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Article Excerpt
While New Ireland malanggan carvings have attained fame in the world of tribal arts, and research in anthropology that focuses on the arts has continued, there is still no consensus about their 'meaning.' There is substantial agreement about their social-political-economic function in ceremonial context: malanggan objects function as valuables which are exchanged between kin, affines and others for pigs and shell currency in events similar to those which are typical in Melanesia. However, findings about the meaning of malanggan carvings that are divergent, or that expressly avoid conclusions, are common in the literature. I have proposed some interpretations regarding style (Billings 1987), but not about motifs; and the most naive and insistent of our questions remain for most researchers unanswered: what is depicted here? What is represented, remembered, noticed, repeated, valued?
It seems likely that there will never be unblemished consensus, if only because researchers have worked in different places and at different times, as well as from different theoretical perspectives. Some generalizations have emerged, but my own work suggests that we have underestimated the importance of local differences in assessing what we find.
The assumption that 'primitive art' is mythological at least, if not religious, is firm in anthropology; and I myself went to the field with it. While the raison d'etre of New Ireland malanggan has seemed elusive to researchers, most students, especially those working primarily with the art objects, continued to assume, without clear evidence, that it was religious. Fortunately, against the hegemony of all this literature and of what seems like 'common sense,' some have carefully left open the relationship between malanggan and the spirits of the dead (e.g. Powdermaker 1933: 134-5). I now think that the general story, common around the world for tribal arts, that sees art in tribal society as always religious, always representing some kind of spirit, and rarely 'art for art's sake' (e.g. Leach 1954) or commemorative is not a story that relates well to northern New Ireland art; at least, not where I found it, primarily among the East Coast Kara.
The central thesis of this paper is that the appearance of two types of malanggan carvings, the mask with big 'ears' and the 'doll' with outstretched arms and digits, can be interpreted as 'pictures' of the dead when their bodies were on display. Evidence for this thesis lies in reports from informants, to me or to others, primarily to Biro (reported in Bodrogi 1967) and Parkinson (1907, 1999), that detail burial customs. Only in the case of the mask did one researcher, Biro, get a direct statement that the mask replicates display of the corpse. A separate thesis which supports this interpretation is that my informants and those of some other researchers, especially Gunn (1992), say that some carvings are 'pictures' of the dead; although they did not specify that the pictures were of people as they looked when they were dead, rather than as living, active persons.
An adjacent but not necessarily related thesis is that some carvings do not serve as vessels for spirits of the dead or spiritual forces of any sort but rather are 'just pictures.' This view was strongly asserted by my informants in the East Coast Kara area in 1965-67, but it is not what has been found by some other researchers. Several researchers have not offered final answers to this question, or have reported inconsistent information, either because informants give no interpretation or else different informants give different interpretations.
A further thesis, then, which is suggested here but without any attempt to extensively document it is that different informants in different places and at different times have different views. This view is supported by Heintze (1987), indirectly by Lewis (1969, 1973), and, more recently, by Gunn and Peltier (2006). There is no institutionalized final answer to questions about spirits, in New Ireland as in most places.
MALANGGAN CEREMONIES AND MALANGGAN CARVINGS
For my purposes here, I will not dwell on important points that are not in dispute. All researchers agree generally that the primary meaning of malanggan carvings to the people lies in their use in malanggan ceremonies, exchange rituals which 'finish' the dead and their obligations, redistribute their wealth, and organize and reorganize people in groups that continue to work and live together. Furthermore, all researchers and all informants agree that it is the designs, not the objects themselves, that are exchanged and valued. Local informants say that the origin of malanggan is in Tabar; and there is general agreement among researchers that the use of malanggans varies as one moves in from Tabar and south in New Ireland, disappearing entirely in the most southerly region. (1) I will limit my focus here on the interpretation of what has remained unsettled and most controversial: the carved forms themselves.
