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Bark Cloth Paintings From the Finisterre Mountains: Magical Picture Puzzles

Bark Cloth Paintings From the Finisterre Mountains:
Magical Picture Puzzles

By Christin Kocher Schmid, July 2016

High up on the northern slopes of the Finisterre Range of the Huon Peninsula live the Yopno in the Yupna valley and their closely related neighbours of the Nankina valley. The area is steep and rugged, extending from about 600 metres above sea level up to well over 2,300 metres. Their artistic expressions focus on the careful composition of separate elements into striking ephemeral showpieces. Although painting on bark cloth does produce durable artwork, its manufacture follows the same basic rule as for ephemeral showpieces: creating something new and striking from separate elements. Moreover, the painted cloth is not used on its own, but is always part of a larger display.

Men produce bark cloth from the pounded inner bark of two cultivated tree species: a Broussonetia and a Ficus sp. It comes in two formats: long and narrow for the traditional—now largely abandoned—male loin cloth, and short and broader (about 30–40 cm wide and 100–120 cm long) as canvas for the paintings. Again, men produce the paintings using red and black paint made from earth pigments (iron and manganese, respectively) mixed with sugar cane juice. Soft young stems of palm lilies, tobacco plants or sword grass serve as brushes. The painting often covers only half of the bark cloth strip, as the folded piece is hung by dancers into the belt showing only the painted half, or two different paintings are applied to each half of the cloth to allow a choice of two patterns. Occasionally even broader and longer pieces are painted all over with patterns—these are worn over the back at festive occasions. It is not clear whether such coats are traditional or a more recent evolution. In former times Yopno people participated in the Vitiaz trade system which connected the mountains of the Huon Peninsula with its shores and extended via the offshore islands to the large island of New Britain. They received pottery and boars’ tusks and in turn exported bark cloth and dogs’ teeth. Their bark cloth and also bark cloth paintings have therefore been widely distributed.

The red and black colours are most important and are associated with a dual world order: red pigments belong to the male, bright, warm and dry sphere of life and the here; black pigments are associated with the female, dark, cold and humid sphere of death and the hereafter. In turn, each colour is associated with a river which originates in a pond far away from human settlements. One of these rivers discharges into the Yupna, the other into the Nankina, and they are associated with a pair of mythical brothers. In primordial times, these two brothers for the first time painted their bodies with the two earth pigments. This enabled them to gain the favours of two ancestresses, a pair of sisters. These two primordial couples had a son, who is seen as the child of the pond. He initiated the art of painting as well as the artful composition of elements. This pond is not only the origin of human reproduction and fecundity, but also the origin of all manipulating practices: garden magic, healing practices, as well as death spells. Painting therefore belongs to these manipulating practices and is thus a kind of magic.

In former times, men executed their paintings in a special house within an isolated sacred space, a setup which has been destroyed and abandoned with conversion to Christianity. Only the finished artwork was presented to a wider public, which admired the complicated patterns that had obviously been created by strong supernatural powers. Thus the process was secret, but the product was public. Still today the process of painting is important to the painter, as it repeats the mythical events which took place at the pond and thus has ritual character. Two components, red and black earth pigments, are combined on a bright background in such a way that something new is created, which is more than an addition of the original components. The same technique is used when practicing magic, where plants with different smells and plant parts are mixed to create a new odour which is more intense and efficient than the totality of the single components by themselves. Each descent group (patrilineage) holds a repertoire of graphic elements which are, for example, called “lizard,” “eel” or “folded leaf”; others are just called “dot” or “straight line.” The painter is free to compose his painting from a selection of these graphic elements held by his paternal lineage. These are now laid out on the bark cloth in such a way that they are linked to each other. It is most important that the painter applies the two pigments separately, red and black, and that they do not intersect. Thus the finished pattern consists of two separate series of linked graphic elements. These series have to be separated from each other by a narrower or broader part of the light-coloured background provided by the bark cloth. Ideally the painter applies first the one and only then the other series of elements. However, only a few men possess the necessary spatial powers of imagination to create in this way a well-balanced composition. Most painters are forced to switch between the two colours because they get uncertain about the space the second series will occupy. Thus, the process of painting requires concentration and contemplation and is consequently seen as a veritable training of the mind. These mental processes are important to the painter. However, the beholder cannot easily gather them from the finished artwork. To him (or her) the light background appears to constitute an equal pattern-forming component, or even according to the way of looking, to be the real pattern: the painting may be understood as a picture puzzle.