Thomas Schultze-Westrum
Thomas Schultze-Westrum
By Michael Hamson
High up the stony slopes of the Greek island of Thassos off the coast of Eastern Macedonia is the small village of Kazaviti. There, inside a mid-19th-century stone house, locked in a small suitcase, carefully wrapped in cloth, are the relics of the Papuan Gulf village of Tovei on Urama Island. Among the dark chunks of wood is part of an extinct type of solid drum, a fragment from the first kanipu mask, bits of branch from a native bridge and a slab from the side of the canoe used in the original passage from Parama Island in the Fly River Delta—where the historical voyage began. All these are the physical evidence and history of how one Papuan Gulf village came to be. These sacred historical relics were entrusted to Dr. Thomas Schultze-Westrum. How Schultze-Westrum, a German national, became the guardian of these and so much other Papuan Gulf material culture, including some of the world’s masterpieces of art from the region, is the story that follows.
Thomas Georg Hans Schultze-Westrum was born on April 5, 1937, in Berlin, Germany, to parents who both worked in the theater. His mother, Edith Schultze-Westrum, was an actress and his father, Paul Verhoeven, was an actor and director in the Munich State Theater. His mother moved to Munich when Thomas was only two, but he can still remember lying in his crib and hearing the trains move in the Berlin underground. For safety reasons, when Thomas was six, at the height of WWII, his mother moved him to a fully traditional farm in eastern Bavaria at Weisleithen near the border with Austria. It was here on the farm that his interests in wildlife and rural lifestyles began. After elementary school Thomas was sent to further his education at the Benedictine monastery of Ettal near Oberammergau in the Bavarian Alps.
Thomas Schultze-Westrum, Kikori River, April 1966.
Thomas was a precocious child. While still in elementary school he was already in correspondence with two zoologists, Dr. Herman Kahmann, a specialist of small mammals, and Dr. Philipp Lehrs, a herpetologist. By the time he was eleven he had become a member of the Conservation Bund Naturschutz in Bayern. In 1955 Professor Kahmann invited Thomas to join a group of students travelling to central Sardinia for research. The following year he spent a month with shepherds in the village of Desulo in the Gennargentu Mountains. While in Desulo Thomas was given several beautifully carved shepherd’s cattle horns that fostered his interest in traditional art and artifacts (the horns are still with him on Thassos).
The deserted site of Imeia village, Era-Kipaia ethnic district. Too late to save the ancient kópe board in front—it was completely hollowed out by termites. The others survived, 1966.
In 1957 Thomas was given a prestigious scholarship by the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes to enroll at the University of Munich. That same year he continued his field research by travelling to the Northern Sporades Islands in Greece to study reptiles. During the next couple of years Schultze-Westrum’s studies were focused on zoology. And it was this interest in wildlife that first brought him to the island of New Guinea in 1959 as an assistant to the award-winning documentary filmmaker Eugen Schuhmacher. He and Schuhmacher were to get the first color footage of birds of paradise in the wild. Based on the Nondugl estate of Sir Edward Hallstrom in the Western Highlands, Schultze-Westrum spent a month filming before coming down with malaria, prompting Schuhmacher to comment, “I guess you are not fit to work in the tropics.” History and 20 trips to New Guinea over the next 40 years would prove how misguided that comment was to be.
Reverend John B. Cribb was in charge of Aird Hills station for 13 Years in the 1950/60s.
Delirious with sickness Schultze-Westrum parted ways with the filmmaker and went to Madang to cure his malaria. At the Protestant mission hospital at Jagaum, Thomas spent a month convalescing under the care of Dr. Braun. Once again feeling fit and not eager to leave New Guinea, Schultze-Westrum recalled a project suggested by Dr. Robert Mertens at the Senckenberg Museum of Frankfurt to find and study the little-known Carettochelys insculpta turtle. Now that he was on his own Thomas needed to find funding to extend his stay in New Guinea. For this he turned to his mother, who had always supported his interest in wildlife. In the 1950s the quickest way to send word overseas was through Telex. Thomas decided to send a cable to his mother in Germany asking for one thousand deutsche marks. When filling out the Telex form Thomas wrote 1,000 using the German custom of putting a line through the numeral one. The Telex operator read this as a seven and thus, unbeknownst to Schultze-Westrum, the message was sent asking for 7,000 deutsche marks. Somehow his mother found the money and sent back seven times what he thought he had asked for. This simple error on the part of the cable operator combined with the faith and generosity of his mother ended up having historical significance—as the search for what was known as the living fossil turtle took Schultze-Westrum for the first time to the Papuan Gulf.
