ART on View 82 FIG. 12 (below): Sacred stone (mortar). Wiru people, Pangia, Ialibu- Pangia District, SHP, Papua New Guinea. 6000–1000 BCE. Hammer-pecked stone, blue pigment (vivianite). D: 19.5 cm. Collected by Stan Moriarty in 1967. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Purchased 1977, 279.1977/M1675. Photo: AGNSW/Jenni Carter. © Wiru people, under the endorsement of the Pacific Islands Museums Association’s (PIMA) Code of Ethics. gious and ceremonial significance across the highlands through belief systems centered around cycles of procreation, fertility, and growth. Shells of every description were traded up to the highlands and used extensively in headbands, necklaces, aprons and girdles, and even bows used for warfare.5 Many of the objects that Moriarty collected from across the highlands, and which are featured in Plumes and Pearlshells, contain pearlshell elements. The moka kin of the Melpa people of the Mount Hagen region, with its lustrous shell set against a muted red ocher backdrop (thought to parallel the way Melpa men decorated and painted themselves), was used in the spectacular ceremonial exchanges known as moka. Pearlshells are also widely present in body ornamentation, such as the beautiful necklace made by the Huli of the Tari region in the southern highlands, which includes both shards of pearlshell as well as the large crescent-shaped pendant, and as embellishments for cult and ritual objects, including the timpsonk (cult mask) of the Mendi people of the southern highlands and the kund gale (effigy) of the Wahgi people. During the 1950s the timp cult complex swept through the Mendi Valley, traded from the south through gift exchange. The rituals were highly secretive, with women, youths, and outsiders excluded. Performed to control malicious towmow (ancestral ghosts believed to bring sickness), timp promoted community well-being. Sponsors gave valuables in exchange for ritual knowledge and transactions occurred in installments over several months accompanied by complex ceremonial events. The stomach, intestines, and fat from slaughtered pigs were cooked in earth ovens and then distributed to cult inductees; blood was collected and offered to the ghosts, spells were recited, and the pork eaten, after which the bones were gathered and placed in the “corpse,” mimicking the bound bones of deceased kin. This corpse was taken from the cult house and paraded before spectators, accompanied by two men wearing woven, conical-shaped timpsonk masks, who chased away the malevolent ghosts. Finally, the corpse was then buried, as interring the bones weakened the towmow. Constructed from an astounding array of natural and manufactured materials, the kund gale collected by Moriarty in 1965 is dressed in the precise ceremonial attire of a Wahgi male dancer, complete with konzap kine, a traditional apron decorated with pearlshells. Made by men, it was used only during a major pig festival, the konggar, an extended ritual cycle held once in a generation. Over a period of years, rites were performed, pigs reared, ceremonial structures built, and decorations, including bird of paradise plumes, made into the correct bilas to be worn on the final days of celebration. On the day before the climax of the festival, when hundreds of pigs were killed and pork distributed to family and exchange partners, men performed “trampling the fence,” rushing onto the ceremonial grounds in a display of martial force. Among the dancers, one man carried the kund gale mounted on a pole above his head.6 Perhaps the most spectacular of all the flora and fauna transfigured by the Highlanders into objects of incredible beauty and power are the plumes of the hundreds of species of birds that populate the mountains, in particular the revered bird of paradise. Feathers are integral components of headbands and headdresses, and they are used to enhance dance banners, masks, human hair wigs, and even shields and bows and arrows. Splashes of red, green, and blue from parrot feathers; white and yellow cockatoo quills; and the brown-black plumes of the cassowary are found in works from across the entire region. The remarkable initiation mask of the Tairora people of the eastern highlands, collected by Moriarty at the
untitled
To see the actual publication please follow the link above