‘Living cultures’: New Peabody gallery explores Pacific societies
This large drum, called a garamut, was used by communities at the mouths of the Sepik and Ramu rivers and neighboring coastal region to communicate with each other and accompany chants during dances and ritual songs. (Photos by Allie Barton)
A section of a brightly painted façade from a korambo — a ceremonial house of the Abelam culture in the Sepik Hills of eastern Papua New Guinea — catches the eye from its place on the light green walls of the Yale Peabody Museum’s newly opened Hall of the Pacific.
The façade, composed of flattened panels from the sago tree (a critically important palm in Papua New Guinea), bears the image of two forbidding faces rendered side-by-side in red, ochre, white, and black. Concentric circles in alternating colors form the masks’ eyes. The korambo housed the ngwalndu spirits who visited the living before returning to another world, explains the label text, composed by Grace Guise Vele, chief curator of the anthropology branch of the Papua New Guinea Museum and Art gallery.
Black-and-white photographs accompanying the exhibit label depict examples of towering korambo in villages in the mid-20th century. Another photo shows a complete façade from one of these structures.
“These objects will be unfamiliar to most of the people visiting this gallery, so, when possible, we paired objects with photos from where they are from to contextualize them,” said Virginia-Lee Webb, consulting curator for the new gallery — the Peabody’s first large-scale, permanent display of traditional arts and cultural artifacts from the Pacific. “My colleague Charmaine Wong and I asked representatives of the specific communities where these works originated to collaborate with us and write the label text.
“It was very important to us to include their voices in sharing these objects and the stories and cultures behind them.”
Called the Hall of the Pacific, the gallery is the latest in a series of new attractions at the Peabody, which reopened this spring following a transformative four-year renovation. Its new and reimaged galleries now span three floors instead of two.
The Pacific gallery, located on the third floor and the museum’s second-largest exhibit space after the Burke Hall of Dinosaurs, houses 254 objects that prompt visitors to contemplate the diversity of cultures that have developed over vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean. Most of the objects on view came to the Peabody thanks to generous donations from Thomas Jaffe ’71.
“This is something completely new for the Peabody,” said Peabody Director David Skelly, the Frank R. Oastler Professor of Ecology at Yale School of the Environment and Yale’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. “We’ve never been able to show objects and works of art from across the Pacific at a scale like this. The Hall of the Pacific helps visitors make a true connection with the living cultures of the region and with Asian American and Pacific Islander communities right here in Connecticut. We are so grateful to Tom Jaffe and our partners in the community who helped bring this new exhibit to life.”
The gallery also features objects from the museum’s collections (many publicly displayed for the first time) in addition to those from Jaffe’s promised gift.
“I’ve been into the worlds of the Pacific since I was a kid, and been collecting objects from there for years,” Jaffe said. “So, when it came time to share them with the public the Yale Peabody with Dave Skelly leading its massive revamp and expansion was a dream partner come true. My hope is that those who visit this gallery will be turned on to the Pacific’s incredible cultures for generations to come.”
The exhibit, largely arranged according to geography, boasts a hugely diverse array of art and cultural objects. Visitors can ponder the craftsmanship of a Kahu huruhuru Māori feather cloak from Aotearoa/New Zealand; a rare Tago mask from the Tami islands; a Sisi Tabua necklace from Fiji made of teeth from sperm whales; and a 19th-century Warup drum from Saibai Island, which is located in the Torres Strait between Australia and New Guinea.
The entire length of one of the rectangular room’s walls is devoted to objects from New Guinea, the world’s second-largest island. Split between the independent nation of Papua New Guinea on its eastern half and Papua Province of Indonesia in its west, the island is among the most culturally diverse areas on Earth. More than 800 distinct living languages are spoken in Papua New Guinea alone.
The objects on display reflect that rich diversity. A slender Amitung houseboard or door, carved with stone tools by an artisan named Wengelok before 1914, was once fixed at the entrance of a katibam, a house for fully initiated men, explains label text provided by anthropologist Barry Craig, former curator of the Papua New Guinea National Museum.
A canoe prow carved into the shape of a crocodile’s head represents the Iatmul people’s creation account, in which land formed on the back of a crocodile that had emerged from the primal sea that covered the world, Webb said.
A separate glass case at the center of the hall contains a pair of elaborate Eharo masks used in a mask cycle the Elema people perform to mark important life events. Each part of the cycle featured a different mask. The masks on view, topped with totemic bird sculptures, were worn during the final stage. Unlike other parts of the cycle, which were made or performed in secret, these masks were for the village’s entertainment, Webb explained.
“They were called ‘things of gladness,’” she said. “All the serious, labor intensive, and secretive portions of the cycle were completed, and everybody was ready to relax and celebrate.”
A glass case at one end of the gallery contains examples of shields, used in ceremony or combat, from across Pacific cultures. A shell-inlaid wicker shield on display from the Solomon Islands was likely owned by a chief as it required great skill and labor to craft, the label states. Made of rattan, the woven and painted Solomon shields were light but strong.
While the korambo façade, Eharo masks, and shell-inlaid shields are among the exhibit’s showstoppers, smaller objects on display also impress. For example, a Wamaing head ornament from the island of New Britain in Papua New Guinea is made of mussel and nautilus shells, the teeth of a cuscus — a type of possum — and coconut beads. Crimson bands running through the ornament’s center look like fiber at first, but they are made of pandan leaves, a palm-like tropical plan, and are extremely delicate, Webb said.
“It’s so fragile that you literally can’t even breathe on it,” she said.
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