Shields of Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia r «^X:* T * a * X *- Y * ^ * jBbmL i • e ** kAlTK A 1 pEv*Ba p8m^ \ M »/ B *•/- ^ L fc W PROTECTION POWER and DISPLAY Shields of Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia Edited bv Andrew Tavarelli Boston College Museum of Art October 6 -December 10. 1095 This publication is supported by Boston College and a grant from dir National Endowment for (he Arts, a Federal Agency, with additional contributions from: Sponsors: Mr. Saiman Ernawan (Indonesia) Camerindo Sakti International), Inc. (Indonesia) Patrons: Mr. Rodger Dashow Mr. and Mrs. Datuk Hakim Dr. and Mrs. Albert Yellin Mr. Saso Sugiarso and an anonymous donor. Copyright ©1995 In the Boston College Museum of Art. Chestnut Hill. .Mass. Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 95-79803 ISBN 0-96-10153-3-1 Designed by Nieshoff Design Typeset in Bauer Bodoni Printed by Champagne/Layfayette Communications, Inc. front cover shield Indonesia, Sulawesi, Sa dan Toraja people Leather and pigment Courtesy of the Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Albert Yellin. Santa Monica, Calif. screened back photographs Courtesy of Peabodt Museum, I larvard 1 niversity. Cambridge, Mass., photo nos. N33536. N33537. N33538 back cover shield Papua New Guinea, Papuan (bill. Elema people Relief-carved wood, pigment and vegetable fiber Courtesy of Peabod\ Museum. Harvard l niversity. Cambridge, Mass., acc. no. 91-6-70/50513 Photo: I lillel Burger CONTENTS Preface 5 Nancy Netzer Foreword Andrew Tavarelli Protection, Power and Display: 12 Shields of Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia Andrew Tavarelli , Boston College Indonesian Shields 19 Steven A/pert , Dallas, Texas Beyond Shields: Exploring An Indonesian 35 Aesthetic of the Protective Arts Susan Rodgers , College of the Holy Cross Divine Spheres of Protection: 57 Shields of the Philippines Fiorina II. Capistrano- Baker, Columbia Unirersity Medusa’s Art: Interpreting Melanesian Shields 74 Michael O’Hanlon, British Museum List of References 1 05 A Note to the Hauler: \ umbered images and plates in this book are works in the exhibition. Additional images are designated as "figures. " Although Irian Java, \ew Guinea is politically part of Indonesia, the societies loealed in this region are ethnographical ly closer to Melanesia, and are included in this section of the exhibition and catalogue. Lenders to the Exhibition Mr. Taylor A. Dale, Santa Fe Mr. Rodger Dashow, Boston The Field Museum of Natural Ilistoiy, Chicago Mr. Thomas Murray, Asiatica-Ethnographica, California Mr. Norman Hurst, Cambridge Peabody Essex Museum. Salem Peabody Museum. Harvard l diversity, Cambridge 1 h 's. Georgia Sales, California Smithsonian Institution. Washington D.C. The University of Pennsylvania Museum. Philadelphia Dr. and Mrs. Albert Yellin, Santa Monica no. la Malaysia, Borneo. Western Sarawak. Dayak Bark, rattan, wood and traces of pigment H: 29.75 in. Courtesy of Norman Hurst Collection. Cambridge, Mass, Preface The Boston College Museum of Art is pleased to present Protection. Power and Display, the first exhibition to explore the shield as a significant artistic form, as well as a source of anthropological and ethnographic information. I he exhibition demonstrates that shields incorporate and reflect a combination of social, spiritual, ceremonial and aesthetic aspects of the cultures of Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia, and seeks to introduce these powerful images into an expanded canon of the history of art. Professor Andrew Tavarelli of the Department of Fine Aits at Boston College conceived of the exhibition, selected the objects, and edited the accompa- nying catalogue. I lis enthusiasm for the material was infectious: his brilliant insights about the objects and the manner in which they should be presented to the public inspired everyone on the staff of the Museum. To him we extend heartfelt thanks and congratulations. The exhibition also served as a focus for the expertise of scholars in various fields whom we should like to thank for their contributions to the catalogue: Steven Alpert. an expert in traditional Indonesian art: Fiorina II. Capistrano-Baker. formerly research assistant at the Rockefeller Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Michael () Hanlon, assistant keeper of the Ethnography Department of the British Museum: and Susan Rodgers, professor of anthropology at Holy Cross College. We are also indebted to several members of the Museum staff for their dedication to this project: Alston Conley. Jennifer Grinnell. Alice 1 larkins, Kerry Leonard, and Helen Swartz. We also extend special thanks to the people of Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia w ho made and used these shields, to the lending institutions, without whose generosity this exhibition would not have been possible, and to Nishaikha Desai. director of the Gallon at the Asia Society for her help in the initial stages of this exhibition. 1 he enthusiastic support of the administration of Boston College, especially, J. Donald Monan. S.J.. Margaret Dwyer. William B. Neenan. S.J.. J. Robert Barth. S.J.. Richard Spinello, Joanne Scibilia. Brenda Prescott, and the Friends of the Boston College Museum of Art chaired by \ane\ and John Joyce has been invaluable. Finally, without the generous support of the National Endowment for the Arts, a Federal agency, Mr. Saiman Ernawan. Camerindo Sakti International. Inc (Indonesia), Mr. Rodger Dashow Mr. and Mrs. Datuk Hakim. Dr. and Mrs. Albert Yellin. Mr. Saso Sugiarso and an anonymous donor, this exhi- bition would not have come to fruition. Nancy Netzer, Director A ckn o u iledgem en ts To the many who have made this exhibition possible. I am truly grateful. 1 would first like to thank Director of the Boston College Museum of Art Nancy Netzer for her unwavering support. My thanks go. as well, to the museum staff: curator Alston Conley, who designed the installation, coordinator of exhibitions and supervisor of publications Jennifer Crinnell. without whom I would still be puzzling over myriad issues, museum administrator Helen Swartz, copy-editor Naomi Rosenberg, interns Kerry Leonard and Jennifer Scnro. who helped prepare the catalogue for publication and the exhibition for installation. I thank the Audio Visual Department: Marv Binell. Stephen Vedder and their staff who supplied the catalogue with much needed support. For their intelligence, dedication and unfailing good humor I particularly want to thank undergraduate Research Fellows Vanessa Ah-Chuen. Bea Reaud, and Jennifer Vetter who worked alongside me in the trenches, and designer Pat Nieshoff of Nieshoff Design. Institutions become known for their collections but become great by their alliance with outstanding individuals. 1 have had the good fortune to work with a number of such individuals, and to them I express mv sincere thanks: Lucy Butler, Christina Behrmann, Michelle Tolini (Peabody Essex Museum); Bennet Bronson, Janice B. Klein. Nina Cummings, Christina Gross, Linda Dorman (The Field Museum, Chicago); Sylvia Smith Duggan, Ria K. Baker, Charles Kline, Adria Katz (The University Museum, Univeristy of Pennsylvania), Viva Fisher. Leah Wolf V hitehead, Martha Labell. Kathy Skcllv, Sam Tager. Scott Fulton (Peabody Museum. Harvard): Paul M. Favlor, .1. Daniel Rogers, Susan Crawford, Deborah Hull-Waliski. Ruth Saunders, llilga Prinse, Michelle Austin (National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution); Sam Quigley (Museum of Fine Arts. Boston): Kevin Smith (Buffalo Museum of Science). Steven Alpert’s contribution extends far beyond his wonderful essay for the catalogue. I he countless hours we spent discussing the material, his guidance and encouragement and his generosity of spirit and friendship enriched this exhibition and my own experience in organizing it. I thank Susan Rodgers not only for her excellent contribution to the catalogue, but also for her willingness to share her vast knowledge of anthropology' and her experience in the preparation of exhibi- tions. Her many thoughtful comments were invaluable. 1 thank my colleagues in the Fine Arts Department who lent hands when needed: Ted Bohr. Mark Cooper. Kenneth Craig, Andrea Frank, Jeffrey Howe, Charles Meyer, Michael Mulhern. John Steczvnski. Reva Wolf and adminstrative secretary of the department Mary Carey, who seems to make all things possible. 1 extend mv deepest thanks to those closest to me for their encouragement and support: Rodger Dashow, a lender to this exhibition, whose continued enthusiasm for Indonesia sparked mv own interest years ago; Gregory Amenoff, Susan Shatter. Fritz Buehner. Barry Savenor and Anna Myer. This catalogue is dedicated to mv mother, and to the memory of my father. Andrew Tavarelli, Curator FOREWORD Andrew Tavarelli, Boston College Certain objects and images seize t lit- eve on our first encounter with them. Some fade as the flash of the initial impression subsides while others lodge themselves permanently in our visual memory. With time these objects relinquish their grip on the eve only to cede power to the imagination. I lere their ineluctable presence shapes the way we see. The elegant Mentawai shield {no. 13) in tins exhibition is such an object. Included in an exhibition at the Boston College Museum of Art {Voice of the Spirits: Indigenous Art of Indonesia. 1989), for which 1 served as curator, it is the impetus behind Protection. Power and Display. As a painter my travels to Southeast Asia have inspired my art as well as this exhibition, which seeks to focus, for the first time, on the aesthetic value of objects that have been previously relegated to the status of ethnographic evidence. The shields in this exhibition were made in the nineteenth and early twen- tieth centuries for use, with few exceptions, in either warfare or ceremony. They are powerful objects, intended as such by their makers. Although the rituals and symbolic meanings which attended their creation and use may elude us, their strong visual presence recalls the charged nature of these objects. Created by artists, craftsmen, and warriors in the context of the political, social, spiritual and aesthetic forces of the cultures in which thev lived, shields offer us an irregular keyhole through which to glimpse the rich and varied indigenous societies from which thev came. Shields exhibited in the western world have traditionally been treated as simple weapons despite the fact that their makers placed great emphasis on aesthetics, craft and imagery. Protection. Power and Display exhibits fifty- four lineh executed shields from Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia in order to emphasize their extraordinary artistic quality and visual power. The presentation of works from two very different areas of cultural study illuminates the variation in design and meanings of the shield form. By connecting the shields to the larger visual and cultural traditions of the societies in which (bev were made, the catalogue essays show the means by which these works extend beyond their role as defensive weapons. Steven Alpert s experiential knowledge of Indonesian tribal art and culture informs his discussion of shields from an aesthetic point of view. He addresses the protective function of shields and also provides a historiography of shield collecting. The anthropologist Susan Rodgers views shields from a comparative perspective that places them in relation to non-military forms of protection. Her discussion of how Indonesian dance, oratory, sculpture, jewelry and weaving can serve as “protective arts underscores the role of shields as part of larger protective systems. Fiorina H. Capistrano-Baker, herself an art historian, classifies Philippine shields according to type and region. She addresses issues of meaning in the use of the "hourglass’ motif found on Northern Luzon shields and connects this to spirit shields and rice pounders of similar shape. Anthropologist Michael 0 Hanlon combines insights from his field research among the Wahgi of New Guinea with a discussion of the anthropological literature to examine Melanesian shields. He pays particular attention to the varied construction and uses of shields, discusses the capacity of the visual to carry meaning, and points to the difficulties of cross-cultural interpretation. My own essay, a general introduction to the exhibition, explores the concepts of protection, power and display, and addresses the relationship of shields to the body. The meaning of an ait object changes with the context in which it is “read. The object, with its formal visual properties, stands nakedly at the center of a paradigm that includes the artist s intentions and aesthetics (shaped by his/her culture), the viewer’s aesthetics and cultural background, and the place in which the object is presented or seen. Working artists recognize the impact that the short trip “uptown to a gallerv or museum has on their work. The legitimizing effect of the venue is marked: cultural associa- tions of power, prestige and value overlay the more particular meanings a work might have in the intimate domain of the studio. The shields in this exhibition demonstrate perfectly this phenomenon. Created a century ago. they have traveled halfway around the world to this museum to enter our hierarchical “system of objects (. Baudrillard 1 968). The shields, once at the center of a human drama played against the shifting backdrop of earth and skv. are now displayed on clean, evenly lit walls. Brandished by warriors, seen in motion amid the turmoil and emotional intensity of conflict or ceremony, these objects, now stilled, are offered for our contemplation. This transformation raises some important questions which in turn have occasioned much critical debate [cf Clifford 1988. Price 1989). One position claims allegiance to the power of the objects to speak for themselves and reach across oceans of time and space in a universal visual language. The opposition holds that these objects, stripped from their original context, are divested of meaning and serve onlv the goal of western colonial aestheticism. Both positions have merit but suffer from a similar intractability. 1 Original meanings ascribed to objects are transitorv. accompanying an object for a particular period of time in a particular place. As die object lives out its histon it accrues different meanings in each set of circumstances. A tribal shield, initiallv a proudlv owned militarv necessitv with spiritual power, may become, in turn, a spoil of war heralding the new owners prowess, a familv heirloom with sentimental associations, a curiositv from an exotic trip, a revered example of a powerful art form. Ascribing meaning to things is a way of making sense of them in order to integrate them within our lives. As Lucy Lippard explains, Among the pitfalls of writing about art made by those with different cultural backgrounds is the temptation to fix our gaze solely on the familiarities and unfamiliarities, on the neutral and the exotic, rather than on the area in between — that fertile , liminal ground inhere new meanings germinate and where common experiences in different contexts can procoke new bonds... those elements most likely to earn • ns across borders. ( Lippard 1990:9) It is difficult to deny the jolt of aesthetic pleasure these unfamiliar objects offer. It is naive and ethnocentric to imagine that this is the entire story 7 . Offered as a feast for the eves, this exhibition is an attempt to provide a bridge to span the boundaries of cultural difference and to demonstrate the power of the eve to give shape to the heart and mind. It is an invitation to celebrate these objects, to learn more of the people who made them and to explore more deeply into ourselves. 2 1 I take seriously James Clifford’s critique of the Museum of Modern Art exhibition Primitivism in 20th Century Art. Conceived by an artist in visual terms, Protection. Power and Display is not intended to be a complete ethnographic inventory. It does how ever hold the shields and the views of the indigenous people who created them at center. This is the standard by which western responses are gauged. The exhibit also accepts the validity of western attempts to understand these objects and acknowledges their profound effect on our thinking. J The editor accepts responsibility for the choices and classification of all shields included in this exhibition. CHINA TAIWAN MYANMAR LAOS I Iainandao 0000 THAILAND PHILIPPINES LUZON Manila 0 S 0 U T H C HINA S E A KAMPUCHEA ANDAMAN SEA GULF OF T H A I l, A N D MALAYSIA 0 Simeulue L A K F. . T O B A Nias © Batu Siberut MENT A W A I Pagai r I SUMATRA 00 Lnggano j * INDIAN 0 C E A N Mindoro VIETNAM Panav Palai B R U N E SARAWAK 0 o o B 0 RNEO q KALIMANTAN Jakarta Madura JAVA Bull Neeros MINDANAO 0 ©( S l L li A li C FI I 1> E 1. A G O CELEBES SEA MOL 0 o SULAWESI Q 0 Burn Wrtar Lombok Sumbawa Flores A lor Timor Suraba Savu Rod T I M ( 10 PACIFIC OCEAN Note: II lute numerals indicate origin for shields in the exhibition. Black numerals correspond to figures in the catalogue. x s C E N D E R A \\ A S I II B A Y T 0 R RES STRAI T PROTECTION, POWER AND DISPLAY Shields of Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia Andrew Tavarelli, Boston College fig. 1 (no. II) Crip on a Mas shield (detail) Collection of Rodger Da show. Boston. Mass. Photo: Stephen Vedder. Boston College The association of shields with the human body, which they are made to protect, is inescapable. This reaction is more than an awareness of the shields martial function. Even in the recontextualized space of the museum, our perception of a shield is shaped by the sense that the object, and its aura of human presence, are one. The size and shape are read not as formal abstract qualities but as they relate to human scale. Heightened interest in the body in much of current western art perhaps reinforces such a reading. W hen a shield was wielded bv a warrior this metaphorical iden- tity was explicit. In the following discussion, I examine various references to the body expressed through the shield form. I look at some unique ways in which the cultures represented in this exhi- bition used shields as protection against physical and spiritual danger. We will see how the visual aspects of shields were used to broadcast power messages and empowered their bear- ers, and explore the purposes of dis- play. To provide a footing from which to approach these objects from Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia, I have little choice but to see with the eves of a westerner, and measure my responses against what we know of the views of their creators. The bodies of the men who made shields served as a benchmark in their design. This Nias shield (no. II) was meant to be carried in the left hand, so that the right remained free to carry a sword. An unequal space around the carved handle on the reverse side (fig. I) allowed die knuckles and back of the left hand to fit comfortably around the grip. This feature can be found on many shields with a raised boss at the center which permitted the handle to be carved out rather than attached (nos. 13, 21, 24). When I first saw the Elema shields (nos. 30, 31 pi. hill) 1 puzzled over their odd notched shape with unequal arms at the top. Responding as a western artist, I initially thought the shape to he a formal solution to an aesthetic issue, or the expression of a symbolic meaning unknown to me. The field notes (Peabody Museum, Harvard) 12 provided a succinct explanation of form following function. These shields hung from the shoulder, allowing the bow arm to pass over the shield face, thus freeing and protecting the body simultaneously. The shorter “limb would have been easier to see over {fig. 2). John Steinbeck poetically addresses the relationship between maker and object. “This is not mysti- cism but identification: man, building this greatest and most personal of all tools, has in turn received a boat shaped mind, and the boat a man shaped soul [1941:1 16). This reci- procity is often visible in shields and informs our experience of them. As an image, the photograph (fig. 3) of a beheaded Ifugao man lashed to his shield as he is borne to his burial, speaks literally, if grotesquely, to the identity between body and shield. Another example can be found among the Asmat of Irian Java, whose shields, collectively a visual repository of their systems of belief, may be consid- ered the “most powerful expression of Asmat art ( Schneebanrn 1990:37). The role of the wood carvers (wowipits) who make the shields is of continued importance. Asmat legend speaks of the creator god Fumerpitsj , a master carver who fashioned the first Asmat from a tree. Ritual and oral traditions make repeated reference to the identity of human and tree. Shields, made from the huge buttress roots of swamp growing trees are. in the Asmat mind, embedded in this cosmic rela- tionship. In a large powerful shield from central Asmat (no. 27), the expressively carved figure at the top was most likely the relative or ances- tor of the original owner after whom the shield was named. The custom of naming significant objects continues among the Asmat, both as a means of empowerment and to honor ancestors. The spirit of the ancestor was believed to enter the shield to become a psychologically powerful stand-in for the person. The warrior equipped with his shield did not enter battle alone but with the power and presence of his ancestor. fig. 2 Ulema warriors with their shields Courtesy of Peabodv Museum. Harvard University, Cambridge Mass., photo no. N33536, arc. no. 822333 Even as outsiders to the shields indigenous societies, we connect easilv with their varied and imaginative representations of the human form. Personifications on shields from the Elema tribe of New Guinea (nos. 30. 