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The Elema arts of the Papuan Gulf region
By PETER S. KINJAP
Seeking assistance from spirits and
supernatural beings is a common practice in almost all PNG
societies.
Each village has its own rituals and initiation ceremonies. Some
of these rituals are seen as a form of entertainment.
Until the 1930s, the Elema people of Papuan Gulf coast staged
festivals known as Hevehe and Kovave, which were addressed to
spirits of the forest and sea.
The Elema people also brought together the wider community living
along Orokolo Bay. The festivals focused on the production and use
of special masks, and were full of drama and comedy.
Men built a ceremonial house, or eravo, for each Hevehe cycle.
They also used the house to store special objects, in which they
believe spirits lived.
The Kovave festival was held to initiate boys and to entertain
forest spirits. Each Kovave mask represented a named spirit. It
was made by the father and mother's brother of the boy being
initiated.
As they made the mask, men invited the spirit to live in the
village for a time. They boys wore the masks on a series of
occasions during the festival period, including a final race on
the beach. The climax of the ceremony was an exchange of valuables
(ornaments and pigs) between each boy's relatives.
The Elema people also made shields which they use in tribal wars.
These shields were made of wood, dated to the late 19th century
and early 20th century.
The breakdown of relationships among neighboring groups in Elema
region led to warfare, which was highly formalized, although
people did harm and kill each other. Archers and fighters wore
shields slung over the shoulder. Shield designs were usually based
on an abstract human face. Rather than camouflaging the wearer,
shields were often intended to dazzle the enemy visually and
demoralize them.
The Elema shields were designed to leave the wearer's arms free to
handle a bow and arrow.
Object remains of these events such as the Kovave mask, shields
and painted boards of wood, lime, pigment of Elema people, Gulf of
Papua in the late 19th century and early 20th century tell the
story.
Pictures of carved boards (hohao) like in the photo below,
depicting a whole human figure are now very rare in the area. This
board would have housed a spirit and had a personal name. The
figure is dressed to dance in a festival, with a pearl-shell
crescent on his breast and a bark belt. Elema art emphasizes the
comic, in part to entertain and charm the spirits.
Records of Elema art of Papuan Gulf were displayed by the British
Museum in London, UK in its Public Gallery known as Living and
Dying gallery at PNG's wall display referred to as 'sustaining
each other'.
These and other artifacts from all over PNG got there through the
colonial movements, tourists, travelers and anthropologists who
came to PNG in the olden days.
Last month, I was invited by the British Museum on a project known
as the Melanesia Art Project, a joint initiative of the University
of London and the British Museum, London, led by Professor Nick
Thomas and Dr. Lissant Bolton , to participate in a Museum
Residency Programme for the period of four weeks from late April
2007 to early May.
The project is researching contemporary attitudes to the large
artifact collections held at the British Museum from Papua New
Guinea, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.
For Papua New Guinea, the project has also invited Sam Luguna, a
professional PNG artist, to London in 2006.
The Melanesian Project aims to explore the relationships between a
wide range of indigenous art and artifact forms, socially
significant narratives, and indigenous communities from which
historical collections of Melanesian art derive.
Focusing on the important but largely unstudied Melanesian
collections in the British Museum, this project aims to bring new
perspectives to both the study of indigenous art and the
understanding of ownership, heritage, and relations between
museums and communities in Papua New Guinea and Melanesia.
As part of the project, The Melanesian Way Inc (TMW), an
organization established in Papua New Guinea to revive, preserve,
protect and promote our traditional cultures through literature
has in collaboration with the British Museum in London, aims to
raise the spirits of local Elema people in Papuan Gulf region of
Papua New Guinea to furnish us with more information on Elema arts
and/or other related stories.
Local villagers in the Papuan Gulf region or any other interested
persons who wish to join hands to preserve our traditional
cultures may call +44 (0) 2073238040 in London, or (+675) 6966247
in Port Moresby or send an email to: lbonshek@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk,
and a copy to: yeepai@yahoo.com or write to: The Melanesian Way
Inc, PO Box 841, Boroko, NCD, Papua New Guinea.
If you want to write something about your own culture or any other
particular culture in Papua New Guinea to keep a record of it for
future generations, please contact the above address.
 
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