To explore New Guinea art forms merely as line and color, without reference to cultural and social norms out of which the art grew, would be a fool's errand, according to Thomas (9ff) because New Guinea artists not only express culture content but also appear to intend that their artworks help shape it. Similarly, Hatcher comments that "head-hunting and highly artistic ceremonies are clearly related in New Guinea; art does not function as a substitute for violence" (105; emphasis added). Thus decoration of skulls can be interpreted as effecting or expressing control. The iconography of wood shields and other wood carvings supplies linkages between human heads and fruits that can be eaten or between human heads and animals such as insects that eat the heads of their mates (Thomas 82ff).
Mask shields made from bark that are connected to canoes have practical utility, protecting from attack with weapons and invoking protection against enemy spirits; by extension they are useful in supporting a war party's headhunting effort. Dance masks perform the spirit-invocation function for warriors as well. The images on decorated weapons and shields is meant to frighten prospective enemies (Thomas 79), as is the practice of permanent tattooing of warriors' bodies--at once a New Guinea version of a shield and of shock-and-awe (Thomas does not use exactly that phrase) war practice (114).
Headhunting has both practical and social utility in New Guinea. One traditional use for captured heads is to serve as the foundation for posts that support the walls of a home. What is called the "men's house" is a repository for carvings, ritual masks, and war-trophy heads (Hatcher 41): "skulls were a necessary part of the artistic and symbolic embellishment of the Men's House" (133). Headhunting raids are thus less as an expression of primitive aggression than an instrumental aspect of the creative impulse: "warfare can be regarded as part of the whole artis...