Arthur Palmer - Aboriginal, Oceanic & Tribal Art

MUTUAGA MASSIM LIME SPATULA HANDLES. THE Papua New Guinea MAMMAL FIGURES A ZOOMORPHIC TAXONOMIC REVISION.

2011-08-09T03:56:00.000-07:00

Arthur Beau Palmer

Ethno Essay 15.

"On comprend enfin que les especes naturelles ne sont pas choisies parce que "bonnes a manger" mais parce que "bonnes a penser."

(We understand in the end that natural species are chosen (for totemic association) not because they're "good to eat" but because they are good to think with, good to ponder on).

ABSTRACT

In the Mutuaga corpus of master carvings, discovered to date, there are some 25 lime spatulas and four staff finials identified as having handles decorated with a pig figure. Few of these zoomorphic figures appear to display critical specific features associated with pig anatomy nor any general overall resemblance to pigs. This review proposes a revision of both the current generic pig design classification and the Mutuaga naturalism style intent. A number of local Massim fauna are closely matched to features in the Mutuaga carvings to identify those native animals more likely represented in these carvings.
For a detailed analysis of the congenital deformities present in Mutuaga human figure corpus see previous Ethno Essay No.14.
Full biography of Mutuaga the 19th. Century Massim Master Carver see Beran 1996.
Mutuaga was active as a carver from the late 1870s to approximately 1920, with a known corpus of some 130 + works, although the actual number may be many times greater. Sir Cecil Able states in his introduction to Beran that Mutuaga must have sold a great many carvings to visitors passing through the Suau passage. His carving style became increasingly naturalistic over this period.
All photos of Mutuaga pieces used in this essay courtesy of Harry Beran.

A PROPER PIG

If we are accepting of Beran’s self evident classification of Mutuaga’s formal style of carving (sculpture) as naturalism (Realist) then fig. 1.96 Plate 130 below is readily interpreted as a pig.

The carving looks like a pig and has a number of pig anatomical features i.e. cloven hooves, pig snout, oval piggy eyes (not round nocturnal marsupial eyes), thick pig body conformation with minimal neck head link and a pig’s tail.

If it is possible to identify a Mutuaga naturalistic carving as a specific animal, in this case a pig, and also recognise the highly stylised ubiquitous Massim (frigate?) bird motif when added as a decorative component to these spatula handles, then ipso facto, the other carved fauna which do not possess pig like features must be other species specific portrayals of native mammals or purely imaginary freaks.
If there is a rule anywhere then the rule is everywhere .CLS.

PNG pig possibly reluctantly involved in feast preparation.

REAL GAMON PROPORTIONS

As in the Mutuaga pig sculpture (Plate 103) PNG Village pigs overtly display those physical traits which are faithfully and realistically portrayed in the carvings. Body shape bulk and conformation, legs, hooves, tail straight or kinked, eye and ear position all accord. Long tapering muzzle behind the snout

PNG PIG HISTORY

Pigs were first domesticated in Papua New Guinea some 10,000 BP., several thousand years before Europe or elsewhere in the World. Pigs play a significant role in Papuan village daily life, economy, social, ceremonial & ritual. (See References for full link to PNG Pig prehistory paper - domestication in Papua & spread to rest of World).
However the pig motif is not well represented in Melanesian art forms with the exception of pig tusks as both body adornment & nose pieces in Sepik masks. Pig-snouted pottery on the Sepik and Iatmul over modelled pigs’ heads. Basketry masks from the Maprik , Malagan mask from New Ireland are infrequently in pig head form. Also large full pig body basketry works are made in the Sepik. Pig tusk symbols appear in Asmat art.
Pig motifs are generally unusual in New Guinea decoration for drums, masks, shields, canoe splashboards , flute-stoppers, bag hooks etc. Birds, fish, crocodiles, snakes - yes and often. Pigs hardly ever.
It is possible that because the pig is a significant capital item, which plays a vital ceremonial and economic role in serious matters such as dispute settlement and marriage arrangements, the avoidance of realistic images is deliberate. This prohibition would avoid any possible supernatural sanctions and the pay back repercussions for the carvers’ clan should the village pig population suffer future loss or pestilence. It is unknown if pigs are totemic on the same level of relationship as local native fauna. If not this may be a further reinforcement of the capital trade economic status of Papuan domestic village pigs which would effectively prohibit such totemic monopolisation.

FINDING THE GAMMON PIG & OTHER MAMMALS

And whether pigs have wings. Lewis Carroll
Following plates & titles are from Beran 1996.
In Beran (113) it is noted that other writers on this subject have identified the animals carved on these lime spatula handles as Cuscus (possum) in Haddon 1894,p.210, & Douglas Newton 1975, 111. 15.
Crocodile by Chauvet 1930, Dog by Frith in 1936 & Bandicoot by Sir Cecil Ables to Beran in 1988. Only Black catalogued pig for an unknown reason. Ables identified Bandicoot for the obvious reason that the animal looked more like a bandicoot than any other. He later changed this interpretation, not on a revised taxonomy but on the basis that on reflection he considered the pig to be more important for Suau culture. So for 90 years Sir Cecil thought of these carvings as representing a bandicoot. There appears to be no record of Mutuaga identifying the animals he was carving in the new realist style – perhaps he considered, that naturalism as an art form dictates that the object was meant to look like the subject, it required no great explanation? What you see is what you get.

Revised taxonomy & associated discussion are in red

Plate 72. Spastic diplegia (cerebral hypoxia –oxygen starved brain damage), Cerebral palsy ,Microcephalic, small low atypical forehead, pronounced frontal nasal protuberance, short legged bent knee toed in stance on tip toe, protruding tongue, Dysmorphic face.
Plate 73. Quoll (or pet possum, bandicoot) . Over sized hands unusual for Mutuaga. Pearched on top of owner head normal traditional Papuan position for carrying climbing pet. Dogs & pigs carried across back or draped over neck.
Plate 74. Quoll (or pet possum, bandicoot).
Plate 75. Dog/Quoll (or pet possum,bandicoot).

Plate 44. Banieva bowl. Pig realistically carved – snout, head, ears, eyes. Rolled hind legs reverse of Mutuaga figures?

Plate 104-110. All of the above (carved mammals appear to display zero pig like features. These creatures possess a distinct neck ( pigs have thick neck) (the architectural decoration bridging the shoulder to back of head is discussed later),cuscus/quoll type ears, long thin bandicoot type nose & limbs, clawed /rolled paws not cloven hooves, a long prehensile tail roll as opposed to a pig kink or straight tail. Round nocturnal marsupial eyes.

Most notable is that pigs do not lie or crouch in this position with feet/legs tucked up. Pigs normally stretch out on their side either in a wallow depression or on flat ground. The crouch as portrayed in these carvings is more typical of a quoll, bandicoot or dog crouch. Kim Akerman notes that Pigs on Japanese netsuke often shown sleeping with legs tucked beneath them.

The snout/nose decoration of a frigate bird (or pigeon, osprey – Beran p 118)(plate 104, 105, 106, 109 & 110.) is a possible indication that the main animal portrayed is a carnivore or scavenger (eg quoll). Possums also make a bird like tree nest so this may be representative of a traditional Massim taxonomical similarity between bird & mammal not existent in European science or cognition. From a design perspective this decorative feature appears to directly extend from the upper lip or tongue & in two cases (106, 110) from the lower lip as a double motif. All have a decorative design element which appears as a laid back crest which bridges from the back of the head to the shoulder top. This may be a structural element to strengthen the architecture of the thin neck or may have Massim local cultural significance. As a form following function dictate none of these decorative elements particularly lend themselves to a smooth comfortable ergo dynamic easily manipulated spatula handle form. This alone is indicative of a cultural imperative for this decoration rather than a functional dictate perhaps. It has been suggested that the more decorative exaggerated rolling scroll frieze on the snout top and bottom of some examples may represent the large prominent whiskers of nocturnal quoll and bandicoot species. (See examples 31, 43.)

Plate 115. Banieva (Flying Fox Totem). A crouching creature perched on a branch structure appears to display zero pig like features. This mammal has large nocturnal bandicoot ears, long thin bandicoot type nose & limbs, clawed paws not cloven hooves, a long prehensile tail. Male? Scrotum under tail.
Plate116. A marsupial with curled tongue licking a frigate bird. Rolled prehensile tail. Rolled paws. Prominent back bone ridge.
Pate 117, Dicephalus marsupial monster. Possible foetal deformed monster. Second small head is joined to shoulder/ spine by lower & upper extended jaw. Main head has long folded tongue protruding from mouth back along full length of nose. Reverse head undershot lower jaw. Small under developed legs & paws. Prominent back bone ridge. The role and significance of human and animal physical & intellectual deformity as direct links to the supernatural (spirits and ancestors) in traditional Papuan society may be a factor of artistic intent.

Plate 101. Male quoll like body, long tail & head. Defined neck & large scrotum.
Plate 102. Ring tail possum type animal. Defined neck sans bridge decoration.
Plate 103. Rolled feet & tail. Nose decoration upper & lower jaw. Bandicoot type. Foetal abnormality? Small underdeveloped limbs. Frigate bird decorative nose freize.

SCULPTURE SUBJECT SUSPECTS

The New Guinean Quoll (Dasyurus albopunctatus), also known as the New Guinea Quoll or New Guinea Native Cat, is a carnivorous marsupial mammal native to New Guinea. It is the second largest surviving marsupial carnivore of New Guinea
Quolls feed on a large range of prey including birds, rats and other marsupials, small reptiles and insects. They are reported to feed on prey larger than themselves. They are good climbers but also spend time on the forest floor. Although nocturnal, they spend the daylight hours basking in the sun. They nest in rocky banks, hollow logs or small caves.
Because they are known to scavenge, persecution by humans may be putting pressure on the population. They also face predation and competition from introduced species such as dogs, cats and foxes.

The New Guinean long-nosed bandicoots (genus Peroryctes) are members of the Peramelemorphia order. They are small to medium sized marsupial omnivores native to New Guinea.

Ccuscus genus Phalanger , centred in New Guinea and extending south to the rainforest of Cape York, east to the Solomon Islands and west to Sulawesi (Celebes). It has a flat face, short ears and dense woolly fur on the body and limbs; its long prehensile tail is naked and scaly for most of its length. Most
cuscuses are large animals, about 60 cm (24 in) long, not counting the tail. They nest in hollow trees. The best known cuscus is P. maculatus , the spotted cuscus, which is chiefly creamy white in colour, with spots of chestnut and black on the back and with grey or reddish legs.

Plate 126. Head unpiglike. Nocturnal eyes. Rolled tail. Foetal abnormality?
Plate 127. Possum or Quoll head, paws & tail. Nocturnal eyes.
Plate 128. Head unpiglike. Paw or hoof? Rolled tail. Nocturnal eyes.
Plate 129. Quoll crouching. Nocturnal eyes. Grasping paws. Quoll tail and scrotum

Plate 151. Young clinging to belly typical of possum family.
Plate152. Praying Mantis. (Totemic Association).
Plate 153. Tree Kangaroo in defensive posture? European Pussy Cat?

Goodfellow's Tree Kangaroo (Dendrolagus goodfellowi goodfellowi)

NEW ANIMAL HANDLE SPATULAS BY MUTUAGA

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ZUcKwPQNXWEC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=papua+pig&source=bl&ots=eyy33fYAP6&sig=AJ14M6kKvpR4nMLxCRyPkZqC2Zw&hl=en&ei=w_BBTaj6JoWyvgPB0M2gAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CE0Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=papua%20pig&f=false

CONCLUSION

Mutuaga carved one perfect pig, however to extend this pig clade to any of the other known Mutuaga mammal carvings of his Realist corpus requires an unsafe leap of faith and misplaced imagination which cannot be justified . On the physical evidence ohttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giff the carved animal figures anatomical features the irresistible conclusion is that all display many of those key elements which naturalistic sculpture of local native mammals would portray. Equally clear is that the decorative elements are not full explained and that we are yet to know the whole story and traditional meaning of Mutuaga’s intent. Totemic association of the traditional carvers to local native fauna, particularly mammals, is a possible explanation for the subject animals represented in the realistic sculpture from the Suau region during Mutuaga’s time.

Biblography

Beran, Harry. 1996. Mutuaga .A Nineteen- Century Master Carver. Wollongong. Wollongong University Press.

Brodsky, Isadore. 1943. Congenital Abnormalities, Teratology and Embryology: Some evidence of Primitive Mans’ Knowledge as Expressed in Art & Lore in Oceania. The Medical Journal of Australia. May 8 ,1943. P.417-429. Sydney NSW.

Lewis Carroll The Walrus and The Carpenter ( Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

Pig Pre History PNG link:
http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ZUcKwPQNXWEC&pg=PA58&lpg=PA58&dq=papua+pig&source=bl&ots=eyy33fYAP6&sig=AJ14M6kKvpR4nMLxCRyPkZqC2Zw&hl=en&ei=w_BBTaj6JoWyvgPB0M2gAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=9&ved=0CE0Q6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=papua%20pig&f=false

THANKS
Kim A Akerman, Dr Ross Ainsworth, David Said, Dr Brenda Presson Bush.

Striped Possum: Dactylopsila trivirgata.

MUTUAGA MASSIM NEW GUINEA MEDICAL MALFORMATION MASTERPIECES

2010-12-09T15:27:00.000-08:00

LIME SPATULA FIGURES & CONGENITAL DEFORMITY – ETHNO MEDICAL INTERPRETATION OF MUTUAGA NATURALISM

Essays in Ethnography No.14

Dedication for Dr. Isadore Brodsky (1905– 1975) the clinical collector par excellence.

Arthur Beau Palmer. July 2010. www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com

Abstract: A significant number of Mutuaga anthropomorphic Massim carvings in the naturalism (realist) style, when subject to justified medical examination & diagnosis, display a range of recognisable human medical conditions & physical deformity. Evidence is presented and examined that may suggest Mutuaga’s primary consideration for the adoption of naturalism was to accurately depict such abnormality traits & that the development of this realism style allowed for deliberate portraiture of identifiable individuals within a Massim social & cultural context. Data suggesting that this is not atypical of Melanesian intent & purpose in art & other aspects of Mutuaga’s creative drive & influences are discussed.

Harry Beran, in his bench mark Entho Art book on master carver Mutuaga (1860-1920s), & other sculptors of Massim naturalistic figure lime spatulas, casts aside the 'veil of anonymity that usually hides individual nineteenth-century Melanesian artists' (Beran. 1) & asks a very pertinent question.

Why did Mutuaga decide to depart so radically from the established traditional Massim stylised iconography & introduce his naturalistic realist style art form to depict human (anthropomorphic) & animal (zoomorphic) figures?

The answer is unlikely to be simply so Prof Beran could positively attribute Mutuaga’s creative hand to Massim masterworks with some certainty 80 years on.

Beran notes that the degree of naturalism in Mutuaga’s anthropomorphic carvings is unusually high (op cite,129) & that he may have created his personal style by increasing the degree of naturalism above that of other contemporary 1880 -1920 carvers to create his masterpieces. Beran further observes (p13) The naturalism style indicates the musculature of the limbs, the anklebones, the bony prominence of the ulna near the wrist joint ( the ulna prominence), the vertical grove between nose & upper lip ( philtrum), the groove the runs down the middle of the back (spinal sulcus).

Additional to this list of significant features are; tongue, bellybutton, nipples, teeth, pierced septum, eyebrow ridges, prominent eyes & genitalia.

Mutuaga was active as a carver from the late 1870s to approximately 1920, with a known corpus of some 120 works, although the actual number may be many times greater. Able states in his introduction to Beran (.x) Mutuaga must have sold a great many carvings to visitors passing through the Suau passage. His carving style became increasingly naturalistic over this period.

Brodsky 1943 Paper

In 1943 Dr. Isadore Brodsky published a small, tightly argued seminal justified diagnostic paper in the Medical Journal of Australia; Congenital Abnormalities, Teratology and Embryology: some evidence of primitive Man’s Knowledge as expressed in Art & Lore in Oceania. Brodsky identifies various medical conditions as the subject for artefacts from this region and argues that considerable traditional medical knowledge and skill existed pre contact.

Brodsky had been a young medical doctor on Burns Philp ships in remote districts of Papua including the Massim before the WW11 & was an avid collector of Melanesian artefacts (the Brodsky collection was acquired by the Palmer family after his death). Brodsky had a narrow database of examples from any one area; however his artefacts are stylistically representative of each region.

Amongst other illustrations of artefacts used in this paper which purport to show medical conditions, including New Zealand Maori, (wry neck) Solomons (conjoined twins), New Ireland (dicephalus congenital abnormality & child birth) & Dutch New Guinea (child birth), is a small Massim figure .

This figure is described by Brodsky as: Carving from Fife Bay, Papua, Australian Museum Collection E 27502. (Figure IV & V)

Brodsky Figure IV &V Beran Plate 90 & 91.p231

“Collected by Capt. W. H. Steele, of the London Missionary Society ‘s Steamer John Williams, and was presented to the Museum by Mrs. S.A. Steele in 1923. The carving has been made in wood, the subject being human. The length is eight inches. The attitude of the figure especially the oblique antero-lateral view, the facial expression & the deformed right wrist, are the interesting features.

The Fife Bay carving arouses interest for more than one reason. The right hand shows the condition of club hand, which may be either congenital or acquired. I regard it as an example of the congenital type because of coincidental abnormalities – namely, short right humerus ( as compared with the left), and idiotic expression and stance, which with the protruding tongue may be taken as collateral evidence of cretinism, itself an abnormality of the thyreoid gland.”

Neither Brodsky nor The Australian Museum in 1943 were aware that this figure had been carved by Mutuaga.

This same figure appears in Beran p. 231 Plate 90. Human Figure with recessed eyes by Mutuga. Nose damaged. (1.68) Notable is that the figure Plate 91 alongside also displays a clear case of what Brodsky would have described as bilateral (both) club hands.

Present Justified Medical diagnosis identifies that both figures display Spastic diplegia (cerebral hypoxia –oxygen starved brain damage), Cerebral palsy ,Microcephalic, small low atypical forehead, pronounced frontal nasal protuberance, bent knee toed in stance, protruding tongue, Dysmorphic face.

This recent Etho medical reassessment has dictated that changes to Brodsky’s diagnostic observations are necessary. These are made on the basis of a constellation of physical manifestations in a large number of other Massim figures pointing to more specific diagnoses of the deformities Brodsky identified in this one example.

Brodsky’s club hand deformity /cretinism diagnosis has now with more certainty, in conjunction with the other symptoms evident in several additional carved figures, been attributed to cerebral hypoxia causing spastic diplegia.

The finding of cretinism is unsafe & more accurately diagnosed as congenital cerebral insult identified as consistent with a range of evident collateral physical manifestations presented in these figures. Neither this figure nor any of the other known Mutuaga works display enlarged thyroid. The Suau enjoy an Island/Ocean economy, so an iodine rich fish diet makes “cretinism” highly unlikely.

Brodsky’s symptom identification was correct but the diagnosis has subsequently changed & the database has expanded, as has medical terminology & clinical assessment.

CLUB HAND TYPE CONDITIONS FOR MASSIM FIGURES IN BERAN

Of the figures illustrated in Beran’s Mutuaga opus there are fourteen (14) anthropomorphic carvings which appear to display the club hand condition as identified by Brodsky.
Of these twelve (12) are most clearly observable & readily identified by present day qualified orthopaedic medical interpretation as a physical deformity. Some figures display multiple physical clinical symptoms of disease in what is described as a constellation of physical manifestations of cerebral insult and spastic diplegia.

Obviously since Brodsky’s 1943 observations there have been advances in clinical diagnosis and club hand is now regarded as a lay term. At the time Brodsky may have deliberately chosen this terminology to reach a wider audience despite publication in a medical journal?
Nine (9) figures display the bilateral (both hands club) condition – Seven (7) are attributed to Mutuaga and two (2) possibly carved by Banieva.

Medical opinion is that bilateral club hands (both hands) are most commonly congenital i.e. abnormality developed in utero & present from birth.

