holmes à Court Collection, Heytesbury.

The best known of the Utopia painters was Emily Kame Kngwarreye, a member of the Eastern Anmatyerre, who lived all her life at the isolated station, some 142 miles northeast of Alice Springs. Although she had participated in the batik project at Utopia, the labor-intensive process was unsuited to the spontaneity of her art.

In 1988 when she was in her late 70s, she began working with acrylic paints on canvas. In the eight years that she worked with the medium, she produced more than 3000 paintings, some more than twenty feet long and nine feet wide. In her short career she had two one-woman shows and participated in more than fifty group exhibitions.

Emu Woman is a good example of Knwarreye’s early dot style before her work shifted toward bold, swirling stripes, laid down on the canvas in lace-like patterns. As evident in this painting, her canvases are built up with layers of intensely colored dots and lines that create the Batik-derived effect of looking through several translucent veils of color.

Although the colors of this painting are more somber and traditional, as was fitting to its Dreaming subject, she often worked with vibrant, vigorously applied colors that gave her canvases a jewel-like glow.

The left side of the canvas appears to be covered with frond-like leaves, while hidden in the foliage on the right is the emu. The painting relates to the sacred Emu Dreaming to which the Knwarreye family holds custodial rights.

In one version of the story, Dinewan the emu was wife to Bohra the Kangaroo and at that time the world was in darkness because daytime had not been created. Bohra was happy to sleep but Dinewan was restless and began to complain about the darkness and her husband’s laziness. She began to root around in the leaves on the ground, tossing them about, so that they sometimes they fell on Bohra’s face, waking him. Finally, Bohra led his wife off through the bush in the darkness until they came to a clearing, where he told her to wait. He then set about rolling back the darkness until daylight appeared and the emu ran around happily.

Melanesia

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Melanesia is a series of large and small islands which extend for some 2500 miles between the Equator and the Tropic of Capricorn to the northwest, north, and northeast of Australia.

The first settlers arrived in New Guinea when it was still part of “Greater Australia.”

However, New Guinea and the other Melanesian islands were not isolated like Australia when sea levels rose at the end of the last glaciation.

These islands appear to have been along the main maritime route for peoples migrating from the mainland as well as from other island regions into near and remote Oceania.

New Guinea is the most culturally diverse of the Melanesian islands, being hometo more than 700 linguistically distinct peoples, each with a unique art style that was used in rituals to propitiate its ancestors, deities, and spirits, to insure good harvests, or to mark important milestones in human life. Every object, whether utilitarian or ceremonial, was beautifully crafted and decorated.

By far the dominant form of expression was sculpture, typically in wood, and often enlivened, or in some cases animated, with the application of red, black, white, and yellow pigments.

New Guinea, (Irian Jaya), Omadesep, Asmat Bis Pole, before 1950, wood and pigment, 216 x 39 x 63 in.

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10.7 New Guinea, (Irian Jaya), Omadesep, Asmat Bis Pole, before 1950, wood and pigment, 216 x 39 x 63 in. (548.6 x 99.1 x 160 cm), Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Taditionally, Bis poles were erected in front of the men’s house as a pledge to revenge the death of a relative. Once the vow had been fulfilled the poles would be taken down and left to rot in the sago palm groves. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979

Although a few artifacts were collected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the true richness of Asmat artistic production was little known before the second half of the last century because the Asmat were considered to be dangerous headhunters and cannibals.

In Asmat society wowipits or master woodcarvers are highly respected. Their prestige is explained in Asmat creation stories about the hero Fumeripits, who was the first wood carver. Fumeripits carved the first Asmat ancestors from the sacred banyan tree and brought them to life with the sound of a sacred drum, which he also carved. For this reason, the Asmat refer to themselves ‘as-asmat,’ meaning ‘tree-people.’

Asmat carvers are seen as continuing the work of Fumeripits in their carvings of ancestor images. The wowipits traditionally worked on their carvings in the men’s house or jeu. This long, rectangular, raised post-and-beam structure was the center of village life. It was where elder men decided village affairs, where headhunting parties were planned, initiation rites and other ceremonies were held, and important works of art, ancestor skulls, and ritual paraphernalia such as sacred drums were stored away from the eyes of women and the uninitiated.

Inside the jeu, the supporting posts were frequently carved to embody figures of important ancestors; these carvings were seen as imbuing the jeu with the protective power of those forebears. Prior to the pacification of the Asmat region, much of the art produced was associated with warfare and headhunting rituals. The Asmat saw all deaths as resulting from the malicious sorcery of enemies. Consequently, the relatives of the deceased were required to retaliate against those enemies by organizing a headhunting party.

Prior to the launch of the raid, the Bisjmam Asmat of the Central Coast would carve bis (also bisj) poles with figures representing those who had died. The completed bis poles would be erected in front of the jeu as visual reminders of the relatives’ duty to avenge the dead. Despite the considerable labor that went into carving bis, they were intended for a one-time ceremonial use; afterward they were discarded in the sago palm groves or ritually destroyed.

During the 1950s, Michael C. Rockefeller collected several bis poles from villages around the Asmat territory; those poles now grace the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The collection includes an interesting and atypical example from the village of Omadesep, in the Faretsj region. The 18-foot-high pole features two hierarchically scaled male figures, which instead of being stacked in the usual manner, face in opposite directions.

The position of tsjemen is eccentric as well in this example. Normally this pennant-like appendage rises from the chest of a bis pole’s topmost figure, but in this example the tsjemen emerges from the shaft of the pole between the two figures.

Additionally, the lower figure stands on the prow of a canoe in which are seated two small personages. The inclusion of the canoe is not unique to this pole. The canoe is most likely intended to be read as a wuramon or “soul-ship” and its passengers as the souls of the dead.

Wuramon were carved for the emak cem or “bone house” ceremony, which had an aspect of avenging the dead and the initiation of boys into adulthood, since traditionally this required that the initiates take an enemy head. The incorporation of the wuramon on this pole may indicate that it was erected as part of male initiation rites.

New Guinea, (Irian Jaya) Asmat, Amanamkai Village, Matjemos, Hand-drum with Praying Mantis Handle, 1961, wood and monitor lizard skin, 24.6 x 7.87 x 6.2 in.

