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 the possession malign state. analysis of the patterned appearance of the state's images and slogans. Although Catholic murals in ofIrian Jaya and its resources as a right ofconquest. The traditional landowners ofthe highland min­ images is potentially revealing ofthe structured nature Belfast, often restricted to clearly defined working­ Popular uprisings during the 1960s were brutally ing area, the mining township ofTembagapura and ofits attempts to dominate the community and thus class neighborhoods, are at one level emblems of suppressed. After the crushing in 1977 of a its surrounds, are the Amungme, a language com­ capable of identifYing the means of subverting their resistance to Protestant domination and British rule provincewide insurrection led by the poorly munity of about 8,000 people, divided between intended effects. Yet this is not to portray the com­ (Sluka 1992), they are also, and perhaps just as pow­ equipped Free Papua Movement (Organisasi Papua urban residents ofthe lowland towns ofTimika and munities of the mine area as passive consumers of erfully, a means of policing community will, "part Merdeka, or OPM), Irian Jaya became one ofthree Akimuga, and the inhabitants ofrural hamlets scat­ some discourse of the dominant. Much as armed of an inwardly focused propaganda which largely provinces, along with East Timor and Aceh, in tered across a dozen narrow highland valleys cut into forces and communities alike participate in novel 2 ignores debate" Oarman 1993:118). Murals have which the military exercised almost complete con­ the southern slopes ofthe Central Range. Although "vocabularies of terror" (Suarez-Oroco 1992:235) to multiple audiences, but consideration oftheir loca­ trol (Aditjondro 1994; Robinson 1998). both the 1936 and 1960 reconnaissance expeditions manage and communicate conditions of radical vio­ tion, their content, and their immediate historical The Freeport mine played an important role in were peacefully received, the Amungme reacted lence, an iconography ofterror requires the participa­ context yields a much richer sense oftheir reception the history ofIrian Jaya under Suharto's New Order almost immediately to the stan of mine construc­ tion ofboth the army, as producers ofthe images, and and their efficacy as interventions in relations of regime. The 1936 discovery ofa substantial copper tion in 1967 with a strongshow ofprotest. Theyhad the community, as active readers and interpreters. The power, both between and within communities. . deposit at the Ertsberg ("are Mountain") in the been neither consulted about plans for the mine nor capacity and the will to read and interpret, however Of particular relevance to the Freeport case IS Central Highlands of Dutch New Guinea had led compensated for the loss of land, productive trees, the message might be transformed in the act ofcom­ Peteet's (1996: 140) observation thatan analysis ofthe to further exploration in 1960 by an American min­ or gardens. munication, necessarily implicate the audience as cul­ way in which graffiti are read forces enquity to extend ing company, Freeport Sulphur (Wilson 1981). Much as the miners themselves were in awe ofthe turally fluent agents, fully capable of response. At beyond the simple binaty of domination and resis­ When Suharto came to power in 1965, Freeport was technical demands and the scale of construction at Freeport, where the community's response has not tance. Palestinian graffiti have provided the commu­ the first foreign company to sign a major investment the Ertsberg (see Wilson 1981), so too the Arnungme thus far taken the more obvious forms of murals or nity with a voice, a means of access to communal contract with Indonesia, forming a local subsidiary, were initially overwhelmed by the accompanying graffiti, other, more subtle means of resisting the memoty, and a public affirmation ofallegiance to dif­ P.T. Freeport Indonesia. Initially a medium-sized environmental destruction of the headwater areas intended import ofthese images and insisting on the ferent Palestinian factions; but the fact that most graf­ copper and gold venture centered on the Ertsberg, where the mine is located. fu the presence ofthe mine fiti are rendered in Arabic means that Israeli soldiers, integrity ofthe community can be identified. the Freeport mining complex rose dramatically to failed to translate into shared benefits or wealth for although keenly aware ofthe role ofgraffiti as a chal­ global prominence after the 1988 discovery of the the community, Arnungme protests grew more force­ lenge to authority, remain largely ignorant of their Grasberg, the world's richest copper-gold deposit, ful, culminating in the closure ofexploration camps, content (Peteet 1996:150). Local historical context, CONTEXTS FOR VIOLENCE with an estimated reserve value in 1998 of US$54 which were marked offwith cross-shaped em jinkong AT FREEPORT relations ofpower, and the positions ofimage makers billion. The newfound strategic significance of the sticks forbidding further trespass. A 1974 agreement and image readers are thus vital to an adequate analy­ mine for Indonesia resulted in a substantial increase between the company and the community, mediated Irian Jaya has had a deeply troubled history ofincor­ sis ofwhat, following Poole (1997), we might think in troop numbers around the mine and the local by the government and the army, was widely consid­ poration within the Republic ofIndonesia since the of as a "visual economy" of political violence. The townships