Susanne Schultze-Westrum stepping out onto the wing of the Catalina on arrival at Kikori Station; 5 January 1966.
“It was on this trip that I discovered the almost abandoned cultural treasures of the delta region around Kikori.”
The search for the turtle proved to be successful, but it was something else Thomas encountered in the Gulf region that would change the focus of his life for the next several decades. Based in Kikori, Schultze-Westrum had access to canoes and some of the most competent guides in the Papuan Gulf. With a strong interest in other cultures and traditional living Schultze-Westrum was soon captivated by the Kikori people and their art. It was not long before he purchased his first object at the Kerewo village of Paia’a on the Omati River, to the west of Kikori. In all, Schultze-Westrum spent only 12 days in the Gulf region that first trip in 1959. But he used his time wisely, establishing important contacts at the station and in the villages up and down the numerous nearby rivers. Schultze-Westrum began learning about the local culture, which seemed to be at a critical juncture. Missionary activity had been intense and the people had adopted, seemingly wholeheartedly, the mostly Protestant and Anglican religions. The longhouses, the spiritual center of the village, were being abandoned or burned down. The sacred artifacts inside were often left to rot in the fallen-down structures (Fig. 2). By the time Schultze-Westrum left the Gulf in late 1959 he already had a plan to return in a few years to secure and buy the important artwork that was quickly disappearing.
Thomas and Susanne Schultze-Westrum returning from a collecting trip to the Aird Hills station with Isaia Amua in front checking for drifting logs, April 1966.
His return to the Papuan Gulf took a few more years than anticipated. Because of his experiences in the Papuan Gulf, Schultze-Westrum widened his studies in zoology and geology but focused more on ethnography. He graduated from Munich University in 1964 and the same year married Susanne Caspary, whom he had been dating for two years. New Guinea was never far from Schultze-Westrum’s mind. One of the important contacts he had made in his 1959 trip was Reverend John B. Cribb of the London Missionary Society, who was stationed in the Aird Hills above the Kikori River (Fig. 3). Cribb was Schultze-Westrum’s eyes and ears on the ground in the Gulf. He collected artifacts for Thomas and kept him up to date on the situation around Kikori. When the American art buyer Roy Hedlund arrived in the Gulf and started collecting artifacts, Thomas soon heard about it in Germany. Knowing there was competition out there roving the rivers of the Gulf quickened Thomas’ preparations to get back into New Guinea.
Inside a small bush house where the spiritual contents of the Kinomere longhouse had been relocated (among the kópe collected here had been photographed by Frank Hurley in the early 1920s), 1966.
This next trip would be a well-organized and thoughtful affair. Schultze-Westrum approached both ethnographic museums in Berlin and Hamburg to see if they would be interested in acquiring material culture from the Papuan Gulf. Both were, and the Museum für Völkerkunde in Berlin provided Schultze-Westrum with a letter of association that would prove critical in his collecting efforts. To secure funding Thomas sold some of his 1959 collected objects, had contributions from his family, and both German museums provided some upfront money toward their prospective purchases. By this time Schultze-Westrum had a substantial academic background and planned on collecting in a serious, culturally sensitive manner. He purchased photographic equipment, tape recorders and notebooks to ensure that as much information as possible could be gathered with the objects.
Kópe Beamia at Kiwaumai village, Urama Island, 1966.