31 pi. VIII ) come alive in their ani- mated stylization. Carved in relief and painted, both faces and bodies have 13 fig. 3 Beheaded Ifiigao warrior borne to his burial lashed to his shield Courtesy of Peabody Museum, Harvard University'. Cambridge, Mass., photo no. M33539, acc. no. I I 16575 fig. -t Ulema men with masks and shields Courtesy of Peabody Museum, Harvard University. Cambridge, Mass., photo no. \33540, acc. no. 1 122612 a striking presence. We wonder how long the lizard carved on the top will be visiting (no. 30). The liveliness of the color, abstracted drawing, and strong contrasts of image and ground create a dramatic impression. This same visual style informs masks and other objects made bv the Elema (fig. 4). A striking contrast in the use of the human figure can be found in this shield from the Wewak area (no. 40). I his sober work has little of the cartoonish animation of the Elema shields. Rather than containing the figuration as if it were a canvas, the shield and figure are literallv one. a consequence of a more sculptural approach. A carved head at the top of the ‘ body gives the entire shield its form. The fixed fierceness of the stare and cast of the mask like head join w ith the shield’s aggressive verti- calitv to create an impression of menace and malevolence. As on the Elema shields, the lizard carved along the central axis makes an appearance here as well, but seems a different beast and conjures a sense of reptilian alertness and wariness. On this Kenyah shield from Borneo (no. 4), the body reference is literal. A painted demonic image of a deified ancestor is framed bv human hair taken from the victims of its owner (Feldman 1985:114). The message imparted by this visual display was unequivocal to an opposing warrior. Today, even in the safety of the museum, this embodied image remains emotionally chilling. The ways in which shields recall both body and person are ways by which they enter the realm of charged objects. In the cultures of origin, these signs, symbols and handmarks of their making were reinforced by ceremony and ritual that connected them to ancestors and the spirit world, and imbued them with a life- force. On exhibit, more than simply presenting themselves as available to our gaze, the shields engage us, insisting that we recognize their personification of spirit and the substance of humanness. During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, fighting, a con- stant in many villages of Island Southeast Asia and Melanesia, was varied in type: routs, ambushes, head hunting raids, duels, ceremonial battles, squirmishes and full scale war. Tribal shields were crafted in radically different forms to serve the diversity of functions required bv these different circumstances. The small round shield from Simeulue Indonesia (no. 12) clearly offered little to hide behind compared to the 14 large and cumbersome shields of the Maring (nos. 35, 36) and Malol (no. 38). both tribes of New Guinea. Hand sized, quirk to manipulate and covered with extremely abrasive rav skin decorated with galvanized nails, it was well suited to parrying in close combat. The Moluccan shield (no. 10 ) with a ridged hourglass shape was made for a similar use. Its physi- cal and visual weight push toward top and bottom, adding torque to the pivotally placed handle at the center so that the weapon could be whipped to deflect blows, and wielded aggres- sivelv as a club. The many torso sized shields in this exhibit, such as those front the Trobriand Islands (nos. -t-t. 45) and the Philippines (nos. 19. 22 ), were constructed to he easily carried, vet were substantive enough to absorb the blows of arrows, swords, or spears. The battle scars on this Bontoc shield from the Philippines (fig. 5. no. 22) are a grim testament to its utility. To my western eves, the skilled, suture-like repair echoes its relationship to the body. Indeed if we imagine the prongs as upraised arms on either side of the head, and out- stretched legs, we might view the whole to be a stylized representation of the human body (Casals 1981:255). Marty of the shields shown here go beyond being shapeless chunks of unadorned wood, and we quickly surmise that intentions other than providing physical defense were at work in their creation. Protection was a complex issue in cultures w here warfare was often highly ritualized, and at times, assumed almost mythic proportions. Powers from the realm of the spirits, ever watchful in daily life, were palpably present in con- flict. Many of the carved and painted images on these shields are visual attempts to muster spiritual forces to protect the warriors. Shields, as vehicles of communication with these powers, generate high visual intensity’. Spiritual protection comes from the enemy’s perception of the shields’ visual power, and through the sense of empowerment that the images impart to their bearers. These two aspects coincide in the Asmat shield discussed earlier (no. 27). The ances- tors spirit, present in the carved and painted motifs, emboldens the owner as he enters the fray. T he power of the designs were also thought to frighten the enemy to such a degree that he was caused to flee (Schneebaum 1990:37). The iconic images derived from creatures of the natural world associated with head- hunting, a cornerstone of Asmat belief and ritual that persisted well into this century, were understood by the carver and his tribe. Although rival groups lived in geographic and cultural proximity, it is unclear to me if the symbolism of the designs were understood bv the opposition with specificity. More likely these symbols were viscerally experienced through the visual as generalized declarations ol power. fig. 5 (no. 22) “Suture- like ' repute on a Bontoc shield (detail) Collection of Rodger Dashow. Boston. Mass. Photo: Stephen \ odder. Boston College The image of the aso. a mythical heast, is considered to he a visual hybrid of dog and dragon. Like the demonic head, it appears frequently in the various Dayak cultures of Borneo. Its origins have been variously linked to the Karen tribes of Burma (. McBain 1981:124 ), and. by Hiue Gilderns, to an adaptation of the dragon found on Chinese trade ceramics. Some writers trace it to the early Dongson culture of Southeast Asia and see overlays of Indian and Hindu motifs modified by plants anti fauna native to Indonesia ( Tay lor 1992:168) . Researchers generally agree that the a so functioned as a protective image against malevolent spirits, which may explain its presence on shields, baby carriers and houses. On this striking Kayan shield (no. 5 pi. Ill ), the aso diagonally traverses the entire front. The asymmetry of t he composition lends dynamism to the image which broadcasts a surging elan that alerted the enemy to the supernatural strength of its bearer. The Dayak shield (no. 2) integrates abstracted aso motifs that configure the fanged countenance that dominates the front. These images were made not only to scare the enemy but to do him actual harm. The reverse of these shields (nos. 2, 4. 5 pi. Ill ) fac- ing the bearer are less threatening. I he carnivorous faces are supplanted by charming human figures, tendrils and plant derived designs. The dynamic and sinuous visual language of these shields speaks of the fecundity of living tilings, and the entwinement of the human, natural and spirit worlds (Taylor 1991:166). This approach is typical of Dayak art and craft. 1 cautiously suggest this as an example of how a visual style that reflects a world view of one society (Dayak), can lie similarly interpreted within a different (western) aesthetic- cultural system. Display is another characteristic of shields explored in this exhibition. The term is here employed as it is in common usage to mean to exhibit, to flaunt, to give prominence to, or to make an arrangement to please the eye. Among the Kayan Dayak. display, in the service of identity, is exempli- fied in the use of both the aso and the tendriled demonic figure. These images were usually reserved for members highly placed in the social strata. An aso design tattooed on the thigh of a Kayan woman identified her as a member of the higher classes. According to the Kayan, tattoo designs acted as torches to the next world and without them the future would be one of total darkness (McBain 1981:124). So, too. this image displayed on a shield, speaks both of protection and t lie identity of the bearer. Although the warrior was not necessarily of high birth, he fought for a noble family and was strengthened by this identifica- tion. The chiefs of noble families (believed to be closer to the deities), enlisted the spiritual forces of the ancestors for the benefit of the entire clan (Feldman 1985:114). This Trobriand Island shield from the Massim area of New Guinea (no. 44) also demonstrates how the use of display as identity functions as empowerment. According to Malinowski, (1920) most battle- shields were unadorned and only a few great warriors earned the privilege of carrying embellished shields into battle. The painted shields indicated the status of the warriors who carried them and sig- naled a challenge to opposing forces. It is unlikely that the intricate design could be read with specificity by the opposition. Rather, the entire shield functioned as a broadly displayed emblem of identity. I he intricate design repeats itself with blueprint regularity from shield to shield suggesting that some mean- ing was at stake for the makers. The abstracted birds, plants, fish and patterns of natural phenomena have been identified as the raw data that may have originally generated sym- bolic resonance. It is thought that, at an earlier time, the motifs might have been the visual narrative of an ancient legend ( Schmitz 1969:77). As 0 Hanlon points out in his essay for this catalogue, however, evidence regarding the meaning of these designs is inconclusive. Westerners often equate understanding with decoding and assign symbolic meaning where none was intended. .An unusual anti speculative interpre- tation that suggests the imagery is a stylization of female genitalia (Leach 1954), although theoretically plausible, reveals the difficulty of interpreting work of another culture from the outside. That this image, if it appeared in the contemporary ait world, would be interpreted in sexual terms is highly probable. Whether the artisan intended to convey this meaning remains unknown. Most Trobriand shields of this type strictly adhere to the traditional format. Yet the hands at work have left their imprints in the ineffable ways of gesture — the visible tracks of an artist’s persona grappling with the invisible. The Trobriand shield in this exhibit (no. 4-t) was chosen for its sense of fluidity and quiet intensity, conveyed through the relaxed, assured handling of the fine drawing. Others were comparatively diagrammatic, with a stiff scratchy quality" to the drawing that added nervousness, rather than intensity, to the overall feel. The use of complex design and linear rhythms wedded to curvilinear shape is typical of the visual conventions of the Trobriands. This can be seen in the dance shields called kaydiba fig. 6 Carring on a Trobriand Island boat Courtesy of Peabody Museum I larvard l niversity, Cambridge, Mass., photo no. N31391. acc. no. 1 122859 (no. 53), as well as the fanciful prows and outriggers of their large boats (fig. 6). Western writers have ven- tured the opinion that the prevailing interest in decorative display seen in the Massim area (including the Trobriand Islands) is viewed by the indigenous people as an end in itself. The strong tradition of specialist carvers in this region produces an aesthetic unity uncommon in New Guinea ( Guiart 1963:315). This Maring shield from New Guinea (no. 35) remains as mysterious and enigmatic to me today as it was on my first viewing. The patina evokes comparison with the burnished glow of an old master painting; the airy transparency creates a sense of space rather than surface. Enchanted by the traces of its original imagery flickering in the space, a few of us who know the piece have referred to it as the “firefly. Forgetting com- pletely its role in an earlier violent life, I transformed it into an object of almost mystical presence. It still has tremendous power for me, although I know now that no self-respecting Maring would ever venture into battle wit It a shield he thought so powerless. Even the subtly colored shield (no. 36) would have required repainting to restore its power, as was the practice, before its owner reentered it into formal war. Made to visually dazzle and confuse, the shields “communicate little informa- tion and have high stimulus value (Loir man 1973:22). Adorned with plumage, seen in great numbers, in motion, accompanied w ith chants and larger than the warriors they covered, they created an atmosphere of threat, kite meaning and power of the shields resides in the visual noise of the display rather than the sym- bolism of encoded images (Loir man 1973:13). Issues of protection, (tower and dis- play expressed through shields have been discussed in the context of the indigenous people who made and used them, and through the eves of a western artist enthralled by their remarkable visual power. Shields bear the imprint of responses to the forces which surrounded crucial events that endangered the bodies and spirits of their creators. The visual dynamism of these protective objects and the often charged refer- ence to the body, testify to their original and present importance as maps of human experience. INDONESIAN SHIELDS Steven A/pert. Dallas , Texas The Indonesian and East Malaysian shields in this exhibit ion were chosen primarily for their aesthetic content. As a connoisseur of Indonesian art. I particularly welcome this selection of fine shields. It accords well with my ow n sense of what are aestheti- cally pleasing objects, while at the same time displaying a number of important themes found in this regions ritual art. Throughout Indonesia, even today, the concept of adat , the wav of one’s ancestors, still greatly influences village life. Adat and historical isola- tion are among the reasons many shield-making communities contin- ued living much as their ancestors had for centuries until the imposition of colonial rule. Vi ith only several exceptions, the exhibited shields were the product of the region’s more historically isolated tribal groups. From among those groups, this exhibit includes superb examples from the Davak. Toraja, and Mentawai peoples. EUROPEAN CONTACT AND SHIELDS During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Indonesian 1 i shields appear in western collections in increasing numbers . 1 That period also marked the final phase of con- solidation of the Dutch East Indies into w hat would become present day Indonesia. A w estern sense of manifest destiny, the right to pacify, absorb, and “civilize native popula- tions inadvertently encouraged the collecting and exhibiting of native arms, not only as tangible symbols of conquest, hut also as objects that subtly suggested a savagery and inferiority of conquered peoples. The Sa dan Toraja shield (no. S pi. /) in this exhibition w as collected by no less an important fighting man than Major General van Heutzs. the subduer of the intractable Achinese of North Sumatra . 2 Reflecting the spirit of that time. Heutzs collection of militaria. including this shield, was given to the Leger Museum in Leiden in honor of Queen \\ ilhelmina. ' By the early twentieth century, the pacification of remote areas, by men like van Heutzs, had rendered the use of shields obsolete as implements of war. Both the number of types and the aesthetic embellishment of shields became greatly diminished as fig. ~ Enggano shield Collection Royal Tropical Institute (K.l.T.) Tropenrnuseum. Amsterdam, acc. no. 2-H--+ 19 fig. s Led Island shield Collection of Rijlcsmuseum voor \ olkenkunde. Leiden Photo courtesy ol Nice de Jonge they lost their function and protec- tive powers. Many shield traditions simply disappeared. On the other hand, a careful inspec- tion of museum inventories reveals that this was when most of the very finest surviving shields were collect- ed. Also, it is in these older museum collections that one usually finds examples of rare pieces from now extinct traditions. The painted shields from Enggano and Leti Islands {figs. 7, 8) are illustrations of seldom seen shields that do not exist in either American museum or private collections. In a few cases, shields have been recent Iv located in Indonesia that are unknown in older European collections. One such piece, where no other example can he found in a museum context, is an unusual shield from Ataoro Island that 1 collected in Timor as recently as 1080. illustrated in Indonesian Primitive Art (. Barbier 1984: ISO- 13 /). This shield had been lovingly kept by an elderly kepala desa. or village headman, under his bed. Formerly, it was used in a victory dance that celebrated the homecoming of a victorious war party.' 