ofTimika and Tembagapura, exacerbat­ ered by the Arnungme to have been forced upon colonial territory of Dutch New Guinea was trans­ notion of visual economy introduces the sense of a ing existing tensions between the army, the mining them. When a small group of OPM fighters with ferred to Indonesia via the interim authority of the systematic production, exchange, and reproduction company, and the Indigenous communities of the Arnungme leaders walked from neighboring Papua Violence, Memory, and Landscape at Freeport 17 16 CHRIS BALLARD military numbers around Freeport) from a unit of At dawn on the morning of Christmas Day, THE CORPSE AS SIGN, AND THE New Guinea to Akimuga in 1977, many Amungme, less than 100 troops before 1977 to at least 1,850 December 1994, a large crowd of Amungme and SIGN OF THE CORPSE including those few with jobs at Freeport, joined with soldiers by 1996. Shootings of Freeport workers other highlanders raised the Morning Star flag on a them in an attack upon the mine. The army's along the road between Tembagapura and Timika in small hill in the Wa Valley, overlooking the mining Violence) a seemingly infinite category of activity response was devastating, putting almost the entire late 1994, attributed to the aPM, were almost cer­ town of Tembagapura, a peaceful but astonishing and effect) assumes a more focused role in the con­ community into flight, with many families spending tainly the work ofarmy units on "black operations," act of defiance. The first troops to approach the text of a culture of terror. Elsewhere I advance the a year or more hiding in the forest. The 1977 upris­ designed to create a climate of fear and place pres­ gathering opened fire, wounding two men, one of argument that violence and terror are mutually sup­ ing introduced a new era in relations between the sure on the mining company to fund the presence whom, Naranebelan Anggaibak, was then captured. portive) with violence at its most effective when community on one hand and the mine and the mil­ ofmore troops. Likewise, a series ofriots in Temba­ Reports from Amungme eyewitnesses detailed how enacted in a climate of terror, and terror continues itaty on the other, characterized by a profound gapura and Timika over three days in March 1996, Naranebelan was dragged behind a car by a noose and extends the work of violence (Ballard 2000). mutual enmity and distrust. reported around the world and widely attributed at around his neck to the army checkpoint near the Though Taussig (1987:51f) alerted us to the dan­ Although there had been a permanent police pres­ the time to Amungme dissatisfaction with the com­ Amungme settlement of Banti) a short distance gers of seeking to distinguish the rational from the ence at the mine since the initial construction phase, pany, appears to have been instigated and directed from Tembagapura. By the time he was delivered to irrational in accounting for terror, the maintenance the army appears not to have been involved at this by troops in civilian clothing carrying walkie­ the Banti checkpoint, he was dead, and his bodywas ofa culture of terror involves a degree of conscious early stage in direct conflict with the Amungme talkies.5 Again, the company's response was to wel­ then suspended by the ankles from a post opposite coordination and planning-a structured mise-en­ community, restricting its activities largely to the come further reinforcements and submit to the the checkpoint. Banti villagers, forced to file past scene, or material organization of the act of repre­ suppression of separatist sentiments among better­ financial costs involved. the corpse on their way to church services that sentation. There is no requirement that the actual educated mine workers from other parts of the After 1996, each ofthe military's different services morning, were taunted by the surrounding soldiers agents ofterror be capable ofarticulating this struc­ province and occasional intervention in interclan insisted on being represented in the Timika area, and asking whose pig, whose dog, this was. Naranebe­ ture to fulfill their role; military hierarchies ofcom­ feuding. After the 1977 uprising, army units sta­ police, army, navy, air force) and even armored car lan)s relatives were refused permission to take the mand are designed precisely to distance the inflic­ tioned around the mine began increasingly to focus units have been stationed there, largely at Freeport corpse for burial, and it was removed and probably tion ofpain from its conception. But the patterned their attention upon the community, and numerous expense. The key units, in terms of confrontation thrown by the army into a steep ravine along the form of military or paramilitary campaigns of ter­ Amungme were killed or assaulted in individual inci­ with the Amungme community, are the red-bereted road between Tembagapura and Timika, where ror, and the parallel reproduction of highly elabo­ dents during the 1980s. In the aftermath ofthe dis­ elite troops ofthe Special Forces Command (Kopas­ other bodies have been disposed ofin a similar man­ rate and specialized forms of torture imply a net­ covery ofthe Grasberg ore body in 1988, army inter­ sus); a unit ofthe army's Strategic Reserve (Kostrad) ner. That day, and for the next few weeks, terrible work for the communication of techniques and est in the new economic opportunities on offer in the tasked specifically with the defense of the mine as a violence was unleashed on the community) as indi­ technologies of terror that matches the traffic in Freeport area intensified, and a