PENIS ORNAMENT ADMIRALTY ISLANDS
« The men do not always wear this loin cloth. When they do not wear it, their only clothing is a shell (Ovulum ovum) on the penis, so worn usually that its narrow mouth nips and flattens the penis behind the glans. The inner whorls are cut out, but not so as greatly to widen the mouth. When the bark cloth is on, the shell is usually carried in a small bag hung round the neck. If they do not show the penis bare there appears to be no sense of indecency, and boys wear the cloth before they assume the shell. »
ADMIRALTY ISLANDS BY DR HANS NEVERMANN, Translated by John Dennison, Edited by John Dennison and Glenn R. Summerhayes, University of Otago Working Papers in Anthropology · No. 1 ; Published by Department of Anthropology & Archaeology · University of Otago, 2013. :
« Neither Carteret nor Hunter mentions the penis shell. It was recorded for the first time by Labillardière and de Rossel. Only adult men capable of bearing arms wear the shell, which is put on only for war expeditions and war dances. The fact that it was worn when paddling out to ships was probably based on the expectation that it might come to a fight with the foreigners; or, in some cases where during dance movements the Europeans would focus on the shell, as did Miklucho-Maclay and the Hamburg Expedition in 1908 in Lŏ´ nǐu, it signalled an intent to sell the shell. The penis shell is a white Amphiperas shell (Ovulum, Bulla ovum) whose internal spiral is cut out, while the natural opening is enlarged only slightly, or not at all; but not so much that the glans can easily be inserted. To put on the shell, the foreskin is pulled over the glans and jammed with it into the shell opening. In some men only part of the corpus cavernosum can be accommodated within the opening, while Moseley saw only the foreskin covered in a man with a well-developed penis. Labillardière observed several cases of penile ulceration among penis shell wearers, which he believed was due to pressure from the shell’s narrow opening. Moseley did not observe any such manifestations, but he did emphasize that wearing the shell had to be extremely uncomfortable for the wearer, and he mentions a case of marked flattening of the glans by the shell. Thilenius found, besides not-inconsiderable elongation of the penis by the heavy shell, urinary obstruction, probably brought about by temporary paralysis of the bladder muscles, a conditional reflex of the mistreated glans. Krämer observed that one man, who was trying in vain to remove his penis shell for the dance, leapt into the water and was then able to remove the shell without effort. Perhaps this can be traced to an erection, which was otherwise unnoticed during a dance. Those who removed their shell, immediately put on a tapa binding, according to Labillardière’s observation. On the other hand, others who had no binding with them removed the shell without thinking. Moseley too noted that the men hastily reclothed themselves. When the shell is not worn on the penis, it is placed behind the ear for temporary storage. Bühler noticed this in 1932, often among young girls (!) especially at major dance festivals. Men carry the shell also in a small plaited pouch on their chest or beneath their armpits. The pouch is readily adorned with bright beads on strings like a net, and also hung along the lower edge with bead tassels and scraps of trinket. Only Moseley saw the penis shell worn under the T-binding, in the vicinity of Nares Harbour. The shell, even when it is not worn as a penis shell and serves other purposes such as canoe decoration etc, is called mắna or manắ in Păpítăla͡i; mā´ nă on Hā´ ŭs; mĭ´ne or mắna in Lŏ´ nǐu; mắna on Pĭ´tǐlu, Lămbŭ´ tjo, Pónam, and in T͡au ´ ī; and mănĕ in Buao. On Pāk it is called djāmĕ´; while in Pătŭ´ sī and Mbū´ n͡ai it is called emena according to Buhler; and in Buboi and on Pónam mana. Few penis shells are undecorated. On the curved outer surface most are completely covered
in cross-hatched, incised patterns; and after a few wearings, these stand out darkly against their white background because of the dirt that gathers in them; or they are deliberately blackened from the start with soot or pyrolusite. They are composed of vertical and horizontal bands, triangles, star-shaped figures, curved lines ending in spirals, diamonds, scratched lines with angular branches (a degenerating lizard pattern?) and figurative representations of fish or crocodiles with Palaquium tassels. There is a predominant tendency towards an arrangement of the individual parts into series between lines. Triangular drawings are called ǐnīn on Pāk, and parallel lines added to their points, boinắ. A penis shell was observed on Pāk in 1908 boasting a short bead cord with two possum teeth in each of two holes in its lower half. The penis shell is worn by all Mắnus and Mătăṅkŏ´ l (except for the named villages in Lā´ lā and Pä´rǟ, in Boao(??) on Pāk and Nŏ´ ru). Parkinson mentions it among the Ŭsĭa͡i, and in 1908 a penis shell was obtained from the Ŭsĭa͡i in Kĕtyē´. Since only adults are allowed to wear the shell, 10-12 year-old boys among the Mắnus of the south coast of the main island put on a hollowed-out nutshell as a substitute, in order to practise the penis shell dance. »