A further five (5) figure show unilateral club hand type condition. Mutuga carved four of these examples and one (1) is by the Master of the Zigzag scroll.

Unilateral club hand may be congenital or acquired later in life through injury or disease.
Beran (1996) attributed thirty-one anthropomorphic lime spatulas to Mutuaga.
As of March 2010 another eleven have been located (Beran Sothebys 2010).

http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotDetail.jsp?lot_id=159578652

Methodolgy

The methodology for the current reassessment of Brodsky’s initial observations of one figure the & general survey of Mutuaga’s published catalogue was straight forward. Experienced medical practitioners, some with a background in Melanesia, went through the Beran book un briefed, save the instruction that the works were realistic. All were asked to comment on any medical abnormalities or observable symptoms presented in each figure.

LIST OF PHYSICAL ABNORMALITY POSSIBILITIES EVIDENT IN REALIST FIGURES. BERAN.

No.1 Cretinism. (Unlikely due diet) Plate 90 Brodsky 1942.
No.2 Prominent Eyes. (Goitre? Graves disease) Plates 16-19.
No.3. Macrocephalic. (Proportion differential may be Children not adult or stylistic)
No.4 Microcephalic. Plate 56, 40, 22, 23, 24.
No.5 Small low Forehead. (Atypical of local population). Plate 69.
No.6. Flat face. Dysmorphic Features. Plate 50, 51.
No.7. Cerebral palsy? Hand Contractions. Plate 68, 40.
No.8 Bent knee stance. Tip Toe stance. Toe pointing in. Plate 40,
No 9. Unorthodox squat Position. Plate 68.
No. 10. Prominent Nipples. ( Plate 26, 50, 84.). Male (graves disease) or Female Plate 80?
No.11. Hydrocephalic. Plate 26.
No.12. Spina bifida. Plate 61 & 88.
No.13. Protruding Tongue. (oral projection Plate 12, 13.) Plate 56, 89,90.
No.14 Heavy Raised Eyebrow Ridges. (Atypical of local population). Plate 79,56 Beasley Drummer.
No.15 Club Hands (lay term – specific Spastic diplegia due constellation of combined symptoms)
No.16 Down Syndrome Trisomy 21.
No 17 Hypochondroplasia Dwarfism . Plate 26.
No.18 Dysmorphic face. Plate 94, 96,98.
No.19 Conjoined twins. Plate 85.
No.20 Spastic diplegia Plate 40, 68,72.(cerebral hypoxia –oxygen starved brain damage)
No. 21 Head Ache Forehead band? Plate 17.
No.22 Circumcision. Plate 81.
No.23 Genetic inbreeding. Plate 29
No.24 Pronounced frontal nasal protuberance. Plate 29

Beran Figures Plate 87, 88, 89 Spina bifida colour plate

Spastic diplegia (cerebral hypoxia –oxygen starved brain damage) 89, Cerebral palsy 89 , Spina bifida 88 & colour plate, Microcephalic 87, 88 89, small low atypical forehead 87,89, pronounced frontal nasal protuberance 87,89, short legged bent knee toed in stance on tip toe 88, protruding tongue 89, Dysmorphic face 87,88. , Hypochondroplasia Dwarfism 88, anxious hand to lower face position – intellectual disability 87.

Now aware of another thirty-four Mutuaga carvings discovered since publication of Beran (1996). (Beran pers com).

Photos of these new figures indicate that nine display clear clinical physical deformity consistent with all the above and will be discussed in a separate paper.

MUTUAGA’S DISABILITY

Mutuaga was disabled. Able describes Mutuaga walking with a stout shoulder high stick because one leg was shorter than the other, but in spite of his ungainly up & down gait had no difficulty walking (Beran x).

A limp significant enough to make a lasting impression on a small girl and to be later remembered clearly as an old lady some 60 years on. Sir Cecil Able’s sister, Badi Smeeton, “remembers Mutuaga well as a famous carver with a limp” ( Beran p16).
Like wise, Weibo another elderly informant of Beran’s in the 1980s recalled Mutuaga’s limp & date of death as significant.

This indicates Mutuaga’s condition was pronounced & permanent - not a temporary injury or passing lameness. It is not possible to determine if Mutuaga’s disability was congenital (e.g. club foot?) or acquired (injury?). Given that his art largely became a medium for expressing congenital deformity the limp was probably not due to an accident.

Curiously Mutuaga’s nick name, Oitau (carved man) does not seem to directly reflect any disability or remarkable physical trait. Most obviously this is an acknowledgement of his art form, although it may refer to a stiffness of his lower limb as in his creations? There are no know articulated limb sculpture from this region, nearest is the Solomons.

Beran suggests Mutuaga’s nick name Oitau has biblical association as in the second commandment “You shall not make a carved image for yourself” (p.27) when translated into local Suau.

As Mutuaga ‘s carving of naturalistic human figures was encouraged by the missionary Charles Able from 1891 on, this may be a source of some irony if so(p17). Also Weibo claims Mutuaga did not adopt Christianity (18) but was not a sorcerer (19).

All this needs to be weighted against other evidence & the scope of this paper is to place & attribute influence for & intent in the development of Mutuaga’s realism style. Carving human form figures in this society at this time was not to be taken lightly. The potential for sorcery and malevolent magic would have been a very grave matter and a cause for serious concern. It is notable that none of Mutuaga’s figures have sorcerer’s hats as do other more stylised carvings by his peers (Beran Plates 3 & 4 p196).

Quiet a few of the other local peer group carvers’ nick names do indicate & directly relate to physical disabilities or perceived peculiarities & not their work.

Beran (p23) records a carver Togoanina nicked named Nimabu’u (short hand) due to the fingers on at least one hand being abnormally short from birth. Also known as Nimabu’u (short arm) or Daelo (unbalanced) was Taulelegi ,another carver of the Flying Fox Clan , who had his right arm amputated after a tree fall.

Banieva the only carver from Mutuaga’s generation was called Tauseuseuli (Lefthander).
Ninia Saidaeva was called Diki after Europeans had called him so (p22). Begs the question, Dicky what ? Dicky knee perhaps?

This is a fair indication that remarkable physical aspects of an individual, in this case disabled creative carver members of group, were deemed worthy of a personal linguistic marker denoting & possibility even celebrating a disability. So to perhaps disability was equally raised to a significant element in Massim plastic realist art?

MEDICO ART RETROSPECTIVE ASSESSMENT & DIAGNOSIS OF PATHOLOGY

The history of Justified Medical diagnosis of art works as an of offshoot of Fine Art , science , history & ethnography has involved some spectacular leaps of faith & pronouncements followed by additional research producing embarrassing retractions.

Prime recent example would be best illustrated by Adam Gross
Institute of Forensic Medicine, Collegium Medicum, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland

“When a physician casts his professional eye to examine individuals portrayed by various artists, sometimes weird ‘diagnostic conclusions’ are formulated and published [1–5]. Hence, the literature reports spectacular ‘medical diagnoses’, such as the one where a maxillofacial surgeon ascribed the cause of the enigmatic smile of Mona Lisa to an alleged past injury of her upper jaw and teeth, while an anaesthesiologist regarded the wound in the neck of a nymph portrayed by Piero di Cosimo as the first illustration of a tracheotomy [3, 4].

The same type of ‘justified medical diagnoses’ is represented by the detection of a malignant tumor involving the left breast of La Fornarina by Raphael [1], the left breast of Rembrandt’s Bathsheba [2] and the left breast of one of the ‘Three Graces’ – the one situated in the extreme right – in the painting by Paul Rubens [3]”

Inconveniently for the dire belated diagnosis all these women were identified & their fates, long & happy lives, reasonably documented. One outlived the portrait painter by 30 years.

Gross concludes;” seen from this viewpoint, the survival time of these three women with ‘neoplastic disease’ living in the 16th and 17th centuries rules out the validity of such
a ‘medical diagnosis’ based on the analysis of their portraits.”

http://www.springerlink.com/content/h2185hr70232h643/

There are fortunately other ethno medical studies with great impact & scientific validity.
The Robertson (Anthro), Scandizzo’s ( Med) analysis Physical Deformities in the Ruling Lineage of Palenque, and the Dynastic Implications .

http://www.mesoweb.com/pari/publications/rt03/deformities.pdf

Also this years travelling exhibition ; DYNASTY AND DIVINITY: IFE ART IN ANCIENT NIGERIA Organized by the Museum for African Art, New York , are excellent examples of important medical analysis of ethic art and the contribution this makes to accurate structural interpretation of the traditional society & culture.

Brodsky’s background position on the medical evidence for the Mutuaga figure differs significantly from most Ethno Medical studies in some important respects.
As a medico he had some first hand experience with the Massim region, the people & disease at a time of developing early contact with Europeans pre WW11.
Brodsky was a knowledgeable collector with a very fine clinical eye. His interest in Ethno medicine includes his 1938 paper on the Trephiners of Blanch Bay New Britain – the surgical efforts of the native “healers” of New Britain are justly entitled to recognition & admiration. Brodsky expanded upon Parkinson’s 1907 Thirty years in the South Sea section on trepanation directly with traditional surgeon. His summation – the Toli were conducting brain surgery with a higher level of success than their London counterparts. Brodsky was also well ahead of his time in terms of his disposition to & respect for traditional peoples.

Mutuaga’s works are 3 dimensional contemporary realist sculpture with explicit depiction of limb & extremities bone structure, conformation & proportion as noted by Beran.
There is no suggestion they are medical dolls however naturalism as a style by definition is realist in intent & Brodsky relied on a similar assessment of style.

He has applied a medically educated clinical eye for diagnostic analysis of the related elements evident in this one figure; however he did not have access to any other examples of Mutuaga or other Massim carvers.

Likewise the other regional examples chosen by Brodsky are graphic & he has drawn no long bows in interpreting nor in attempting to analysing enigmatic encoded stylised technique as manifestations of physical illness. His retraction in this paper, attributing the Maori He Tiki exaggerated head tilt style to the condition Wry Neck (congenital muscular torticollis), can now be regarded as unnecessarily cautious.

Beran Plate 40 p.211

Spastic diplegia (cerebral hypoxia –oxygen starved brain damage), Cerebral palsy ,Microcephalic, small low atypical forehead, pronounced frontal nasal protuberance, short legged bent knee toed in stance on tip toe, protruding tongue, Dysmorphic face. (Why European chair?).

In the preparation of this paper, during July -Nov 2010, to re assess Brodsky’s observations of the one Mutuaga figure available to him, several medical opinions have been sought. To broaden the data base all figurative works by Mutuaga in Beran & other sources were interrogated as photographs of each work. Some of the doctors who looked through & commented on each piece of the Mutuaga corpus are also client collectors of Melanesian ethnographic pieces & familiar with the Massim realist style.

Given Mutuaga’s style is accepted as realism there is general contemporary medical consensus & agreement with Brodsky’s 1943 diagnosis & interpretation i.e. that the conformation & bone structure of the lower arm together with the fold back curled hand is indicative of deformity.

MUTUAGA STYLISTIC INFLUENCE & INTENT
Sculpture of power beauty & meaning
INFLUENCE SANS DIFFUSIONISM

La vraye science et le vray etude de l'homme, c'est l'homme.
The true science and study of man is man.
Pierre Charron De la Sagesse, 1601

As a traditional Suau, Mutuaga did not think as a European any more that his patron, mentor missionary Ables, thought as a Papuan. The production of human figures in the realist style, a radical departure from the traditional Massim stylistic design, would have not been lightly undertaken by Mutuaga. Even with Ables support & protection, Mutuaga would have sought & been offered sanction by other senior members of his language group. The Massim Suau was then & now a society where there is no death or sickness without politics & blame, no action without consequences, no obligation without reciprocity and no art without meaning - menace or protection.

Mutuaga would have been very much alive to the edginess & risk of his new art in the realist style. How he managed this transition & conducted himself & family safely through the potential threat is a testament to his stature & diplomacy skill. Also indicative of his unlikely position as a sorcerer & therefore not considered a threat? None of his figures have sorcerers’ hats.

It is axiomatic that without the artist’s personal statement on these issues, any pronouncement is relatively speculative but not altogether unsafe if supported by the pieces.

All research theories rely on clues linked by gossamer threads, firmed up or destroyed by particular knowledge, additional information & interpretation.
Pull the bow back too far or too hard & the string snaps.

Conclusions can be arrived at if the works have been created in a manner that precluded total esoteric idiosyncratic enigma (something belong him) & provides sufficient evidence to sway the balance of probability, in a raft of possibilities, to one side.

Such is the case with the Mutuaga figures.
Based on the premise that Mutuaga’s style is naturalism or realism there exists an opportunity for legitimate analysis, interpretation & derivation.
The paradox would be the unlikely suggestion that Mutuaga produced work without meaning.

The desire to caricature: Realism v/s artistic licence?

and indeed all the business of life, is to endeavour to find out what you don’t know by what you do; that’s what I called ‘guessing what was at the other side of the hill’.
Duke of Wellington 1769 - 1852
Croker Papers (1885)

It is possible that as with most creative individuals, there is no one major influence.
Mutuaga’s early manhood coincided with initial western contact & missionary settlement, both monumental events which would have caused quantum shifts in the local traditional world view. It is generally accepted that social & political change of such magnitude produces a discernable influence in art if the culture still remains functional.
In Mutuaga’s case this could apply.

Mutuaga’s development of naturalism as a style was certainly encouraged by influential resident Europeans. The missionary Able’s intent & approach was not unlike many other art marketing enterprises formulated for traditional people with a view to providing an independent income source. It is a methodology still applied today – don’t make trad stuff – make what will sell.
There may well be other influential considerations at play at this time in Mutuaga’s world.

Close by in the Trobriand Islands & Solomon Islands, realistic portrait figures were being produced in great number for traditional ritual purposes & from 1880 both trade sale & (See McCarthy 1951; Palmer 2007).

Solomon Island Portrait Figures (Palmer Family Collection)

Diffusionism is possible & politically attractive as it would keep the influence within a Melanesian corpus, however not as likely as a product of the European influx.

It would be interesting to know what Christian images were known to Mutuaga.
What crucifixion statues had he seen or handled? He surely would have recognised the pain, suffering & redemption present in any statues of the crucified Christ in Able’s house?
Did Mutuaga consider the possibility of such images having the power to heal the sick?

As a seafaring coast people, and attuned to boat decoration, what early sailing ship with bow figureheads had been noted by Mutuaga the Suau carvers?

Ships Figure Head. Spatula handle shape ?

The permanent arrival of Europeans, Government reps & missionaries in the region had a number of obvious initial impacts on the way locals conducted their lives.

The enforced cessation of internecine revenge raids (Beran p23) & European medical treatment are perhaps most relevant here for evaluating Mutuaga’s corpus for medical conditions & resultant stylistic intent and purpose. Medical clinics at the mission or Government DMO visits & the general treatment of even simple complaints would have been welcomed by all Suau except perhaps the traditional village sorcerer.

Although not necessarily the death of magic, the simple remedial intervention action of splinting a broken arm, thus avoiding the traditional fate, if survivable, of a lifelong disfigurement/ disability would have commanded serious local attention.

The moratorium on revenge raids likewise must have drastically reduced wounds & other forms of trauma inflicted injury. Breaking the chain reaction of self-perpetuating never-ending disruptive sequence of retaliation & the serious toll of human suffering would have had further social & cultural consequences.

Boy child malnutrition pot belly, rickets arms and legs. Expected aftermath of revenge raids – parents killed or captive, gardens canoes destroyed with resultant food shortage.
Fig. 2. 19th century Trobriand figure. Kevin Conru. 1999. The Colour of Melanesia. Conru Primitive Art. Pp. 38-9)

Orchiston’s 1975 research into warfare in Melanesia for the Leonhard Adam Ethnological Collection leaves no doubt of the scale of psychopathic deadly destructive raids, killings, routs, escalation of hostilities, massacres, plunder, slaughter of women & children, rape, torture of captives, head hunting & destruction of entire villages & gardens. Shields, bows & arrows, daggers, clubs & spears may have been decorated but were not just for show. No man went about unarmed, ever.

When warfare as an ingrained cultural norm ceased the vacuum was filled with other pursuits.
All this change would have been established rapidly and the chief “ forms of recreation became love-making & sexual intercourse amongst the young, betel-chewing & tobacco-smoking among the young & old, and participation in feasts by all.” (Beran p21from Williams 1933 & Armstrong1921).

All thanks to the missionaries and a few District Officers – you beauty - thank you very much.
The Missionaries came to do good & did well.

If Mutuaga’s subject was physical illness then naturalism is the only style available to the artist. Modern realist is the single option. That he saw this in European sculpture, both religious and secular, is a given.

A QUESTION OF INTENT

That Mutuaga’s figures were produced for trade with Europeans is clear. But why disfigure them with human disabilities? Not a subject with a big track record as an art sales gimmick.
To depict physical abnormality with any detail you need naturalism as the artistic style & realism as the convention. There is no way around this technical limitation.

What about the figures that display no discernable abnormalities? There is a possibility of sympathetic magic as intent for these figures. Are all these figures sympathetic magic in intent & purpose?

Although there is no suggestion that Mutuaga’s figures are in any way meant to serve as anatomical medical models, in the traditional Japanese or Chinese sense, the realism & detailed physical deformity begs the question of portraiture and or documenting disease for social or spiritual reasons?

Do these Massim figures record a scourge very personal to him? Physical disability, which Mutuaga thought the coming of the European would eliminate as thoroughly as warfare had faded into history? Are they a token of thanks & hope - portraits of the promise of a new age? Mutuaga had this quality in him as a man & an artist. The possibility is there. The probability is speculative but not lacking in support.

Spastic diplegia right hand (cerebral hypoxia –oxygen starved brain damage), Cerebral palsy , Spina bifida ,Microcephalic, small low atypical forehead, pronounced frontal nasal protuberance, short legged bent knee toed in unnatural stance, protruding tongue, Dysmorphic face, Hypochondroplasia Dwarfism .

This area on three Mutuaga figures (61,88 & above) have been previously described as loin cloths. Paint (ochre) red infill significance?
Why did Mutuaga carve faces with low/no forehead ? This is the complete reciprocal of the high forehead common amongst Papuans of this region. ( Beran photos of carvers Ninia Plate 48 and Banieva Plate49. Both modern men with proud high foreheads).

Mutuga’s figures may not be portraits of individuals in the accepted European tradition, however the depiction of identifiable physical traits, eg club hands, carved into a figure would positively identify known local individuals, who displayed such abnormalities, to the entire village community & district. As such these figures would on one level function as portraits for those with local knowledge.

Why depict abnormalities if not to identify & portray known individuals?

Certainly the rounded off heads have not been executed for design reasons. If they were the result of form following function, so as to produce a rounded palm end for the handle, Mutuaga would have not produced the zoomorphic sharp end handle spatulas?

Spastic diplegia (cerebral hypoxia –oxygen starved brain damage), Cerebral palsy ,Microcephalic, small low atypical forehead, pronounced frontal nasal protuberance, short legged bent knee toed in unnatural squat (seated unable to stand?), protruding tongue, Dysmorphic face.

Realism –
Some premise need to be established.

Hypochondroplasia Dwarfism . Nipples?

Are Mutuaga figures adults or children?

If children then dwarfism may not be an issue, however other problems evident in this figure include Spastic diplegia (cerebral hypoxia –oxygen starved brain damage), Mild Cerebral palsy ,Microcephalic, small low atypical forehead, pronounced frontal nasal protuberance, short legged bent knee toed in unnatural stance, protruding tongue, Dysmorphic face & enlarged nipples.

Did Mutuaga produce naturalistic anthropomorphic figures before Able’s arrival?
Sympathetic magic?

How prevalent were birth defects in Suau familys? Given the comparatively young age for first births it is considered very possible that small frame mums leading to difficult deliveries & complications was common. If survivable cerebral hypoxia causing spastic diplegia - Cerebral palsy is result.

Young mums, delivery problems, disabled children.

Is this Mutuaga’s subject – Peri Natal problems.

There is a new body of Medical thought suggesting CP may be viral related however no evidence of clusters in a population are yet theorised. This has no impact on the diagnosis of conditions evident in the Mutuaga figures.

