2022, 215 pages, Leah Lui-Chivizhe, The Miegunyah Press, Melbourne University Publishing
Review by Stan Florek
I opened this book with great anticipation. My interest in Torres Strait Islander culture and the limited research I conducted two decades ago made me a receptive reader, and familiarity with the subject elevated my desire for understanding.
Masked Histories met my expectations in various ways. The author’s description of her own and Alick Tipoti’s spontaneous and emotional reaction to meeting the masks in the British Museum demonstrates how strong and active a sense of connection to the spiritual content of the Islanders’ culture is, even for people who live away from their home islands.
The outline of turtle species and biology as a background to cultural practices in hunting, food preparation, and craftwork in pragmatic, spiritual, and social contexts gives the reader a good understanding of the role turtles play in Torres Strait societies. Lui-Chivizhe is methodical – we learn from chapter to chapter. But the understanding I crave for comes in the middle of the narrative: “The masks combine the human with the animal and speak to the relationships Islanders have created between themselves and their environment” (p.92).
For example, the home of the Goemu Clan of Mabuyag Island, whose turtle (Surlal) is the primary totemic animal, is near Warul Kawa (island of turtles), an important hatchery, believed to be the final resting place for the ancestral spirits of Western Islanders, “a physical place where ancestral spirits and turtles reside together adds a further layer of substance to the historical use of turtle shell masks in Islander funeral and increase ceremonies” (p.96).
“The human-animal association held by the mask also reflects the long historical affiliation across many generations of extended family groups and particular animals” (p.95). “Turtle shell masks were used to both conceal one identity and reveal another, or to contain or mimic many identities when they were worn for performances” (p.94).
And transformation is prominent in Islander histories – tracing the history of some individual masks Lui-Chivizhe navigates through the period of profound transformations when ad’le (outsiders) arrived and forcibly intervened in the Islander way of life, bringing with them violence, exploitation, and transgression but also opportunities, education, and Christianity.
The story illustrating these transformative tensions is told of Cambridge University anthropologist Alfred Haddon, who induced then Christianized Meriam le (Mer Island) to perform a Malo ceremony in 1898. He also commissioned turtle shell mask raeplicas made of cardboard with the same intent and spiritual potency as original turtle shell masks.
And Masked Histories is more than history. Outlines of the work of individual Islander artists and activists (Rosie Ware, Ken Thaiday Snr, Frank David, Ricardo Idagi, Alick Tipoti) are woven into a grand narrative. These take it from the realm of history into the contemporary flow of living culture in which precious identity is nurtured by personal discoveries and modern transformations – where tradition is preserved and extended through continuity of hunting, communal ceremonies, artistic expressions, and activism, and academic work is as important as the preservation of language, family connections, and story-telling that keeps the culture alive in deep self-awareness and worth.
Lui-Chivizhe gracefully recognizes the role that past collectors and museums played in preserving and documenting turtle shell masks and their complex cultural context. She provides the examples of Cambridge University Museum and the Macleay Museum of Sydney University (now Chau Chak Wing Museum) as facilitators of engagement with cultural relics offered to the Islanders. Ultimately, she states that in writing this book her intent “has been to ‘take back’ the masks by writing about them in a way that makes them ours again.” (p.164).
Masked Histories is well researched and presented in academic format with references, sources, a bibliography, and a very useful glossary, but it is a perfectly accessible and enjoyable narrative with some lyrical accents sprinkled through. The author’s personal journey commencing in the Introduction is woven throughout the book, making it, along with the narratives about other people, a very human story which concludes in a beautiful episode of personal discovery, both sweet and optimistic.
Dr Stan Florek
Collection Officer – World Cultures, Archives & Library Collections
Australian Museum