more coordinated designated National fuset; the poorly trained Terri­ viduals were killed in public, others disappeared, more conventional forms ofmilitary knowledge and campaign of arrest, torture, and disappearance torial troops (Korem) of the regional Trikora Mili­ and leading men and women in the Amungme com­ hardware (Nordstrom 1995). appears to have begun in 1991-1992. In response to tary Command; and the elite paramilitary Police munity were arrested) held in shipping containers) Drawing on Elaine Scarry's The Body in Pain a new program of mining exploration across the Mobile Brigade (Brimob). Competing business and tortured.3 fu the army rushed in reinforce­ (1985), I propose that the deliberate enactment of Central Highlands, riding on the success of Illterests, legal and illegal, operated by each of these terror upon a community follows closely her dis­ ments, it also expanded its area ofoperations to the Freeport's Grasberg discovery, the aPM launched a different units, have led to frequent clashes among more distant Amungme settlements, establishing tinction of the three central features of the torture series of acts of open defiance during 1994, raising them, often resulting in firefights and the loss oflife.6 garrisons in each ofthe valleys. A pattern developed of individuals: the infliction ofpain "in ever-inten­ the independence movement's banned "Morning This summary history ofviolence at Freeport estab­ of intermittent outbreaks ofviolence coupled with sifying ways"; the objectification of pain, in which Star" flag in several Amungme setrlements. This ltshes the range of actors in the area and supplies a periods of uneasy calm, which continued for more the effects of pain are rendered visible for other renewed aPM activity then provoked or legitimated context within which the place of violence in the observers; and the denial ofthe objectified pain, an than three years until 19984 an intensification ofthe army's terror campaign) and landscape and its iconographic representation can be A number of questions hang over some of the act that is itself construed as evidence ofthe power relatives of known aPM members were abducted addressed. ofthe torturer. In much the same way) communities incidents that were used to justify the increase in and executed during the latter halfof 1994. Violence, Memory, and Landscape at Freeport 19 18 CHRIS BALLARD people were allocated to each other in the founda­ case of Naranebelan's body), rhe sites of murder or that become the target of campaigns of terror are TheArnungme landscape operates as a sign in and tional epoch recounred in myths. Mountains as­ of irself, inconceivable without the knowledge and ofthe initial display ofthe body assume a particular subjected to a series ofincreasingly graphic forms of sume a particular cosmological significance as the threar oftheir own. Ifthe "sight oftorture is itself a violence, in which the effecrs ofviolence are objec­ presence of the Arnungme community. Memoty final residences ofthe spirits ofpatrilineal ancestors, supplIes the necessary markers ofidenrity and own­ rorture," as Fabri (1995:150) observed of the cre­ tified and displayed before the community. The and each peak is thus associated with a specific patti­ ation of violence as a spectacle in Guatemala, it is power of the state is then doubly confirmed by its ership, in associating particular locations with for­ clan? In addition to this "mountain orientation" equally the case that the site oftorture or other vio­ capacity to deny the violence and to call into ques­ mer settlemenr or garden sires and with all of rhe (Ellenberger 1996:146) mediated by ancestral spir­ remembered incidenrs ofa community's history. The lence can be refashioned as an instrument ofterror. tion the vety absence ofthe disappeared. its, Arnungme cosmography conceives of a land­ James Siegel (1998) argued convincingly that crossed em jinkong sricks placed atound rhe mine by The passage ofNaranebelan's body, from the hillside scape possessed and inhabited by female earth spir­ Suharto's New Order regime employed violence Amungme during construction are of a universal where he was captured, via the road along which he its. The mosr significant of these female spirits, Tu was dragged, to the post (which still stands), and along precisely these lines during a campaign to form,. indistinguishable one from another, indicating Ni Me Ni, represents the ultimate locus of fertility eliminare urban gangs in the capital ofJakarta dur­ the dIspleasure of the owner at finding evidence of thence to the ravine where he is presumed to lie, has in the Arnungme cosmos, the source borh of nour­ 8 ing the 1980s. Beyond the immediate objective of trespass in a garden or along a path Within small­ endowed these locations wirh an unprecedented ishment and ofretriburion, propitiated during peri­ and terrifying significance for the Arnungme ofthe creating the appearance oforder for an international scale communities such as the Arnungme hamlets of ods ofstress through a network ofsites such as pools the highlands, rhe ownership of a specified area of Wa Valley. The growing number of these sires of audience, Suharto sought to communicate to his and pandanus groves. She is often described as political rivals and to the nation at large the extent land, although nor immune from dispute, requires murder, of rorture, of arresr, and of the disposal of embodying the landscape, with her head in the of his control, both ofevents and oftheir meaning. no physical signs that proclaim an individual's iden­ bodies is