Paperskin: An introduction - Queensland Art Gallery

10
Ngatu 1940s
Tonga
Barkcloth, dye / 196.4 x 160cm /
Gift of Valerie Morris, 1989 /
Collection: Museum of New
Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Paperskin: An introduction
Maud Page
in admiration of the Pacific barkcloth samples brought home by early explorers,
elizabeth Cook embroidered and fashioned a waistcoat from this cloth for her
husband’s expected return in 1780. 1 Captain Cook, however, never felt its supple and
silky texture on his skin: only his bones knew the material, when these were carefully
bundled in hawaiian barkcloth after his violent death at Kealakekua bay in 1779.
barkcloth — wrapped around chiefly bodies, dancers, brides, grooms, babies and the
deceased, or offered as ceremonial gifts — is the subject of the ‘Paperskin’ exhibition,
and conjures precious narratives from the Pacific.
Across one third of the world, and over many centuries, Pacific people have been
creating, adapting and repeating designs on the fibrous barkcloth surface. These
creations can be utilitarian, but most are still used in important ceremonies. some
barkcloths record the passage of time, such as the Tongan ngatu featured in
‘Paperskin’, which depicts Tonga’s World War Two alliances. 2 similarly, Niuean hiapo
was sometimes used as parchment to inscribe the names of people and tracts of land,
which often indicate the date the hiapo were created. 3 in other cultures, such as that
of Papua New Guinea’s baining people, barkcloth is used to construct impermanent,
intricate sculptures dedicated to transcendence of the temporal world.
Whatever the intent, most barkcloths exhibit an extraordinary array of dexterously
applied geometric forms that transfix the eye. From the fine crosshatch work of the
solomon islands and Futuna practitioners to the bold, angular lines in Fijian textiles, and
to the combination of straight and curved mark-making on Papuan barkcloths, there is
in each an aesthetic of symmetry and dynamism. ‘Paperskin’ celebrates this art form,
accentuating the diversity of its two-dimensional and sculptural practice while also
noting some of the striking synergies in both pattern and use.
To those outside the communities in which they are generated, barkcloth’s visual
idiom is largely incomprehensible. 4 in Papua New Guinea, for example, much of the
11

information in barkcloth designs is not meant to be shared with outsiders. The Omie
women from Oro (or Northern) Province, on the country’s north-east coast, speak of
the cloths as their ‘wisdom’ and, of the symbols in their works, will recount only those
intended for outsiders. The titles of their nioje (barkcloths) refer to the rich, volcanic
landscape that dominates their villages, including Mount lamington, mountains with
clouds, jungle vines, tree bark, spider webs, frogs, and the backbones of mountain fish.
Yet, each woman imagines this same landscape differently. some like Vivian Marumi
can have entirely different interpretations of the same subject — one version of ‘jungle
vines’ shows row upon row of symmetrically freehand horizontal lines as thick as a
canopy. Another images this same jungle as chaotic and filled with spirals, diamond
shapes and blocks of colour. This interpretive freedom is bountiful and produces an
incredible diversity in barkcloths made within the same small, remote community.
Australian writer Drusilla Modjeska spent time with these artists, and recounts that:
When a woman comes into her vai hero (wisdom), it is not simply that she has learned
the iconography, but that she lives it so fully that it forms, and informs, her relationship
with the cloth. 5
Modjeska’s engagement with the nioje, and her attempt to divulge customary
knowledge of the work and practice to a Western audience, is evocative of how other
barkcloth from the Pacific can be viewed:
While the alphabet of motifs can be named, it is absorbed in such a way that parts do
not require naming. The iconography works not by being broken into separate elements,
but by a complex patterning of sensation and image that is not translatable — a way of
seeing that is affective as well as instructive. 6
As with much other Pacific barkcloth, the Omie’s nioje is a physical manifestation of
the makers — who they are, their locality, their history and their cosmology. Titles
of abstract works, such as ‘clan history’ and ‘wisdom’, allude to these textiles’
genealogical memory. The Omie say their wisdom is intertwined with the wellbeing of
12
ABOVE
Vivian Marumi
Papua New Guinea b.1980
Omie people, Oro Province
Odunege 1 (Jungle vines 1) 2006
Barkcloth, dye / 142 x 114cm /
Purchased 2007. Queensland Art
Gallery Foundation
RIGHT
Vivian Marumi
Odunege 4 (Jungle vines 4)
(detail) 2006
Barkcloth, dye / 163 x 99cm /
Purchased 2007. Queensland Art
Gallery Foundation

Mount lamington. its eruption in 1951, the resulting deaths of 4000 of their Orokaivian
neighbours and their own dislocation is interpreted as a consequence of the war on the
Kokoda Trail which, among other horrors, grounded the dead soldiers’ restless spirits.
