Mediations of cloth: Tapa and Personhood among the Maisin in PNG
Date
2015-03-25
Authors
Hermkens, Anna-Karina
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Wiley
Abstract
Tapa (or barkcloth), which is made from the outer bark of specific trees, is intimately interwoven with
past and present socialities across Oceania. The cloths have been used to decorate, wrap, cover, protect,
and carry the human body, as exchange valuables and commodities, in land claims, and as indexes and
embodiments of ancestral power. This article explores the complexities of personhood in Oceania by
focusing on the making and ceremonial use of tapa among the Maisin of Collingwood Bay, Papua New
Guinea. It elucidates dynamics of the intimate correspondence between people and things, and, in
particular, how people’s gendered identities are mediated: that is shaped, reproduced, and contested
through the cloth’s specific materiality and design. Ultimately, it reveals the mutual growth of people and
things and how they are part of each other’s substance, thereby dissolving the subject–object dichotomy.
Description
Keywords
material culture, barkcloth, personhood, gender, Papua New Guinea
Citation
Collections
Source
Oceania
Type
Journal article