Thomas and Susanne left Venice, Italy, on the 29th of October 1965 for the long sea voyage to Australia via Singapore. The Schultze-Westrums had some interesting stops in Australia before flying to Port Moresby. Once there Thomas made the rounds with the government officials to ensure he had official backing for his collecting efforts. His letter of affiliation from the Berlin museum was essential in getting a preapproved open-ended permit from John Keith McCarthy, the Director of Native Affairs. After spending Christmas of 1965 in Port Moresby, Thomas and Susanne travelled by Catalina water plane to Kikori station right after the New Year (Fig. 4).
Kópe Nakopa at Gipi village, Gope ethnic district, 1966.
Based in the main mission house at Aird Hills with John Nicholson, they would spend the next four months making numerous trips up and down the Kikori, Omati and Era rivers. They covered the area from Urama Island in the east to the Turama River in the west. Schultze-Westrum estimated that the canoe trips amounted to over 1,700 nautical miles. During this time his wife, Susanne, was a constant companion, accompanying Thomas on every excursion from their base in Kikori (Fig. 5). In mid January of 1966 they made their first purchases—drums from Tutugu village and some nice objects from a longhouse on Urama Island. On the 30th of January Thomas came across a cache of objects at Kinomere village. Kinomere originally had two longhouses but one had been burnt down by arson and the other was in disrepair. All the sacred items had been relocated to a small house outside the village (Fig. 6). As one can see from the accompanying photograph, the objects piled up in this small structure were of significant age and quality. This would be a recurring theme throughout his collecting career. Schultze-Westrum was not looking to acquire the average or the recently made; he went after the old, the fine—the objects with the most cultural weight (see Figs. 7 to 10). His success in Kinomere was repeated a number of times during the next several months—coming into contact with individuals and villages willing to sell their entire or nearly entire repository of spirit boards, bioma and kakame sculptures (Figs. 11 to 13).
Very old kópe at Wowobo village, Gope ethnic district, April 1966.
In all, Schultze-Westrum collected nearly 1,500 artifacts in the Gulf during that period. And while he and Susanne would spend another couple of months in New Guinea collecting in the Mt. Bosavi area of the Southern Highlands and into the Central and Western Highlands, it was his monumental success in the Gulf in 1966 that would form the core of his and Susanne’s collection.
Kópe at Aimei village, Era-Kipaia ethnic district, 1966.
It would be easy to rationalize Schultze-Westrum’s success as merely being the right person at the right time in the Papuan Gulf. But the answer is more complex. For sure, the people living in that part of the Gulf were at a crossroads in their cultural beliefs. Government, missionary and evangelical activity had been intense for over two generations by the mid 1960s. While the cultural traditions in the Gulf were/are as strong as virtually anywhere in New Guinea, there is only so much pressure a village can stand. It was obvious that the modern way of life and belief system espoused by the missionaries and government officials was the course to follow into the future. Yet the strength and history of the longhouse and the relics inside were central to the people’s identity. In the early 1960s most of the longhouses had been destroyed and abandoned. The carvings once held sacred inside were often left to rot in the damp jungle. Some people refused to let that happen and either built small houses out away from the village to store the woodcarvings or kept them in their private residences (Fig. 14). Even this was a less than ideal situation. This was a dilemma not uncommon in the Gulf in the mid 1960s. In the end, to some people and some villages, Thomas Schultze-Westrum became the solution to this dilemma (Fig. 15).
Omaumere village, Urama Island, February 1966.
Back then and even into today Schultze-Westrum’s guiding philosophy has been “living and working with indigenous people.” What this statement implies is a fundamental connection with and respect for the villagers he meets (Figs. 16 & 17). Schultze-Westrum was a trained ethnographer and thus his patient note-taking and photography probably made him stand out amongst the other artifact collectors the people in the Gulf had already encountered (Fig. 18). But it went beyond this. While he and his wife Susanne covered a lot of distance, in reality the area they focused on in those four months of 1966 is relatively small. Thus, it was not a matter of buzzing in on a motorized canoe, chatting with the people for a few hours and hoping to buy some artifacts. Thomas spent months coming and going to villages, establishing relationships, and showing true respect and esteem for the people, their history and their artwork. In Papua New Guinea it is often the story or history of an object that is important—not necessarily the actual woodcarving (Fig. 19). Thus once people felt the trust to tell the true history, the parting with the artifact was that much more possible. Thomas remembers that the old men were especially delighted about his interest in the history and ceremonial significance of their old spiritual objects. By hearing the stories, by taking detailed notes and by showing a genuine admiration for the objects, Schultze-Westrum was not merely buying the pieces—he in effect became their guardian. The sacred relics slowly rotting away in damp bush houses could now be kept safe forever in some collection outside of New Guinea. The history was intact, the objects were safe, the villagers’ commitment to their new religion was not compromised and, not to be dismissed, the people were paid well for the items (Fig. 20). In all, it was a pretty solid solution to a situation that seemed to have none.