THE CARVINGS
Many Western observers have speculated that New Ireland carvings are images of the dead and that they are vessels in which the spirits of the dead are present, at least at some time. Informants often deny this and emphasize exchange values of carvings; which leaves unanswered questions concerning the subjects portrayed in the carvings: what do the recurring motifs depict? With the help of information from some of the earliest research in New Ireland, much of it combed by contemporary students, (2) I have been able to interpret and clarify, at least to my own satisfaction, my own field data regarding some well-known motifs. I will argue here that there is no evidence for a belief in the association of the 'spirits,' if any, of particular dead with particular carvings, and a great deal of evidence against it. I will not extend my argument to include conclusions regarding a belief in spirits in general: the work of most researchers, including my own, is inconsistent, as are our informants, on this point. However, I do argue that our quest for holy meaning in the carvings has been ill-starred from the beginning; at least in the north of East Coast New Ireland (Billings, 1970). I will support my argument, that the carvings are 'just pictures,' with the commentary of my own local informants, some crucial parts of which I have only come to understand in relation to the work of early scholars: especially Richard Parkinson (1907, 1999) and Lajos Biro (Bodrogi 1967). (3)
I will direct my analysis and interpretation to two common types of carving, each of which is characterized by single puzzling and unexplained features: the masks with big 'ears,' and the 'doll' statues with outstretched arms and digits.
THE MASKS WITH BIG 'EARS'
Identifying the type. Some version of masks called mamatua in the northern New Ireland area where I worked (4) and in Tabar is widespread. We may infer the presence of this type from similarities in appearance, terminology, and function reported from various parts of northern New Ireland for over a century. They are ceremonial masks used in solemn rituals related to the dead; but also in rites of passage for children entering adulthood; and in ritual installation of young men as leaders. Mamatua masks are performed in a slow, solemn solo by a man costumed with leaves arranged to look, perhaps, like bird's feathers, and carrying a shell rattle and a paddle (Figures 1, 2; 3, 4; see also Lewis 1969: 62; Heintze 1987: 50-53, Figures 18-22). Groves provides a full description of a Murua ceremony he saw at Fatmilak village, noting the 'slow heavy tread ... bustle-like bunch of Cordyline terminalis leaves bobbed up and down on the rump; shell rattles attached to wrists and ankles' which 'provided appropriate music to the solemn, stately, forward movement' (Groves 1936: 225-226; cited in Lewis 1969:118). It is generally agreed that these masks contrast with the more widely known tatanua (Parkinson 1999, pp. 124, 279-80; Clay 1987, pp. 63-73); dance masks constructed with a high yellow crest simulating an earlier admired male hair style, and used in dances which people find entertaining (see Powdermaker 1933: 126, 128 for descriptions of dances similar to those I saw using tatanua masks). According to Clay, writing of the Mandak of Central New Ireland today, 'the tatanua dancer presents an image of male personhood, not simply in physical attributes but in a broader sense of culturally defined male capabilities' but it does not 'represent an individual or his spirit' (Clay 1987:66).
Mamatua masks are cylindrical heads carved from single logs to which are appended two large 'ears.' These 'ears' are their identifying feature. They often terminate in a 'loop' at the bottom (Figures 1, 2, 3, 5; Heintze 1987, Figure 22: 53), which appears to replicate men's elongated earlobes (Lincoln 1987a: frontpiece; 1987b: Figure 7, 34) which were still visible on some elderly men in 1965-67. Beneath a slightly mounded head of 'hair' made from vegetable matter, the faces are decorated with paint, the teeth painted on but not carved; and eyes are represented with shell (opercula). Often a separate carving of a bird at the end of a stick is held in their mouths (Figure 3: see Gunn and Peltier 2006, plates 102107, pp. 242-247). (5) Such masks are referenced by many scholars working in the north 100 years away from each other, and are variously called matua (Parkinson, 1999: 277; and also Kramer, following Parkinson: Kramer, 1925: 76), murua (Groves 1936: 225-226; as cited in Lewis, 1969: 118, who refers to Groves' description as of a 'Nit-like mask'), nit kulegule by Lewis (1969: 61-2; Figure 8: 62), mamatua (Billings and Peterson, 1967), marua (Heintze, 1987: 50, Figures. 18; see also, Figures 19-20: 51), murua or merue (Bodrogi, 1987: 30), wanis (Gunn, 1987: 79, Figure 39; Lincoln, 1987a: 106), and varim (Kuchler 2002:127). Peekel reported that the term Matua was a generic name for masks that have carved and painted wooden faces and carved and removable ear pieces (Peekel 1927:33; cited in Lewis 1969: 120). Whatever their variations in color or ornamentation, these ceremonial masks all have in common separately carved, and attached, large wooden 'ears;' designed in 'pierced or open' fashion (Wingert, 1962: 235). Biro, writing notes in 1907 (Bodrogi 1967), saw and described a mask but did not name it.
