Magazines - Tribal Art Spring 2009

By Bart van Bussel
Introduction
In September of 2006, I traveled to Melanesia to attend a malangan ceremony in New Ireland held for Joel Picia, one of the hereditary clan chiefs of the Tabar Islands, who had died some years earlier. He had been a friend of my father, Loed van Bussel, and I had been asked to attend the event as a representative of my family. A malangan is an extremely elaborate and ritualized memorial ceremony held for key figures in New Ireland society, which has long been practiced but has been falling out of favor in recent decades.
After several days lost in Island Time trying to arrange transport by boat—one boat owner got halfway to my destination before remembering that I wasn’t with him—I finally arrived on Tatau, one of the four islands in the Tabar group. Despite intensive missionary activity by Catholics, Protestants, and Seventh-day Adventists in the area, Picia had been a staunch supporter of traditional New Ireland beliefs and value systems. After Picia’s death, the chieftaincy was split between Noah Lurang and his half brother because the former operates a small transport company on Kavieng that keeps him away from Tatau for much of the time. Both of the new chiefs are also traditionalists and wanted to honor their deceased predecessor appropriately. The malangan cycle has three parts: one held at the time of death, which, in Picia’s case, had been several years earlier; one held some months after; and this, the largest and final element, which focuses around the settling of imbalance in the spirit world as well as resolving open issues between clans and individuals. Given the social changes that are ongoing and increasing, this was likely the last time that a malangan ceremony of this scale would ever be held.

Preparations
Despite the frustrating delays I had encountered in getting to Tatau, once I got there I found that I had arrived a couple of days before the event. In Tatau village, a small community where the event was going to be held, Island Time had ceased to exist and the place was a hive of activity as everyone worked to prepare the various aspects of the malangan. The preparations had been going on for a couple of years but were now in high gear. This involved creating and walling off a ritual area near the village cemetery, preparing food, gathering pigs around the village area from all over the island, choreographing the various dance performances, and carving or otherwise creating the masks, sculptures, costumes, and paraphernalia needed for the two-day event.