some Omie blamed the eruption on the persistence of customary practices over those
of Christianity, and proceeded to erase many of them. As a consequence, initiation
ceremonies and the ensuing tattooing of clan insignia on the body ceased and designs
were instead transposed to barkcloth. Artist Nerry Keme has said, ‘i paint on barkcloth
the designs that were on my grandparents’ bodies’. 7 These materialise on the nioje as
three small concentric circles, repeated in several configurations across the textile, and
were once confined to the area around the navels of her ancestors. in reviewing this
dynamic transposition, Modjeska refers to these as ‘double skin’ designs.
When speaking about barkcloth, the allusion to marked skin is particularly evocative
and has been used in connection with other Pacific practices. Anthropologist Alfred
Gell noted that the Marquesans called their full-body tattoos pahu tiki, which translates
as ‘wrapping in images’. researching samoan tattooing practices, he later concluded
that they functioned as a second skin — wrapping, protecting and containing the
person’s essence. The similarity of motifs from samoan tattoos to their siapo (barkcloth)
is evident in works from the collection of Wellington’s Museum of New Zealand Te Papa
Tongarewa, such as a 1940s example composed of horizontal rows of triangles. 8 Many
Pacific peoples, most notably Tongans and Fijians, also wrap their bodies in barkcloth
for important ceremonies. like tattooing, the cloth confers an entire matrix of meaning
on the bearer. A drawing from 1877 shows a Fijian chief layered head to toe in masi with
an accompanying description around that time, claiming that over 200 metres of cloth
could be used for this purpose.
There are many accounts of barkcloth being treated as an extension of the body — an
extension of the skin. samoans would wrap barkcloth around the bride, and the material
would then be ritually stained by the first intercourse. 9 Fijians rubbed turmeric on their
The Tui Nadrau, dressed in masi
for ceremonial presentation.
Drawn from life by Theodor
Kleinschmidt, Natuatuacoko,
October, 1877 / Fiji Museum
Collection
Masi (detail) unknown
Fiji
Barkcloth, dye / 94.5 x 127.5cm /
Collection: Museum of New
Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
masi as well as on the bodies of a new mother and baby, binding them indistinguishably
in this sweet-smelling, warm, earthy spice. likewise, the dead were also impregnated
with turmeric and laid upon masi in their graves. 10 in 1920s Collingwood bay, Papua New
Guinean women used to crawl around the village beneath a barkcloth when mourning
their husbands, the cloth isolating them from sight and contact. 11
Archaeologists Chris ballard and Meredith Wilson have posited a relationship between
Melanesian rock art designs and those on tapa, specifically in mortuary contexts. The
motifs, they argue, transfer between the two media and also appear in tattoos, carvings
and engravings. 12 As ballard has said:
Most of the rock art sites with tapa motifs are burial sites, with human remains in cliff
niches or caves, and there are lots of instances of tapa being used to cover the bones,
as a form of surrogate skin. 13
Other scholars have also pointed to the link between designs found on ancient
Pacific lapita pottery, tattooing and barkcloths, alluding to a complex aesthetic that is
revitalised and used in a number of different art forms. 14 This ubiquitous transference
of motifs can be understood as a method of communication (particularly as the Pacific
region had no written language prior to european contact), and its continued use
suggests an audience for whom these symbols represent a particular sense of being
and place.
For the baining people of the mountainous Gazelle Peninsula of New britain, Papua
New Guinea, the creation of barkcloth masks enacts an intricate relationship with both
their everyday agricultural subsistence and that of the spirits, particularly those of the
recently departed. The ten baining masks in ‘Paperskin’ represent only a portion of the
sculptures being made today, and include works from throughout the peninsula. 15 The
masks are worn by men, with rare exceptions, such as the two Siviritki with fringes and
accompanying fibre skirts that camouflage the dancer. each of the ten masks — except
14 15

for the four-metre-high, three-pronged work — exhibit the baining characteristics of
large, accentuated eyes, accompanied by vibrant designs painted directly onto the
barkcloth in a restricted palette of red and black.
