Up Front

with the editor

Somebody the other day remarked that because I move about the Pacific quite a bit I must have by now accrued a unique and valuable collection of native artifacts. In case any body else is as ignorant, let me say to you now what I told that chap, that my “collection” comprises a dozen bits and pieces the like of which could be purchased in the Islands to morrow by any tourist with a total of $2O to spare. The museums of the world won’t be fighting for any of my stuff when I’m gone!

This isn’t to say that I don’t get a lot of fun out of my humble common-or-garden Trobriands carved pigs, miniature Sepik masks and Solomons sharks. I enjoy them as art, and it doesn’t matter that there are thousands like them and that they were produced especially to sell to tourists like me.

I have several carved sharks. All of them come from New Georgia, in the Solomons, where there has been a shark cult —a veneration of sharks. They really know what their sharks look like.

My favourite is a miniature monster about 16 ins. long, carved from a piece of ebony with such skill that a natural stripe in the grain gives the startling effect of underwater speed. The creature’s evil eyes and teeth are of inlaid pearl shell, Solomons fashion. I bought this shark at Munda airstrip a few years ago for a couple of pounds, and have bought others since from the Chinese stores in Honiara.

Amusing carvings

The stylised pigs of the Trobriand Islanders may be bought in Port Moresby. I have bought them there and in the Trobriands—amusing carvings worth 50 or 60 cents each and carved fairly speedily. If you’ve seen one Trobriands pig you’ll be able to identify another one, and this is a big part of the pleasure of ownership. A Trobriands pig is clearly in a style of its own, a Sepik mask is clearly a Sepik mask, and if these things were hand-carved by the locals I can’t see that it matters why they carved them, so long as they are using local skills to produce

something artistic and that I like what they produce enough to want to own it.

Not long ago at a party in Sydney I described the New Georgia sharks to a fellow-guest who turned out to be a serious collector of native artifacts. He disapproved of my wasting my time in buying this sort of thing. He said that unless he could be satisfied that a piece had been created for a genuine utility or religious purpose, and not for financial consideration, he would not want to own it.

I don’t understand enough about the motives of the serious private collector to know whether this chap’s attitude is normal. He’s entitled to it, but I do think Islands travellers who pass up low-priced, easily obtainable but artistic items because they are not “genuine” are depriving them selves of later pleasures.

Thus I find some comfort in a paper written more than 40 years ago by the celebrated pre-war Papuan Government Anthropologist F. E. Williams, and which I happened to turn up the other day. It is Papuan Anthropological Report No. 3, published in 1923, and called “The Collection of Curios and the Preservation of Native Culture”. It’s rather a rare little report un fortunately, for it deserves wider distribution.

Williams talks of the different reasons for collecting—the “curio” interest, the art interest and scientific interest—and he has a short chapter on “a matter too frequently ignored” —the ethics of collecting.

He does not decry the rights of the “curio collector” looking for

something “rare, odd or antiquated”' or the art collector to whom the value is in the art of the item.

But he objects to curio collector: who claim that their collected item: have a scientific value (“although there is an undeniable value in 2 rarity or a curiosity”, he says, “thi: is not necessarily a scientific value”) Of the art collectors he says, “Here again, the art interest is its owr justification; and connoisseurs neec neither bolster up their claims noi be denied their right to collect”.

Discussing the ethics of casua. collecting, Williams continues: “Some care ought to be exercised in buying art objects, lest serious injury be done to the feelings of the owners, anc possibly also to the continuance ol their art. . . . No boast is commonei than that of the collector, gloating over his carved spatula—The like ol this is not seen nowadays’. Where that is true it is a pity.

“In conventional art—which lives by imitation—to destroy or remove highly prized ‘models’, may be tc strike a heavy blow at the art itself: Where there is a magico-religious value attached, the danger is greater for a discouraged people may not think it worthwhile to replace an original. In short, native art is ex posed to some danger whenever s free hand is given to the artistic bur unsympathetic curio-grabber.

“On the contrary it may be arguec that to give a good price for objects of art is to stimulate artistic activity l With the above reservation, this is no doubt true with regard to the natives.

“Where the native artist is con tinually creating, he cannot be better occupied; and probably cannot be more contented. To provide a market for his work—be it pottery, polish-i ing of shells, wood-carving or any other—is assuredly one of the besii turns we could do him. The thing is to keep his art going; not to collect his art-treasures on the assumption that the art will soon be lost.”

I shall continue to buy my casual tourist items with a clear conscience.

Stuart Inde[?]