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Local people who spoke to me about these masks called these appendages 'ears,' but expressed doubt about what they were meant to represent, beyond 'just decoration.' Often the openwork designs which compose the 'ears' resemble the shape of feathers and could somehow represent the 'wings' of 'birds' associated with the dozen or so matrilineal clans found in the north; or with the birds associated with the matrilineal moieties found mostly south of the village of Fatmilak (Chinnery, 1929:12 and local informants). There is some basis for seeing them as representations of leaves: the leaf shaped painted designs on the faces of masks represent, according to one group of informants, the palm prints with which people decorate each others' faces before performing in a ceremony; so perhaps they also decorate the 'ears.'
All students have taken note of the 'ears': Bodrogi wrote that 'Only the mask called murua, merue (or nit kulegula by Lewis) can be identified with any certainty. There (sic) are three-part masks consisting of a carved face and head section with separately attached openwork ears.' (Bodrogi 1987: 30). Parkinson pictures but does not describe the openwork carvings attached to the side of the head of what he calls the matua mask. However, he says of the kepong, or wanis on the Gardner Islands (Tabar), which he views as similar in function to the matua, that, 'In the [kepong masks], it is characteristic that they have wing-like additions on both sides of the head, often in careful open-work carving, representing ears' (Parkinson 1999, Figure 120: 277). Under the heading 'Malanggans of the North,' Kramer (1925: 72) shows photographs (Kramer 1925, pp. 88, 89, 90, 91, 92) of masks with appendages which he calls 'ears' (ohren). Citing Parkinson, he refers to the masks as matua. His illustrations confirm the resemblance of his examples to others considered here, and thus reaffirm the characteristic features of this type. Photographs of the masks Heintze calls marua (Heintze 1987: 50-53, Figures 18-22) show that they are similar in form to the masks I heard called mamatua. Lincoln uses the term wanis for a mask that clearly displays characteristic big 'ears' and a relatively flat head, and gives its provenance as Northern New Ireland (Lincoln 1987a: 105, plate 13; 106; see also plate 11:103, 101). Gunn used this same term, wanis, for a mask of this type which he saw in use in Tabar (Gunn 1987:79; Figure 39). Kuchler uses the name varim and states that it is 'also known as Mamatu in the north' (Kuchler 2002;127; Figure 54: 128). Guiart gives no local terms for these masks and does not use the term 'ears,' but he provides two photographs (plate 283:292; plate 291:300) and writes that 'The masks ... fall into several categories, though all are alike in having the usual adjuncts of openwork decorations of various kinds and painted prolongations, on the sides and top at least' (Guiart 1963:294).
Heintze describes the function of marua masks as follows: 'The marua clear all traces of a dead person from where he lived; they also remove the taboos under which the deceased's house and part of his property had automatically been put' (Heintze 1987:51). This function is similar to that served by the mamatua we saw in performance (Billings and Perterson 1967; Billings 1972). Mamatua are used regularly in ceremonies that precede the final malanggan for the dead: as one of my informants, a respected elder of Mangai village, Ismael, told me in 1965, 'When you see a mamatua, you want to cry. When you see true malanggan carvings at a final malanggan, you want to laugh. You cannot go around sorry, sorry, sorry all the time. It is a time now to be happy.' Lepilis, a man from Medina (Nalik...
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