sufficient ro form a topographic grid or mountains, her breasts andwomb in the valleys, and The corpses ofyoung men, bearing the tattoOS asso­ tity; the presence oftrees and gardens idenrifiable as layer composed of the memories of rhese evenrs of her legs stretched out toward the distant coast (see, ciated with gang membership, assumed the func­ the produce ofthe owners or their kin, or the capac­ unaccountable violence. Amungme people travers­ tion of signs, "lefr in the streets [to] keep rhe for example, Beanal 1997). Ity to correctly idenrify and name the features ofthe ing the landscape by foot or in vehicles point out Mining in the Arnungme landscape has thus been moment of disappearance from life vivid, retaining landscape, are sufficient in themselves. these locations, recounting and reliving the events. quite literally an assaulr upon the body ofArnungme that moment in the present" (Siegel 1998:111). At The land acquires significance through a dense An additional and corresponding layer ofsignifi­ belief and the foundations of Arnungme identity. Freeport, the sready increase in the frequency ofvio­ microhistory of these acts of naming, acts thar cance has recently been draped over the landscape, Individual peaks, such as the Grasberg and Ertsberg, lence during the early 1990s was matched by the include the use of a locarion for activities such as rhis time in the form of a series of graphic images have been leveled or reduced to deep pits, lakes asso­ development of an increasing sophisticarion in the gardening, hunting, settlement, or ritual perfor­ engraved and painted by the security forces. During ciated with earth spirits filled in with mine waste, manner in which bodies, parts of bodies, and the mance. Violence and death are already present in rhe mosr recent phase ofviolence, in the 1990s, these and sacred sites in the valleys destroyed in rhe con­ signs ofbodies were deployed to amplify the effects this named landscape, emplotted in the form ofbur­ images first appeared around the vicinity ofthe army struction of the mine's infrastructure. Because the ofviolence and thus to brand the brieferuptions of ial sites or the locations of deaths during interclan and police posts, initially in the form ofthe insignia Arnungme clearly link rhe activities of the mining violence upon the communal memoty. If, as in wars. But these are deaths that have been rendered of unirs stationed there, as bored soldiers and police company and the presence of the army, referring to Jakarta, these corpses have functioned as signs of meaningful for Arnungme through a range of con­ passed their time reproducing their divisional the latter as "Freeport's savage dogs" (anjing galak death for rhe Arnungme community, the Arnungme ventional practices, including mortuary payments emblems on walls or on prominent boulders, an dari Freeport), the company's assault on the landscape landscape has also been seeded with signs that them­ and war compensation, and the proper interment of activity common enough to military units every­ is petceived as anorher facer ofthe army's assault upon bodies. In contrast, uncompensated or unrecipro­ where. In late 1996, the elite Kopassus unit stationed selves recall the corpses. the community. Freeport's ebullient chief executive In common with most rural Melanesian com­ cated dearhs at the hands ofthe milirary, particularly at Tsinga village carefully engraved and painted a officer, Jim-Bob Moffett, has done little to counter munities (Ballard 1997), Arnungme ground their where the bodies have not been made available, have large rock in front oftheir mess with a skull bearing rhis perception in describing rhe Grasberg ore body idenrity upon the familiar features ofthe surround­ produced a disordered landscape of"corpses out of their disrinctive red beret (Figure 2.1). A similar in corporeal terms, as "a volcano thar's been decapi­ ing landscape, endowing it with a cosmography in place" (Warren 1993:31). image of a skull, this time weeping blood from the tated by nature, [where] we're mining the esophagus, which the land and the people account for one . In the absence ofcorpses, which Arnungme rela­ cracks around the face-like a corpse trapped in an ifyou will" (Project Underground 1998:14). another's presence. Arnungme land and Arnungme tives are often refused permission to bury (as in the eternal rorture, portending perhaps the capacity of Violence, Memory, and Landscape at Freeport 21 20 CHRIS BALLARD

emonial gateway to the village. On three ofthe four For Amungme, the images are doubly potent faces ofeither column an anonymous artist had pro­ through their capacity to summon up the memory duced the requisite multicolored images ofthe mili­ ofviolent events and thus the enduring threat offur­ tary heirs ofthe Indonesian revolution, dtopping by ther violence. The images themselves are almost parachute into a hell of explosions, piloting fighter invariably violent, as illustrated by the use ofskulls jets diving with guns blazing, or driving a tank actoSS and the themes of the panels of the Independence a battlefield (Figure 2.2). The mine's tramway was Day gateway. However, the particular significance depicted, as were several curious images, including a of army unit designations and the ideological soldier wearing a badge with the acronym AEA used import oflndependence Day celebrations and their by Freeport's medical services contractors (who ran a symbolism more generally are not clearly recognized clinic in the village ofBanti), and a jar enigmatically by many Amungme. Instead, the