KORWAR KORWAR Northwest New Guinea ritual art according to missionary sources Raymond Corbey In memory of Jac Hoogerbrugge (1924-2014), private scholar and collector of West New Guinea art C. Zwartenkot Art Books - Leiden 2019 Contents Preface 1. Collecting and converting Feuding and raiding 13 | Head-hunting 16 | Ritual life 18 | Funerary rituals 20 | What is a korwar 26 | Korwar “style areas” 27 | How many korwars are there? 30 | The korwar “snake shield” 31 | Carved for sale 34 | In the name of God 35 | A sudden reversal 39 | Degrees of persuasion 40 | Korwars on the move 45 | The demise of the shrines 51 | Critical voices 60 | Missionary exhibitions 63 | Expeditions and museums 65 | Missionary idiom 71 Published by: C. Zwartenkot Art Books - Leiden 2. Five korwar styles © Raymond Corbey ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Doreh Bay korwars 81 | Schouten Islands korwars 102 | Wandammen Bay korwars 138 | No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without Yapen Island korwars 158 | Raja Ampat korwars 198 written permission from the publisher. ISBN: 978-90-5450-022-3 3. Large spirit effigies NUGI: 761 Three mons 213 | Snake-like effigies 220 | Spirits with helmets 230 | An unknown helmeted mon 234 | Manggundi aka Sekfamneri 235 Design: Joanne Porck – Geodesigns (Leiden) Editing: Peter Richardus (Leiden) Printing: High Trade, Zwolle 4. More ritual art This publication can be ordered through: Korwar amulets 249 | Shields 272 | Headrests 282 | Drums 294 | Prows and boats Ethnographic Art Books 302 | Ritual boards 318 | Floats 324 | Foot cuffs 332 | Masks 340 | Ironwork 344 | Heirloom beads 354 | Various items 366 c/o National Museum of Ethnology Steenstraat 1a, 2312 BS Leiden, the Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] Bibliography 383 website and on-line bookstore: www.ethnographicartbooks.com Acknowledgements 393 Cover: After an idea of Hans van Houwelingen. For the map, see the present publication, Fig. 50; for the two ancestor figurines, see Figs. 92 and 137; for the etching, Fig. 77; for the photograph of a prahu, Fig. 261. Photography 395 6 7 Preface The present project issued from a longstanding resulted in an incredible ethnographic density and interest in interactions between western and local richness in his writings. cosmologies on the Christian frontier, in particular Next to Kamma’s work, Jac Hoogerbrugge’s in the Netherlands East Indies. It is a continuation research notes, to which the present author was of the author’s 2017 monograph on the ritual art of kindly provided access by his family, afforded a the Raja Ampat archipelago, a major emigration area first orientation as to several thousand pages of of the Geelvink Bay Biak people. Much stimulus was missionary sources housed at Het Utrechts Archief provided by regular conversations spanning some 20 (the Netherlands), by and large either handwritten or years with Jac Hoogerbrugge (1924-2014), a Dutch type scripted. The entries regarding the thousands of collector and private scholar who lived and worked in Geelvink Bay items - including a few hundred korwars West New Guinea for many years (see Corbey 2000; - in the on-line catalogue of the (Dutch) Nationaal Corbey & Stanley 2011). Museum van Wereldculturen deserve a special mention Why, in a book on indigenous ritual art, too. These entries constitute a rich sedimentation place so much emphasis on missionary records of several generations of curatorial expertise. (correspondence, annual reports, personal diaries, Three major public collections of Geelvink Bay art photographs, etc.) and periodicals? In spite of their are united in this national museum, curated at the ethnocentric ideological agenda these writings Museum Volkenkunde (Leiden), the Tropenmuseum constitute invaluable sources regarding the ritual (Amsterdam) and the Wereldmuseum (Rotterdam). practices and art of the region. They have remained The past tense is preferred in the present largely unexplored, in particular in Th. van Baaren’s publication because it addresses the situation during Korwars and korwar style (1968; cf. Fig. 222 on p. 267), the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For recent a solid survey of early korwar scholarship. Another decades, see Danilyn Rutherford’s (1997, 2003) outstanding resource is the 1893 monograph by F.S.A. ethnography of the Biak, based on fieldwork during de Clercq - Resident of Ternate (Moluccas/Maluku), the early 1990s, which shows remarkable continuity private scholar and collector - and museum curator with the traditional culture in many respects, despite J.D.E. Schmeltz on northwest New Guinea art. This 30 years of Indonesian rule and the fact that the publication came about too early to profit from overwhelming majority of the Biak were Protestant missionary records, although de Clercq learned much by then. This