The Signature of Terror Violence, Memory, and Landscape At

Inscribed Landscapes Marking and Making Place EDITED BY BRUNO DAVID MEREDITH WILSON University of Hawai'i Press Honolulu © 2002 University of Hawai'i Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 07 06 05 04 03 02 6 5 4 3 2 1 CONTENTS Library of Congress Cataloging~in~ Publication Data Inscribed landscapes: marking and making place / edited by Bruno David and Meredith Wilson. p. em. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8248-2472-5 (alk. paper) 1. Human geography. 2. Inscriptions. 3. Monuments. 4. Sacred space. I. David, Bruno. II. Wilson, Meridith. Preface Vll GF50 .ISS 2002 ONE Introduction 1 304.2-dcZl 2001052824 Meredith Wilson and Bruno David University of Hawai'i Press books are printed on acid~free paper and meet the guidelines PART I ROCK-ART for permanence and durability of the Council on Library Resources. TWO The Signature ofTerror: Violence, Memory, and Landscape at Freeport 13 Designed by Bookcomp, Inc. Chris Ballard Ritual Response: Place Marking and the Colonial Frontier in Australia 27 Printed by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group THREE Ian]. McNiven and Lynette Russell FOUR Spaces ofResistance: Graffiti and Indigenous Place Markings in the Early European Contact Period ofNorthern Australia 42 Bruno David and Me,.edith Wilson FIVE Rock-Art as an Indicaror of Changing Social Geographies in Central Australia 61 And,.'e Rosenftld SIX Wahi Pana: Legendary Places on Hawai'i Island 79 Georgia Lee SEVEN Making Sense of Petroglyphs: The Sound of Rock-Art 93 Paul Rainbi,.d EIGHT The Narrow Doors ofthe Desert: Ancient Egyptian Roads in the Theban Western Desert 104 John Coleman Darnell NINE Rock-Arr and Landscapes 122 Paul S. C. Ta,on v vi CONTENTS PART II MONUMENTS TEN A Sense ofTime: Cultural Markers in the Mesolithic ofSouthern England? 139 PREFACE Michael]. Allen andjulie Gardiner ELEVEN A Place ofSpecial Meaning: Interpreting Pre-Historic Monuments in the Landscape 154 Chris Scarre TWELVE Monuments in the Pre-Historic Landscape ofthe Maltese Islands: Ritual and Domestic Transformations 176 Simon Stoddart his book is an archaeological and social in the production ofa sense ofplace and belonging. THIRTEEN Imperial Inscriptions in the Aztec Landscape 187 anthropological exploration of the role of We thus decided to redirect the book somewhat, to Emily Umberger T place marking in place making. The ap focus less on the fixed landmark and more on the proaches taken by the various authors are varied, humanization oflandscapes, on the process ofsocial FOURTEEN Negotiating the Village: Communiry Landscapes in rhe Late Pre-Historic although all are united in the view that landscapes and sensual anchorage in place. The book's new American Southwest 200 are not simply "out there," but constructed in social direction echoed more closely Out intellectual inter Michael Adler engagement. People physically inscribe spaces, such ests and curiosities. as in rock-art, monuments, and the like, in the We have followed a number ofconventions in the process ofdwelling. More intimately, people's spatial following pages. For one, we write ofthe nonwritten PART III BEYOND THE MARK experiences are inscribed through the senses. Both past as "pre-History" rarher than "prehistory." We do FIFTEEN Anchoring Mobile Subjectivities: Home, Identiry, and Belonging among Italian people and place are codefined in a process of rhis as an artempt to avoid the evolutionary loaded Australian Migrants 219 engagement that involves inscription. It is various ness of the notion ofprehisrory (while at the same Mariastella Pulvirenti dimensions ofthis codefinition that are explored in time being well aware ofthe history ofthe terms pre this book. history/prehistory, as influentially used in particular SIXTEEN Inscriptions as Initial Condirions: Federation Square (Melbourne, Australia) The initial seeds for this volume were laid in 1998 byJohn Lubbock and Daniel Wilson during the mid and the Silencing of the Mark 230 when we considered assembling a group of to lare nineteenth century). Paul Carter researchers to discuss how rhe marking of place Following Paul Tac;on and Christopher Chip SEVENTEEN Sarawak on Stage: The Sarawak Cultural Village and the Colonization ofCultural affects human interaction and perception. At first we pindale's lead (1998, An archaeology of rock-art Space in the Making ofState Identiry 240 were particularly interested in how places marked or through informed methods and formal methods, Sallie Yea decorated wirh rock-art gained significance as I-lOin The Archaeology ofRock-Art, edited by C. socially marked territorial (already-owned) spaces. Chippindale and P. S. C. Tac;on, Cambridge: Cam EIGHTEEN The Edge of rhe Sacred, the Edge ofDeath: Sensual Inscriptions 253 The