ART ON VIEW
64
fying threads that link them. Prominent among
these is an underpinning connection to the spirit
world and an effort to seek balance with the
world of ancestors. This duality can be seen in
the creation myths, wherein on one side the artworks
are given their meaning and function by
culture heroes, while on the other the natural
world takes its own course, unimpeded by human
existence. The human form is the most important
and widely interpreted imagery among
Sepik–Ramu peoples, as their fi gurative sculptures
represent and embody ancestors ranging
from the recent to the primordial and, as such,
occupy the central place in their visual and ritual
worlds. The central locus of this is the sacred
men’s house where, unlike masks, which were
mostly danced in public, fi gural sculptures were
kept hidden away from all except those initiated
into the secret cults.
Zoomorphic carvings also abound throughout
the region, particularly ones that represent crocodiles,
birds, turtles, and fi sh. These refl ect totemic
acknowledgement. Architecture, musical
instruments, utensils, and tools were all highly
embellished with decorative carving, fi ber ornaments,
and painted patterns. Body decoration
was widely employed as a marker of status and
belonging. Among the Iatmul, young male initiates
were scarifi ed in symbolic bonding with the
crocodile spirit. Face painting, associated with
clan-based totems, was applied both to the living
and to the overmodeled faces of their ancestral
skulls.
Structured European engagement with the
Sepik–Ramu basin commenced shortly after
Germany acquired authority over the area in
1884 in conjunction with a private enterprise
called the Neuguinea-Kompagnie. This company
was set up to explore and ascertain what
resources would be benefi cial for exploitation
by this public-private for-profi t organization in
the vast northeastern quadrant of New Guinea
that was christened Kaiser-Wilhelmsland after
the then German emperor. To this end, they sent
a coastal steamer, the Samoa, to the Sepik estuary
under the scientifi c direction of Dr. Otto
Finsch. Having entered the lower estuary and
naming the entire river Kaiserin-Augustafl uß
after the empress, Finsch returned a year later
and traveled some 50 kilometers upriver on the
Sepik, documenting what he encountered and
making collections of ethnographic specimens.
While the primary goal was to seek land and labor
for copra plantation development, artifact
collecting (and selling) soon came to be seen as
a viable way of earning revenue. In the couple of
decades following, there became what could be
called the “expedition” period, wherein numerous
well-organized and well-funded voyages,
both institutional and private, plied the Ramu
and Sepik Rivers in search of artifacts. The followed
the salvage anthropology methodology
espoused by Adolf Bastian, director of Berlin’s
Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde, whereby
it was deemed imperative to collect as many
pure and authentic objects of material culture as
possible before the onslaught of Western culture
and religion obliterated fragile indigenous societies.
Organizations such as the Hamburgische
Wissenschaftliche Stiftung (Hamburg Scientifi c
Foundation) and Chicago’s Field Museum, as
well as wealthy private enterprises such as those
funded by Sweden’s Count Birger Mörner, let
alone local colonial offi cials like Governor Albert
Hahl and merchant captain Heinrich Voogdt,
literally swarmed the Sepik–Ramu basin, all
rushing to carry away as much material cultural
as possible in the face of imagined soon-to-belost
cultures, as well as in competition with each
other.
German administrative control of northeastern
New Guinea came to an end after the colony
fell to Australian forces in 1914 at the outbreak
of WWI, and after the armistice Germany was
stripped of all her worldwide colonies in the
Treaty of Versailles. The former German New
Guinea was assigned to Australian administration
and for the next sixty-two years, excepting
the period of Japanese WWII occupation, control
remained with Australia and the Commonwealth
until independence in 1976. Australian
administration brought a different perspective
to resource development—the Australians became
more interested in mineral extraction than
plantation development and management—and
a different school of anthropologists arrived to
study the Sepik–Ramu peoples. Cultural anthropologists
Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson
studied peoples of the Middle Sepik in the 1930s
and both published in-depth studies based upon