« Penis shells, neck ornaments, and painting serve as war decoration; as weapons: spears, throwing arrows, daggers and, very rarely, obsidian axes. »
« Dance feasts are, as a rule, held from dusk to midnight or until the moon goes down. People consider the state of the moon when choosing the time for a dance feast. The penis shell is worn for the war dance of the Mắnus and Mătănkŏ´ l, as it is for war expeditions. An additional dance decoration is a yellow-black woven belt and a battle ornament worn on a band on the backs of the warriors1039. Their bodies are also painted red and white. The dancer holds his spear in the fingers of his right hand, enclosing it “in the manner of a quill pen” so “that the tip points upward, with the shaft on the outside of the slightly bentforearm, and the butt of the spear close to the ground”. One or several slit drums give the dance beat. This is usually performed by the two oldest men. Initially the dancers, several side by side in lock-step, proceed in swaying, running steps around the drum or around a fire. Schnee on Kŏmū´ li saw them thrust the arm with the spear away from themselves, accompanied “by abruptly-staccato vocal high-pitched cries”. Thilenius, departing from this, describes how the music suddenly cut out, and the men on Fedarb rose up on their toes and made a movement as though they wanted to fling their spears away. They all stretched their bodies and uttered a long drawn-out “iō” as soon as their right hand stretched up as high as possible. While doing this, the spear lay horizontally in their hand. Then, a new dance phase follows. All the dancers stand still, bend their knees slightly and, by rapid backward movements of the pelvis, set the penis in motion so that the penis shell flies to and fro. According to Schnee the arms are outstretched and they expel a muffled bellow. In flinging the penis it seems to be that it moves right, left, up, and towards the perineum and, where possible, describes a circle. After this phase the running steps are re-introduced and the dance restarts from the beginning. With each repetition, the movements become increasingly rapid and the cry, which resembles the war cry, becomes ever louder. Klink saw the men with spears in their hands initially gazing upwards, dancing in a line, on the spot, without any commotion. Suddenly the drum began a frenzied beat and, with a loud cry, bedlam erupted among the dancers who stamped the ground with their feet. The penis shell, probably not mentioned by Klink but accepted by him as present, was set in motion by this. The drum suddenly broke off and the peaceful dance began again until the noise broke out once more. A similar dance is also performed without spears and without signs of war. People are satisfied simply to replace the T-binding by the penis shell, but still retain the everyday adornments. In this dance, there are also changes of direction around the drum with rapid steps, with a shaking of the lower body, while standing with slightly bent knees. Miklucho-Maclay saw the penis shells “dance upwards and then downwards, or rotate like a wheel around an axle”. As a final movement he saw that the shell was hidden between the legs. In 1908 on Pónam the penis was seen mainly thrown high and then clamped between the legs, but there was also a sideways movement. The dancers kept their arms out, sloped obliquely downwards. The dancers always stand side-by-side in a line when swinging their penis. Erection does not occur during the penis shell dance, but the shell’s movements appear to cause pain. On Pónam several dancers broke away, and took the shell off. They turned their backs towards the spectators while doing this, so as not to let them see the exposed penis. Only adult men fit to bear arms take part in the penis shell dances, although on Pónam and among the Mắnus of the south coast of the main island1043 women and children may watch. On the other hand, dancers from Hắrăṅgăn wanted women who happened to be in the vicinity by chance, to go away before beginning the dance. Among the Mắnus from Pä´rǟ and the neighbouring villages, 4–5-year-old boys are already beginning to practise the movements of the penis when dancing, while bigger boys, from 10 to 12 years old, practise with a nutshell as a substitute for the mussel shell. The penis shell dances are called mắna, like the penis shell itself. They take place as a war dance on celebratory occasions, such as the greeting of guests and, without weapons, on a trading occasion begun with pomp between two related groups. Penis shell dances are also presented without weapons for the amusement of strangers - particularly in the neighbourhood of gardens and trading posts such as Kŏmū´ li, Pāk, Pónam, and Nō´ ru. After a death no dancing can take place until a ceremony of closure has taken place, including the eating of pork. People from Hắrăṅgăn, who found themselves in this situation refused to dance on their own island, but performed without hesitation on Nō´ ru. Among the Ŭsĭa͡i, for example in Kĕtyē´, the penis shell is similarly familiar as a dance ornament, although no such dance has been portrayed among them. »
