Overmodeled Skulls from Central New Ireland
Overmodeled Skulls from Central New Ireland
By Jean-Philippe Beaulieu, CNRS, PARIS
New Ireland is a long and narrow volcanic island in the Bismarck Archipelago running from north-west to south-east. The central part of the island is made up of the thousand-meters-high limestone Lelet Plateau, with karst slopes covered with thick tropical forests. A dense web of rough tracks connects the villages located on the slopes of the plateau to the plateau itself and to the coast. In the early 20th century, it was already a densely populated area. The inhabitants from central New Ireland speak Mandak, one of the 20 languages indigenous to New Ireland. They are also closely related to the inhabitants of the offshore Tabar Islands.
Map: Central New Ireland and Tabar Islands. Red color indicates the area where the skulls are used for rainmaking and malagan funeral rituals. Overmodeled skulls are used in uli malagan rituals from Lemau to Pangundu, Lemeris, and Messi. They are also used as part of malagan rituals on the east coast of central New Ireland from Fezoa to Kanabu and Tabar Islands. This map is adapted by the author from a map in the diaries of Elisabeth Krämer-Bannow, 1916, and the analysis published by Helfrich in 1985.
Their ritual life was organized around complex funeral ceremonies known as “malagan.” The Mandak created an extraordinary diversity of art objects and elaborately intricate wood carvings, masks, carved spears and clubs, ornaments, canoe prows, complex rituals, dances and songs, as well as overmodeled and painted skulls.
Most malagan ceremonies followed a common pattern, starting with a three-day exhibition of the deceased, followed by internment or cremation within the funeral pit. The deceased was installed in a seated position in the grave, and fast-growing plants were planted above his head. Usually, two moons later, the skull was retrieved, then kept in a basket suspended from the roof beam of the men’s house.
Fig. 1: The ritual bench on which the uli of the type “selambúngin lorong” were presented. Skulls are usually put at the feet of the uli. Men and the recently initiated would sit on the bench, next to the uli, with the skulls. “The benches are beautifully painted in black, white, yellow, and red, and their ends are carved into fish heads, tuna, or sharks with their mouths wide open. The bench surfaces are covered in zigzag patterns evoking snakes. All these animals are in contact with the spirit world.” (Krämer, 1925; Derlon, 1988; Beaulieu, 2015).
After a period of mourning, the clan leaders then decide to organize a sequence of ceremonies, the ten steps of a malagan ritual that could span over years, culminating with the presentation of carvings, dances, and sacrifices of pigs. This institution creates bonds between different clans, giving opportunities to show respect to the deceased and his relatives, to pay old debts, contract new alliances, and to show power and prestige. Several variations of the malagan tradition are well known, the two strongest traditions in Mandak country being the wawara and the uli.
Uli is a very old institution well known because of its famous highly stylized ancestral figures. Uli figures have massive bodies resting on short, muscular, strong legs; large heads with a defiant smile; a projected lower jaw crowned with a beard; a prominent penis; and pointed breasts. They are the archetype of New Ireland malagan objects, radiating power and savageness. The third step of an uli ceremony is the preparation of overmodeled skulls in a small dedicated hut in the sacred enclosure. This hut is constructed with small branches and is designated by the same Mandak word as a bird nest, “lampirivit.” The skulls acquire a brown patina due to the cremation process or internment followed by a long time on the beam of the roof of the men’s house. The lower jaw was dismantled and repositioned in order to give it a more elongated chin. In some cases, a pig’s jaw was used as a replacement for the human one. The bones were then covered with a beeswax coating and Parinarium laurinum nut paste. A thick layer of chalk mixed with breadfruit tree juice was then applied. The ritual expert inserted into the eye sockets of the skull’s orbits an iris made from the white cowrie shell Cypraea tigris. He then added pupils from the operculum of the marine snail Turbo petholatus. Hair and beard from many tiny cone shells of Truncatella guerinii are added. Ultimately, the face might be painted with yellow pigments (coming from the decoction of a swamp plant), red ochre, and carbon black. Such overmodeled skulls were called malagan matampiriwit.
