Kei Viti: Melanesian images
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Item 726. Qaravi yaqona = Kava ceremony(Jean Charlot, 1978-06) Charlot, Jean, 1898-1979"Crushed, the root of the plant is diluted into a liquid that smells and tastes of earth even more than water. Each step of kava making obeys rules evolved along the centuries. Here the mixing bowl is shaped in the highly stylized image of a turtle. On occasions, a rope of fiber decorated with shells is stretched from the bowl towards the major guest. The master of ceremony, a sage well versed in genealogical lore, sees to it that the order in which the single coconut cup is presented around obeys a most exacting protocol." Charlot, p. 10.Item 725. Tuku derua = Bamboo pipe player(Jean Charlot, 1978-06) Charlot, Jean, 1898-1979"Trimmed to euphonic length, scooped out its inner partitions, the musical bamboo becomes a container for a cylinder of air. As the performer, most usually one of a group, drops it forcefully and rhythmically with a pounding gesture, the ejected air utters a note hardly louder than a sigh, lingering diminuendo with sustained gravity. In more complex ways than any architecture, the forest amplifies and echoes the sound. To imply the locale of the action I stretched over the scene a single banana leaf, arched not unlike the rib of a Romanesque crypt." Charlot, p. 9.Item 749. Tagane daura vuravu = Ancient warrior(Jean Charlot, 1978-06) Charlot, Jean, 1898-1979Item 731. Tali ibe = Weaving mats(Jean Charlot, 1978-06) Charlot, Jean, 1898-1979; Kistler, Lynton R., 1897-1993"The craft of plaiting mats is a woman's prerogative. Gathering and drying the pandanus leaves, splitting each leaf to proper width and tucking under artfully its edges. Hand -plaited mats are an indispensable accessory to Melanesian living. They carpet wall to wall the inside of the family home. Rolled and presented with hieratic gestures, they are a welcome gift on many occasions. For the newly married they make a nuptial bed, and are received gratefully by the sick and the very old, to come their shrouds." Charlot, p. 12.Item 727. Vakatagi Derua = Musical bamboo(Jean Charlot, 1978-06) Charlot, Jean, 1898-1979; Kistler, Lynton R., 1897-1993"The single bamboo pictured in Derua tied on man to one note. There is here what, eye, appears to be a giant panpipe, bunched bamboos trimmed and tuned to unequal lengths giving at each pounding a complex chord. The musician's armlets, each a wheel of color with and the arm at its axle, are in this print highly stylized. They would be made of tufts of leaves of autumnal color that emphasize each motion of the performer, whose expert manipulation of the bulky bamboo pipes become for the ear music and for the eye, a dance." Charlot, p. 10.