violence that is marked "Ovaltine." Above the tank rose the figure of summoned up for Amungme through these images a bare-chested Amungme warrior, patriotically is the specific violence ofthe past enacted upon kin sporting a red-and-white headband and raising a and neighbors, and of the perpetual threat of its clenched fist, with an Indonesian red-and-white resurgence. Where the bodies of the murdered, the (merah putih) flag in the other hand (Figure 2.3). tortured, and the disappeared are not made available for mourning and for appropriate reception in the Amungme landscape and memory, the arrny's graf­ fiti come to stand instead for the absent corpses: as signs of corpses that are themselves signs of the FIGURE 2.3. Indonesian Independence Day gateway power ofthe state. FIGURE 2.1. Kopassus (Special Forces) insignia erected on the road to Bami village, 1997. If these images are evidently directed in part engraved and painted onto a boulder at Tsinga village (phoro taken in 1997). The acronym RPKAD beneath These are images with complex genealogies and toward the Amungme, they also serve to speak to the skull stands for "Regimen Para Komando Angkatan an equally intricate communicative intent. As state­ other audiences in quite different ways. During Dara," the precursor to Kopassus during the period ments of the permanent presence and eternal vigi­ 1998, a further addition to this landscape of novel 1955-1971, famous for its role in the invasion ofDutch lance of the military, they signal rhe army's goal of images was a rash of graffiti painted by the elite New Guinea; the wings and anchor indicate the air­ pervading all aspects ofAmungme life, much as it Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob). In large, white let­ borne and naval capabilities of this elite unit. monitors the movements of each individual tering, the acronym BRIMOB appeared on cliff through the issue ofpasses for travel between valleys faces and boulders along the length of the road the state ro pursue people beyond death-appeared and enters the classroom through the ubiquitous between Tembagapura and the Amungme settle­ later in front ofthe army post ar Bami. For the illit­ presence of mock rifles carved from wood with ment ofBanti (Figure 2.4). Because much ofthe pre­ erate majority of the Amungme population, for which pupils conduct their compulsory marching vious unit-specific imagery had been confined to the whom the unit names and insignia are not always exercises. Scarry (1985:52) identified torture's goal immediate vicinity ofarmy and police posts, this was intelligible, the meaning ofthe skulls is an unmistak­ offashioning a "totality ofpain" for the victim, and something ofa departure in its attempt to mark out able warning ofthe fate ofthose who resist the army. the intention for terror is perhaps a similar aspira­ a new territory for inscription; the sole Brimob post To mark the Indonesian Independence Day cele­ tion to a totality of representation, in which all in the valley was one positioned above the gate at (he brations in August 1997, the road from Tembaga­ aspects ofa community's life come to reflect the will bottom end of Tembagapura, controlling access FIGURE 2.2. Indonesian Independence Day gateway pura town down to the Amungme village of Banti ofthe state. from the Banti road. Unadorned by any atrempt at was adorned with a pair ofcolumns, forming a cer- erected on the road to Band village, 1997. Violence, Memory, and Landscape at Freeport 23 22 CHRIS BALLARD ofFreeport staffto remain oblivious to the potential conflate conscious and unconscious acts and their significance ofarmy graffiti is itselfa form ofknow1­ intended and unintended consequences. At one edge, a will to ignorance.9 level there appears to be a curious silence on the part ofthe Amungme in response to the iconography of terror described here. Thus far there has been no RESISTANCE (AVANT LA LETTRE) countericonography-no Amungme graffiti and very little graphic art-to challenge the images What Taussig referred to as "the problem ofwriting deployed around the Freeport mine by the security effectively against terror" (1987:3) is the risk we run forces. The one exception to this observation is the of representing terror as a rational economy of raising of the Morning Star flag, a singular act of behavior, and thus ofextending irs reach. This is to defiance that has historically provoked violent contribute, in effect, to the torturer's goal of creat­ repression from the army and police. But Amungme ing a torality ofrepresentarion, in which the efficacy have conventionally disputed identity and land oftorture or terror is made evident through the fash­ through a politics ofresidence and ofnaming, rather ioning of the victim (or the wrirer) as another than through an iconography of graphic symbols FIGURE 2.4. Brimob (Police Mobile Brigade) graffiti on rhe Tembagapura-Banti mouth for the truths of the srate. A common denoting status. Amungme resistance might be said response to this problem has been to perceive, in to revolve around an insistence on the primordial road, 1998. even the most mundane actions, the seeds of a link between Amungme and their landscape, and a complicity between image and audience is brought coherent project of resistance (Ortner 1995). confidence that Amungme people have a privileged representation beyond the simple reproduction of most powerfully into focus, because staff whom I Inspired by a commendable wish to portray com­ access to the meaning ofthe land and the knowledge the acronym, the Brimob graffiti assumed a