Alcheringa Gallery
665 Fort Street
Victoria, BC, Canada
TEL: (250) 383-8224
FAX: (250) 383-9399
email alcheringa
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INTRODUCTION ·
BACKGROUND FROM THE COLLECTOR ·
IMAGE INDEX
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(Note: names of peoples and artists in bold are represented in the collection)
Back in 1989, my longing for exotic places and cultures overcame my comfort with the familiar. I took early retirement from Earth Sciences at Carleton University, with the intent of basing an overseas consulting practice out of Salt Spring Island, where my wife Pip and I had decided we would spend our senior years. By fortunate coincidence, my Dean showed me an advertisement for senior academics to fill a couple of gaps in the advisory team of the Eastern Indonesia University Development Project, a CIDA-funded science strengthening initiative being run by Simon Fraser University in several small universities of eastern Indonesia. One of the positions was in what was then called Irian Jaya, the easternmost province of Indonesia that occupies the western half of the island of New Guinea.  As it happens, I had long wished to spend time in New Guinea, having been captivated by images of tribespeople in paint and Bird-of-Paradise feathers and of lush lowland rain forests, populated by strange marsupials, giving way to glacier-capped peaks. I had already worked in southwest Ethiopia, one of the most culturally and linguistically diverse parts of the world, and having a bent toward new languages thought it fitting to go to the most polyglot place of all, where it is estimated that over 1100 distinct tongues are spoken in a region with less than the combined area of France and Germany.
Half a year later, after two months of intensive training in Bahasa Indonesia, the national lingua franca, I arrived at my post in Universitas Cenderawasih (yes, “Bird of Paradise University”), a ca. 5000-student state school founded in 1963 as part of Indonesia’s flag-planting in the former colony of Netherlands New Guinea. For a time the territory was known as West Papua, then renamed Irian Jaya, a hybrid term of the Biak language (Irian: “shimmering” – from the heat(?) or “rising” – as one approaches on the sea) and Indonesian (Jaya: “great” or “victorious” in allusion to the Indonesian victory over the forces of colonialism). In the late 1990s, during a wave of relative liberalization, the province was re-named Papua in deference to local sentiment (the indigenous citizens much prefer to be called “Papuan” than “Irianese”). Now, however, in what many see as a divide-and-conquer strategy, the government is trying to divide the territory into at least three provinces, one of which may be West Papua. The art in the present collection comes not from this political West Papua, but rather from the larger region of western New Guinea.
UNCEN (the Indonesians have a love affair with acronyms) and the coastal town of Manokwari were welcoming. Despite (or because of?) the very large presence of pendatang (“arrivals”: immigrants from the more westerly parts of Indonesia, who tended to dominate most facets of life), we were drawn to the indigenous coastal Papuans, who though often marginalized by the newcomers had a refreshing directness and spirit about them. A memorable part of our initial sensory overload was their music, played on battered guitars, ukuleles, traditional hourglass-shaped drums and home made string basses made of hardwood so heavy that they had to be laid on the ground to play! The filigree-like designs carved and painted on drum and bass immediately caught my eye. To that time I had no knowledge of New Guinea art beyond that of the Sepik River region in adjacent Papua New Guinea; the rapid turn of events that brought me to the island had allowed little time for preparation. I owned a number of First Nations prints from both the east and west of Canada and some carvings from Ethiopia (all carefully stored back home) but had not at all anticipated being able to draw objects of beauty from the woodcarving cultures I was to encounter in my new dwelling place.
