After my desperate and fruitless hunt for street parking, I managed to elegantly schlep through wild lawn grass (which looks like it hasn’t been trimmed for weeks) and make my way across the naked, tree-laden courtyards to enter the most tourist-filled paradise: DeYoung!! Eager to finally explore the Jolika collection of New Guinea, I carefully walk up the stairway towards a New Guinea sort-of-heaven. But this heaven was different. Dimly lit and quiet. I guess that’s what you expect from a museum that over-advertises its designer couture collections rather than its collection of Oceanic artistry spanning centuries…
The atmosphere is mystical. There are artifacts placed in positions that command your attention, placed up high to instill a sort of “Godly” fear from those who dare to stare them down! I look around again and again, and it feels like some pieces are just floating in the air. I become entranced. There is a potent magic in the air when you feel as if you are a part of this exhibitionist ritual in a space where ancient New Guinea art looks at you with 1000 eyes while you only get to look with two eyes. Now that’s what I call entoptic phenomena!
Each artifact was displayed either in a glass case, mounted openly (without glass isolation), or both. And almost every object was illuminated by a single spot light… like the ones you see lighting up actors in a Shakespearian play. The symbolism behind this specialized lighting may be to “unique-ify” artifacts, and imply how each one speaks differently, tells something different that only the spectator can know only through their most reasoned imaginations. (Here I say “reasoned” imaginations because you are essentially given a tiny morsel of historical name-plate like information as you ponder each artifact… therefore, you are hermeneutically limited in your imaginations as well.)
Modernity was the foundation(ADD THIS LATER ON)
A reoccurring motif among this collection indicated a deeply rooted spiritual culture in the world of New Guinea inhabitants. As one typed description stated, “Ancestral spirits, recently and long deceased, were venerated almost everywhere in New Guinea.”
Ancestors are recreated or depicted or implied through an eclectic array of artifacts like skulls, hook sculpture, masks, hair and dance ornaments. Warfare and/or hunting is implied through masks (which serve as guardians for protection or “aggressive devices”) and very long spears. It is fairly apparent that the different peoples of New Guinea were hunter gatherers (hence the display of the “hunting amulet”). An example is the Abelam who subsisted off of mostly yam and sago. There is also a definite penchant for intricately beautiful woodcarving skill among the peoples of New Guinea. Nothing seemed un-inspired, everything was created with detail and many artifacts were painted. Maybe woodcarving is an artistic tradition within certain cultures of the different people of New Guinea?
Hooks are prevalent in this collection. I was in awe over an artifact labeled “Cult hook.” This hook had a small description beneath it stating: “suspension hooks were hung from the interior beams of houses to keep personal and religious objects or food out of reach from flooding or rats.” I am guessing this was their form of a multi-purpose refrigerator? If so, this is a technological form that shows these peoples were way beyond their time!
In a few pieces, there are explicit references to canoe transportations. The Biwat people, who lived by the Yuat River, transported their produce to markets by means of canoes. The wooden paddles on display were also an overt implication of this type of transport.
Some artifacts imply head hunting embedded in certain cultures not only because of their descriptions but from the abstract and concrete head imagery among many artifact such as decorated skulls and artifacts where the head is large and/or prominent from the artifacts bodily entirety.
The documentation of the exhibit gives rough, approximate estimates of each artifact (I.e. 19th century, 18th century, 1490-1660- with a C14 dating of 94.5% probability), some artifacts have unknown dates. The provenance of the artifacts had no exact location, but were moreso implied through regional areas. So yes, in a way, one is able to determine where most artifacts came from, but anything more than that is a up to the individual to research and collect by themselves.
Some of the oldest artifacts were the stone tools. The female suspension hook was also fairly ancient (1330-1470 with a C-14 95.14% probability) A Male figure from the Middle Yuat River region was also fairly ancient (1280-1400). Accelerator Mass spectrometry was helpful in dating these artifacts.
This collection really emphasized the “ancestral spiritual” aspects of certain New Guinea cultures.