DOI Heft:
Masks and Magic in the South Seas
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62261#0105
Gauguin Selfportrait, bronze
(from Floury „Gauguin“
Paris 1919, Editor)
MASKS AND MAGIC IN THE
SOUTH SEAS
(Adapted from Carl Einstein’s „Foreword” to the
Catalogue of the Flechtheim Collection Exhibition at
the Kunsthaus in Zurich [Switzerland] 1927).
The sculpture of the Flechtheim Collection, deriving from the once German colonies
of German New Guinea, New Pomerania, New Mecklenburg and New Hannover,
came into being during the Stone Age, and was made wholly with tools of stone, bone,
obsidian and shell. This art, especially since it served religion and magic, clearly owed
its passing to the shock given the people by the impact of European colonization and
culture. Notwithstanding populär opinion to the contrary, existing native cultures
are quickly extinguished by such contacts.
The Bismarckian natives live in an atmosphere of
demons and magic. Their social scheme is matriarchy,
their descent through the distaff line, their mother-
right tied up with exogamy—no alliance with a
woman of the same clan or totem is permissible, since
the value of the totem exceeds that of the individual.
Indeed, it is only by virtue of the totem and of other
dark forces that man himself is able to exercise super-
natural powers.
The mother’s totem is always adopted by the chil-
dren. This totem cult splits up not only their social
System, but Nature, the ancestral spirits and the very
demon forces as well, while the continuing increase
and differentiation of the devils leads to a religious
and spiritual self-dissipation generally to be found in
Connection with inability to construct the larger tribal
units or communities. The tormenting unrest of such
an exaggerated disequalization is soothed by ancestor-
worship . . .
The life of these magic-menaced Stone Age people
is spent in a struggle against the occult as other tribes
spend theirs in tribal wars and general hostilities.
Menacing spirits of the dead intrude upon the present,
and must be continually bribed and appeased and
Hocker (Stool) N.-Guinea
Fl. Coll. Kat. Nr. 66
103
(from Floury „Gauguin“
Paris 1919, Editor)
MASKS AND MAGIC IN THE
SOUTH SEAS
(Adapted from Carl Einstein’s „Foreword” to the
Catalogue of the Flechtheim Collection Exhibition at
the Kunsthaus in Zurich [Switzerland] 1927).
The sculpture of the Flechtheim Collection, deriving from the once German colonies
of German New Guinea, New Pomerania, New Mecklenburg and New Hannover,
came into being during the Stone Age, and was made wholly with tools of stone, bone,
obsidian and shell. This art, especially since it served religion and magic, clearly owed
its passing to the shock given the people by the impact of European colonization and
culture. Notwithstanding populär opinion to the contrary, existing native cultures
are quickly extinguished by such contacts.
The Bismarckian natives live in an atmosphere of
demons and magic. Their social scheme is matriarchy,
their descent through the distaff line, their mother-
right tied up with exogamy—no alliance with a
woman of the same clan or totem is permissible, since
the value of the totem exceeds that of the individual.
Indeed, it is only by virtue of the totem and of other
dark forces that man himself is able to exercise super-
natural powers.
The mother’s totem is always adopted by the chil-
dren. This totem cult splits up not only their social
System, but Nature, the ancestral spirits and the very
demon forces as well, while the continuing increase
and differentiation of the devils leads to a religious
and spiritual self-dissipation generally to be found in
Connection with inability to construct the larger tribal
units or communities. The tormenting unrest of such
an exaggerated disequalization is soothed by ancestor-
worship . . .
The life of these magic-menaced Stone Age people
is spent in a struggle against the occult as other tribes
spend theirs in tribal wars and general hostilities.
Menacing spirits of the dead intrude upon the present,
and must be continually bribed and appeased and
Hocker (Stool) N.-Guinea
Fl. Coll. Kat. Nr. 66
103