MELANESIAN ARTEFACTS. POST-MODERNIST REFLECTIONS

Review by Fred Melssen

In the summer of 1981 a rather inconspicuous article was published by Nancy Oestreich Lurie, curator of Anthropology at the Milwaukee Public Museum¹. In this, Lurie examines the status of anthropological museums in a historical perspective, especially the relation between 'practical' museology and 'academic' anthropology. Although she addresses herself to the American situation where the general natural history museums were the institutional homeland for anthropology, her reflections and conclusions are more far-reaching and relevant than one may expect in first instance.

In 1988 an even more unobtrusive publication - I myself noted it by chance - appeared by Mary Bouquet and Jorge Branco. It was the bi-lingual catalogue Melanesian Artefacts. Post-modernist Reflections² that accompanied the exhibition Artefacts Melanésios. Reflexoes pós-modernistas which opened at the Museu de Etnologia in Belém (Portugal) in March 1989.

According to A. Lima de Carvallho, director of this Ethnological Museum, the exhibition "opens to the public at a moment when in Portugal both Anthropology, as the unified science of Mankind, and Museology, in its ethnological form, are seeking redefinition, whether in terms of a project for the future, or in their practical realisation in there and now" (MA, 15). He points to the dispersal of these disciplines through the entrenchment of historical or academic transitions. Melanesian Artefacts has become an experiment which works on and reflects upon this situation. The distance between (practical) museology and (academic) anthropology, to which Lurie addressed herself, and a 'translation'/presentation of theoretical insights, is a central issue of the catalogue and the discussion surrounding Melanesian Artefacts³.

The catalogue and exhibition are unique in several aspects. It was the first time this particular Melanesian collection was shown to the public. Of more importance, we see the approach and the explication of the underlying stages of research.

When Bouquet and Branco encountered the artefacts in early 1987, research was begun as to the history of the collection. In chapter two "from artefacts to archives", Branco describes the state of the collection. Originating from Melanesia, "The collection comprises just over one hundred items and included a condensed catalogue-inventory..." (MA, 27). Because there were almost no clues to the origins and history of the collection, some hypotheses were formulated as a starting-point for research. The first phase of this archival research did not result in concrete facts. However, because false trails could be eliminated, a link was suggested between the arrival of the artefacts in Portugal and the first world war. The second phase of the archival research was to compile a profile of German ethnographic research in German Melanesia, "in order to systematise the fragmentary references found on the original labels" (MA, 28). Branco then describes some eleven expeditions. Having done this, a context of the collection and a frame of reference is defined with the "aim to construct the itinerary of the artefacts" (MA, 46). In chapter three "on the European circulation of non-European Goods", Branco goes back again to WWI. With the help of the earlier conclusions, it now becomes clear that the artefacts arrived in Portugal in 1927, in exchange for a valuable archaeological collection from Iraq, as part of the war reparations ceded by the Berlin Museum to Portugal. The most lengthy part of the catalogue "Melanesian artefacts: lay-out, comment and itinerary" by Bouquet describes the lay-out of the exhibition. Four categories, 'person, gender and ornament', 'ceremonial and dwelling places', 'artefacts and activities' and 'properties of warfare' are used for an ordering of the artefacts. In this part we turn from German and Portuguese history to the Melanesian artefacts themselves. The last chapter "Portuguese discrepancies and the familiar exoticed" describes the 'construction of the exotic' as suggested/implicated by the labels. German interpretations and labels and the Portuguese readings of these result is a new - Portuguese - interpretation of Melanesia.

The first part of the title of the exhibition and catalogue - Melanesian Artefacts - refers to an assemblage of artefacts. The second part of the title - Postmodernist Reflections - refers to "the specific temporality of the postmodern era within which we encounter these artefacts" (MA, 17). It is Bouquet who addresses herself to the discussion of 'postmodernism in anthropology'.