Left Plate 61: Spina bifida , (cerebral hypoxia –oxygen starved brain damage), Microcephalic, small low atypical forehead, pronounced frontal nasal protuberance, short legged bent knee toed in unnatural stance, protruding tongue, Dysmorphic face, Hypochondroplasia Dwarfism.

Right Plate 50-51: Dysmorphic face flat face, round unblinking eyes aimless staring into space, anxious hand to lower jaw, enlarged nipples.

Are the drummer’s code? There is a medical response to these figures ; the dysmorphic face , unnatural squat position is suggestive of aimless drumming of the intellectually disabled.

Code iconography – large nipples equates to old age & wisdom or child medical problem ?

Body decoration – full scrolls? Unrelated to traditional body tattoo – code for pain, suffering or abnormality?

There are many open questions of which the figures may continue to remain mute.
The extent to which Static sculpture, whose creator is deceased, can be interrogated is limited.

Mark 10:14 Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God. 16 And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them.

Middle figure of an adult (parent?) & child has all the elements for the ultimate statement of piety & hope (Beran Plate18 p201) by the master(s) of the prominent eyes.

The small child is held up in a difficult standing position, clearly incapable of standing unsupported by the adult. A Madonna figure presenting a disable child to whom? To the European dominated & hopefully benevolent future? The pleading presence of the adult figure who may also be disabled, coupled with the helpless pleading presentation of the limp child.
A Massim moving portrait of human need?

Plate 17 may represent a traditional forehead headache treatment band?

Plate 29 short legs & arm position are anatomically difficult to interpret for an adult, so a child perhaps?

Schildkrout writes that these "lifelike representations are not simply portraits but rather expressions of the divinity inherent in living things, especially human beings."

No, perhaps these are more humble than that?

CONCLUSION

The irresistible conclusion is that Mutuaga deliberately chose both naturalism as a style & human disease as a common subject. Realism his convention & portrayal of medical conditions his intent.

Subject dictating style.

Both lend weight to the power & presence of each piece.

Mutuaga’s motivation may have been personal due his own infirmity coupled with a more general artistic universal response to local human suffering and its relief.

The major influence appears to be a response to European presence, thus making his works homage, not to sprits & ancestors, but to a new age & his fellow man.

Mutuaga’s modernism is evidenced in artistic style & representative of a quantum shift in his world view.

Portraits of a time for hope & individual need to end suffering but perhaps not necessarily portraits per say?

THANKS

Kim A Akerman, Dr. D Washbourne, Dr. N Musgrave, Dr. A Conner, David Said, Kevin Conru, Harry Beran.

REFERENCES

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=2iZcCGarLEcC&pg
=PT208&lpg=PT208&dq=mutuaga&source=bl&ots
=MejwaZ6umO&sig=91rnjBdLn-8yYjOQPZzWYCd5iOA&hl
=en&ei=DHTjTKefGIH0vQOvsq3oDA&sa=X&oi
=bookresult&ct=result&resnum=9&sqi=2&ved
=0CFwQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=mutuaga&f=false

Beran Link;

Beran, Harry. 1996. Mutuaga .A Nineteen- Century Master Carver. Wollongong. Wollongong University Press.

Brodsky, Isadore. 1943. Congenital Abnormalities, Teratology and Embryology: Some evidence of Primitive Mans’ Knowledge as Expressed in Art & Lore in Oceania. The Medical Journal of Australia. May 8 ,1943. p417-429. Sydney NSW.

McCarthy, Fred. 1951. The Human Sculptures of the Solomon Islands. The Australian Museum Magazine.Vol.X,No.5. 139-143. Sydney NSW

Orchiston, D. Wayne. 1975.Warfare in Melanesia: The Leonhard Adam Ethnological Collection, Part Two. University of Melbourne.

Palmer, Arthur Beau.2007. The Dancing Girls. 19Century Solomon Island Realist Dynamic Portrait Figures. Oceanic Arts Society. Vol.12. Issue 2. May 2007.Syndey NSW.
The Robertson ( Anthro), Scandizzo’s ( Med) analysis Physical Deformities in the Ruling Lineage of Palenque, and the Dynastic Implications

Radial Club Hand

General

• occurs in between 1 in 30,000 & 1 in 100,000 live births
• underdevelopment, or aplasia, of the radius is universally associated with thumb hypoplasia, or absence, & hypoplasia or absence of the radial aspect of the carpus
• severity of the radial deficiency determines the extent of the associated deficiencies of the thumb, digits, ulna, & elbow
• spectrum of anatomic deficiency can range from mild radial deviation of the wrist & minimal thumb hypoplasia, to complete absence of the thumb & radius; camptodactyly of the index, long, & ring fingers; foreshortening of the ulna; & a stiff elbow

Associated Anomalies

• commonly associated with other congenital malformations
• Forty percent of patients with unilateral radial club hand & 27% of patients with bilateral have associated malformations
o Congenital cardiac
o Genitourinary
o Respiratory
o Skeletal
o neurologic problems

2010-11-15T14:51:00.000-08:00

ABORIGINAL ART & ALIENATION.
PAUL BEST AT HIS BEST

ABORIGINAL CONTEMPORARY PAINTING & the GREAT AUSTRALIAN ALIENATION:

“The new job of art is to sit on the wall and get more expensive.”
Robert Hughes

Paul Best & Arthur Palmer .August 2009. Circle Gallery Brisbane.

Paul Best is an Australian painter of wistful commentaries on the common human condition.

A maker of paint laden, insightful comments on & of experience & thought. His works are consistently lyrical statements in his own voice - intense intimate interior monologues –of which the complexity & sophistication is often disguised by deceptively simple ready access iconography.

These works have a quality of wry amusement & a humour most associated with social or political cartoons. Leunig or Petty come to mind. However these paintings go beyond this genre with a surgical ability to strip away the cosmetics to reveal the real flesh. As fine art they differ in that they are lifted beyond any hint of cruelty. The strong point is always compassion & a mixture of bemused understanding tempered with honest bewilderment.
Best is a worker of stiff slightly formal obscure poignant dreamscapes saturated with a fluid intellectual surrealist quality which clarify & layout the interpersonal & social dilemmas of our time & space.

See: http://paulbest.id.au/2010/03/2010-archibald-prize-part-two/

One of Best’s paintings stands out from the Circle Gallery show. This work is a singularly important turning point in recent Australian painting. It offers an image which in total very possibly completely sums up the last four decades of Australian art & the uncomfortable place it has presently arrived at. Make no mistake, Australia has since 1970 endured an uneasy dishonest truce between white painting & black art. Aboriginal art verses the European school . As a real conundrum we can also add the urban Aboriginal art scene, which the others both loath. The one point of agreement in all this is that Traditional Aboriginal contemporary art (Papunya Tula school & other North Australian Aboriginal community art areas) & the European Australian section both view Urban Aboriginal art as either plagiarism & illegitimate or just plain bad art. Given that some Urban Aboriginal Art is highly sophisticated & seriously compelling this position has to be seen as more politics at play than paint?

This schism is much more pervasive & corrosive than the Sydney abstract v/s Melbourne figurative post War storm in a tea cup ever amounted to. Political correctness be damned - the current long term storm in the Art world chardonnay glass is about money & lots of it. The pigs are jostling at the trough in the mud at the bottom of the moral high ground.

When in the early 70s traditional contemporary canvas paintings from Papunya Yuendumu arrived in the city galleries it came as a breath of fresh air. The aesthetics were as undeniable to the educated Australian (& shortly after the rest of the World ) art public as much as the encoded information contained in these painting was utterly inaccessible. There was no hint as to how edgy & risky this style of painting was to the traditional men who decided to apply this new technique & medium to the established culture of their estate owning language groups.

This transformation of ceremonial body paint, shield decoration & ritual ground mosaics of blood , vegetable down & feathers – some of which were viewed traditionally as secret/sacred & dangerous Law matters not to be exposed to outsiders - also left the painters very exposed in their own communities.

All of this was of no matter to the avant-garde Australian middle class for whom this became the new age wallpaper. Very soon it also became of little account to the Aboriginal communities who desperately needed the injection of economic independence this art afforded. As the years go by there is more than a hint that these works, even some aesthetic masterpieces, are no longer giving any real depth of satisfaction to the wider uninitiated audience. We are not talking monetary investment here. This is about an essential fundamental product of art i.e. pleasure- pleasure pure & simple. In fine art you ignore or are ignorant of the pleasure principle at your peril. Modern Art has a function to provide pleasure rather than discover pleasure – ask the French Post impressionists – unless you want to be continually explaining the equivalent of why Wagner is not as bad as he sounds.

In the last decade much art emanating from Traditional Aboriginal communities has crossed over & is indistinguishable from mid C20 abstract expressionism. Belated central desert homage to de Kooning, or Rothko with a mix reminiscent of colour field work done here in the 60’s by Peter Powditch. Art for arts sake or plagiarised wallpaper? No – neither apparently. Reaction to this development from the Art market – dingo took my art history book? Ironically the art market invests these new purely painterly works with if anything more traditional mythology & meaning than the incomprehensible earlier paintings which drip ritual & ceremony.

Australian Painting 2009. Paul Best.

The great Australian loneliness portrait & culturescape;

A faceless Australia ponders the question in our own lounge rooms of when does the pleasure start. Australian Art’s Sandy Stone poignant chronicler of suburbia Barry Humphries character?

Where does the identity begin? Alone & seeking comfort from the possession of art works from an alienated & alien culture.

Who can explain why we are drawn to these works but utterly unable to interrogate them?

We know what we like but have no idea why or when this may cease. In the fickle art world of rapidly changing taste, awareness & curiosity such an ebbing of the romantic tide will be no new experience for Aboriginals who have been left stranded several times before during our combined history thus far.

Is it the more we love Aboriginal Art the less we know about Aboriginals – to know nothing of Aboriginals is to just love their art?

We have stopped staring at Aboriginals & become inured to staring at Aboriginal art - because the result is always the same – we are incapable of allowing this to add or subtract anything to or from our cultural life either as individuals or as a Nation. A benign form of agnostic sympathetic magic.

Australia has a home grown art form with a language that can’t be heard above the applause of the market let alone be comprehended by the great majority of its citizens. Alone in the world with the possible exception of modern Japan?

Such is the nature & character of present Australian high end cultural times. A constant state of perplexed bewilderment mixed with an iron resolve to keep investing resources both financial & emotional well beyond any experience or expectation of reasonable returns or positive outcomes.

Aboriginal vs Australian Art
Results for the past 10 years in percentage growth.

Year Australian Art Australian Aboriginal Art
1994-1995 104.50% 200.10%
1994-1996 147.20% 219.20%
1994-1997 112.00% 616.80%
1994-1998 166.70% 835.30%
1994-1999 249.70% 757.10%
1994-2000 302.00% 989.10%
1994-2001 263.40% 963.60%
1994-2002 297.50% 1060.90%
1994-2003 339.80% 1586.90%
1994-2004 289.90% 1896.90%

This chart is not inclusive of Aboriginal bark paintings from Arnhem Land, Port Keats, the Kimberley, Mornington Is. or Cape York. Les Patterson observed in the ’60 - An Abo’s bark is worse than his bite. By my count there are perhaps 200 serious Bark painting collectors world wide & the fine art market is very disinterested despite some of the great masterwork s very inconveniently being ochre on bark as the preferred medium. The fine art market hates bark & flaky paint.

White is just a paler shade of black.

Ah There will come a time when the Whites will be Black & us Blacks will be White
1790’s Prophecy by senior Aboriginal woman. Port Philip.

Arthur Beau Palmer AD Fine Art (QCA)
+61 (07) 3876 0115 Mob: 0418 845 515
Web: http://www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com/ (Artefact Gallery)

Approved to value the following classes for the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Programme:
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander material culture and contemporary art, Arnhem Land Aboriginal Bark Paintings (19thC to present), Aboriginal Hermannsburg watercolours (1930s to present), Pacific (Melanesian Papua New Guinea, Solomons & Islands, Polynesia & Micronesia), African, Asian, American Indian material culture, Australian Early and Modern Fine Art, International Aviation Art, Trench Art WWI & WWII.

BOOMERANG EDDIE GILBERT & FRANK FISHER G/ FATHER of CATHERINE FREEMAN. ABORIGINAL FOOTBALL CRICKET DEPRESSION HEROES

2010-02-14T17:16:00.000-08:00

FISHER GILBERT BOOMERANG
ARTIST: Andrew Jack Chinny O’Chin 1917-1978
DIMENSIONS: 46cm (18ins.).
MATERIAL: Local wood Crows Ash
CONDITION: Fine very well preserved presentation.
AGE: Circa Pre - WW11. Depression Era.
ETHNOGRAPHY: Traditional SE Queensland Wuka Wuka returning boomerang carved at Cherbourg Aboriginal Mission Reserve in the 1930’s to pay homage to two of the greatest Queensland & Australian athletes of their time – Frank “KING” Fisher & Edward “Eddie” Gilbert (1905-1978). Fisher served in the Middle East during the War & pre War played Rugby League for Australia 1932-36 including a Great Britain Test.

Frank King Fisher, the grandfather of athletics great Cathy Freeman, was regarded as the Aboriginal version of Wally Lewis, was selected for the all Aboriginal side of the century after representing Wide Bay against touring Great Britain sides in the 1930s. Fisher was denied the opportunity to tour with the Kangaroos when he was refused a passport to pursue his career overseas.

Cherbourg footballer Frank Fisher (grandfather of Olympic gold medallist Cathy Freeman) was a particularly fine footballer of the 1930s. Playing at five-eighth, "King" Fisher starred in representative teams for Wide Bay in 1932 and 1936 against touring Great Britain teams.

After the 1936 match, in which Fisher scored a great try, the Lions' captain Gus Risman is reputed to have declared that Fisher was the best individual player his team had encountered on the whole of the tour. So impressed was Risman that he promised have his home club (Salford) send out a contract offer to Fisher as soon as he returned home to England.

The contract from Salford duly arrived, but Fisher was refused permission by the Queensland Government's "Protector of Aborigines" to leave - the famous Aboriginal cricketer Eddie Gilbert had already been given leave from Cherbourg, and the rumoured true reason for rejecting Fisher's request being reluctance by the authorities to approve another.

Eddie Gilbert played first class cricket 1931-1936 & stated his career by bowling the legendary Sir Don Bradman for a duck..

Eddie Gilbert was born at Durundur Reserve near Woodford in 1905 or 1906, later being separated from his parents and removed to Barambah Reserve near Murgon.

By 1917, when he first began to play cricket for the new Barambah Aboriginal Cricket Club, he was working as a contract seasonal labourer. Coached by the local schoolmaster, he soon developed a remarkable style of fast bowling. His reputation grew to the extent that the Queensland Cricket Association brought him to Brisbane in 1929, when he stunned onlookers with his whip-like wrist action and rapid delivery.

In 1930 he was chosen for the Queensland Sheffield Shield Team against South Australia and was named bowler of the match. In January 1931 Gilbert took 7 West Indian wickets for 91 runs. In November 1931, in a match against New South Wales, Gilbert’s delivery knocked the bat from Donald Bradman’s hands; the next ball made him fall backwards on the pitch, and the third ball had him caught behind. He was however soon subject to criticism of “throwing”, an accusation which had ended the careers of several other indigenous cricketers.

In spite of Gilbert’s remarkable record of taking 87 wickets in first-class cricket at an average of 29.21, he was never considered for inclusion in an Australian team and eventually would be retired in November 1936 and returned to Cherbourg. He died in State care in 1978.

Both men have been described as the only 1930’s depression hero’s Aboriginals’ had in Queensland.

PROVENANCE: Local Murgon Queensland Family collection. Artifact has never been displayed, published or shown publicly. Gifted to the owners father thence by descent. An extremely rare significant & important & beautiful historic example of post contact neo traditional SE Queensland Aboriginal art.
VALUATION: Aud$ 12,000

Approved to value the following classes for the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Programme:

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander material culture and contemporary art, Arnhem Land barks (19thC to present), Hermannsburg watercolours (1930s to present), Pacific, African, Asian, American material culture, Australian Early and Modern Fine Art, International Aviation Art, Trench Art WWI & WWII.

ARTHUR BEAU PALMER AD Fine Arts (Qld) MRQAS
ETHNOGRAPHIC CONSULTANT
A.B.N. 78 088 240 576
Phone: +61 (07) 3876 0115
Mobile: 0418 845515
Email: arthur@arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com
Web: www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com

COMMISSIONER FOR OATHS (N.T. 1977 – 99)

Web: http://www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com/ (Artefact Gallery)Ebay Trader ID: arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts

Blog: http://www.arthur-palmer.blogspot.com/ (Tribal Art Discussion Forum - Investment and Pleasure, Buying, Selling, Trading)

ABORIGINAL RAINFOREST SHIELD & RAINFOREST SWORD CLUB FAR NORTH QUEENSLAND

2009-12-16T21:01:00.000-08:00

Arthur Beau Palmer Collection, Queensland
Ex Collection Lord Alistair McAlpine of West Green – Sword Cat No. 103, Shield Cat No. 48.

Large 1860 NQ Aboriginal Rainforest Shield and Sword Club Pair

DIMENSIONS:
Rainforest Shield 111cm x 34xm (44 inches x 13.5inches)
Native Fig buttress root wood (ficus albipila) painted with earth ochres & charcoal. C1880s

Sword Club 152cm x 15cm (60 inches x 6 inches) Rainforest hard wood Red Penda (or Qld Maple). Traditionally always left unpainted Patina C1880s.

These two superb, large important examples once provided the centre piece of Lord McAlpine’s London House display of some 350 19th Century Aboriginal fine artefacts (see photo)

Lord McAlpine of West Green London House Collection of Australian Aboriginal Artifacts Display.

(Large Shield lower centre arrowed. Sword 7 in from left. Wall display C 1990).

As a matched pair this presents an extremely rare opportunity to acquire in one lot, both outstanding examples. (Arthur Palmer spent several years sourcing both items from their respective distant owners and inducing them to part with each piece by negotiating swaps from his own vast Australian & Pacific collection). Both the shield at 111cm and the sword at 152cm represent some of the very largest and most beautiful examples of type ever offered. Traditionally, Shields were always associated in ritual battle with the heavy fighting sword.

Ex Collection Lord Alistair McAlpine of West Green – Sword Catalogue No. 103, Shield Cat No. 48.

Rainforest designs present a wistful, ethereal and subtle patternation of colour which makes them unique amongst Aboriginal art. The haunting beauty and the sheer scale of this particular shield evokes a power which belies the shy lives lead by its creators, the Negritoid (Small People) Kung’ga: ndyi and Yidindyi language groups of the North Queensland Rainforest around Cardwell Coast and the Atherton Table Land.
Ian Fairweather, the Queensland painter who lived & worked on Bribie Island, once in 1971 remarked to Palmer as a young Art student ethnographer that he considered them to be the most sublime & sophisticated of all abstracts (personal communication).

Based on McConnel and his own field work, Palmer interprets the design depicted on this shield as a Tomahawk motif (hafted ground edge stone axe.) Ursula McConnel, in her 1934 ground breaking article “Inspiration & Design in Aboriginal Art” states that the Culture Hero BULERU is ritually associated with all Totemic Clan motifs on Rainforest shields & therefore the power of the BULERU dwells in the design: ”Thus it seems likely that the inspiration for the Artists’ choice of designs on the shields… was originally drawn not merely from an intimacy with the common objects of every-day life but from a belief in the BULERU who were responsible for the creation of these objects in the beginning and who impregnated them with their spirit, thus making them amenable to human needs”.

The pigments were applied to the shield using Lawyer-Cane with chewed bristle brush ends. Traditionally the method for painting Rainforest shields was for two men to work together painting from opposite ends of the shield.