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10.8 New Guinea, (Irian Jaya) Asmat, Amanamkai Village, Matjemos (b. c. 1930-?), Hand-drum with Praying Mantis Handle, 1961, wood and monitor lizard skin, (62.5 x 20 x 16 cm), Collection of the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam. The drum is the traditional hourglass type with a praying mantis. Tropenmuseum Amsterdam

Matjemos was an extremely talented and original woodcarver working in the village of Amanamkai on the southwest coast of New Guinea. His art was documented by ethnographer Adrian Gerbrands during the early 1960s but while Gerbrands described his working technique in some detail and even filmed Matjemos carving a drum, he gives very few details about the artist’s life.

When Gerbrands encountered him, Matjemos was a man of about thirty with a wife named Sèwos. When Matjemos was still a boy, his father and then his mother were killed and he was raised by his maternal uncle Taunam.

The details of his art training were not recorded but he probably learned from Bapmes and Bishur, two older wowipits active in the village. When Matjemos reached the age of initiation, he exacted revenge for the death of his mother by taking the head of a man from the village where she was murdered. Because his mother and father had been members of two different polities, Matjemos was able to carve for both the Amman and Awok jeus in his village.

The 24.6-inch-high Hand-drum with Praying Mantis Handle is the one created by Matjemos for Gerbrands’ documentary film, Matjemosh (1963). Although not carved for ritual use, the drum follows the traditional hourglass form with a cutout handle. In Asmat society drums are sacred objects; Fumeripits carved the first drum and used it to play the wooden first ancestors to life.

The drum’s only decoration is the carving on the handle, which features three animals traditionally associated with headhunting: praying mantis, black cockatoo, and hornbill. The praying mantis is one of the more important headhunting symbols because the female of the species bites off the head of her partner after mating. The cockatoo and hornbill are fruit eaters, the fruit serving as a substitute for a head.

The tympanum of the drum is the skin of the monitor lizard, tightened by heating the drum over a fire and secured with rattan.

New Guinea, Trobriand Islands, Massim Area, Canoe Splashboard, c. 1900, carved wood and pigment, 17.92 x 18.62 x 1.5 in.

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10.9 New Guinea, Trobriand Islands, Massim Area, Canoe Splashboard, c. 1900, carved wood and pigment, (45.5 x 47.3 x 4 cm), Collection of the British Museum. Although the eye us immediately drawn to the easily recognizable human in the top center, the more significant motifs are the two sea birds with curving beaks on either side of the figure. The British Museum, Funded by Christy Fund, Field collection by Dr. Bronislaw Malinowski

The Massim area includes the Milne Bay area of the New Guinea “bird’s tail” and the adjacent islands making up the Louisiade and D’Entrecasteaux archipelagoes, and the Trobriands

The Massim were seafaring merchants engaged in a complex, long-distance exchange system known as the “Kula.”

Massim carvers ornamented a wide range of items that were part of daily life and ritual practice, but seem to be mainly known for the decoration of the canoes used in the kula. The vessels were often richly carved to show the prestige and importance of the trader.

In particular the prows and splashboards were covered with bas-relief designs of extraordinary intricacy and delicacy, which were further enriched with the careful application of red, black, and white pigments.

The Massim recognize two levels of carvers: master carvers who have been initiated in the ritual systems associated with creative learning and uninitiated carvers who do not possess this sacred knowledge. Boys who exhibit talent in creating model huts and canoes and want to become artists may be trained by their fathers if he has been initiated.

Artistic training includes both technical knowledge, acquired through observation and practice, and ritual or magical systems of knowledge or sopi, which must be taught to the initiate by a master carver. Even the master artist is not free to create whatever he wishes; the form a work is to take is decided by the person commissioning it.

Additionally, each category of carving has its own traditional practices and associated patterns, some of which may be restricted according to the status of the person commissioning the work. Massim design motifs have been little studied or illustrated but they are thought to represent plants and animals as well as cloud formations and sea phenomena.

The decorative scheme of the Canoe Splashboard or lagim, is richly intricate and somewhat difficult to discern. The dominant motif of the lagim is a large pair of opposite-facing, stylized reef heron heads and necks which are connected by a central U-shape.

The beaks of the birds have been recurved to form a more aesthetically pleasing design. A second, smaller pair of birds, with beaks curving upward and back, interlock with the larger pair. Contained within the U formed by the larger bird necks are rows of shell currency disks. Beneath this are a canoe-shaped motif and then a double spiral motif which replicates the basic shape of the lagim itself.

A single frontal anthropomorphic figure stands in the top center of the board; the figure may represent a clan ancestor. If the lagim is inverted, its rounded top replicates the form of an ocean-going canoe with a single mast and sail, creating a pairing with the carved canoe at the base of the lagim.

In this way the lagim is reminiscent of the Massim gobaela or Spondylus shell-currency presentation scepter, which depending upon the way it is turned may appear as single-masted canoe, as a stylized male being, or as male genitalia.

New Guinea, Milner Bay, Mutuaga, Lime Spatula with Seated Drummer, c. 1880-1920 CE

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10.10 New Guinea, Milner Bay, Mutuaga (1860-1920), Lime Spatula with Seated Drummer, c. 1880-1920 CE, carved wood, 24.5 in. h (62.2 cm), Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This oversized spatula was probably made for ritual rather than daily use. Artokoloro Quint Lox Limited / Alamy Stock Photo

The names and life histories of the artists, who created the masterpieces eagerly collected by the West in the 19th century, are largely unknown. Their absence from the art historical record is a result of both Colonial Era bias and the presumption that history exists only in the written word.

One exception to the almost universal anonymity of early artists is Mutuaga, a master carver from the village of Dagodagoisu, South Cape, who was active from the last quarter of the 19th century into the second decade of the 20th.

Very little is known of Mutuaga’s life or training. However, based on stylistic affinities it is believed that he may have learned his craft from an earlier 19th century artist known as “The Master of the Prominent Eyes.”

Mutuaga left a corpus of more than 120 carvings some made for the local community, but many more were commissions from Europeans.

Mutauga’s work is distinguished by a highly realistic and particularized rendering of both human and animal forms that reveals both a close observation of his subjects and an understanding of their basic anatomy.

The seated figure that serves as the handle of the Lime Spatula with Seated Drummer reveals a wealth of facial and anatomical details such as prominent eyes, pierced septum, philtrum, well-defined ears, individualized fingers and toes. Mutuaga has also taken care to render the drummer’s shell armbands and body painting patterns.

The depiction of the figure as seated on a stool is a new form that seems to have been originated by Mutuaga, perhaps as a result of interest from European collectors.

Beneath the stool is a finely carved “gobaela” form, which serves as a stylized face for the blade of the spatula.

The spatula, at 24.5 inches long, is a larger example and may have been made as a ceremonial object.