At Gipi village, Gope ethnic district, artifacts from there and Meagoma village brought to the rest house for sale. Earlier Schultze-Westrum had gone through the villages and indicated which objects he wanted to acquire, 1966.
The size and quality of the collection assembled by Thomas and Susanne Schultze-Westrum in 1966 was astonishing. Even after donating a significant portion of the Gulf/Bosavi material to the National Museum in Port Moresby, the shipment to be exported was enormous. There were twenty-two massive wooden crates filled with important artifacts. At first the New Guinea administration balked at granting the right to export such a large and obviously historically significant collection. But after some political wrangling the original, preapproved agreement was upheld. The crates went by ship to Europe and by train to Berlin. Here the Museum für Völkerkunde took the share of items promised to them and the remainder were Schultze-Westrum’s to keep. Thomas sold a number of ethnographic objects to the museum in Hamburg and a skull shrine, some gope boards and bioma to the Munich State Museum of Ethnology. The bulk of the collection, especially the spirit boards and bullroarers, he wanted to keep intact for its historical significance and for further research.
Loading kakame and kópe at Nahoromere village, Era River, 1966.
During the immediate years following his Gulf trip, Thomas’ studies in wildlife were his main focus. But a crafty reworking of an airline ticket provided to attend a conference at the Rockefeller University in New York to give a talk on the Papuan gliding possum (Petaurus breviceps papuanus) enabled Thomas to return to New Guinea. It was a short but important trip in the summer of 1968. He was able to reach some new areas as far west as the Gama River. He had also brought back photographs of a number of objects collected in 1966 in hopes of acquiring more information about their history and cultural significance. His main concern at the time was trying to understand the origin of the villages, the migration of the people, and the development of artistic designs over time and space. While in the Gulf only two weeks, Schultze-Westrum obtained some valuable data and another group of artifacts.
The elders of Kinomere village at the entrance to the bush shelter where they had assembled the entire spiritual contents of the longhouse Daubai—to rot away. The native Seventh Day Adventist pastor had pushed them to do so, to get rid of these “evil things.” Schultze-Westrum stands in the foreground totally overwhelmed, 1966.
His research on marsupials and a conservation report he had prepared brought Schultze-Westrum back to New Guinea again in 1970 for a conference in Port Moresby. Prior to the conference Thomas was again able to spend a few weeks in the Gulf. On this trip he was formally initiated into the Neboru clan of Samoa village in the Kerewo ethnic district. It was clear by now that the people along this stretch of the Gulf put enormous trust in Schultze-Westrum. Other artifact buyers could come and go, but the people held back their most important pieces for Thomas. To himself and to his friends in the Gulf, Schultze-Westrum’s role as guardian of the ceremonial relics was taking shape.
The two titi ébiha Mebu (male) and Iwaru (female), at Babaguina Village, Kerewo ethnic district. The traditional owners are saying their farewells to the spirit boards, 1966.
Thomas’ last trip to the Gulf would be in 1974, guiding a film crew from German television filming nature and wildlife management. While he did take the time to collect information on objects previously purchased, he would not acquire any more pieces. In fact, he would encourage villagers to keep their remaining heirlooms and try to resurrect their derelict longhouses and an interest in their traditional arts.
Morigi Island, Turama River: the elders had kept their tales and spiritual knowledge and were delighted about Schultze-Westrum’s keen interest to learn, 1966/68.
