National museum is a national disgrace
11 October 2024
KEITH JACKSON
Front page Papua New Guinea Post-Courier, 26 September 2024
NOOSA – It’s one of those things I’ve come to expect as editor of PNG Attitude. A bit of the ‘does anyone know the whereabouts of good old so-and-so’ as a search for a pal missing since the 1960s is initiated.
A subsidiary category of Missing Persons are the two or three requests each year from readers who – during their time in Papua New Guinea – collected artefacts, paintings and other objects, including some of real value.
Most of the stories are similar. They’re getting old and have no further use for this stuff. Is there a place in PNG that would welcome their repatriation?
It’s perhaps five years since I last recommended them to the PNG National Museum and Art Gallery.
That’s when I understood that the museum, from time to time briefly celebrated with a relaunch, was now becoming a place of uncertain funding where artefacts went to be neglected – or stolen.
The museum’s motto, “Assisting to preserve and protect PNG's unique cultural, national and contemporary heritage,” was a twofold lie: there was neither preservation nor protection.
There was just the truism of post-traditional PNG culture that if something is incapable of delivering a profit (like, for example, homegrown literature) then by definition it must worthless.
In 1974, with independence drawing near, Michael Somare had written: “We view our masks and art as living spirits with fixed abodes. It is not right they should be stored in New York, Paris, Bonn or elsewhere.”
And in due course 17 objects from the William Macgregor Collection held by the Australian Museum were returned for the opening of the museum in 1977. Over succeeding years, artefacts drifted in from around the world.
A major repatriation in 2020, saw 225 utensils, masks and sculptures received from the National Gallery of Australia, as part of what was termed “an ongoing process of return, part of a partnership between the two institutions.”
More hyperbole to bring us to the dismal present and an announcement that the museum is to close because “funding issues have severely hampered its operations”, the cooling system is broken beyond repair and the collection is rotting.
The caption on the Post-Courier photograph reads: “DISAPPOINTING. Tourists in the display area of the National Museum and Art Gallery yesterday were given only 20 minutes to browse despite the foul odour of decaying specimens”.
The visitors, from California, were told they could enter the museum “at their own risk”.
The incumbent minister, Belden Namah, is said to have failed to appoint a permanent director and strangled the budgets of the museum at Waigani and its Goroka counterpart, leaving the collection and its 90 staff unpreserved and unprotected.
The national museum has become a national disgrace.
But apparently Australian prime minister Anthony (Albo) Albanese is delighted that a PNG team has been admitted into Australia’s national rugby league competition.
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FROM PHIL FITZPATRICK
The museum is a kind of metaphor for what has gone wrong in PNG.
I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion that keeping olgeta samting bilong tumbuna never really appealed to Papua New Guineans, especially the scary stuff and especially in a building in Waigani.
FROM MIKE GUNN
Bloody depressing. We can keep trying to prop the institution up, but in the end if the people of PNG don’t look after it then it starts to look like a Western institution that isn’t needed or wanted in PNG.
Then we ask - how can we rescue all the treasures in there before they are totally lost?
I don’t think we can. Does anyone have any ideas?
FROM BARRY CRAIG
I tried to get systematic digitisation, including photographic and archival documentation, of the whole collection maybe 10 years ago, while Julius Violaris was chairman of the board of trustees.
He supported the plan but for reasons I never discovered, nothing happened.
Given the present circumstances, that would have been one way to ‘rescue’ the collections from bureaucratic neglect and other misadventures.
Thanks for the update Richard.
What you relate doesn't surprise me. Several years ago I posted a simple account of the Afek story on PNG Attitude derived from a desk top social mapping report cobbled together from various sources, including from Dan Jorgensen, and I was surprised at the response from Min correspondents who had never actually heard it before.
At the time I thought that the locationally segmented nature of the story, where no one knows all of its parts, was part of the reason.
I also assumed that people living around Ok Tedi would have lost the tradition fairly rapidly after the establishment of the mine but that people further out might still retain parts of it. Sadly, that seems to not be the case.
For other readers, Richard Jackson was Professor of Geography at UPNG in the 1970s and published 'Ok Tedi: The Pot of Gold' (UPNG Press).
Richard prepared several reports on the mine when it was in its planning stage. There is an account of the Afek story in his book, which I also used for the desk top study.
Much water under the bridge since then and unfortunately a familiar story in other places in PNG.
Posted by: Philip Fitzpatrick | 27 October 2024 at 01:03 PM
On the Baptists and the Afek cult: I think Phil Fitzpatrick's post is on the hole incorrect and the situation is far worse than he states.
Dan Jorgensen's longitudinal research on all things Min indicated many years ago that whilst the NSW Baptists left largely unsuccessful in a quest to suppress the Afek stories, it was a young Telefomin girl (a Baptist convert) who claimed to have visions who succeeded where they filed and inspired the destruction of virtually every spirit house across Min territory.
When I was last in the region for any length of time about seven years ago, the only traditional Min doorway I saw was one that had been divided into pieces and sued as part of a new hut in the Atbalmin area.