New Guinea, Tambunum Village, Iatmul Men's House, c.2010

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10.11 New Guinea, Tambunum Village, Iatmul Men's House, c.2010. The Men’s House of Haus Tambaran was the ritual and spiritual focus of the Iatmul village, where men gathered to debate matters of importance to the community. Photo by EK Silverman distributed under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license.

The dominant art-producing center of the middle course of the Sepik River is a group of twenty-five autonomous villages, whose approximately 12,000 inhabitants speak some dialect of the Iatmul-Iambonai language. In the 1930s the British ethnographer Gregory Bateson appropriated the name “Iatmul” and used it as a cultural designation for the group, implying sociopolitical cohesion among the villages that did not exist.

Iatmul artistic production was focused on the ngaigo, either in the ornamentation of the structure itself or in the creation of the cult objects contained within. Despite the wealth of art created by the Iatmul, there does not seem to have been a class of master artists as among the Massim. Instead, every initiated man, at some point in his life, carved something; often with the oversight and commentary of elder men.

The ngaigo or Men’s House (generalized in pidgin Tok Pisin as Haus Tambaran) was the ritual and spiritual focus of each Iatmul village. It was where initiated men gathered to debate matters of importance to the village, plan rituals, curate sacred objects, and spend their leisure time.

These massive boathouse-like structures sometimes exceeded 80 feet in length, reached heights of 60 feet, and. were raised up on stilts some ten to fifteen feet off the ground to protect the inhabitants as well as sacred objects from river flooding during the six months of the wet season.

The ngaigo is conceptualized as a crocodile. Its combination gable- and shed-roofed ends appear to replicate the upper and lower jaws of a gaping crocodile while on some houses woven triangular patterns on the sago palm leaf and bamboo walls seem to imitate the bony external plates (scuta) on the crocodile’s skin.

Directly under the gable peak usually was a figure or mask, representing the face of the ngaigo. The lower level of the ngaigo was usually left open, the space defined by the heavy posts that framed the upper level. The upper level was the sacred area of the house where the drums and flutes were stored, and the skulls of ancestors, sometimes mounted atop anthropomorphic food hooks, were displayed.

Women and uninitiated men were not allowed to enter the ngaigo.

New Guinea, Ambunti area, Iatmul Ngaigo Post, c. 1880-1930 CE, carved wood, 100 x 21.24 x 15 in.

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10.12 New Guinea, Ambunti area, Iatmul Ngaigo Post, c. 1880-1930 CE, carved wood, (254 x 54x 38 cm). Elaborately carved anthropomorphic posts, representing ancestor spirits decorated the upper floors of traditional Iatmul men’s houses. The animals carved around the figure were associated with the clans in the village. The British Museum

The carved post is one of several that once decorated the upper level of an early twentieth century ngaigo; the notch in the top would have received a cross-timber.

The principal motif on the post is a large human face, with round eyes, prominent nose, and open mouth; it is a type of image known as a ngwail or “ancestor spirit.”

In Iatmul carving anthropomorphic forms are often combined with those of animals, generally representing totemic clan animals.

The Ambunti post; has the remains of a pair of carved fish on either side of the face and another animal, possibly a turtle, under the chin, which ends in a serpent head.

Originally the post would have been enlivened with charcoal and ochre pigments.

New Guinea, Maprik, Abelam Korambo or House of Spirits, 20th century

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10.14 New Guinea, Maprik, Abelam Korambo or House of Spirits, 20th century, Collection of the Ethnological Museum, Berlin. The Korambo is an A-frame house for ancestral and cult spirits rather than a meeting house for village men. Sacred figures used in male initiation rituals are stored in the structure’s small interior space. Photo by Daderot distributed under a CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Declaration license.

The Abelam korambo is often generalized as a “Men’s House” or Haus Tambaran but the korambo is a dwelling place for ancestral and cult spirits (ngwalndu) rather than a meeting house for initiated men.

The design of the korambo is distinctive. Instead of an elevated post-and-lintel construction like the Ngaigo, the korambo is a modified A-Frame structure built directly on the ground.

It has a single, forward-leaning front gable and triangular façade. The largest korambo occasionally have reached heights of 90 feet but the average is 50 to 60 feet. The korambo’s unique profile, which resembles that of an altitude obtuse triangle, is a function of its long, sloping ridgepole that is supported by curved timbers or “crucks” as it slants downward toward the ground, eliminating the need for center posts.

Despite its open interior plan, there is very little space within the walls of the korambo. The korambo functions as a house for the major clan ngwalndu figures and other sacred objects and as a place for male initiation rites.

Since the thatched roof serves as the building’s sidewalls, the only exterior decoration is found on the façade. The façade is divided by a carved and painted lintel into a gable zone, composed of painted bark strip panels that have been lashed together over a cane frame, and a base zone screened by a geometrically patterned, woven rattan mat; the entrance, usually a low tunnel, is covered with the same woven material.

New Guinea, Abelam, Korambo Gable Painting, 20th century, Bark and pigment, 73 x33 x 3 in.

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10.15 New Guinea, Abelam, Korambo Gable Painting, 20th century, Bark and pigment, 73 x33 x 3 in. (185.4 x 111.8 x 7.6 cm), Collection of the Brooklyn Museum. The designs on the façade include spirit faces and flying foxes. In painting the façade the introduction new motifs is not encouraged. The Brooklyn Museum

The painted decoration of the upper façade of the korambo gable is one of the most important activities undertaken by the men of an Abelam village and the work is often taken on as part of the ritual preparation for initiation ceremonies. The triangular façade may reach monumental proportions with more than 900 square feet of surface to be painted.

Such large projects may require two or more senior artists to plan and draw out the design as well as the labor of eight to ten assistants, including apprentices, per master. In decorating the façade with ngwalndu (benevolent spirit) faces, flying foxes, and other standard motifs, inventive designs are not encouraged; the success of the painting rests upon how closely the artist’s images follow the community’s established pattern of designs; a work that does so is deemed to be “correct.”

The sail-like façade panel will be laid out on the ground and given a base coat of mud, either gray or black in color depending upon the locality; the mud serves as an absorbent foundation for the paint. While the mud dries the master artist will plan out the design, often using split cane to measure the sections and space the motifs in each façade row.

If the façade is of sufficient size to require the service of more than one senior artist, the artists will divide the space up among themselves, taking care that their abutting sections blend together into a harmonious design. The master painter begins laying down the design at one side of the panel and working across, drawing in the component elements in white paint applied with a narrow chicken feather that gives a fine, fluid line.