Fig. 2: A rainmaking grove in Lamassong, 1909 (Tubingen Univ. image 1466). Skulls from deceased sorcerers were kept half immersed in water in gigantic tridacna shells. Rainmakers believed that the “virua,” the souls of those men who died by force, would dwell in the rain clouds and be able to send rain or to hold it back. During the rain magic, the magician would cause the “tinou,” the soul of a dead clan member, to rise into the sky as a mediator between humans yearning for rain and the virua. (Powdermaker 1933, p. 334)
From a Mandak point of view, the word matampiriwit carries the concept of fear, while referring also to the bird nest. A feeling of fear was also diffused by the uli ancestor figures. Both the uli and the overmodeled skulls are malagan objects, to be activated during the rituals by the casting of spells and sacrifices. They are connecting the people with the life-force principle of the clan and its masalai spirits. They are not a portrait of the deceased and any available skull can be used. During the ceremony, they become malagan objects that are embodying the life force of the clan. During the last stage of the ceremony, the overmodeled skulls malagan matampiriwit are finally presented at the feet of the ulis on the ritual bench (see Fig. 1). Early sources report that they are often destroyed after the ceremonies. Some overmodeled skulls called langat are given to young boys to look after. They always remain within the sacred enclosure (Fig. 3).
Drawing by Elisabeth Krämer-Bannow showing an overmodeled skull, probably of the longat type, with fast-growing plants. (1909, Tubingen Univ. image 1410)
It should be noted that skulls and overmodeled skulls were also part of the malagan rituals in the Tabar Islands. During the early period of 1909, Edgar Walden reported that skulls were used in some malagan ceremonies; some were danced with, being held over the right shoulder of the dancer. Moreover, overmodeled skulls were presented as fixed onto the top of wooden statues and held in place via a peg. These skulls are slightly different in style from the ones from the Mandak region of central New Ireland. The skulls used as part of a wawara ceremony are usually only painted with pigments and most of the time were destroyed or dropped into the ocean at the end of the ritual. It is also worth bearing in mind that powerful sorcerers’ skulls are used for rain magic (Fig. 2), sun control, and also rituals to interact with sharks.
Fig. 4: Photo sent by F. Spieri to Karl Nauer on December 1908 in memory of a trip on board the Sumatra ship. According to Hermann Hiery, this photo was taken on board the SMS Planet ship in 1907 and depicts the first deck officer, Captain Lieutenant Heinmann. An overmodeled skull is laid on the right and a malagan is suspended behind Heinmann. (Photo album of Karl Nauer, Obergunzburg)
Collecting skulls in the early 20th century
In 1902, Dr. Albert Hahl, the new governor of Kaiser-Wilhems-Land, nominated two colonial administrators for the New Ireland Province, Franz Boluminski in Kavieng town in the north and Wilhelm Wostrack in the south at Namatanai town. The main role of these administrators was to bring the local people under the new imperial order and to transform a rather wild land into a well-organized and profitable province. They appointed local chiefs (luluai) to be used as intermediaries between the colonial powers and the local clans.
In order to accelerate the assimilation of New Irelanders, Dr. Albert Hahl forbade the use of shell money and levied a head tax on his subjects to be paid in Deutsche marks. All men from the colony had either to pay an annual head tax of five Deutsche marks, or he had to contribute communal work to a non-native (or a native who pays the tax) for ten months. Each luluai had to collect this head tax for their clans. They were authorized to keep up to 10 % for themselves and to nominate those who would have to contribute ten months’ communal work, such as for construction of the Kaiser Wilhelm Strasse, a road connecting Kavieng to Namatanai. Needless to say, the local people did not welcome such forced labor.