« Hunter found no clothing among the men. Labillardière, who was approached by men wearing penis shells, saw on the other hand that having removed the shells, they then hastily put on a tapa binding. Other men who had no tapa binding with them, removed the shell but without any appearance of shame. Moseley, too, saw that the men having removed the penis shell immediately reclothed themselves. Also, in 1908 on Pónam men when removing the penis shell had concerns about allowing the naked penis to be seen, and turned away when removing the shell. For the dance itself, women and boys are allowed to watch on Pónam and the south coast of the main island. On Nō´ ru dancers from Hắrăṅgăn wanted the women present to go away, because they did not want to exhibit themselves before them with the penis shell. However, this seems only to be contingent on the discretion of foreigners, for whom on Nō´ ru, Kŏmŭ´ li, etc. penis shell dances are performed from time to time. The penis shell dance is admittedly regarded as something out of the ordinary and with a sexual emphasis, in contradiction to the conventions of everyday life, however people probably experience little shame in it. Only the disapproval of the Europeans (or also their acclaim) allows the obscenity to come fully into the consciousness of the men. To the untainted perception, covering of the glans with the penis shell seems to suffice; however, the denuded penis appears to be offensive. Elsewhere the men are always clothed. »
Provenance: Ex coll. : Peter Hallinan, Gold Coast N° H920.
OAS Journal Vo/.21 No.1 - Page 9
Vale John Peter Hallinan
By Reg MacDonald, Managing Editor PNG Post Courier, 1974 - 1981
The news that Peter Hallinan, one of the most highly respected tribal art dealers in Australia, had died of a heart attack in his Gold Coast flat in July last year, will come as a surprise to many of his former clients-but not to those who knew him well. For Peter, a self-effacing, modest bloke, pursued both solitude and privacy with passion throughout his 77 years and this meant he became adept at the art of vanishing. So it comes as no surprise that he exited this world in a manner that ensured minimum publicity. Even this obituary is more than six months late. John (Peter) Hallinan, the scholarly, eccentric American came to Australia in the early 1960s - not to dodge the Vietnam draft as some would assert - but to further his knowledge of Oceanic cultures. A graduate in TV and media studies from the Universityo f Miami, Peter dallied in Sydney fornearly five years in that city's weird world of advertising. Then he disappeared virtually overnight. He turned up on the Gold Coast, where, in 1968 he answered his true calling by purchasing a small house at 2783 Gold Coast Highway, Broadbeach, which he converted into the stylish Tribal Arts Gallery. He recruited Joan Dansey, a successful art dealer, and John Valilio, a PNG national, to run the gallery. The trio formed a formidable partnership and in a few years Peter was arguably Australia's best informed and most respected tribal art dealer. As a boy Peter's interest in Oceanic art was inspired by the superb collection of ethnographic objects at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History, and to a lesser extent by the small but significant collection at the Chicago Art Institute. As an adult he concentrated on Melanesian material culture and pursued this new interest with determination and intellectual rigor. During the next 25 years Peter made 26 field expeditions to PNG, collecting and documenting Melanesian Art. Living among the people in remote areas, and studying their diverse cultures and traditional art, he would disappear for months on end. One of his earliest visits was by yacht. Peter disembarked in the Trobriands, and 11 months later he was still there, flitting between Kiriwina and Kitava studying the Massim culture where his deep passion for authenticity, detail and scholarship blossomed. The best example of this is « Sopikarin », the completely rigged, full-sized Kula trading canoe which he acquired on Kitava and sold to the Friends of the SA Museum for $6,000 in the early 1970s. The canoe, a masawa, a type of outrigger canoe, which began her journey in the Kula ring expedition in the islands of Southern PNG, is one of the star attractions at the Museum, and on permanent display in the Pacific Gallery since the 1974 Adelaide Festival of Arts. The story about Sopikarin's acquisition is reasonably well known', but the following edited excerpt from the official records of the SA Museum give us a clue to Peter's