As the master completes each portion of the layout, he will assign one of his more advanced assistants to add successive outlines, particularly around the eyes, in red, black, or yellow. Less skilled assistants are then set to work adding white dots or painting in the solid areas. Should a mistake be made, the offending area is covered with mud and repainted.

When the painting is completed the façade is hoisted into place on the front of the korambo.

Abelam artists typically work only in four colors: red, yellow, white, and black. The first three of these are derived from minerals: red and yellow from ochres and the white from calcitic stone or kaolin clays. These are crushed into powder and mixed with water and lime juice to make paint. Black is a different matter. If the undercoating mud is black, then the areas in the painting that are to be black will be left unpainted and glazed with tree sap. When the local mud is gray, a black pigment is made by chewing the scrapings from the bottoms of cooking pots with the sap and leaves of the native breadfruit tree; this task usually falls to the most junior apprentice who will spit the resulting paint into a coconut paint pot as needed by the artists.

New Guinea, Abelam Yam Mask, 20th century, fiber and paint, 25 in. high

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10.16 New Guinea, Abelam Yam Mask, 20th century, fiber and paint, 25 in. ( ) high, Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. These masks decorate long yams when displayed in front of the korambo during rituals of exchange; they are not worn by humans. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Purchase, Nelson A. Rockefeller Gift, 1965

One of the more unusual Abelam arts is associated with the growing, display, and competitive exchange of long yams (Dioscorea alata). The long yams are a distinct variety from the common food yam. These massive tubers can reach lengths exceeding 12 feet and can weigh as much as 140 pounds.

After the yams are harvested, they will be ceremonially displayed in front of the korambo before they are given to each man’s exchange partner. Later the grower will receive his partner’s yams and the man who has grown the largest yam gains the greater prestige. Prior to the display the yams are decorated in secret by the men of the grower’s lineage with Cassowary and Lesser Bird of Paradise feathers, brightly colored fruits, shell and boar tusk ornaments, and freshly repainted wooden or woven masks. The largest yam is topped with a triangular wagnen headdress, identifying it as embodying a particular clan spirit, and is given the name of that ngwalndu.

Lesser yams receive a round disc-shaped headdress called noute and are given the name of a lesser spirit or more recently deceased ancestor. Additionally, the surface of the yam may be painted with designs similar to those the Abelam use to decorate their own bodies.

In the display the long, thick yams, considered to be male, are lined in the most prominent place while those that are bifurcated and thus considered to be female are set up around the periphery.

The basketry Yam Masks are made by men from a variety of local materials including large grasses, palm spathe, and varieties of vine-like lygodium fern. These are woven into complex designs that include human and bird-like faces, with round, bulbous or tubular eyes. The triangular crests of the masks often feature delicate filigree-like patterns.

Traditionally, masks were painted in red, yellow, black, and white utilizing standard Abelam pigments. However, commercial acrylic and enamel paints acquired from traders have occasionally been used along with other commercial flotsam such as twist-ties and colored thread raveled from grain bags.

The yam masks are only used to decorate the tubers and are never worn by the men.

New Ireland, Malangan Funerary Carving, Malanggatsak type, late 19th-early 20th century, wood, fiber and paint, 108 in. high

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10.17 New Ireland, Malangan Funerary Carving, Malanggatsak type, late 19th-early 20th century, wood, fiber and paint, 108 in. (274.3 cm), Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This tableau figure shows a man being swallowed by a fish and is thought to reference not the manner of death but that of burial. Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1972

New Ireland is located in the Bismarck Archipelago to the northeast of Papua New Guinea. Excavations in the Namatanai rock shelters suggest that the island was settled by at least 28,000 BCE During the Colonial era the island was regularly visited by whaling ships, which brought the first metal tools. These tools made a significant impact on the art of New Ireland.

The majority of the carvings produced in New Ireland were made for the Malagan funerary and initiation ceremonies. The memorial ceremonies that comprise the malangan originated on the Tabar Islands and spread from there to northern and central areas of New Ireland.

The term “malangan” is used to refer to the ceremonies, individual figures representing the deceased or other spirits, masks created for it, and the art style of these works.

The family or clan of the deceased began preparations to host a malangan ceremony soon after the burial, but the process of planning the dances, collecting the food, and commissioning the carvings could take months or even years depending upon the financial resources of the family. The purpose of the malangan was to memorialize and honor the dead and also to help their souls to move on to the spirit world.

The creation of a malangan memorial figure began with the felling of a tree of sufficient trunk diameter to accommodate the carving of the image. The log was then cut to the required length and transported to a thatched hut for carving. The carving process was lengthy as the carving would cease periodically to allow the wood to dry out.

Although the carvings were largely single-block pieces, additional elements, for example outstretched arms, might be carved separately and pegged into the sculpture. Many sculptures and masks had inset eyes of sea snail (Turbo petholatus) shell. The final stage was to energize the figure with an application of paint, beginning with a coat of white (powdered lime) and then red ochre. Other colors used included black (charcoal), yellow, and blue the last two being derived from plant sources.

Rattan, pandanus fruit fibers, or even short sticks might be used to suggest hair.

The malangan tableau may include several different types of figures, some representing important ancestors or mythic figures, and one or more representing the dead for whom the ceremony is being held. During the period of the malangan festival the souls of the deceased were believed to inhabit their figures and so were treated with the utmost respect. However, at the end of the ceremony when these familial spirits moved on to the land of the dead, the figures might be burned, taken to the woods to rot away, or sold to collectors. The carved masks, however, were stored for future use.

This malanggatsak type sculpture stands 9 feet high and is an example of the common “man swallowed by fish” theme in malangan art. Rather than depicting an event in the life of the dead man or his manner of death, the motif is thought to reference burial at sea. Cremation, symbolized by a hearth, and sea committal were traditional funerary practices in New Ireland.

The man in this carving crouches within the mouth of an enormous fish, presumably a shark, while holding a smaller fish up to his mouth by its the wing-like fins as though he were speaking to the small fish. The figure’s face is painted with black and white forms that divide the face diagonally above a grimacing mouth with blackened teeth. An elaborate openwork crest, decorated at the bottom with a pair of black and white snakes, rises from the man’s head.

The black and white snakes are New Guinea Death Adders (genus Acanthophis), an extremely poisonous viper identifiable by its triangular head, thick banded body and short thin tail (the skinny loops touching the shoulders of the figure). Two additional adders are found along the sides of the figure where they appear to be biting his elbows. The figure is painted to show ornaments that mark his importance.

