The Bioarchaeology of the Human Head: Decapitation, Decoration, and Deformation

3. Melanesian Modeled Skulls, Mortuary Ritual, and Dental X-Rays: Ancestors, Enemies, Women, and Children

3 Melanesian Modeled Skulls, Mortuary Ritual, and Dental X-Rays Ancestors, Enemies, Women, and Children Michelle Bonogofsky and Jeremy Graham Uncertainty regarding the identification of an object or skeletal specimen may be constructive when unresolved ambiguities “serve as stimuli for the development of research” (Winter 1999: 251). These ambiguities are dispelled with the application of a label in which objects are categorized, an owner is named, and an object’s use is identified. At the same time, these identifications can be limiting and serve to discourage investigation into the true ownership, nature, and use of an object, because its meaning is already “known.” This process may produce unsupported assumptions or untested hypotheses that stand as fact, preventing us from working out the methodologies necessary for further investigation (Winter 1999: 250–251). This has been particularly important in cross-cultural issues related to the interpretation of skulls. Unsupported assumptions are a frequent occurrence with the modeled and decorated skulls from Melanesia that appear in ethnographic collections around the world. As will be apparent in the case study presented below, many skulls may spend years in collections without basic information on age, sex, or cultural context being ascertained. Because of the circumstances of original acquisition, whether the skulls represent ancestors, enemies, or some other social category remains unknown. The limited information available for these skulls perpetuates colonialist perspectives on Melanesian cultural practices and implies that native peoples live(d) in a “timeless state of primitive savagery ” (Hoskins 1996c: 16–17). Critical studies of collecting (e.g., O’Hanlon and Welsch 2000; Thomas 1991) in tandem with the wealth of ethnographic research that has emerged over the past three decades (Goodale 1985; Hoskins 1989, 1996a, 1996b; Rosaldo 1980) demonstrate how skulls, as well as many other ethnographic objects, were “entangled” in complex social engagements 68 Michelle Bonogofsky and Jeremy Graham involving both native Melanesians and nineteenth-century Euro-American collectors. Many missionaries and other Euro-Americans of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries believed that ancestor worship was the reason behind the preservation and handling of human skulls. Collectors and ethnographers —most often males with their own agendas and classification schemes—focused on the role of skulls in mortuary practices pertaining to men in Melanesian societies (e.g., Rivers 1914; see also White 1992 for discussion on how cultural biases can often distort the interpretation of scientific data regarding human skeletal remains from ethnographic and archaeological contexts worldwide). Contrary to these androcentric accounts, in many Melanesian societies the skulls of deceased men, women, and children were removed from the body (and sometimes decorated) for a variety of reasons that were often unconnected with ancestors or veneration. Europeans imposed the term ancestor worship, often based on a misunderstanding of Melanesian funerary practices; skulls, as the ethnographic objects most closely associated with these mortuary practices, were thus interpreted as those of ancestors. The labeling, classification, and museum interpretation of the skulls reflected these biases, with far-reaching consequences. Further, decorated skulls may be accessioned and labeled by museums as part of a larger set of ethnographic objects. As a result, a skull may be overlooked by researchers who assume that the labels accurately reflect the contents of a collection, thus preventing scholarly investigation of a skull hidden within a larger body of material. For example, the skull illustrated in figure 3.1 was donated to the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology as part of a collection described on the catalog card in masterful understatement as “Shells; type collection.” Simplified ethnographic labels of “ancestor” or “enemy,” as applied to modeled skulls from Melanesia, were also transferred to visually parallel material from disparate regions of the world. One noteworthy example is the plastered and modeled skulls from the Neolithic Near East (Bonogofsky 2001a, 2001b, 2002a, 2003; see Bonogofsky this volume figure 1.1), which date to as early as ca. 7500 BC (Khaleej Times 2006; see Kaiser 2006; Shishlina 2006; Vadetskaia 2006 for examples from Eurasia). Kathleen Kenyon found the first such skulls at Jericho in 1953 and extensively discussed them as portraits of venerated male ancestors who were tribal or family elders (e.g., Kenyon and Tushingham 1953: 870). Even though there is no direct evidence linking the Neolithic skulls with Melanesian practices, Kenyon based her interpretation on vague “modern anthropological parallels” (e.g., Kenyon 1979: 35) that were largely unsubstantiated. This interpretation, put forth by an acknowledged expert, Melanesian Modeled Skulls...