Jewellery celebrates American Indian folk hero

Winnetou, An Illustration
Christine Hafermalz Wheeler Christine,
Oneroa, Waiheke Island September 12 – 28

Winnetou is not a hero who immediately springs to mind for New Zealanders but for many European children of the past 150 years he was the great native Indian of the American West.

A series of books featuring him were written by the German Karl May in the late 19th century inspired by The Last of the Mohicans novel.

His stories, however, did not follow the typical brave cowboys and savage Indians themes. Mr May, like many European intellectuals believed that indigenous people, untouched by the evils of civilisation had superior moral and spiritual qualities.

Winnetou was presented as the noble savage, a humanist whose approach to life should be emulated.

The Nazi regime did not ban the books, even though Winnetou was coloured, mainly because of the concept of the superiority of the indigenous races – in their case the indigenous Aryan. Christine Hafermalz Wheeler who was born in East Germany has produced a series of jewellery works based on her remembrance of these stories.

They are a revisiting of the fantasies of her childhood, a meditation on Mr May’s humanism in writing about the Indians, and her inspiration to create visual equivalents of his ideas and stories.

Ms Hafermalz Wheeler has produced a series of necklaces using a range of precious metals and stones as well as found objects, including a small Indian head, a tepee shape, bow and arrow and feathers. She has provided notes about each of the pieces and how she sees the pieces in terms of both personal and general symbols. One of the works “Hunter” ($8000) is dedicated to her father Hans Hafermalz.

She notes that the small tie-pin featuring an Indian head was acquired by her father on a trip to the USA. He wore it when he escaped from East Germany in 1956 and throughout the jeweller’s childhood. This is the sole reminder she has of him. In this work as well as the tie-pin she has used deer teeth, a flint arrow head, shell, pounamu pebbles, a small bow and quiver and some tectite from the Nordlinger Ries meteorite crater.

The elaborate construction looks as though it could derive from the elaborate dress of some Indian tribes, the various elements combining to provide a narrative.

The small tie-pin head has been also cast in silver and is used on all the other necklaces, creating a linkage between the family of necklaces. In Peace ($5500) she has introduced another interesting item – a Roman button excavated from a site in Germany.

Ms Hafermalz Wheeler uses this to create a narrative, noting: “The Native Americans have their camp of Tipis, the soldiers (represented by the button) have their palisades. A pipe of peace is being smoked.”

One of the simplest necklaces is Totem ($2500) featuring a stack of stones, onyx, marble jasper and coral like a set of balanced stones or cairn.

One work “Hope” ($5500) is an example of the artist’s ability to create works of a baroque extravagance with the idea of traditional Indian adornment.

The work features a large shaft of synthetic opal along with citrine, garnet, a glass bead and some small parrot feathers.

The intense green synthetic opal which is symbolic of one of the great rivers of the American plains is topped by a small Indian head, eagle wings and buffalo horns, referring to the lost cultures of the tribes.

Ms Hafermalz Wheeler has produced several series before this, notably her Navigator series which were based on Polynesian navigation charts made of complex wooden constrictions.

Like that series, these works are attempts to make jewellery which appropriates objects from the past and re-contextualises them.

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