The Art and Artifacts of New Caledonia
The Art and Artifacts of New Caledonia
Curated by Steven G. Alpert
This month, Art of the Ancestors is featuring an introduction to the traditional art of the Kanak peoples of New Caledonia.
New Caledonia lies in the Coral Sea, some 284 nautical miles to the southwest of Vanuatu and 780 nautical miles east of Australia. It is composed of one main island, Grande Terre, and smaller orbital islands and archipelagos. The most notable are the Isle of Pines and the Loyalty Islands. Captain Cook, who landed on the northeast coast of Grande Terre, named these islands with their current appellation, New Caledonia, in 1774, during his Second Voyage of Discovery. He noted that the rugged interior reminded him of the Scottish Highlands. As the name suggests, the Isle of Pines was covered with tall straight trees perfectly suitable for spars and masts of that era's sailing ships.
Cook was also the first to describe Grand Terre's circular Kanak dwellings, with their high-domed roofs and general construction as being "neatly built" and "well thatched." His ship's log notes that he found the indigenous inhabitants to be both "courteous" and "friendly," as well as "active" and "robust" people.
The Islands' saga with Europeans continues. France annexed the territory in 1853. New Caledonia is currently transitioning from a French overseas territory to a highly autonomous entity within France, now designated as the "State of New Caledonia." Of the islands' roughly 300,000 inhabitants, over 40% are indigenous and refer to their ancestral land as "Kanaky."
Archaeologically speaking, the first evidence of human occupation of New Caledonia dates back to around 1500 BC when Lapita peoples (Austronesian-speaking maritime voyagers who originated from the Bismarck Archipelago) arrived. They were followed by the first Polynesian or Polynesian-influenced peoples, ca 1,000 BC. Their centuries-old interactions helped shape the local population that remained predominantly Melanesian.
Older creations from New Caledonia are decidedly grounded in Melanesian values and an outlook that stresses the relationship between humans and their ancestral spirits, or "dôô or duéé". To the Kanak, departed ancestors gain prestige and power after death as they are said to assume the role of spiritual guardians. Within their weltanschauung, there is general connectivity and respect for the "life force" that animates everything from within and whose totality creates a vivid and comprehensive spiritual realm. Animism, of course, is a worldview in which everything in the natural world — the land, plants, trees, rocks, the weather, the ancestors, every dwelling, and all human creations — is imbued with its own life force.
In Kanaky, the traditional objects illustrated here reflect this worldview. As a brief aside, the material culture of the Kanak people, or peoples, as there are 28 distinct languages spoken among them, is remarkably rich. The range and diversity of materials they skillfully employed were also wide-ranging. Many individual headings (e.g., weapons and ceremonial clubs, prestige objects or mediums of exchange, and any of the categories presented here) could serve as themes for more systematic or comprehensive articles on various emblematic Kanak items. Here, we are only focusing on a brief introduction to the subject matter and a foray into beauty, one I would associate with two areas.
The first can be listed under regalia, or items associated with the prerogatives and possessions that normally belonged to high chiefs and priests. Traditionally, each village was led by one such person who combined these roles, wielded political and spiritual authority, and possessed an intercessory connection with the duéé, or the ancestral spirits. These were august individuals who, as high chiefs, competitively vied with one another to increase their own individual wealth and status.
One of the most recognizable Kanak prestige objects is the scepter or ceremonial axe known as gi okono or, in French, haches ostensoirs. Indeed, they are a type of chiefly monstrance employed as an emblem of authority; they were held as scepters, carried in processions, and used as gifts in ritual exchanges. These ceremonial axes consist of a circular stone blade with two drilled holes used to attach and bind the blade to a wooden haft or handle. Along with the nephrite adzes and ornaments of the Maori of New Zealand, New Caledonian gi okono and large teardrop-shaped ceremonial axe heads are the premier objects fashioned from a semi-precious material from the Southwest Pacific and Oceania.
Indeed, the finest gi okono are iconic items. The blades with the greenest hue, or those veined in an eye-pleasing manner, cut and ground from nephrite or greenstone, were the most highly valued. Later ones from the 19th century onwards were often fashioned from a grayer serpentine or chert that does not have the inherent hardness or take to a highly polished surface like greenstone. The elongated wooden handles, often from older specimens, tend to be wrapped in either tapa cloth and/or a reddish twined cordage made from flying fox fur. A fine, wire-like sennet thread also adorned the handle's shaft and axe wedge. On occasion, a human face is carved at the top of the shaft, and heirloom shells and other valuables might be affixed to loose strands of cordage. The base is either plain, balled, or wrapped around a knobby bit of wood or a portion of worked coconut shell.