Two initiated men would decorate the shield, painting from opposite ends. They painted the designs of the individual warrior, the owner’s kinship group or the clan using natural earth pigments, particularly red-brown, black and white. A shield maker added his blood to the pigment to impart his spirit and give the shield more power to protect the owner. The shield was then presented to a young man at his initiation ceremony. The four colours used to create the designs on the Balan bigin include white and yellow, which comes from a type of clay, found in the area. The third colour red is created after heating the yellow clay. The fourth colour is black, and this comes from the blood of animals or the sap from a particular vine. These different colours are also used to decorate baskets, boomerangs and other objects from this area.
Lumholtz in 1889 recorded, during his North Queensland field work amongst the Rainforest people, that shields of this type were used to deflect large one handed sword clubs, boomerangs and spears( this shield displays several spear penetrations & other battle scars) during clan gatherings of Rainforest Aboriginal people where disputes between individuals & groups were settled. Often shields & swords were used in conjunction. He also noted that the designs applied to the face of these Rainforest shields were all different, suggesting that this constituted an individual’s “Coat of Arms”.

Carol Cooper in Aboriginal Australia states ”Shields played an important part in the initiation of young men as each was given a bare shield to paint after having received his final ”marks” ( cicatrices – ceremonial scarification). The designs on the shields were considered to possess protective qualities. Rainforest shields were always associated in battles with the heavy hard wood unpainted fighting swords.
Lumholtz describes in his field observations & depicts in his illustrations the swords being wielded one handed above the head & brought down on the opponents shield in the manner of a blacksmiths hammer. He reports that sometimes the blow was sufficient to cleave a shield, in which case the battle ceased.(see illustration).This sword displays a deep rich dark age patina. Such swords and shields were used mostly for the somewhat ritualised combat at intertribal corroborees (warrima). Shields were made from the relatively light and soft wood from the flange buttresses of fig trees such as magurra, shown in the photo on the right. gabi and other figs were also used for shields. Swords were made of much harder wood from trees such as jidu and junjum.

The Uni of Sydney Macleay Museum catalogue “Collected” observes that these Rainforest shields were traded with other Aboriginal groups and by the late 1880s were very rarely made or used.

"Anthropological studies show that the 12 rainforest tribes of the area differed
physically and economically from their neighbours in semi-arid habitats. A
number of items stand out among the many artefacts, the long, one-handed
hardwood swords made from Red Penda, large painted wooden shields made
from the buttress roots of fig trees, beaten bark blankets, bark cloth and lawyer
cane baskets. The baskets were used by women to leach toxins from various
food stuffs," Dr Cosgrove explained

Men and boys with ceremonial body paint, prepared for a coroboree. The man at far left wears a headband with shell pendant over his forehead, nose bone, a large pearlshell pendant from his neck, and a European brass buckle belt. Other men wear nose bones and hold shields, spears, long sword-clubs and a boomerang

Men and boys from Russell River, northern Queensland, decorated with vertical lines of parrot feather down. The younger boys have more extensive feather decoration on their upper bodies and heads. Two women kneel, undecorated, at the front of the group. Various designs are painted on the large rainforest shields. The large sword-clubs are used in ritualised fighting and ceremonies.

Group of northern men and women with painted rainforest shields, long spears, boomerangs and large battle sword-clubs. The men have multiple horizontal cicatrices (scars) over their chests and abdomens. Some women wear necklaces. European clothing has been introduced. Approx 1910. Northern Queensland.

Two men with their weapons, a large battle sword, two painted shields, and a boomerang. They wear painted body decoration, necklaces, and waist bands. The man on the right wears a European leather belt (replacing the traditional waist band) and pubic decoration. Cardwell, north Queensland. C1900.

Palmer Rainforest Shield Boss.

Palmer Rainforest Shied Back & Handle.

Ye-i-nie, King of CairnsPhoto: A Atkinson 1905South Australian Museum Tindale Collection.

Ngadjonji Glossary

ngunuy (Xanthorrhoea johnsonii - Grass Tree) A word shared by Yidiny and Ngadjon. The resinous sap is used as a lacquer in shield making.
junjum (Xanthostemon chrysanthus - Golden Penda) used for swords.
magurra (Ficus variegata - Variegated Fig) Used sometimes for making shields.
yapulam (Calamus australis) Lawyer cane used for handles of baskets
barrga (Calamus caryotoides), the lawyer cane used most for making baskets.
gabi (Ficus pleurocarpa - Banana Fig) The inner bark was used to make blankets as well as containers for carrying water and honey. The wood from the flange buttresses was used to make shields.
janjuu lawyer cane basket

photo Tony Irvine 1984 Magurra Variegated Fig Ficus variegate Photo: Abernethey

Michael Anning Contemporary rainforest Shields FNQ. C 2004.

Queensland Museum Shield Display 1976 Photo: http://www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com/

Queensland Museum Shield Storage 1976 Photo: http://www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com/

Queensland Museum Shield Storage 1976 Photo: http://www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com/

Queensland Museum Shield Storage 1976 Photo: http://www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com/

Cooktown Community Museum 2008. Photo: http://www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com/

Cooktown Community Museum 2008. Photo: http://www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com/

Cooktown Community Museum 2008. Photo: http://www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com/

Source : from Arthur Palmer’s collection &field notes 1974- 77.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Aboriginal Tools of the Rainforest, co-written by the Aboriginal people of Jumbun and Helen Pedley.

Aboriginal Tools of the Rainforest - The Aboriginal people of Jumbun and Helen Pedleyby Jumbun Ltd and H. Pedley, 1993Companion to Aboriginal Life in the Rainforest; this book looks at the material culture of the Jirrabul and Girramay people

Cooper, Carol 1981 Aboriginal Australia. National Gallery of Victoria, Art Gallery of Western Australia, Australian Museum, Queensland Art Gallery, 1981-1982 / made possible by a generous grant from the American Express Foundation ; [presented by the Australian Gallery Directors Council in association with the National Gallery of Victoria]

Cosgrove, R., J. Field and Å. Ferrier 2007 The archaeology of the Australia’s tropical rainforest. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 251 (1): 150-173.

Lumholtz, C Among Cannibals: an Account of Four Years' Travels in Australia, and of Camp Life with the Aborigines of Queensland, John Murray, London, 1889, pp 362-63.

Papua New Guinea ARTIFACTS & AIDS - HIV in PNG

2009-07-27T15:45:00.000-07:00

A Grave Exchange

By Arthur Beau Palmer
www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com (Artefact Gallery) July 2009 (see foot notes)
Peter Allan Head, an Australian expat, ran an artifact business in PNG between 1980 and 1986. He returned to Australia, from PNG, HIV positive in April or May 1986. Mr. Head died of AIDS in Sept, 1986.

Tessie Soi, co-ordinator of social work at Port Moresby General Hospital, saw PNG's first official case of AIDS in 1987. Back then, she was unable to help.

http://www.lowyinstitute.org/Search.asp

Papua New Guinea now has one of the highest rates of HIV in the Asia-Pacific Region, and is the fourth country in the region to be classified as having a generalized HIV epidemic.

The first Australian case of AIDS was diagnosed at St Vincent’s Hospital, Sydney, in 1982. In NSW, the incidence of new cases of HIV infection peaked in the mid-1980s with 1,636 diagnoses reported in 1987, and has steadily fallen to 347 cases in 2001.

Peter Head most probably contracted HIV during a visit back to Australia, USA or Africa pre 1985.
He is unlikely to be the sole source of the introduction of HIV into PNG; however the date of his infection is very early & may be seminal, in the history of PNG AIDS.

Peter Head’s Artifact retail outlet Pacific Art Pty Ltd P.O.Box 1538, Boroko 1980s. Papua New Guinea

The irresistable conclusion is that the artifact trade has inadvertantly been a significent contributing factor to the PNG present AIDS HIV disaster. It is uncertain if other European expat artifact dealers & collectors from overseas have also played a role in bringing & spreading AIDS to New Guinea?

Twenty Two years after Peter Head’s AIDS death, six hetrosexual Australian businessmen all came back to Cairns, in October 2008, from a conference in Port Moresby HIV positive after sleeping with female prostitues.

http://www.cairns.com.au/article/2008/09/17/7011_local-news.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/07/23/2633784.htm

Fears PNG AIDS epidemic worsening

By Papua New Guinea correspondent Liam Fox

New statistics show the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Papua New Guinea could be getting much worse. It has been estimated that around 2 per cent of adult Papua New Guineans or around 64,000 people, are HIV positive.

But statistics coming out of testing centres in the Western Highlands indicate the prevalence could be much worse.

The province's HIV/AIDS response coordinator Joshua Meninga says on average 17 per cent of people who have been tested recently are returning positive results.

"Some places like Taninga you're looking at 24 per cent," he said.

Mr Meninga says the figures could be the result of more people coming forward to be tested. But he thinks they also indicate more than 2 per cent of adults are now infected.

An epidemic now exported back to it’s origin?

How catastrophic the PNG AIDS & Hep C situation will become is ultimitaly in the hands of out side powers. PNG resources do not appear to be coping. Without effective Political will & Medical intervention this epidemic has the capacity to produce a population collapse so drastic that New Guinea will cease to function as a Nation. By 2050 PNG may cease to be a Melaneasian country. Rich in Natural resources already the target of rapicious exploitation the vacuum will be filled by close SE Asian neighbours? – Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia? Indonesian administration & resultant trans migration from Java Sumatra would forever extinguish the Papua of New Guinea before the end of the 21st Century?

The International PNG Artifact Trade

There are many European, US & Australian Auction Houses, dealers & collectors worldwide which have made a very successful living over the past four decades from collecting, exporting & selling New Guinea material culture National treasures & Museum quality ethnographic works of art.

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=jolika+collection&btnG=Search&meta=

To gain some appreciation of the current sophisication of the world trade in PNG artifacts the following sites are informative:

http://www.michaelhamson.com/

The above US site sells Museum quality old PNG Ethnographic with prices displayed & has a very good links page to many other artefact dealers’ world wide. This site donates the keystone art object used for fund raising for the very helpful Village Relief Foundation, www.villagerelief.org , which donates money and medical supplies directly to remote villages in Papua New Guinea.

Michael Hamson makes the point that there are huge industries making millions and millions of dollars in Papua New Guinea--the mining companies, the timber companies, the oil and gas companies, etc. These huge multinationals hire thousands of employees and often have them shifting around the country to various job sites. And it is at these job sites that prostitution flourishes. It is here that men are both away from their families and have dispensable income to afford prostitution. So the tiny artefact trade is hardly an issue for AIDS in Papua New Guinea. This raises the issue of revenue royalties & tax income for PNG directly from these industries. The international ethnographic artefact trade at present makes no such contribution. The direct return to the villages in proportion to auction house sale values is indeed tiny.

The Australian site below claims to be the finest tribal art gallery in the Asia Pacific. Prices on request?

http://www.oceanicartsaustralia.com/

Now may be timely for the artifact community to reinvest a portion of this gain to directly assist PNG’s HIV AIDS programme.

http://napwa.org.au/2009/05/28/treataware-in-port-moresby

Public & Private institutions which have also reaped the benefits of this trade since colonisation are in an excellent position to contribute? Auction Houses in London, Paris, New York , San Francisco & Sydney have made millions of dollars at 20% commission & 20% fall of hammer. A fraction of this profit will fund vital medical assistance to New Guinea at this critical time. US auction houses have a recent history of waive seller commissions to contribute to worthy causes.

Papuan piece sets record http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotResultsDetailList.jsp?event_id=29404&sale_number=PF9009

Suggestions on how to best achieve such a benevolent & philanthropic outcome should be sourced by advice from the artifacts peak bodies i.e. OAS Syd Aust, San Francisco Tribal U.S.A. & various Museums/Art Galleries & artifact show/Expo groups??

At this stage the support programme with the best efficacy appears to be conducted through the Australian Government.

http://napwa.org.au/pl/2008/03/png-hiv-stis-set-to-rise
http://napwa.org.au/pl/2004/02/australia-joins-the-global-fund

WHO estimates that two per cent of PNG’s population is HIV POSITIVE?

…which means we have 100,000 people living with HIV. Our judgement
is that, given the current level of infection and the rate of increase,
it is possible that the number of infections could reach one million in
10-15 years unless decisive action is taken (Renault, 2004).

Impact of HIV/AIDS

This growing HIV/AIDS epidemic will impact on the future of PNG, including reduced life expectancy, workforce depletion, increased health expenditure and reduced economic growth.

http://www.lowyinstitute.org/Search.asp

An AusAID-commissioned report* concluded that unless interventions to address the spread and impact of HIV/AIDS in PNG are scaled up, by 2025:

Over 500,000 people will be living with HIV/AIDS
117,000 children will have lost their mothers to AIDS
The workforce will have declined by 12.5%
GDP will be 1.3% less than predicted
70% of all hospital beds will be needed for AIDS patients.

* See Impacts of HIV/AIDS 2005 - 2025 in Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor - Final Report (2006) See also Potential Economic Impacts of an HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Papua New Guinea for more information on the economic impacts of HIV/AIDS in PNG.

HIV and AIDS infection is spreading in PNG

Paul Toohey | February 07, 2009 THE AUSTRALIAN
Fear of the truth and of stigmatisation, along with polygamy, promiscuity and an entrenched refusal by men to adopt safe-sex habits, has allowed HIV and AIDS to run unchecked in Papua New Guinea, our closest neighbour. It is estimated that HIV and AIDS infection now affects more than 2 per cent of the population, though that will explode to 5 per cent by 2012.

HIV and AIDS is a generalised, heterosexual epidemic that will soon consume 70 per cent of PNG's health resources. Already, half of Australia's annual $358 million in aid goes on HIV and AIDS programs.
Tessie Soi, co-ordinator of social work at Port Moresby General Hospital, saw PNG's first official case of AIDS in 1987. Back then, she was unable to help.

"I sent that man home to his village to die," she says. She became the founder of Friends Foundation, a non-government organisation that helps people living with HIV and AIDS.
Soi advises on the prevention of mother-to-child infection, though she prefers to say parent-to-child, to lessen the blame PNG women tend to cop for spreading the virus.

In 2004, she made a terrible discovery. She was arranging for the burial of eight AIDS patients whose bodies were lying unclaimed in the hospital morgue, having been rejected by relatives.
"They pulled open this drawer and there were all these little bundles in the same drawer as this woman we were going to bury," she says. "I thought they were body parts. After we put the woman in her coffin I asked, 'What are those bundles?' The attendant said they were babies who had not been claimed. There were 39 of them in the morgue."

Until then, adults and babies had been buried in mass graves. Soi has tried to change that, arranging -- with the help of private donors -- for baby coffins and single-grave burials.

Soi buries between 70 to 90 unclaimed babies every year, most of them, she believes, dead from HIV-related illnesses. In 2007, almost 4000 children were orphaned by HIV and AIDS.

In a country where HIV and AIDS sufferers have been buried alive, burned to death or locked in shacks with food slid under the door.....

Evaluation of the PNG National HIV/AIDS Support Project

The first case of HIV was reported in Papua New Guinea in 1987. Papua New Guinea now has one of the highest rates of HIV in the Asia-Pacific Region, and is the fourth country in the region to be classified as having a generalized HIV epidemic.

This report examines the past 5-year program of Australian support for the PNG response to HIV/AIDS through the National HIV/AIDS Support Project.

JULY 2009 Notes:

The Palmer family has a history of direct association with Papua New Guinea Torres Strait which goes back five (5) generations to the 1870s.

Hon Sir Arthur H Palmer KCMG Premier 1870-73 & Govenor Queensland 1883-1896. Annexture New Guinea & Formation of British New Guinea Armed constabulary 1890 etc. (see Sir William MacGregor /Sir A H Palmer correspondance 1880s)

Sqd/Ldr BMH Palmer DFC CO 5Sq RAAF Bougainville Solomons & Fighter Command Horn Is. Torres Strait & Meraurke Dutch New Guinea (1942-45).

The author, Arthur Beau Palmer, first went to Papua New Guinea in 1968 & has field collected since then. He re catalouged the MacGregor collection Queensland Museum 1975-77, as assistant to the Curator of Anthropology & Archeaology, for repatriation post PNG Independance. In the 1980s he directed a large scale environmental health programme with Cape York Torres Strait T.O’s.

Arthur B. Palmer AD Fine Arts (Qld) MRQAS
Approved to value the following classes for the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Programme:
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander material culture and contemporary art, Arnhem Land barks (19thC to present), Hermannsburg watercolours (1930s to present), Pacific, African, Asian, American material culture, Australian Early and Modern Fine Art, International Aviation Art, Trench Art WWI & WWII.

A Captain COOK EMBROIDERED SILK WAISTCOAT

2009-06-22T16:29:00.000-07:00

Appraisal of a C1770 Embroidered Silk Waistcoat property of a gentleman purportedly from or by the hand of Elizabeth, wife of Capt. James Cook RN. & a comparative analysis with the Mitchell Library Cook Tapa Waistcoat example.

Methodology:

A. Establish that this silk waistcoat was of the period i.e. Late C18 – circa 1770-90.
B. Conduct a comparative in situ analysis with the Cook tapa waist coat held by the Mitchell Library Sydney & the silk waistcoat for stylistic & technical evaluation of the embroidery on both items.
C. Evaluate the oral history provenance associated with the English Lord Leverhumle & Australian Rich family acquisition, ownership & stewardship of the silk waistcoat.
D. Positive botanical taxonomic identification of the flora displayed in the embroidery design of both articles.
E. Utilise macro digital photographs of both articles for comparative analysis & identification of evidence.
F. Seek specialist & professional opinion on all of the above terms of enquiry.
G. Interview key persons involved in the recent acquisition of the silk waist coat & professionals in the discipline of period costume & material, botany, material culture & Pacific history.
H. Consider other Cook waistcoat examples held in public & private collections.

Background:

In late 2008 the McLean family invited the author to appraisal a silk waistcoat held in the McLean family collection known as the Capt. Cook waistcoat.
Apart from an airfare to Sydney for inspection this is sans any other consideration.

COOK TAHITIAN TAPA WAISTCOAT MITCHELL LIBRARY SYDNEY - ML R 198

Provenance: Elizabeth Cook Collection d of d 1835. Hence by decent through relatives. In 1886 one of Elizabeth’s inheritors, John Mackrell, organised a display of Cook material at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London. The then N.S.W. Agent-General in London Sir Saul Samuel (1820-1900), who had a keen interest in Australian history and the exploration & discovery of the Pacific, negotiated to purchase most of the items from this display. On return to Australia this tapa waistcoat spent some time in the Australian Museum collection before being transferred to the Mitchell Library.

This waistcoat was part of the Mackrell display and was acquired directly by Samuel. He also independently purchased & picked up many other items of historical significance for the official collections of N.S.W.
It would be extremely interesting to know if Samuel was ever a client of the Woollan sisters’ antique shop in London, or indirectly sourced any of his items though them.

By the time of Cook’s death, Pacific artifacts were fashionable vogue in Europe and had fast become valuable collectors’ items (Moorehead 1966:72, Smith 1992:109). The Cook Tahitian tapa waistcoat falls into this period. The tapa was reputedly brought back by Cook from his second 1772-1775 voyage and embroidered by his wife while he was away during the fateful third voyage. As Cook did not return the waistcoat could not be fitted and was never tailored or finished (Ellis p18). This places the manufacture between 1776-1780.

Elizabeth Cook could not have thought of any material more exotic, in vogue or fittingly symbolic as a present for her husband. It is possible that the embroidered flora design on this waistcoat was also considered with similar deliberate intent. There remains the intriguing possibility that the flora design is based on Parkinson’s botanical drawings from the 1768-1771 Endeavor voyage and provided to Elizabeth by Joseph Banks (see botanical ID section). It is uncertain if the tapa cloth was actually embroidered by Elizabeth or, as was de rigueur, a professional seamstress (pers com Heather Mansell & Margot Riley ML Nov 2008).

Waistcoats were embroidered on a flat frame which made the embroidery very neat and even. The waistcoat was later cut out from the flat pieces according to the required measurements of a tailor’s client. The tapa cloth one has a home made feel about the motifs and if either were made by Cook’s wife it would be this one. The tapa cloth waistcoat is not of the same pattern/shape as the silk one and the embroidery is considerably different in style. I suggest this was not sewn by the same person but could have been home made. The side seam has a look of around 1770 with its pronounced shaping beyond the waist. Obviously this one was never made up so would date to around 1770-1780. What a crime that the ink was spilt on it!
Lindie Ward Curator Design, History and Society Powerhouse Museum e mail 03 03 2209.