1 During the era of colonial adminis- trations, until approximately the eve of World War II, old shields, and finely made new ones, were collected by a small number of colonials. Somerset Maugham, in more than one of his stories set in Borneo, described walls in a colonial s bunga- low that were decorated with native weapons and shields painted with “grotesque’ faces. Even in the nine- teenth century, Dayak shields were already popular collectibles. There are examples of shields in museums from this period which appear to have been freshly made by villagers at or near the time of their encounter with an expedition or an earlv collector. Consequently, it is not always easy to ascertain whether a shield was intended for native use, made to be traded, or sold as a curio. Comparing this exhibit's two Pagai Island shields, the Peabody shield {no. 13) is less carefully made than the more complex and evocative ex-Groeneveldt Collection shield {no. 1-f pi. II). Is the Peabody shield simply the work of an inferior hand? Perhaps, but there are other anom- alies that characterize this piece as being different. The headless creature with no tail, and the shield’s number of spirals, do not pictorially corre- spond to any other early documented specimens in Dutch museum collec- tions. Even more unusual is the technique used for applying the designs to the Peabody shield. On it, those designs are freely drawn. On the other shields, the spirals are traditionally applied using a piece of coiled vine as a stamping device ( personal communication , Schefold 1995). Headhunting did not cease in Mentawai until about 1915. Even though the Peabody shield was received by the Museum in 1901, 20 there is still the distinct possibility that it was made for sale and never used bv a Pagai Islander in combat. That this shield still strikes us as elegant reflects the fact that it was made at a time when there was still a vibrant tradition of shield making on Pagai Island. In other areas where shields did not disappear soon after colonial contact, the designs begin to reflect a general process of acculturation. A good comparison for noting change in the design content on shields can be seen on the two incised shields from the Toraja of Central Sulawesi. The older one (no. 8 pi. I) is a classic piece whose design is well integrated and uses traditional motifs. The other (no. 7) is from the final phase of this group’s traditional shield making, c. 1925. and depicts a surprising new element, the Dutch royal crown. On any given island, one of the first orders of business for the Dutch was to curtail tribal warfare. In matters calling for bloodshed, tribal law was soon replaced by Dutch law. As an adopted symbol of power and authority, the Dutch crown is rather eommandinglv placed at the center and top of the second shield. Sitting on stylized buffalo horns and flanked by a very traditional design of pa bu- ll/ londong , or cock feathers, the crown adds potency to the traditional lexicon of Toraja symbols found on this shield. Interesting as this may be. from a strictly aesthetic point of view, composition and the character of individual images becomes altered on newer shields. Shields made after colonial subjugation are not as fine as those made prior to prolonged contact with Europeans. TRIBAL INDONESIANS AND TIIEIR SHIELDS In the western sense, shields were never perceived bv their makers as being beautiful works of art. Rather, a traditional shield maker probably would have experienced a sense of fineness or completeness that emanated more from the act. or process, that existed between the craftsman and his material than the resulting object. If this "process’ went well, then the product was good, and admired by others. 5 Ethnographer Reimar Schefold notes that Mentawaian artistic creations express the "fulfillment of an object’s essence (Taylor and Aragon 1991: 29). In this traditional process, an individual s creativity was of minor importance. The wide range of quality of shields in tribal Indonesia reflects the fact that there was not a class of professional shield makers, although some successful artisans did make shields for others on a barter basis. A fine shield would have been praised primarily for its usefulness. \\ hen commenting on the deficien- cies of Dayak armor, Brooke Low, an early observer, wrote in 1848 that a Davak’s "reliance is placed upon the shield (Roth 1896:128). Bv carefully looking at the Indonesian shields in fig- 9 Nias warrior replete in his golden splendor Collection Royal Tropical Institute (K I T.) Tropenmuseum. Amsterdam this exhibit, and bv considering form and function, one can begin to appreciate their technical subtleties. F or example, shields from Nias are tapered in such a way that allowed well armored warriors die space to throw spears and then use the shield as a balanced parrying device against an enemy’s sword. Note the grip on the Nias shield ( fig. I. no. II). It is carefully cut in the manner that a glove might be tailored to an individ- ual’s hand. This tight fit cushioned an opponent’s blows and lessened the likelihood that the shield would be knocked away in hand-to-hand combat . Diverse martial strategies also fostered an ingenious repertoire of shield types. F or instance, the Dayaks used large shields to protect their bodies as they attempted to set lire to the pylons of besieged long houses ( Mundy 1848 11:69). They also employed small, light-weight ovoid shields (no. /), effective against blowpipe attacks and close encoun- ters that permitted limited space for maneuvering. The most common form of Dayak shield is the kliau (nos. 2 , 4, 5 pi. III. no. 6 pi. If). Fit is type of light, wooden shield was " not meant to receive a spear point, but to divert the spear bv a twist of the hand (Loir 1S48.-2I2). Referring to swordplay, John Dalton, another early eyewitness to native combat, wrote in 1828 : “The Diaks in fighting always strike and seldom thrust (Moore 1837). Thus, the horizontal rattan bands on kliau not only strengthened the shield, but allowed a clever combatant to snare an opponent’s mandau , or sword, in its bindings. According to Bishop McDougall. this act provided the brief moment necessary to dispatch an enemy’s head from his body (McDougall 1863:ii32) . In bis book, Ten Years In Sarawak. Charles Brooke describes hundreds of Dayaks dressed in their war costumes and bent on revenge “vocif- erating at the top of their voices, declaring that they would rest with their forefathers, or die, rather than not have the blood of the enemy. Their spitting and spluttering of vengeance was astonishing’ (Brooke 1866:351). Looking at the elaborate costumes and martial habits of the Davak peoples, it is not difficult to understand whv nineteenth century writers, such as Henry Ling Roth, romantically equated Dayak warfare with Homeric combat (Roth 1896: 121-124). Indeed, many early European observers, despite their horrendous bias, commented on the courage and fighting ability of the warriors whose shields we now appreciate. Shields and weapons were part of a warrior’s personal ensemble that might also include a distinctive war jacket, ornaments, and elaborate headgear depending on his prowess or social rank. Old photographs of these warriors show them to be strik- ingly fierce and dignified ( fig. 9). Imagine confronting a host of similarly arrayed warriors gesturing with shields and weapons in an atti- tude of display and intimidation. Besides intimidation, the elaborate costumes of tribal Indonesians reflected a mental state where there was no diyision between the world of humans and the spirit world. As mentioned, form and function were the primary and practical forces behind the creation of a fine shield. Yet. as evidenced by the iconography of the three shields described below, the most visually compelling pieces are those whose painted themes bridged the natural and supernatural worlds of their makers. E M B L E M S () I PERSONAL DISPLAY: A KAYAN DAYAK SHIELD Like many Davak shields, the painted outer imagery on this Kayan shield (no. 5 pi. ///), was meant to psycho- logically confuse and repel an enemy. The most common design on painted klian are demon-like faces surrounded by tufts of hair assembled from the dispatched heads of enemies (no. -f). However, this Kayan shield’s imagery, an early example of the genre from central Sarawak, is much more rare. Its composition reflects a fragmented mythical creature with a riveting Cyclopean eye. In the heat of battle, did a Dayak warrior see the beast emerging, dissolving, or reinventing itself? However per- ceived. in any of its forms, such an ethereal uncertainty must have made a most terrifying and arresting visage to opponents for whom transforma- tion was a literal and common event. Conversely, if the front of a Davak shield displayed aggressive visual imagery aimed at an enemy, what did the inside designs signify? Were those images for personal reflection, or did they in some way represent a form of supernatural power that was intended to protect, aid. or extort a warrior to valor and victory? The back of this particular Kayan shield (no. 5) depicts two slightly different dragon-like beasts interfacing with one another. These mythical beasts, called aso. are commonly found in Davak art and were generally thought to confer protection upon those who possessed this image. Other shields depict rows of human- like figures or abstract anthropomor- phic designs. Sadlv, w ithout the long departed painters explications, we w ill never know the deepest mean- ings of their designs. The designs on certain textiles bear interesting comparison to the designs on some shields. Among the Iban Davak. the most sacred of all textiles are those known as pun sungkit. 6 These blankets were only used in conjunction with head hunting. Traditionally, pua sungkit were displayed when sending a warrior off to battle, and for receiving a warrior s capture of a pa/a. or fresh human head. Ibans honored these blankets with ritual offerings and with pan tun. or sacred chants. By identifying w ith the central theme or image on a pua sungkit. a warrior fig 10 Pua snngkit with coiled, dragon-like beasts (detail) Court esv of Dallas Museum of Art. the Steven G. Alpert Collection of Indonesian Textiles, Gift of the Eugene and Margaret McDermott Fund. 1088. 12-t.McD could expropriate its power in his quest for heads. Two of the rarest forms of pua snngkit depict cinta ngoban. dragon-like beasts in coitus surrounded by food offerings ( fig. 10), and gcijai antu , which are giant spirit beings. 8 As well as being protective, these themes served as potent talismans for their owners. Drake states that the dying of textiles is called ken on indu, or “women’s war. because “weaving ceremonial textiles and headhunting are perilous and parallel ventures {Taylor and Aragon 1991:166). Given their col- lateral association with head hunt- ing. there are correlations between the similar designs found on both pua snngkit and on the reverse of similarly painted war shields. HEAD HUNTING: A PAG A I ISLAND SHIELD \\ hile the front of the Kayan shield presumably telegraphed visual messages to an opponent, the story depicted on both sides of the Pagai Island shield {no. 14 pi. II) would seem, by the nature of its scale and fine drawing, to have been primarily for the benefit of its owner. On the reverse side, two plumed warriors reach for their parittei , or curved-handled daggers, their pos- tures suggesting the inception of an aggressive confrontation. The impact of this face-to-face encounter is further dramatized bv the figures placement within a womb-like space which is vibrantly framed bv repeat- ing bands of chevrons. Conversely, this shield’s front depicts a pair of monitor lizards and a gib- bon monkey. The Mentawai Islanders dislike monitor lizards because they steal chickens. Gibbons perpetrate a more c hill ing style of thievery. As the nocturnal companions of forest spirits, gibbons can become jungle sirens, who. with their alluring voices, steal souls. Spiralling designs, or pagalak. whose meaning are now obscure, are said to represent the beak of a parrot. In former times, however, these symbols were associ- ated with head hunting ( personal communication, Schefold 1995). In general, in Indonesia, the taking of heads was believed to promote fecundity, and to enrich life through death. Other noted motives included revenge, land disputes, providing servants for a deceased notable, allaying epidemics, and insuring the success of important rituals and funeral rites. RITUAL THEMES: A TO RAJ A SHIELD For the Sa dan Toraja. the making of shields, and the application of certain designs, reflected a highly ritualized culture. The Sa dan divid- ed their world into east and west. Ceremonies of the east reflected life, rice-growing, heat, and light. Ceremonies of the west reflected death, cold, and darkness. It is a common notion among Indonesian tribal groups that oppositional forces must be properly propitiated and ceremonially balanced in order to 24 re-establish an individual s, or village’s, sense of harmony. Shields, or halulang , were generally associated with the west: the realm of darkness. A Sa dan war shield could only be fashioned from the hide of a sacrificial buffalo procured at a death feast (Nooy-Paltn 1986:315). On this Toraja shield (no. 8 pi. I) the upper band depicts a pair of eve-like sun disks that are separated by a vertical row of black hens and roosters. These "upper world creatures face west as a sacrifice to the ancestors. The central panel evokes a martial theme or story. Below, in the lowest band, the central human figure was a notable of prowess and wealth. This is indicated by his helmet which is decorated with tanduk gallang that imitate buffalo horns. For the Toraja, buffalos and pigs are the most important sacrificial animals. \\ hi le the actual identity of this figure and the meaning of this panel are lost, in its earthiness it exalts status, wealth, and ritual feasts. SHIELDS: OTHER USAGES In Indonesia, there is also a long his- tory" of shields being used by warriors engaged in mock combat or martial dances. A thousand years separate a frieze from Borobudur, c. 800 A.D., (fig- 11) showing warriors with shields engaged in mock combat, and a lithograph ( fig- 12), depicting the Dutch resident of Burn Island observing the performance of two contestants handling parrying shields. Note that the combatant’s shields are similar to the Moluccan shield (no. 10) in this exhibition. Even today, among some Davak groups, men perform dances with shields and swords accompanied bv sweetlv melodic Inte playing or pulsating gongs. \X hen the dancer is a particularly talented old timer, both he and the audience become enraptured, as if hypnotically trans- ported back to the days of endemic warfare, heroes, and head hunting. Images of shields are occasionally seen on other items that had protec- tive connotations. For example, an unpublished and very unusual lban Dayak pua kombu , or ceremonial blanket (fig- 13), now in the Fowler Museum of Cultural History, has rows of faces that are very similar to those found on the Kenvah shield (no. 4). In addition to weavings, shields are also depicted on gold and silver Sumbanese house trea- sures (Rodgers I9S5./85, 294. 295: llohngren and Spertus 1989:32, 33). and on a few surviving examples of traditional wooden statuary from the Nias and Dayak peoples (Taylor and Aragon 1991 .S3: Feldman 1990: fig- // Frieze depicting mock combat Borobudur Temple, Central Java c. 800 AD Photo: Claire I lolt fig. 12 Presentation of mock combat on linen Island Voyage de la Corvette I \strolabe lithograph Paris, 1838 .1. Dumont Dnrville fig. 13 An Iban Dayak ceremonial wearing displaying shield images Courtesy of Fowler Museum of Cultural History. Los Angeles, no. X81-1452 224). This having been said, the incorporation of the shield motif in weaving, jewelry, and statuary is quite uncommon. Bertlings well known photograph from Nederlcindsch-Indie Oud & Nieuw of a large Apo-Kayan figure is one of the few images in situ of a shield- bearing statue in a protective posture (. Bertling 1927-28.-XII). A unique Iban figure that I collected in 1981 in Betong, Sarawak, illustrated in Indonesian Primitive Art (Barbier 1984:94-95 ), likewise grasps a shield in a manner that powerfullv conveys a sense of protection. Like a sentinel guarding his post, this charm was said to protect the occupants of a longhouse by "walking the mai, or the dwelling’s interior verandah, at night. 1 ’ Given the shield’s physical and psychological association with protection, its use, or the use of its image, understandably appears in the shamanic practices of tribal Indonesians. For example, in Mentawai, people who died during head hunting expeditions have souls that paddle their spectral canoes across the skv. Contact with the water dripping from their paddles, lujan panas , is extremely dangerous to the well-being of the living. A shaman, or kerei. must create a makeshift shield in order to protect his patients from am contact with lujan panas. Only at this point can the kerei begin to sing a ritual song that will send the malevolent waters back to the heavens ( personal com- munication , Schefold 1995). In the l ( )70s, while traveling hi the tribal areas discussed in this article, I was interested in shields, but rarely saw them in situ. Vi hen a decaying and faded shield was taken down from tin 1 soot encrusted rafters for a closer view, it was quite an unusual sight. Once, surrounded bv a ring ol crouching and curious Iban, 1 w as handed just such a shield. To every- one’s amazement, and to my own consternation, the wood was so friable that it literally disintegrated as it was passed from one hand to another. For most of tribal Indonesia, the last w arriors used shields some 70 to 100 years ago. Thinking about that era, I am reminded that a deceased warrior in Mentawai could be memo- rialized bv having an image of his hand carved onto his former shield. For the living, seeing such an image helped to keep the warrior’s memory alive. In turn, when those who had remembered him died, and the shield was no longer associated with any one particular person, it was simply thrown away. Unlike the fate of those discarded Mentawai shields, Protection. Power and Display offers a rare opportunity' to glimpse the sty listic range and the aesthetic quali- ty of a few ol this area’s shields. I was fortunate to know a few elderly w arriors who as youths had thrown spears at the invading Dutch, or had actually taken a head in battle. They are gone, but the artistic vitality of these shields remain as an eloquent reminder of their once colorful and now vanished world. NOTES: 1 The earliest collection date for a shield that I could find from Indonesia was 1710. a Moluccan shield now in the Danish Royal Museum. 