An object lesson on Art and Dignity Ila Kalaika! An object lesson on Art and Dignity To explain the significance of this ancestral, “Hohao” from the Elema area of the Papuan Gulf I must start with a seemingly unrelated story that took place fifteen years ago on the other side of Papua New Guinea in Popondetta in Oro Province. Before embarking on a field collecting trip down the coast, I stayed one night in a guesthouse near the beach close to where I was going to hire the boat I intended to use. At the guesthouse, in the late afternoon, I sat outside with a group of men, basically the proprietor and his male relatives. I was planning on leaving early the next morning to areas I had never been, so I was intent on questioning the men on what I could expect with regards to both artifacts and the possibility of crime—security is unfortunately a prime concern these days. As is the custom, I had shaken hands with all present including a very old man sitting in the dirt clothed only in a ragged pair of shorts. This old man had obviously been ravaged by some disease that took away both his speech and his ability to walk upright. As I continued to ask questions of the men this old man proceeded to scoot in the dirt close to me and offer his hand in continued welcome. Intent on getting as much information as I could gather, I ignored the old man. After some moments the proprietor, a man in his early 50s, nodded to the old man at our feet and said that he was his uncle and that prior to his disease he was one of the first native Papuan New Guinean professors in his country. That when hearing his lectures and the beauty of his English that local people would weep in pride. He later went on the become the PNG Ambassador to the Philippines and lived the life of a diplomat for fifteen years overseas. I was of course incredibly embarrassed, chastised and humbled by my arrogance in ignoring the seemingly pitiful old man. The point of this story is to remind you that even the great, the powerful and the significant can be diminished by time and circumstances. So it is with this particular hohao board from the Papuan Gulf. At first glance one might dismiss this piece as a nice, old, severely damaged gope board. Yes, it has the engaging toothy smile of a pre-contact gope but the wear and erosion have taken a severe toll. But I encourage you to read the account written by Ullie Beier and Albert Maori Kiki in the book “Hohao: The Uneasy Survival of an Art Form in the Papuan Gulf.” The first piece illustrated is a field photograph taken in the 1970s of this exact ancestral board. In the book they recount the long myth and history of this piece and relate how this is the best known, oldest and most significant hohao in all of Orokolo, as the Western Elema area is known. Its personal name Ila Kalaika and it manifested the spirit of the founder of the most powerful clan, the Maori, who was a great warrior that killed nearly two entire villages in revenge for the death of his brother. For centuries Maori men would call out “Ila Kalaika!” for courage as they charged into battle. The old men interviewed by Beier in the 1970s can remember back to the turn of the century when the board was still strong and that it had a marupai coconut charm hanging from a string through the nose. In 1890 a neighboring clan, envious of the power of this Ila Kalaika board, paid for the right to carve a duplicate of this original one. So I urge all admirers of New Guinea art to read the account in Beier’s and Maori Kiki’s book to remind themselves that what we sometimes cavalierly own and trade are real pieces of history, that the fragmented remains are not always representative of their prior importance. Michael Hamson