literate questioned about the emergence of the army and munities as agents in their own right and not sim­ of its names. In linking the violence of the security audience. However, literate Amungme read this graf­ police insignia appeared genuinely ignorant oftheIr ply as passive consumers of rhe truths of others, forces to the presence ofthe mine, Amungme accord fiti not as awarning to them, but as an unmistakable presence. The army and police pose no threat to studies ofresistance tend to focus on conscious and a central role in their analysis ofterror to the mine's sign ofinterunit rivalry: a territorial challenge by the their existence, and Freeport staff have rarely been unambiguous acts of reaction to domination (see assault on rheir land. It is no accident, in this light, elite police to the Kostrad army units, much envIed the targets of violence. Only a small proportion of also McNiven and Russell, this volume). that one of the principal demands of Amungme for their access as Freeport's official guards to seem­ the staff ventures down to Banti, or to remote vil­ Without diminishing the scale or dismissing the leaders during recent negotiations with Freeport has ingly unlimited company largesse and expanded lages such as Tsinga, and thus have the opportunity impact of the army's onslaught on the community been the restoration ofAmungme names to those opportunities for graft and theft from the mine and of encountering these images, suggesting that the and the mine's assault on rhe land, it must also be elements of the landscape whose significance has the company's townships. army has observed fairly carefully the principle of observed that the Amungme have succumbed nei­ been obscured by Indonesian or American terms. One of the enduring features ofthe long history "line of sight." But those Freeport staff who are ther to the violence nor to the terror. As a commu­ Amungme resistance has also drawn strength ofviolence at Freeport has been the question mark exposed to the graffiti are also largely unaffected by nity, Amungme have continued to escape the circle from the failure ofthe state to incorporate the com­ about the company's complicity in the army's atroc­ them, viewing them as an integral part ofthe sOClal ofmirrors, the totality ofrepresentation that I iden­ munity successfully in a symbolic relationship char­ ities, an accusation leveled at Freeport by both the landscape. Though these graffiti function as land tifY as the goal of the state operating through its acterized by domination through the imposition of Amungme community and international observers, mines for the memories of passing Amungme, security forces, and their success in this evasion can a common graphic vocabulary or visual economy. but denied by the company. Although this is not the Freeport staff can apparently move freely among perhaps be characterized as a form ofresistance. But The symbols and imagery of the state, which are place to offer definitive pronouncements on such a them without triggering their charges. However, to describe the various ways in which this is effected deployed to such effect elsewhere in Indonesia complex ropic, it is valid to seek to understand the surrounded as they are by a community subjected to as a single, coherent strategy of resistance is to (Siegel 1998), are often imperfectly recognized and role of Freeport staff as another potential audience more than twO decades ofstate violence, the ability obscure several complex operations ofpower and to received by Amungme and thus limited in their for the army's graffiti. Here, perhaps, the issue of -

Violence, Memory, and Landscape at Freeport 24 CHRIS BALLARD 25 effect. Bourdieu (2000: 175) observed that the effi­ 1 especially thank Yunus Omabak and the Amungme 6. See Robinson (1998) and Kammen (1999) for The Impact ofthe Occupation ofEast Timor. Leiden: further discussions ofthe role ofbusiness interests in sim­ cacy of symbolic domination rests upon the capac­ communiries oftheWa, Tsinga, andAroaValleys, and my Indonesisch Documentatie- en Informatiecenrrum. colleagues in the DABS Projecr. The chapter was pre­ ilar conflicts within the security forces in Aceh and East Ballard, C 1997. It's the Land Stupid! The Moral Econ­ ity of the state, through lengthy processes ofincul­ pared during periods spent as a visitor at the Amsterdam Timor. omyofResource Ownership in Papua New Guinea. cation and incorporation, (0 naturalize "common branch ofthe International Institute ofAsian Studies and 7. Ellenberger's (1996:144f) detailed account ofthe In The Governance ofCommon Property in the Pacific symbolic forms ofthought, social frames ofpercep­ ar the Centre de Recherche et de Documentation sur role of mountains in the beliefs of northern Amungme, Region, edited by P. Larmour, 47-65. Canberra: tion, undersranding or memory."lO Where these I'Oceanie ofthe Centre National de la Recherche Scien­ or Damal, accords closely with my own more limited National Centre for Development Studies and familiarizing conditions are not met-where the tifique at Marseille. enquiries among Amungme. Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Project. symbolism ofnational Independence Day is poorly 1. Formerly known as Irian Jaya, a name widely asso­ 8. The Amungme assumption ofthe transparency of ---. 