1 lie British Museum lists 12^ Indonesian and Malaysian shields in its records. The earliest entry was made in 1855. Of their shields, -t-t w ere received bv the Museum in the nineteenth century. (>2 arrived in the twentieth century, and the date for 21 specimens is unknown. According to .1.1 1. van Brakel. Head of Collections at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, the oldest shields in their collection date from the end of the nineteenth century ( personal communication, can Brakel) . ~ Johannes Benedictus van Heutzs (1851-1924). After the Ajeh Wars ended in 1908. Heutzs became the Governor General of the Dutch East Indies (1904-1909). The Leger. or Army Museum, is no longer in Leiden and is now housed in Delft ( personal communication. Mr. Loed van Basse/). Queen Wilhelmina (1880-1959) was Queen of the Netherlands from 1890-1948. 4 Transcribed from the notes of Mr. Goh Jin Liong of kupang. Timor, by S. G. Mpert. 1980. A few expert old w eavers were still alive in Sarawak in the early 1970s. W hen we would gather to discuss the merit of a particular blanket, the discussion would turn to the process of weaving: its difficulty, the dying, and the design. W hile we may have initially approached the blankets from different points of reference (my sense of beaut \ versus their sense of a difficult, vet finely-made design) we invariably appreciated the same pieces. There are three pun sungkit. one sungkit jacket, and two sungkit used for receiving human heads in the Steven G. Alpert Collection of Indonesian Textiles in the Dallas Museum of Art. Sungkit pieces w ere rarelv seen until the 19^0s. Because they were sacred, these textiles are usually absent from older collections. Weaving a pun sungkit was an arduous and dangerous task. Onlv special persons w ho obtained spiritual permission (having had the fortitude to communicate with the universe) could fabricate these textiles ( personal communication. Sutlive 1995). The Dallas Museum s pun sungkit (acc. no. 1983.131) from the Katibas River in Sarawak depicts rows of human figures and repeated gajai antu. Before I was giv en permission to acquire this piece. I had to sleep with it and report mv dreams the next day to the owners assembled family. I his was deemed proper as the blanket's owner was a very old lady w hose husband had been a manarig, or shaman, of some renown. Dallas sungkit jacket (acc. no. 1983.134,) w as named: ‘ Biiah gajai antu kenah ngavau laban Kavan or " I he jacket of eight giant spirits ( gajai antu) for battle against the Kavan. ( field notes. S. G. Alpert 19S0). ' In describing this figures locomotion along the longhouses ruai. [ban elders used the word jalai. or to w alk. ( field notes , S. G. Alpert 19SI). no. / Malaysia, Borneo, Sarawak. Iban people Collected 1 »\ Reverend Arms. 1837 Wood, rattan and bamboo 1 1: 24.75 in. Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Mass., acc. no. E53465 Photo: Mark Sexton 28 no. 2 (front: left , back: ri\ Professor A. E. Burton. 1001 W ood, pigment and gourd H: 40 in. Courtesx Peabodv Essex Museum. Salem, Mass., acc. no. P4i2'28 Photo: Mark Sexton 35 BEYOND SHIELDS Exploring cm Indonesian Aesthetic of the Protective Arts Susan Rodgers , College of the Holy Cross O ~ J S6. , *iiinuMimiMunDminimiiiin y?o-. t-f Parompa sadun (or baby-carrier sling) North Sumatra. Sipirok. Angkola Batak people Photo: Joel Villa. Holy Cross College INTRODUCTION Shields from Indonesian societies outside Java and Bali can certainly he studied as things in themselves, or in their immediate local contexts as artworks of war or ceremonial display from a specific ethnic culture, such as Mentawai or Nias. Shields can also be examined for their symbolic structure, as E.R. Leach (1954) shows in his familiar essay “A Trobriand Medusa? Leach’s Freudian stvle of interpretation of his Melanesian material might well be illuminating in the study of Indonesian art. However, another wav of looking at Indonesian shields can also be rewarding: the view from a comparative perspective that places them in relation to a much wider range of protective arts, so to speak, that often surrounds them in any Indonesian culture and goes beyond the militarv realm, per se. These protective arts range in form from sculpture to dance to jewelry to ritual costumes to body decorations (such as tattoos), and beyond that into certain types of oratory and village healing repertoires. \\ hen seen with- in this wide and. to western onlook- ers, somewhat unexpected range of artworks and activities. Indonesian shields emerge as just one form of armor among many. Fortifying the human body with actual shields, or through the aid of more subtle protective devices (such as amulets or ritual costumes glow- ing with gold spangles or shiny head- gear, to bedazzle enemies), once seemed prudent within Indonesian village aesthetic systems that drew heavilv on ideas of bodily and spiri- tual vulnerability to supernatural harm and danger. Also important here were ideas of death and the regeneration of life, and assumptions about how individuals and communi- ties could fortify themselves against human and mystical attack, as well as calamities such as plagues, bv concentrating power (often associat- ed with light) within their temples, houses, and bodies. 1 Encircling protected spaces with fences, cordons of sacred textiles (fig. /-#). and house walls was also a crucial idea. If this interpretation is correct, and Indonesian shields once partici- pated in wider, but more hidden, armamentaria for protecting the 36 threatened, fragile human body, it may still be possible to imaginatively reconstruct some of die essentially religious systems of thought that once undergirded shield traditions in places such as interior Kalimantan, for example, and the islands off the west coast of Sumatra. In these areas, actual shield production and use largely disappeared for several reasons: the encroachment of the Dutch colonial state into hinterland regions from the mid to late 1800s, pacification of local, inter-village warfare during the same period, the abolition of headhunting, and large-scale conversions to Islam and missionary Christianity. Although shields disappeared in early European contact times in many places (or became transformed into objects of antiquarian interest for local peoples and tourists alike), the other protective arts — such as guardian statues and amulet orna- ments — often persisted in some form to the present dav. The indige- nous religious worldviews that inspired their creation (if not their contemporary use) can be studied by anthropologists through ethnographic fieldwork, although Indonesian Outer Island shield ideologies are largely lost in many areas. 2 Large aesthetic themes about the vulnerability of the human body to supernatural incursions and the utility of various material, choreo- graphed, written, and oral charms to protect against such circumstances may crosscut Indonesian ethnic differences. Outside the Indianized court states of Java and Bali, the country has at least 300 ethnic soci- eties with distinct languages and indigenous religious backgrounds pre-dating today’s near-universal conversions to the world religions. Underlying such differences, howev- er, are certain common aesthetic ideas, no surprise in this deeply interactive region with its centuries of close trade contact among islands and between highland regions and coastal areas. Outer Island Indonesia forms a culture area of some unifor- mity in terms of indigenous religious worldviews; this is a culture area generally understood by anthropolo- gists to be quite distinct from Melanesia, although border regions such as parts of eastern Indonesia can hardly be typed clearly. In Beyond the Java Sea: Art of Indonesia's Outer Islands (1 C ) ( >1), anthropologists Paul Taylor and Lorraine Aragon identify several common functions of, and under- lying assumptions about, art in the Indonesian societies outside the old court states {Taylor and Aragon 1991:27-50). They point first to the centrality of gift exchange and gift- giving expectations in village art. Community harmony and human and agricultural fertility are often said to flow from a carefully pat- terned series of gifts and their precise countergifts. These circulate among houses at such times as marriages and funerals (ceremonies that are conceptually linked in this region). fig. 15 Buffalo horns from past feasts East Sumba Photo: Susan Rodgers One typical pattern entails a ‘holy, liigh-status, wife-giving house bestowing women, textiles, and blessings on their indebted, lower status, secular wife-receiver house. The latter give back bridewealth (often metal goods, such as gold ornaments, or weapons), livestock, and physical labor services to their w ives girlhood households and extended lineage. Put another way mam Indonesian village art objects such as jewelrv and textiles are created to he given away, to cement houses into economic and political alliances. Other sorts of goods, deemed house treasures, stav w ithin a lineage and are passed down from generation to generation. These heirlooms sometimes include trade goods, such as old Chinese ceramics, which have a patina of the exotic to them. (Indonesian village art is deeplv svncretistic and appreciative of outside influences.) Other Indonesian societies do not have asymmetrical marriage alliance of the sort just described: in interior Kalimantan and highland Sulawesi, cognatic descent and rather fragile, shifting local alliances prevail. Objects for contacting ancestors, Tavlor and Aragon continue, are often seen as altars, that is, as entrv points into a sacred realm. Recent ancestors are sometimes seen as benefactors for their lineage descen- dants (when given proper respect, that is, through periodic, lavish animal sacrifice (easts) {fig- 15). A larger spirit world lies beyond the spirits of the recent dead. Shamans can contact these spirits w ith the aid of chants that relate long mvthic journeys and tell of the shamans efforts to summon their spirit com- panions. 1 Shamans often enter their trances bedecked w ith protective paraphernalia. Tavlor and Aragon go further to highlight several common aesthetic design tendencies found throughout the region. Village “art tends to he eminentlv functional, particularly in a ritual sense (that is. these objects tend not to he made for sheer aes- thetic enjoyment). Artists often follow strict taboos as thev seek to allow the art objects essence to “work itself out (reflecting a respect for a populous spirit world). In addi- tion, although individual artists seek to duplicate “traditional patterns with exactitude, in practice village art show s great creativitv. A slight asvmntetry of pattern is often prized, and the meaning of a textile or O sculpture does not lie so much in its overt designs (snake figures, bird motifs, and so on) as it does in the supeniaturallv ’-charged ritual processes used to produce the work. For instance, the power of a Sumbanese ikat cloth (that is, one made with a resist dve technique) from Kodi society springs from such aspects of textile production as the preparation of spirituallv dangerous indigo dyes, w hose powers are associated with the creative forces of wombs ( Hoskins 19S9). Onlv older women are deemed spirituallv strong 38 enough to control the powers of the indigo vats, or indeed of early pregnancy, through their midwifery services. The cloth arts do tend to be women’s work in Outer Island Indonesia, and textiles themselves (soft, pliable, open-weave, semi- durable) are associated with women’s bodies and the feminine virtues of binding houses together through marriage exchange. 4 These life- enhancing female arts are sometimes counterposed to their male comple- ments: metal weapons and other hard arts of war and hunting, designed to take life. The full range O o of Indonesian art objects, closely tied to birth, grow th, death, decay, and loss in these ways, indexes deep emotional registers. Inspired bv such comparativist findings as Tavlor and Aragon’s. I explore in this essay several of the thematic dimensions that lead out- ward from shields and connect them to other arts and ritual actions. This approach asks readers to consider the possibility that shield traditions in places like Mentawai or Nias or the Davak areas may once have been parts of w hat linguist A. L. Becker (1979) and ethnomusicologist Judith Becker (1979) term Indonesian coher- ence systems. That is, highly redun- dant symbolic universes in which the core idea of one domain of a village art world, such as gong music, would have been repeated and reiterated in slight Iv altered, complementary form in another domain, such as dance, the spatial layout of villages, or even local ideas about the structure of cal - endrical time. To take an example elegantly examined l>\ Judith Becker (1979), the musical patterns of gong music in the Javanese gamelan orchestra are conceptualized as a set of interlocking cycles, the same cycles used in calculating Javanese ritual time. Music and calendrical reckoning. Becker writes, are inntii- allv constitutive of each other. The individual in such artistic worlds is surrounded by multiple "replays of a few core ideas, which are some- times presented via music, sometimes via choreography, sometimes in house architecture, sometimes in ritual costumes, and so on. Seen this way. Indonesian t illage art universes are extraordinarily sell -referential communication systems, w ith dense webbings of allusions connecting seemingly separate spheres. If Becker and Becker are correct, Indonesian village arts cohere in vibrant symbol- ic wavs, and in terms of ritual action as well. The protective arts may once have formed such a system of ritual communication for imagining the person in a world of threat. \\ hat specific form did these protec- tive arts tend to take? This varied, but most village repertoires included healers charms; amulet jewelry worn 1>\ small children; various soul- protecting, woven, decorated textiles (particularly important for persons going through dangerous transition times, between social statuses); and shining metal ornaments once worn l>\ warriors and now bv dancers fig. K> Armed A ias war dancer Courtesy of Rijksinuseum voor \ olkenkunde. Leiden .39 Z fig. 17 A reflective sanggori Cental Sulawesi Courtesy ol the Barbier- Mueller Museum. Geneva, no. 70 ( fig. 16). This latter social trajectory from actual military engagements to dance forms is complex: many cultures, such as Nias, had both inter-village warfare and ritualized, mock combat dances during feasts of merit. Today, such dances have re-emerged as entertainment for tourists. In both real and pre- touristic dance combat (both heavily ritualized activities), war costumes w ere designed to have a certain “power shine to them. That is, they often included highly polished disks, chestplates, and head ornaments all manufactured to cast back attacks by temporarily blinding an enemy and throwing his own power concen- tration into disarray. The curved, serpent -like sanggori headpiece, once used in various regions of central Sulawesi, for instance, was one such martial ornament (fig- 17). Ni as battle dress worked in a related way. The warrior s extravagant array of spiked headgear, battle shirt, epaulets, belts, necklaces, and large earrings visually overwhelmed opponents, probably leaving them awestruck and thus vulnerable to defeat. Parade wear, in other words, was an indispensable part of battle strategy. In some Indonesian cultures, such as the Toba Batak. village protective arts also included squat stone sculp- tures positioned at the edges of settlements. Carved house decora- tions and mythic animal sculptures, such as wooden roosters, were hung on the house as sentinels (fig. 18). Before the time of Christian conver- sion (starting in the 1850s). these Batak arts all served to announce the approach of both human and supernatural danger. Beyond warning vulnerable, and supposedly virtuous, individuals, households, or whole communities of impending catastro- phe, these objects were also once thought to foster physical and spiri- tual invulnerability. In such schemes of thought, persons (at least, noble male persons) and houses were often seen to be symbolic reflections of each other. Each had powerful central spaces, upper heights (associ- ated with a holy skv and ancestral times), and limbs for support (that is, legs and houseposts). Much as the individual human needed an array of armor, so too did the home. In prosperous, relativelv centralized chief doms or small states, house/ humanity allusions sometimes became quite elaborate. In Nias’s high villages, for instance, fueled -to bv income from a late eighteenth- century slave trade, nobles built houses that were at once grand homes, human persons, representa- tions of an idealized village social order, and models of the cosmos as well, with an l pperworld, a Lowerworld. and a mundane plane in between ( Feldman 1979; Feldman et al 1990). The Nias village was a kind of sacred mountain and the Nias house, with its high, sloped roof (the house s heavens) assumed the same form. The village chief affected a high hat. shaped like the roof of his house. I he artistocratic house gained much of its sacred power from its location at the tense intersection of opposing realms, such as skv world and underworld, male and female, and a world of forest spaces and beasts counterposed to the human village. As an intermediary between complementary oppositions of this sort, the house became an altar: a passageway between planes of exis- tence in a sacred center between opposing realms. Artwork inside the house further empowered it. bv highlighting the home’s ambiguous, two-in-one character. For instance, realistically carved wooden monkeys clambered down the inside walls, indicating the noble family’s power to control the inherent dangers of bringing a forest creature into human spaces (via art). Forest and village normally would remain quite dis- tinct. Similarly, the Nias house also “wore a full complement of male and female ornaments in the form of delicate relief carvings of jewels on plaques mounted to interior walls (fig. 19). Thus armored with power signs, the Nias house shielded its human occupants from danger. Also crucial in rendering the Nias noble house a supernatural safe haven w as the practice of planting enemy heads beneath the home as it was built. These houses w ere dedicated in stages, each celebrated and empow - ered w ith a feast that entailed the sacrifice of many pigs (Suzuki 1959). The death of enemies and sacrificial animals brought life and bounty to the empowered house. In many parts of outer island Indonesia, vulnerable individuals going through transition times such as infancy, w eddings, childbirth, or death (on the way to afterworlds) were also protected from attack by powerful spoken blessings. These charms were allied to danger- repelling shields w hich were con- structed of actual material goods such as wood, shell, and metal. With conversion to Islam and increasing literacy in the Arabic script, charms sometimes took written form. In