FEATURE Massim Sorcery Figures FIGURES WITH LONG EARS AND LONG SNOUTS FROM THE MASSIM REGION OF PAPUA NEW GUINEA In the Massim region of Papua New Guinea, a particular genre of wooden sculptures with long ears and long snouts was used in both black and white magic. This essay presents eleven of these rare figures. Ten of the sculptures are illustrated: Nine form the handles of lime spatulas and one is a figure that surmounts a peg. Of a related freestanding figure with long ears and a long snout, no image is available but a description survives. The essay discusses the functions of the carvings and what, if anything, the figures represent. Only those in figs. 1 and 2 have been published before. The Massim region coincides approximately with Milne Bay Province at the eastern tip of Papua New Guinea. It consists of the eastern end of the mainland and numerous nearby islands, including the Trobriand Islands in the north and the D’Entrecasteaux Archipelago in the south, representing 120 two broadly designated cultural groups within a wide range of localized diversity. It is particularly notable for a unique system of interisland trade known as kula, and much of the art of the region centers around this as well as accoutrements for the canoes that were central to the process. Other Massim art types include weapons, objects of daily utility, and lime spatulas. Massim woodcarving is characterized by smoothly polished dark surfaces offset by intricate interlocking incising, often filled with white lime. Lime spatulas are utensils used in the process of chewing betelnut, a mild stimulant incorporating the nut of the areca palm, the leaf of the betel vine, and powdered lime (calcium oxide), which together stain the mouth red. The blade of the spatula is used to pass lime from a container to the mouth, and the handle is typically decorated, frequently with a figurative motif. On rare occasions, this was the long-eared and long-snouted motif that is the subject of this article. Nine Lime Spatulas The spatula in fig. 1 was collected by Arthur Swinfield in 1932 in Samarai, the former administrative capital of what is now Milne Bay Province, located just off the eastern tip of the New Guinea mainland. Swinfield worked as a shipwright at Kwato Mission Station1 in the 1930s. In 1987 he By Richard Aldridge and Harry Beran with Abel Abel FIG. 1 (right): Lime spatula. Massim region, Papua New Guinea. Collected by Arthur Swinfield in 1932. Wood. L: 40 cm. Ex John and Marcia Friede Collection; Harry Beran Collection (HB 425). Irene Beard Collection, London. © Irene Beard. Photo: Paul Graham. told Harry Beran that he had obtained the spatula along with a staff topped with human figures after a court case conducted by Magistrate Monty Bastard, in which two young men from the Buhutu Valley on the southern coast of the mainland were convicted of killing their grandmother. In their defense they said she had been a notorious sorceress who had been killing off their fellow villagers. They presented the spatula and staff in evidence as objects she had used in sorcery. The existence of the magistrate is confirmed by R. H. Black (1957, II: 197, 284), who mentions E. M. Bastard as the resident magistrate in Buna, Oro Province, some 300 miles west of Samarai. Geoffrey Baskett (n.d.: 140), who also worked at the Kwato Mission, records a different version of the story. According to him, the sorcerer was a man named Kuki, whom he met while visiting the islands of Sariba and Sideia, shortly before Kuki was killed by two young men. FIG. 2 (above): Lime spatula. Massim region, Papua New Guinea. Purchased at Samarai by the Waite Expedition in 1918. Wood. L: 23 cm. South Australian Museum, A.10431. Image © South Australian Museum. FIG. 3 (left): Lime spatula used only for protective purposes. Carved by Nakan Isi. Massim region, Papua New Guinea. Collected by Richard Aldridge in Buiari. Wood. L: 34.2 cm. Richard Aldridge Collection, Australia. Image © Richard Aldridge. FIG. 4 (right): Lime spatula. Massim region, Papua New Guinea. Collected by Abel Abel in Keia Village on the north coast of mainland Milne Bay Province. Wood. L: 37. Richard Aldridge Collection, Australia. Image © Richard Aldridge.
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