Meanwhile, there was a strong demand from the German museums for ethnographic artifacts and skulls in particular. Indeed, the systematic collection and study of skulls in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was an important endeavor for anthropologists. It provided a basis for systematic craniometry, ultimately trying by a rationalized approach of scientific measurements to set up the foundation to justify the segregation of society based on race. Collecting skulls from native people of the South Seas provided valuable data to anthropologists of the period. As a consequence, skulls were in high demand by the colonial administrators and those people sending curiosities back to Germany.
On 19 January 1908, Edgar Walden from the Deutsche Marine-Expedition wrote in his diaries while in Fezoa: “the price the people insist on is 3 to 5 marks per skull, sometimes more. This is more or less the going price for unprepared skulls too. For that reason, I turned down three skulls from Lamassong, which were offered to me at the start of my stay here, as too expensive (because they were unprepared). People to whom I offered 2 marks apiece took them all the way back to prepare them in order to sell them for 3 marks apiece—and they have not yet come back.” From a native point of view, one skull could pay the entire head tax for one person for a year. Meanwhile, malagans and ulis could be sold for high prices, paying the head tax for a number of clan members. It was therefore possible for the colonial administrators Wilhelm Wostrack and Franz Boluminski, based in Namatanai and Kavieng towns respectively, to get ethnographic artifacts for museums and for the natives to escape the payment of the head tax and the 10 months’ annual labor for the colonial power.
An important shipment by Wilhelm Wostrack to Karl von Linden was registered on 26 February 1908 in Stuttgart. It is composed of ninety-nine entries, with acquisition numbers 55682 to 55780 in the Linden Museum. The objects were ordered by type, with meticulous descriptions and often referencing the village of provenance. Most artifacts were from the east coast of the Mandak region of central New Ireland, between Panagundu and Kanabu villages. The first eight objects were important uli figures from the region north of Kanabu and on the slopes of Lelet Plateau. The last nineteen entries are heads and skulls. Wostrack separated them into three types:
The first four heads of the same type called langat were collected in Katendan village.
The following eleven overmodeled heads are called malagan matampiriwit. The first two were collected in Lambusso, the others in the Konobin hamlet near Lamassong.
The last four skulls were either plain or just covered with pigments, originating from Kanabu and nearby villages.
The fourteen overmodeled heads are of the type used as part of uli rituals, collected simultaneously with uli figures. Wostrack designated them as kopf, meaning head, in contrast with the last five entries that were labeled schädel, skull. They were probably linked with the wawara malagan rituals.
Another remarkable character involved in the collection of skulls in central New Ireland was Assunto Costantini. This Italian from Sienna arrived in the colony as a missionary of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at the turn of the 20th century. His keen interest for young girls and alleged mismanagement of the mission’s finances were probably instrumental in his breaking his vows. He was then appointed briefly to the position of chief of police in Herbertshöhe, the capital of the German New Guinea administration colony, in 1902, before becoming a dealer for the New Guinea Company based in Fezoa. In 1907, he was overseeing his plantation in Munawei, north of Fezoa. Around 1908, he sent to Berlin three skulls and fifteen overmodeled skulls, with indications about the places where they had been collected, namely, the Lemau/Panagundu area, in the north of the Mandak country.
Fig. 5: Overmodeled skull from Konobin, published in Die Malanggane vom Tombara, plate 13.
Colonial Administrator Franz Boluminski also became involved and sent to Berlin three overmodeled skulls from Konobin village and one from Tegerot village.
Upon arrival in Herbertshöhe, Edgar Walden reported in his diary on 25 November 1907 that Max Thiel had twenty “prepared skulls” from New Ireland. Thiel’s intention was to send them back to Germany. Walden collected one in Tanla village and two overmodeled skulls in Konobin village. Moreover, during his trip to Tabar in early 1909, Walden collected a further six overmodeled skulls.