These complex sculptures are used for a single ceremony and then discarded,
even though they consume much of the villagers’ time and resources. The abstract
designs featured on both sides are drawn mostly from memory, allowing for individual
interpretation and change. Although customarily using designs drawn from nature —
such as wild vines, insects or even pig intestines (the latter being a pattern used in
several masks in ‘Paperskin’) — more recent designs include those derived from car
tyre treads, mission crosses and manufactured cloth, as well as introduced figurative
elements, such as flags and the ‘thumbs up’ gesture.
The masks are produced for day or night ceremonies and represent female and male
spirits in the form of animals or composite beings, such as bird–humans or snake–
birds. Day dances are commonly associated with the commemoration of the dead and
with the cyclical fertility of harvests and gardens, while night fire dances are thought to
pertain to male initiation.
A 1931 written account of a night fire ceremony is remarkably similar to more recent
accounts, from the 1970s to the mid 2000s, as described by collector harold Gallasch.
This points to the continued relevance of the practice despite the advent of modernity. 16
each begins by noting the anticipation of the villagers following a long period of mask
preparation, which occurs in locations inaccessible to women and children. Pigs are killed,
food is distributed and a large bonfire ignited in the centre of the village. Gallasch recounts:
. . . [A]t its zenith the chanting and drumming increased in tempo, as if in great
urgency. Sweeping in from the blackness of the night, of the jungle, came the
apparition of a bush spirit, a large white face outlined in red and black, large eyes to
see in the darkness. As it came closer the disembodied face, shrouded behind the
16
ABOVE
Kavat masks in performance,
Malasaet village, East New Britain
Province, Papua New Guinea,
2009 / Image courtesy: John Wilson
RIGHT
Gabriel Asekia
Papua New Guinea, b. Unknown
Sibali Baining people, East New
Britain Province
Anui Lagun
Papua New Guinea, b. Unknown
Sibali Baining people, East New
Britain Province
Mandas mask c. 1995
Barkcloth, dye, felt pen, cane /
410 x174 x 40cm / Collection:
Harold Gallasch, Hahndorf, South
Australia
17

18
Kavat mask (front and back) 1971
Papua New Guinea
Kairak Baining people, East New
Britain Province
Barkcloth, paper, dye, felt
pen, wood and cane / 135 x
133 x 60cm / Purchased
2009. Queensland Art Gallery
Foundation Grant.
croton leaves, was propelled on black legs, pounding in time with the drumming,
racing forwards, reversing, then stomping ever closer, the head swaying and
pirouetting . . . children screamed in fear and ran to escape. In one last, swift burst
of fervour, the masked apparition turned, raced and jumped in to the centre of the
bonfire. There, for a few long seconds it stomped and twisted, burning sticks and
embers scattering in all directions. 17
The baining masks in ‘Paperskin’ bear the traces of their performance: soot from fires,
and the remnants of dyes and oils used to paint and perfume the dancer’s skin.
however, these masks are more than theatrical devices: they allow for an interaction
with, and a continuation of, a specific cosmology. living in the Gazelle Peninsula in the
1970s, theologians Karl hesse and Theo Aerts recorded that the ‘baining worldview
accepts as it were two worlds, in which the other one (a rimbab) is the replica of this
world’. 18 The invisibility of the rimbab becomes visible in the dances. Masked, their
bodies adorned with paint and leaves, the dancers become the manifestation of spirits:
They show the forces of nature — but at the same time also their limitations — the
power of man, and the ambiguity of his relationship with that which is constantly
beyond his immediate grasp. 19
in many cultures across the Pacific, barkcloth continues to be significant. The
deliberate repetition of geometric patterns has enabled a visual idiom historically linking
barkcloth with other important cultural practices such as tattooing and weaving, as
well as defunct art forms such as rock engravings and lapita pottery. recognition
and appreciation of these designs has ensured the art form’s ongoing practice. On
a fibrous surface, using a restricted colour palette and limited combinations of linear
and curvilinear non-figurative designs, barkcloth makers have created extraordinarily
diverse works that mediate the social and spiritual transformation of both individuals
and groups.
For some, the need to sustain this practice — to work communally, and to have goods
to give and exchange — is so strong that, even when lacking the essential materials,
they continue to innovate. in the mid 1990s in sydney’s west, for example, susana
Kaafi gathered a group of women together to cut and glue interfacing material into long
strips. laying them onto a large makeshift table in Kaafi’s backyard, they then painted
the strips — using the dust scraped from red bricks — with the gridded emblems of the
Tongan monarchy alongside stylised images of the sydney Opera house.
Maud Page is Curator, Contemporary Pacific Art, Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art.
