FEATURE
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peoples of Oceania to manage their cosmological
vision. Accordingly, they constantly strove to make
these objects effi cient. If the objects created in this
context are beautiful, it is because they truly refl ect
history and identity. This “art” was created to meet
specifi c needs. In the case of Polynesia, this meant it
was imbued with special powers, or mana.
The life and power of objects sometimes derive
from the materials from which they are made. A deeper
look often clarifi es this quality. New Caledonian
houses have no doors, but their entrances are fl anked
by “guardian” posts called tale. Each is a plank of
wood, the top of which is carved with an anthropomorphic
face. The area below this is covered with incised
geometric designs evoking the shrouds in which
high-ranking people were wrapped after death. This
association is not just visual. Once wrapped in such a
shroud, the body of the deceased was left in the forest
to decompose. Once that had occurred, a dead tree
from the same forest was harvested in order to carve
a pair of tale, the installation of which at the entrance
of the house would allow the spirit of the departed to
remain with his descendants.
New Zealand nephrite is also instructive. This material,
called pounamu in Maori, is an expression in
the material world of the protective spirit Poutini. The
sacred character of pounamu is fundamental, and this
stone was used primarily to make tools and ornaments
reserved for use by nobility. These include mere (hand
clubs) and toki (adzes), both of which were sometimes
recarved to produce hei tiki, the anthropomorphic fi gural
pendants that were worn around the neck. These
objects were extremely precious, not because they had
any monetary value but because of the mana (power)
they contained. They were never abandoned and were
passed down from generation to generation, a process
that continually increased their mana. Sometimes the
suspension hole at the top of a hei tiki is worn through
the upper edge of the piece, a clear indication that it
was worn for many decades.
Whatever our appreciation of it may be today, Oceanic
art is not just a matter of aesthetics, but rather a
means of relating to a fully inhabited world of nature
in which our distinctions between the animate and
the inert are meaningless and in which minerals have
the same sense of life as fauna and fl ora.
Oceania: Voyages dans l’immensité
Through April 29, 2018
Musée du Cinquantenaire
Brussels
www.kmkg-mrah.be
/www.kmkg-mrah.be