Detail of front section unmade Tahitian tapa cloth waistcoat C 1779. Backed with linen, decorated by Elizabeth Cook with tambour work and embroidery in silk polychrome silks, also silver spangles, now tarnished. ML R 198.

The Mitchell library caption for the full lay out of the tapa waistcoat ;
Waistcoat of Tahiti cloth for Captain Cook to wear to court, had he returned from his third voyage.ca 1779/ embroidered by Mrs Cook.

Perhaps Mrs. Cook was anticipating an audience with George III and a Knighthood for her returning husband and national hero. If so this was a very special garment for her.

Mrs Cook: The Real and Imagined Life of the Captain’s Wife is structured around objects. Of all the different forms of research, examining the objects most strongly brought the past into the present. In the excellent collection of Cook memorabilia in State Library of NSW is an unfinished waistcoat, consisting of two uncut pieces of tapa cloth. It is the lines of embroidery that take the shape of the garment. Each stitch seemed to be a pulse of hope and anticipation, a promise of Cook’s return. I imagined Elizabeth working on it at her home in Mile End, London. Was she embroidering the waistcoat on Valentine’s Day, 1779, when her husband was killed, or in January of the following year when news of his death finally reached London? The poignancy of the piece is that it remains unfinished. We know now what Elizabeth could not have known then—that her husband would not return from that fatal third voyage, would never wear the waistcoat that she so lovingly stitched. James travelled lightly through his life, leaving in his short will ten guineas to his father, and £10 a piece to his two surviving sisters, Christiana and Margaret, and two friends. The rest of his estate went to Elizabeth and the children. Elizabeth, on the other hand, was a hoarder, the house in Clapham where she spent most of her widowhood, ‘crowded and crammed in every room with relics, curiosities, drawing, maps, and collections’. Her will runs to more than ten pages of closely written script. It gives us an inkling of the many friends and relatives who were important in Elizabeth’s life. As well as detailing how her £60,000 should be distributed, the will also takes into account specific items—her husband’s Copley Medal to the British Museum, the contents of the kitchen, washhouse and scullery to one of her servants, bedroom furniture to others. Other items had already been distributed. Elizabeth lived long enough to see her husband pass into history, and knew the value of Cook memorabilia. She gave her doctor a first edition of James’s last voyage. She would peel off pages of her husband’s journal and present them to people for services rendered or as a ‘mark of her esteem’. One set of papers that is lost to history is the private correspondence between Elizabeth and her husband. She burnt all those letters, considering them ‘too personal and sacred’. Marele Day Mrs Cook.

Stain: The stain on the tapa cloth is apparently ink spilled on the waistcoat whilst in the care of the Australian Museum Sydney shortly before hand over to the Mitchell Library. (per com Heather Mansel & Margot Riley ML Nov 2008).

For a good indication of just how quickly London was enamored with Oceanic material culture, we only have to look at the 1771 official portrait of Sir Joseph Banks by Benjamin West. (Usher Art Gallery Lincoln 234cm x 166cm) (Smith 1992:42).There Banks stands, full length, the great and celebrated botanist surrounded by, not plant specimens, but artifacts from his Endeavor voyage, and lots of them. He looks to be cloaked in Maori ngore dress cloak (or Tahitian high rank white tapa cloth?). To his right a Maori Taiaha and paddle hoe, and at his feet a woven Tahitian dancing headdress cap, an axe or birds head club, also a tapa beater or club. A small set of dried botanical specimens lie, as almost an after thought, on the floor behind these last two artefacts.

Engraving for publication based on West’s Original

West, Joseph Banks, Oil on Canvas 234x160cm 1771, Usher Gallery

The Usher Gallery notes to Bank’s portrait are revealing.
“Banks wears a Maori cloak & stands beside other trophies from N.Z. and Polynesia as if in rebuke of his more conventional contemporaries who were portrayed in Rome with their new purchases of classical antiquities”. Banks wanted to be known, by this painting, as the first great ethnographic Pacific field collector and indeed he has every right to this proud claim.

The island and natives of Otaheite Parkinson.

Dr. Solander, Mr. Banks, and several others, went to visit Tootahau, to see if they could obtain any hogs; and, after going much farther than where he usually resides, they met with him, and queen Oboreah: they treated them with fair promises, and invited them to stay the night with them, which they accepted; but, in the morning, some missed their stockings, others their jackets and waistcoats, amongst the rest, Mr. Banks lost his white jacket and waistcoat, with silver frogs, in the pockets of which were a pair of pistols, and other things: they enquired for them, but could get no account of them, and they came away greatly dissatisfied, having obtained but one pig.

THE COOK EMBROIDERED SILK WAISTCOAT - SYDNEY

PROVENANCE:
Prior 1880s unknown; Cook Family C 1770-1835? Or direct Capt. Cook Resolution 14th Feb 1779?
Accepted oral history: Helen & Isabel Woollan Antique dealers London C 1880-1910.
Purchased prior to 1912 by Viscount Leverhulme.
In 1912 the Viscount presented this Cook vest in London to Dr. Ruby Rich of Sydney.
Hence by descent to her nephew Charles Rich Esq. of Sydney.
In 1985 Mr. Michel Frost antique dealer of Sydney was commission by Charles Rich to negotiate within strict caveats the sale of this vest. The vest was acquired through private treaty by the McLean family of Sydney via Mr. Frost’s agency.

In 2008 Mr. Michel Frost provided the following signed provenance post sale:
To whom it may concern,
In approx 1985, Mr Charles Rich of Darling Point, offered our company a heavily embroidered vest to be sold on behalf of his family. We were told by Mr. Rich that this vest had always been known, in the Rich Family, as the “Captain Cook vest”. Mr Rich was given the vest by his late Aunt, Dr. Ruby Rich. We were advised that Dr. Ruby Rich was presented the vest in 1912, by her long time friend, Lord Leverhulme. We were informed the vest was originally purchased by the Leverhulme family from the West London antique dealers, Helen and Isabel Woollan. The Leverhulme family were told by the afore mentioned firm that that the vest was acquired from the Cook family. It was sold to them as an historical Australian piece, as it had previously been owned by Captain James Cook. The above information to our knowledge is true and correct.

In February 2009 I interviewed Mr Michel Frost at his premises in Sydney. He is a well known and respected long term Australian antique dealer with a wealth of knowledge in the profession and a clear & demonstrated commitment to historically important material. He does not have a background which allows hopeful articles of faith to cloud his judgment on matters deciding probability, provenance & value. His firm acceptance of the Rich family provenance & associated oral history is based on the simple fact that neither the Rich family nor Viscount Leverholme were likely candidates to have invented or embellished this background or any other item in their collections. At no time did either family seek any gain from the possession the Capt. Cook vest; indeed quite the contrary. Leverholme presented the Cook waistcoat as a gift, sans any known consideration, presumably as a fitting token of admiration to Rich, a colonial emancipationist & musical genius he admired. Dr. Ruby Rich at some stage had the waistcoat altered for her figure and apparently regularly wore it to society gatherings & Sydney parties, hence the wine stains. This has to be also seen in the wider context that she also slept in Napoleon’s bed in her Sydney house & presumably did what most healthy adults do in bed when the occasion is right.

Silk Waistcoat The silk waistcoat has had the pocket flaps taken off and attached to the neck for some strange reason.

The style of the waistcoat did not change much and the English designs were much more subdued than the French ones which had large curvaceous motifs. But you can see in the book you have photographed this with that the earlier waistcoats were longer and fell to below the waist whereas the early 19th century waistcoats were worn shorter just below the waist. It looks as if the waistcoat was considerably longer before alterations took the pocket flaps away and the lower edge was sewn onto the body higher up. A wedge shaped piece has been removed or folded up (I can’t see) as the grain on the silk is different above and below the pocket marks. This would originally have been all in one piece. Of course the many alterations on this piece and the date suggest this must have been worn by someone else since Cook died in 1779.

The style of this piece suggests an expensive garment and the alterations made imply that it was treasured and worn for several years. This could be from the 1770s until the 1820s. The copious stains on the front – wine or drinks - confirm this. The voided shapes where the embroidery threads are missing are where the silk has rotted - probably from a dye that destabilised the silk. ie It was not unfinished. The back seam and darts have been let out and the back seam appears to be machine sewn seam where silk has been added for extra width. The buttons are not original - they would have had a central embroidered motif to match the vest embroidery.
Lindie Ward
Curator
Design, History and Society
Powerhouse Museum

What neither Ruby Rich or Leverholme had was a history of entertaining deluded grandiose fantasy about objects in their collections or a desire to treat these items as do Museums. They lived with & enjoyed their collected objects as they saw fit.

Mrs. Elizabeth Cook is reported as always dressed in black satin (Rienits p150). So perhaps a silk waistcoat or two as a gift for her husband is not out of character? As Cook is often described as plain in address and appearance, a modest man… it may be that this article and any other rococo items were from Elizabeth or gifts from others rather than choices based on his personal taste?

Dear Arthur
Many thanks for the CD
The images are very clear although I am not sure what conclusions I could draw from them.
The embroidery on the silk? Waistcoat appears to be very typical of late 18th century embroidery on men's jackets and waistcoats. The embroidery is of a high standard but also in a style that was very formulaic so I could not venture to say whether it was professional or by a lady.
Interestingly, this waistcoat has been altered to fit a woman. The pocket flaps have been used as a collar and the whole thing shortened.
To be frank, I do not see that much similarity with this embroidery and that on the one mounted on the tapa cloth although to make a call on this would require closer examination.
Feel free to call me during the week if you'd like to discuss this some more. I must say it was fascnating to see both items in such detailed photos.
Regards
Roger
Roger Leong
Curator, International Fashion and Textiles
National Gallery of Victoria

Helen & Isabel Woollan Antique Dealers London
The Woollan sisters were seminal, well known & socially well connected antique dealers in London C 1880s -1910? They are recorded as having traded in Art needle-work, a category within which this embroidered silk waistcoat falls. They were pedantic in a manner extinct after the Victorian era closed. Witness not selling the tea service until the last original piece was included. They also were most likely to be very particular about provenance. The Woollans overlap with Leverhulme in time and place. As Leverhulme was one of the largest collectors of antiques the English speaking world has seen it is most unlikely the Viscount was not a regular client of the Woollan antique shop.

This aprofios of. the fascinating wares of those two1 charming ladies, the sisters Helen and, Isabel Woollan, ' at 28, Brook Strek't, Grosvenor Square, which comprises four, rooms, in which., most, artistically arranged, beautiful 'things of all'descriptions are to be found-genuine antique furniture, miniatures (amongst them a life-like :portrait :of Mr. Rhodes, by Mary Carlisle), old.prints, lace, china, glass, and art needle-' work.

delightful reunion took place on Tuesday evening in the artistic showrooms of the Misses Helen and Isabel Wollan, in Brook Street, to meet Professor Geddes and Mr. Rider .Haggard, when a special display of the industries of the Island of Cyprus were on view
The Nursing & Hospital World Oct 30, 1897 p.360.

The Misses Woollan 'sell on commission, so that the greatest variety of articles are crowded into these lovely 'rooms; here to the, right, on a "real old Chippendale" table, is to be found.and a now complete tea service, of genuine Bristol china. (One lady deposited every item ,minus the teapot); another customer happened , to have .picked :up in East Anglia the veritable teapot .belonging to the service, so that 'after long separation the whole party was again united- dainty cream jug, saucier and basin; .and quite a dozen little twinkling tea cups and. saucers. That was a happy hour, and no doubt the confidences, exchanged were of; an entertaining. Character-one,'always gossips over .tea. .Now- the-complete set can be procured for a fiver pound note, and please, whoever, buys, don’t separate the sweet, things again.

William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme (19 September 1851 – 7 May 1925) was an English Industrialist, philanthropist and colonialist He was created Baron Leverhulme on 21 June 1917, and Viscount Leverhulme on 27 November 1922 - the hulme section of the title being in honour of his wife, Elizabeth Hulme. Upon his death, of pneumonia, in 1925, the Leverhulme viscountcy passed to his son William Hulme Lever. It became extinct on the death of the third viscount, Philip William Bryce Lever, in 2000.

Lever, the first Viscount Leverhulme, filled several homes with paintings, furniture and objets d'art. The collections were later merged in Thornton Manor, the family home in the village of Thornton Hough, Wirral. Lord Leverhulme died in 1925 and was succeeded by a son and a grandson, Philip Lever, who left three daughters when he died last July. His death prompted the sale of Thornton Manor and all of its contents. Sotheby's set the UK record for a house contents sale last year when they raised £8.3m from an auction at Benacre Hall, Suffolk.

Ruby Rich-Schalit (23/6/1888 - 10/5/1988)

Pianist, Feminist and Patron of the Arts

Ruby Rich, once pronounced in her youth (when she was 23) by musical critics as the most accomplished pianist that ever visited the Commonwealth (San Francisco Post August 1911), was born in Walgett, in 1888, the fourth of six children. Ever a diminuitive figure, she had a clear ringing voice, even in her nineties. She died one month before her one hundreth birthday. An active campaigner for the rights of women, she was one of the founders of the New South Wales Council of Action for Equal Pay, which was established in 1937. Ruby's first interest in life was music. A talented performer, she gave her first concert performance on the piano in 1899, at the age of eleven at the Sydney Town Hall. Although she had wanted to play professionally, her father, who owned a considerable fortune, had refused. However, he permitted her to study music under the best teachers in Sydney and abroad. In Sydney she studied under Joseph Kretchman and furthered her studies in Berlin with Arthur Schnabel and in Paris under Raoul Pugno. During the First World War, she was a volunteer nurse. After a number of years attending suffragette meetings in London, she returned to Sydney and joined the International Alliance of Women. Papers pertaining to these activities are kept in the National Library, Canberra and at some other locations. Ruby played an active role in the Jewish community, and attended many overseas conferences. Her husband, Dr Maurice Schalit, whom she married when she was in her fifties, died in 1961. He founded the Friends of the Hebrew University in Australia. In 1971 a scholarship for students to study at the Hebrew University of in Jerusalem was launched in Mrs Rich-Schalit's name. She was also a founder of the Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the first federal President of W.I.Z.O (Women's International Zionist Organisation). She was awarded an MBE for her work for the advancement of women in culture, the Anzac Memorial Peace Prize and the Torch of Learning by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

BOTANY ID of FLORA EMBROIDERY DESIGN ELEMENTS Pacific or East Coast Australia?

The scope for the botanical avenue of enquiry is both limited in one sense & overly broad elsewhere. The central rub is that of appearance verses reality i.e. an artistic design may well resemble a specific flora species however this is unintentional and accidental. Also even if Banks had provided the ebauches of Parkinson’s drawings for Elizabeth Cook for the Tahitian Tapa example, which I happen to consider a very good & obvious possibility – certainly a possibility worth exploring, then the embroidered product may not accurately represent the scientific sketches sufficiently well to allow for taxonomic identification. This requires & is deserving of much further research. If these repeated design elements appear pre Cook on embroidered garments in England then there is no connection & it is eliminated, however if they are post Cook then the Banks Floriegium may hold some interesting answers for determining if the designs owe anything to Cook’s Pacific discoveries of the first & second voyage.

The following letter, together with some tight shots of specific elements of the floral designs of both waistcoats, was sent to initiate some preliminary research response from both the Aboriginal & European Scientific community close at hand.

Hello, Many Thanks for being so generous with your resources & expertise. Have compressed the JPG’s from 2+MB’s to a more manageable size. If you need larger res please just let me know & will send a bigger file shot. These embroidery design elements come from two vests held here in Australia purportedly made in the 1770’s for Lt. James Cook from his wife Elizabeth’s estate. The major illustrator for this first voyage was Sydney Parkinson, and his botanical work of 1768-1771 is probably of the most interest at this stage of the investigation if we can positively or even vaguely id the flora depicted in the embroidery to species & location. Any comments you or your colleagues may have on this material is gratefully received as the start of the analytical & elimination process which will eventually lead to a determination on provenance. Would be particularly interested in any views botanically inclined T.O’s may have? Many Thanks for your kind consideration. Best regards Arthur

418

505

510

514

Dear Arthur,
I am afraid that I can't come up with many positive identifications, as the embroidery patterns are very stylised and not made with botanical accuracy in mind.  However the small pink flowers I would suggest are modelled on Boronia species.  The larger notched flowers are possibly Epilobium species.  Unfortunately the largest flowers in the motif I can't track down with any certainty.  The green solitary foliage is probably a sprig of cedar (Cedrus sp.).  The vine with three petals of differing colours is unknown to me.
 The Boronias correspond with 418, 505 and 510. The Epilobium corresponds with no 418.  The cedar corresponds with no 514.
 I will be very interested to hear what others come up with.
I hope this has been of some help.
Kind regards, Phil
Philip M. Cameron
Senior Botanic Officer
Brisbane Botanic Gardens
Mt Coot-tha Rd., Toowong 4066

As the Endeavour spent considerably more time in Far North Queensland Cape York, nearly eight weeks as opposed to the 6 days in Botany Bay, it is very interesting to read the Kowanyama initial response from Viv Sinnamon and the Traditional Owners Colin & Pricilla. (Banks collected the entire voyage including South America on the voyage out & extensively on Pacific islands).I.D is further complicated by seasonality – Banks & Cook were on Australian soil May to early August 1770.  

Colin has had a look over the vest pix and thinks the same way I do that the bud looks like a hibiscus. Worth noting that plant is endemic to many of the Pacific islands and used as lashing, rope fibre etc for canoes/dugong ropes etc. 
Can you have a look in the Wildlife of Brisbane publication where I believe you will find the small star shaped flower that is similar to the vest. It is found on the eastern seaboard amongst the boronia, midjim and slightly higher bits of wallum country. 
Priscilla and I had another look at the vest last night. 
Priscilla says that the vine like image crocheted along each side of the buttoning looks like a vine growing on the coast and she also believes the bud I was talking about to be hibiscus. 
The bottom panels also appear to have what looks like banksias seed cases and the usual serrated leaf Hope this is useful    Cheers  Viv 
Viv Sinnamon 
Manager Kowanyama Aboriginal Land and Natural Resources Management Office 
Gilbert White Street Kowanyama 
North Queensland   4871  Australia  

Empirical Comparative Analysis of both Waistcoats

Photo: L. Silk Embroidered.    R. Tahitian Tapa Mitchell Library.

Both garments are waistcoats of the period late 1700s.
Both are formal highly decorative civilian dress not Naval.
Both have floral embroidered designs as the main decorative feature.
Both claim Elizabeth Cook provenance.
Both are unlikely to have been embroidered by Elizabeth Cook, however the Tapa example is the most likely to have been by her hand.
Both were sourced in England around the same time i.e. late1800s.
The design styles differ.
The embroidery differs in style and technique.
The main materials are different i.e. Tahitian Tapa backed with linen the other of silk & linen.
The silk waistcoat is tailored (original to Cooks physique? & later much altered for a woman).
The tapa waistcoat is untailored.

A comparison between the altered Sydney silk example and the unaltered embroidered Cook silk waistcoat in the Wellington Museum of New Zealand Te Papa could be a very productive exercise. They appear to be very similar in decorative appearance and some of the elements may be identical.

OTHER COOK  WAISTCOAT EXAMPLES

Hi Arthur
Just in Wellington at Te Papa I noticed a postcard of a Cook waistcoat that is the ‘before the alterations’ version in their collection. Did you know about this? They must have a valuation for that.
Regards Lindie Ward
Curator Design, History and Society Powerhouse Museum


High resolution shots  Te Papa Cook  Mathews Waistcoat.  
Sydney Mclean Cook Waistcoat

Captain Cook’s Waistcoat
This waistcoat is reputed to have belonged to Captain James Cook: it is said to have come from a house where Cook stayed at one time.  Whether that is, or is not, so it is certainly the style of garment worn by respectable gentlemen under their coats in Cook’s time.  In the portrait of Cook painted by John Webber, the captain is wearing a waistcoat of similar style, though somewhat less decorative.