In the 19th century, what is locally referred to as manou, a type of blue trade cloth with white dots, also known as 'guinea cloth,' was manufactured in France and England. It became an important post-contact component in the repertoire of customary exchanges in New Caledonia. During this period, manou began to supplant or be placed over traditional binding materials. The earliest known circular blades of this type (three have been found as of this writing) can be archaeologically dated to the 15th century.
Many of the prestige teardrop-shaped axe blades fashioned from nephrite can also be quite beautiful and extremely old. These can be found in collections in the French museum system, the British Museum, as well as in other continental institutions. These axe heads were also part of a multi-faceted system of currency. In their system of exchange and cultural maintenance, coveted materials such as strings of pearl-shell, small bones, beads, and other prized shells were once connected to a carved or woven headpiece, la tête de monnaie, which is echoed in miniature masks, humanoid forms, torsos, and house spires. Each of these strings had an assigned material and symbolic value. They were deposited into a clan's "sacred basket" to ensure that food and the sustaining elements of life would not run out.
Woodcarving also played an important role in the community's life, with a special class of artisans or skilled experts creating architectural embellishments, masks, and ancestral images. Masking, as in many areas of Melanesia, was also part of a salient creative process in which, in New Caledonia, a new chief commissioned masks. These masks served as markers of their inner force or mana; a connection to recently deceased hereditary chiefs, and a display of their own cultivated authority. Known as mourning masks (apouema), the impressive regalia attached to some of these masks might include a plaited bamboo form, pounded barkcloth, diverse vegetable matter, a cloak of sewn native pigeon feathers, and even the hair of the deceased. These masks vary greatly in function depending on whether they originated from the Northern, Central, or Southern districts of Grand Terre.
Illustrated here are four fine masks. Note an example from The British Museum, which, like many of these masks, has no eye-holes. Masks were worn high on one's head where their open, expanding mouths doubled as the eye-holes for wearers while dancing or parading through a village. Perhaps the most astounding masks are those from the far North that possess grand, curving, beaked noses, exaggerated mouths, toothsome grins, and large tufts of mounded hair.
Another class of artifact displaying the carver's art is free-standing figures. These items could be small objects (approximately 5 inches or taller), often wrapped in tapa, herbal material, and flying fox fur. These were then secreted in shrines that were said to confer magical powers and fertility upon their keepers. Figurative images, often associated with ancestors, were kept inside the chief's house, which also served as the village's men's house and communal meeting area. Additionally, large figures were also placed against and in the courtyard of such dwellings. The largest figures (around 6 feet tall) were set atop poles, while smaller free-standing figures might be stashed away or placed in indoor ancestral shrines. The latter often have a rich brown indoor patina and are among the very first wooden items, along with the area's ceremonial clubs and weaponry, that early explorers and mariners brought back to Europe. These were all once part of a complex of ceremonial life, largely designed to pacify the natural environment or the ghosts and spirits of the ancestors, around which all life once revolved.
Aside from the items just described, the most interesting carved items left to posterity are those associated with a chief's round house. Its location or 'mound' reflects the claim of a founding clan that "bestows the chiefly function on the eldest member of one of its line". While viewed as an 'outsider,' a chief, as Christian Kaufmann writes, "is invested with functions and is a prime source of inspiration for Kanak figurative art." Further: The chief's clan owes its magical strength to the natal clans of the women who have married in, and to the respect owed him by the clans into which its own women marry. These exogamous marriages are the foundation of (their) social organization." (Kaufmann: 281, 281-287) The grand houses of chiefs were generally at the end of a promenade of dwellings and were the largest structures in the village. Aside from the interior or outdoor statues and house panels, these houses were artistically notable for their carved door jambs and impressive roof spires.
Door jambs (jovo) once flanked the right and left sides of a chief's house doorway. These have been described as a "manual of history" because they compress notions of mythology and metaphors that radiated both a chief's spiritual and incumbent political power. Panels and door jambs, like a frame holding a painting, or refined construction sheathing, also served a precise and practical purpose. In addition to its wooden skeleton, sturdy central ridge pole, and a raised, pounded earthen floor, jovo helped compress, support, and neatly frame the bamboo and woven plant material often used for the walls of traditional structures, thereby enhancing their rigid strength and overall architectural integrity.
