The Elema arts of the Papuan Gulf region

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.
by:www.thenational.com.pg