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Full Text: Anthropos, 99.2004

Anthropos 
99.2004: 519-534 
The warawara malanggan in Lesu 
The Historical Anthropology of a New Ireland Society 
Goran Aijmer 
Abstract. - This study examines some features of symbolism, 
originally encountered in New Ireland by Hortense Powder- 
maker and other early ethnographers. It aims to reconstruct 
certain features of the symbolic grammar of this Melanesian 
society as they might have been before modernization trans 
formed social life. The essay concerns a plaited nonfigurative 
malanggan object used in death and memorial rituals. It sug 
gests that this artefact was an iconic symbol with reference to 
one of two cultural modalities, each with a different dominant 
presupposition. The object implied a vision of a universe of 
pure uterine belonging in a world without men. [New Ireland, 
women, ritual, art, death, symbolism] 
Goran Aijmer, Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology at 
the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and currently associated 
with the Gothenburg Research Institute of the University. 
His research focuses on symbolic expression and articulation 
in fields like politics, economy, and religion. His regional 
Projects have concerned southern China, Southeast Asia, and 
Melanesia. He has worked in many universities, more recently 
in the Research School of Asian and Pacific Studies, Australian 
National University, Canberra, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en 
Sciences Sociales, Paris, and the Sainsbury Research Unit, 
University of East Anglia, Norwich. Recent monographs are: 
Cantonese Society in a Time of Change (with Virgil K. Y. 
Ho. Hong Kong 2000); Meanings of Violence (co-edited with 
Jon Abbink. Oxford 2000), New Year Celebrations in Central 
China in Late Imperial Times (Hong Kong 2003). - See also 
References Cited. 
might yield to a reexamination 74 years after their 
initial formulation in the field, in the village of 
Lesu. At that time, New Ireland had already long 
been under heavy outside influences, from both 
the German and later Australian governments as 
well as from missionary activities. In Lesu there 
was a small base for Roman Catholic activities 
in the area as well as a Methodist mission. There 
were many settlers’ plantations around, providing 
work for local village people and thus stimulating 
male migration. A new road, built and maintained 
by a considerable amount of corvée labour, had 
changed former patterns of communication. War 
fare between local communities had been brought 
to an end. 1 
The aim of the present essay is to reexamine 
a few Lesu conventions in an attempt to explore 
some aspects of an artefact as an object of art and 
ritual in a premodern setting. Needless to say, what 
we may hope to gain is not a picture of some 
original state, but glimpses of an ongoing social 
life in a dynamic environment in a remote period. 2 
Introduction 
This study offers an examination of some ethno 
graphic data collected by American anthropologist 
Hortense Powdermaker in northwestern New Ire 
land in the Bismarck Archipelago in 1929-30. It 
18 an attempt to discover what information these 
1 For a survey of the history of early colonialism in New 
Ireland, see Derlon 1997a: 24-29; Panoff 1979. For bi 
ographies of Hortense Powdermaker, see Mark 1980; Wolf 
1971. See also her autobiography, Powdermaker 1966. 
2 See Aijmer 2001 for a discussion of the main theoretical 
propositions that inform this essay.
	        
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