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FIG. 4 (left): Wall panel
with human fi gure,
simoinang tulangan
sirimanua. Sasiriottoi,
Tailelue, southern Siberut.
Early 20th century.
Collected in 1967.
Wood, bark cloth, black and red
pigment, shell inlay. 47 x 176 cm.
Dallas Museum of Art General
Acquisitions Fund, 1999.3.
A memorial for a slain male victim
of a headhunt, this was the only
such fi gure still observed in its
original place in the longhouse
(uma), then three generations old
and on the brink of collapse.
whether plant or utensil, possess a soul. Everything
must therefore be treated with respect, and
this is why they live simply and in harmony with
the natural world that surrounds them. The exhibition
will focus on the question of how traditions
continue to maintain their values today. To
what extent do the Mentawai want to be part
of a globalizing world? Can they combine old
traditions with a modern way of life? It will coincide
with the publication of the book Toys for
the Souls: Life and Art on the Mentawai Islands,
authored by Reimar Schefold.
We visited Reimar and his wife, Jet
Bakels, at the family home in Amsterdam
and asked him a few questions
about his early life as an anthropologist
and the material culture he encountered
that led to the exhibition and book.
Tribal Art Magazine: Your life has
been devoted to the study of traditional
cultures. Is this an interest you’ve had
since an early age?
Reimar Schefold: I don’t know when
it started exactly, but I do remember
stories my mother told about her
father, Karl von den Steinen, who
was an anthropologist. He was in
Brazil fi rst, and then he went to the
Marquesas Islands at the beginning
of the twentieth century. In Brazil, he
encountered tribes that still lived in an
isolated and traditional manner, but
in the Marquesas, which were French
colonies, even traditional tattooing
had been forbidden. Even so, he was
able to collect cultural material and
document tattooing, but in letters he
sent to my grandmother, he voiced his
disappointment that these traditions
would eventually die out and vanish.
I studied anthropology in Munich and in
Basel and wrote a PhD dissertation on Sepik
suspension hooks, based largely on the huge
collection partly assembled by Anthony Forge,
who was there at the time.
T. A. M.: And how did your studies on Papua
New Guinea lead you to embark on a trip to
Indonesia?
ART ON VIEW
FIG. 5 (above): Copy of female
fi gure that served as the fi nial of
the post supporting the stairway
to the entrance of an uma.
Taikako, North Pagai.
Wood. H: 41 cm.
Tropenmuseum Amsterdam, inv. 3.1.
According to military police commander
Hansen (1914), who commissioned this
copy in 1911/12, this fi gure served as a
guardian against evil forces.