On his chest is a large kapkap worn by men in leadership positions and he wears shell bead bands at the ankles, wrist, upper arms, and around his waist.

Contemporary Art in Melanesia

As early as the 1960s some elements of Modernism were beginning to appear in New Guinean art as artists began moving to the capital, Port Moresby.

There they sought training from professional expatriate artists or attended the newly established art schools in Papua New Guinea or abroad.

These first professional artists often incorporated elements of traditional community life and culturally relevant themes in their work but used Western media and modes of expression to explore changing concepts of identity and nation.

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New Guinea, Kauage Mathis, Burial, 1990

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10.18 New Guinea, Kauage Mathis (1944-2003), Burial, 1990, Collection of Glasgow Museum of Art. Mathis drew on mythology and village life to find subjects for his paintings. In Burial, Mathis depicts the funeral of a Village Head Man or chief. Glasgow Museum of Art

Kauage Mathias was born and grew up in the Chimbu tribal area of highland Papua New Guinea, and after a brief stint at a Catholic mission school, he went to work as a laborer on a coffee plantation.

As a young man in the late 1960s, he made his way to Port Moresby, where he found work as a cleaner. In the city he was fascinated by the cars, buses, helicopters, and airplanes but also frustrated by the menial jobs that were the only work he could get as an uneducated and unskilled man.

His desire to work as an artist was ignited in 1969, when he saw an exhibition of drawings by Timothy Akis, a member of the Maring people from the Simbai Valley. Akis’ exhibition at the University of Papua New Guinea had been arranged by Georgina Betts Beier, an English expatriate artist.

New Guinea, Daniel Waswas, Look Within 2, 2007, acrylic on canvas, 77.87 x 59.13 in.

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10.19 New Guinea, Daniel Waswas, Look Within 2", 2007, acrylic on canvas, (1978 x 1502 x 36 mm), Collection of the Museum of New Zealand. Four images of the same young girl seem to be looking into their own eyes in a moment of self-reflection. The Museum of New Zealand

Daniel Waswas was born in Mendi in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea; his mother was a native woman and his father, whom he never knew, was Australian. He began his course of study in the fine arts at the University of Papua New Guinea and then went for further study in Auckland, New Zealand, ultimately earning a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Auckland.

Being mixed race in a country and time when tribal background was a large part of an individual’s identity, Waswas was very aware of how Papua New Guineans perceived themselves and the impact of that mindset on the development of the country.

His art advocates for national unity and the bridging of the divisions and tensions created by the extraordinary cultural diversity of the island.

In Look Within 2 the image of a young New Guinea girl in brightly colored tribal body paint, headdress and beads is repeated four times, creating two pairs of figures who turn to look deeply into their own eyes as if standing before their reflection in a mirror. Waswas uses highly realistic eyes as a means to draw the viewer into the painting and its subjects.

In the background is the woven panel design from the lower section of the Parliament Building of Papua New Guinea in Port Moresby. In juxtaposing these young girls, who seem to be on the verge of becoming women, with the suggestion of a building that reflects the country’s heritage and evolving future, Waswas is commenting on the fragility of traditional identities in a transitioning culture.

Micronesia

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Micronesia, comprising some 2000 small islands, is located to the north of Melanesia.

The first settlers arrived in western Micronesia, from the Philippines or Taiwan, in the third millennium BCE and expanded from there in the following millennium.

In the second millennia BCE they moved onto the islands of Palau and Yap in the Carolines. European contact was initiated in 1521 CE with the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan, who claimed the Marianas for Spain.

Later, the Carolinas and Philippines were incorporated with the Marianas into the Spanish East Indies. Today, Micronesia is divided politically into the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republics of Marshall Islands, Kiribati (Gilbert Islands), and Nauru, and the American territory of Guam.

Palau, Babeldaob Island, Bai-ra-Irrai, Airai Village, 18th century

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10.20 Palau, Babeldaob Island, Bai-ra-Irrai, Airai Village, 18th century. The bai was a communal house where the elders of the village met to discuss issues of importance to the community. The bai at Airai is odest of the surviving Palauan bais. ©RDK Herman, Pacific Worlds, 2002

In the traditional Palauan village, the bai or meeting house was the most important structure. Here the men who were the elders of the ten clans met in council to discuss matters of importance to the community. Paired rows of stone pillars on Badrulchan Island and the similarly paired latte in the Marianas suggest that the bai’s architectural form may be an ancient one.

Very few village bai have survived into modern times; one of the few remaining bai is the 300-year-old Bai-ra-Irrai, Airai village, Babeldaob Island. Bai-ra-Irrai is the largest of three bai that originally stood on a 111 by 136-foot stone-lined, earthen platform. Each building was raised up from the platform on an individual stone podium some 19 inches high.

The two secondary bai, one of which was a rare two-story form, were lost during the 20th century. Having multiple bai was a mark of a village’s wealth and prestige since the villagers did not construct their own bai but paid workmen from another village to fabricate, assemble, and decorate their village bai.

Bai-ra-Irrai was built on two rows of paired stones, at intervals of six feet down the almost 70-foot length of the building; the stones served as piers supporting the ends of eight massive ironwood floor beams, each measuring 8 by 30 inches and extending the entire 20-foot width of the building.

An equally massive sill, notched to lock the floor beams into place, brought the floor level of the bai to approximately four feet above the podium. Rising from the sill are eight pairs of posts that support the rafters.Upper and lower tie beams stabilize the rafters and provide space for narrative pictorial decoration that visually recorded community histories and traditions. While most of the structural members were connected with mortice-and-tenon joinery, the roof stringers of the bai were lashed together so that each side of the thatched roof could be lowered, like a sail, during typhoons.

Inside the bai the space was unobstructed except for two stone fire pits in the floor; there were no benches or partition walls. Access was provided by a wide door in each gable end and pairs of narrower doors on each long side. Additional illumination was provided by a foot-high gap between the lower wall and roof eave that ran all the way around the building.

The exterior walls and gable ends of the bai provided large surfaces for painted decorations with both symbolic and narrative content. Four colors were traditionally used in painting: white derived from powdered lime, red and yellow from ochres, and black from soot or wood ash; these were mixed with parinarium nut oils as a binder.

The decoration of the lower walls seems to be somewhat standardized, typically featuring bands of udoud or Palauan money (black crosses within a circle), Tridacna clam shells, roosters, demigods, and money birds (marked by, holding or excreting money symbols).

