Liliuokalani (pic onipaa.org) Here are the second lot of pics from the Otago Museum, this time in colour. The theme for this group is fibre; Pacific peoples were historically able to exploit quite a large range of plant materials for both ritual and practical use, using everything from palm to pandanus to coconut, reed and mulberry bark, often dyed and ornamented with feathers and shells. To the northern eye, to a people trained to equate wealth with metallurgic resources these materials can at first seem humble, even homely, but when it is remembered that they were produced by small tribal communities in which everyone was well aware of the hardships, painstaking labour and sometimes hazardous tapu associated with the production of each item, there can be little doubt of the prestige which they conferred. Can there be any more unequivocal expression of royalty than that implicit in the feathered cloak above? It once belonged to Lydia Liliʻu Loloku Walania Wewehi Kamakaʻeha (Liliuokalani) 1883-1917, last queen of the Hawaiian islands. She may have been deposed by Marines in 1893 at the behest of the US government, but nothing can abolish the beauty and glamour of this astounding object in the flesh.
Bag, Santa Cruz, Solomon Islands.
The Santa Cruz islands are a tiny, far-flung archipelago off the south eastern end of the Solomons proper, which are themselves situated in the same direction from the tail of Papua New Guinea. They are remote, tropical, tribal and settled anciently by pre-polynesian Lapita peoples.
This bag bears a faint relationship to the ubiquitous billums favoured by PNG and northern Australian women but it's so unexpectedly extra that I'm at a loss to say much more about it. I am unsure if it is meant to be strung around the head or carried in the hand. I have never seen another like it.
Basket,
Espiritu Santo
(Vanuatu's largest island).
Detail.
While this mask was labeled "Sepik Mask" and its adornments of rib bones (under the ears) and spear head (protruding from nose) are noted, I personally think this is an Abelam piece, strictly speaking. But like, whatever dude. It's an amazing thing, thickly smeared with pigments and adorned in the typically personalized and almost anarchic manner that endears them to mask freaks everywhere.
Fish hook and line, Tuvalu.
This hook is far more impressive than is implied in this image, it being about a foot long and intended presumably for some of the enormous pelagic species like tuna and shark.
Arm bands, Bougainville. Bougainville has been devastated by a disastrous open caste copper mine operated by the notorious Rio Tinto. Local secessionists brought the hammer down and closed the mine via sabotage in 1989.
:-) Direct action- the opium of the people.
Please note that the Museum of Otago owns the copyright to these images so do not reproduce without permission.
:-) Direct action- the opium of the people.
Please note that the Museum of Otago owns the copyright to these images so do not reproduce without permission.
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