Afek had been replaced with a mishmash of ideas focussed on the world's end, the significance of 666, and the strange names given to children (Apocalypse and Goliath being rather spectactular examples in a village in Tifalmin).
Dan's papers are available to read on the internet and I strongly recommend them to PNG Attitude readers.
Posted by: Richard Thoas Jackson | 27 October 2024 at 06:50 AM
Elgin Marbles?
Posted by: Bernard Corden | 14 October 2024 at 09:14 AM
I haven’t heard from Dr Andrew Moutu in ages. He rescued the lintels and was storing them in the museum. I wonder if they are still there.
I think you might also be right about the Christian lobby. Remember what the Baptists tried to do to the Faiwol spirit houses?
One thing I did notice in my last few trips to PNG was the prevalence of Black and Decker artefacts on sale in places like Wewak and Madang and even Balimo. Same thing has been happening in Australia for years now. The people who make artefacts have lost touch with the originals.
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In May 2017 on the Ex Kiap website, Phil Fitzpatrick wrote this note on the Faiwol people and the Baptist mission.....
"The Baptists in Western and East Sepik provinces are real bastards. They are some sort of fundamentalist offshoot I think.
"They attempted to destroy all of the Faiwol cult houses and stop the belief in Afek, the female creation figure.
"Fortunately the Faiwol revolted and tossed most of them out.
"Some of the Baptists are still up there in the Star Mountains trying however."
Posted by: Philip Fitzpatrick | 14 October 2024 at 07:48 AM
I think many, if not most, villagers would be likely to agree to have a national institution that preserved examples of their traditional material culture.
But those living in towns and cities no doubt have more pressing issues on their minds, and the political elite obviously don’t give a damn - and they call the shots.
That Soroi Eoe apparently didn’t make an effort to improve the management of the museum when he was minister of culture says it all.
That Andrew Moutu is basically unemployed, it seems, is outrageous. Could his concerns about the environmental impact on the Sepik of the Frieda development be relevant there?
Is there a Christian lobby involved (remember the Speaker and the Parliament House lintel)?
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Here are links to three of the articles PNG Attitude published about the attempted destruction of the lintels in 2013 and 2014. The articles showed the negligent attitude of PNG's parliament to the nation's heritage - KJ
https://www.pngattitude.com/2013/12/removal-of-parliaments-heritage-carvings-is-heinous-sacrilege.html
https://www.pngattitude.com/2013/12/the-true-significance-of-the-destroyed-carvings-of-parliament-house.html
https://www.pngattitude.com/2014/11/speaker-zurenuoc-still-defending-heritage-vandalism.html
Posted by: Barry Craig | 14 October 2024 at 06:51 AM
In most democratic countries, which PNG claims to be, governments have certain unstated trusts and duties.
These duties pertain to things like law and order but also include more esoteric things like culture, literature and history.
In these cases monetisation should not be a legitimate consideration.
PNG governments have consistently failed in this respect, both at the national and provincial level. The end result is a faux democracy without a soul.
With respect to the current state of the museum the best option, at which Paul Oates hints, is to ship everything in it to the National Museum of Australia in Canberra where it can be properly curated.
Posted by: Philip Fitzpatrick | 13 October 2024 at 06:31 PM
When walking through the excavated city of Pompeii, I was amazed that a lot of the artifacts and items of historical significance I had read about and seen photos of were not there to see.
Asking the young Italian guide about this factor, I was told that a good many of the artifacts etc. are currently stored elsewhere including museums in other countries where there were proper facilities and finance available to exhibit them for everyone to see and learn from. This was not a problem I was told, since it was far better to have these exhibits properly looked after for future generations, rather than to lose them altogether.
That seemed like a reasonable view at the time. Maybe a caveat could be placed on some items that when the proper facilities are available locally, these items could be returned to where they were either originally collected or purchased. At least they wouldn’t be lost to everyone in the future.
Posted by: Paul Oates | 13 October 2024 at 12:59 PM
Museums store collections, the salvation of which costs money.
Unless those institutions in PNG can earn their own income necessary for preservation, they will fail.
Masks and kundus are OK, stuffed Birds of Paradise and cuscus interesting, but who pays to see them?
Violence keeps tourists away from visiting the country in numbers sufficient to maintain museums and to aid the economy.
Sorri tumas.
Henry Sims
Posted by: Henry C Sims | 12 October 2024 at 05:26 PM
The 'dictionary.cambridge.org' says that museum is a building where objects of historical, scientific or artistic interest are kept.
The endeavour of intellect in ancient times is worthy of respect and in PNG awaits respectful funding.
Today, we see respect advanced for discovery, such as where the Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been given for revolutionary work on proteins, the building blocks of life.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/czrm0p2mxvyo
And I am reminded of Shackleton' ship, Endurance. What a coincidence, the name 'Endurance'.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/10/10/science/shackleton-endurance-3d-scan-scli-intl/index.html
Museums do not need to be about the past, of course, but on advances in human capability and understanding.
Posted by: Lindsay F Bond | 12 October 2024 at 08:41 AM