Ceremonial Axe

This object is a ceremonial axe from the Massim region of southeast Papua New Guinea, one of the most important types of valuables that still circulate in the area. The axe has a greenstone blade and a carved wooden haft. The axe blade is inserted into the wooden handle, carved in the shape of a slightly tilted forward ‘7’. The blade is made of polished ignimbrite stone sourced in one of the few volcanic islands of the Massim region. It is fitted into the previously slit axe’s head and wrapped with fibers fastened around the incision to secure the blade in position. The axe shaft is made of red hardwood; it is flat in shape and follows an acute angle, with the stone head close to the body of the handle. The haft is carved in bas-relief with a serpentine motif known as mwata, a mythical snake. The mwata descends from the pointed tip where the blade and the shaft meet towards the center of the handle where it ends in a coiled loop pattern, leaving the rest of the haft undecorated except for the axe’s knob at the very bottom. Here, the handle has been cut in the shape of a stylized open mouth characteristic of Massim carvings.

Before the introduction of iron by Euro-Americans in the 19th century, stone axe blades were precious items in the Massim, where most islands are coral atolls lacking hard rocks to be used as wood-cutting tools, indispensable for making food gardens and constructing seagoing canoes. After iron tools became common, polished axe stones retained their status as traditional ceremonial valuables traded in the region. In the Massim, the valuable item is the greenstone axe head proper. Wooden handles are only temporary supports for the blade, carved especially to carry and display the stone during exchange ceremonies. Once it has been inserted in the haft, the stone blade is marked for presentation and exchanged, after which the handle is often discarded until the next exchange cycle demands that a new one be carved.

Archaeological evidence points to a long-extinct greenstone tool industry centered around the quarry of the Suloga hills in Muyuw (Woodlark Island). A common belief throughout the region is that greenstone self-reproduces in river estuaries and water holes where it is normally found, and that people collect these stones and polish them into axe blades. Blades are graded into different named categories depending on their size, polish, hue and the pale green streaks sometimes found in the stone (referred to as “clouds”). The exchange value of each stone is fixed and determined by their dimensions and characteristics. When fitted in the haft, ceremonial axes in the Louisiade Archipelago of the southern Massim region have a detailed anthropomorphic symbolism in which parts of the axe’s handle correspond to body parts. The handle as a whole is considered to be an arm, where the angle is the elbow and the part that holds the blade in place is the hand. The carved mwata snake motif alludes to a creation myth narrating the fight between a giant snake and a colossal buzzard in the southern Massim. The buzzard killed the snake, scattering the bones of the serpent to form the coral atolls of the Calvados Chain.

Greenstone blades are equally important in ceremonial exchanges in many other parts of the Massim, although the shape and symbolism of the carved wooden handles found in other islands may vary when compared to the southern Massim. The relevance of polished greenstone blades in the area is such that people embark on long journeys aboard locally-made dugout canoes with the sole aim of obtaining these valuables ahead of planned funerary rituals.

Sergio Jarillo de la Torre, Sylvan C. Coleman and Pam Coleman Memorial Fund Fellow, 2017

Further reading

Battaglia, Debborah. 1983. “Projecting Personhood in Melanesia: The Dialectics of Artefact Symbolism on Sabarl Island.” In MAN (New Series) 18 (2): 289-304.