Blog post | 13-06-2024 | RCE employee

The Mission Museum in the monastery village of Steyl, Limburg, possesses an extraordinary collection of brightly coloured birds of paradise. Natural historian Marc Argeloo studied the species, resulting in the Birds of God exhibition. You can come and see the exhibition at the museum until 1 September. Argeloo first became fascinated with birds of paradise about thirty years ago, on a visit to Waigeo Island in the Indonesian province of Papua. It was there, while researching a bird species presumed extinct, that he saw birds of paradise for the first time.

In all the years that Argeloo has visited Papua since, he has amassed quite a collection on birds of paradise: from dozens of books, and everyday consumer goods such as coasters and packaging, to many photographs of murals and images. While visiting the Mission Museum he saw sixty mounted specimens. The Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands advised Marc Argeloo in the creation of the exhibition and will continue to take on this role in the follow-up steps regarding the fascinating birds of paradise from Steyl.

Of great cultural value

Birds of paradise with their beautiful feathers and extraordinary mating rituals capture the imagination. The animals are mainly native to Papua, on the island of New Guinea, and have been of great cultural value to locals for centuries. “Their feathers are used in headdresses, for example. The person wearing it then symbolises the bird,” explains Argeloo. “But children, buildings and organisations are also named after them. Sometimes they are regarded as a kind of ancestor.” Nowadays companies also use birds of paradise in their marketing campaigns, which “stand in stark contrast to the profound value that the local people themselves place on the bird”.

So, how did these distinctive birds end up in a village in Limburg? The mounted birds and loose feathers were not collected for scientific purposes, but for trade. In 1875 the brothers of the Congregation of the Divine Word arrived in Steyl during the ‘Kulturkampf’, a confrontation between church and state in Germany that targeted Catholicism. This prompted German priest Arnold Janssen to establish a congregation in the more tolerant Netherlands. Their monastery has been the site of the Mission Museum since 1931.

Kaiser-Wilhelmsland

The brothers travelled the world as missionaries. They even established a mission post in the former German colony of Kaiser-Wilhelmsland in New Guinea, which bordered the part of the island colonised by the Dutch at the time. “To survive there, the brothers traded with the local population,” Argeloo explains. “Around 1900 in Europe it became fashionable to incorporate bird feathers into clothing and headdresses. The more beautiful, the better.” So the brothers decided to send the mounted birds of paradise and individual, lively, colourful and sumptuous feathers, to the congregation in Steyl. It was big business.

The specimens currently on display were preserved after the trade in these special birds was banned. This collection has not been categorised or described in a scientific manner, meaning that it is impossible to know exactly where the tropical birds came from. Argeloo and students from the Universitas Cenderawasih (also known as the bird of paradise university) in the town of Jayapura are set to conduct further research into the trade data. He hopes this will give insight into the nature and extent of the brothers’ international trade.

Hunters

The exhibition in Steyl is not limited to an exploration of the colonial history of both Germany and the Netherlands, but also homes in on the story ofhunters of birds of paradise and their descendants. “It was important for me to also communicate the local Papuan people’s perspective,” says Marc Argeloo. Talking to these descendants, Argeloo soon discovered that trading in birds of paradise is far from a neutral topic; the colonial history that gave rise to the trade is a particularly sensitive issue.

“Not everyone was open to talking to me about it. As an outsider, I found it difficult at first to get people to tell their stories,” he says. “The idea that the stories were going to be used for an exhibition in the Netherlands, the former colonial power, and not locally, was also painful. It felt as if, after cloves and nutmeg, this story is now also being exported, while there is so much local interest in it. This is one of the reasons why there are plans to tell the story there too, in its wider historical context.” The idea is to also show the exhibition in Jayapura, in addition to a lecture at the Erasmus Huis in Jakarta, a centre for Dutch and Indonesian culture.

Connection

Argeloo sees a symbolic link between east and west in the fact that feathers were used in headdresses in Papua and on hats in Europe. “Both the university and the descendants of the hunters I spoke to were keen to know the other side of the story. What happened to the birds? Where did they end up? And what’s the story behind the European fashion trend for which the birds and their magnificent feathers were traded? That aspect is extremely interesting to them.”

The Mission Museum is working closely together with Hapin for both the study and the exhibition. Hapin is a Dutch foundation that aims to improve both the economy and the livelihood of the people of Papua. Hapin facilitated contact between the Mission Museum and the Papuan community in the Netherlands. The museum called on the community to donate bird of paradise objects with a special meaning. Every month one of these objects, as well as the story behind it, is featured in the exhibition. A new object every month. While the exhibition is on display, there will also be educational and other museum activities on the topic of birds of paradise from Papua.

Yolanda Ezendam, Head of Collections within the International Heritage Cooperation Programme of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands, advises Marc van Argeloo in regards to the birds of paradise from the Mission Museum, y.ezendam@cultureelerfgoed.nl. Special thanks to Ciska Borsboom. See www.missiemuseum.nl for the ‘Birds of God’ exhibition.