gems, Papua New Guinea

Schubnel records traditional stoneworking among Papuan inhabitants of the Baliem Valley in the Indonesian region then known as Irian Jaya, drawing on observations made during a visit in August 1981. The brief illustrated account presents the shaping and polishing of stone implements as a subject connecting gemmology, mineralogy and the study of material culture. Its immediate context is a technological transition witnessed by the author: Indonesian authorities were distributing steel tools, while stone implements were being displaced from everyday use and offered for sale to the small number of visiting tourists. Schubnel interprets this change as the ending of a local stone-tool tradition that he compares with Neolithic technology. The materials reported include nephrite, actinolite schist, serpentinised peridotite, other green metamorphic and ultrabasic rocks, and basalt. A specific-gravity range of 3.05–3.24 is given in the discussion of the green rocks. The principal objects described are axes, adzes and a very flat stone associated with marriage, the latter said to consist almost invariably of actinolite schist. The account therefore distinguishes several kinds of rock employed in the craft rather than treating all green implements as a single material. A working locality near salt springs is described, where stones beside the river serve as fixed abrasive surfaces for shaping and subsequent polishing. The author identifies the selection of sufficiently tough material as a primary concern of the local lapidaries. Photographs show inhabitants in their village, examples of implements made from ultrabasic rocks, and several aspects of manual finishing. These include polishing an axe’s working side, polishing a small adze, shaping an axe edge and sharpening or polishing an adze edge. Together, the text and illustrations document the relationship between selected stone materials, hand-operated abrasion and the production of functional edges. The paper’s contribution is a concise contemporary record of a stoneworking practice undergoing rapid change, with particular emphasis on the materials used and the visible techniques of shaping and finishing.