Exhibition (Maudslay Gallery)
EXH.2018.4 | Pacific Currents
Event Date
Author: Remke Velden

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Description (Physical description)
Canoe board of two components. .1 Lagim: Wood with mother of pearl inlay (ginenepu) and wooden crucifix. .2 Tabuya: Wood decorated with commercial paint in red, white and black. Both feature a series of highly stylised renditions of plants and animals (mauna). Carved by Paul Gyumkwumumkwu Kalubaku. The Tabuya is situated perpendicular to the lagim and protrudes forward from it.
Event Date 27/2/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (Field collection)
This object is part of a collection (2018.3-2018.38) made by Sergio Jarillo de la Torre between November 2008-June 2010 in the Milne Bay Province of Papua New Guinea. He was awarded a Crowther-Beynon Fund grant from the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology (MAA) in 2008 to collect pieces for the museum.

The collection was gathered during fieldwork leading to a Doctoral Degree in Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge. The collection and documentation of the objects was instrumental to Sergio’s research as it focused on material culture (woodcarvings and tourist art in particular) from the area. The collected objects also feature in one of the appendixes of his doctoral dissertation (Jarillo de la Torre, S. 2013. Carving the Spirits of the Wood. An Enquiry into Trobriand Materialisations. PhD Thesis. Cambridge).

The objects were collected from a variety of sites, ranging from Kiriwina in the Trobriand Islands (where Sergio was based for the duration of most of his fieldwork) to Budibudi (a remote archipelago in the easternmost part of the Milne Bay Province). The objects offer a good representation of Massim material culture, including tourist art, utilitarian objects and religious/ceremonial specimens, as well as some unique pieces (e.g. a canvas painting by the well-known Trobriand painter Martin Morobubuna, a canoe board from the remote Budibudi archipelago, some rare lime spatulas from Iwa and Gawa Islands).

Event Date 27/2/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (Production / use)
Lagim canoe boards are put at each end of kula seagoing canoes, ‘closing’ the dugout. They are one of the highest expressions of traditional Trobriand woodcarving. Formerly, they were only made by master carvers who were commissioned by a chief or a person of high rank to complete a canoe to engage in the kula trade.

Perpendicular to the lagim and protruding forward from it is another carved board, the tabuya. In both lagim and tabuya are a series of highly stylised renditions of plants and animals (mauna) that are put there because of the characteristics attached to them (speed, agility, etc.). These symbols are also linked to myths and some are considered to have apotropaic attributes. One of these symbols is known as bwalai (one or two human figures, depending on the size of the board and the canoe). Bwalai are put there for protection, although according to some people they can also turn against the occupants of the canoe in some cases when the canoe owner forgets to ‘bespell’ them.

Anthropologist Giancarlo Scoditti claims that canoe boards are visual representations of Monikiniki, a mythical hero that came from Kudeili in Kitava island and is said to be the founder of the kula ritual exchange. The name of Monikiniki is also associated to a type of kula magic used to appear more attractive to one's kula partner so as to obtain shells during an expedition. This type of magic is said to belong to the Kweinama matriclan (part of the Lukwasisga clan).

Significantly enough, this particular lagim features a crucifix in place of the humanoid bwalai. Paul, the author of the carving, observes: “I put a cross in the lagim because the word of Jesus travelled all over the world, that's why he needs to be in a canoe and travel around. The cross is very important to me. It was given to me by my father [Andrew Kalubaku, a fervent Catholic that launched the Wapipi Catholic School in Kiriwina and campaigned against the use of magic].”

Other people's attempts to explain the presence of a cross in a lagim are equally interesting. Mwedola, a neighbour of Oluweta village, says that “before there used to be these figures carved in the lagim, the bwalai. They bwalai could be good or evil. But this was before. Nowadays there is only one person that can look after you and that is Jesus.”
Paul carved this lagim to put it outside of his house, it was not intended for a canoe nor for sale. He agreed to part with it “because it's Jesus.”

Although carved separately and constituting two carvings rather than one, lagim and tabuya are part of a unique set. The esoteric knowledge and the symbols of the lagim also apply to tabuya. This is the original tabuya that accompanied Paul Gyumkwumumkwu’s original lagim with the crucifix on it. It was taken apart for transportation. (Information from Sergio Jarillo de la Torre)
Event Date 27/2/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (Other owners)
The artist, Paul Gyumkwumumkwu Kalubaku belongs to the Kweinama matriclan.
Event Date 27/2/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (References)
-. 2000. “Makinowski e la Canoa volante: come l'antropologo inventa il mito,” in Argonauti del Pacifico Occidentale. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.

Event Date 27/2/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (References)
Scoditti, G. 1990. Kitawa: a Linguistic and Aesthetic Analysis of Visual Art in Melanesia. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Event Date 27/2/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (References)
-. In press. “Of Dragons and Mermaids. The Art of Mimesis in the Trobriand Islands.”

Event Date 27/2/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (References)
Jarillo de la Torre, S. 2013. Carving the Spirits of the Wood. An Enquiry into Trobriand Materialisations. PhD Thesis. Cambridge.

Event Date 27/2/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (References)
Gell, A. 1992. “The Technology of Enchantment and the Enchantment of Technology,” in Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics,J. Coote & A. Shelton (eds). Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Event Date 27/2/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (References)
Campbell, S. 2002. The Art of Kula. Oxford and New York: Berg.

Event Date 27/2/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Context (References)
Jarillo de la Torre, S. 2013. Carving the Spirits of the Wood. An Enquiry into Trobriand Materialisations. PhD Thesis. Cambridge

Event Date 27/2/2018
Author: Remke Velden

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Conservation (Remedial)
CON.2018.4053 | Remedial
Event Date 2/3/2018
Author: Christina Rozeik

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Context (References)
Jarillo, S. (2021), How Malinowski sailed the Midnight Sun: the academic conference as ethnographic performance. J R Anthropol Inst, 27: 360-383.
https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9655.13539
caption Figure 5 Canoe prowboard carved by master carver Paul Kalubaku in Yalumgwa Village (Kiriwina, Trobriand Islands) in 2009. Kalubaku replaced the traditional bwalai with a crucifix to evidence the protective role of Jesus (Jarillo 2013b: 201).

Noted as 'We cannot know the exact intention behind the carver's unorthodox image, but the three bwalai hint at an adoption of the Trinity: newly found Christian spirits engraved in Trobriand form as a reinforcement of the apotropaic function of the bwalai (see Fig. 5). This use of the image as a sensuous, prediscursive tool of mimetic appropriation (Mageo & Hermann 2017) does not require interpretations to be efficacious. The image is enough to visualize the links between the bwalai and the Trinity without having to theorize about those links. It does, nonetheless, allow us to attempt to trace its past genealogy (how it came to be) and its future fortunes (what can be done with it).'
Event Date 2022
Author: rachel hand