Sumatra’s Batak societies, for instance, the Latin let- ters were introduced bv the colonial school system in many areas and, with some speed, began to crowd out the old village scripts, w hich had court-society and ultimately Sanskrit origins. W ith grow ing Latin alphabet literacy, village syllabaries sometimes took on runic overtones, which increased their value as a w ritten language of charms and curses (uses fig- Manuk-manuk (or protective house sculpture) Photo: Joel Villa. Holy Cross College -H fig 19 Carved panel of “ house jewelry Nias Courtesy of the Barbier-Mueller Museum, Geneva, no. 3270 Photo: Olto E. Nelson which predate colonial contacts in many areas). These syllabaries were sometimes used in conjunction with Arabic language spells. In fact, a Muslim tone resounds strongly through many Outer Island protec- tive ails systems. For instance, anti-colonial rebellions in Aceh and Minangkabau in the late 1800s and early 1900s were often couched in terms of Sufi mysticism, and rebels dressed in "invulnerable white costumes (as for holy war) and armed themselves with amulets, Arabic chants, and sacred martial arts moves {Young 1994). Related ways to help make the threatened body invulnerable to attack during rites of passage times included the martial arts dances mentioned above. These dances combined song with shiny ornaments and metal and cloth costumes. The latter were empowered by virtue of the fact that they combined a typical gift and countergift: hard, dense metal and soft, light, woven textiles. In weddings, the bride was often thought to be subject to soul loss or stall fracture, so to speak. Conse- quently, she was supposed to sil in benumbed silence, as she moved through her marriage ceremony which carried her from girlhood to adult status. In the southern Batak societies, the bride was correspond- ingly armed for this dangerous transition. That is, she was attired with military verve with daggers tucked into her metal belt, heavy textiles crossed over her chest, sharp 42 metal armlets, and a spectacular headdress of gold spangles and spikes, which threw off glints and reflections as she moved through every step of her wedding processions. Textiles were especially important protective devices in these contexts, since dye production and weaving were so closely associated with the conception and gestation of babies and healthy infant growth. These metaphors were quite explicit in many Indonesian cultures, which sometimes likened cutting a complet- ed cloth off the loom to a "birth of the textile and attributed a miscar- riage to the fetus’s “incomplete saturation, as with dyes in a dye vat {Hoskins 19S9). In light of such ideas about cloth and creativity, it made sense to assert that invalids could be healed by being touched w ith scraps of sacred textiles. The mentally ill could be soothed in much the same way. In village Java (whose older textile traditions have many connections to outer island practices and ideas), pregnant women had their lower abdomens wrapped tightly in protective lengths of batik. Indonesian textiles some- times were used to cordon off sacred spaces from regular secular ones, in adat ceremonies. {Ada! means ancient, inherited customs, but in practice adat systems are often invented traditions.) Ritual costumes in such ceremonies, which combine so many components of village aesthetic systems, deserve a more extended look and will be addressed later in this essav. But first, I would like to briefly consider how a whole panoplv of protective art forms worked together as a sys- tem. in a single culture, Angkola. where I have done most of ntv ethno- graphic fieldwork. I * * * * 6 Although I am not a specialist in village art (most of mv research has concentrated on issues of village ritual speech and the transition to print literacy), any fieldworker in Angkola encounters examples of protective arts at every turn in village adat , even today in these pronouncedlv monotheistic times in South Tapanuli. ANGKOLA 1$ AT A K PROTECTIVE VISIONS Soda dua tola opal lima ortoni pita. Pita saadat sae saada mara. (One-Two-Three-Foar-Five-Six-Seven, May yoa be seven generations free from misfortune.) I his perennial blessing, offered at feasts of honor or horja bv Angkola orators to families hosting such events, captures in miniature this southern Batak society’s protective ethos for shielding bodies, souls, houses, and villages front calamity. Saving the ritual formula in itself helps to convey the blessing s protec- tive effect, while invoking a lengthv span of lineage generation time implies that armoring a family against harm is by no means a simple, secular, present-day matter. Admittedly, though, the resolutelv monotheistic and self-consciousiv modernizing highland market town of Sipirok and its surrounding vil- lages seem to exist at < | u it e a concep- tual distance from an aesthetics of supernatural protection via charms, amulets, and sentinel statues sta- tioned at the edges of "vulnerable villages. Like Toba, Mandailing. and the rest of Angkola. Sipirok has long since converted to Islam (about ninety percent of residents) or Protestant Christianity (the remain- ing ten percent). Muslim conversion came during the Padri W ars of the 1820s, w hen Minangkabau forces pushed northward into what is now South and North Tapanuli. Christianity arrived with the Rhenish Mission, which established a pioneer mission station in Sipirok in the 1850s, and then moved north into Toba. Today, Sipirok Christians and Muslims both are frauklv pious and often quite literate in their theologi- cal texts. I he region has main hap pilgrims returned from Mecca, as well as after-school Arabic recitation schools and a Muhammadiyah school in town. The Christian community boasts a number of large, t a 1 1 - steepled churches, their ow n ethni- cally-based denomination of the old mission church, and their own ministers. At the other end of Sipirok from the old mission church and a large mosque stand several institu- tions of Indonesian nationalism: the civil district administrator's office, a police station, a county court, a small military post, and the pride of Sipirok since colonial times, a profusion of elementary and sec- ondary schools. For the most part, classrooms promote secular, even scientific visions of the world. Lying just off to the side of monothe- istic. nationalist, school-minded Sipirok, however, are more village- focussed adat visions of reality. Here blessings such as the one cited above, gain currency as ways to help insure family prosperity. Sipirok adat chiefs (ritual experts and orators) promote politically robust visions of their “ancient traditions as a heritage of high moral stan- dards. ritual speech excellence, discerning marriage standards and kin term usage, and, particularly, as a world where dangerous super- natural forces and living people’s proper relationships to their ancestral dead are given their due. This realm of adat continues to thrive, mostly via village and town horja feasts involving buffalo sacrifices. These feasts are often funded bv wealthy families who have long since moved to the Angkola diaspora in big cities such as Medan and Jakarta. Sipirok’s arts of protection are all rooted in this adat realm, and many continue to be relied upon to help maintain family and individual health and prosperity in the Muslim, Christian, and Indonesian national present. Village children, particularly notably beautiful or healthy ones (or children born after the death of a sibling), are often given lit tit' charms to wear around their necks, to fortify them against wasting illnesses and plasiks (supposed bloodsucking vampires who look like normal humans except for a few stigmata such as misshapen upper lips. Plasiks accost children in crowded marketplaces, “sucking out their vital forces. ) Prudent parents w ill guard against them, perhaps publically chastising a particularly lovely baby as ugly, to forestall witchcraft attacks by jealous neigh- bors. If a baby’s family has enough money to fund a modest adat feast to celebrate its birth, the household’s morn , or wife-giving house (the child’s mother’s original home), w ill come to the celebration bringing luck-enhancing foods and a soul- protection cloth for the newborn. Such tasks are mom's fundamental obligations to its “girl children, its anakboru , or wife-receiving houses. Mom is its anakboru 's spiritual protector: its provider of blessings, fertile women in each generation as brides, and soul-cloths. The latter are w oven by women and are thought to have female-like qualities (like brides, textiles link houses together, and. like the daughters of a house, woven cloths are produced in the home only to leave for another residence, upon marriage). Anakboru wife-receivers (that is, the baby’s father and that man’s immediate lineagemates) provide another sort of protection for their mom-, physical aid in times of battle (a reference to the past) and physical labor for mom's horja feasts. Wife-receiver men (who are ritually subservient to their mom) will literally get down on their hands and knees and serve food to their honored wife-providers throughout the horja. Anakboru men will also appoint several of their number to perform protective martial arts dances in front of processions of visiting niora from other villages, and “ in. Private Collection Extremely rare type of shield. Inscription on reverse reads, “Dayak Shield. BT. 01 Webster. Oct. 1896. P. 1339.” plate I (no. 15) Kalasag Philippines. Mindanao. Bagobo people Collected before 1 1 -+ Wood, pigment, hair and bamboo H: 44 in. I niversitv of Pennsylvania M usemn. Philadelphia. neg. no. T4 538 c2. acc. no. P2977 - plate VI (no. 47) Papua New Guinea, New Britain, Sulka people Belief-carved wood, pigment and rattan 1 1: 47.24 in. Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., acc. no. 33-32-70/130 Photo: Hillel Burger 54 plate I II (no. 43) Papua New Guinea. Astrolabe Bav. Grager Island Incised w ood and pigment D: 30 in. I he Field Museum. Chicago, neg. no. A112704c, ace. no. 37991 Photo: D. A. \\ bite plate illl (no. 3 1) Papua New Guinea, Papuan Gulf. Elema people Gollected by A.P. Goodwin, before 1801 Relief-carved w ood, pigment and vegetable fiber H: 44.00 in. Peabodv Museum. Harvard l University, Cambridge, Mass., acc. no. 91-6-70/50513 Photo: I lillel Burger 50 DIVINE SPHERES OF PROTECTION: Shields of the Philippines Fiorina II. Gapistrano-Baker, Columbia University An archipelago of over 7.000 islands, the Republic of the Philippines is situated southeast of the Asian mainland. Among die earliest descriptions of the Philippines are colonial accounts from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries when the islands were a colony of Spain. 2 Narratives by French and German visitors — notablv F. Jagor (1873), J. Montano (188-t). A. Marche (1886). and A. Schadenberg (1889) — are likewise valuable resources on late-nineteenth century traditions. W1 len the Philippines became an American colonv in 1898. expeditions were sent from the l nited States to collect specimens and ethnographic data, with the ultimate goal of enhancing American colonial rule through a greater knowledge of the colonized peoples. The majoritv of Philippine objects in American collections date to this period. One anthropologist sent to the new colonv was Fay-Cooper Cole (1913 and 1915), who conducted field research in northern Luzon (1907-1908) and the southern Philippines ( 1909 - 1911 ). A shield that he collected in the field (no. 17) is among those exhibited. Despite the large corpus of objects and ethnographic data from the colonial period in American and European institutions, the arts of the non- Christian peoples of the Philippines, and. most especiallv their shields, remain among the least studied. 1 This essav draws primarilv from American colonial accounts, which were written when the shields were still used in their traditional contexts. The essav addresses previously unexplored problems of meaning, such as the prominent use in north- ern Luzon of the “hourglass’ motif, which probablv refers to the spirit shield and rice mortar of the same shape, and the significance of the “center in northern and southern Philippine shields. 4 Shields used in hand-to-hand combat traditionallv rendered both temporal and divine protection. The various motifs adorning both obverse and reverse surfaces of the shields served not only as omamention, but effected the interface between the spiritual and human realms, thereby ensuring victors in battle. The Philippine shields in this exhibition may be divided into two basic types — round and rectangular. The round types are more commonly found in the south- ern Philippines, particularly among Islamized peoples, while the rectan- gular types are widely distributed in both the northern and southern regions. SHIELDS OF NORTHERN LUZON Collectively known as the Igorots. the autochthonous peoples inhabiting the northern mountainous region of Luzon are divided into cultural groups distinguished by language and material culture. Three of the best known among these mountain groups are the Bontoc, linguian. and Kalinga, who live in what are today the provinces of Abra. Mountain Province, and Kalinga -Apayao. The anthropologist Albert Jenks (1905). who lived among the Bontoc and other neighboring groups, observes that shields were seldom bought or sold, but were universalh made and used bv the men of each village. The shield was cut from a single piece of wood, with the hand grip carved out of the solid wood. It accomodated only three fingers of the left hand, the thumb and pinkv remaining outside the grip to manip- ulate the upper and lower ends of the shield as it deflected enemy spears. The classic example of the northern Luzon shield is the monoxylic. rectangular shield carved with three prongs above and two prongs below (nos. /9. 20. 21. 22. 25). Although attempts have been made to classify the basic northern Luzon shield types (Xet ties hip 1958:55; Jenks 1905:124-125; Chen Chi-Lu 19 68: 325-356 ), a definitive morphology based on style and provenance has vet to be accomplished. The discus- sion below draws front Jenks s docu- mentation of five types of northern Luzon shields, three of which are represented in the exhibition. I'lie Bontoc Shield The Bontoc shield is usually about three feet long and one foot wide (no. 22). The upper portion of the shield is cut so that three prongs project several inches upward above the solid field. The base is similarly cut. but with only two prongs projecting downward. The shield is usually blackened with greasy soot, with reinforcements of plaited rattan attached through perforations in the wood spanning t lie upper and lower ends. Jenks notes that the front sur- face of the shield is most prominent ox er the deeply-carved hand grip at the central boss, where two lateral “wings carved in low relief ccn- xerge. Curiously enough. Jenks over- looks the central hourglass motif actuallx defined bx these wings. Visual and contextual evidence stronglx suggest that this image probably alludes to the spirit shield and rice mortar of the same shape discussed in greater detail below.’ This design appears on many three-pronged shields (nos. 19. 21 , 22 ). The Tinguian Shield Very similar to the Bontoc type, the Tinguian shield is usually of natural wood or sometimes colored a dull red. rather than being blackened. Like the Bontoc version, the Tinguian shield has three prongs above and two prongs below, with a prominent central boss over the hand grip. The rice-mortar motif on the center and the rattan lashings are also evident. A Tinguian shield {no. 19), collected in the field in 1906- 1907 by the archaeologist 11. Otlev Bever. is a striking example of the tvpe. The front is painted with rows of short, black horizontal lines running down the prongs and side borders. The inner, rectangular field is speckled and bisected bv the black central ridge and carved outline of the rice mortar shape. 6 The rice-mortar motif, rendered in starkly contrast- ing light and dark paint, dominates the reverse. The Tinguian are a culturally het- erogenous group with close ties to their neighbors, the Bontoc. Kalinga, and Isneg [Rodgers 1955:2-44). Cole observes, for example, that some groups are partly Bontoc and partly Tinguian ( Bronson 1982:8). These associations are evident in three of the shields in the exhibition. The first {no. 20). acquired in 1931 and attrib- uted to the Igorot in general, appears Tinguian in shape and color. The groups of straight lines and chevrons on the front, however, recall similar patterns on Bontoc shields {e.g. Jenks / 905:/)l. 96). But the two -lizard motif on the shield s body appears to be related to similar themes on other Tinguian shields {e.g. Chen Chi-Lu 1965:325b). Images flanking the lizards resemble the centipede motil used in Bontoc tattoos {.Jenks 1905:pl.l45). Although the rice-mor- tar shape is not explicitly rendered in this example, the arrangement of the two lizards and the centipedes alludes to a similar configuration. Other Tinguian shields are associated with Kalinga styles, probably due to intermarriages between the two groups. Cole ( 1922:313 ) notes, in fact, that the inhabitants of Buneg and nearby towns are of mixed Iinguian and Kalinga blood. A shield {no. 21) on loan to the exhibition from the Smithsonian Institution is similar to one attributed to the I inguian or Kalinga in the collection of the Fowler Museum of Cultural I Iistorv {Ellis 1951:255). The shield is painted red, yellow, and black, and embellished with geometric patterns related to tattooing motifs. Framed bv the elaborately ornamented prongs and side borders, the inner rectangular field is again dominated bv a central, rice-mortar motif. I he I inguian also had close ties with their neighbors to the north, the Isneg. The Isneg are called Apavao in the early literature, a term that derives from the Apavao River which runs through the northern part of Kalinga-Apavao. A small boy s shield (no. 1 7), collected in the field bv Cole in 1907-1908, is attributed to the Apayao or Tinguian. According to Cole, boys were trained in the use of weapons, hunting, and warfare at an early age. The same type of shield is documented as an Apayao form in Schadenberg (1889:678, fig .4). It clearly differs from the three-pronged type, for a single projection, rather than multiple prongs, extend from each end. The examples noted above suggest that shield types associated with specific groups are in some cases influenced, and even used, by neigh- boring groups. The Knlinga Shield Like the two previous categories, the Kalinga type (no. 25) has three prongs above and two below. Its attenuated body and prongs, howev- er. render a more graceful outline. This shield is often of a uniform black, although some examples in museum collections have decorated surfaces. As with Bontoc and Tinguian shields, the geometric motifs on the Kalinga type probably derive from tattoo patterns associat- ed with success in headhunting and warfare. It has been suggested that the three-pronged shields are highly stvlized representations of the human form, with the two bottom prongs depicting the legs, and the three upper prongs delineating