Decoration of the individual boards, called storyboards, that make up the gable facades is more varied. The images depicted on these boards reference legendary and historical events particular to that village and its clans. Bai-ra-Irrai’s storyboards contain depictions of sharks, surgeonfish, human figures, canoes, houses and trees; zigzag lines between figures represent conversations.

Palau, Caroline Islands, Dilukai, late 19th to early 20th century, wood and pigment, 25.68 x 38 x 7.87 in.

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10.21 Palau, Caroline Islands, Dilukai, late 19th to early 20th century, wood and pigment, 25.68 x 38 x 7.87 in (65.2 x 96.5 x 20 cm), Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Many bai had Dilukai at the top of their gables, supposedly as a warning to village women to be chaste. Gable Figure (Dilukai). Republic of Palau, Caroline Islands Belauan, late 19th-early 20th CE. Wood, paint, H. 25 11/16 x W. 38 x D. 7 7/8 in. (65.2 x 96.5 x 20 cm). The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller, and Purchase, Nelson A. Rockefeller Gift, 1970 (1978.412.1558a-d). Image source: Art Resource, NY

In addition to incised and painted designs, some Palauan bai had three-dimensional carved images of nude females, called Dilukai, on their gable ends.

A fine example from the Metropolitan Museum of Art depicts the Dilukai with her hair pulled back, wearing large ear ornaments, a valuable bachel pectoral, derual armband of stacked tortoiseshell bangles, and tattoos on her arms and legs, which show her to have been a woman of high status.

She is posed provocatively with her legs splayed to reveal her pubic triangle and labia majora; her hands are placed on her thighs as though she is opening her legs. The approximately 26 by 38-inch figure, like the bai itself, is a masterpiece of the woodworker’s art.

The head and upper torso were carved from one piece of wood, the lower body and legs from a second, and the arms from additional pieces, and then all were assembled with mortice-and-tenon joints.

Local legends, probably influenced by Christian missionization, suggest that the image of Dilukai’s in this displayed pose was placed on the bai either to shame her for her promiscuous behavior or to drive her brother Atmatuyuk from the village and prevent him from returning as it was forbidden for a brother to look upon his sister’s genitalia.

Other interpretations suggest that the figure is protective and is placed on the bai to protect the health and crops of the villagers and to bring wealth. This last explanation may be a sanitized reference to mongols. Traditionally, women were prohibited from entering the bai, except for the mongol or “consort of the bai,” usually a young woman from another village whose family sold her into service at the bai.

Pohnpei, Nan Madol, c. 1100-1600 CE

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10.22 Pohnpei, Nan Madol, c. 1100-1600 CE. Nan Madol was a complex of 98 artificial islands that served as royal residence, temple and burial sites. The island group was protected from storm surges by high, stacked granite walls. Photo by CT Snow from Hsinchu, Taiwan distributed under a CC BY 2.0 license.

On the eastern Caroline islands of Pohnpei and Kosrae stand two of the most impressive examples of Micronesian megalithic architecture and land art, Nan Madol and Leluh, respectively. The building of these administrative, ceremonial, funerary, and residential compounds coincided with the introduction of a new highly stratified and centralized form of governance in contrast to the earlier localized village or territorial rule on the islands.

On Pohnpei Island construction of artificial islets in the lagoon of adjacent Temwen Island began around 500 CE with the quarrying of large prismatic basalt columns, weighing between 25 and 40 tons each, from sites such as Pwisehn Malek on the northwest side of the main island. The stone shafts were separated from the volcanic plug by repeatedly fire-heating and water-shocking the rock.

The large stones were then transported to Temwen lagoon and stacked in crisscross fashion atop the coral reefs to form the retaining foundation walls of each of Nan Madol’s 98 artificial islands. The resulting spaces were filled with rubble and coral debris to a height at least three feet above sea level at high tide. In all these artificial islands comprise more than 200 acres of reclaimed land with some of the larger islands measuring as much as 300 feet on a side.

Construction of the monumental buildings on Nan Madol is thought to have begun in the 12th century CE when the Saudeleur Dynasty, or “Lords of Deleur”, conquered Pohnpei and established their seat at Nan Madol. During the period of Saudeleur rule some 130 structures and 12 seawalls were constructed at Nan Madol.

One of the largest and most impressive structures is the royal tomb complex on Nandauwas islet; the double walled compound encompasses an area some 262 by 196 feet, roughly the same size as a football field. The central structure is a prismatic basalt mausoleum over a subterranean burial vault thought to have been that of the first Saudeleur king, Olosohpa.

Construction of the complex is thought to have begun around 1180 CE. As were the foundation walls of the islets, the tomb and its enclosing walls are laid in alternating header and stretcher courses, a pattern that both provides structural stability and visual interest. Measured on the exterior, the walls of the mausoleum are approximately 21 feet square, and rise to a height of 10 feet; the space inside the megalithic structure is much smaller, approximately 10 by 13 feet and 7 feet high.

The chamber seems to have functioned as a shrine or treasury; the accounts of 19th century visitors to Nan Madol describe its floor as having been covered by a large mass of shell ornaments and stone tools as well as later offerings, which included a gold crucifix and a silver-handled dagger. The tomb platform and its court were enclosed by a basalt wall 13 feet high with its single opening to the west.

The last four courses of the wall were cantilevered out to form a decorative cornice beneath its columnar basalt cap. A second larger wall, 26 feet high, defined a large second court set some 18 inches lower than the level of the inner court and the same measurer higher than the outer walkway between the wall and the canal.

A unique feature of the outer perimeter wall was its upswept corners and entry opening; this effect was achieved by introducing extra stretchers and headers at the ends of the upper course. Although Nan Madol continued to be occupied, the Saudeleur dynasty collapsed in 1628 CE after its defeat by a force from Kosrae.

Polynesia

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The more than 500 islands of Polynesia were the last area of Oceania to be settled. Early theories on the peopling of Polynesia proposed that its first settlers were a people known as the Lapita, named for the site on New Caledonia where shards of their pottery were first found.

The Lapita began exploring the Pacific around 1600 BCE but the rapid push into the islands of Eastern Polynesia did not begin until the beginning of the second millennium CE.

Samoa, Siapo with Banana Pod and Trochus Shell Motifs, 20th century, approx. 6 x 8 ft.

