Abelam

Abelam man, 1917
14 x 11 inches, oil on canvas, 2020

The Abelam are one of those groups of indigenous peoples that speak to my imagination. Like the Jivaro, Selk'nam, and the Andamanese, the Abelam of Papua New Guinea belong to those most remote and prehistoric one can imagine. Situated just south of the equator along the Sepik River, running from the Highlands of Papua north to the Pacific Ocean, the Abelam were first seen by westerners a mere hundred years ago remaining with characteristics of the stone age. No metallurgy or writing system they knew of, tools are just of stone or bone. I first learned of the Abelam through the collection The Music of Primitive Man [Horizon, 1973] that featured two short outtakes. One, Abelam Warning, belongs to the most outlandish recordings I've ever heard and was listed in a top 100 some ten years ago. Last year I came across the cd Music of Oceania: The Abelam of Papua Niugini [Musicaphone, 1983, Germany] and downloaded several tracks. Nggwal mindsha, antiphony to the ancestral spirits is now part of the latest top 100 edition. The sleeve features a photo of a characteristic Abelam ceremonial house. As primitive as the technology of the Abelam is, their ceremonial houses are exquisite and display highly advanced building techniques. The music was recorded by Brigitta Hauser-Schaublin who also wrote a lengthy paper of the distinguished architecture of the ceremonial houses. The first mention of these houses, and the Abelam for that matter, was recorded by another German, Richard Thurnwald in 1913. The individual in the painting above was situated in front of a ceremonial house in a 1913 photograph by Thurnwald. There are no women depicted in early photographs of the Abelam, and in more recent pictures women only feature as bystanders. Figures in ceremonial costume, at dances and in front of ceremonial houses are all men. Unlike in more recent photographs, in which men wear western style shorts or ceremonial attire, they are seen nude (at least the one that I painted). Remaining in recent photos is the unique hair fashion of Abelam men coiffed into a near perfect circle, like a halo, or sun disc. Noteworthy too in the appearance of the individual I painted are the feminine looking breasts. Perhaps this individual, standing while others in the photograph are sitting in front of him, is an important person, maybe a shaman. An often seen characteristic of shamans is gender ambiguity. I may be reading too much into this photo but a mind may wander and wonder at the marvels of such distant people.