is confirmed by Koos Knol, who grew from his interactions with various missionaries while up on Yapen during the 1950s as the son of a Dutch travelling. schoolmaster and has kept visiting the Geelvink Bay The writings of Freerk C. Kamma (1906-1987), ever since: “Underneath the Protestantism there is a a grassroots missionary who in his later life took a second, deeper and thicker skin, that of the old Biak PhD in ethnology, are a notable exception. His ways, many of which are very much alive” (pers. sizeable ethnography-cum-missionary history of the comm., April 2019; for a similar view regarding the wider Geelvink Bay region (Kamma 1976, cf. Kamma Raja Ampat archipelago, where many Biak live, see 1955 and 1972, Kooijman 1988) is a refreshing, if Bubandt 2019). not a partial and ambivalent departure from the The present publication focuses on the period self-righteous missionary narrative of progress, between the arrival of the first Protestant missionaries heroic donors and destitute receivers that frames the in 1855 and the Japanese invasion of the Netherlands writings of most missionaries. Kamma’s published East Indies in 1942. It is not a missionary history per and unpublished writings are all the more thought- se (which Kamma’s body of writings is) but with the provoking as they reveal the tensions between his help of missionary sources features the traditional roles as a firmly believing Protestant missionary on ritual art of the area and the how and why of its the one hand and an academically trained ethnologist demise during an era of ever-stronger missionary and on the other hand. This very combination has also colonial presence. 8 C OLLE C TING AND C ONVERTING 9 Raja Ampat archipelago Supiori Biak Doreh Bay Numfoor Japen Waropen Wandammen Bay A satellite view showing West New Guinea with the Geelvink Bay (Teluk Cenderawasih) in the upper right corner. Source: TERRA satellite, 11.9.2018. Worldview/NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS), public domain; ed. by Marco Langbroek. 11 1. Manokwari Meos Bepondi 2. Andai (aka Meos Korwari) the Raja Ampat 3. Sowek Archipelago 4. Korido 1930 5. Wardo 6. Windesi 7. Miei Mansinam SUPIORI 8. Weueli Island S c 9. Ansus 1 h 3 4 o 10. Serui u DOREH BAY t B I A K 2 e (1855) n 5 Collecting and converting NUMFOOR I s l 1908 a 1908 n d s P a d a i d o I s l a n d s ARFAK Meos Num Liki Island and Mamberamo R. In 1885 the first missionaries arrived at the Geelvink revolved around men hunting and fishing and women Bay (now called Teluk Cenderawasih, lit.: Bird of gardening. In terms of social structure, ritual life and 1880s Paradise Bay).* They established themselves on cosmology, “the peoples of the Geelvink Bay coasts 9 JAPEN Mansinam, a tiny island in Doreh Bay, among the [were] homogeneous enough to consider this entire Rumberpon 10 largest ethnic group in this region, the Biak. The latter region as one culture area” (Held 1947: 240). This were mainly home to the Schouten Islands, comprising in spite of the fact that this multi-ethnic and multi- Ambai Koeroedoe Mamberamo R. Meos Islands Biak, Supiori, Numfoor and the Padaido Atoll. Biak lingual region presented a mixture of Austronesian War settlements had been founded in various other parts and Papuan languages as well as culture elements. 1930 1924 of the Geelvink Bay, too, for example: Doreh Bay, In his sketch of traditional Biak sociality F.C N Meos War Island, Yapen Island and Koeroedoe Island. Kamma (1972: 11 ff.; cf. Rutherford 1997, 2003) WINDESI Roon E A significant number of Biak migrated many moons stresses exchanges of marriage partners and marriage P 6 O ago to the Raja Ampat archipelago, located c.400 km gifts between clans (keret***) and sub-clans. These WANDAMMEN R away in the far west of New Guinea. and other social relations were characterized by a BAY A W The Geelvink Bay measures c.250 km both from mixture of loyalty and hostility, cooperation and 7 the west to the east and from the north to the south. conflict. On one side we see the individual’s father The population numbers during the late 19th century and the latter’s clan members, on the other side there Moor are not exactly known. However, certain sources was the mother’s clan with the individual’s maternal suggest, at a very rough estimate, that at least c.25,000- uncle, who had officiated as bride-giver. Together, 8 30,000 souls inhabited the islands and the shores of the clan heads constituted a council of elders (kankein bay in its entirety.** The subsistence economy mainly kakara). They often carried titles (e.g., sengadji, capitan, major) bestowed on them by the sultan of Tidore (Moluccas), who loosely controlled this region until * The time-honoured name, Geelvink Bay, is retained in the consolidation of Dutch colonial rule towards the the present publication as it is found in all the cited sources.