the head and two raised arms (Ellis 1981:255). Ellis also observes a correlation between shield type and physical stature — the squat Bontoc shield corresponding to the stock v Bontoc physique, and the attenuated Kalinga shield conforming to the taller Kalinga figure. American military 7 intervention and a campaign of pacification in the late-nineteenth and early -twentieth centuries eventually put an end to intertribal skirmishes and head- hunting raids. Many shields were acquired by American soldiers as war trophies and curios. Some shields, taken out of their traditional context, accumulated histories of their own as they passed through western hands. A shield from this period attributed to the Tinguian or Kalinga (no. I s), for example, retains the characteristic three-pronged form and the central rice-mortar motif. The entire obverse surface, however, has been recarved with curvilinear patterns similar to those more com- monly seen among lowland Christian groups. Precisely who recarved the shield is unclear, but it was certainly executed outside a northern Luzon context. Similar transformations of early pieces for commercial purposes continue today. The plain handles of old wooden spoons, for example, are often recarved to incorporate human figures in response to western demands and tastes (Capistrano- Boker 1994:115). SYMBOLS AND MEANINGS The shields of northern Luzon, like those of mam traditional cultures, were meant to provide physical as well as divine protection. Images associated with benevolent spiritual forces adorn implements of war to ensure success in battle. One such image is the hourglass motif, identi- fied in this essav as a reference to the spirit shield and rice mortar of the same shape. Besides its obvious association with agricultural fertilitv and sustenance, the rice mortar is emploved as a means of communing with the super- natural in a host of rituals through- out the life cvcle. Among the ringuian, an inverted rice mortar is traditionallv used "to serve as a table for the spirits who always attend the ceremonies associated with preg- nancv. engagement and marriage, ill- ness, and death. A spear or head-axe usually accompanies the rice mortar in these rituals ( Cole 1922:315-35 S). Further, notions of the shield as a source of supernatural protection, and the rice mortar as an agent of divine presence, conjoin in the apotropaic ensemble called aneb [ fig. 23). I bulging above a newly born infant, the aneb consists of a miniature bow and arrow and a small shield of w oven bamboo, shaped like two triangles and joined end to end. stronglv suggesting the hourglass shape of the rice mortar (Cole 1922:311-312, fig.4-1). The symbolic associations among the hourglass-shaped spirit shield, the rice mortar, and concepts of divine protection are clearly expressed in Tinguian healing and renewal rites such as the pala-an and other relat- ed ceremonies. A series of mock battles are staged during these ritu- als, the first of which is performed around the rice mortar bv women armed with their long pestles, alter- nately pounding rice and clashing pestles. The ritual specialist subse- quently implores the spirits to remove the sickness. In the related seventeen-day ritual called sayang , the medium swings a bundle of rice over the head of each family member after similar mock battles, assuring them that all evil spirits would then depart. On the final day of the sayang. the closing rites are performed around the inverted rice mortar upon which sit two dishes containing rice and blood, which represent the lives of the host family. The mother of the household takes a w oven-bamboo spirit shield of the same hourglass shape as the miniature shield hang- ing over a newborn infant, ritually pressing this against another shield of the same shape, which her daugh- ter holds. During the great and final event, a mat is spread and covered with gifts for the awaited spirits. Among the gifts is the mortar-shaped spirit shield. The medium takes the shield, touches the head of each fam- ily member, and then fastens it to the wall, as testimony to all passing spirits that food has been provided for them and that the great ceremony has been accomplished. It is not unlikely that the mortar-shaped motif on the wooden shields, such fig. 23 Miniature bamboo shield, part of an aneb (or protective ensemble) The Field Museum, Chicago, acc. no. 100107 Drawing bv Lori Grove as those in the exhibition, alludes to the woven, mortar-shaped spirit shields, and related notions of divine protection. SHIELDS OF THE SOUTHERN PHILIPPINES The term “southern Philippines eenerallv refers to die large southern island of Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, the heart of the coun- try’s Islamic population. \\ liile the coastal peoples had increasinglv tinned to Islam centuries before the Spaniards first arrived during the sixteenth centurv. highland groups around Davao gulf in Mindanao, such as the Bagobo and Mandaya, remained unconverted traditionalists. The shields of the southern Philippines may be divided into two broad categories — the round shield, called taming, and the rectangular, called kalasag ( Casino 19S 1:169). I he round shields (no. 23) are more commonlv found among Islamized coastal groups, while the rectangular tvpe more frequently occurs among non-Islamic high- landers, such as the Bagobo (nos. / 6 and 15 pi. f) and Mandaya (no. 24). The Bagobo are known for their elaborate textiles and exquisite per- sonal ornamentation. Conforming to local aesthetics, Bagobo shields are ornate, often decorated with incised patterns similar to those on textiles, and embellished with tufts of hair on the sides and central boss. Since tex- tiles are the primary art form of the Bagobo. carving designs such as those on shields are largeiv deter- mined by weaving motifs (Casino 1981:129). The analogy with textiles applies as well to the shield s compo- sition. The kalasag'' s tripartite design with the dominant central section distinguished !>v a decorated circular boss echoes the three-part construc- tion of the Bagobo woman's skirt. In the skirt, the importance of the cen- ter is expressed in the terms used to designate the central panel — called “mother (me) — and the two side panels, each called “child (bata) (Casino 1931:134). The skirt, like the shield, serves apotropaic purposes. A small patch called tapnng , of a dif- ferent design from the main bodv of the textile, was applied to the central panel of the skirt to protect the wear- er from sickness (Benedict 1916:216). This concept of supernatural protec- tion through apotropaic imagery similarlv underlies the design of the shields. The association between textiles and war implements is not unusual, for weaving, headhunting, and notions of agricultural and human fertilitv are symbolically related in many Indonesian cultures (Gittinger 1979:passim). Weaving, traditionally done bv women, is seen as a mani- festation of a woman s creative essence and considered analogous to giving birth. Headhunting, on the other hand, was considered essential for agricultural productivity and the well-being of the communitv. For just as seeds die to bring forth seedlings, human death must occur to generate new life. According to Bagobo cosmology, warriors were under the special protection ol two powerful deities, Mandarangan and his w ife. Darago. Properly propitiated w ith offerings and human sacrifice, these potent beings ensured success in battle, do earn their special protection, howev- er. t lie w arrior w as first required to take at least two human lives. Haying done so. he could wear a distinctive chocolate-colored, ikat-dyed head- cloth called tan kit lit. A score of four victims entitled him to w ear blood- red trousers, while six human lives accorded the rights to the full blood- red outfit and accessories of the magani , an elite title coveted by every Bagobo w arrior ( Cole 1913: 62.96: Benedict 1916:241-242). In this context, the ornamented shields, like the warrior’s distinctive clothing, may possibly have represented his progressively increasing status. Like the Bagobo shields, those of the Mandava people (no. 24) are of a tripartite composition with a deco- rated central boss. Short, pointed rays encircle the central boss in a sunburst pattern. The sunburst also appears on a round shield (no. 23), acquired in 1901, and attributed to the southern Philippines. Although the form is similar to the round shields of the Islamized groups hi Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago, the precise provenance of this shield is unclear. It may possibly be from one of the Islamized peoples in the Sulu Archipelago w ho. throughout history, have maintained close cultur- al and mercantile affiliations with the peoples of Borneo and Sulaw esi, their neighbors to the south. Jig. 24 Shield of the Atayal people Taiwan Courtesy of Smithsonian Institution. Washington. D.C.. cat. no. 38932 The peoples of the Philippines are also linked historically and culturally to indigenous groups in \ ietnam and Taiwan. These cultural tit's are some- times manifested in related art forms. 63 The sunburst pattern on the round shield from Vietnam (no. 26 ), for example, occurs as an eight-pointed star motif on the shield attributed to the southern Philippines (no. 23) dis- cussed above. Practices common to other Southeast Asian groups, such as the headhunt and the ceremonial distribution of wealth, link the indigenous peoples of Taiwan to their Indonesian and Philippine neighbors (Cameron /9S5./6/). Peoples from the southeastern islands of Taiwan such as the Yami, for example, are closely related to the inhabitants of the northernmost islands of the Philippines. Farther north, in the mountainous region of Taiwan, the Ataval peoples weave distinctive red. blue, and black textiles on the hori- zontal backstrap loom widespread in Southeast Asia (Chen Chi-Lu 1972:395)2 A similar color scheme is evident in the painted Ataval shield (fig. -4), which employs spherical motifs outlined in red against a blue-black rectangular ground. The use of concentric circles echoes the frequently used artistic device of spherical forms on the Vietnamese and southern Philippine shields. DIVINE SPHERES OF PROTECTION ...it is at the “ Center " that the break-through in plane , that is, communication with the sky, becomes possible. (Eliade 1964:269) In a comparative study of world religions, Mircea Eliade ( 1964:259 - 274) demonstrates the universal importance of the “center — the earth’s umbilicus — as the threshold between human and spiritual realms. Fundamental concepts of centrality and the three cosmic regions are manifested in the spherical motifs (nos. 23, 26, fig. 24), and tripartite compositions with prominent central bosses (nos. 15 pi l ( 16. 24) emplov- ed in many of the shields. In ritual contexts, the significance of the center is often seen in the placement of offerings at the center of the room. Among the Bagobo, for example, a deceased person was clothed in his best garments and placed in the middle of the house. The corpse w as later transferred to a wooden coffin for burial beneath the house. The gravesite w as protect- ed by a bamboo fence, within which was placed food, small offerings, or perhaps a spear and shield (Cole 1913:104). A similar notion of the center as the threshold of divine influences is evident in the Bagobo woman’s skirt, as discussed above. In northern Luzon cultures, the two triangles of the mortar-shaped spirit shield similarly converge at the center, manifested as the central boss in the three-pronged wooden versions. It is, thus, at the center where human and spiritual realms intersect — where divine powers magnify temporal strength. NOTES: ' I wish to thank Dr. Bennet Bronson for reading and commenting on an earlier version of this essay, and for informative discussions of shields, in general, and the pieces on loan from the Field Museum of Natural Historv. in particular. 1 am grateful to Nina (hu tunings of the Field Museum s Department of Photographv for invaluable assistance in locating the miniature shield illustrated in Cole (1922:312, fig.4-1), and reproduced here (Jig. 23). 1 also thank Kathleen Bickford for mam intelligent comments and suggestions. \m errors in presentation or interpretation, however, are my own. The Philippine archipelago (Las Lias Filipinas) was a colonv of Spain. 1521-1898. It was ceded to the l nited States after the Spanish- Mneriean War (1898) and gained independence in 1946. when the country became tin* Republic of the Philippines. l lie Filipinos are predominant 1\ Roman Catholic. Non-Christian cultural groups, such as those represented in this exhibition, account for less than 20% of the population. 4 I his essav is also informed bv the authors exposure to the cultures discussed while growing up in the Philippines. Manv a summer was spent in the cool mountains of northern Luzon where, as a child. I was admonished to beware of the ‘'uncivilized Igorots. Summer stays in the southern Philippines hared the realities ol Muslim- Filipino concepts of honor and vengeance, seen on days when one was forbidden from venturing outdoors while an individual rituallv ran amok. Bv this time, however, shields, such as those discussed here, had long fallen into disuse, except as occasional props for ritual dances. An accurate reconstruction of their customarv usage, function, and meaning, therefore, must be shaped bv colonial accounts written before traditional w arfare and headhunting completeh disappeared. W bile this perspective raises tantalizing issues pertinent to the current post-colonial discourse (e.g .Clifford I9SS, Ashcroft et al 1993). this aspect is onl\ tangentially addressed here. ' Fllis (19S I 197) similarly notes the correspondence between the hourglass shape and the rice mortar in his discussion of rice granary figures. The rice-mortar motif also occurs in northern Luzon textiles (e.g. Jose-dela Cruz 1982:20, pi. 5b). 0 A similar surface decoration appears in a miniature shield carved as an accessory for a wooden figure commissioned for the “Exposition General de las Lias Filipinas, held in Madrid in 1887 (Madrid n.d.:no.l383). Other round shields attributed to various southern Philippine groups are illustrated in Krieger 1926:pl.1: Oldman 1976:no.69-2: Majul 1973:n.p.; Sherfan 1976:15'’. fig. 12; Warren 1 ‘>85: fig. 10: Cato 1991:104. The design also appears to be related to the round, metal shields from Borneo called perisai (e.g. Jessup 1990:95, flg.66). 8 The Atayal are also referred to as Taial or Taival (e.g. Hsieh 1964:127-129). no. 16 Kalasag Philippines, Mindanao, Bagobo people Collected before 1 ‘> 1 -r W ood, pigment, hair and bamboo H: 44 in. I niversitv of Pennsylvania Museum, Philadelphia, neg. no. S4-141708, acc. no. P2977A no. 11 Alatag (boy s shield) Philippines. Northern Luzon. Apayao. or Tinguian people Collected by Fay-Cooper Cole. R.F. Cummings Expedition 1907-1908 Wood, pigment and cartridges H: 24 in. The Field Museum. Chicago, neg. no. A1 12692, acc. no. 109554 Photo: D. A. White 67 no. 18 Philippines, Northern Luzon, Kalinga or Tinguian people Former collection of W. D. Webster. Collected c. 1910 Wood and blackening 1 1: 46.06 in. The Field Museum, Chicago, neg. no. A1 12702, acc. no. 91.180 Photo: IT A. White 08 no. 19 Philippines, Northern Luzon, ringuian people (Collected bv II. Otlev Beyer, 1 ')()(>- 1907 Wood, pigment and rattan 1 1: 37.40 in. Peabodv Museum. I larvard l niversity. Cambridge, Mass., arc. no. 08-36-70/74460 Photo: llillel Burger no. 20 Philippines, Northern Luzon, probably Tinguian people Acquired 1931 Wood, pigment and relief carving 1 1: 35 in. Smithsonian Institution. Department of Anthropology, Washington. D.G.. ace. no. 361484 o') no. 21 (front: left, brick: right) Philippines, Northern Luzon, Tinguian or Kalinga people Wood and pigment 1 1: 32.28 in. Smithsonian Institution, Department of Anthropology. Washington, D.C., ace. no. -+13190 70 no. 22 Philippines, Northern Luzon, Bontoc people Wood, blackening and rattan H: 38 in. Collection of Rodger Dashovv. Boston. Mass. Photo: Stephen Vedder, Boston College no. 23 Southern Philippines ? Acquired 1901 Wood, bamboo and pigment I): 24 in. Smithsonian Institution. Department ol Anthropology. Washington, D.C.. acc. no. 213690 A. K7’ 9 m & ay ■ m 71 no. 24 no. 2.5 Philippines, Mindanao, Mandaya people Former collection of F.E. Ayer. Collected before 1920 Wood, hair and pigment H: 42.13 in. The Field Museum. Chicago, neg. no. A 112688, acc. no. 34680 Photo: 1). A. White Philippines, Northern Luzon, Kalinga people Acquired 1949 Wood, pigment and rattan H: 43.9 in. Courtesy Peabody Essex Museum. Salem, Mass., acc. no. E28293 Photo: Mark Sexton no. 26 Vietnam. Moi people Wood, black and gold pigment 1): 20 in. Collection of Georgia Sales. Belvedere, Calif. 73 MEDUSA’S ART: Interpreting Melanesian Shields Michael O'Hanlon , British Museum On some occasions warriors' shields glow and shine. The plumes mounted on the shield tops sway backwards and forwards. The warriors " char- coaled skins glitter. The y wield their spears easily. The spectators say: ‘They're going to win today' ... But sometimes their shields look unwieldy ; their stomachs seem protuberant and their charcoaled skins appear drenched in ash. Spectators tell them that they will o/d)’ lose. This is the compelling description by one Melanesian — Paple Kerenga, a Papua New Guinea Highlander — as to how the appearance of shields is assessed before battle among his own people, the Wahgi. But it is an insid- ers description, and. to appreciate its significance — and the range of vari- ation in shields in the many other cultures in this part of the world — one must begin b\ saving something about Melanesia as a region, and about warfare there. Conventionally. Melanesia (fig. 25) is defined as including the large island of New Guinea (itself divided into a western half. Irian Java, which is part of Indonesia, and an eastern section that forms part of the independent state of Papua New Guinea), the off-lving island groups of New Britain and New Ireland (both politically also part of Papua New Guinea), t lie Solomons, New Caledonia and Vanuatu. Although some definitions include Fiji too, for present purposes this is immaterial since shields are not found in Fiji, nor for that matter in New Caledonia, Vanuatu or in New Ireland. Melanesia is celebrated for its diver- sity. Geographically, it includes coral atolls, great riverine swamps, some of the largest surviving rainforests, and chilly mountain ranges; linguistically, it is split between lit*' so-called Austronesian and non-Austronesian language groups, of which the latter alone includes some 750 separate languages. Traditionally, political arrangements also vary widely, although most Melanesian communi- ties are fairly small in scale and kin- ship is everywhere important in their constitution. In parts of Melanesia — such as in Fiji and the Solomon and Trobriand Islands — there are hered- itary chiefships; elsewhere, there is frequently a greater emphasis on leadership as achieved rather than inherited. Even in those areas in which descent is traced matrilineallv, however, leadership tends to be dominated bv men. Mode of liveli- hood also varies widely: fishing, horticulture and hunting are all important among different groups and in different areas, though most groups were also self-sufficient in their staple foodstuffs. To these pre-existing differences are added those which stem from diverse colonial experience. The extreme west of the island of New Guinea for had centuries been subject to slave raiding and was claimed as vassal territorv bv Indonesian sultans. Elsewhere, the earliest historicallv documented encounters between Melanesians and outsiders are the fleeting visits made bv Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch explorer- navigators in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, but subse- quent European impact w as verv uneven. \\ liile. for example, parts of the Solomon Islands were in regular contact from the mid-nineteenth centurv with w hite traders, labor recruiters and missionaries, another hundred vears passed before colonial authorities had much impact in some of the remoter parts of New Guinea. But. wherever and whenever contact was substantial, whites bad pro- nounced effects on local society. 