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Skull Art in Papua New Guinea. Sabine Jell-Bahlsen, prod. 28 min. Video. Berkeley: University of California Extension, Center for Media and Independent Learning, 2000.
This vexing film raises far more questions than it answers about "skull art" among the Iatmul people, Sepik River, Papua New Guinea.
So-called "skull art" was a commemorative endeavor once associated with head-hunting, warfare, and the male cult. Iatmul men cleansed a human skull, applied and shaped a layer of putty into a human visage, attached hair and shell eyes, then painted a swirling pattern of red, white, and black. Remodeled skulls were typically displayed in a men's house.
Traditional "skull art" faded by midcentury from pacification, missionization, and new definitions of morality and manhood. Early collectors eagerly snatched these trophies for European museums. By the time the filmmaker arrived in the 1990s, then, few if any living Iatmul could claim direct familiarity with the traditional practice. In my experience (I have studied with Iatmul since the late 1980s), local folks connect these objects to a ritual complex they long ago and gladly abandoned. Today, "skull art" persists only as wooden tourist trinkets.
From this angle, the topic of the film appears anachronistic - detached from the experiences of contemporary Sepik lives. We watch an elder man, inside the kitchen of a modern house, demonstrating an all-but-lost art form. Did the main protagonist, a man named Adam, ever participate in the original practice he wished to demonstrate? The narrator never says so. In fact, the narrator - who speaks in a dry, monotone voice...