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10.23 Samoa, Siapo with Banana Pod and Trochus Shell Motifs, 20th century, approx. 6 x 8 ft. ( ), Collection of Wake Forest University Museum of Anthropology. At one time bark cloth was made on most of the Polynesian islands for clothing , bedding, funerary use, and as items of prestige and elite exchange. The introduction of European cloth and missionaries led to elimination of bark cloth on many islands. Author's photograph

Among the plants that were carried in the outrigger canoes moving out of western and central Polynesia into the eastern Pacific were paper mulberry seedlings. The inner bark of this tree was used in the production of barkcloth, generalized as with the Tahitian word tapa, although that term typically referred to cloth in its undecorated state; each island group had its own designation for the painted or finished cloth.

With the exception of New Zealand where the tree did not flourish, all of the Polynesian peoples originally made barkcloth for use as bedding and clothing, for ritual and funerary purposes, and as a medium of ceremonial exchange.

The production of barkcloth on many islands ceased after the arrival of Europeans and manufactured cotton cloth. Today barkcloth is made primarily in Tonga where the decorated cloth is known as ngatu and to a lesser extent in Samoa, where it is called siapo.

The manufacture of barkcloth is done by women, often collectively, although men might help with planting the paper mulberry trees (Broussonetia papyrifera), and they carved of the tools.

The process begins with the cutting of saplings of the desired thickness (about 2 inches in diameter) and peeling off the bark and separating out the inner bark from that of the outer which is discarded. The strips of inner bark are soaked to soften the fibers before beating them on a wooden anvil with mallets. During the beating process the strips are thinned and spread until they are about twice their original width. The strips are joined together to form sheets of several layers, often using the starch of kumara (sweet potato) or manioke (cassava) as a binder; both plants are native to South America.

Depending on the size of the cloth the joining and layering process may take several hours or even days to complete. The cloth is then laid out on a work surface covered with design stencils (kupesi in Tonga or upeti in Samoa) made from coconut frond midribs. A light reddish brown koka (Bischofia javanica) bark dye is dabbed over these stencils to transfer the design pattern to the sheet. When the pattern has been transferred the sheet will be laid out to dry and a darker brown pigment, made from mangrove bark, will be used to accent the stencil design or to paint in freehand elements. Occasionally, yellow, red, and purple dyes are also used in Samoa and Tonga; however, black is rarely used except in tapa produced in Melanesia (Fiji).

Few early examples of Polynesian tapa cloth have been preserved, in large part, due to the nature of the material, which is, in essence, a heavy paper, and considerably less durable than woven cloth. Traditionally, thirteen basic patterns were used in Samoan siapo painting but each pattern could be elaborated in different ways. In addition to wavy line and net patterns, siapo designs were inspired by common animals: sandpiper, starfish, Trochus shells, worms and centipedes, and plants: banana, breadfruit, pandanus leaf, frangipani flowers.

The design of the Siapo with Banana Pod and Trochus Shell Motifs was created by laying the tapa over a upeti or stencil featuring blocks of blooming banana pods (Fa'a tumoa or Fa'a moa fai) separated by rows of triangular Trochus shells (Fa'a 'ali'ao). Certain parts of the design were emboldened with darker brown pigment such as the alternating light on dark and dark on light bands of Trochus “diamonds.” The blooming banana pod design was especially popular in the first half of the 20th century.

Hawaii, 'Ahu'ula Cloak, 18th century, twine and birds feathers, 66.14 x 116.14 in.

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10.24 Hawaii, Hswaiian Cloak or 'Ahu'ula, 18th century, olona fibre, honeyeater and honeycreeper feathers, (168 x 295 cm), Collection of the British Museum. Feather garments were highly valued by the kings and nobles of Hawaii and were passed down through the generations as symbols of power and authority. This is one of two cloaks collected on Captain Cook’s voyage. © The Trustees of the British Museum

Individuals of the highest status in eastern Polynesia were distinguished by their use of featherwork garments, helmets, staffs, and standards. Unfortunately, relatively few of these fragile items have survived into the modern era; many of those that have, were collected in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by early explorers such as Captain Cook.

Both the production of featherwork and tapa declined rapidly with missionization and political change after European Contact. The best-known feathered garments are the colorful circular cloaks (‘ahu’ula) and helmets (mahiole) of Hawaii, but trapezoidal capes were also made in Hawaii, New Zealand, and in the Society Islands, where they were part of the Tahitian mourning costume.

Feathers, particularly red ones, were difficult to obtain in many areas of Polynesia, and were highly valued because of their associationwith chiefly and divine status. In Hawaii, red was associated with the manifestations of the god Ku, yellow with Kane, and black with Lono.In Tahiti, red and yellow were associated with Ta’aroa, who is described in myth as an anthropomorphized bird that, by shaking out the red and yellow feathers from his plumage, created the island’s covering flora.

The creation of a feathered garment was a process that took many months, if not years, to complete. The collection of the desired feathers from forest songbirds (honeycreepers), itself could take several seasons. Once sufficient feathers had been collected, they were attached in rows, beginning at the bottom, to a foundation of netting made from the inner bark of the olona (Touchardia latifolia) shrub. Several sections of netting might be joined together to form the shape of the cloak or other garment.

he small feathers were gathered into bunches of 18 feathers and the quills tied together with a piece of olona fiber. These small bunches were then tied, or in some cases glued, to the netting in overlapping rows.

This ahu’ula literally “red garment” is one of two Hawaiian cloaks believed to have been collected by Charles Clerke, captain of the HMS Discovery during Captain Cook’s third voyage of discovery (1776-80). The cloak is recorded as having been presented to Captain Clerke in 1778, by Kahekili II, (c. 1737–1794) King of Maui. The gifting of such an important elite garment suggests the enormous respect afforded to Captain Clerke by King Kahekili; it may well have been a cloak that was taken as a war prize and was unsuitable for the king’s own use because its design was associated with another chiefly lineage.

The length of the cloak and its use of rare red and yellow feathers marked it as the property of a wealthy ali’i; chiefs of lesser rank had shorter capes, often worked with large quantities of domestic fowl feathers and smaller numbers of the rare mamo and i’iwi plumes.

The pattern of this cloak is an unusual one, featuring a prominent bow tie motif of congruent yellow triangles set into a red field between yellow half-moon shapes. When the cloak was worn, the half-moons formed a full circle on the chest of the wearer. Below these large geometric elements is a yellow band with a dozen red dots in a row, a red band with eleven yellow rings, and finally a plain yellow band at the hem.

‘Ahu’ula motifs have been little studied, but the elements on this cloak are reminiscent of the trochus shell and rolled pandanus leaf patterns of Samoan sipao. Other common motifs found on the 160 surviving cloaks and capes include circles, triangles, diamonds, stripes, and especially crescents with a high central peak; lesson common were self-colored pieces such as King Kamehameha’s yellow cloak.