For men in the eighteenth century, the waistcoat was the most decorative item of clothing.  The front of this one is made of silk.  Its back made of silk with a silk and linen lining.  You could adjust the fit by lacing it up through the eyelets at the back.  The sprigs of flowers on the front have been embroidered with silk, spangles, and threads of gold and silver.

Waistcoats then were much longer than today’s waistcoats, though this one was shorter than waistcoats in the earlier part of the of the eighteenth century.  The latter had skirts – almost as long as overcoats – and long sleeves.  Coat, waistcoat, and breeches were the three main items of men’s clothes – a combination of dress that has endured in men’s clothing to this day, in the form of the three-piece suit.

Mrs Matthews, who donated this waistcoat to the museum in 1967, reported that it originally had a label attached confirming that the waistcoat had belonged to Cook.  But as this was mislaid before it came here, we have no way of authenticating the claim.
(Downloaded http://tepapa.govt.nz 22nd April 2009).

1755 - 1765?? Label?  State Library of Victoria.

Captain Cook's Waistcoat, c.1750-79

This cream-coloured waistcoat with naval buttons is believed to have been worn by Captain James Cook. The Library acquired the English waistcoat from Mrs N Diane Cook, who gave evidence of her connection to James Cook's sister and the waistcoat's origin. The waistcoat remains in good condition and has been carefully prepared for the Travelling Treasures tour by an expert in textile conservation. Only one small alteration to the garment has been identified, where it appears Cook added some width to the back (perhaps as he rounded in the middle). Captain Cook's waistcoat is held in the Library's Pictures Collection.

Globe, Atlas and Waistcoat.

The celestial globe and atlas were acquired by the Library, together with Furneaux's chart of Van Diemen's Land, in October 1882. They had been in the possession of Ann Elizabeth Smith who swore an affidavit to the effect that she was the widow of James Cook Smith who was born in London in 1813, the son of Captain John Smith, R.N., whose services are detailed in Volume XII, page 407 of Marshall's Naval Biography; that Captain Smith was first cousin to Mrs. James Cook, the widow of the circumnavigator; that Mrs. Cook bequeathed to Captain Smith certain charts, instruments, etc.; and that this fact is noted in Marshall's Naval Biography, Volume XII, page 419.
Cook's waistcoat was acquired by the Library from the Hon. Mrs. N. Diane Cook after lengthy negotiations involving the Agent-General in London, the Premier's Department and Sir Keith Murdoch, then chairman of the Trustees. Mrs. Cook produced as evidence of authenticity a family tree showing her connection with Cook's family through a sister of Captain Cook.

Other Sources for Capt. COOK property.

“The gentlemen auctioned off Cook’s clothes in the great cabin as the chiefs divided up his bones in the Temple of Ku. They all – gentlemen and Chiefs - had some sense of how great men find resurrection in their relics. Even the lower deck had their eyes on the value of souvenirs. All the Hawaiian artifacts they had collected went up in value, and you can find them now in the museums of the world – spears, axes, feather cloaks and beads – marked with a note that they had belonged to men who had belonged to Cook and had seen him die” (Dening 1992:171).

Unfortunately, like pieces of the true cross, there may be an unaccountable over supply on today’s market.
The items referred to above distributed on the Resolution may have multiplied somewhat over the years.

Conclusions: Embroidered Silk Waistcoat Sydney

There is no evidence discovered which would rule out the possibility that the oral history provenance for this  embroidered silk waistcoat once having belonged to Capt. James Cook, or having been sourced from the Cook family, is an accurate & true account of provenance.  This strong oral history provenance involves three major players, Woollans, Leverhulme & Rich who all had the history, opportunity, background and the motivation to be connected in the sequence described with the waistcoat ownership transfer.

The waistcoat is of the period and of a standard fitting Cook’s station.
The floral embroidered design may possibly be of Pacific & East Coast Australian flora origin. If so then in the late 1700’s England it must be linked directly to Cooks exploration & Banks botany.
Elizabeth Cook has a history, with the Mitchell library example, of considering a waistcoat a fitting gift for her husband.
This waistcoat is very similar in decorative appearance to the unaltered embroidered Cook example in the Wellington Museum of New Zealand Te Papa.
Cook wore waistcoats for his portraits, although all are plain (he seemed to have trouble with the buttons: see Dance painting 1776 - undone buttons deliberate? possibility of some significance & meaning?).

Captain James Cook, 1728-79 
Artist Nathaniel Dance
Date 1775-76
Repro ID BHC2628
Materials oil on canvas
Measurements Painting: 1270 x 1016 mm
Credit line National Maritime Museum, London, Greenwich Hospital Collection

Balance of Probability: 

All of the above leads to the irresistible conclusion that the silk waist coat now in the hands of the McLean family Sydney has the very distinct possibility of having being connected to Captain James Cook and Cook family estate in some direct manner prior to 1880.

WITH THANKS:

Philip Cameron
Mark Blackburn
Michel Frost
Roger Leong
Heather Mansell
McLean family
Richard Neville
Margot Riley
David Said
Viv Sinnamon
Lindie Ward

All above who contributed to this appraisal were forwarded a draft for correction & comment on the 20th. April 2009. The two changes notified have now been included as amendments. 

Arthur B. Palmer

07 June 2009

Approved to value the following classes for the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Programme:
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander material culture and contemporary art, Arnhem Land barks (19thC to present), Hermannsburg watercolours (1930s to present), Pacific, African, Asian, American material culture, Australian Early and Modern Fine Art, International Aviation Art, Trench Art WWI & WWII.

PARASI the Magic Headhunting Club

2009-05-19T17:34:00.000-07:00

Arthur Beau Palmer

War magic Parasi Head Hunter's Coup Staff Club circa WWII
Nomad Fly River, Papua New Guinea
Length 105cm (41 inches) width 9.5cm (4 inches)Local wood, natural earth ochre and charcoal, bush string and feathers
Courtesy Holger Braun. Ex. Arthur Palmer Family Collection Brisbane.

We go; one not escape.
All we shall kill. Finish! Song of the Headhunter in Williams.

F.E.Williams, the great early writer on Papua, thought this item of such importance in Head Hunter society and culture from this region that he used an image of a similar example for the dust jacket cover of his major ethnography of the region. Discussion in the book describes intended doomed victims being rendered helpless and stupefied by being touched by a senior man's Parasi. For further discussion on this rare artefact see Papuans of the Trans Fly 1936 F.E. Williams pp266-269.
The Parasi club is of flimsy construction purposefully to shatter on contact with the intended victim of the headhunting raid. The man so struck is rendered powerless to escape by the malevolent sympathetic magic & super natural sanction intrinsic in this object & act of coup. This magico-symbolic club type is described for a number of groups in the Trans Fly region – the Marind-Anim, Morehead peoples the Suki (see Hitchcock, Grottanelli & Kooijman).
A heavy stone or wood club is then used to strike the death blow.
The light wood fret work when broken is left in the village beside the beheaded body. During a trial for headhunting in the 1930s Justice Sir Hubert Murray heard in evidence that these fragments were deliberately left because each parasi design was unique to each group. Thus on return after fleeing their village & viewing the beheaded bodies, the families would know who killed their relatives.
Only the short handle is taken back with the severed head by the raiding warrior. No man would face return to his village after an expedition with his parasi intact.
This particular Parasi example has a portrait at its centre to represent a known individual 'Big Man' in an adjoining village who was to be the intended victim of the next head hunting raid. The haunted look of resignation on this face is very telling. A significant and rare, well preserved example of this powerful battle magic club staff.
The power possessed by the Parasi - Super Natural Sanctions and sympathetic magic are linked to decoration & ritual secret society chants. A malevolent secret, sacred & dangerous object of ritual paraphernalia used to deadly effect.
Williams rates this mysterious and highly ornamental ritual club as the iconic material culture marker of Trans Fly pre contact head hunter and internecine warfare culture.

Bibliography:
Grottanelli,V.C. 1951 On the mysterious Baratu clubs from Central new Guinea. Man
51: 105-107

Hitchcock,G. 2004 06 21: Torres Strait origin of some stone headed clubs from the
Torassi or Bensbach Rivers area, SW P.N.G. memoirs of the
Queensland Museum, Cultural heritage Series 3 (1): 305-315
ISSN 1440-4788.

Koijman,S. 1952. The function & significance of some ceremonial clubs of the
Marind Anim Dutch New Guinea. Man 52. 97-99

Williams, F.E. 1936 Papuans of the Trans Fly. 266-269

Web: http://www.arthur-beau-palmer-artifacts.com/ (Artefact Gallery)Ebay Trader ID: arthur-beau-palmer-artifactsBlog: http://www.arthur-palmer.blogspot.com/ (Tribal Art Discussion Forum - Investment and Pleasure, Buying, Selling, Trading)

CHRISTIES COOK BOOMERANG Artifact with great return

2008-08-31T21:48:00.000-07:00

Lot 33 A boomerang of New Holland Captain James Cook 1728-1779, in Christies upcoming auction (Sale 7652 Exploration & Travel Sept 25 2008) purports to have been collected on Lieutenant Cook’s first voyage. This, if so, is no doubt a wonderful thing.

Click here:

http://www.christies.com/presscenter/pdf/08202008/121442.pdf

Without prejudice however, on viewing the item and also Lot 34; the two associated clubs with similar provenance, it would appear to be a wondrous happenstance. Perhaps even a hopeful and long bow to pull?

On balance the possibility and probability that any of these three artifacts were handled by Cook would seem to require an unsafe and uncritical leap of faith.

The Christie’s catalogue write up relies very heavily upon the interpretation of a number of specific terms used in statements from Bank’s journal of the 29^th April 1770.

These interpretations are demonstrably and unfortunately naively erroneous. The passage of 200 years, not conspiracy, has misled novice modern readers to an incorrect conclusion that Banks is describing this or any other boomerang. He is most certainly not.

Banks description of short scymetar of two half feet and sword like wooded weapons is consistent with the traditional Aboriginal scymetar (scimitar) sword club from this area. The contemporary drawing by Parkinson, almost certainly of this Cook Banks encounter on the 29^th.with two Aboriginal men, shows a version of this wooden sword club held in the right hand of the foremost figure. No boomerang.

This decorated scimitar club type was still made by old Aboriginal men at La Perouse up until the 1930s depression. Then aged in their 70s & 80s they would have been the great grand children of the men Banks encountered.

Aboriginal East Coast Scymetar Sword Clubs of the type described by Banks.

See: Edge-Partington Vol.1. p.352.No.1& 2. Sword Clubs SE Australian Heape Collection.

Top C 1900. Bottom C 1800. Ex Palmer Family Collection

Banks, & Cook, unlike most modern readers, was well acquainted with sword types and he described very accurately what he witnessed on the day. He was observing and recording a club type which to this day closely resembles the common Persian/Indian scimitar sword. He is not describing a returning boomerang. Banks also very precisely describes a shield, four pronged fish spears (lances) and a Woomera spear thrower, short stick handled as if was a machine to throw a lance (spear). The Woomera description is nothing short of inquiring Georgian scientific deduction at its most brilliant.

Likewise Banks uses the term crooked weapons to describe the shafts of these fish spears, not any boomerang. Fish spears shafts are usually quite knobbly and in the rough utilitarian items of material culture (see King & Blake fish spear drawings & scimitar club type. No boomerang). Crooked boomerangs are sticks – they don’t come back. Also no mention of throwing sticks of any kind?

Had Banks sighted a boomerang then his powers of observation and description would have left little doubt as to the crescent or chevron shape, conformation, form & perhaps an educated guess at function.

Were he to see it in flight, approaching flat end over end at rapid speed, soaring over and past Cook & Banks heads with a sound like a whistling kite, climbing up to gain height behind them and then returning for another pass before continuing on back to the thrower’s hands, then we could have expected a paper on the subject or a chapter in his book. He didn’t & there isn’t.

It has to be also noted that nowhere has Cook recorded collecting boomerangs or these clubs. Not much comfort there.

Banks was the first great Pacific ethnographic material culture collector (see Palmer OAS Magazine Vol. 12, issue 5, Dec 2007. www.oceanicartsociety.org.au ). Cook seemed to mainly collect continents and large Island chains. Cook and Banks had far greater opportunity to collect from local Aboriginal when the Endeavour was careened for seven weeks between 17^th June & 04 August 1770 on the east coast of Cape York. Very little was collected in all this time, save natural history specimens & some Aboriginal vocabulary including the word Kangaroo, and in any case the artifacts in question are not from this region.

The Christies catalogue notes quite correctly that this boomerang (Lot 33) & the two clubs (Lot 34) were omitted from the 1886 John Mackrell exhibition of Cook artifacts. The enormity of such an over sight, if an oversight, is difficult if not impossible to explain. The irresistible conclusion is there was no contemporary oversight leading to omission.

Also two other boomerangs purportedly from the Banks collection, now in the Australian Museum, are not accepted by the Cook cataloguer Kaeppler as having unimpeachable provenance.

Lot 33 appears to be a reasonable & attractive early example of the common type of returning boomerang. It does not appear to have any significant mechanical use or abuse damage or display any vestige decoration.

Lot 34 appears to be two clubs from the Gippsland (smaller club) and Murray River region (larger club). This locates the source for these clubs some 800 kilometres from the Banks/Cook Endeavor encounter in 1770 at Sting Ray (Botany) Bay. Perhaps pre contact traditional trade movement may account for this. However both clubs arouse post contact suspicions. The large club is, for a pre contact traditional item of this type of weapon, overly & unusually decorated with bands around the shaft. The small club appears a clumsy post contact pedestrian version of type.

As they can’t be interrogated then the empirical analysis has to now be matched with the provenance. The most likely safe date for both clubs is C 1820s.

Where and when all three Aboriginal artefacts entered the chain of Cook/ Bennett family estate history may continue a mystery. There are certainly a number of ongoing family RN connections with Australia from 1788 on to account for early Aboriginal & Pacific artificial curiosities finding their way into either household. Cook & Banks remain, as are the items in question, very silent on the matter.

When the decimal point shifts two places to the right on a hint of Cook background then the gap may be one of credibility rather than of the cheque book. Sans Cook, Banks or any other notable association this artefact has a current market value around AUD$1,200.00.

The current top Christies estimate of AUD$ 120,000.00+ may require a little more hard evidence for hope to triumph over probability.

To err on the side of caution is always an option in this field.

http://www.spearchuckasart.com/default.asp?PageID=101

http://www.michaelhamson.com/aug05_DSC_5711.htm

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Arthur B. Palmer AD Fine Arts (Qld) MRQAS

www.spearchuckasart.com

spearchuckas@bigpond.com

26^th August 2006

Approved to value the following classes for the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Programme:
Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander material culture and contemporary art, Arnhem Land barks (19thC to present), Hermannsburg watercolours (1930s to present), Pacific, African, Asian, American material culture, Australian Early and Modern Fine Art, International Aviation Art, Trench Art WWI & WWII.

DEATH of ABORGINAL CONTEMPORARY ART & THE CHILD ABUSE SCANDAL

2008-02-16T16:34:00.000-08:00

Is collateral damage from these horrific public revelations going to ultimately destroy the Aboriginal Fine Art market and what is the immediate impact on investment and collectability?

Most of the high profile lucrative Aboriginal contemporary Art industry is produced in remote area Communities of Northern and Central Australia now subject to the Federal Government child abuse intervention policy.

The extensive media coverage, both National and International, of the mobilization of the Army & Federal Police to combat child sex abuse, excessive substance abuse, Family violence, rape and other aspects of criminal social dysfunction within these communities has brought sharp scrutiny of present day Aboriginal community life. The picture painted is not a pretty one. Worse it may be a repulsive image.

When all the dots are joined together are the dots dead?

Many overseas clients are expressing the view that they are not in the business of purchasing art works from a society or culture that abuses children & lead such ugly meaningless lives. The revelation that this situation is not new and has been described by health officials and other academics for several decades is of little comfort. Paradoxically this Art from Aboriginal communities has been the main income earner other than welfare (sit down money) since the late 1960s.

The few older members of these communities who subscribe to a social contract lead diminished and shortened lives. They swim against the overwhelming tide of “monotonous alcoholism, relentless lack of purpose, sham jobs, youth suicide, utter squalor of camp life, internecine violence, collusive embezzlement, thinly veiled nepotism”. These are often the Painters, whose Art derived income supports large and demanding extended kin. This may include those carpet bagger dealers who prey on elderly painters for short term gain at the expense of the genre and reputable gallery credibility.

Aboriginal communities are seen to lack the basic notions of accountability, responsibility, loyalty, trust, love, honor, duty, friendship & decency - A nihilistic climate of no rules, no law, no mores, no realistic expectations & consequently little hope.

Aboriginals have once before been caught stranded by the ebb tide of romantic perception. The predictable fall from the crest of the present romantic wave now risks a rising tide of disfavour that may well prove very destructive & expensive. Estimates of current worth for the Indigenous Art sector range up to $500 million, with annual growth at 40-50% over the past decade. Four peak bodies service around 6,000 Aboriginal artists in 80 remote communities. These Australia Council figures alone send alarm through the Fine Art investment sector with messages of soulless cottage industry scale rather than a spiritually imbued cutting edge art form. Also in the latest Federal Government report is the observation of “a level of anger and conflict in different parts of this sector” and “while some activity is unethical, it is often not illegal.” All very reassuring??

If the time comes when the upper middle class Fine Art domestic & international market looks at a glorious painting from the desert & sees only sexually abused & neglected children crying for help, then collateral damage will be a euphemism in keeping with Failure to Thrive on the death certificate of an Aboriginal neglected/abused baby.

European & USA commentators, collectors & dealers have drawn a parallel analogy with Art from the brutal German fascist school between 1930 – 45. Nazi Third Reich heroic art, no matter how impressive, is neither acceptable nor collectable in the main stream market

Death Certificate of Aboriginal Contemporary Art – Failure to Thrive or Collateral Damage? Either way are the Dots already dead?

PACIFIC ARTEFACTS Banks Bounty Bligh & Cook

2007-12-04T22:20:00.001-08:00

Oceanic Material Culture Changing the Course of History
Examples of What Was and Might Have Been

Arthur B. Palmer
www.spearchuckasart.com

Discussion Paper 1 of 3

Abstract

Two outstanding events in the early European exploration and rediscovery of the Pacific irrevocably altered the future outcomes for Polynesian and Western culture. An examination of the crucial role Oceanic artifacts played in Cook’s combat death in Hawaii and Bligh’s Bounty mutiny after Tahiti.

“How very difficult it is to draw any certain conclusion from the actions of people, with whose customs, as well as language, we are so imperfectly acquainted.” Lt. James King HMS Resolution 1779.

As with many historical moments, Cook’s death and the piracy of Bligh’s Bounty have become shrouded in a theatre of misunderstanding, myth and mystery, irony and contradiction. However what remains imbedded in original sources, although somewhat obscure and largely disregarded, is that the material culture of the Pacific Islanders, and the sailors’ perception of and interaction with these artifacts, played a significant role in these two events. Ultimately it was traditional artifacts which determined what transpired or expired.

In both cases, what shines out is that arrogant underestimation of another society’s material culture is thinly veiled contempt for a people. As with most ignorance it imparts weakness and vulnerability, not strength to those possessed of this misplaced article of faith. Cook contemptuous, Bligh neutral and Banks infatuated. Positions all held by these seminal Pacific voyagers which changed history.

There were however some members of the company on these voyages who neither underestimated nor undervalued Pacific ethnographic items. Many were fascinated with not only the material culture, but the Polynesians and the traditional Pacific life style.

Engraving for publication based on West’s Original Oil portrait of Banks

Benjamin West, Joseph Banks, Oil on Canvas 234x160cm 1771, Usher Gallery Lincoln.

