11Story

23 December 2008

Aim of the exhibition

"We have eaten the forest"

Contents:  "We have eaten the forest"  - Introduction  - Aim of the exhibition  - Synopsis        * Ethnology as an art of living        * The Sar Luk villagers        * A poetic and oral tradition        * Burning the forest of the stone spirit Goo        * Works and days        * Buffalo sacrifice        * Sickness and death         * Sar Luk today  - The purpose of ethnography: an interview with Georges Condominas with Yves Goudineau  - Biography of Georges Condominas  - Main publications

 

Aim of the exhibition Richness and originality of the Condominas collection

 

A collection of artifacts

 

Georges Condominas collected almost 500 artifacts in the single village of Sar Luk. A true village monograph, the outstanding characteristic of the collection is its extreme ethnographicity, containing artifacts often of no esthetic value but which illustrate all aspects of daily life in the village in 1948 and 1949. The artifacts are fashioned from perishable materials, mainly bamboo. There is a wide range of basketwork (baskets, hoop nets, traps, and household receptacles), farming tools (machetes and balance axes), craftwork tools (for weaving and pottery), tobacco pouches and pipes, toys and learning aids (the adult world in miniature), along with many magico-religious items (for exorcisms, agrarian rites, and buffalo sacrifices), fine male and female garments and adornments, and musical instruments. The author’s descriptive work has provided us with full information regarding each item. We know what it was used for and how it was made, being able to follow its manufacture step by step, with details of actions, techniques and iconographic motifs involved. The bartering which led to its acquisition is described, and the name of its former owner given. Each artifact thus has its own particular history.

 

	Small altar for the Buffalo sacrifice                                                White wood and black relief decor                              © musée du quai Branly, photo Patrick Gries/Valérie Torre

 

A documentary collection

 

The artifacts are accompanied by remarkably complete documentation from Georges Condominas’ field notebooks, in which they are illustrated and commented upon in everyday language, and this data is complemented by the documentary records he composed for the Musée de l'Homme.   The author is also one of the first researchers to have systematically used photography to enrich his research work and knowledge of the Mnong Gar. Between 1,000 and 1,500 photographs, often of very high quality, were taken in Sar Luk, picturing the artifacts and events of his field experience. Dazzled by the oral literature of this people without writing, Condominas made numerous recordings of music, tales of justice rendered, poetry and epics, parts of which he translated.

Field notebook: Men's passive fish trap © Georges Condominas / musée du quai Branly collections

 

A "personalized" exhibition

 

The exhibition centers around the village of Sar Luk, its inhabitants, and the ethnological work carried out in the field. The museographic itinerary highlights the main events Condominas witnessed, as they are described in We Have Eaten the Forest and The Exotic is Commonplace. Pioneering in his approach, Georges Condominas put his own subjectivity to the fore as a basic constituent of ethnographic research. This enabled him to observe the ways in which his presence might disturb those he came into contact with. During his stay in Sar Luk, he put himself “on stage”, revealing his states of mind by writing essentially in the first person. The exhibition reflects his own remarks and emotions. It presents the ethnologist in the village, his “participating” presence, and his close contact with the villagers. The author was thus the first to rescue the villagers he described from anonymity. Each sequence acquaints us with the members of a family or clan, who are introduced to us at the start of the exhibition by means of a portrait gallery. The artifacts, their former owners, and the bartering through which the ethnologist obtained them, all form an integral part of the saga. With 143 artifacts, information-packed exhibit labels, field notebooks, drawings and numerous photographs, the exhibition is characterized by the great diversity of inter-related items on show. The exhibition will be punctuated by short extracts from a video depicting activities in Sar Luk in 1948 and 1949, and will end on a more contemporary note, with Jean Lallier’s 1995 film on Georges Condominas, Return to Sar Luk and Pierre Chappat in 2006. In addition to this, Hoang Canh Duong (deceased in 2007), photographer living in Buon Ma Thuot, near Sar Luk, present his own vision of present-day changes in the village.

 

 

Baap-Can, nephew of old Troo, expressing his joy at the birth of his son, held in the arms of his mother, Aang-the-Long (Ntöör clan). A holy man of Sar Luk and Phii Ko’, Baap Can is the most influential man in Sar Luk and even the entire "valley." © Georges Condominas

 

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