Cliché referred to the corresponding printing technique after the French term for "copy" and not the cliché as a stereotype, even if the illustrations were sometimes close to the cliché.
The Cliché Book of the Basel Mission also contains this picture entitled "Chief on the Parade Bed - New Zealand". It shows a seated man surrounded by various utensils, bones and severed heads, and a totem pole.
In the Baroque era, a parade bed was the ceremonial reception bed of a ruler; for example, of Louis XIV or Maria Theresa. These may have been more sumptuously furnished than that of the Maori chief.
A parade bed, however, also referred to a framework with which the corpse of a highly placed person was publicly displayed for show. And indeed: In the "Calwer historical picture book of the world" of 1883, the same cliché is printed, side-inverted and with a different title: "Dying chief surrounded by the skulls of his slain enemies."
Accordingly, no tribal leader is depicted here in the expectation of receiving gracious guests, but a man in the face of his death. The totem pole indicates that this is not a Christian. The paraphernalia of past battles, such as shield and sword, are discarded and hanging on a fence.
The bones and skulls symbolize that this chief was a cannibal. Surrounding him are the impaled heads of his former enemies. They may remind him of past battles, but also of the futility of his life. So many people he has killed, but to what end? Now he himself is about to follow them into death.
This is then the message of this cliché: to reflect on one's life in the face of death, to consider it good or to regret it. Even if it means looking into the eyes of those you have harmed.
Text: Patrick Moser, historian and research associate in the Mission 21 archives.