2000. Performing Violence: An Anatomy of understood, for example-the "submission" of the ciated with the New Order regime of former President the message of the em jinkong sticks placed around the Terror at Freeport. Paper presented at the Seminaire dominated cannot be secured.The state's frustration Suharto, Indonesia's easternmost province was renamed mine during the construction phase, as claims by sur la Violence Coloniale, SHADYC-CNRS, La at the incomplete incorporation oftheAmungme­ "Papua" in January 2000 by the newly elected president, landowners prohibiting further trespass, was sorely mis­ Vieille Charite, Marseille, France. their failure to recognize and correctly inrerprer Abdurrahman Wahid (however, Indonesia's Parliament placed. Freeport workers read the sticks instead as "hex Beanal, T. 1997. Amungme: Magaboarat Nege! Jombei­ their symbolic relationship-sets rhe stage for had not yet ratified this change by January 2001). sticks" (see, for example, Wilson 1981: 168), designed to Peibei. Jakarta: WALHI. recourse ro physical violence, which has the effecr of Though Papuans now refer to their territory as West bring misfortune down upon the mine-evidence, for Bourdieu, P. 2000. Pascalian Meditations. Cambridge: the miners, both of the "primitive" mentality of the Polity Press. srill furrher alienating the Amungme. Ifthe Indone­ Papua, Irian Jaya is used in this chapter to retain the his­ torical flavor ofthe NewOrder regime under which these Amungme and of their fundamental opposition to the Budiardjo, C, and L. S. Liang. 1988. West Papua: The sian state's strategic marginalization ofcommunities events took place. entire mining project. ObHteration ofa People. Surrey: Thornton Heath. such as the Amungme is a theater of statehood 2. The lowland portion of the Freeport mining lease 9. Elsewhere (Ballard 2000) 1 address in more detail Catholic Chnrch ofJayapnra. 1995. Vioidtions ofHuman directed principally toward the cosmopolitan cen­ is owned largely by Kamoro-speaking communities the question of Freeport's apparent "will to ignorance" Rights in the Timika Area ofIrian Jaya, Indonesia. ters of Java (Tsing 1993), it is a strategy that also (though this ownership is nor recognized by the state) and also describe how the army has sought to attract Melbourne: Australian Council for Overseas Aid. serves ro undermine the efficacy of the state's sym­ (Widjojo 1997). The apparent absence of overt conflict Freeport's attention more directly and to inculcate a sense Defert, G. 1996. LIndon/isie et la Nouvelle-Guinie-Occi­ bolic dominance, through its failure to inculcate the between Kamoro people and the army poses intriguing ofterror in the company. dentale. Maintien des Frontieres Coloniales ou Respect logic and the grammar of domination among these questions, which space does not permit me to explore 10. "Symbolic violence is the coercion which is set up des Identitis Communautaires. Paris: L'Harmattan. marginalized communities. here, about rhe nature of resistance under differem his­ only through the consent that the dominated cannot fail to Ellenberger, J. D. 1996. The Impact of Damal World torical and cultural conditions. give to the dominator (and therefore the domination) when View on the Formation ofa Local Theology in Irian 3. A preliminary but incomplere account of these their understanding of the situation and relation can only Jaya. Ph.D. thesis, Fuller Theological Seminary, NOTES events is given in a report published by the Australian use instruments ofknowledge that they have in common Pasadena, California. Council for Overseas Aid (ACFOA 1995). with the dominator, which, being merely the incorporated ELSHAM. 1997. Belid dan Aidma Berdarah. Jayapura: This chapter was prepared with the kind permission of 4. Details ofthe long list ofmassacres and other abuses form ofthe structure of the relation ofdomination, make Lembaga Studi dan Advokasi Hak Asasi Manusia, the TraditionalAmungme Council/Lembaga Musyawarah ofbasic human rights during 1994-1998 are beyond the this relation appear as natural" (Bourdieu 2000: 170). December. Adat Suku Amungme (LEMASA). Access to the Freeport scope of this chapter, but have been described in a series ---. 1999. Operasi Militer Pembebasan Sandera dan area was made possible through the work of the of reports by church groups and other nongovernment Pelanggaran Hak Asasi Manusia di Pegunungan Ten­ UNCEN-ANU Baseline Studies (UABS) Project organizations (see ACFOA 1995; Catholic Church of REFERENCES CITED gah Irian Jaya: Menyingkap Misteri Misi Berdarah between 1996 and 1998, which was funded and sup­ Jayapura 1995; ELSHAM 1997, 1999; Robert F. ICRC, Keterlibatan Tentara Asing dan Tentara ported by the Universitas Cenclerawasih, The Australian Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights and the ACFOA. 1995. Trouble atFreeport: Eyewitness Accounts of Nasional Indonesia. Jayapura: Lembaga 5tudi dan National University, and P.T. Freeport Indonesia. A very Institute for Human Rights Studies and Advocacy. west Papuan Resistance to the Freeport-McMoRan Advokasi Hak Asasi Manusia, August. large number of people, many ofwhom cannot be iden­ 1999). Mine in Irian ]aya, Indonesia and Indonesian Mili­ Fabri, A. 1995. Memories of Violence, Monuments of tified for various reasons, have contributed materials and 5. In fact, Amungme appear to have been only mar­ tary Repression, June 1994-February 1995. Mel­ History. In The Labyrinth ofMemory: Ethnographic ideas that inform this paper, but I am responsible for the ginally involved in these riots, which largely involved bourne: Australian Council for Overseas Aid. journeys, edited by M. C Teski and]. J. Climo, argument put forward here and any factual inaccuracies. migrants from other parts ofIrian Jaya. Aditjondro, G. J. 1994. In the Shadow ofMount Rameidu: 141-158. Westport: Bergin and Garvey. ,-,.. -