 UNCEN was divided into two campuses (now two separate universities), 800 km apart and mutually inaccessible by road; I travelled a lot on ancient Canadian Twin Otters from Manokwari to Jayapura via the huge World War II airstrip on the island of Biak. The culture of the Manokwari area has much in common with, and is probably descended from, that of Biak and nearby Yapen islands. Asking after artists during one of many overnight stays on Biak, I was directed to the village of Swapodibo, just off the end of the runway, and the home of Micha Ronsnumbre, the senior carver and story-teller on the island. I learned that the Biak people were formerly a regional power, reminiscent of the Haida, traveling in large canoes with spectacular figureheads, subjugating and  enslaving many of the other peoples of the north coast. It was Micha who introduced me to Inobobo, the guardian cum trickster figure who perches atop the plaques that face the entry to a traditional home, to ward off bad spirits. It was he too who explained the symbolic significance of many of the scrollwork designs that are trademarks of Biak-Yapen-Manokwari art. He was quick to point out the errors in the classic work by van Baaren on “korwar”, properly called amfyanir: the figures that contain the “shadow” spirit of an ancestor (and sometimes the actual skull of the deceased). These are placed near the house door and are consulted as oracles on the occasion of important decisions. Working with several assistants, he has produced many commissioned works, including window and door panels for museums on Biak and on the Jayapura campus of UNCEN, as well as in the provincial governor’s office.
Hamadi market near Jayapura proved to be both a dismay and a treasure trove. A half-dozen souvenir shops run by unfeeling Bugis traders were packed to the rafters with stacks of Asmat carvings, many of poor quality but including excellent pieces as well. Unfortunately, the shopkeepers knew (and cared) little or nothing of the artists or the significance of the work; for that lore I had to turn to the few books available and the help of the small staff at the Museum Loka Budaya (place of culture) at the university.
 I only managed one trip in the territory of the Asmat, perhaps the best-known carvers in western New Guinea, who occupy the swampy lowland rainforest of the south coast, around the present centre of Agats. They are a tall, intense people, traditionally warriors and headhunters until these practices were suppressed by the government. They ply the tidal rivers in fleets of slender dugout canoes, as many as 15 men standing in one craft, wielding long pole/paddles that can also serve as spears – a fearsome sight indeed to the intended victims of past raids, now mainly re-enacted for tourists. Their art is spectacular: 8m bisj poles featuring the effigies of dead warriors; shields and drums as tall as a man; and elaborately-woven jipae dance costumes – all decorated with lime, red ochre and charcoal. Much of their culture and arts, initially threatened by government intervention, has managed to survive with, interestingly, the encouragement of the Roman Catholic missionaries, who were instrumental in setting up the Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress in Agats.
 The Asmat’s more peaceable next door neighbours to the west, the Kamoro, have suffered Asmat raids in times past and now are impacted by the massive development of the Freeport mine near Timika, the largest single gold deposit in the world and a major source of revenue to the Indonesian government. Although the trickle-down benefits to indigenous communities have been minimal, there are some positive aspects. The company has seen fit to support and promote both Asmat and Kamoro art, which share many features, and has funded an impressive Kamoro art centre in Timika. It was there I met Timotius Samin and acquired a weyaiku ancestor carving, which boasts a cassowary plume headdress made from a dance skirt owned by his late mother. The kayu besi (ironwood) carving, a deep red-brown when fresh, derives its aged appearance from being soaked in the grey coastal mud.
I did get much more time on Lake Sentani and the adjacent North Coast, easily accessible by road and outboard-powered johngson dugout canoes. The 25 km long lake is an idyllic place, populated by gentle folk clustered in villages of stilt houses perched over the shallows on the shores and islands.  Fish from the lake and sago from nearby swamps are readily available staples; people have time to spend on their large open decks built over the lake, to catch the breeze and keep malarial mosquitoes at bay. The art of the Sentani captured the interest of Dutch missionaries, explorers and officials as early as 1893, and was influential on European modernists in the 1920’s through the collecting of French art dealer Jacques Viot. Unfortunately, at the same time the Protestant missionaries pressured the Sentani to destroy most of their magnificent men’s and clan chief (ondofolo) houses and the ceremonial objects they contained. The houses were magnificent conical structures several stories high, with beautifully-carved columns, rafters and finials. Traditional carved items of a less spiritual nature, such as wooden bowls and paddles, survived this onslaught but started to go out of fashion when Indonesia assumed control of  Papua in 1962, with the introduction of cheap plastic goods. Fortunately, even as artefacts were being burned or dumped in the lake in the Twenties, the Sentani began to paint traditional designs (daka homo) on barkcloth (maro), which had hitherto been used undecorated for clothing. A revival of this art, as well as carving, took place in the early 1990’s, through the initiative of several local artists, led by Seru Ongge, and spurred as before by an interest on the part of dealers and collectors, abetted this time by the government. As typically happens, a great deal of good barkcloth was wasted on poor quality paintings, often mass-produced by stencilling. I was fortunate to make the acquaintance of several of the best painters and carvers, such as Agus Ongge and John Ohee (although sadly Seru Ongge died in 1993 before I had a chance to meet him). Nico Tanto, a  local dealer - who also worked at the UNCEN museum - provided many fine pieces and also encouraged some of the north coast carvers to recreate objects that had fallen out of use, a few of which ended up in my collection.
