126 2006, the elements that constitute the large painting were hung from a rail that faces the museum’s central mezzanine (figs. 7 & 9), where it occupied a space measuring nearly 8.8 meters in height and 2.2 meters across (MQB. 71.1961.103.338, 339, 340 and 70.2002.36.1). Each of these elements, or panels (which individually measure between 114 and 178 centimeters in length and between 41 and 70 centimeters in width), is a piece of the base of a sago palm tree. The painted side of this spathe is a smooth surface, while the back is fibrous and coarse. Over time, some parts of the panels have become very fragile and as brittle and friable as glass. The panels were formerly held together by strands of rattan fibers threaded through holes in them. Restorers were able to determine that the panels had been joined together prior to being painted. The painting technique involved associating groups of elements with varying background colors, as can be seen on the upper and lower parts of the whole work. This absence of uniformity led to some controversy among some of the restorers, who believed that the painting might not have originally been one single work, or that the panels were not made to be put together. But documentation obtained in situ at Kinakatem in 2003 and 2007 established that this technique was a particularity of paintings from the area, as the lively painted wall behind the altar of the Catholic Church now in Biwat demonstrates (fig. 5). The author was able to follow the creative process of the creation of a painting, just as Margaret Mead had in 1932 with the artists Ndelong and Kaingga from Akron village, who created the large painting. Two men would work together in harmony on such a work (fig. 4). After having finished the background, one of them traced a preliminary outline of the desired designs. Then, if he was satisfied with them, he proceeded to thicken the lines while perhaps simultaneously making some minor corrections. His acolyte could then fill the outlined spaces with the various chosen colors (black, red ochre, white, and yellow ochre). The method consisted of filling in everything that was to be rendered in one color before passing on to the next. Mead mentions that the brick red color was obtained from a local orange soil and that the black was derived from kare (Gnetum gnenon) leaves, which were chewed with lime. The local name for this painting is mboampalik or yangndumba, and it is composed of twenty-five panel elements on seven levels and of five types. It evokes the creation of the universe. The central portion depicts Asin, a powerful water spirit with a strange head, rendered in the overall form of a mythical crocodile in whose belly there FIG. 5 (left): Father Charles Amia officiating mass in the Biwat Catholic Church in front of an altar panel that is evocative of the painting’s original impact, August 2003. Photo © Christian Coiffier. OBJECT history In 2000, in the course of preparations for the second exhibition on the La Korrigane expedition at the Musée de l’Homme, this author finally reconstituted the pieces of the puzzle and was able to confirm that the various Mundugumor painting elements that the expedition had brought to France were all part of the single group that Fortune had photographed in Kinakatem in 1932. It turned out that an uppermost section of the painting had been sold at the Droûot at an auction in 1989 to collector Paul Canfrère. He most amiably agreed to lend the piece, and this made it possible to present the nearly complete work to the Parisian public for the first time at the Voyage de La Korrigane dans les Mers du Sud exhibition (fig. 8).5 The only missing element was a representation of a bird, which had been the “right foot” at the base of the large painting. Beginning in the early 2000s, the Musée de l’Homme’s Oceanic ethnographic collection was transferred to the new Musée du Quai Branly, and it was at this time that a project to restore all of the work’s elements was undertaken. The work began in February 2004 at the Centre des Restauration des Musées de France in Versailles. Paul Canfrère accepted the purchase offer for the element he still owned, and that made it possible to consider showing the painting in its near entirety as part of the permanent display at the Musée du Quai Branly. In May of FIG. 4: Michel Wanfop and one of his relatives painting a traditional motif on the base of a sago palm spathe, August 2003. Photo © Christian Coiffier.
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