26 CHRIS BALLARD

Saltford, J. 2000. United Nations Involvement with the Graziano, F. 1992. Divine Violence: Spectacle, Psychosexu­ ality, andRadical Christianity in the Argentine "Dirty Act of Self-Determination in West Irian (Indone­ sian West New Guinea) 1968 to 1969. Indonesia W'ltr. "Boulder: Westview Press. THREE Jarman, N, 1993, Intersecting Belfas" In Landscape: Pol­ 69:71-92. itics andPerspectives, edited by B. Bender, 107-138. Scarry, E. 1985. The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking ofthe World. Oxford: Oxford University Oxford: Berg. Ritual Response Kammen, D. 1999. Notes on the Transformation ofthe Press. Siegel, J. T. 1998. A New Criminal Type in Jakarta: East Timor Military Command and Its Implica­ Place Marking and the Colonial Frontier in Australia Counter-Revolution Today. Durham: Duke Univer­ tions for Indonesia. Indonesia 67:61-76. Nordstrom, C. 1995. Contested Identities/Essentially sity Press. Sluka, J. A. 1992. The Politics of Painting: Political Contested Powers. In Conflict Transfonnation, edited IAN ]. McNIVEN AND LYNETTE RUSSELL by K. Rupesinghe, 93-115. London: St. Martin's Murals in Northern Ireland. In The Paths to Domi­ nation, Resistance, and Terror, edited by C. Nord­ Press. It is time that Australian historians sought to understand the Aboriginal strom andJ. Martin, 190-216. Berkeley: University Ortner, S. 1995. Resistance and the Problem of Ethno­ response to conquest and dispossession. To do so it is necessary to seriously ofCalifornia Press. graphic Refusal. Comparative Studies in Society and explore the farside ofthe frontier and the underside of the caste barrier. Snarez-Oroco, M. 1992. A Grammar ofTerror: Psycho­ History 37 (I): 173-193. HENRY REYNOLDS, Aboriginal-European Contact History (EMPHASIS ADDED) Osborne, R. 1985. Indonesias Secret Wflr: The Guerilla cultural Responses to State Terrorism in Dirty War Struggle in Irian Jaya. Sydney: Allen and Unwin. and Post-Dirty War Argentina. In The Paths to Domination, Resistance, and Terror, edited by C. Peteet, J. 1996. The Writing on the Walls: The Graffiti of the Intifada. Cultural Anthropology 11 (2): 139-159. Nordstrom andJ. Martin, 219-259. Berkeley: Uni­ versity ofCalifornia Press. Poole, D. 1997. Vision, Race, and Modernity: A Visual istorical scholarship over the past two tact histories. In this connection, Birmingham Taussig, M. 1987. Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Economy of the Andean Image World. Princeton: (1992: 178) identified two key questions that guide Man: A Study in Terror and Healing. Chicago: Uni­ decades has seen a growing awareness of Princeton University Press. colonial processes and in particular the research on Australian contact sites: "First, how is Project Underground. 1998. Risky Business: The Grasberg versity ofChicago Press. H dramatic and often violent events of the colonial the documentary record confirmed, complemented Gold Mine. An Independent Annual Report on P. T Tsing, A. L. 1993. In the Realm ofthe Diamond Queen: frontier. For Indigenous people, depopulation and or challenged by the archaeological evidence? Sec­ Freeport Indonesia, 1998. Berkeley, Calif: Project Marginality in an Out-ofthe-way Place. Princeton: Princeton University Press. dispossession are all-too-familiar themes of colo­ ond, what further questions arise from queries or Underground. gaps in the documentary record for which the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights Warren, K. B. 1993. Interpreting La Violencia in nialism. In Australia, rewriting these violent themes and the Institute for Human Rights Studies and Guatemala: Shapes of Mayan Silence and Resis­ into colonial history has undermined European nar­ archaeologist is likely to find answers?" Advocacy. 1999. Incidents of Military Violence tance. In The Violence Within: Cultural and Politi­ ratives of colonialism by introducing Indigenous In her own study, Birmingham (1992) found agaimt Indigenous Women in Irian ]aya (West Papua), cal Opposition in Divided Nations, edited by K. B. stories of agency, resistance, and survival from the that Aboriginal Tasmanians at Wybalenna reserve Indonesia. Washington: Robert F. Kennedy Memo­ Warren, 25-56. Boulder: Westview Press. frontier. Historical sources alone are, however, inad­ resisted colonial domination by strategically resisr­ Widjojo, M. S. 1997. Orang Kamoro dan Perubahan. rial Center for Human Rights and the Institute for equate for the task ofexploring activities on the far ing different aspects of European culture. Related Lingkungan Sosial Budaya di Timika, Irian Jaya. Human Rights Studies and Advocacy. side of the frontier, because without Indigenous studies have also investigated accommodation and Jakarta: L1PI. Robinson, G. 1998. Rawan is as Rawan Does: The Ori­ voices the process ofrewriting will continue to be a resistance at other early-European frontier sites such Wilson, F. K. 1981. The Conquest ofCopper Mountain. gins of Disorder in New Order Aceh. Indonesia colonial enterprise, appropriating, suffocating, as homesteads (Murray 1993) and shepherd's huts New York: Atheneum. 66:127-156. ignoring, or otherwise marginalizing non-European (Wolski 2000). On a narrower scale, investigarions views and experiences ofthe past. have shown the social, economic, and perhaps even Australian archaeologists have begun to make ceremonial circumstances in which Aboriginal peo­ contributions to writing so-called "alternative" con- ple appropriated, enculturated, and used items of

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