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.