For a period I was fortunate to cooperate with Frederik Sokoy, a young member of the Sociology and Anthropology Department at UNCEN who is himself Sentani, travelling to several communities on the lake and interviewing artists about their family histories and the significance of their works. Sentani design is typified by the fouw, a spiral motif said by Agus Ongge to represent the ongoing communal life of the village, under the ondoafi or village chief. These form part of more elaborate designs associated with the social hierarchy, such as iuga and hakhalu. As in Canadian indigenous coastal art, many everyday objects, such as food  dishes, canoes and adze handles, as well as ceremonial items such as drums and staffs, are decorated. A combination of oral tradition, design motifs and linguistic features suggests that the Sentani migrated to the lake from present-day Papua New Guinea, via coastal communities such as Nafri and Tobati on nearby Yotefa Bay.
In my advisor’s job I had a lot of visitors, whose interests ranged among the arts, anthropology, bird and animal life, spiders and chemistry, to name but a few areas of their knowledge. These visits not only gave me good excuses to tour, but also taught me a great deal. Two people who were particularly helpful in the domain of arts and culture were Michael Howard and Robyn Roper. Michael is an anthropologist at SFU who has an expertise in hand-woven textiles of Southeast Asia. Together we collected a number of barkcloth paintings and items of clothing, as well as canoe figureheads (muka perahu), the latter of necessity the subject of another exhibition! Robyn was at that time collecting data for a Master’s thesis in Art History at the University of Victoria (see Further Reading); she contributed to interview data and was a good companion on field trips.
I have only touched on my travels in coastal Papua, and totally neglected the highland regions. The highlanders are superb agriculturalists and fine weavers of carrying bags but have not developed carving and painting traditions, hence are represented in the present exhibit by only one item.
I have not been back to Papua since I left my work there in late 1997. The region is turbulent, as successive Indonesian governments attempt to suppress the aspirations of the local people for more independence, by a combination of brutal repression and immigration of non-Papuans. Several good Papuan friends and former colleagues constantly risk their personal security by speaking out against human rights abuses. Their territory is rich in mineral, forest and fish resources, with revenue too important to Indonesia to be easily let go. What “Special Autonomy” has been granted in practice, rather than only paid lip service, has not yet yielded much benefit to local people.
I have great affection and respect for the Papuans I have met. In whatever directions their arts and culture may evolve under modern pressures, I know they will not easily give up their values. I hope that the pieces of art in this exhibit provide a small window on to their strength and generosity of spirit.
John Moore
Salt Spring Island
February 26, 2008
FURTHER READING
Blair, Lawrence with Lorne Blair, 1988. Ring of Fire. Bantam. (Chapter 6 on the Asmat)
Greub, Suzanne, 1992. Art of Northwest New Guinea. Rizzoli, New York.
Hartoyo Pratiknyo (Ed.), 1995.Sentani: Old and New in the Land of Clear Water. Jakarta
Post.
Schneebaum, Tobias, 1985. Asmat Images. Asmat Museum of Culture and Progress.
Smidt, Dirk (Ed.), 1993. Asmat Art. Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd.
Van Baaren, Th. P., 1968. Korwars and Korwar Style. Mouton & Co.
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