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Anciennes photographies · Livres rares · Enregistrements du son · Art Océanien
Alte Photographien · Wertvolle Bücher · Ton-Aufnahmen · Ozeanische Kunst
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archiveB002 not for sale |
| Portrait
of a Motu woman with tattoos Central Division, British New Guinea, Melanesia Real photo postcard, c 1910-20 138 x 88 mm The photographer is almost certainly F.W. Barton. For a discussion on the photography of Barton, a colonial administrator, and Rev. Harold Dauncey amongst the Motu people of Delena in the late 19th and early years of the 20th century, see Macintyre & McKenzie, Focal length as an analogue of cultural distance, in Edwards (ed) Anthropology and Photography 1860-1920, pp 160-3. Tattooing for Motuan people was associated with feminine attraction, fertility and marriageability. The patterns that decorated a girl's thighs, buttocks and pudenda were on public view only during the initiation ceremony, and thereafter were seen exclusively by her husband. These tattoos were simultaneously the focal point of female sexuality and shame. Macintyre & McKenzie, p163. |