In all, Schultze-Westrum would make another 12 trips to New Guinea over the next thirty years. His work would shift, at least in the field, away from the art and toward conservation and regional wildlife management in West Papua—up in the Arfak Mountains and off the coast on Waigeo Island, part of the Raja Ampat Islands. His focus was trying to create workable solutions for conservation projects that integrated the traditional people living in the area. On that theme Thomas has produced, directed and also mostly shot 75 documentary films for German television. He has also authored two books: New Guinea (Berne, 1972) and Biologie des Friedens (Biology of Peace) (Munich, 1974).
Elder from probably Meagoma village, Gope ethnic district, 1968/70.
In the meantime, the Papuan Gulf collection had been settled in a traditional Bavarian farmhouse outside of Munich that he and Susanne had converted into both a research center and storage facility. To cover the expenses of a growing family (a son, Matthias, was born 1967 and a daughter, Stephanie, in 1968) Thomas and Susanne had to sell some of the pieces. In Munich Schultze-Westrum met the tribal art dealer Ludwig Bretschneider, who helped him market some objects Thomas felt he could part with without sacrificing the integrity of the collection. Through Bretschneider, Schultze-Westrum met the Dutch collectors/dealers Loed and Mia van Bussel. The van Bussels became good friends and purchased a number of pieces including bullroarers, bioma, kakame, gope boards and the great Iriwake figure from Kiwaumai village (Fig. 21).
Schultze-Westrum questioning elders about bullroarers at Kiwaumai village, Urama Island, 1970.
In early 1972 Schultze-Westrum’s interest in New Guinea art and the lessons learned from his early life while at the Benedictine monastery combined in an unexpected way. On the grounds of the Sacred Heart Mission in Münster, Hiltrup and Oeventrop, Germany, were museums that held the wonderful collections assembled by the early missionaries to New Britain, New Ireland and Nauru (three Sacred Heart missionaries arrived in Rabaul in 1882). In particular there was a “ghostly” Nakanai mask that fascinated Thomas. Remembering the proper channels and institutional hierarchy from his youth spent at the monastery in Ettal, Thomas wrote the mission’s finance manager in Münster, Father Linnenbrink, to enquire if the mask might be for sale. The answer was every collector’s dream. That no, the individual mask was not for sale—but the entire contents of the three Sacred Heart Mission museums in Germany were available for purchase. Thomas and Susanne bought the lot.
Contrary to the common assumption that only men were the caretakers of spiritual knowledge, here is the woman Auobo at (New) Tovei village, Urama Island, telling the story of the village relics, 1970.
Purchasing the Sacred Heart Mission collection was an enormous coup. The large holdings of 19th-century New Britain and New Ireland material were very desirable and a number of European collectors and museums eagerly purchased the items from Thomas and Susanne. A large number of pieces went to the Museum der Kulturen in Basel, Switzerland.
Epegau village on the upper Wapo River: the ancient kópe board Apae had many owners and every one had to get his or her share of the money, 1970.
While the Sacred Heart Mission was a fantastically successful diversion, Schultze-Westrum’s heart was still with the Gulf collection. Thomas believed that as a scientific resource the collection could be used to illustrate and understand the history and migration of people across the Papuan Gulf and how this movement was reflected in the subtle transformation of the art style. And, of course, he felt it was his duty and responsibility to his friends in the villages who had entrusted him with this material that the objects were preserved in the best possible circumstances.
The carving Iriwake at Kiwaumai village, Urama Island, 1966.
As is all too often the case, life intervened to alter these plans. Thomas and Susanne were divorced in 1975. The divorce gave the entire Gulf collection to Thomas but the converted farm/research institute to Susanne. The collection was intact and safe but his access to it on the farm was limited. As such, for a number of years the objects lay dormant while Schultze-Westrum focused on his other interests—in 1976 Thomas produced his first television documentaries in Greece in conjunction with his proposal of the Alonissos Marine Park in the Aegean Sea.
