Text Box: THE KULA RING Dobu, D’Entrecasteaux Group, Papua New Guinea 77 x 61 cm / 30” x 24” Acrylic on canvas Text Box: The eastern islands of Papua New Guinea are home to an extraordinary primitive organisation known as the Kula Ring. No one knows how old it is, how it started, or what it’s for. Over a sea area the size of the Philippines, two types of item are carried in a never-ending stream by highly-decorated canoes, which are welcomed with much ceremony as they signal their arrival with a great blast on a conch shell. This is neither a trade, nor barter, but an exchange of gifts. The Kula items are either necklaces or armbands. Necklaces may only proceed clockwise round the Ring, armbands anticlockwise, thus a Kula canoe can convey soulava or mwali, but not both. This woman is showing off a mwali, an arm bracelet, called TOMANBOITOMANGUADI, perhaps hundreds of years old, while another Kula canoe waits off the beach at Dobu, in the D’Entrecasteaux group of islands. Text Box:

HOME

THE GALLERY

ABOUT THE ARTIST

CONTACT