19

ACKNOWleDGMeNT
i would like to acknowledge the
research and thoughtful input
of ruth McDougall, Curatorial
Assistant, Asian and Pacific Art,
Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of
Modern Art to ‘Paperskin’.
eNDNOTes
1 Peter sharrad, ‘Trade and
textiles in the Pacific and india’,
in Diana Wood Conroy and
emma rutherford, Fabrics
of Change: Trading Identities
[exhibition catalogue], university
of Wollongong, NsW, p.14.
2 see Adrienne Kaeppler,
‘The structure of Tongan
barkcloth design’, in Pacific
Art: Persistence, Change and
Meaning, Anita herle, Nick
stanley, Karen stevenson and
robert l Welsch (eds), Crawford
house Publishing, hindmarsh,
sA, 2002, pp.291–309.
3 John Pule in John Pule and
Nicholas Thomas, Hiapo:
Past and Present in Niuean
Barkcloth, university of Otago
Press, Dunedin, 2005, p.47.
4 simon Kooijman in his seminal
and often quoted 1972 text on
barkcloth, Tapa in Polynesia,
thought that further study was
needed on the names given to
barkcloth patterns to decipher
some of the meanings, but
concluded that, ‘in the present
state of our knowledge
they have no interpretative
significance’ and therefore did
not include any. There has been
some attempt at adding to this
body of knowledge, but by and
large, there remains remarkably
little written information on
barkcloth motifs across
Polynesia and Melanesia.
One pertinent example is rod
ewins’s 1982 research on
Fijian motifs (originally related
to mats) and his more recent
study of these in Staying Fijian:
Vatulele Island Barkcloth and
Social Identity, Crawford house
Publishing, hindmarsh, sA,
and university of hawaii Press,
honolulu, 2009.
5 Drusilla Modjeska, ‘This
place, our art’, in Omie: The
Barkcloth Art of Omie, [exhibition
catalogue], Annandale Galleries,
sydney, 2006, p.16.
6 Modjeska, in Omie: The
Barkcloth Art of Omie, p.16.
rod ewins, speaking on Fijian
masi (barkcloth), also states:
‘Thus it is the totality of the
pattern that gives meaning,
and no one component of the
pattern can carry more than a
small part of the meaning by
itself’, in Staying Fijian: Vatulele
Island Barkcloth and Social
Identity, p.147.
7 Omie: The Barkcloth Art of
Omie, p.29.
8 Caption details: Siapo mamanu,
samoa, barkcloth, dye / 173.5 x
128.2cm / Collected by sir Guy
richardson Powles c.1949–60.
Gift of Michael Powles, 2001 /
Collection: Museum of New
Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
9 Nicholas Thomas, ‘The case
of the misplaced ponchos:
speculations concerning the
history of cloth in Polynesia’,
in Clothing the Pacific, Chloe
Colchester (ed.), berg, Oxford,
2003, p.90.
10 simon Kooijman, Tapa in the
Pacific, bernice P. bishop
Museum bulletin 234, bishop
Museum Press, honolulu,
hawai‘i, 1972, p358.
11 roger Neich and Mick
Pendergrast, Pacific Tapa, David
bateman, Auckland Museum,
Auckland, 1997, p.136.
12 Chris ballard, email to the
author, 4 March 2009.
13 rod ewins has also observed
that human remains were
found wrapped in black masi in
a mortuary cave in Vanualevu,
Fiji, in Staying Fijian: Vatulele
Island Barkcloth and Social
Identity, p.138.
14 Most of Papua New Guinea,
the outer islands and parts of
the solomon islands have been
inhabited for over 40 000 years.
The rest of the Pacific was settled
by speakers of Austronesian
languages from south-east
Asia approximately 4000 years
ago. This expansion is marked,
in particular, by the distinctive
Barkcloth (detail) 19th century
Papua New Guinea
Doriri people, Oro Province
Barkcloth, dye / 57.6 x 117.3cm /
Collected by Captain F.R. Barton,
1901. Donated 1966 / Collection:
Queensland Museum
pottery style known as lapita.
15 it includes work by the simbali
people in the south of the
Gazelle Peninsula, the Chachet
in the north-west, and the
uramot and Kairak people in
the central and central-east
regions of the tip of this New
britain island.
16 see W.J. read, ‘A snake dance
of the baining’, in Oceania,
vol. 3, 1931–32, pp.232–37.
17 harold Gallasch, letter to the
author, 20 July 2009.
18 Karl hesse and Theo Aerts,
Baining Life and Lore, university
of Papua New Guinea Press,
Port Moresby, 1996, p.41.
19 hesse and Aerts, Baining Life
and Lore, p.41.
20 21