Easter Island, Moai at Ahu Nau Nau, c. 1250-1400 CE

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10.25 Easter Island, Moai at Ahu Nau Nau, c. 1250-1400 CE. The moai or ancestor statues at Ahu Nau Nau are the oldest and the most naturalistically carved of the Easter Island moai. The statues were carved out of basalt and given topknots of red scoria. Shell eyes were added to enliven particular statues. Photo by Arian Zwegers distributed under a CC BY 2.0 license.

Rapa Nui, christened Easter Island by the Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen in 1722, marks the easternmost point of Polynesian colonization of the Pacific. Recent radiocarbon dates place the arrival of the first settlers during the period between 1200 and 1253 CE. According to the traditional histories of Rapa Nui, its first settlers arrived in two double-hulled canoes led by the great chief Hotu Matu’a who landed at Anakena beach.

Socio-political organization and the production of art on Rapa Nui followed traditional Polynesian prototypes. The island was divided among ten clan lineages or mata, each led by a chief or ariki, who claimed one of the sons of Hotu Matu’a as founding ancestor. Supreme over these was the ariki mau or paramount chief who was considered a living god. The ariki mau was usually the highest ranking Honga chief of the royal Miru clan.

Each of these chiefs, according to his rank and wealth, commissioned elite goods and artworks as displays of his personal prestige.

However, the greatest effort seems to have gone into the production of religious architecture and art in the form of the burial and ceremonial platforms known as ahu and monumental stone statues or moai erected on them.

In all some 887 moai were carved by the Rapa Nui masters but only a quarter of that number were erected on coastal ahus where they look inland toward the lands and gardens of the erecting clans. Most moai were carved from the volcanic tuff of Raro Raraku on the eastern side of the island; a few others were sculpted from basalt, trachyte, or red scoria.

A few artisans, utilizing basalt tools, could carve even a very large moai. The process began with a large rectangular block of stone being carved from the rock wall and partially undercut and braced to keep it from breaking free. A master artist would then establish the details of the head and face, and establish a median line running from the figure’s nose to navel to insure bilateral symmetry in the finished moai.

After the sculpture was removed from the quarry, the final detailing was done and the surface polished with coral abraders. The average moai stands about 13 feet high and weighs between 8 and 11 tons. Most were carved as half-length sculptures; in only one case is a moai known to have had legs. Most have arms hanging close to the body at the sides with long fingered hands turned to rest on the waist.

Three carving styles seemed to have evolved over the four centuries of moai production on Rapa Nui. The earliest are the seven moai of Ahu Nau Nau on Anakena beach; these are the most naturalistic, having rounded bodies and only slightly elevated, square faces; the features and ears are well-defined and proportional. The back view shows the line of the posterior median furrow above the loop of the figure’s loincloth. Four red scoria topknots or headdresses were recovered from the ocean and replaced on their moai.

Also discovered during excavations at the site were white coral eye inserts with red scoria irises. Topknots seem to have been a marker of particular distinction; it is thought that only about a hundred moai ever had headdresses. Even fewer are believed to have been fitted with eye pieces; it may well be that the Rapa Nui priests inserted eyes into statues only when they needed to enliven a particular ancestor.

The second style of moai appears after 1400 CE and is exemplified by the fifteen moai of Ahu Tongariki. The figures tend to be larger and more rectangular overall especially the heads, which tilt more noticeably upward.

The final style is represented by the moai on the slopes of Rano Raraku. These are among the largest moai and are much more abstracted than those of Ahu Nau Nau or Ahu Tongariki. The back-sloping heads are trapezoidal in shape, narrower at the forehead than the chin with elongated noses, pursed lips and minimal ear detail.

New Zealand, Tokomaru Bay, Whare Whakairo Ruatepupuke II, 1881 CE

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10.26 New Zealand, Tokomaru Bay, Whare Whakairo Ruatepupuke II, 1881 CE, Collection of the Field Museum Chicago. This ancestor house was commissioned by the Te Whanau-a-Ruataupare chief to replace one that had been lost when it was hidden in the river during the Maori wars. Field Museum Chicago

New Zealand or Aotearoa the “Land of the Long White Cloud,” was settled during the last great push of Polynesian peoples into the remote Pacific. In oral tradition Aotearoa was discovered by a Polynesian explorer named Kupe who came from Hawaiki.

Upon his return seven great voyaging canoes, loaded with the ancestors of the Maori, were sent to colonize the two islands known to the Maori as Te Ika-a-Maui or” The Fish of Maui” (North Island) and Te Wai Pounamu or “The Water of Greenstone” (South Island).

The Maori people trace their lines of descent back to particular members of those original canoes.

The Whare Whakairo or meeting house is considerably more than a building; it is considered taonga, a visualization of the body of an important progenitor or legendary hero and as such is referred to as “he.”

Conceptually, the ancestor is seen as lying face down on the ground. Each structural element of the building is analogous to a corresponding part of the human body.

The carved mask at the peak of the gable is his face, the barge boards are his arms, and the parts of the boards that extend beyond the two porch posts or amo represent his fingers; the deep space porch is his brain, the door is his mouth, and the window is his eye.

New Zealand, Tokomaru Bay, Whare Whakairo Ruatepupuke II, 1881 CE

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10.27 New Zealand, Tokomaru Bay, Whare Whakairo Ruatepupuke II, 1881 CE, Collection of the Field Museum Chicago. This ancestor house was commissioned by the Te Whanau-a-Ruataupare chief to replace one that had been lost when it was hidden in the river during the Maori wars. Field Museum Chicago

Inside Ruatepupuke II is a single open communal space, unobstructed except for the two “heart” posts supporting the ridgepole; the two figures forming the base of the poles are rendered in a highly naturalistic style, although the scale of the heads has been slightly exaggerated.

The walls of the room are lined with alternating poupou panels, carved in the same abstracted style as the porch posts, and tukutuku or latticework panels.

The panels are done in the poutama pattern, one of the earliest used in tukutuku; it symbolizes levels of attainment and advancement.

The panels were formed on paired latticework frames made from native toetoe grass stalks. The panels were stitched by women working together to lace the designs from materials such as strands of golden sedge, native flax, and dyed kiekie leaves.

Chapter Review Questions

Explain how the environment affected the arts produced in different parts of Oceania.

Most Oceanic societies have some sort of communal house. How are these structures are conceptualized by the people who use them?

Discuss how contact with the West impacted the arts and culture of this region, especially in modern times.

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