THE PACIFIC ISLANDS

Lecture 6B: Melanesian Islands

THE PACIFIC ISLANDS AUSTRALIA, MELANESIA, MICRONESIA, POLYNESIA

THE ART OF MELANESIA

• Islands include New Guinea, New Ireland, and New Britain.

• The Lapita culture appeared ca. 4000. Their ceramics shaped the art of Melanesia into the modern era.

• Decoration created with concentric circles, spirals, triangles. Sometimes are abstracted people, animals, and landscapes. Many works are symmetrical. Pottery Fragment, 1000 B.C.

Solomon Islands, Reef Islands

Nenumbo site, Lapita culture

LAPITA CERAMICS

PAPUA NEW GUINEA: CEREMONIAL HOUSES IN THE SEPIK RIVER AREA

• Farmers must be initiated into farming cults.

• Ceremonial house contains images of the ancestors that embody their spirits.

• Young farmers are taught the importance of the ceremonial objects and learn respect for them. Photo of a ceremonial house of the

Abelam tribe by Rita Willaert, taken in

2009.

Interior of a Ceremonial house of the Abelman People.

IRIAN JAYA: THE ASMAT

• The Asmat people practiced headhunting and cannibalism to ensure fertility of the crops.

• Unfortunately this meant that some young boys ended up decapitated at the hands of hunters. The Bisj Mbu ceremony avenged the death and appeased the dead man’s/boy’s soul.

• Bisj poles today honor the dead as headhunting is no longer practiced.

Bis Pole, late 1950s

NEW IRELAND: MALAGAN CULTURE

• Malanggan: a series of carved poles, figures, boats, and drums created to honor the dead and send them on to the afterlife.

• The objects and the rites performed for the dead put on display outside of a ceremonial house.

• Sculpture known for mixing together several species of animals and humans into one work; the wood is brightly painted.

Traditional Malanggan Masks

worn at a festival in 2009.

Masks from the Malagan Culture of New Ireland at the British Museum

MALANGGAN DISPLAY AT THE FIELD

• Ceremonial

houses

covered in

palm leaves

which were

removed at

the end of

the ceremony

to reveal the

statues.

Horn-billed bird

Human head and body

Croton-leaf decoration

on torso

Parrot fish

AFTER THIS LECTURE YOU SHOULD

BE ABLE TO…

• See how the formal elements found in Lapita culture

are repeated in Melanesian art to the present.

• Identify the uses of ceremonial centers of the Asmat

and New Ireland people .

• Discuss the types of media used.

• Identify how the concept of mana is expressed in

Melanesian works.