NICHOLAS THOMAS THOMAS NICHOLAS & CLARK ALISON style and meaning Anthropology’s engagement with art has a complex and uneven history. While style and material culture, ‘decorative art’, and art styles were of major significance for ( founding figures such as Alfred Haddon and Franz Boas, art became marginal as the EDS meaning discipline turned towards social analysis in the 1920s. This book addresses a major ) moment of renewal in the anthropology of art in the 1960s and 1970s. British Essays on the anthropologist Anthony Forge (1929-1991), trained in Cambridge, undertook fieldwork among the Abelam of Papua New Guinea in the late 1950s and 1960s, anthropology of art and wrote influentially, especially about issues of style and meaning in art. His powerful, question-raising arguments addressed basic issues, asking why so much art was produced in some regions, and why was it so socially important? style ANTHONY FORGE meaning Fifty years later, art has renewed global significance, and anthropologists are again considering both its local expressions among Indigenous peoples and its new global circulation. In this context, Forge’s arguments have renewed relevance: they help and edited by scholars and students understand the genealogies of current debates, and remind us of fundamental questions that remain unanswered. ALISON CLARK & NICHOLAS THOMAS This volume brings together Forge’s most important writings on the anthropology anthropology of art Essays on the of art, published over a thirty year period, together with six assessments of his legacy, including extended reappraisals of Sepik ethnography, by distinguished anthropologists from Australia, Germany, Switzerland and the United Kingdom Anthony Forge was born in London in 1929. A student at Downing College, Cambridge, he studied anthropology with Edmund Leach, and went on to undertake research with Raymond Firth at the London School of Economics. Over 1958-63 he undertook several periods of fieldwork among the Abelam of the Sepik region of Papua New Guinea, made major collections for the Museum der Kulturen, Basel, and went on to write a series of essays which were enormously influential for the anthropology of art and for studies of Melanesia. He was appointed Foundation Professor of Anthropology at the Australian National University in 1974 and taught there until his death in 1991. Sidestone Press Sidestone ISBN: 978-90-8890-446-2 PACIFIC PRESENCES 1 9 789088 904462 style and meaning Essays on the anthropology of art ANTHONY FORGE Sidestone Press style and meaning Essays on the anthropology of art ANTHONY FORGE edited by ALISON CLARK & NICHOLAS THOMAS PACIFIC PRESENCES 1 © 2017 Individual Authors Chapters by Anthony Forge © the Estate of Anthony Forge Series: Pacific Presences, volume 1 Published by Sidestone Press, Leiden www.sidestone.com Lay-out & cover design: Sidestone Press Photograph cover: A “master artist” at Wingei village painting the base of a ceremonial house façade. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411, Box 20. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. ISBN 978-90-8890-446-2 (softcover) ISBN 978-90-8890-447-9 (hardcover) ISBN 978-90-8890-448-6 (PDF e-book) CONTENTS List of figures 7 Biographies 15 Preface 17 Introduction 19 PART I: ANTHONY FORGE ON ART, 1960–1990 23 1. Introduction to Primitive Art and Society 25 2. Three Kamanggabi Figures from the Arambak People of the 33 Sepik District New Guinea 3. Notes on Eastern Abelam Designs Painted on Paper, New Guinea 37 4. Paint: A Magical Substance 43 5. Art and Environment in the Sepik 51 6. The Abelam Artist 71 7. Style and Meaning in Sepik Art 87 8. The Problem of Meaning in Art 111 9. Learning to See in New Guinea 123 10. The Power of Culture and the Culture of Power 139 11. Draft Introduction to Sepik Culture History, the Proceedings 153 from the second Wenner-Gren conference on Sepik Culture History 1986, Mijas, Spain PART II: ON FORGE 179 12. Anthony Forge and Alfred Bühler: From Field Collecting 181 to Friendship Christian Kaufmann 13. Style and Meaning: Abelam Art through Yolngu Eyes 209 Howard Morphy 14. Anthony Forge and Innovation: Perspectives from Vanuatu 235 Lissant Bolton 15. The problem of agency in art 243 Ludovic Coupaye 16. Looking back: Abelam art and some of Forge’s theses from a 255 2015 perspective Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin 17. Communicating with Anthony Forge 269 Michael O’Hanlon Appendix 275 Endnotes 279 Bibliography 293 Acknowledgements 303 LIST OF FIGURES Preface Anthony Forge. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411, Box 27. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. Part I: Anthony Forge on art, 1960-1990 Chapter 2 2.1 Hunting charm (Yi’pon). Arambak. Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge, E 1930.536A. 2.2 Hair ornament (Manyan) for fute fgure. Middle Yuat River, Mundugumor. Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1979.206.1458. 2.3 Figure (Kamanggabi). Arambak. Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978.412.732. Chapter 3 3.1 Mindja-nyan by Tsigula. Suitable for haus-tambaran façade. Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.408.6. 3.2 Tchakindu by Tsigula. Wakan. Black side pieces on forehead said to be wang- gile or gangganggile (ear-hair, side burns). Small bird at bottom right. Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.408.7. 3.3 Ndu-nyimbi by Gilembel of Wingei village. Traditional east Abelam haus-tambaran façade style. Also yi-gwu (lizard). Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.408.4. 3.4 Nggwukwami by Tsigula. Tis design has many names, most of them associated with meat, each section being identifed with a leg of pork. Te whole design is given human form by the addition of a headdress and ornaments, although none of the facial features is marked. Te other main motif is malgombei, apparently a caterpillar. On the lef are cassowary and a cockatoo. Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.408.4. 3.5 Mindja-nyan by Aki’mas of Sagasi village. Suitable for haus-tambaran façade. Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.408.3. 3.6 Kwandjitagwa (fying fox) by Wakunde and Banggwinyan. Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.408.5. 3.7 Crocodile, two lizards, snake and bird by Tsigula. Non-traditional. Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1992.408.8. Chapter 4 4.1 Head of a decorated long yam, showing painted basketry mask and decorations of feathers, fruits and shells. Bengragum village. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411, Box 27. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. 4.2 A “master artist” at Wingei village painting the base of a ceremonial house façade. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411, Box 20. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. 7 Anthony Forge, Style and Meaning Chapter 5 5.1 Ceremonial House at Yentschanmangua village, Nyaure group, western Iatmul. Te dancing ground is lined with banks on which coconuts and trees grow. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. 5.2 Te mangandu in place at the top of the scafold, the crucks that will eventually support it are being put into place. Te dama at the peak is completely concealed by its wrappings of bespelled leaves. Kwimbu amei, Wingei village. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. 5.3 Mangandu as tambaran. Each trunk with its body of dried yam vines and creeper fronds is said to be a ngwalndu. Te screen with its paintings conceals an area where the preparations for the parade take place; the performers emerge down the ramp on the lef. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. 5.4 Te completion of the house structure, Kwimbu/Wingei. Te tassel has a cord attached running to the screen; by pulling this cord a concealed man makes the tassel swing back and forth in time to the music during the all-night dances that follow the ceremonies of completion. On the right of the house is a post deco- rated with the skulls of 12 pigs that have been ceremonially exchanged and eaten during the various phases of construction so far. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. 5.5 A long yam ceremonially displayed, decorated with a basketry mask. Visitors from an enemy village having fled in are indicating their peaceful intentions by drawing their hands down their spears. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. 5.6 A new ngwalndu at Djiginambu village. Afer being carved in the bush it has been carried into the ceremonial house. At this stage only the eyes, facial and pubic hair, shell breast ornament and drop of semen are painted; the bird between the legs is a cassowary, principal totem of the owning clan. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. 5.7 Top of the façade of the ceremonial house at Bugiaura amei, Yanuko village. From the top; single face of a fying witch; seven black faces of fying foxes, immediately below a row lozenges showing their ‘single breasts’ as central white strokes; row of faces with diamond pattern round eyes, identifed as butterfies. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. 5.8 Hornbill carvings at the base of the façade of the ceremonial house at Kundagwa amei, Waigagum village. Te slightly diferent styles of the two birds, particularly the eyes, is typical of the order of variation between villages. Te upper bird comes from Kalabu village about three miles to the north and a traditional enemy of Waigagum. Anthony Forge Papers. MSS 411. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego. Chapter 7 7.1 Yi’pon fgure, Upper Karawari river. Te Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978.412.732 7.2 Basic elements of the centre of a single ngwalndu face from a façade at Maprik village, north Abelam.