There are more than two hundred overmodeled skulls from New Ireland in museums and private collections worldwide. Most were collected over a short period of time at the beginning of the 20th century. It is clear that the colonial administration, traders, and travelers took advantage of the deep changes that took place in the Mandak society, allowing the preservation of these rare artifacts. It should also be noted that the Mandak people were also able to decide whether or not to let go of a particular skull. On 15 October 1910, Wostrack wrote to the Stuttgart Linden-Museum: “A large death feast was held to honor the very famous leader Takau in [the administrative district of] Namatanai who had been dead a year. In this ceremony, the skull was positioned in the usual way. Also, the dead person was represented by a carved wood figure, so that in this way he could participate in the ceremony. The skull was covered with black beeswax, so that around the face it was very realistic. Possibly to make the face more closely resemble the dead man, the face was also painted white with lime (kabang) colour. The skull corresponded exactly to the head which I have already sent to the Museum. In front of the head long threads of shell money, “mangin,” dangle down, this shell money is the current currency of the natives … I failed to acquire the skull, it was sunk into the sea.”
Probably the skull of Takau was deemed to be too important to be sold to the German colonial administrator, Wostrack, and is now resting in the Bismarck Sea.
Acknowledgements:
The author extends his gratitude to Michael Gunn (Melbourne), Marion Melk-Koch (Leipzig), Barbara and Julian Harding (London), Martina Kleinert (Obergunzburg), Ulrich Menter (Linden-Museum Stuttgart), Volker Harms (Tubingen), and Gundolf Krüger (Gottingen). Special thanks go to Karl Baumann (Celle), who provided the information about Assunto Costantini, and my brother, Prof. Jean-Yves Beaulieu (Geneva), for advice from an anatomist’s point of view. The extracts from the Walden diaries were transcribed and translated by the historian Dietmar Strauch. The author also owes grateful thanks to translator Kate Vanovitch in Berlin. The author is also in debt to Dara Christopher (St. Andrews) for translation of various German sources and general editing.
References:
Baumann K., 2002, Biographisches Handbuch Deutsch-Neuguinea, 1822–1922: Kurtzlebensläufe ehemaliger Kolonisten, Forscher, Missionare und Reisender, Baumann K. (ed.).
Beaulieu J. P., 2015, “Le Uli Gradiva au Coeur du corpus des Uli,” Sotheby’s catalogue, 24 June 2015.
Beaulieu J. P., 2017, “Le Uli Walden-Loeb-Vérité,” Christies’ catalogue, 21 November 2018.
Derlon B., 1988, “Malanggan : objets, rites et société en Nouvelle Irlande (Papouasie Nouvelle-Guinée).” Thèse de doctorat, Nanterre, université de Paris-X, 1988.
Gunn M., 1992, “Malagan Ritual Art on Tabar, New Ireland, Papua New Guinea.” PhD thesis, Dunedin, University of Otago.
Gunn M., 1997, New Ireland: Ritual Arts of Oceania in the Collection of the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Skira.
Gunn M. & Peltier P., 2006, New Ireland: Art of the South Pacific, 5 Continents, Musée du Quai Branly.
Helfrich, K., 1985, “Zeremonialschadel aus Mittel-Neuirland,” Baessler-Archiv, n.f., 33, p. 123–188.
Krämer A., 1916, Bei kunstsinnigen Kannibalen in der Südsee: Wanderungen auf Neu-Mecklenburg 1908–1909, p. 264–280.
Krämer A., 1925, Die Malanggan Von Tombara. Munich: Georg Mueller.
Krämer-Bannow E., 1916, Bei kunstsinnigen Kannibalen in der Südsee: Wanderungen auf Neu-Mecklenburg 1908–1909. Berlin, Dietrich Reimer.
This article first appeared in Michael Hamson Oceanic Art Paris 2018.
For those of you interested in New Ireland material there is a superb new publication by Jean-Philippe Beaulieu entitled “Uli: Powerful Ancestors from the Pacific” which is the absolute definitive study of these iconic sculptures from New Ireland. This book is so fantastic and comprehensive it will be 1000 years before one has to revisit the subject. The link to order is here: ULI: Powerful Ancestors from the Pacific
