IDNO

P.98452.LAY

Description

On Catalogue Card for related image P.3841.ACH1: ‘Menggi’ images (Pl. XVI fig. 1). Malekula, South West Bay, Seniang district. (references to J. R. A. I. LVIII, 1928).

“Malekula.
Carved posts”
[Layard's caption, 1914 - 1915]

“230. S. W. Bay.”
“Wooden images with stone circles”
[Layard's caption, 1914 - 1915]

View of three carved, wooden figures. Stick planted in the ground with conch shell attached. Stones on the ground, and foliage behind. [H. Geismar 24/02/03]

Place

Oceania Melanesia; Vanuatu; Malakula; South West Bay [New Hebrides; Malekula]

Cultural Affliation

Named Person

Photographer

Layard, John Willoughby

Collector / Expedition

Date

1914 - 1915

Collection Name

Layard Collection

Source

Layard, Richard

Format

Print Black & White

Primary Documentation

Other Information

P.98437.LAY to P.98452.LAY were found in the envelope now numbered C523/1/, which was loose in the wooden box now numbered C523/ with N.98453.LAY to N.98589.LAY.

Related Image: See notes for P.3833.ACH1.

Publication: This image is reproduced by Layard in JRAI, 1928 (plate XVI, 1) with the caption:
Images for Muluwan (?) with stone circles.
This could also be connected to Nalawan, Meleun (in present day Malakula/Ambrym)
Layard describes the Muluwan:
“This is the degree which in every part of this region of which I have knowledge immediately precedes or preceded the chief degree of Mal. In Vao it was Mwileun and in Atchin, Mulon (in these two islands it is now obsolete); in Wala it is Mulun, and in Ambrim (Sulol) Mweleun. It is said by the natives of the Small Islands that a variant of the word is the title of the “chiefs” of the Big Nambas who inhabit the northern Plateau of Malekula.” (1928: 169). The grade is associated with a stone circle.

This print has been catalogued with the support of the Getty Grant Fund.

This catalogue record has been updated to incorporate information published in Geismar and Herle, 2008. Descriptions by Haidy Geismar have been updated to incorporate place and peoples' name and indigenous words. [Jocelyne Dudding 28/4/2009]