1 hey brought with them novel materials such as iron: previously, metalw ork- ing w as unknown in Melanesia. J and most tools were made from stone, shell and wood. W hites also brought w ith them new diseases, new demands and also new weapons, such as firearms. Trading in guns intensified local fighting in some places, while in others, firearms w ere among the means through which w hites ended indigenous warfare and imposed colonial control. Colonial authorities, in concert with their missionary counterparts, often required local people to destroy their own weapons: hence few shields are made am longer, save for sale to tourists. In time, colonial regimes w ere succeeded in most places in Melanesia bv independent nation states, and citizenship under the state became increasinglv important as the context in terms of which individuals and communities related to eaclt other. Traditionally however, individuals and communities are related through marriage, through complex systems of trade and ceremonial exchange — and through w arfare itself , which was as frequent as it was varied. Sometimes, as in parts of the Papua New Guinea Highlands (c.g. I leggift 1977:1b). it took the form of ceremo- nialized battles between thousands of highlv-decorated w arriors who. watched bv spectators, might fight all dav long vet incur onlv limited casualties. W arfare might equally take the form — sometimes among the same people — of stealth v night- time expeditions bv a few clansmen aiming to ambush and slay individu- als from the opposing side as thev w orked in remote gardens or returned front a nocturnal visit to the latrine. Often intertwined with jig. 25 Map of Melanesia showing the positions of ethnic groups Courtesy of Nieshoff Design l he material goals of war were com- plex cosmological notions. These might involve, for example, beliefs that headhunting was necessar\ T to counteract the depletion of spiritual forces ( Knauft 1990:2S2ff). Frequently, warfare also involved the ritual separation of men from women, either because women were feared to have a weakening effect on warriors, or because warriors 1 height- ened ritual state was regarded as dangerous to women, or both. As has often been noted, the ritual restrictions surrounding warfare in fact resemble a male protection racket. Indeed. Simon Harrison (1993) has persuasively argued that, in Melanesia, warfare and its associ- ated ritual should be seen not as the breakdown of peaceful relations between communities, so much as one of the ideological means of con- structing male-dominated political communities in the first place. Shields were variously implicated in this complexity. As indicated earlier, not all groups in Melanesia possessed shields, and where shields were found they varied in shape, size, weight and in the materials from which they were made (although wood is the base material in most cases). These variations reflect both differences in the weapons against which the shields were used (which included arrows, spears, axes and clubs) and the wav in which the shields were deployed. The great circular shields (no. 43 pi. Ill ) from the Astrolabe Bay area on Papua 76 New Guinea’s north coast, for exam- ple, are reported to have been too heavy for mobile warfare ( Bodrogi 1959:68), although equally weighty oblong shields w ere so used in parts of the Highlands (' O'Hanlon 1993:64ff). Nor do all shields serve purely practical defensive purposes. Trobriand "dance shields’ {no. 53) were just that: ornamental items that w ere spun and tw irled in dances. But as will emerge in more detail, "practical and “ceremonial aspects should not necessarily be contrasted, for the powerful visual impact a shield makes may be thought of as providing as much protection as its overt Iv "practical dimensions. Some shields had multiple uses. Neuhauss {191 1:307) records that Sissano shields {no. -fl) were also employed as stretchers to carry wounded warriors from the battlefield, while equally large New Guinea I lighland shields were often re-used as beds or as house doors. Nor. among those Melanesian groups which did possess shields, is there any easv correlation of the “one tribe, one shield-type’ variety. Some groups produced tw o or more types of shield {Si/litoe 1980): indeed, differences between the types of shield used by a single group may calibrate local dis- tinctions between degrees of severity of fighting. For example, the Wahgi people of the Papua New T Guinea Highlands possessed narrow, stick- like parry shields in addition to their massive, oblong battle shields. In intra-clan disputes, Wahgi clansmen restricted themselves to clubs and to parry shields; battle shields were only for use in serious fighting and their adoption in clashes between fellow clansmen indicated that the clan itself was in danger of splitting {O'Hanlon 1993:34). Shield designs equally resist being pigeon-holed. \\ hile in some instances, they reflect the cosmological dimensions to war- fare alluded to earlier, in others it is far less easy to detect a semantically meaningful link between shield motifs and cultural themes. More- over. motifs are also borrowed and travel between different groups. Equally, the rules w hich often segregate the sexes in w arfare may extend to shields, though they do not necessarily do so. Thus Hagen men were meant to segregate them- selves from women and to avoid ... 77 sexual intercourse while making their shields (no. 34). if the weapons were not to l>e weakened (Strathern and Strathern 1971:104). Their Wahgi neighbors, on the other hand, who have very similar shields, deny that they exercised such restrictions, sav- ing that their own taboos related rather to the ritually-treated charcoal in which Wahgi warriors, like many in Melanesia, traditionally decorate themselves. But this introductory overview of Melanesian shields and their varia- tion disguises two obstacles to a more systematic account. The lirst is simply that colonial contact was, in many instances, too early and too disruptive for rounded knowledge about the context and meaning of shields to be recorded. The long-term fieldwork that might have gathered such information did not become an established anthropological practice until the early twentieth century, by which time massive and irreversible changes were already in train in parts of Melanesia, so the full signifi- cance of shields, such as those from areas like Cenderawasih Bay in Irian Java (no. 28), is probably irrecover- able (van Baaren 1992:17). The second obstacle to any systematic comparison is that what anthropolo- gists and others did record depended, to some degree, upon the intellectual climate prevailing at the time the knowledge was gathered. The kinds of questions that were asked about shields by observers a century ago are often rather different from those asked now. One way of handling J O this latter obstacle is to recognize it explicitly, and to sketch the succes- sive intellectual frameworks through which observers have attempted to understand Melanesian art forms in general, and shields in particular. This course has the further merit of allowing a more detailed account to be given of some of the main shield types displayed here. Some of the earliest systematic work on Melanesian art was done by Alfred Haddon, who spent consider- able time in the Torres Strait at the end of the nineteenth century and also visited the Papuan Gulf. As a man of his time. Haddon (1895:2ff) was influenced by ideas of social evolution and regarded the study of the art of "laggard peoples, such as Melanesians, as a necessary prelimi- nary to understanding “civilized art. As a biologist turned ethnologist, lie proposed that designs had "life histories which evolved from “birth through "growth to “death. So when it came to giving an account of the heavy archers shields from the Papuan Gulf (nos. 30. 31 pi. 1111: the shield is worn on the left shoulder and the slot accommodates the bow- mans arm), Haddon (1894:92jf) arranged the shields in a sequence according to his perception of the evolution of their designs. I 1 addon's careful attention to form had the merit of shoving that apparently abstract designs were sometimes transformations of more figurative forms (for example, the human face) which had been re-arranged, dou- bled. simplified etc. \\ hat is less clear, however, is whether arranging designs in such sequences made much sense in terms of local culture; indeed, w hen faced with a shield whose design does not lit into his sequence, Haddon (189-4:94) rather unhelpfully suggests that "it looks as if the artist occasionally did not quite understand what he was doing. Partly because art had been misused in this wav as evidence in dubious evolutionary speculations, its analysis was temporarily discredited, and no study which might have brought out the full local significance of Papuan Gulf shield design was made before the area was changed irreversibly by colonial impact. Broadly, with the exception of stylistic analyses carried out by museumists, the study of art remained out of anthropological fashion until the middle of the twentieth century. One early sign that this situation w as changing w as the debate over another Melanesian shield type, the unique, painted ovoid shields of the Trobriand Islanders (no. - 44 ). In this instance, much more local information on shields and their context was available, for the Trobriand Islands w ere the site of what is generally acknowledged to be the first modern anthropological fieldwork, that car- ried out l>\ Bronislaw Malinowski between 1915 and 1918. Although Irobriand warfare had ended before he arrived. Malinowski (1920) did provide a brief account of the shields. fig. 26 Among other points, he described how most shields w ere left undeco- rated; onlv the most courageous warriors painted their shields, for to do so was a challenge and a painted Trobriand shield design as interpreted by E.R. Leach “A Trobriand Medusa?’ . Leach in M AN 1954. 103-105 Courtesy of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland shield attracted mam more spears than did a plain one. I lowever. parth because he was waiting at a time w hen studies of art were unfashion- able (indeed, his own work helped discredit the conjectural history into w hose cause art had been recruited as evidence), Malinowski published nothing on the meaning of the shields’ designs. After Malinowski s death, however. Edmund Leach (1954). one of Malinow ski s most brilliant pupils, drew upon hi> teacher’s 111 am writ- ings on the Trobriands to propose an interpretation. Briefly, Leach suggested that t lie design was a representation, folded up vertically, of a female anthropomorphic figure, die lower hall showing the pubic area (fig- 26). The figure, Leach argued, represented one of the feared, living witches that appear in Trobriand mythology, and are believed to give off a poisonous emanation from anus and vulva. The design, Leach proposed, would thus employ die same logic as did Perseus’s shield, with its transfixing image of Medusa. Leach’s interpreta- tion was then challenged bv Ronald Berndt (1958), who argued that the figure was unlikely to represent a witch, since witchcraft — in Trobriand thinking — is a female property while warfare w as exclu- sively a male concern. Instead. Berndt reminds us that Trobriand men were supposed to abstain from intercourse in time of war. The shield design, he suggested, represented a male and female about to engage in intercourse, with tin' penis prominent in the lower part of the design, w hile the upper half showed a woman in receptive position. In Berndt ’s view, the logic of putting such an image on a shield w as not that of Perseus, as Leach had proposed, but rather was a form of visual abuse of the enemy. So Leach and Berndt take here a rather different approach from 1 laddon’s to the analysis of design. Where Haddon had been concerned with the evolution of design and with delineating stylistic regions. Leach and Berndt pass over the first as unknowable and take the second as given, and focus instead on the significance of the design in terms ol w hat is known about the details ol Trobriand culture itself. But. as we have seen, they reached mutually contradictory conclusions. Both, however, acknowledged that their o arguments were conjectural, since the information necessary to confirm them had not been recorded from Trobrianders at the time. Subse- quently, though, it emerged that a Trobriand gloss on shield design had been published earlier in an overlooked report bv the missionary S.B. Fellows, and, moreover, that Malinowski had confirmed its accu- racy in an unpublished letter. But this additional information proved inconclusive, for the Trobriand gloss turned out merely to take tin' form of a list of terms for the individual motifs from which the design as a w hole is made up. The terms were those for various natural phenomena: bir ds, fish, stars, snakes, rainbows etc. None referred, at least overtly, to w itches, anatomical organs or sexuality, as Leach and Berndt had variously proposed. In his earlier letter confirming the accuracy of Fellows’ report, Malinowski had observed that “the native ‘theory of their art consists simply in a series of names given to the various individual motives, but there is no sense, no meaning to the whole design ... No deeper magico-religious meaning, absolutely none — and this applies to their art throughout. However. Patrick Class (1986), whose inves- tigative work had brought together Fellows overlooked report and Malinowski s letter, went on to analvze the symbolic and esoteric significance in Trobriand culture of the particular creatures whose names were used as the terms for shield motifs. Properly understood, Class argued, the design on war- shields was a code operating on three levels, referring to Trobriand mvthologv. to copulation and to Trobriand sacred geographv. The question of "the meaning of shield (and other) designs can thus be very complex. The Trobriand case, to date, offers no conclusive answer, although the general appear- ance of die design does suggest that it once represented something fairlv elaborate, even il its identity is now lost. In the case of the Asmat, who live on the other side of New Guinea in Irian Java, the position is a little clearer. Asmat shields (no. 27), of which there are a number of regional subtvpes. are produced by specialists who carve them in relief designs which are enhanced bv differential coloring. In Asmat thought, life and death are regarded as mutually implicated, so that the continuance of life and fertility is seen as depen- dent upon death. Traditionally, this belief system manifested itself in headhunting, a practice which the Asmat also saw as analogous to the behavior of various local creatures: living foxes, hornbills, and cockatoos, all of which eat fruit (which is likened to heads), and the praying mantis (which bites off the head of its mate). It thus makes sense that these are among the dominant motifs in Asmat art, with flving-fox motifs (often in a very schematised form) occurring on shields in particular. The small figure atop this same shield demonstrates a slightly different way in which shield design mav be significant: not simply in representing some external being (“witch, “flying fox, etc.) but through establishing a link between a shield and its owner. Smidt (1993:22jf;71) reports that many Asmat carvings, including shields, were named after dead relatives. In the case of shields from the central Asmat, an image of the dead person was often carved on top. and other dead relatives (including, interesting- ly, women) were commemorated in the pattern carved on the front. These relatives were thought to offer support to their living kinsman in the fighting in which the shield was used, and might be avenged bv him. On the death of the shield owner, the small figure atop the shield was sometimes cut off. An alternative manner in which a shield might refer to the identity of its owner is given bv the rare shell-inlaid shields (eg. no. 51) from the Solomon Islands. Though the early date of colonial contact in the Solomons means that the evidence is fragmentary, it seems likely that these elaborate shields, in which designs in pearl shell have been superimposed on the wicker, wood or bark base from which ordinary Solomon shields are made, were social markers oi some kind, referring perhaps to the status of their owner ( Unite 1983:129 ; personal communication). Of course, these two modes of refer- ence are not mutually exclusive. Thus, Trobriand shields also advert- ed to the status of their owners (in that only the bravest warriors were said to paint their shields), as well as variouslv representing witches, sexual congress etc., depending up on whose arguments are found to be convincing. But here we should also be aware of our pre-disposition, stemming from our own specifically western experience, to search for meaning, iconographic or otherwise. Conditioned by literacv (not a tradi- tional practice in Melanesia) and by our dailv exposure to its spin-offs in the form of advertisements which w e are invited to "decode, we tend to expect designs and their constituent motifs to be meaningful, often in a specifically graphical wav (see Ong 19S2). This can lead us to over- interrogate Melanesian forms for their "meaning, and to overlook other modes in terms of w hich shield design may be significant. This was implicitlv recognized bv Gherrv Lowman in her study (1973) of Mating shields (no. 35) from the Paf nia New Guinea Highlands. 1 ltese large, oblong shields are used not C* " C 1 only in formal warfare, but also in w hat Lowman (1973:13) appositelv calls ‘'persuasion displays, in which warriors from the opposing sides massed opposite each other, maneu- vering and chanting, gauging each others’ numbers and strength. The shields themselves were mostlv deco- rated in large, bold, and overtly geo- metric forms, executed in contrasting colors. \\ hen pressed. Mat ing would give names to their designs — “lizard. “axe blades, “frog’s legs, etc. — but Lowman (1973:26. 