Introduction

Museum collections of malanggan exceed tens of thousands of such figures, perhaps the largest number of figures ever to have been collected from a single cultural area in not more than 130 years. The first figures were collected around 1870, when expeditions were dispatched to the island. Known by then as ‘New Ireland’, the island had become one of the most important trading posts for the export of copra in the Pacific. Landmark publications on malanggan have been those by Hortense Powdermaker, Phillip Lewis and most recently Brigitte Derlon and Michael Gunn, all written from a geographical perspective emulating the mythical origin of malanggan. The work of mourning in New Ireland builds up chains of memory that have the deceptive appearance of duration. An investigation of the ritual death and riddance of artefacts serves as a surprising point of departure for the rethinking of the nature not just of memory, but of collecting.