By the time of Cook’s death, Pacific artifacts were fashionable vogue in Europe and had fast become valuable collectors’ items (Moorehead 1966:72, Smith 1992:109). For a good indication of just how quickly London was enamored with Oceanic material culture, we only have to look at the 1771 official portrait of Sir Joseph Banks by Benjamin West. (Usher Art Gallery Lincoln 234cm x 166cm.) (Smith 1992:42).There Banks stands, full length, the great and celebrated botanist surrounded by, not plant specimens, but artifacts from his Endeavor voyage, and lots of them. He looks to be cloaked in Maori ngore dress cloak (or Tahitian high rank white tapa cloth?). To his right a Maori Taiaha and paddle hoe, and at his feet a woven Tahitian dancing headdress cap, an axe or birds head club, also a tapa beater or club. A small set of dried botanical specimens lie, as almost an after thought, on the floor behind these last two artefacts.
The Usher Gallery notes to Bank’s portrait are revealing.
“Banks wears a Maori cloak & stands beside other trophies from N.Z. and Polynesia as if in rebuke of his more conventional contemporaries who were portrayed in Rome with their new purchases of classical antiquities”
Banks wanted to be known, by this painting, as the first great ethnographic field collector and indeed he has every right to this proud claim.

Many of these ethnographic items had been previously recorded in meticulous drawings by Parkinson & Miller (Joppien, Smith 1985:93-217).
Although Bernard Smith ignores the presence of all the artifacts depicted in the Bank’s portrait, he does “take serious account” of the impact by Pacific material culture pieces collected during Cook’s voyages, on European art, taste, and sensibilities. Both Cook’s official artists, Webber and Parkinson, were great collectors of Pacific artifacts (Smith 1992:109).The discovery and collection of Pacific arts and crafts provided a threshold for the development of the European taste for primitive art (Smith 1992:109,218-219).
Of course previously, in1769, Bougainville had returned to France with the Tahitian Ahutoru who was formally presented to Louis XV. Reports and books, such as Diderot’s philosophical work, based on Bougainville’s Pacific voyage had a huge impact on European intellectual thought. It was the first time a non European society had been held up as a model .A preliterate non iron based culture at that (Lewis 1977:163).
This is 100 years before African masks promoted Cubism.

One set of Pacific artifacts (trophies) Bank’s picked up in Tahiti not showing are his Otaheite (sic. 1770’s) tattoos (Moorehead 1966:27). Tattoos, from the Tahitian tatau, were a badge of honour proudly displayed, flaunted like campaign medals in taverns, by that unique band of sailors returned from Pacific exploration. At the time tattooing was almost unknown in England (Hough 1974:116). Many of the first tattooed mariners arrived back with the Endeavor at the end of Cook’s first voyage with Banks. Most Bounty sailors, including Fletcher Christian, had undergone traditional tattooing over large parts of their bodies, particularly the broad black decorative band across the buttocks. (Alexander 2003:116-117). By the time Bounty left Tahiti, Bligh could rely heavily on tattoos as his descriptive identification of the Bounty mutineers, all except one” very much tatowed..” Tattoo, the one artifact memento you kept for life (Dening 1992: 36.Lumis 2000: 81).

Although Cook and Bligh were very different men, their fates shaved very close to each other on a number of occasions in the Pacific, and all outcomes involved items of Oceanic material culture. Collection and passion for artifacts, theft of artifacts by both parties and the inability to distinguish the sacred paraphernalia from the profane, played an intrinsic role when push came to shove and blows lead to killing.

Cook Hawaii 1779

Lord Horton, President of the Royal Society and sponsor of the Endeavor voyage, gave Cook written advice. This included the instruction that “Have it still in view that shedding the blood of these people is a crime of the highest nature…. They are natural, and in the strictest sense of the word, the legal possessors of the several Regions they inhabit. Should they in a hostile manner oppose a landing, and kill some men in the attempt; even this would hardly justify firing amongst them, till every other gentle method had been tried.” (Smith 1992:207).

Cook’s third voyage was remarkable for his violence, cruelty, intolerance and intemperate outbursts.

In Tonga tapu he had punished theft and stone throwing with floggings by the dozen. Then in a fury of impotent exasperation he ordered crosses slashed on the thieves naked arms. At Tahiti he became more severe & unreasonable. The theft of a goat prompted an entire village to be plundered and destroyed. The loss of a sextant resulted in the Tahitian thief’s head shaved and his ears cut off. Cooks Officers’, including Bligh, were horrified but powerless. Some historians consider Bligh proved to be the better man (Alexander 2004: 128).

George Gilbert, a young midshipman, on the Resolution relates “ Capt. Cook punished in a manner rather unbecoming of a European viz. by cutting off their ears; fireing at them with small shot, or ball, as they were swimming or paddling to the shore or…stick the boat hook into them. One in particular he punished by ordering one of our people to make two cuts upon his arm to the bone one across the other close below the shoulder..” (Smith 1992;206). It was Cook who on a previous trip had named Tonga the Friendly Isles.

In Hawaii, Cook tells King the night before being killed. “These people will oblige me to use some violent measures, for they must not be left to imagine that they have gained an advantage over us” (Hough 1974: 42). Cook is confident that a single musket-shot would subdue any violence (ibid: 43). The General Custer syndrome is difficult to learn from. It has a history of teaching largely by attrition.

Cook’s population estimate for the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), based on the one thousand canoes with ten thousand islanders which met them in welcome, was 300,000 plus.

Next morning, February 14th 1779, Cook and Phillips are on the beach when they hear shooting from two parts of the bay. Then the deep boom of the ships guns. ”The signs of friendliness and respect amongst the Natives dissolves, and Cook & Philips saw that they (Hawaiians) were beginning to arm themselves, were donning their close-woven mats which they wore for protection in battle, and were gathering in great numbers, at great speed, along the rocky shore.” (ibid: 45).

Cook’s particular final fatal mistake was not rashness or provocation. It was his underestimation of local technology and the Hawaiian resolve. After having enraged with his rudeness, an overwhelming group of locals, Cook discharged his musket at point blank range into the chest of an advancing Hawaiian warrior. The effect was, that it not only had no affect on the target, it immediately produced the reciprocal of Cook’s intention. The Hawaiian was wearing woven protective armour of coconut fibre designed to be impervious to sling missiles, shark tooth club blows, spears and other projectiles. Its efficacy included, unfortunately for Cook, musket shot. This warrior is reported to have removed his armour, proudly displayed the ineffectual mark left by the shot on his body, triumphantly waved the armour above his head and urged his company on to victory at the cost of Cook’s life and Native awe.
Rousseau’s concept of the noble savage also takes a fatal blow with Cook this day.

Gordon Browne, Death of Captain Cook. Shows Cook’s assailant wearing matting vest, published 1895, CR Lowe Captain Cook’s. Three Voyages around the world

Oil painting after George Carter, Death of Captain Cook depicting act of desperation using rifle as a club. Non Heroic and not much published.

Bougainville in 1768 had compared the Pacific Isles to the Garden of Eden and named Tahiti the New Cythera. By 1788 La Perouse declared indignantly “All their caresses were false…more malignant than the wildest beasts “(Moorehead 1966: 78-79). Being clubbed over the head is a very coal face form of being mugged by reality.

Bligh in a cutter off shore from Cook was also an observer participant to this catastrophe. For Bligh, Cook’s death was an expensive and valuable lesson in manners and execution. Cook had been elevated to Tahitian God status, Lono a shark who walks on land, and his death did not diminish his divinity (Dening 1992:157-173). Bligh never aspired to be anything other than a dutiful if fallible human. Ironically Cook’s supply of red feathers from Tahiti, so revered in Hawaii, is yet another Pacific artifact in the chain of his inevitable circumstance and fate.

Cook on the beach, the shark God Lono walking on land, and Bligh always on the deck of his floating island, a man content to walk on the waters of the world. Bligh’s beach was his deck and he very seldom went ashore. Cook needed to touch his discoveries to make them real. Bligh simply mapped his to make them “discovered”. It’s as if Bligh acted out the old Irish joke – tell me where I’ll die and I’ll make bloody sure to never go within 15 miles of the accursed place.

Richard Hough (1972: 46-47) distills from the account of Lt. Philips, the only recorded participant observer, on shore and survivor of Cook’s last minutes “A native broke from the threatening circle about Cook and Phillips, raising in one hand his pahhooa (a long spike like a spear) and in the other hand a stone, shouting threats and abuse. Cook replied at first by a gesture ordering him to retreat, and when this failed by firing the barrel of his musket loaded with ball shot. This had none of the deterrent effect Cook expected. It was quite the reverse. The shot failed to penetrate the native’s protective mat, which he flaunted first mockingly at Cook and then triumphantly at his own people.

Hawaiian mats of woven armour are described in some detail by Phillips in Henry Theodore Cheever’s book “Life in the Sandwich Islands; or the Heart of the Pacific, as it was and is” (1841:26). “Large thick mats they were observed to wear, which they constantly kept wet, and, further more, the Indian that Cook fired at with a blank discovered no fear, when he found his mat unburnt, saying in his language, when he showed it to the bystanders, that no fire had touched it.”

What is demonstrably false in this report is reference to Cook firing a blank. Cook had loaded that morning with ball specifically to kill & he fired ball to kill (Hough 1972:44).It is part of the wider historical cover up of Cook’s increasing vengeful brutality that characterized him at his worst on this final voyage (Alexander 2004:128).It is intended not to report history but to maintain the myth of Cook - the humanitarian hero, discoverer extraordinaire.

John Cleveley, 1788 Published Painting of Cook as Peace Maker Martyr, Musket smoke the Hero’s halo.

John Cleveley, Original Watercolour, rediscovered 2004 based on his brother’s eyewitness account

In 2004 an original seminal painting of Cook’s death by John Cleveley, based on a description from his brother James, carpenter on the Resolution, was brought to light. It depicts what all who witnessed the scene knew to be true. Cook fighting hard for his life, swinging his musket as a club. No sign of a martyr suing for peace and calm as depicted in the reinterpreted published engraved aquatint by Jukes in 1788 (Smith 1992:232). The sanitizing of Cook’s violent relations with Natives in illustrations predates Cook death. Cook himself suppressed images of conflict and other matters such as nudity in his publications (ibed:198). On this third voyage he had expressly forbidden the official artist, Webber, from portraying any violent confrontation with Native people (ibid: 202).

John Webber, The Death of Cook, Engraving for publication. Enigmatic gesture, emotional, ambiguity, martyr-hero.

Stones were already flying, aimed at the marines who stood along the shore with muskets at the ready and at Phillips and Cook. A chief lunged at Phillips with his dagger. Phillips deflected the blow and swung the butt of his musket at the man’s head. Another came at him from behind, stabbing him between the shoulders. Phillips turned, discharged a ball and killed him instantly. The screaming mob closed about Cook who must now have realised he was doomed, fired his remaining barrel at the nearest native. The man fell. But it was ominously clear that these Hawaiians were not as afraid of musket fire as Cook had anticipated. Instead of falling back, the sound and the fury intensified … Cook’s end was near” (Hough 1972:47).

To add to the irony of the moment Cook was stabbed to death by one of his own artifacts. Lieutenant John Rickman (1779:271), an observer from the Resolution who manned a cutter in the bay notes in his hand written journal; “Cook fired some small shot at the offender without doing any damage…….came from behind and stabbed him between the shoulders with an iron instrument like a dirk, of which they had many made by Capt. Cook at their own direction..”

In death, the memory of Cook now metamorphosed into a cross cultural artifact meaning all things to all men, Polynesian and European.

“The gentlemen auctioned off Cook’s clothes in the great cabin as the chiefs divided up his bones in the Temple of Ku. They all – gentlemen and Chiefs - had some sense of how great men find resurrection in their relics. Even the lower deck had their eyes on the value of souvenirs. All the Hawaiian artifacts they had collected went up in value, and you can find them now in the museums of the world – spears, axes, feather cloaks and beads – marked with a note that they had belonged to men who had belonged to Cook and had seen him die” (Dening 1992:171).

Bligh Tahiti 1789

“At Otaheite it could not be expected that the intercourse of my people should be of a very reserved nature.” (Bligh in Moorehead 1966: 77). Bligh is not talking of trade or ethnographic studies here. However, in between the horizontal folk dancing a lot of trade managed to take place.

A decade after Cook’s killing, and shortly before preparing to leave Tahiti in February 1789, Bligh had a very close brush with death from a Pacific club on the deck of the Bounty. Three crew had deserted and been recaptured. These three were to be flogged and the midshipman, Tom Haywood, mate of the watch who had been asleep, brought up from below in irons.

“There was one more ironical - and potentially disastrous consequence of this affair. Haywood’s male Tyo,( a special friend) a man by the name of Wyetooa, had been on board the Bounty, standing close behind Bligh and with a club in his hand, on the morning when the three deserters had been flogged and Haywood publicly rebuked and ordered below in irons again. Bligh never knew how close to death he had been. If Haywood had been flogged, Wyetooa had planned to fell Bligh on the first lash, then leap overboard and gain shore before anyone could reach him” (Hough 1974:125) All of this only came to light when the mutineers returned to Tahiti (Alexander 2004:122).

What saved Bligh was his prevailing sense of magnanimity. His order was far below the accepted naval punishment for desertion, or asleep on watch, of death (Alexander 2004:120. Lumis 2000:57). Bligh’s real punishment for his crew was to nag incessantly (Hough 1974:83,303), flog them with his bitter vicious tongue, but to use the cat sparingly. Bligh’s flogging record was minor in comparison to Cook. Bligh flogged five men on the Bounty. Cook flogged thirty-two on the Resolution. Both flogged the Natives but Cook flogged many more (Dening 1992:384).

Even the great and shining lies to defame Bligh rely on artifacts for their props. The infamous false film exchange between Bligh (Howard) and Christian (Brando), during the closing stages of the mutiny – Christian hanging a cat of nine tails over Bligh’s shoulder as he’s put over the side into the launch, purportedly says “take your flag with you Capt. Bligh.” Bligh replies “no thank you, I don’t need a flag, as unlike you, I still have a country.” (1962 Film “Mutiny on the Bounty”).

Flags and the lash certainly were the artifacts that riveted the Polynesian attention on a political level. They knew that to understand these articles in context you then had the measure of the strangers.

When the bounty left Tahiti every sailor had “purchased mats, spears, curiosities and every thing the Natives would dispose of in a frenzy of trading. There were yams and clubs in all quarters of the ship” (Dening 1992: 76). “The people (the lower deck non commissioned sailors) had become entrepreneurial too. They would never make their fortunes out of wages, but they would still do well out of the artificial curiosities they had collected. The Bounty already over crowded, was now full of clubs and spears, Tahitian cloth, fans and feathers” (ibid: 86).
If Bligh collected artifacts it is unrecorded.

A week later, on the way to the mutiny, Bounty called in at Anamooka in the Friendly Isles, (Tonga) one of the Pacific’s great map misnomers. Again, all on board traded nails for spears and clubs (Alexander 2004:131). Dening (1992:86) reports the sailors made spectacular bargains with the Tongans trading in their recently acquired Tahitian artifacts for Anamooka food. Also combs for carved shields, mirrors for spears. Soon the decks were so cluttered with artifacts it was difficult to get about (Hough 1974:139).

The great enduring mystery of the Bounty mutiny is not how a spontaneous decision by Fletcher Christian succeeded in taking the ship or why (Christian 1999:182). The question that remains is how is it that the considerable number of loyalists, could not, and did not attempt to overpower the few pirates and successfully retake control during the hours of indecision and confusion? The binding of Bligh’s hands and his accusatory finger of retribution and authority may have tipped the balance in favor of the uncertain few mutineers, who lacked a plan, but dared to win. The fact that he was in a hitched up night shirt without pants would have reduced Bligh’s dignity to the point where stamping his authority upon the situation was nigh impossible.

Bligh’s clerk, at the Court Marshall, later recalled “The officers being now all up, I looked for some attempt (to retake the ship) be made, but, saw none. Dening (1992:38) observes that “now it was begun, how could it be ended by those who had no authority to lead and no example from those who did”?

There were some of the Bounty men looking to put down the mutiny. Morrison, the Bounty Boatswain’s Mate, in his defense, for his life during the Court Marshall, gave evidence that he and Tom Haywood had discussed retaking the Bounty as the mutiny progressed during the morning. “He dropped a hint to me that he intended to knock Churchill (one of the ringleaders) down, I told him I would second him, pointing to some of the Friendly Island clubs which ( there were many on board) were sticking in the booms and saying, there are tools enough (Traditional Pacific islander weapons to over power Fletcher Christian’s pirates.) Nothing came of it and Haywood meekly got into the launch with Bligh (Dening 1992:240. Alexander 2004:242). Morrison had also apparently made plans with the master John Fryer to re-take the ship (Lumis 2000:63). Morrison won a pardon from his sentence of death.

Bligh felt powerless and now simply wanted to pull the 23ft. launch away from the ship to protect the loyalists with him from the increasing threats of some hard & dunk mutineers. (ibid: 64.)
One blow, on the Captains behalf on this mutiny morning, from any one of these dozens of Tongan clubs would have forever altered Bligh’s life and swerved the course of much Pacific history. Not to be. Of course if a violent attempt to retake the Bounty, armed with Tonga clubs, had failed, Bligh may well have forfeited his life then and there as a consequence. There were some murderous types in the mutiny who would have happily shot Bligh, and suggested it at the time, “blow the buggers brains out”, with no provocation other than Bligh’s incessant demands and complaints on behalf of those who’s sense of duty threw in their lot with his demise (Christian 1999:177-189. Alexander 2004:160-161).

Pacific Artifacts also were to map out the rest of Fletcher Christians life – he and Robespierre, both devotees of Rousseau, knew not to fear the revolution. Fear the day after. But this is the full subject of discussion paper 11(Palmer 2007:11. 12).

The irony of the Bounty mutiny was that this scientific cum commercial endeavor - Banks held interest in the West Indies - spelt the end of pure voyages of discovery and knowledge. The mutiny on HMAV Bounty was a turning point in the exploration intent and prosecution for the Pacific. All voyages up to this time were strongly scientific (navigation refinement) and colonization cum trade (spice) possibility based. The Pandora mission to capture the mutineers was exclusively punitive. Another small irony is that the Queensland Museum marine archaeological excavations on the Pandora Barrier Reef wreck site has revealed, for the first time, an intact cache of five Tongan clubs collected by a crewman for the return voyage. This provides not only firm evidence of European seamen’s passion for collecting and appreciation of Pacific material culture but also some of the few Oceanic artifacts with an unimpeachable provenance as to temporal period & voyage.

Thereafter what followed was an emerging sense of rapacious exploitation in the meanest and most ruthless brutal form. Whalers, sealers, forced labour, missionary zeal, colonization, plantation torpor, exclusion, poor governance and grog, tristes tropiques, sad maudlin latitudes of license, Gauguin’s’ nevermore, Louis Stevenson’s gone native, gone troppo, beach combers and carpetbaggers, rogues and misfits, anthropologists & ethnographers (Palmer 2007:1.15).

The Bounty paradox was in joining East and West hemispheres by transporting breadfruit, the tree of life and symbol of unencumbered idyllic existence, from the Tahitian Isles of freedom and paradise to the Islands of bondage, the living dead of the Caribbean West Indies slave plantations (Dening 1992: 4-10).

The final irony is, that despite all these visits by the finest 18th Century European navigators of their time, the only additional new artifact the West has ever provided to the great tradition of Polynesian navigation, in the last 200 years, is very ethereal. In the 1970s David Lewis reported some of the old men from Santa Cruz carrying out inter island voyages, far voyaging, now used the con trails left by high airliners crossing the Pacific as a guide pointing the way to civilization (Lewis 1977:191).Perhaps so they may steer off on the reciprocal heading?

Could the power and mana of material culture of the Polynesians have held back or controlled the encroachment of the West? Is this what really happened? Did the Pacific dream possess the West while Oceania, Fa’a Pasifika, went it’s own free way, taking what was needed of the Cook legacy? Up until the early 1800’s they certainly had the numbers and high ground. Now days perhaps just the high ground.

“Cook, Bligh and Banks. “The great Trinity of Pacific exploration Cook the Father, Bligh the Son and Banks the Holy Ghost”(Toohey 1998:74). And the Holy Grail ? An artifact collected on that first voyage ? A tag with Banks catalogue notations?
When you now hold a pre contact Oceanic piece, are you more in touch with the dream of “arcadia”, Polynesian cosmology or more in league with Cook, Bligh and Banks ?
Or just a dedicated follower of beauty?