In the center background is Titi ébiha “Mobei” from Aimahe Village, Kerewo ethnic district field collected by Thomas Schultze-Westrum on display in the New Guinea Art Gallery at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Photo courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
In the years following Schultze-Westrum’s divorce, while the Gulf collection sat inactive in the Munich farmhouse, a wealthy young collector in New York began aggressively buying New Guinea art. John Friede had initially collected African art, but in the mid 1970s his focus had narrowed to the art of mainland New Guinea. With a precise area of interest, extremely high standards and the financial capital to acquire the best, Friede quickly became the preeminent collector of New Guinea art. In 1976 he became aware of the massive collection sitting in Munich. Schultze-Westrum credits the curator of Oceania in Basel, Dr. Christian Kaufmann, for making the introduction to John Friede. It took four years for Friede and Schultze-Westrum to come to an agreement. In 1980 John Friede purchased nearly the entire collection—1,197 objects were included in the sale. That number in itself is impressive, but one has to understand the overall high level of quality and the incredible number of masterpieces that were included. One of the main reasons Thomas decided to sell the collection was Friede’s agreement to keep the collection intact, ensure that it eventually went to a suitable public institution and that a complete set of photographs of the objects be provided to Schultze-Westrum so he could continue his research on the art.
Papuan Gulf Art much of which collected by Thomas Schultze-Westrum on display in the New Guinea Art Gallery at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Photo courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Following the sale of the collection to John Friede, Schultze-Westrum’s career went full speed into filmmaking and conservation work. In the 1980s he was filming in the Sultanate of Oman producing a series of 12 half-hour programs on nature and rural cultures. Schultze-Westrum made films dealing with the traditional management of the scarce water resources and a documentary entitled Wake of Sinbad: 5,000 Years of Arab Seafaring. As previously mentioned, Thomas returned to New Guinea a number of times in the 1990s doing research and making documentaries in the Raja Ampat Islands—including Waigeo: Insel der Magier (Waigeo: Island of the Sorcerers).
Papuan Gulf Art much of which collected by Thomas Schultze-Westrum on display in the New Guinea Art Gallery at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Photo courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
After retiring from film production at the end of 2002, Thomas’ career has focused on continuing his earlier research on the social and population physiology of marsupials. He has been very active with protecting and promoting the traditional Greek culture and architecture in his home village of Kazaviti on the island of Thassos. He is also the sole caretaker of a large group of abandoned cats in Kazaviti. While Thomas has been dealing with Parkinson’s disease these last years, the twice-daily treks up and down the steep and flinty village paths to feed the cats have kept him trim and healthy.
Papuan Gulf Art much of which collected by Thomas Schultze-Westrum on display in the New Guinea Art Gallery at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Photo courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
In the end, the Papuan Gulf collection was not kept intact. John Friede donated portions of the Schultze-Westrum Gulf collection to several American museums including the Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum in New York, Hood Museum of Art at Dartmouth, Smithsonian Institution and, of course, some superb examples were donated as part of the Jolika Collection to the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Recently a number of objects were also sold privately at auction, to private collectors and dealers—including the majority of pieces I illustrate in the present catalog.
Papuan Gulf Art much of which collected by Thomas Schultze-Westrum on display in the New Guinea Art Gallery at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Photo courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
Because the collection was not kept together and not documented as he had hoped, Schultze-Westrum feels that he has failed in his duties as guardian of the revered objects he collected in the Papuan Gulf. Yet, this very morning as I finish the present essay, I took the time to visit the New Guinea gallery at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. There, in the elegant Herzog and de Meuron–designed building, under beautiful lighting, stand a number of masterpieces of Papuan Gulf art collected by Thomas and Susanne Schultze-Westrum. One could not envision a more serene and respectful resting place for the ancient spirit boards, bioma and kakame. So while the collection has indeed been dispersed, the majority of the collection is in the hands of excellent public and private collections. The sacred objects of the Papuan Gulf are safe and being appreciated by thousands of visitors worldwide. And while this solution may be less than ideal, as I stand in front of the superb, early spirit boards on display at the de Young, what remains, right here, right now, is surely magnificent.
Michael Hamson
12 December 2012
