Aibom (New Guinea, Middle Sepik) - Painting a Sago Jar

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Description: A silent colour film. After he has prepared white, black and red colours, the husband of the female potter paints a sago-jar with a brush made from the fibrous ends of a small fresh twig cutting. [Note: the film material was shot in 1966.]
Duration: 14 mins 27 secs
Credits: Authors: Meinhard Schuster, Gisela Schuster.
Year: 1975
Subjects: Tribes, Pottery, Papua New Guinea, Traditional technology, Painting, Food
Segment 1: The man, sitting on an open piece of ground with the sizeable unpainted and lidded sago jar next to him and with chickens running around on the nearby grass, cuts a fresh twig into a number of lengths of approximately 13 centimetres each. He takes one length, peels back the bark to about three centimetres, then bites hard on this end a number of times, so making the fibrous 'hairs' for the brush. He will use a different brush for each of this three colours. He then mixes his white colour on a small grindstone. On a smaller separate stone he mixes the black. The red is made by shaving off with a knife the zest of a fruit which falls into a small bowl where it is stirred into a liquid. The man then takes the sago jar and positions it before him. Before long he has painted white the circular face on the jar, except for the eyes (including a kind of Cyclops eye in the forehead), underside of the nose, and mouth. With black paint he draws a thick line down from the Cyclops eye and the length of the nose to the top of the upper lip. The lips are painted black and the centre of the mouth, red. Next the eyes are painted, including the Cyclops eye. His home-made fibrous brush is working perfectly. He now works on the rim of the face.
Segment 2: The man now turns his attention to the side of the jar, tracing on the left side a white rim halfway around the decorative frieze or ruff that runs round the face from temple to temple. (Dark splodges on the pot suggest evidence of firing.) When the painter gets to the jaw he runs his brush down and around to form a concentric ring below the chin. Next he draws a red line under the white one. By now he has painted a second concentric circle below the chin, descending from the right-hand side. Under this white and red line he is now painting a black one. The lines are painted around the back of the neck. A red line is painted around the lower end of the pot. Vertical lines in red are painted down the sides of the pot. A child enters the frame near the painter. He is carrying in his hand a piece of burning ember from which the painter lights a cigarette. The painter then starts to paint the decorative frieze, starting with the largest 'eyes'. He uses all three colours for this. This work is closely observed by the camera. He paints the smallest 'eyes' which form a necklace around the face, then paints in the areas between the different-sized 'eyes'.
Segment 3: The painter pauses to prepare more white colour, after which he proceeds to paint the lid of the jar, starting with the decorative rim of the otherwise plain surface. The rim done, he paints in lines across the centre. This completes the cover which the painter places on the mouth of the jar. He adds red string as decoration through twin holes on either side of the eyes of the face, cutting off the surplus length and plaiting the loose ends. Finally, he puts a ring through the nose of the face and displays the finished pot and lid.
Persistent URL: http://edina.ac.uk/purl/isan/0014-0000-2695-0000-0-0000-0000-0
Written and compiled by the British Universities Film & Video Council © BUFVC 2005
Subject classification by University of Edinburgh Library © 2006