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Session Detail (plenary)
Raymond Firth plenary lecture: Lissant Bolton
Wrapping in colour: movements and meanings in the western Pacific
Lissant Bolton
British Museum
When Alfred Gell drew attention to tattooing as wrapping in images, he also drew attention to the importance of wrapping in Polynesian cosmologies. That recognition took the material of wrapping – fibre and textiles – somewhat for granted. In this lecture I start from a recognition of the importance of textiles across the Pacific region, acknowledging the importance of ritual movements of wrapping and unwrapping in many places. Taking a Vanuatu-centric perspective I argue for a further dimension to these movements – that is wrapping in colour through dyeing. This is not any colour, but specifically, in many places, the colour red, a colour valued across the whole Pacific. While in the present some of this significance is being muted or modified by the ongoing movements of social life, nevertheless focussing on dyeing, and all the movements to which it is linked, opens a different perspective on meaningful actions both in specific local contexts and across the Pacific. Dyeing confounds the distinction between the material and immaterial, as does colour itself.