Bibliography

Alexander, Caroline. 2004 The Bounty. London : Harper

Barrow, Sir John. 2003. Mutiny! Real History of the Bounty. N.Y : Coopers Square Press.

Christian, Glynn. 1999. Fragile Paradise. Sydney : Doubleday

Dening, Greg. 1992. Mr. Bligh’s Bad Language. Passion and Theatre on the Bounty. Cambridge U.K.: Cambridge University Press.

Hough, Richard. 1974. Captain Bligh and Mr. Christian. The Men and the Mutiny. London : Arrow.

Joppien, J. Smith, B. 1984 The Art of Cook’s Voyages. Vol.1.
1768 – 1771. The Voyage of the Endeavor. Melbourne : Oxford University Press.

Lumis, Trevor. 2000. Life and Death on Pitcairn Island and the Bounty Mutineers. London : Phoenix & Orion Books.

Lewis, David. 1977. From Maui to Cook. The Discovery and Settlement of the Pacific. Sydney : Doubleday.

Moorehead, Alan. 1966. The Fatal Impact. The Invasion of the South Pacific 1767 – 1840. London : Hamish.

Palmer, Arthur Beau. 2007. History of Pacific Ethnographic Collecting 1700 - 1880. Brisbane : Manuscript form 1.

Palmer, Arthur Beau. 2007. Artifacts as Evidence. Bounty Mutineer Fletcher Christians Fate. Brisbane : Manuscript 11.

Rickman, John. 1779. Hand written Manuscript.

Smith, Bernard. 1992 Imagining the Pacific. In the wake of the Cook Voyages. Melbourne : Melbourne University Press.

Toohey, John. 1998 Captain Bligh’s Portable Nightmare. Sydney : Duffy & Snellgrove.

SOLOMON ISLAND ARTICLE - OCEANIC ART SOCIETY

2007-06-07T23:40:00.000-07:00

THE DANCING GIRLS
19th CENTURY SOLOMOM ISLAND REALIST DYNAMIC PORTRAIT FIGURES
Abstract:
Artists from the Solomon Island group produced some of the finest & most diverse human 3D figures of all the ethnographic arts – from the erotic owl head pregnant female figures of Rennell Is. to the Buka & Bougainville formal family portrait groups & the highly stylized Nguzu head figures which appeared on all manner of items from the sacred/secret/dangerous to the every day.

Solomon Island portrait figures that are realist and dynamic appear to be a far less common genre than the more well known rigid formalized & stylized portrait statues from Buka & Bougainville. It is possible they may have served a very different social & ritual role in the Solomon Islands than the more commonly known forms of sculpture.

These two examples, the Hooper “Dancing Girl” (Cat No.1096) and the other from the Palmer collection, share a number of striking similarities, apart from both girls having been the object of my affection for a very long time. Both are precisely the same scale (13 3/4 ins. 35 cm.) and have articulated arms pinned with wood pegs .Although the arms can move, they are keyed to the body contours and only properly sit in one position. As articulation usually refers to movement perhaps these are composite structures where the attached limbs free the sculptor from the constraints of the cylindrical form imposed by small tree trunks as raw material. Each is decorated with traditional designs common to Solomon Island body painting. They share a tangible dynamism of balance & movement. Each presents a powerful but subtle individual presence. Both are circa 1870. Phelps dates collection the of Hooper piece to last quarter of the 19th century (Hooper acquired in 1935). Provenance is possibly Vella Lavella Island.

As realistic portrait figures, both are most certainly recognizable individual female members of the family/clan, village & time. Both share the same period & perhaps even the same hand of a senior Cult Lodge master carver/sculptor. The technical treatment of the head/face & particularly the breast area is remarkably consistent in both pieces, leading irresistibly to the tantalizing conclusion which allows the possibly that perhaps the one artist hand was involved in their creation. The benchmark work of Harry Beran on Mutuaga which links masterpieces & virtuosity with an identified individual Master Artist shows how anonymity of a work, divorced from the associated information the Artist & Social / Cultural context , can seriously devalue the integrity & appreciation of any artefact.

In Fred McCarthy’s 1951 paper, (Aust Museum Mag Vol X, No.5. Human sculptures of the Solomon Islands) there is an illustration & discussion of a fabulous life size dynamic portrait sculpture figure of a girl from Rubiana (Roviana?) New Georgia (a short canoe ride from Vella Lavella). She shares many of the features ascribed to these two smaller examples. Her arm position is that of a dancing girl & appears to be articulated. But why is she sitting down like a wallflower? He particularly appreciates & comments on the” frankness and realism as marked features in the execution…. for nothing is eschewed by the craftsman”.

Also he observes that the facial features of each figure cover the range of expression to be expected by young novices initiates at their puberty rites; expectancy, fear, misery, secrecy and suspicion of youth.

This paper discusses the training of the master specialist carvers by their own fathers or mothers brothers & their payment for their figure work in porpoise teeth currency. Within the Northern Solomon’s matrilineal clans & family lineage groups of mothers relatives lie the control of this Art production and it’s social function .McCarthy details the specific function of one type of figure carving of a young girl, kaisa, which ensures at marriage that the wife will conceive a first born girl to establish within the wife’s lineage the ownership of property & the relationships of children resulting from the union. This figure is stored in the Cult house of the husband’s clan to be ritually destroyed when the girl child grows up. The sculpture becomes of such power that if a woman sights this figure the child would die.

McCarthy’s discussion of the social & ritual context in which these figures were produced may shed some light on the paucity of representation of dynamic portrait pieces in major collections. Made for the family of the girl during her puberty ceremonies, they were intended to be ritually destroyed by burning when the daughter represented became married.

The production and display/use of these very dynamic articulated portrait figures would have been no light matter. Only a very limited number of Cult Lodge members as specialist sculptors would have been authorized to make these figures. As in other Cult Lodge societies the responsibility to produce potent ritual paraphernalia may have fallen to one senior member of each generation to make these figures with other senior custodians/stewards & managers assisting & involved in the ceremonial presentation. The potential for supernatural sanctions involving the misuse of any human figures, particularly those with a recognizable countenance & articulated arms would have been a grave consideration (personal com Colin Jack Hinton). This is consistent with reports of the serious regard in which other Solomon figures & spirit figures Nugzu Nugzu & Adaro Sea Spirits (see Attenborough) were held. Within the context of their ceremonial role in the rites of passage relating to human puberty, and therefore group procreation, use & exposure of these figures would have been closely guarded & regulated. Their ritual destruction at the close of ceremony is testament to their perceived potency & multi layered ceremonial but essentially non secular nature of this art form.

The other more rigid formal portrait Solomon statues & family groups with animals (dogs, pigs) find many parallels in art from of other cultures & times. In the beautiful portrait figures of the Kwakiutl of British Columbia, or the ancient the Sumerian & New Kingdom portrait figures, there are similar treatments (with absolutely no suggestion of diffusionism) of the human figure as a stiff stylized form. Some of the great collectors here (Stan Moriaty & Spike Milligan) sought examples of the stiff Solomon Island sculptures because of these formal similarities with these other traditions. At the turn of the century two great dancers, Sarah Bernhardt & Isadora Duncan, had more static formal Solomon figures in their collections. It is a given that, as legendary free sprits, they would have swapped for a dynamic dancing portrait figure but may never have seen one. Interestingly enough Elsa Lanchester described Isadora Duncan as plump & handsome – not unlike some of the Solomon ideal beauty examples.

These alive & vital dynamic realistic Solomon portrait figures are however unique to this region & time. At least up until Degas. The Indian bronze dance figure have this dynamism however are unlikely to be portraits. The Solomon figures represent a superbly refined artistic movement dedicated to the joyful expression of life, society & ceremony. In spite of what is often perceived as an inflexible social/cultural structure there is more than a hint of a politically independent individual within each work.

For me these Solomon Island dancing girls continue to dance sublimely, alone but not unloved nor unappreciated or forgotten.

Arthur Beau Palmer
7th March 2007
References
Beran,Harry. 1996. Mutuaga .A Nineteen- Century Master Carver.Wollongong. Wollongong University Press.

McCarthy,Fred. 1951. The Human Sculptures of the Solomon Islands. The Australian Museum Magazine.Vol.X,No.5. 139-143. Sydney NSW.

Phelps,Steven. 1976. Art & Artifacts of the Pacific,Africa and the Americas. The James Hooper Collection. London. Hutchionson Christies.

Aboriginal Artifact & Tribal Art Valuation & Appraisal

2007-02-01T16:52:00.000-08:00

Should artefact collectors get Registered Valuers Reports before selling or purchasing major pieces? Or, is eBay an adequate indicator and guide to the current values and prices of the ethnographic tribal art market? If so, why is there such an enormous gulf between prices realised on eBay as opposed to values for similar pieces achieved by major auction house events?

Why does the Aboriginal and Pacific artifact market seem to fluctuate so dramatically? How is it that one year items such as Pacific clubs or Aboriginal shields demand large sums and then within six months similar pieces are changing hands for less than 50% of recently achieved prices?

Is it possible and desirable for valuation and appraisal to take these fluctuations into account? Is it possible to use well researched valuations and appraisals to accurately predict coming trends in the Aboriginal artefact and tribal art market? Tribal art is often touted as a strong investment market by upper end dealers and auction houses. Because we’re dealing with rare, old and beautiful works, with enigmatic and mystical provenance, can we in fact apply some science and rationale to the expenditure involved in artefact collecting and tribal art investment? For instance, if you seek an appraisal and valuation for Australian Aboriginal boomerangs, should the report take into account the continuing interest and rising number of collectors for this iconic and quintessentially Australian Aboriginal artefact? If supply and demand is the immutable indicator of current and future values, then what impact will the eBay vacuuming of Australia over the past two years have upon the value and availability of old, high quality examples? Will this in turn lead to an increased appreciation and interest in high quality transitional boomerangs, which are presently, in my view, grossly under rated and therefore undervalued?

Likewise, it is fairly predictable that prices for high quality 19th century Maori pieces are set to soar exponentially. This will be solely attributable to the superb 2007 traveling NZ museum exhibition on Polynesian Pacific migration.

Valuations and appraisals for a specific artefact or full collections are often for widely different applications i.e. investment, sale, trade, auction, purchase, insurance, benevolent bequest and estate will settlement. Sometimes this can, and should effect both the appraisal and valuation. For instance, I recently gave a valuation and appraisal for an old very good quality piece at almost double what would have appeared to be the current market value. The justification was that its unimpeachable provenance coupled with the condition of the piece, meant that it offered to fill a significant omission in another client’s major collection. At double the price it was snapped up.

Artefact valuations and appraisals should take into account many other relevant matters rather than simply relying on an empirical interrogation of the object. Valuation and appraisal may be subjective opinion backed up with the weight of Government registration, but it should also be high quality, informed advice that allows collectors, institutions and sellers to trade assuredly with confidence and without loss.

Fake Artifacts? Get Real!

2006-11-19T21:30:00.000-08:00

“Forgery results from dishonest intent, not from skillful replica work”
H.D.Skinner & T. Barrow 1974. The Faking of Maori Art. Studies in Pacific Material Culture 1921-1972.

“Rule No. 1. Any artefact purchased as a bargain is by definition a fake.” Michael Hamson 2004.

“Artifacts not bought in Sydney are fakes!” Sydney Dealer (Urban myth joke originally imported from France v/s the World? & now held as an article of faith only by NSWelshmen.)

As the prices and intrinsic value for good quality pieces of material culture rise - so does the probability, possibility & reality of fakes entering the market to take advantage of demand and profits. However, the definition of what constitutes a fake artefact is often not clear cut. Clearly, an outright fake work i.e. a Maori Feather Box or a Rainforest Sword made in the last two years in Bali or the Philippines, relying on two dimensional photographs of well or lesser known published examples, is produced purely with the intention to deceive and defraud innocent, or not so innocent, dealers, collectors or institutions. Less clear, are those genuine artifacts which are repaired, touched up, embellished, added to, aged, stressed, and provided with new patina or provenance to improve their appearance and increase appeal and therefore value. What is dishonest & what justifies bringing a piece back to its former glory?

Fakes abound.
Rumors of fakes abound –fake Arnhem Land bark paintings from Victoria, Fake Rainforest Shields from Queensland, fake pieces from the Sepik, fake Matty dish from the Philipines, fake Solomon shields & figures, fake Maori pieces from everywhere? What, as collectors and dealers or staff in institutions should we do when we suspect or discover a fake? For those of us who are Approved Government valuers should there be sec.14 mandatory reporting? If we have just bought/traded a fake – is it a very embarrassing & expensive lesson – or an exercise in passing it through our hands faster than the speed of light? What to do with a counterfeit $50 note? Report to bank & lose it? Or spend in Supermarket & pocket real change? Is this an ethical/moral dilemma or financial Darwinism? To complicate matters, some well known fakes are now very collectable!

When is a replica fake?
Over the past three decades I’ve had many fakes turn up – usually in the hands of a dealer who has just purchased it for a pittance believing it to have been the valuable real thing & very pleased with themselves. I’ve famously brought some also! Some dealers never learn – some collectors never find out.

How do you positively identify a fake?
Ebay is particularly problematic where all you have to interrogate is a two dimensional, poor resolution photograph & a purple provenance/description. What initially makes you suspicious and how do you confirm your doubts? A few years ago a long term, well respected big dealer turned up at my gallery to gloatingly show me a newly purchased Maori whale bone club. Hopping excitedly from foot to foot he told me it was the ‘bargain of the decade’! When he handed it to me a dull alarm bell went off - the weight and conformation seemed about ok, it handled well and had good balance.

Its appearance was comforting with a deep, honey, aged patina and hourglass bored hole. A big advantage in identifying fakes is to have handled and examined many examples in public collections with unimpeachable provenance. I had that advantage from years of working in museums with some of the finest collections of depth. Also in another lifetime, I’d worked closely with epoxy resins both as a surfboard maker and shaper and in the field of fine art sculptural moldings and large scale glass abstractions. Both these fields of experience now interceded to suspect a fake.

When we took the club out into the light and looked at it through the 8x magnifying glass that should always be in your pocket, it revealed a thin line of microscopic bubbles along the leading edge of the blade. A sure sign of the gel release of a molded resin object. In this case, a mould of a no doubt real whale bone club now in the form of epoxy resin and powdered cow bone, with carefully added aged patina. Very character forming and disappointing for its once proud new owner! Lesson learnt however, it did not save them from a later, even more expensive and embarrassing purchase of a fake Yuat flute stopper for the price of a new car. This time some comfort could be gained from the fact that the wood was real!

As Skinner notes, replicas & fake Maori short & long clubs & hei-tiki have been produced in NZ for a 100+ years in real whalebone & greenstone. Dunedin firms produced countless Maori greenstone items in the late 1880s through to 1910. Most found their way into Museums & family collections, including well known Maori families as replacement heirloom treasures. Auckland specialized in the faking of Maori whale bone artifacts & at the same time firms in Germany (Berlin & Idar Oberstein) produced huge numbers of greenstone & marine ivory Maori artifacts for the NZ trade.

Much of this product is in fact finer work than the later Maori trade pieces made in the late C18 – early C19 purely for trade with European ships. The work of many of these Maori carvers declined in skill & care to a point where it became slipshod. How often do the Dunedin, Auckland & German firm’s “ethnographic” masterpieces work turn up undetected in Auction Houses now? Just on a numbers ratio it must be very often. There must be thousands in collections.

Some of the fakes coming out of the Sepik which cause tremors of fear (the Leviswich flinch!) amongst the hardiest collector/dealers, really present no problem. One of the most beautiful and skillful examples to pass through my hands was a large black coral and crocodile tooth female fetish which stylistically was a charming mixture of Sepik, African and Paleolithic European – a Jeff Leverswich masterpiece which couldn’t possibly be considered a fake. A work of fine art, yes – an ethnographic fake, no. I loved it and so did my client. Incidentally this piece was purchased from an indigenous Papuan expat here in Brisbane – not a European carpetbagger!

The natural enemy of Fakes is unimpeachable provenance.
However the two edged sword is that a fake provenance can often successfully protect a fake artifact from critical exposure, examination & detection. Found in junk shop & private collector.

Are these euphemisms for may be a fake ?
How to protect your integrity?
Embrace a client who collects fakes??

ARTEFACT MARKET REPORT

2006-09-21T04:13:00.000-07:00

ARTEFACT MARKET REPORT No.6.

LAST QUARTER TRENDS 2006

Shields Up - Clubs Down
During the last 12 months, using plain Solomon Island Clubs as an indicator on eBay, there is a severe and sharp downward trend. This time last year, even average Solomon Clubs were achieving around the $500 USD mark on a regular basis. Last month an excellent example from a reputable well known eBay dealer in the UK auctioned a club with a brilliant provenance of having been a present from Queen Victoria no less (over the top?). This club sold for $250 USD. Why is this so? Answer – supply and demand. Ebay has flushed out many old good clubs in the last 12 months (this is known in the trade as the ‘china doll syndrome’- once rare & valuable – now pedestrian & minor due huge supply surge). Clubs by nature tend to be fairly robust and indestructible and apparently many people have old good examples tucked away in broom closets and in the shed. Clubs tend to survive. Due to the ubiquitous nature of eBay, many of these are now appearing on the market, whereas pre eBay they may only have appeared spasmodically at church fetes and in flea markets. Aboriginal clubs of average nature have also suffered the same fate over this period for exactly the same reason. High quality clubs continue to appreciate as do all superb rare examples of all types. However, the indicators are that supply is now far out stripping demand. What collectors/dealers now desire/demand are upgraded examples & omissions in the form of rare fine examples.

Shields- both Aboriginal & Pacific - on the other hand are at the top of the collectible list with rapidly rising values being achieved. At a premium are good old, big, bright, bold examples in good condition with an unimpeachable provenance. In common with other high quality artefacts, provenance is often up to 50% of their collectible value. In company with the rising value comes the increasing number of fakes and bodgied up lesser examples. As this trend bites, provenance becomes increasingly important. On this point the market is getting very nervous & particular emphasis is being placed on full provenance. Picked up in a junk shop is not good enough any longer to achieve good returns.

As the Market gets more picky & nervous then this trend in general will affect all other types of artefacts. Dealer & collector reputation & track record together with provenance will have as great a weight as the objects presence on inspection. Give that eBay relies almost solely on the buyers ability to interrogate a 2 dimensional photograph of questionable quality- then the proven provenance of the piece coupled with the track record of the dealer all become critical mass.

How many dealers & buyers are there really? Analysis of eBay suggests that about 200 buy & sell world wide on any regular basis if the one off sellers & buyers are discounted. This conforms to the Artefact Expo experience which suggests most sales are dealer to dealer trades. Also begs the question of how many collectors are now in touch with each other due eBay and now by pass dealers completely on the world market. Is the collector to collector market different to the dealer driven controlled market. The irresistible conclusion is affirmative.

How different? - To be the subject of the next report.
All the best .Cheers Arthur

Tribal Art - Buying and Selling

2006-03-23T17:33:00.000-08:00

This blog will be devoted to discussing all aspects of buying and selling Tribal art and Artefacts, particularly in the areas of Australian Aboriginal and Oceanic material culture.

Aspects to be debated shall include:

Notions of collectability
Age
Beauty
Power
Energy
Aesthetics
Ethno-aesthetics
Provenance
Authentication
Anonymous masterpieces
Dealers, Collectors and Museums
Ethics of Field Collection
White men or white ants?
Building a significant collection
How to get a better return on your boomerang
eBay vs. Galleries and dealers vs. collectors and traders
Aboriginal Traditional vs. Contemporary
Investment market - what's hot what's not
Bargains - when is a cheap bargain an expensive error
Trends in Tribal and the Asmat Indicator
Is eBay and the power of overseas currency vaccuming Australia of all significant tribal pieces?
eBay and the impact of Australian Heratige Legislation

Terms

Museum quality?
Stone cut?
Pre contact?
Patina?
Condition?
Traditional?

If you would like further information please feel free to visit our website