Images of Artefacts

In the photographic essay Images of Artefacts, Bouquet focuses not so much on the artefacts themselves but on the documentation concerning the collection⁴. In this essay, Bouquet elaborates on some themes in Melanesian Artefacts. She describes the German imageries by means of an analysis of the German labels attached to the artefacts. These labels, as 'signs', made it possible to recover Melanesian images contemporary with the objects: "German constructions of Melanesia" (Images, 342). She then analyses the Portuguese labels which "add a Portuguese dimension to the narrative" (Images, id.). The article ends with some conclusions and a controversial ending about artifactual textuality and its implications for the way ethnographic traditions (German, Portuguese and European) domesticated the objects. The merit of Bouquet's research is that we are able to gain some insight into the textuality of these domestications and the way we can use these.

In a discussion on Images of Artefacts⁵ a valid good point was made for a critical reflection on 'labelling'. At least in the Netherlands, there is an aspiration for a more uniform labelling by way of the computer. Questions were raised concerning the static, authoritarian character of this new way of labelling.

Asmat, an impression of a collection

In 1990 the exhibition Asmat. An impression of a collection: the collection of the Augustine Missionaries in South West New Guinea opened at the Ethnological Museum in Nijmegen (Netherlands). It is interesting to compare this exhibition with Melanesian Artefacts, especially because we see some resemblances between the dispositions of the collections and the methodologies used in the research. As anthropologists, we were concerned with the description of the collection, the research and the preparations for the exhibition⁶. In the beginning, when we 'discovered' the collection, we were almost in an identical startingposition as Bouquet. What we had was a very heterogeneous assemblage of artefacts, originating from all over New Guinea: Irian Jaya ánd Papua New Guinea, including places were the Augustines had never worked as missionaries. We had a short inventory list with brief descriptions. Most of the artefacts had labels with obscure reference numbers and places of origin. The documentory phase of our research consisted of archival research and a review of the huge corpus of ethnographic literature. Archival research and complementary interviews revealed, nevertheless, nothing of relevance about the history of the collection.

We were conscious of the problems inherent in the documentation of the collection. As Bouquet remarked, "The term 'collection' is misleading to the extent that it implies a set of things assembled in a coherent and representative way" (Melanesian Artefacts, 22). The collection in question was not coherent. Everything suggested that there was no logic at all behind it. Thus, contrary to the result of Bouquet and Branco's research, we were not able to make a profile of the collection's history, nor was it possible to place every single item in its ethnographic context.

What the collection's labels did provide were clues to the apparently one-sided and ideologically coloured representation of Irian Jaya by the missionaries. Due to lack of time we were not able to pursue this line of enquiry, although Bouquet's work suggests that this could be very fruitful. Eventually we selected Asmat artefacts for the presentation. These provided a good context for some ethnographic themes.

Notes:
1. Lurie, N.O., 'Museumland Revisited', Human Organization 40 (1981) 190-187.
2. Bouquet, M. and Freitas Branco, J., Melanesian Artefacts: Post-modernist Reflections [Artefactos Melanésios. Reflexoes pós-modernistas]. Lisbon 1988: IICT/Museu de Etnologia (Exhibition catalogue).
3. Compare van Beek's critique 'Words and Things. A comment on Bouquet's 'Images of Artefacts', Critique of Anthropology 11 (1991) 357-360.
4. Bouquet, M., 'Images of Artefacts', Critique of Anthropology 11 (1991) 333-356.
5. The lecture 'Images of Artefacts. Reflections on the Melanesian collection ion the Museu de Etnologia, Lisbon', by Mary Bouquet, organized by the lecture committee of Quetzalcoatl, the student association of Anthropology at the University Nijmegen (October, 23th 1991).
6. 'Asmat - an impresiion of a collection'. The research, description and presentation was carried out by drs. Fred Melssen, drs. Tjitske van der Veen (anthropologist) and drs. Fer Hoekstra (curator).