Lastly, the most imposing of all Kanak sculptures are perhaps the roof spires from the great houses of the eldest clan member. Stylistically, these too can vary quite a bit depending on the region where they were created. Named after the wood in which they were carved, i.e., hup in the northern languages of Grand Terre, it refers to the houp tree, which is said to be "the ancestor of all other trees, the one that was there ever since the origins of the clans." (Boulay: 248). Standing tall like beacons, the largest house spires can be approximately 9 to 12 feet tall in total length. They are centered on a crested torso, face, or figure atop a pole that rises from the roof's apex. (See Sarasin: 1912)
Generally, these spires end in a spear-point-like projection or with repeated spikes. In some instances, shells were used as decorations; they reportedly replaced human skulls that were once hung from these roof finials in more distant times. Conceivably, skulls or shells could also have been attached to the spire's other ribs or protrusions. The best finials are visually impactful, even in their barest surviving forms, often damaged or highly eroded. The finest roof spires and New Caledonian art in general, at its best, have tended in the past to be underrated when compared to the more Easterly arts of Polynesia. To read in depth about this fascinating and culturally complex area, the writings of Maurice Leenhardt, Jean Guiart, Alban Bensa, and Roger Boulay, among others, are both authoritative and highly insightful.
— Steven G. Alpert, founder of Art of the Ancestors
1
Ceremonial Scepter | Gi Okono
Humboldt Forum
Before 1934/1935
New Caledonia
Blade made of nephrite, ground, polished, pierced, handle made of wood, covered with textile, wrapped with flying fox wool cords and plant fiber cord, two snail shells
Access unclear from Hans Nevermann in 1934/1935
VI 43109
2
Stone Axe Head
Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes
1866
New Caledonia
3
Currency and its Case
Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac
Early 20th century
Kanak peoples
Currency: Wood, shells, cord: braided plant fibers and flying fox hair
Case: Dried leaves, flying fox hair
Previously stewarded by Musée de l'Homme
71.1934.2.41.2.1
4
Mourning Mask
The British Museum
1853
New Caledonia
Wood, bamboo, bark, vegetable fiber, feathers, human hair
Donated by the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in 1954
Oc1954,06.260
5
Mask
Le Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer dans le-Pas-de-Calais
New Caledonia
Kanak peoples
Wood
Gift of L. Yvan, 1877
6
Mask | Apouéma
Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac
19th century
New Caledonia
Kanak peoples
Wood, plant fibers, pigments, human hair, feathers,
Donated by the Ministry of the Navy
Previously stewarded by Musée de l’Homme
71.1893.21.17
7
Mask | Apouéma
Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac
19th century
New Caledonia
Kanak peoples
Wood, pigments, feathers, twisted and braided plant fibers, human hair
Previously stewarded by Musée de l’Homme
71.1880.39.4
8
Ancestor Figure | Tiki
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
New Caledonia
Wood
Gift of the Masco Corporation
Previously stewarded by Linden Museum, Stuttgart
M.2009.127.6
9
Male Figure
The British Museum
New Caledonia
Wood, paper mulberry bark, shells, flying fox fur cord
Purchased from Louis-Joseph Bouge in 1913
Oc1913,1115.362
10
Anthropomorphic Sculpture
Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac
19th century
New Caledonia
Kanak peoples
Carved and engraved wood
Previously stewarded by Musée de l'Homme
71.1886.134.17
11
Carved Slab featuring a Human Face, Frog, and Fish
The British Museum
Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia
Wood
Purchased from John Jennings in 1898
Oc1898,0704.49
12
Panel
Musée d'Aquitaine, Bordeaux
New Caledonia
Wood
13
Door Board | Jovo
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
19th century
New Caledonia
Kanak peoples
Wood, pigment
Bequest of Lynda Cunningham, 2016
2017.681.2
14
Door Post / House Board
The British Museum
19th century-early 20th century
New Caledonia
Kanak peoples
Purchased from C. Dupuy in 1922
Oc1922,1213.1
15
Door Board | Jovo
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
19th century
New Caledonia
Kanak people
Wood, pigment
Bequest of Lynda Cunningham, 2016
2017.681.1
16
Door Frame | Jovo / Tale
Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac
New Caledonia
Kanak peoples
Carved and engraved wood
Previously stewarded by Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle or Musée de l'Homme
71.1931.50.2
17
Janus Headed Figure
The British Museum
New Caledonia
Wood
Donated by the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in 1954
Oc1954,06.416
18
Roof Finial
Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac
New Caledonia
Kanak peoples
Carved wood, black and blue pigments
Previously stewarded by Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle or Musée de l'Homme
71.1945.5.1
19
Roof Finial | Gomoa
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
19th century-20th century
New Caledonia
Kanak peoples
Wood, pigment
Gift of William E. and Bertha L. Teel
1992.405
20
Roof Finial
Musée du quai Branly — Jacques Chirac
Before 1850
New Caledonia
Kanak peoples
Carved wood
Previously stewarded by Musée national des arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie
72.1996.2.1
21
Roof Finial
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
19th–early 20th century
New Caledonia
Kanak peoples
Wood
The Michael C. Rockefeller Memorial Collection, Bequest of Nelson A. Rockefeller, 1979
1979.206.1451
All artworks and images presented in this feature are the property of their attributed museums.