insatiable quest for knowledge. It is from a letter written by the Rev. R. Lawson a highly regarded missionary and linguist, who was living on Kitava when Peter acquired the kula canoe, responding to a request from the then Curator of Archaeology at the SA Museum, Graeme Prelly, who was seeking additional information on Peter's masawa: 'When the canoe first came in it was adorned and painted in a fashion which certainly reflected the present-day love of trade paints, use of school chalk, jam-tin lid patches and ornaments ... they had done it up in a way they thought a European would want it to be. But Mr Hallinan is a veritable fanatic for authenticity. Using all available literature plus a good deal of personal research (I think he made three separate trips to Kitava for the purpose), he researched item by item what was the authentic old time manner of construction. For example, he found that there were two major sorts of putty used, one easily obtained and usually used today and another considered best for its keeping qualities but hard to get and not much used these days; so he had all the old mediocre (sic) putty scraped out, employed men to go and gather the proper roots, had them scraped etc. and finally had the whole vessel re-caulked ... Similar care he took at all stages, in the re-lashing of the timbers (getting the one particular vine used for the purpose by tradition, when several others sorts would have done the job OK) ... Mr Hallinan's care as I have listed was taken because of his love forgenuineness. He would make a splendid fieldworker in fact for a museum in my judgment ... " In the mid-1980s Peter was beavering away on a study of the betel-chewing paraphernalia of Melanesia and was well underway with a monograph when he was gazumped by Dr Harry Beran, the former president of OAS. Peter gave the project away when Harry's"Betel-chewing Equipment of East New Guinea", a typology of the manifold designs in the Massim area, was published by Shire Ethnography in 1988. Undaunted, Peter then put together a representative collection of Melanesian betelnut mortars, pestles and lime sticks. Deciding to move his business up-market, he uncharacteristically acquired expensive real estate in Savoy Drive, Florida Gardens, and built a grand home with magnificent display spaces for Melanesian artefacts. The architect-designed house featured in chic magazines. Such grand places don't come cheap and Peter soon had liquidity problems. The bailiffs came calling. On December 7, 1992, the first tranche of the vast Peter Hallinan Collection was sold in London by Sotheby's. The second tranche was sold in Sydney's Powerhouse Museum, again by Sotheby's, on November 28, 1993. At the time the second sale was the largest collection of tribal art offered in Australia: "Ninety per cent of the lots sold for a total of $400,000 (double the expected total) to a bidding audience comprising numerous collectors of contemporary and modern art, prompting one dealer to remark that "Primitive has arrived". Quietly, unobtrusively, Peter disappeared. A year or so later friends and former clients were amazed to learn that he had taken up publishing - and mountain bike racing. He helped establish the Gold Coast Mountain Bike Club Inc. Last September members held a service at the track to remember Peter, with no fuss. Hopefully this inadequate obituary will ensure that he didn't disappear without trace.
Vale Peter.
1. For more about the SA Museum's acquisition
of Hallinan's canoe, read Joycelin Leahy's article:
"Sopikarin's Final Journey" in the OctoberNovember,
2013 edition of Paradise, Air Niugini's
in-flight magazine.
2. Rev Lawton produced a dictionary of the Kiriwina
language.
3. As well as Curator of Archaeology to the SA
Museum, Graeme Pretty was also a consultant to
the Commonwealth Art Advisory Board (CAAB).
In 1972 Pretty asked Hallinan if he would sell the
canoe to the SA Museum.
4. From Shireen Huda's "Pedigree and Panache:
A history of the Art Auction in Australia", ANU E
Press, 2008.
Literature: Ref. :
AN ARCHEOLOGIST'S STUDY OF THE ADMIRALTY ISLANDERS. BY Sir ARTHUR MITCHELL, K.C.B., LL,D., FOR. SEC. SOC. OF ANTIQ. SCOT. PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOCIETY, MAY 11, 1896.
Moseley, H. N. : On the Inhabitants of the Admiralty Islands. The Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 6, pp. 379-429, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1877
Neverman, Dr. Hans: ADMIRALITATS-INSELN, ERGEBNISSE DER SUDSEE-EXPEDITION,1908-1910. Hamburg, 1934, and ADMIRALTY ISLANDS BY DR HANS NEVERMANN, Translated by John Dennison, Edited by John Dennison and Glenn R. Summerhayes, University of Otago Working Papers in Anthropology No. 1 ; Published by Department of Anthropology & Archaeology · University of Otago, 2013.
Ohnemus, Sylvia: AN ETHNOLOGY OF THE ADMIRALTY ISLANDS, The Alfred Bühler Collection, Museum der Kulturen, Basel, Crawford House Publishing, Bathurst, 1998.
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