psychological and social implications ofsuch a bridge Universiry Press), we hyphenate "rock-art" to Marcia Langton process of place marking are considerable, but have distinguish such practices from the Western artistic NINETEEN The Work ofInscription in Foi Poetry 270 remained largely unexplored by archaeologists. program, which is closely tied to a market economy. james F Weiner However, we were not entirely satisfied with the We also sometimes refer to radiocarbon dates and initially bounded archaeological direction for this sometimes to calibrated ages. Wherever radiocarbon Contributors 285 book. It was clear that it was not inscriptions that dates are presented, theyare listed as "years B.P."; cal Index 289 were at stake, but people's relationships with places ibrated ages are presented as "years ago." We use the VI! TWO The Signature ofTerror Violence, Memory, and Landscape at Freeport CHRIS BALLARD he notion of a "culture of terror," devel tory of violence around the Freeport mine, in an oped by ethnographers of Latin America attempt to understand the operation of a technol T and given wider currency through the writ ogy of terror through the deployment of a particu ing of Michael Taussig, resonates powerfully with lar iconography. The manipulation of a layered conditions around the world's richest mining oper series ofimages and other prompts for the memory ation, Freeport's Grasberg mine in the Indonesian allows the very meaning ofthe landscape for a com province of Papua or Irian Jaya.! Taussig (I987) muniry, and thus the literal base ofits identiry, to be described how a climate or culture ofterror, the per reconfigured. These images both record and recall petual imminence ofthe threat ofdeath, can create violent events, conferring upon those who have the a "space ofdeath," an imaginary zone in which fear power ro inscribe rhe landscape in this way a degree blocks the senses as violence and representations of of control over the summoning ofmemories of the violence achieve a near-perfect circle of mirrors past and the heighrening of terror and uncerrainry reflecting terror back upon both perpetrators and about the future. In a companion paper (Ballard victims. Neither cultures of terror nor spaces of 2000), I considered the performative aspecrs ofvio death, however, have been explored in any depth in lence at Freeporr and elaborared upon the relation terms oftheir ropographic arrangement, the nature ship between violence and terror. Here I focus on of their inscription in a specific landscape. How the manner in which death and the terror ofdying does death-or, more accurately, the terror of an are implanred in rhe landscape and rendered per unfamiliar, unexpected, or violent death-come to perually present for irs inhabitants, as an echo ofvio inhabit a landscape? How is the land itself marked, lence that persists through the inrervals between manipulated, and deployed in the orchestration of episodes ofmurder, torture, and disappearance. The terror? And iflandscapes, by definition, invoke per manner in which bodies become absent and are then spective and the scope for different readings, how re-presenred is mediated by an iconography ofvio are these markings received by different audiences? lence, which introduces signs that srand for these I address these questions by considering the his- absences (Graziano 1992:73). 13 Violence, Memory, and Landscape at Freeport 14 CHRIS BALLARD 15 of images and interpretations in whose organization Recent studies ofpolitical iconography in violent United Nations in 1962 (Budiardjo and Liong wider region. In the absence of an effective, func the relations ofpower feature prominently. contexts have tended to focus on the symbolism of 1988; Defert 1996; Osborne 1985; Saltford 2000). tioning local civilian administration, the security Around the Freeport mine, the more obvious community resistance and sectarian distinction. The Indonesian military campaign to seize the west forces, including both army and police units, are in iconography of murals and graffiti has been over The graphic and political sophistication apparent in ern half of the island of New Guinea from the many respects the representatives of the state, and whelmingly that ofthe state and its armed forces, and the graffiti and murals of Northern Ireland and Dutch played a role in creating the international their actions are commonly viewed locally as reflec the multiple interpretations of these images and the Palestine has required that close attention be paid to pressure that led to the transfer, and the army there tions of the will of a distant and fundamentally intentions of their makers demand attention. An the identity of the intended audiences for these after displayed a tendency to regard

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