29) found that "What is represented ... cannot be considered important for there was rarelv consensus as to what object w as actuallv being represented .... One gets the impression that the iconic forms in the designs are projected or interpreted, rather than intended. Instead, Low man argued, the significance of shields and their designs resided in their contribution to the "muhisensorv encounters in which shields were deployed. Their large bright designs would have stood out at a distance, visible against the forested environment in which the Maring live. The designs were intended to intimidate, not through what they represented, but through their dazzling appearance, just as the massive shields increased the warrior s apparent size (particu- larly since, in use, whippy canes decorated w ith cassowarv plumes are mounted above the shield). Lowman’s report that Maring shield designs lacked much in the wav of representational significance is reminiscent of Malinowski s unpub- lished comment on Trobriand shields. As it happens, die issue of Trobriand designs has recently been resurrected by Alfred Cell (1992), precisely from the point of view of their capacity to have the kind of direct visual impact with which Lowman credits Maring shields. Cell s ( 1 { )Q2 ) account focuses not upon Trobriand war-shield design as such, but upon the swirling motifs that dominate the splash- boards of Trobriand canoes, vessels which are used in the celebrated kiila expeditions. A central aim of those going on such expeditions is to per- suade their exchange partners on distant islands to yield valuable shells and necklaces; splashboard designs are felt to play a role in this bv dazzling exchange partners and weakening their resolve to hold on to their valuables. Here Cell draws a parallel between splashboard designs and the “eve spots found on certain butterfly wings, which are thought to disorient predators. However, he argues, rather than splashboard designs directh disorienting exchange partners, they induce a mild visual disturbance which is taken as evi- dence of the visitors magical power. The splashboard designs which Gell is talking about are quite different from those on Trobriand war-shields, but they are similar to those on the dance shields (no. 53) from the Trobriands and neighboring areas. Cell's analysis does prompt us to look more closely at whether there are specific combinations of form. line or color which have an inherent visual impact, and which we might therefore expect to find deployed on shields in particular. Certainly, this is one of the ways, according to Gombrich (cited in Roscoe 1995:12), in which art more generally affects the viewer (the other ways being through the depiction of affecting scenes and through the deployment of signs and symbols with established affective associations). Among the combinations of form, line and color, which Gombrich proposed have such an inherent visual impact, are large looming eves and multiple serrated points, and these, of course, are found on a considerable number of Melanesian shields (e.g. nos. 39, 48). However, as Gell proposes of the splashboards, it is likelv that cultural beliefs (in the Trobriand case, to do with magical power) will mediate the wav in which efficacious combina- tions of form, line and color are per- ceived. A further important quality with potentially innate impact is, of course, that of brilliance, and the impact of brilliance, too, is likely to be mediated bv local interpretations of its significance (Morphy 1989). I bis is so for the shields of the SuLka people (no. 47 pi II) of New Britain, for whom brilliance is linked to efficacy (, Jeudy-Ballini , personal communication). Another Melanesian people for whom brilliance has a spe- cific meaning are the Wahgi. Wahgi O O O displays, whether the participants are elaborately decorated dancers or warriors, are watched bv hundreds of spectators who evaluate whether the performers (including their accessories such as shields) appear vibrant, brilliant and glowing, or unimpressively dull, matt and "ashy. In the turbulent social milieu inhab- ited by the Wahgi this is important, for impressive displays are thought capable of deterring attacks by rival and enemy clans. However, Wahgi consider that the capacity to look impressive in this wav depends, in turn, upon the otherwise concealed state ot moral relations both within and between clans. If there are hid- den traitors within the clan, or unconfessed grievances between clan brothers, it is thought that their "skin will look dull and "ashy, just as it w ill if there are unacknowledged debts or deaths between allied clans. In this case. then, brilliance is seen as an external testament to the per- formers' inner moral condition (O' Hanlon 19S9). However, what has undoubtedly been neglected in the literature’s preoccu- pation with shield designs (whether examined from the point of view of then - "life history, their representa- tional significance or their affective impact) is the provision of equivalent material on how shields were actually used. In some cases, we know that there were specialist shield men. For example, the Telefoinin shield carrier was unarmed himself and directed the tactics of the bowmen who accompanied him — although a notable warrior might sometimes rush forward and pin down an enemy with his shield until the bowmen could shoot him (Cranstone 1968:612). Papuan Gulf shields, on the other hand, were (as we have seen) devised to be used by an archer. But in other instances, even in tin* case of well known shield types, we often do not know how many men carried them in battle and how, tactically, they were deployed in relation to other weaponry. And while museum records often provide the dimensions of shields, they seldom give their weight-, yet this is likely to have been as significant a factor as size, for the capacity of a shield to withstand a blow depends, in part, upon its inertia and thus its weight. The literature’s relative neglect of shields as objects of use as opposed to purveyors of meaning is especially apparent in the lack of attention given to the reverse side of shields. Of course, some shields (such as those made by the Arawe [no. 49\. Mengen and Sulka peoples of New Britain) are almost as elaborately decorated on the reverse as on the front, which itself implies a slightly different role for the shield design since in such cases it would seem to be oriented as much to the shield bearer as to his opponent. But what is more remarkable is the inattention to shield support-mechanisms: the handles, straps and loops by which they are variously carried and manipulated when in use. The omis- sion is odd. not only because the type of shield support mechanism must, in turn, influence how a shield design is seen bv opponents and spectators, but also because at a gross level, the type of support mechanism offers clues as to weapons use more broad- ly. Thus, we could probably suggest as a general rule that heavier shields, which could not easily be held in one hand, have straps allow ing them to be supported over the shoulder: this is certainly the case with Lumi shields {fig- 27) and those from 1 lagen and Astrolabe Bav. for exam- ple. Shoulder straps potentially free both hands, so that the bearer can also act as an archer, whereas if one hand is occupied in shield-holding, the weaponry held in the other is more likely to take the form of spear or club. But shield support mechanisms can vary enormously, even within so lim- ited an area as the West Sepik region {Craig I9S5.-62). and even in other- wise well-documented cases it may still not be clear how a shield was actually carried when in use. bowman {1973:24), for example, describes Mat ing shields as being supported over the shoulder by a long vine fixed vertically just short of the shield’s right hand edge. However, it would seem from her diagram that donning the shield in the wav she describes would actually leave it slung over the warrior’s back, and thus in no position either to protect him, or for the design to have its intended intimidatory effect upon his opponents. This neglect of the pragmatics of shield use is likeh to be due not just to a preoccupation w ith their designs, but also to the fact that, until recently, few anthropologists had seen Melanesian w arfare at first hand. In the last few years, however, this situation has changed in the Highlands of Papua New Guinea w here, for a variety of reasons {Strathern 1977). a destructive recrudescence of inter-group lighting has taken place, and for the first Jig. 27 Lumi shield Courtesy of Peabody I Museum. Salem. Mass ace. no. E56181 Photo: Mark Sexton time in fifty years it lias been possi- ble to see shields in use. One such area of the I fighlands is the Wahgi, where John Muke (himself a native W ahgi speaker) has made a study which brings out in unique « letail the complexities, both cosmological and tactical, of shield use in practice {Muke 1993). It is in this context of shields contemporary use that we can also gain a fuller appreciation of exactly how they were supported and manip- ulated. Thus the reverse of a Wahgi shield features the same long vine, fixed vertically just short of the shield s right hand edge, as Lowinan describes for Maring shields. How- ever. this is not the means by which the shield was hung from the shoul- der. as Lowinan states of Maring shields. Rather, a right-handed Wahgi warrior supports his shield over his left shoulder by a centrally- fixed shoulder sling, lie then inserts his left thumb under the offset vertical vine. Between them, shoulder sling and thumb string provide a sensitive mechanism for manipulat- ing the shield, allowing it to be swiveled to cover front or rear, dropped sharply to protect the feet from an arrow, or elbowed away from the body to counter a vigorous spear thrust which threatens to penetrate the shield and skewer the hearer. In fact, it seems likely that Maring shields too must have been supported in this way, for examination of a number of them shows that they also have a centrally fixed shoulder sling, omitted from Lowinan s description and diagram. The case of these Wahgi shields, recently revived after fifty years in abeyance, takes us full circle, back to the issue of the meaning of shield designs. As with Maring and many other shields, the designs on tradi- tional Wahgi shields do not seem to have been meaningful in terms of what they represented. If asked, W ahgi would give names to the indi- vidual motifs (“red head, “zig-zag, “lizard s foreleg ) of which tradition- al shield designs were made up. But Wahgi generally deny that individual motifs are meaningful components of some larger design having represen- tational significance in relation to the warfare in which the shields were used. To assume that this must necessarily be so, and to treat Wahgi shield design as a piece of cryptogra- phy to be cracked, is to foist our own presuppositions upon the Wahgi. Rather, as we have seen, the local significance of traditional Wahgi shield design was to do with whether shield surfaces (whatever their design) appeared glossy, glowing, and brilliant — these qualities being thought to testify that underlying moral issues had all been resolved, and that the shield carriers conse- quently had ancestral support. But if that was the case with tradi- tional W ahgi shields, those made for the more recent warfare show changes indicative of a radical expansion in the wav in which shield OAHCA MUftUitj. ;«3o; ,K W"** SP'bh OTHfto nRMGER designs function as communicative forms. For today, many Wahgi are now literate themselves, and advertisements for such goods as South Pacific lager and Cambridge cigarettes have become a perv asive part of their visual environment. The designs on the shields used in con- temporary Wahgi warfare mav now incorporate w riting, or draw upon advertising imagery to make political points relating to the inter-clan wars in w hich the shields are used. For example, some shield designs {fig- 28) include imagery from beer adver- tisements to allude to the fact that the w ar in question stems from an incident w hen a clansmen was killed bv a drunken driver from the oppos- ing side. At the same time, while there has been a change in visual modality, there are clear continuities between what is conveyed by the older and bv more recent shield designs. Thus, w here moral virtue and ancestral support were formerly felt to be registered in the brilliance of a shield’s surface, it can now also be written onto the shield, or implied by incorporating in the design refer- ences to comic book heroes. Here, then, our debates as to whether Wahgi shield designs are representa- tional or not are short-circuited when local people adopt our own graphic conventions [O'Hanlon 1995). Not for the lirst time. Melanesians out- flank arguments as to their essential nature bv themselves incorporating the terms of the debate. fig- 2 S Contemporaiy llahgi shield designs Courtesy of Michael () I faulon. 1990 87 NOTES: ' Mam people generously contributed to tlie writing of this essav. Their assistance was especially appreciated since 1 have not been able to travel round to inspect the shields in the various institutions which house them, and have had to relv on photographs, museum records and, in some cases, on personal recollections. I would like to thank Andrew Tavarelli. Leah W olf W hitehead of the Peabody Museum (Harvard). Tad Dale and Steven Alpert for kindly supplying these. I am particularly grateful to the many anthropologists and others who have found the time to provide me with references or unpublished information from areas in which the have conducted fieldwork. My thanks go then to Ross Bowden, Christiane Brauer. Ben Burt, Mark Busse, Jeremy Coote, Barry Craig, Linda Frankland. Philip Goldman. Jill Hasell. Monique Jeudv-Ballini, Christian Kaufmann, Gilbert Lewis, William Mitchell. Dorota Starzecka, Kees van den Meiracker, D.A.P. van Duuren, Deborah Waite. Boh Welseli and Maria Wronska-Friend. - Though it was sporadically practised in the extreme west of New Guinea, having been introduced through Indonesian connections. no. 27 Indonesia. Irian Java. Asmat people Acquired 1916 Wood, pigment and fiber 1 1: 76.77 in. Peabody Museum, Harvard l ni versify. Cambridge. Mass.. acc. no. 61-53-70/3961 Photo: Hillcl Burger 89 no. 2$ (left) Indonesia. Irian Java, Cenderawasih Bav. near Cape Mamori, Dore Collected by Thomas Barbour, before October. 1007 W ood, cassowary feathers, pigments and vegetable fiber 1 1: 56. 70 in. Peabody Museum, Harvard University. Cambridge, Mass., ace. no. 07— +5-70/72606 Photo: Hillel Burger no. 29 (right) Indonesia. Irian Java, Cenderawasih Bay, near Cape Mamori, Dore Collected by Thomas Barbour, before October, 1007 W ood, cassowary feathers, pigments, vegetable fibers and glass beads H: 42.13 in. Peabody Museum. Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., acc. no. 07-45-70/72695 Photo: Hillel Bin :ger 90 no. 30 Papua New Guinea. Papuan Gulf. Elema people Collected by A.P. Goodwin, before 1891 Relief-can ed wood and pigment 1 1: 45.28 in. Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., acc. no. 91-6-70/50509 Photo: Hillel Burger 91 no. 32 Papua New Guinea, Papuan Gull, Vail ala River (15 miles up). Kiri Collected by A.B. Webster, J..V Field Expedition. 1909-1913 Relief-carved wood and pigment 1 1: 36.32 in. The Field Museum. Chicago, ncg. no. A1 12700. acc. no. 142168 Photo: D. A. W Idle no. 33 Papua New Guinea. Papuan Gull. Vailala River (15 miles up). Kiri Collected by A.B. Webster. J.N. Field Expedition. 1909-1913 Relief-carved wood and pigment 1 1: 35.43 in. The Field Museum. Chicago, neg. no. All 2699, acc. no. 142169 Photo: I). A. White 92 no. 35 Pa, )ua New Guinea. New Guinea Highlands, Maring people \N ood and traces of pigment H: 51 in. Private Collection no. 34 Papua New Guinea. West Highlands, Hagen people Presented by Major Herschel W. Carney, January. 1946 Wood and pigment 1 1: 53.15 in. The Field Museum. Chicago, neg. no. A 112706. acc. no. 252002 Photo: D. A. White 93 no. 36 Papua New Guinea, New Guinea Highlands, Maring, Hagen or Simbu people Wood and pigment, vegetable fiber H: o ' 7 in. Collection of Taylor A. Dale, Santa Fe Photo: Richard L. Faller no. 37 Papua New Guinea, North Coast, Hansa Bay. east of mouth of Sepik River, Awar Collected by A.B. Lewis, J.N. Field Expedition. 1909-1913 Incised wood, pigment and organic decoration H: 64.17 in. The Field Museum, Chicago, neg. no. PCA257, acc. no. l-t0288 Photo: D. A. White 94 I no. 3 S Papua New Guinea, North Coast. Aitape Region. Malol Collected by A.B. Lewis, .I N. Field Expedition. 1909-1913 Wood and pigment H: 37.80 in. The Field Museum. Chicago, neg. no. A1 12697, acc no. 139484 Photo: D. A. White no. 39 Papua New Guinea. Middle Sepik. Kararau Collected bv A.B. Lewis. J.N. Field Expedition. 1909-1913 Relief-carved wood and pigment H : 63 in. I he Field Museum. Chicago, neg. no. PCA402, acc. no. 141221 Photo: 0. A. White 95 PV no. 40 Papua New Guinea, North Coast, Wewak Area, Dallman Harbor Collected l>v J. Uinlauff, before 1913 Wood and pigment H: 63.74 in University of Pennsylvania Museum. Philadelphia, neg. no. S4-141700, acc. no. P3637B 96 no. 4 / Papua New Guinea, North Coast. Aitape Area, Sissano Collected hv .1. I inland, before 1913 Wood and pigment H: 44.88 in University of Pennsylvania Museum. Philadelphia, neg. no. S8-558H-15. acc. no. P3636 97 no. 4-2 Papua New Guinea, North Coast, Aitape region, Warapu Collected I >\ George A. Dorsey, Museum Expedition, 1908 Wood and pigment H: (>4 in. The Field Museum, Chicago, neg. no. \1 12693, acc. no. 149164 Photo: D. A. White t F no. 44 Papua New Guinea, Trobriand Islands Collected bv Alexander Agassiz. 1806 Wood and pigment H: 33.07 in. Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge. Mass., acc. no. 96-25-70/49449 Photo: 1 lillel Bui ■ger no. 4.3 Papua New Guinea, Trobriand Islands? Wood and pigment 1 1: 2(> in. Collection of Taylor A. Dale. Santa Fe Photo: Richard 1 .. I' allrr <)<) no. 46 Papua New Guinea, East Cape, Milne Bay Collected l>\ Alexander Agassiz, 1896 Relief-carved wood and pigment H: 37.01 in. Peabody Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., acc. no. 96-25-70/49450 Photo: I lillel Burger 100 ’ ip pff.Tfj 9M pffK*liffi i yw& jpyrw ft . 6 m. i} TV*] ^H!l! » P t if felftt • ,m •- ■ |w mm P niwfM ^ no. 4S Papua New Guinea, New Britain, Mengen people Collected by J. I inlauff, before 1918 Wood, pigment and rattan H: 50.59 in. Peabody Museum, 1 larvard l niversitv. Cambridge. Mass., acc. no. 18-20-70/D 1261 Photo: Ilillel Burger no. 49 Papua New Guinea. New Britain. Arawe people Woods, wicker and pigment 1 1: .‘>-t.8-t in. Peabod\ Museum. Harvard l niversitv, Cambridge, Mass., acc. no. 18-20-70/1) 1262 Photo: I lillel Bui ger 101 no. 50 Solomon Islands Acquired by A.W.F. Fuller, February 12, 1932 Wicker, pearl shell inlay, red and black mastic H: 32.28 in. The Field Museum, Chicago, neg. no. A97441, acc. no. 276872 Photo: 19. A. White 102 no. 51 Solomon Islands Wood. bark, pearl shell inlay and hardened mastic H: 42.32 in. The Field Museum. Chicago, neg. no. 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